Uryuu's eyes snap open.

Watching a documentary about the Middle East, he had fallen asleep on his couch again. He blinks in confusion for a minute, wondering what woke him so suddenly. Then he hears a second set of frantic knocks on his door. Gently dislodging Nel from his lap, Uryuu pads over to the door and blearily opens it. The thought that he should probably look through the peephole first occurs later. Which is why he nearly has a heart attack when Kurosaki stumbles into his foyer.

The man is half-conscious, bleeding from an array of shallow cuts and mumbling something like apologies and pleas as he fights gravity. Poorly. Uryuu catches him before he hits the ground, grip slipping across the viscous fluid still oozing from a few deeper slits. He is too stunned for words at first. Everything comes pouring out after a pause.

"Kurosaki, what happened? Are you all righ—of course you aren't, I'm sorry. Can you walk? We need to get you to the bathroom. I have a first-aid kit. Here, drape your arm over my neck."

Uryuu more or less drags him down the hall on his own. Kurosaki continues to mumble things while Uryuu picks out a word here or there. Something about his sister and a fight Downtown. He really starts to worry when he hears the phrase 'couldn't stop myself'. They have talked about Kurosaki's latent fear of accidentally taking someone's life several times, though he thought they were well past that as a possibility. Although it doesn't sound like Kurosaki had a switch so much as an episode of sorts. Some kind of stress-induced mania resulting in a violent reaction. If Kurosaki is like this, Uryuu pales to think how his enemies are doing.

Propping Kurosaki on the closed toilet, he frantically rummages through his cabinets to yank out the little kit containing antiseptic and bandages. His hands shake as he opens the case and sets it on the counter. Uryuu keeps shooting glances to Kurosaki, who is swaying gently as if drunk. Seeing as he doesn't smell like alcohol but he has clearly lost a lot of blood, he guesses it is from severe dizziness and disorientation.

"'M sorry, Ish'da."

"Hush, Kurosaki. If I give you water, can you drink it? We might have to take you to the hospital for a transfusion…"

"No hosp'l!"

Emphatically tossing out an arm to negate that suggestion, Kurosaki almost falls off his perch. Uryuu rights him and avoids pulling at his numerous wounds. A few of them seep steadily, dripping crimson on his white tiles. Kurosaki's shifting feet smear the little dots into a wide streak of pink.

"All right, no hospital. I will treat you, Kurosaki; I am a doctor, after all." Looking over the ripped canvas of Kurosaki's fragile skin, Uryuu is overwhelmed by what he sees. "There are so many…Can you stand?"

"Mn."

"I can't clean all of these one at a time. We need to get you into the shower."

Uryuu flips the handles to start the spray. He turns to Kurosaki and thinks for a second. Then pulls out a pair of safety scissors from his kit and snips through the ruined t-shirt. The shocked gasp that tries to slip out is prudently snuffed when Uryuu uncovers his torso. Fresh cuts criss-cross with old scars of varying lengths and depths. The 'man with the bone-white mask' did greater damage than Zangetsu originally confessed. The new additions are less serious, for sure, but Uryuu worries what emotional effect they will have on Kurosaki once he gets past the initial panic.

When his ministrations get no reaction, he tugs Kurosaki into a teetering stand and unfastens his pants for him, letting them pool at his ankles. Uryuu frowns when this triggers an immature flush to his face. He's not a damned teenager! Still, he doesn't dare go near Kurosaki's boxers. But he removes the man's shoes and socks to finish the rest.

Stepping into the tub fully-clothed, he guides Kurosaki under the water and winces in sympathy when the man hisses. Uryuu grabs the bottle of body wash and a clean wash cloth to carefully wipe over the planes of him without causing more pain. A combination of rushing water and stinging sores brings some focus back to Kurosaki's tired eyes. He blinks them open and stares at Uryuu as he works. One of his hands braces against the slick wall as Uryuu kneels to dab at the short cut at the top of his leg.

Rather than allow himself to be swept away by events, Uryuu focuses on the diluted blood being swept away in the rosy stream between Kurosaki's feet. He straightens after a moment. Kurosaki's gaze follows his face as he leans to this side or the other, making sure he doesn't miss anything. His glasses are fogging over and collecting condensation in spite of the water's tepid chill. Uryuu wipes at them as an afterthought. Then Kurosaki's arms rise slowly and Uryuu stills. He fixates on the central hollow of his collar bone and takes shallow breaths. His glasses are lifted away and everything clears as it blurs in a different way.

Kurosaki hangs them on the shower caddy behind him and Uryuu finally meets his glance. He raises a hand to hover beside Uryuu's cheek, not quite touching but close enough to feel its warmth. Kurosaki's brow scrunches in a new type of frustration and anguish. Fingers extend, wanting to touch, but Kurosaki curls them back as he closes his eyes. And Uryuu knows that expression. It's the same one he made when talking about lending his father money. Or driving his sisters to classes even when he is late for work. Or spending more time than he can spare with a scared patient. It's the face Kurosaki makes when he has decided to be selfless no matter what.

Uryuu is sick of seeing that expression.

Bringing both of his hands up, he fits the palms to Kurosaki's jaw and holds him in place. The man's mouth parts in confusion as Uryuu nudges in to fit a firm kiss to his lips.

Kurosaki immediately jerks back to exclaim, "Uryuu, what're you d—"

But he is already moving back in, stubbornly hooking the back of his neck to keep him from escaping. Kurosaki exhales a muffled sound of surprise before giving up. He lets Uryuu in. The soft slide of his diffident tongue alongside Uryuu's is antagonistic to the confident way Shirosaki had rolled and flicked like it was second-nature. Kurosaki doesn't nip at him or trace with rough nails or make any sort of animalistic noises. He is quiet and shy and careful. Uryuu's heart clenches with it. That's when he realizes what Kurosaki just called him.

They part for air, resting foreheads together as they pant over the susurrus of scattering droplets. Kurosaki's hands have settled possessively at his waist without him noticing. Following them up to an arm, Uryuu is reminded of why they are here.

"You're still bleeding," he murmurs, reluctantly pulling away.

Shifting his dazed eyes down, Kurosaki frowns. He lets Uryuu turn off the shower and wrap him in a fluffy black towel. The symmetry of the moment as Uryuu's hands pat lightly along the fabric is not lost on him. He thinks back to that day in Kurosaki's apartment and what it felt like to let his guard down for a little while. Even with a simple kiss, Uryuu is swimming in it now. He defies the urge to clear his head with a shake as he grabs the disinfectant and directs Kurosaki to sit. He dabs a swath of gauze with the solution and watches Kurosaki take deep breaths in preparation.

"Do it."

Uryuu does. He gets the worst of them first, squeezing some of the fluid to leak into the deeper wounds. Kurosaki stiffens, holding the edges of his toilet lid and scowling darkly but otherwise remaining silent. He breathes only in the interim between applications. By the time Uryuu is almost finished, Kurosaki has paled considerably.

"Give me warning if you're going to faint, Ichigo." At the name, Kurosaki snaps his head up to stare. Uryuu smiles. "I don't need you bonking your head on something and causing another injury for me to tend."

That gets a weak half-smile from Kurosaki. Then Uryuu picks up a tube of Dermabond.

"What is that?"

"The next best thing from cauterization or stitches." Uryuu briefly bites a lip in remorse before he says, "But it's going to sting."

"Bring it on."

The first one is the wicked gash on Kurosaki's leg and the man groans a creative string of curses as the abrasive chemical activates and adheres to his skin. Uryuu makes quick work of the rest to spare him more of this obligatory torment. He breaks out a roll of bandages just to be safe but Kurosaki stops him with a scowl of distaste, stating he doesn't want to feel like a mummy. Though a stern look convinces him to at least let Uryuu wrap the worst one on his leg.

As soon as he is done, he leads Kurosaki to his bedroom and pushes a bundle of Uryuu's loosest clothing into his hands. While Kurosaki carefully pulls them on, Uryuu changes his own sodden clothes in his walk-in closet. He emerges to push Kurosaki off shaky legs to lie on his bed. The man gasps with something other than discomfort and Uryuu notices the way what little blood he retains floods his face. Only then does Uryuu think about what he is doing.

"You need to rest," he hastily explains in a shoddy imitation of his doctor-voice. "Stay here for the night and we'll see how you're doing in the morning."

"Uryuu…"

"I'll go make you something to eat."

He busies himself in the kitchen for about fifteen minutes. Uryuu doesn't berate himself for helping Kurosaki like this. What would be the point? The man had asked him to restrict their relationship to its professional elements and Uryuu has respected that until tonight. However much he may have wanted to show up at the man's apartment every single day and ask him to reconsider. He still feels guilty about falling for his patient despite being fully cognizant of consequences and rules.

But there is no way he could turn Kurosaki away in this state. As a friend, he could never forgive himself. Kissing Kurosaki, though…that was another matter entirely. Uryuu fidgets where he stands beside the stove, thinking of the man sitting in his bed. Behaving so bashfully and not asking Uryuu for anything at all. Taking whatever he is given with humble appreciation. That is the Kurosaki he is most strongly enamored with.

Heaping hasty stir-fry into a white bowl, Uryuu pads into his bedroom with a purposely blank expression. Kurosaki is idly tracing over one of his older scars when he walks in. Uryuu frowns at his pensive expression.

"Eat this," he orders, placing it on the bedside table. "All of it."

Kurosaki opens his mouth to speak but Uryuu is already sweeping from the room. He cleans up the restroom before the bloodstains set in. His bath mat is ruined but Uryuu really could not care less. The process takes him less than ten minutes, so he goes back into the kitchen to brew Kurosaki a cup of hot tea with another instruction to finish it, evading another attempted comment. He clears the cookware next. After that he retraces their steps and swipes at dots of red trailing like breadcrumbs from the front door. By the time he runs out of busywork, Uryuu is no closer to calming his frazzled nerves and he can't avoid Kurosaki any longer.

Both the food and tea are dutifully dealt with when he returns. Uryuu reaches for the dishes but he is stopped by a firm grasp on his wrist. He looks up to see Kurosaki pleading with his eyes; it works. Sighing, Uryuu crosses to the other side of the bed and sits, resting his stiff spine against the headboard. They sit in silence for a while, Kurosaki's hands are trembling faintly where they rest on his thighs.

"Do you want to hear what happened?"

"Only if you want to tell me."

Kurosaki nods marginally, gazing unseeing at the opposite wall as he begins to recant the night's events. Uryuu is careful to contain his shock, his outrage, his disgust at the men who threatened Kurosaki and his family. Though he is fascinated by the description of his experience integrating his alters simultaneously, Uryuu is blind-sided by what comes next.

"I knew I wasn't going to make it much longer. My vision was blurring and all three of them were shrieking in my head." Stoic up to this moment, Kurosaki's façade starts to crack and chip at the edges. Voice shaking, he shuts his eyes as if in pain. "And I just kept thinking, 'I have to protect Karin,' and, 'I don't want to die.'"

"What happened, Ichigo?" he whispers, dreading the answer.

"Aizen raised his arm again and I grabbed Ichimaru—yanked him in front of me—and Aizen couldn't stop in time. He stabbed him in the chest. While Ichimaru was screaming, I took his knife and pushed it into Aizen's stomach." Kurosaki gasps fast and ill-paced. His fingers grab an imaginary blade and drop it to gape at imaginary blood on his open palms. "I felt their lives pouring out onto my hands…"

"It's okay," Uryuu murmurs.

Seeing him like this pushes something neatly into place for Uryuu. Suddenly so many muddled things become perfectly clear. Uryuu shifts across the mattress to wrap Kurosaki in a light embrace. He wants to pull the man against him hard enough to meld together, to share one heart and one mind and all of this burden. He settles for dusting quiet assurances into his hair, against his ear, over his neck where he grazes a sort of kiss. Kurosaki responds to him with a stuttering exhale and an anchoring arm around his waist.

"I ran. I don't even know if they're alive, Uryuu. I might have killed them—"

"Shhh," he soothes, bringing a hand up to brace against Kurosaki's jaw. "It's not your fault, Ichigo. It's not your fault. They threatened Karin's life—your life—and you had no choice. Do you hear me?"

"But I could've run sooner. I could've—"

"So that they could come back later with more friends and more weapons? What if they had chased you and attacked with your back turned? What if bystanders had become involved?"

"I need to call the cops!"

"I will call an ambulance," Uryuu compromises with iron in his tone, "But you will not be arrested for this. I will not allow it."

At first Uryuu is thinking selfishly. He doesn't want Kurosaki to go away so that he can't see him anymore. Yet, as he digs out his phone to place the call, another consequence occurs to him. Being sentenced for a crime like dual homicide would shatter the mending psyche they have worked so hard to preserve. Whether or not Kurosaki is to blame—and Uryuu knows he is not—his personality would see to it that guilt breaks him before a judge's verdict could. This in mind, he gives the relevant information to the emergency dispatch and disconnects when she requests his name. Kurosaki watches the exchange with the desolate expression of a lost child. Uryuu wants to tell him he will never be lost again.

Instead, he plaits the fingers of their touching hands together and stares soberly until Kurosaki's brow incrementally relaxes. When Kurosaki leans in to take a light kiss, Uryuu mirrors it. When Kurosaki squeezes his hand, Uryuu presses right back. And when Kurosaki lies back against the pillows, Uryuu follows.