Chapter 12: Light in Dark Places
"Won't you try to eat something, Angelito?" Antonia pleaded, sitting down on the edge of the bed and setting the tray in front of her, while Magdelina held Tetsuya against her, running fingers gently through the soft waves of his hair and patting his deathly pale cheek, "You know that now that you are carrying our Kuri-k\Kuri's heir, you must eat more to sustain yourself."
"We have not put you in the house jail," Magdelina reminded him, "This is just a guest room, and you know it is just for your protection that the barrier is around it. We don't know who created this mischief and affected your mind so that you attacked my son, but we know it isn't in your nature to harm anyone without provocation."
"But I did!" Tetsuya said in a shaky voice, "I attacked Kuri for no reason. I didn't even know why when it happened. I don't know how it happened. One minute I was kissing him and the next, it was like someone else took control of my body. I couldn't think or move on my own. It was like I lost control of myself completely!"
"But you are in control now," Magdelina observed, and that means that we should be trying to figure out how this was done. You need energy to be able to tackle that question and find answers, Angelito. So, please, eat something to keep up your strength."
"I am trying," Tetsuya said in a shaky voice, "but I feel so sick inside! I keep seeing Kuri backing away and bleeding so badly...and while he was hurting and bleeding, I couldn't make myself react. I was going to continue to hurt him. I was going to kill him!"
"There now," Antonia soothed him, squeezing his hand comfortingly, "you wouldn't have killed him. My brother was only damaged a little because he was taken by surprise, but you know he is strong and smart...eh, don't tell him I said that, but it is true. He wasn't going to just stand there and let you kill him."
"And your cousin stopped you," Magdelina added, "We are going to get to the bottom of how you were overcome and made to attack Kuri. But you have to take care of yourself and your little one while we do that?"
"But don't you understand?" Tetsuya asked worriedly, "I am a half-blood who attacked a clan leader! It doesn't matter that you have incarcerated me here, there will be a trial before the Noble's General Council whether you turn me over to them or not. And if Kuri doesn't go to the trial, they will certainly convict me and sentence me to death! Even if he does attend, he might not be able to stop them! They may wait until the heir is born before carrying out my sentence, but in the end, he isn't going to be able to stop it. There are still many who hate the mixed bloods like me. They will make sure that I die for this!"
Tetsuya looked down at his shaking hands.
"And even more important, I could still be dangerous."
"Oh Angelito," Antonia objected, "you will be fine! Don't worry. We will figure out who tampered with you and we will undo their mischief."
"But I will never be trustworthy again!" Tetsuya lamented, "If we don't know how it happened or how the power that affected me worked, then how can we know it won't happen again?"
"Don't worry about such things," Magdelina advised him, giving him a kiss of encouragement on the cheek, "Kuri and Byakuya will make sure that whatever was done to you is undone. It will be all right, trust me. Trust your husband and your cousin."
"I do trust them," Tetsuya assured her, "I am just...afraid. I would never want to hurt Kuri, but I did. I hurt him and I couldn't stop myself. Even though I was screaming inside..."
"Angelito, you must stop," Magdelina chided him gently, "Come now, eat something for the baby and try to rest. The stress is not good for you."
"Is someone misbehaving?" Kuri's voice asked from outside the barrier.
Tetsuya flinched inwardly at the sad inflection.
He is trying to joke to break the tension, but Kuri is afraid...and it's my fault.
Tetsuya looked up at his husband, who remained standing just outside the protective barrier. He forced a quivering smile.
"I am sorry, Kuri-Kuri-Sama," he apologized, "I am trying to eat, but I just feel so sick that..."
"I know," Kuri said patiently, "We are both trying to stay calm and do the right things, but it's not easy, is it?"
"N-no," Tetsuya confessed, tears filling his eyes.
He pulled free of Magdelina and climbed out of bed, then approached the door, where Kuri stood on the outside of the barrier.
"Still," Tetsuya continued, "you and I must do the right things, even if it is hard to do so."
"Yes," Kuri agreed, "So stay here and take care of yourself. I cannot enter the room to comfort you, but know I am with you, my beautiful Tetsu-hana. I will find out who did this and I will stop their foul plans. I won't let you leave me, I promise you!"
"I trust you," Tetsuya assured him, "I trust Byakuya-sama. Whatever my fate, I love you, Kuri-Kuri-sama!"
Kuri stood, staring at Tetsuya with a shattered expression, his eyes filling with tears of frustration. Antonia and Magdelina made sounds of surprise as he struck at the barrier, breaking it apart and closing the distance between them. Instantly, the two women converged on Tetsuya, Magdelina holding him gently from behind and Antonia inflicting a quick kido spell to keep him from moving. Kuri's arms wrapped around Tetsuya, then a chill went through him as Tetsuya's eyes flashed a wicked white for a moment and seemed to lose cognizance.
"It is happening again, you fool! Why did you do that?" Antonia scolded her brother, "Obviously, we have to find who did this and learn their power or he will keep trying to kill you!"
"I know, Tonia," Kuri said sadly, holding Tetsuya's restrained form tightly against him, and kissing him passionately, "I just need to touch him...not just to comfort him, but to comfort myself. I know now I have given Tetsu-hana my whole heart...because just the thought of losing him breaks it."
He gazed down into Tetsuya's senseless and dangerously aggressive eyes, defying the power that wanted to kill him.
"I will not let you take my Tetsu-hana from me," he warned the unseen enemy, "I will find you, whoever and wherever you are, I will make an end of you!"
XXXXXXXXXX
Renji emerged from sleep to find himself entangled in blankets and sheets, and alone in the guest room he shared with his new husband. He peeked out from under the covers and smiled sympathetically as sounds of discomfort and sickness leaked out of the nearby bathroom. Pushing the soft and sinfully warm covers off, he exited the bed and walked naked to the bathroom door.
"You all right, Byakuya?" he called through the door.
"I'm fine," Byakuya sighed, "You can come in."
The redhead opened the door and found Byakuya on his knees near the toilet and his attendant standing near him.
"You may leave us, Torio," Byakuya said, excusing the attendant, "Renji will take care of me."
"Yes, Byakuya-sama," the young man said, bowing and exiting the bathroom.
Renji chuckled sympathetically.
"Sorry about that," he apologized, "but I was in here a little while ago, doing the same thing. At least it's for a good reason, right?"
"Yes, I agree that starting a family with you is a very worthy cause," Byakuya agreed, accepting Renji's arm around him as the redhead helped him to his feet, "Thank you, Renji."
He filled a cup with water and rinsed his mouth, then walked out into the dressing area, where Torio was waiting. Renji returned to the bed and retrieved his yukata, wrapping it around his lanky frame as he joined the two.
"What's the hurry?" he asked curiously, "I know you got up a little later than usual, but..."
"I received a hell butterfly from the grand councilor's office. Daisuke has called a meeting to discuss what we know about Tetsuya's affliction. Kurushimi's healer was able to determine that a foreign reiatsu has entered my cousin's system, but as yet, no one has been able to identify the source."
"So what do you think they're gonna do?" Renji asked, frowning.
"I'm not sure," Byakuya admitted, "They are likely to address the protective measures around Tetsuya to ensure that Kurushimi is safe from further attacks. They may try to convince him to turn Tetsuya over to the council for commitment to a mental facility for the duration."
"But there's no way you and Kuri are going to let that happen, right?" Renji inquired.
"Not as long as we live and breathe," Byakuya said in a determined tone, "I would never dare to place Tetsuya in their hands. That council stood by while the illegal mixed blood prisons destroyed countless families. And even once the prisons were emptied and the prisoners freed, they refused to take the word of the prisoners over the pureblood sons that had tormented and killed many of them. It was the worst miscarriage of justice in the history of the clans. I was ashamed that day to wear a noble name. There was no honor in what those people did!"
"Well, I know you're not going to let that kinda shit happen again," Renji said, squeezing his hand, "And I'll be happy to beat the living hell out of anyone who tries to railroad Tetsuya. For kami's sake, without him, do they even realize how many of their pureblood family members would have died in the war? They just finished acknowledging what he did for them, and now they might try to shuffle him off into some deep hole he might never come out of? We're sure as hell not going to let that happen!"
"No," Byakuya agreed, "there is no way that I will allow my cousin to fall into their hands. One way or another, I will protect Tetsuya from them."
"I'm with you," Renji assured him, feeding him an affectionate kiss and turning to find his own clothes as Torio hastened to finish dressing Byakuya.
XXXXXXXXXX
"Ugh!" Grimmjow groaned, jerking out of a sound sleep and grabbing his belly as he jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom.
Ichigo sat up in the bed, sighing sympathetically at the sounds of violent retching mingled with a goodly amount of heated swearing.
"Urgh!...fucking Kurosaki, you stupid...bleah...b-bastard! I'm gonna...hurk...k-kick your ass when I get outta here! You'd better run, you...guh...asshole!"
Ichigo left the bed and walked into the bathroom, picking up a soft, warm robe from the back of the chair near Grimmjow's side of the bed. He carried it into the bathroom and laid it around the crouched Espada's shoulders as Grimmjow continued to alternate between hissing furiously, vomiting and swearing.
"Don't touch me again, you freak!" Grimmjow snapped, his body quivering as he shifted strangely between his normal and resurreccìon forms.
"Take it easy," Ichigo chided him, dropping onto his knees behind the afflicted hollow, "Antonia showed me something that can make you feel better. I'll do it if you promise not to kill me, okay? You want to feel better, right?"
"Yeah, I wanna feel better!" Grimmjow fumed, "I wanna feel better so I can kick your stupid impregnating ass!"
"Hey, you heard what they said," Ichigo reminded him, "It wasn't my fault."
"Don't give me that shit about some kinda goddamned resonance!" Grimmjow yelled, "I'm not fucking resonating with you! You annoy the hell outta me!"
"Well, you aren't exactly my type either!" Ichigo yelled back, "Now look, you've got two choices here. You can either keep feeling like shit, throwing up and eventually fainting, or you can calm down and let me balance your reiatsu and the kid's."
"I told you, you're not fucking touching me!"
"I have to touch you to balance your reiatsu, baka!" Ichigo complained.
"All right, fine!" Grimmjow snapped, dragging himself to his feet and staggering back to the bed, swatting away Ichigo's hands as Ichigo reached out to steady him, "Balance it, then. Just don't think you're touching me other than that!"
"I wouldn't want to touch you other than that, you jerk!" Ichigo fired back.
"Shut up and start balancing already!" Grimmjow complained, dropping onto the bed, "I feel like I'm gonna puke my guts out."
"All right, all right," Ichigo grumbled, taking up a position behind him, "but I've gotta hurry cause there's a meeting of the Noble's General Council and they've called all the leaders and adult heirs to be there."
"Fine, the sooner you shut up and get started, the sooner my ass will be balanced and you can get the hell outta here and stop bugging me."
"Man, you're a pain in the ass, you know that?" Ichigo complained.
"Oh, I'm a pain in the ass?" Grimmjow repeated mockingly, "I'm not the one poking people in the ass, Kurosaki! That's all you, you horny son of a bitch!"
"I wasn't horny," Ichigo argued, wrapping his arms around the cranky hollow from behind and sliding his hands under Grimmjow's yukata to rub his bare belly.
"Keep your hands up on my belly and away from my junk, pervert!" Grimmjow warned him.
"Believe me, I don't wanna touch you down there," Ichigo said, rolling his eyes, "I might not get my hand back."
"Damned right, you wouldn't! I'd bite it off!"
"I meant because it would get some disease and fall off from touching something that nasty!" Ichigo corrected him.
"You wanna see nasty?" Grimmjow taunted him, "Just wait'll you get done. I'll show you nasty!"
"Well, no one's nastier than you."
"Shut up and balance, will you?"
"You shut up!"
"Fine!" Grimmjow yelled, "I don't wanna talk to you anyway!"
"What is all of the yelling?" Antonia asked, tapping on the door frame and stepping into the room, "It's still a little early for that kind of noise, you know."
"Sorry, Antonia," Ichigo apologized, "Grimmjow was just getting on my nerves a little."
"Well, he's getting on my nerves a lot!" Grimmjow said scathingly.
"You should try to calm down," Antonia advised the angry Espada, "When you get angry, you rile your reiatsu and that makes it take longer for your husband to balance your reiatsu with your baby's."
"Husband?" Grimmjow objected loudly, "That asshole's not my husband! I don't care what that bunch of crazy old men said, I'm not married to Kurosaki! I didn't agree to that shit and neither did he. We're not married, get it?"
"Hey, don't be rude to my cousin," Ichigo said sternly, "You shouldn't use so much bad language around girls."
To Ichigo and Antonia's surprise, the hollow colored slightly and lowered his eyes.
"Sorry," he said to Antonia, shocking the two even more.
Grimmjow looked up at their confused expressions and scowled.
"Hey, just cause I'm a hollow doesn't mean I don't have any manners."
"You sure don't show them to most people, not even Nel's kid form," Ichigo sniped.
"Knock it off, Kurosaki!" Grimmjow steamed.
"Calm down now!" Antonia said sternly, "And don't be rude to Shiba Ichigo. He is the heir to a noble clan now, and whether you like it or not, the Noble's General Council made him your husband. So, for right now, he is."
"Well, how the hell...er...how the heck do you figure that when neither he nor I wanted to get married and we didn't even say I do?" Grimmjow complained.
"It's just the rules of the clans," Antonia said firmly, "You know that a lot of the people who were married wouldn't have chosen it. But have you forgotten that we have all just been through a war and that it's important to keep our families protected from dying out? The noble clans might be full of people who aren't so nice, but we do protect the Seireitei and the three worlds. We even protect your home, Jaegerjaques Grimmjow. There were noble sons and daughters, fighting and dying with you as you acted to protect your home. Have you forgotten already the camaraderie that allowed us to triumph over Ywach?"
"Huh..." Grimmjow mused, lowering his eyes and looking out the bedroom door into the gardens, "We may have forgotten their differences and worked together, but none of us defeated Ywach. Ichigo did that, end of story. That's why I'm not going to kill him, and it's why I'll put up with this garbage...for now, anyway, until we can convince those old farts to butt out and stop trying to tell us we're something we're not."
Ichigo blinked in surprise, his hands stopping for a moment. Grimmjow shot him a furious glance.
"Aren't you supposed to be doing something, Kurosaki...eh, Shiba?"
"That's better," Antonia said approvingly, giving the two and short examination, then exiting the room.
"Hey," Ichigo said, after she had left, "we'll get this figured out, okay?"
"What's to figure out?" Grimmjow sighed wearily, leaning back into Ichigo's embrace, "We're having a litter together, right? You don't have kids and not take care of'em."
"I think so too," Ichigo agreed, rubbing Grimmjow's belly gently and calming the area with soothing reiatsu, "and by the way, you don't have to call me Shiba if you don't want to."
"Huh?" Grimmjow grunted, turning a curious blue eye on him.
"I grew up a Kurosaki," Ichigo said firmly, "I didn't stop being one just because those old men finally learned about me and my mom and dad. It's Kurosaki to you and me."
Grimmjow let out a huff of breath almost smirking as the comforting infusion continued.
"All right, Kurosaki it is," he chuckled, leaning back to deliver a few last words into Ichigo's blushing ear, "I like that better too."