Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Pretend Love ❯ One-Shot

Pretend Love

by debbiechan

Disclaimer: Kubo Tite created Bleach. I don’t own the characters of Ichigo and Ishida; I share them with an entire fandom.

Description: Sequel to "Real Sex." Now that the universe is destroyed and Ichigo and Ishida have realized their feelings for one another … well, something should happen next, right? P (some) P. IchiIshi.

Warnings: NC17 yaoi. Romantic romance, Ishida cries again, angst, mention of character death, jokes teenagers think are funny, and some sex of course. Also, this fic is 11,000 words long. You won’t understand it unless you’ve read "Real Sex." This story may not be as good as the first one (my sequels never are).

for Quaedam who wanted me to write an IchiIshi in the first place and for Parfait who told me "You should write more IchiIshi."

Part One

"I am myself plus my circumstances." ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset

For a moment there, Ichigo thought that he had killed Ishida.

If Ichigo hadn’t surprised Ishida with that kiss, then Ishida wouldn’t have fallen over backwards and hit his head so hard on the ground.

Ishida had started to act weird right after that. He was brain-damaged--there was no other explanation. Maybe, like people get in those t.v. shows Rukia watched, he had been stricken with amnesia.

Yes, that was it. Ishida’s brain thought he was someone else. Someone whose arms could cling around Ichigo’s neck. Someone not ashamed to show fear and sadness.

Or maybe it wasn’t brain damage but insanity. Ichigo never expected that Ishida would be the first one to lose his mind in this hole; Ishida was the patient, reasonable, practical one. Ichigo had been the one losing his shit here.

Ichigo leaned over Ishida’s body and felt for a pulse on the neck. The boy had been sleeping peacefully on the ground for some time, but Ichigo still wasn’t sure that the kiss hadn’t killed him. After saying "I want to go home" in that plaintive voice and pressing against Ichigo’s chest, Ishida had made struggling breaths that sounded for all the world like crying, and then Ichigo’s arms had rocked him to sleep.

Ishida crying? His face didn’t look all wet-streaked and puffy like someone whose shoulders had been heaving and whose throat had been making all those sobbing noises, but there had been no mistaking the emotion. Worse than when Yuzu lost the head of her favorite doll and realized that the trash truck had taken the head away.

Oh yeah. This place doesn’t let you piss or sweat much. Maybe it doesn’t let you cry.

Ichigo uncrossed his legs and stood up. He was aware of his raging erection, but he didn’t know if he was going to be able to bother Ishida for sex for a long while. He would feel too guilty about it. It had all been going so great, and then Ichigo had kissed him, and Ishida had lost his goddamn mind.

"I fuck everything up," Ichigo whispered.

At those words, Ishida opened his eyes. He swallowed. "What did you do now, Kurosaki?" He looked perfectly normal and not insane.

Ichigo felt a swell of sympathy and horror for the nude boy lying on the sand. If he remembers crying, he’s going to be so embarrassed.

"You okay, Ishida?"

Ishida sat up, touching the back of his neck. "Fine, fine. The blood’s clotted. I told you. I’m fine."

"I mean…." Ichigo’s eyes met Ishida’s. Ishida had never been the world’s cheeriest person, but now those dark blue eyes looked like absolute grief. Not insane but overwhelmingly sad.

Why?

Ichigo might as well face the truth; Ishida was freaked out because Ichigo kissed him. The whole demonstration-of-affection thing had been too much for his Quincy pride to bear. Or maybe… was something physically hurting him? Had Ichigo splatted one of his organs while tossing him around? Broken something while shoving his heavier pelvis against Ishida’s skinny bones?

When Ichigo spoke again, his voice was stern. "Why were you crying? Tell me." When there was no answer, he pleaded. "Please. This is too weird. You never cry."

Ishida touched the circles under his eyes as if looking for evidence. "I was right. This place inhibits the discharge of tears."

Ichigo was a little amazed to hear Ishida so readily admit to crying. He searched Ishida’s face again for signs of insanity. "You look like somebody died."

Ishida looked away. "I wonder … the Winter War … one has to wonder…"

Ichigo knew what Ishida was getting at. He shook his head and went to him. He put his hand on Ishida’s shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. "Stop it. You’ve got to believe that everyone’s doing fine without us. They can beat Aizen. I mean, Urahara-san alone is probably capable of doing that. I’m sure he came up with a plan."

Then Ishida did an amazing thing. Not only an amazing thing within the context of whatever personality Ishida had shown the world since Ichigo met him but also something that was bizarre for the glowing den. This fantastical place where time seemed suspended. This weird place where he and Ishida had been sucking one another’s dicks and pounding one another’s asses (well, there was only that one time for Ichigo, and he would be damned if he did it again). Ishida did something Ichigo never imagined he’d see.

He took Ichigo’s hand.

The sky could’ve fallen down. The ceiling of the Arrancar den and all its tons of sand could’ve fallen down and Ichigo would not be more shocked.

"Don’t look so worried about me," said Ishida in a sleepy voice (Did anyone else in the world have such a sexy, musical voice?). "I think it’s all hit me at once. It’s a lot to process. It’s…."

Still holding Ichigo’s hand, Ishida lay back down on the sand. He put his arm under his head and closed his eyes.

"What? You’re going to sleep again? See, this means you’ve got brain damage, doesn’t it."

"It just means I’m tired," said Ishida without opening his eyes. "If I die, just think--you’ll have fresh meat to eat since forever. After you’re rescued, you can sell the film rights for the story about cannibalizing your best friend."

Disregarding the troubling "best friend" appellation (wouldn’t Ishida call himself a red-faced, fur-coated snow monkey before saying he was Ichigo’s best friend?), the lame cannibal joke calmed Ichigo. It meant Ishida still had a sense of humor.

"Meat? You don’t have enough meat on your bones to roll into one nori leaf." Ichigo struggled to make his voice sound crotchety. "And we don’t have appetites here, remember? I’d probably let you rot. You wouldn’t taste like anything."

That last part wasn’t true--Ishida tasted like light salt when Ichigo lapped between his legs. He tasted like ginger spice when Ichigo swept his tongue in his asshole, and then there was that tenderness on Ishida’s nipples and neck. Warm like a cookie, sweet like a cookie. No wonder Ichigo had wanted to kiss him--he’d tasted every other part except the inside of his mouth.

Why, why did I kiss him? I’ve pushed him over the edge. How am I going to survive down here without him keeping me in line?

As Ishida drifted into sleep, his fingers went limp in Ichigo’s hand and Ichigo tried to whip up some optimism.

I’m alive. Ishida’s alive. The Desert Brothers said they’d return. All we have to do is wait. That’s right. Just wait.

The more he thought about it, the more Ichigo believed in an immanent rescue. For the first time in eons he felt a sense of purpose returning. Protect Ishida, save Ishida. He couldn’t design some elaborate, super-scientific escape plan like the one he’d been hoping Ishida would eventually devise, but Ichigo could kick some sense back into the idiot. Work on finding that lost mind.

He remembered their first hours in the Arrancar nest--when he had tripped Ishida and wanted to fight him and the Quincy had been so even-tempered and composed…. Then Ichigo looked at the long-fingered hand cupped against his palm.

It’s not that he’s lost his mind. He’s lost his hope.

Even though Ichigo’s reiatsu sensing-ability had never been keen, he was always aware of the strong force extending miles below, miles around, and miles above. He swept his gaze around the glowing cavern where he and Ishida had already spent months (years? eons?) and knew that the Arrancar reiatsu packing the walls of sand was impenetrable as ever.

Who wouldn’t lose their hope here?

Ichigo snorted as he answered himself: People who aren’t stuck here.

You would think the place was fascinating if you were just visiting and had a way out. Even though there was so much empty space, the place looked busy. It made Ichigo think of the inside of a shopping mall seen through squinted eyes. It dazzled.

Sometimes the glow caught dust specks and turned them into swirling stars. Folded in a far corner, Ishida’s glasses flashed at random moments, and glare from the lenses bounced everywhere.

Most of the time the sand seemed clear but sometimes it became pink or gold or one of the many different colors of sand that Ichigo had never known existed.

One could be stranded in a less pretty place.

Ichigo lay down, his face next to Ishida’s. Like white sand, Ishida’s paleness would reflect the Arrancar reiatsu. The perfect skin was yet another kind of prettiness in the cave.

Keigo--or maybe it was Mizuiro--had once described Ishida Uryuu as being "cadaver-white," but Ichigo had seen enough newly dead people in his father’s clinic to know that Ishida’s skin was way too shiny and wholesome-looking for a corpse.

He’s beautiful.

Just look at those pink lips.

And he’s always looked fine and healthy here, not insane at all.

As Ichigo stared and stared, he noticed that Ishida’s black lashes did look a little bit wet--not much, but enough to stick to those ethereal cheeks instead of curling over them. Other than that, there was no evidence that Ishida had been wracked with emotion in his arms.

Ichigo looked away from Ishida’s face. Sandspecks twinkled on the ceiling.

Sometimes it feels like….

Ishida had kissed him back after all. He had rocked back and forth with Ichigo in a timeless embrace.

Sometimes …. Ichigo closed his fingers around Ishida’s hand in his palm. Sometimes it feels like we’ve died and gone to heaven.

----

When Ishida woke up, he still felt emotionally exhausted. He put one hand on the shoulder of the boy staring at him with strange zombie eyes, and Ichigo startled like he’d been zapped by a lightning bolt. Wait a minute. This was the guy who’d been having a fit of tenderness earlier?

"Shhhhh. I didn’t mean to make you jump." Ishida leaned forward to rest his upper lip on Ichigo’s lower one. This moment was going to be no different from moments before except that now there would be kissing, and Ishida anticipated the usual sex and subsequent wordless communication.

Ishida waited to be kissed back. Kurosaki had seemed to know how to do this earlier, but now his lips wouldn’t budge. Ishida pressed and the tip of his tongue emerged and his mouth opened against Kurosaki’s mouth.

I’ve never initiated a kiss before. This is my first time kissing anyone. Okay, that’s good, Kurosaki, open up.

Even as Ichigo’s mouth was acquiescing, it mumbled something about how it was this was what had made Ishida freak out last time so why was Ishida trying it again?

"It’s different, that’s all," Ishida whispered. "It’s not bad."

It would be impossible to explain what had bowled him over so much. It wasn’t the kiss. Or maybe it was the kiss--maybe the kiss had started a chain reaction of exploding thoughts and feelings.

His skull had felt caught inside something inescapable. Kurosaki’s soft lips had touched the front of his face and then the back of his head had hit hard ground. Being held like a baby, a feeling of just giving up, a despair that sank into the mercy of Kurosaki’s just being there--

Ishida shut his eyes as Kurosaki palmed his nipples and kissed his throat. This. What had really gotten to Ishida was Kurosaki’s unprecedented tenderness--

Freaked out? Ishida was more than freaked out. He was in love.

In Soul Society, if anyone had told him that he would be Kurosaki Ichigo’s lover, Ishida would’ve barked something like I wouldn’t sleep with Kurosaki if we were the last two humans left on Earth. Now here they were, in Hueco Mundo but the only humans alive anywhere because Aizen had rearranged the universe. Aizen was God now, and everyone else was--

Kurosaki had the most aggressive tongue. Ishida would have to get used to it being in his mouth instead of other places. Sex seemed less charged, though. More dream-like and indulgent. Slower. Kurosaki seemed to be taking care not to shove Ishida too roughly against the sand.

No, Ishida would not reveal to the simple-minded, already half-mad Kurosaki what he’d figured out. That by the circadian body cycles of sleep and wakefulness, enough time had passed for the Winter War to be fought several times over. The Desert Brothers should have returned to let them out of this prison. Someone should have returned. The reason no one had returned was because Aizen had won. Hadn’t that been that more likely outcome since the beginning?

Kurosaki was huffing over him. Kurosaki who had always saved the day. Kurosaki who had was always so stupidly confident about his own powers that he could realize the impossible…. Kurosaki who for months had been degenerating into a lethargic, constantly napping, desperate-eyed person.

How long could they keep fucking on the sand, fucking away the terror like this?

Ishida clutched his partner’s forearms and could not orgasm. He reached to finish himself, but Kurosaki was already there.

"Everything’s going to be okay, Ishida." Kurosaki’s hand worked a frenetic pace while his mouth landed dry, quick kisses against Ishida’s neck. "Everything’s going to be okay."

-----

And for a while things were okay. The boys did not mention Ishida’s episode of uncontrolled emotion again, and neither talked about the change in their relationship. Ishida noticed that being touched was liberating because he didn’t have to bother being vigilant about not being touched. Ichigo seemed happy that Ishida enjoyed being kissed, petted, even bear-hugged--although the bear hugs sometimes got a grouchy brush-off.

Against the sameness of their surroundings, the novelty of kissing sustained them--even though they got the hang of it faster than they had other physical acts. Sex was rough, sex was tender. Ishida learned to squat over Ichigo, take his cock inside, and work himself while Ichigo stared, panting. Ichigo didn’t mind being the bottom this way. Ishida felt no shame, no fear of looking the fool, only absolute trust. Emotional intimacy was as arousing as those first blowjobs had been.

The den had always been very warm and the boys had long ago given up clothes. They slept entwined--arms and legs thrown over one another and chests pressing. Even when awake, their bodies sought touch. Being more than a millimeter apart from one another meant losing some crucial life-affirming heat.

Time had been jump-started, and although Kurosaki Ichigo seemed relieved that one moment could be different from the last, Ishida Uryuu was grimly aware of time’s passing.

"Kurosaki, if you knew for a fact that we were going to be stuck here for the rest of our natural lives, would you consider suicide?"

Kurosaki was doing sit-ups. He’d begun exercising again and was on Ishida’s case to join him, but Ishida didn’t see the point.

"Suicide? Never." Kurosaki didn’t miss a beat. He didn’t ponder the question. He didn’t stop exercising to look into Ishida’s eyes.

If he had, he would have seen how serious Ishida was.

Ishida lowered his eyes and wrote his own name in the sand. It apparently wasn’t time to discuss things like suicide yet.

It was many circadian cycles later that Kurosaki did a double take. The two were lying sleepily against one another, and Kurosaki startled like he’d been hit with a piece of sky.

"Uryuu! That suicide thing you mentioned--you’re not really thinking about it, are you?"

Kurosaki called Ishida by his first name now. In a passionate moment, he had breathed it in a sequence of purring r’s and rolling u’s and ever since, it had been Uryuu this and Uryuu that. Ishida himself didn’t want to drop Kurosaki; it seemed wrong to call him anything else--not to mention less special. Everyone called Kurosaki Ichigo.

"Don’t give yourself a coronary," Ishida said. "It was a hypothetical possibility, that’s all. I speculate all the time. I don’t look away from any possible endings to our situation."

Kurosaki was quiet. He looked profoundly irritated. Finally he said, "Do you think my brain just turns off like a television when I’m not talking to you? Did it ever occur to you that I’m thinking too?"

Ishida wanted to say something cruel, but he checked himself. It wasn’t worth it. Kurosaki would pout for days if Ishida made fun of him, whereas before that damn kiss, nothing Ishida teased him about had seemed to matter at all.

"Alright then." Ishida was skeptical. "Tell me some of the things you’ve been thinking about."

"I’ve been thinking about you," Kurosaki said without hesitation. "I’ve been thinking that before you, I wanted to protect the people in the most selfless way possible." His voice got louder. "I’m--I’m so selfish about the way I care about you. I need you here." Kurosaki was shouting now. "You can’t leave me."

The words and the fact that they were spoken in such a high-drama loud voice rankled Ishida. There was an etiquette that while together on the floor, neither would speak very loudly. Pillow talk, even though it happened on sand, even though there was no one else to hear, was a whispered interaction.

"If you killed yourself, I would die," added Kurosaki, as if his meaning hadn’t been clear enough.

Ishida was ready to drop the subject. "I told you it was a hypothetical choice. Do you understand the concept of conjecture?" His voice was a scoffing whisper. "I was just thinking about it; I wasn’t planning anything. Now go to sleep."

"You’re going to do it."

Kurosaki’s petulance was more than annoying. Why couldn’t he ever figure things out for himself? "How would I kill myself anyway?" Ishida let out a sigh of exasperation. "Beg you to break my neck? You wouldn’t do it. I could slice my jugular with a sharp rock but because you are staring at me all the fucking time, you wouldn’t let me do that."

"Hell no I wouldn’t let you do that! But you could whip out that cross and turn your reiatsu on yourself."

"That’s stupid. The energy would bring down the ceiling and kill you too."

Kurosaki grabbed Ishida’s upper arm the way he did before kissing him ravenously, but this time his fingernails bit into Ishida’s skin. "Listen, you pathetic little quitter, kill yourself if you want but don’t bring down the sand and kill me. I still think there’s hope."

Ishida was taken aback by the earnestness in that statement. Then the next moment he was surprised that he had been surprised. Of course. Suicide was an anathema to Kurosaki. He was the type who would never give up, even against ridiculous odds.

"My choice would be independent of your choice." Ishida voice was calm now. He spoke with kindness, as one would speak to a lost child. "I wouldn’t make the choice for you if you still had the presence of mind to make it for yourself."

Kurosaki shook Ishida’s arm free, sat up, and turning his back to Ishida, put the heels of his palms to his forehead.

That the choice was there at all was disheartening. Both boys knew that forever in this place meant insanity. Too often, Ishida had wondered if they would turn on each other, become murderous enemies as naturally as they had become lovers.

When Kurosaki spoke again, Ishida could barely hear him because his voice was low and his back was turned. "I’ve thought about it all, Uryuu. I know you think I don’t worry about this stuff but I do. I worry about things like--if it weren’t for the isolation, would this … thing between us ever have happened? It feels real right now, but is it still going to be real when we get out?"

Ishida noticed that Kurosaki was assuming that they would get out.

"And sometimes…." Kurosaki’s words were soft but clearly spoken. "I can’t help but think that this … that this is some sort of big fakery we’re putting on so we don’t kill each other."

Ishida had been staring at Kurosaki’s sword. It was leaning, wrapped in its loose linen, at the far side of the den--the area that used to be "Ichigo’s part." Sometimes Ishida wondered if Kurosaki had forgotten about it.

"It’s real," Ishida said. "It’s not fakery. It’s not pretend love." Ishida was aware of his own breathing for a moment. It sounded nervous and staggering. "Even if it’s real, though, how long is it going to last?"

A last wall had tumbled down.

I used that word. I used that word before the over-demonstrative mass of melodrama that is Kurosaki Ichigo used it. See, I’m not afraid of emotions. I’m just cautious about identifying them and--

Kurosaki was on top of Ishida before he could continue that line of thinking. "Nobody knows about those things, Uryuu." He kissed Ishida’s neck and lifted his thighs and pushed them forward so that Ishida was bent in half. "You’ve never watched girl shows on television, have you? Nobody knows anything about love. Everyone’s stupid about it." He sucked his fingers and brought them to Ishida’s exposed bottom. He massaged the sensitive cleft there before putting two fingers inside the hole. "Funny. I thought I would miss television. It was on all the time at home."

Does he ever shut up?

Ishida’s breathing slowed. He jerked forward when Kurosaki fingers teased the right spot. Fondling touches, no ardent pressure.

"This is good, isn’t it? Don’t you love this, Uryuu? Maybe we can just do this over and over, forever and forever."

Ishida didn’t think so, but he had already entered the fog of lust. When he could no longer understand what Kurosaki was saying, he could still feel Kurosaki’s voice resonating against his neck.

Ishida would miss that. He would miss that those deep resounding vibrations against his skin if the dumbass ever did shut up.

-----

Being bored in Ms. Ochi’s class was nothing. There had been a window. There had been a clock. Ms. Ochi was a nice person. She let people go to the bathroom even when she knew they didn’t need to.

Sometimes Ichigo thought he heard her voice droning about American literature just behind the walls of the den. Every single time he went to sleep he dreamed that he was at his desk and Ms. Ochi was at the blackboard. When he woke up, he was heartsick to find she wasn’t there. Even Uryuu’s arms around him did not alleviate the disappointment.

It would have been less disturbing to dream about his Hollow self. Ichigo felt for the Hollow from time to time, but he was dead. Ichigo had no idea what killed him. Boredom? If he wasn’t dead then he was deep inside Ichigo in a place Ichigo didn’t want to look.

Uryuu told Ichigo that one way to say sane was not to anticipate anything or remember anything.

Ichigo tried.

Reality was a fluid concept for someone who had seen ghosts all his life and who had been to Soul Society and back, so Ichigo had no emotional opposition to Uryuu’s proposal. Sure, construct timelessness. No big deal. No future and no past. This was it. He was alone with his lover in a glowing world of sand crystals.

The reality, though, broke down as soon as he started to believe in it. Another world sang to him. Pieces of memories still came to him in dreams and sometimes he deliberately conjured the past, even as he denied its existence.

How could he look at Uryuu and not remember their past?

The first time he’d seen him there had been this immediate fascination, this sharp attraction. Envy, disdain, something like hate. Then Uryuu had saved his life and Ichigo’s feelings had turned inside out. Was that when he’d started loving Uryuu?

Here, what he felt for Uryuu made past feelings seem infantile. Love like this had never been a priority for Ichigo. He was a teenager. He had always felt too sullen and fed up with life to seek people out. When Rukia had thrust her zanpakutou into his soul, his world changed. He didn’t think that life could change much more without his becoming a completely different person. He had been right. Life didn’t change him, but Death did.

His real body was somewhere else. Uryuu was in love with a Shinigami spirit.

He was a Shinigami and Uryuu was a Quincy. In the Outside World, that had seemed a real difference. Uryuu was male, and he was male. Would that have made a difference if Ichigo had fallen in love with Uryuu outside this weird cave?

Ichigo remembered "in love." He had been in love with Rukia, hadn’t he? The last time he’d seen her he was awkward and afraid. The chasm between them had been so deep … deeper than this den below the surface of Hueco Mundo.

Vague sexual stirrings for that image or this one…girls on the periphery of his awareness… Inoue’s soft hair … Rangiku-san’s everything … Ichigo could keep his lust in check … once upon a time he had control. Once upon a time, no matter what Uryuu said, he had choices.

Here, the only choice was to love Uryuu or die.

"You’re doing it again," Uryuu said. "Your pupils are getting small. You’re drifting away."

"I’m not. I’m just thinking about stuff. Maybe I’ve learned to get into my head more--like you."

But Uryuu didn’t seem to be inside his own head. He’d stopped playing solitaire with sand squiggles. He’d stopped combing sand out of his hair with his fingers every time he rose from the ground. He’d stopped cleaning dirt out from under his nails. Sometimes Uryuu’s head nodded and he jerked himself awake. Ichigo could tell that he was holding onto human consciousness with whatever discipline he had left.

"Why have you given up, Uryuu?"

"I haven’t."

"Don’t lie to me."

"Maybe you’ve fucked me senseless? It’s nothing. I’m just bored like always."

"You’re moving more slowly," Ichigo said. "You walk like an old man and your eyes don’t look right."

"You should see yours."

Time had ground to a halt again in this place with no night and no day, and Ichigo knew what he had to do. He had to jumpstart time and give Uryuu back whatever it was he’d given up on. He just didn’t know how.

Try.

Then he got an idea.

"It feels like years that we’ve been here, but…. I can’t tell these things. Maybe one year, you think?" He was going to assign Uryuu a project. "Um, you said you can tell time by circadian whatever, right? Isn’t there a circadian calendar or something you can make? That might be interesting."

Uryuu turned a dull face to Ichigo’s. No, it wasn’t that dull. He looked a little annoyed. Maybe if Ichigo could get him more annoyed--

"You still haven’t figured it out, have you, Kurosaki?"

"Figured out what?"

"Think about it, you moron. The war. The Winter War. It was supposed to happen in the winter, about two months after the Desert Brothers hid us here."

Uryuu was staring at him. His eyes weren’t cruel. They weren’t annoyed. They were so empty that they weren’t even apathetic.

Ichigo felt a chill in the warm den. He felt the thought before he knew it. No, Uryuu, you have to be wrong.

It was at that moment that sand started to sprinkle from the ceiling. There was a rumbling sound far away, and sand started to fall in clots.

Uryuu looked surprised but no more than if Ichigo had stepped on his toe.

"It’s happening," Ichigo said. "We’re being rescued."

"Or it could Aizen’s army. It could be that the Espada finally found us."

At those words Ichigo ran to his sword and unfurled the wrapping. He assumed a battle stance. "It’s the Desert Brothers," he insisted in a loud voice. "Has to be."

"Or it could be…." Uryuu’s voice sounded shaky now. "It could be that the ceiling is just collapsing naturally. Disembodied Arrancar reiatsu can’t hold up forever. Did you ever consider that? It might degenerate over a period of time."

More sand and earth fell. A cloud of debris formed between Ichigo and Uryuu.

"Do I just slice away?" Ichigo was yelling now. "This might be our chance. Do I just tear at the reiatsu? If it’s falling apart, then maybe we can rise through it. Tell me, Uryuu. Tell me."

Uryuu was holding his arms before his face as pebbles struck him. So much sand had fallen on him that his hair was white.

"Uryuu!"

"I don’t know, Kurosaki."

"If it’s someone come to get us--" Ichigo coughed dust. " We can meet them halfway. If it’s the world caving in, then we really have no choice, do we?"

At those words, Ishida’s bow materialized. Behind the blue light, Uryuu was looking at Ichigo as if stunned that the "dumbass" could think under pressure.

"Get directly in front of me," Uryuu said. "I can give you a boost with hirenkyaku. Cut the ceiling and we’ll keep rising as far as I can push. Then I’ll give the word and you do your ban kai routine and throw Tensa Zangetsu above your head."

"But--" Ichigo shook his head. "We can’t do that. I might kill somebody."

"That’s what it might take to get out of here!" Ishida fired a low-energy arrow at the wall to emphasize his words, and sand exploded in a fury of sparkles.

Then it happened.

The spot Uryuu had shot continued to puff dust, and someone behind it announced himself: "Stop! Don’t kill me!"

Time just … started again. It flowed forward like clear water in a fat healthy woodland stream.

Ichigo looked at Uryuu who could only stare at the wall. The wall shuddered. A slab of earth popped forward like a manhole on a city street, and indeed, there was a black tunnel behind it. Ichigo didn’t have time to speculate before a white ball rolled out at lightning speed.

"Aaaugh!" That was Uryuu. "Aaaugh!" He was gasping with excitement. He sounded like he knew what was going on.

The dust cleared and against the wall opposite from Ichigo and Uryuu had landed a white-armored humanoid Hollow. It was in a ridiculous position--waist bent and large insect eyes looking upside-down between thin legs.

"Pesh!"

If Uryuu hadn’t shouted the name, Ichigo would not have remembered the Hollow. Pesh. One of the Desert Brothers.

A Desert Brother. Not Aizen’s Espada, not the Arrancar nest falling apart, not the end of the world.

Ichigo took a deep breath and his sword dropped out of his hands. As it hit the ground, his fingers opened and closed like they could still catch it.

We’re saved.

"Ichigo, you’re alive!" The creature was looking at Uryuu. Uryuu wasn’t bothering to correct him.

"I’m Ichigo," Ichigo said.

"Sorry we’re late," Pesh went on. He had a thin, effeminate voice. "Are you molting?"

"WHAT?" Ichigo didn’t get this guy, but Uryuu apparently did.

"We took our clothes off," Uryuu said. "Those clothes--" He pointed to a pile near Pesh. "They’re not part of our bodies."

What the holy fuck is Uryuu talking about? Oh! I know! Like the Adam in the Garden of Eden, Ichigo looked down and was aware of his nakedness. Bits of the story raced through his head--banishment, sin, something about fruit. Ms. Ochi standing by the blackboard saying something about fruit.

Then it registered. He was going to see Ms. Ochi again. He was going to see everybody again.

They came, they came, they came. Ichigo stepped over his sword and ran through the rubble to embrace Uryuu. He half-laughed, half-cried against Uryuu’s neck, and he could hear the pounding of Uryuu’s heart against his own.

"Oh my," said Pesh. He unrolled himself into a sitting position. "You two have gotten friendly while we were gone."

-----

Part Two

"A place where flowers are sold at expensive prices is a place that has yet to learn the first principles of civilization." ~ Chinese saying.

The blue sky had not been as bright on first viewing as Ishida expected it to be. In some ways, the desert landscape was not that much different from the den interior. It had a similar timelessness, and the light did strange things against the horizon.

It was Urahara’s shop with its paper doors and flowerpots that seemed foreign.

Ishida looked around the small room and felt that he himself was physically smaller. Every little sound was a jolting noise, and voices were so loud they hurt his ears.

"Maybe they’re robot spies." The little red haired boy was pounding a baseball mitt. He looked sweaty--like he’d just returned from playing outside. "Aizen killed the real ones and sent these ones down to spy on us."

Urahara-san glanced at Ishida and then at Kurosaki. The shopkeeper’s eyes looked deadly serious even though his voice affected the usual nonchalance when he spoke to the boy. "Nope. Not spies. Go fetch Tessai, my little friend. We’ve still had got good reason to hold them here and do some tests. Their bodies are teeming with Arrancar reiatsu."

"What are you going to do?" Ichigo was already angry. "What makes you think you have the right to test us?" Five minutes in the Living World and he was trying to pick a fight.

"Oh don’t worry, it won’t hurt. Tessai is going to give each of you a nice sponge bath. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? No water for sixteen months. A bath is going to feel lovely."

So that’s how long it’d been.

Riding on Bawa-Bawa with the Desert Brothers across the sand, Ishida had tried to get that information out of Pesh. It was the first thing he had wanted to know--even before asking about the war and after loved ones. How long were we in there? Pesh said six hundred years, and Dondo said four hundred, and the two had started arguing. Nell, sitting in Ichigo’s lap and cooing "oh Ichigo, Ichigo I’m so happy you’re here" had been the only reliable source of information, but all Ishida had gotten out of her was that the Desert Brothers had been hiding from the Espada as well.

"We ran into a bunch of them and had to speed to the nearest nest. We didn’t come out until we guessed Aizen must’ve given us up for dead. And he must’ve thought that you were dead too because there was only one guard at the passage to the Living World….Dondo ate him. Then we figured that all the trouble and war was over and that it was safe to come get you two."

At the same door between worlds that they had used to first enter Hueco Mundo, Ishida and Kurosaki were told farewell by the Desert Brothers. Pesh kissed Ishida on one cheek and then the other. "Go forth and be brave, Ichigo." The boys sped through the windy passage, and Urahara had been waiting for them.

Now the shopkeeper was staring at them with something like compassion, and Ishida felt afraid. He wanted Kurosaki to ask the questions.

"Your father, Kurosaki-san," Urahara said at last. "Your father never gave up on you."

The questions came in a rush after that. Kurosaki asked about Yuzu and Karin and then Inoue-san and the others. "Everyone’s fine!" Urahara held up his hands. "Details later. They all fought bravely. Your friends Arisawa-san and Asano-san took small injuries during their individual battles but they’re none the worse for wear now. You gentlemen must be feeling overwhelmed. Baths first, then naps."

"Tatsuki?" Kurosaki was bewildered. "Tatsuki fought? Keigo?"

Ishida leapt in. "It happened? Aizen’s defeated?"

Urahara appeared not to want to reveal more, but he said that the war wasn’t over yet. The Espada had come in the early spring, and there had been intense and prolonged fighting for days. Aizen’s army had retreated with all their top lieutenants still alive, though, and Karakura was expecting another attack.

"We can fight," Kurosaki said. "We’re a little crazy but we still remember how to fight."

"Patience, patience," said Urahara. "I have to re-strategize the situation."

"Did you miss us?" Kurosaki was talking about battle-hands. "If I’d been there, would it have made any difference?"

Biggest ego in the world, thought Ishida.

"I don’t think so," said Urahara. "But I expected Karakura would defend itself, even in your absence. The Shinigami were helping, after all. It wasn’t until that that blue-haired Arrancar--charming fellow really--demanded to fight Kurosaki-san that we realized that Aizen assumed you two had escaped to this world. Such good news. We were fearing the worst--that you’d be taken prisoner and Arrrancarized."

"No one thought we were dead," Ishida said. For some reason, the idea relieved some of the agitation he’d felt since arriving at the Urahara shop.

"I was concerned that you might be trapped between worlds--getting souls out of places like that is very tricky. But no, most people thought you two were dead. The girls cried miserably."

Before the boys could respond to that disquieting revelation, Tessai arrived with bath towels.

"You two must have grown sick of one another," Urahara said. "You’ll have time apart here while I test your reiatsu. Won’t be long. A couple days at most."

-----

Had his body gotten so accustomed the sand that he actually missed the graininess against his skin? Inside a too-soft futon after the tepid bath with a too-soft sponge (Tessai had allowed Ishida to sponge himself--otherwise it would have been too weird and Ishida would have protested), Ishida found himself worrying about his father.

Ryuuken had lost everyone in his family. Would believing that he’d lost his son change him in any way? The man had a vise-like grip on his own emotions, and a fragile conception--at best--of what it meant to be an ordinary father. Could Ishida’s death have made him any more mean and ruined?

Urahara-san said that Kurosaki’s father hadn’t given up hope, but I’m certain Ryuuken just assumed I fucked up and killed myself.

Ryuuken would get the miraculous news soon. Urahara-san had said so.

Kurosaki’s father would hug his son and weep, but what would Ryuuken do?

Would anyone be very glad to see him again? Oh, they would be glad. Inoue-san would throw her arms around his neck like she had the time he’d won the district sewing competition, and Ishida would feel embarrassed and slightly aroused by the pressure of her giant mammaries. Chad might pat his shoulder. Ms. Ochi would smile and say, "You sure do seem to take a lot of long vacations, Ishida-kun. It’s a good thing you can catch up so easily."

But other than Kurosaki, who in this world loved him? And did Kurosaki really--?

Ishida felt his body shrinking even smaller. He had wanted so badly to return to this life, but now every physical sensation irritated him and every unanswered question depressed him.

Other earthly bodily functions hadn’t returned yet, but Ishida felt his eyes moisten. The tears then ran freely on either side of his face, and he didn’t care.

Feeling pitiful? That’s part of P.O.W syndrome, isn’t it? I’ve got this craving for sympathy. That’s what it is. Next thing you’ll know I’ll start developing psychosomatic illnesses like the Americans claimed their repatriates did after being released from Japanese war camps. I’ll become impotent. I’ll get mysterious skin rashes.

Ishida told himself that he wanted to be lying next to Kurosaki being kissed and comforted but then again, he wasn’t so sure. He wanted his father to weep upon seeing his prodigal son, but then again--there was really no empirical way to gauge what another person felt.

Other people’s feelings were always open to interpretations. Kurosaki and his "maybe this is a big fakery." The reluctant love Ishida always suspected Ryuuken held for his son. Ryuuken’s pretend hate, Kurosaki’s pretend love….

The truth, Ishida concluded with the gravity of an ancient philosopher, is that no matter where I am, I am always alone.

-----

Get out, get out, get out.

Ichigo felt like he was going to bust an artery if he couldn’t get up and walk around. Urahara might think he was escaping, though, and grab him by the collar of this heavy, disturbingly silky sleep kimono and lock him in this room.

Ichigo was in Tessai’s room. Ishida was nearby with the weird little kids.

At least get out of this damn futon so you can sleep on the comfortable floor.

Once on the floor, Ichigo realized that he was hungry, and once he realized he was hungry he knew he had to go find food. He wasn’t going to look for Uryuu. If he found Uryuu he would have to drag the kimono-clothed little temptation outside and fuck him under Urahara’s window if he had to. And Uryuu, proprietous person that he is, would kill him.

Ichigo stepped into the front room.

There was Uryuu kneeling at the chabadai. Apparently he’d gotten hungry too. He was chewing so ravenously that he didn’t notice Ichigo’s presence.

"The hunger’s awful, isn’t it?" Ichigo whispered. "I’ve never felt so hungry in my life."

Uryuu didn’t startle. "I found some rolls in a basket," he said.

"I found a little more out about the war from Tessai. The old man who’s head of the Gotei 13--"

"Yamamato?"

"Yeah, him. He’s dead. Seems he fought Aizen one on one. Utikake-san and that other guy with the pink robe are temporarily acting as generals of the army."

Details of the war should’ve seemed important. Ichigo should’ve asked more questions. Important things had happened, and he and Uryuu were not up to speed.

Then Ichigo noticed the shiny tear tracks on Uryuu’s face.

Great. He’s at it again. I wonder who kissed him this time.

Uryuu looked vulnerable and small. Even at his worst in the cave, he had looked self-possessed and determined.

Maybe I shouldn’t ask about what’s bothering him. It’s probably normal to cry when things change very suddenly, and I’m the weird one because I can deal with changes. I’ve dealt with the worst. Like what happened with Mom.

Ichigo frowned and tried not to feel infected with self-pity. He was alive; the world was here; he should be ecstatic to be back.

Changes.

Had something already changed between him and Uryuu?

Uryuu set the basket of rolls away like he was done with them. He probably expected Ichigo to eat them. Ichigo wanted Uryuu to eat them.

"Well…." Ichigo folded his arms. "The Outside World was still there."

"I know," Uryuu said. His face looked pinched and impatient. "I was wrong."

For a moment, Ichigo thought that Uryuu was talking about something else. About how he was wrong for doing sex things with Ichigo or how he was wrong to believe that he was actually in love with somebody.

Then Uryuu flew at him. Ichigo’s vision careened and the room blurred.

Ichigo’s eyes were still sharp enough to detect movement at shunpou speed but Uryuu’s doing that Quincy-whatever flying step across the room had really surprised him.

When Ichigo blinked away the confusion, Uryuu was lying on top of him and looking hard into his eyes. God, what beautiful eyes….

-----

Outside the shop it was a noisy, noisy world. Crickets chirped. Leaves of grass roared as breezes ran across them. Inside the shop, fabric folds made a loud shhhhhhhhh sound as silk kimonos crushed against one another

Ichigo never expected it when anyone managed to knock him off his feet. That punch Tatsuki had landed at school--he hadn’t allowed her to hit him. She’d just totally surprised him.

Disregarding reiatsu, Ichigo’s physical strength was probably three times that of Uryuu’s. Yet here Uryuu was, lying on top of Ichigo and kissing away.

"I couldn’t stand it in that miserable futon," Uryuu said.

Ichigo rolled him over, rose to his knees, shed his kimono and threw the sides of Uryuu’s apart.

"We can’t," Uryuu hissed.

"What do you mean? You were the one who jumped me."

"I just wanted to kiss you.

"As in? How? What do you mean?"

"As in just wanting to kiss you. In case you haven’t noticed, there are rice-paper walls here."

"So?" Ichigo nuzzled Uryuu’s neck. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. A society where people couldn’t just fall on the floor and fuck whenever they wanted to was an unfair society.

"Get off of me, you moron. We can’t do it here."

"Says who?" Ichigo wanted Uryuu to drop this civilized act once and for all. He wanted to humiliate him into real tears. He wanted him to fuck him so hard that when he came inside him, the stuff would never spill out. Love me, Uryuu. Ichigo was opening his mouth against Uryuu’s throat, against his nipples, lapping and sucking and trying to make it hard for Uryuu not to whimper. Prove to me that you love me.

Uryuu’s hands pushed against Ichigo’s shoulders. Ichigo took those hands and pinned them on either side of Uryuu’s waist. Uryuu kept struggling. Ichigo brought his mouth to a cock that, unlike the rest of Uryuu, showed no misgivings. He licked a slow circle around the head.

That was enough to elicit a sexy syllable or two back at the cave. But what do you know--Uryuu could discipline himself again. He didn’t make a peep. The more Ichigo licked, the more determinedly Uryuu resisted. His hands stopped trying to get free. His body went rigid--refusing to writhe, refusing to demonstrate any of the eagerness that Ichigo adored.

As he licked, Ichigo felt afraid Uryuu would get all neurotic and uptight in this world, stop wanting to do this, maybe even pretend that they’d never fucked. Prove you love me. He took Uryuu deep into his throat, sucked hard with his tongue and pallette.

Uryuu’s wrists came alive in his grip. They fought Ichigo’s hold, but Ichigo only squeezed tighter.

He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t make one goddamn little noise.

Then Uryuu’s hips rose against Ichigo’s mouth and started thrusting furiously. Trying to get it over with?

No you don’t.

Ichigo dropped Uryuu’s hands and grabbed Uryuu’s thighs. He kissed him hard on the mouth while he positioned his legs--one bare foot on each shoulder. Uryuu’s arms were flailing and his neck was arching, and Ichigo entered him without preparation or warning.

A little coughing noise escaped Uryuu’s mouth. His breath staggered a bit but he settled soon after. He swept his fingers into Ichigo’s hair and his breathing was slow and deep.

Ichigo didn’t care if he himself made noise. Let Urahara hear. Let the weird little kids hear. He hammered Uryuu with a steady rhythm. Urgh .. urgh ..urgh.

"Kurosaki," Uryuu sighed, "you sound like a freight train."

"Fuck you, Uryuu."

"You are."

The fucking continued with both boys grimacing at one another. Then Ichigo angled just so, and Uryuu spurted between their bellies. Ichigo watched him spasm--mouth wide open, face thrashing side to side--and then fall very still.

Ishida’s eyes looked triumphant. Then his limp hands rose to rest on Ichigo’s shoulders.

He hadn’t made a noise beyond breathing loudly.

"Damnit," breathed Ichigo. "You’re inhuman."

"Don’t," said Uryuu as his fingers pressed into Ichigo who was thrusting with concentrated deliberation and even louder grunts. "Please don’t yell. Promise me you won’t--"

Ichigo growled loudly but he didn’t yell. He kept thrusting into Uryuu even after he was finished. He felt that momentum could’ve carried into the world’s first male multiple orgasm, but he quit and gently unfolded Uryuu into a lying position. He dropped his face against Uryuu’s neck.

The boys lay there panting. They kissed, panted some more, and eventually fell asleep. It was the natural thing to do, and when they woke up, that’s how Ichigo saw it.

It’s a natural thing.

He was never going to feel ashamed about his relationship with Uryuu.

He still wasn’t sure about Uryuu, though.

-----

"Hollow must hibernate in these nests," Urahara said. "Or else they acclimate to sensory deprivation very well. Tell me, did you hallucinate? People usually start to hallucinate under less severe circumstances."

Ishida held out his cup, and Urahara poured more tea into it. "We didn’t hallucinate," Ishida said.

"We weren’t all that sensory deprived," said Kurosaki. He was eating soy porridge with his mouth open, and Ishida tried not to look. Had Kurosaki been this crass and bad-mannered before? Ishida was starving too--you didn’t seem him gulping his food.

"Really?" Urahara’s light and breezy voice was hard to interpret. "What sort of sensory stimulation did you gentleman have down there?"

"The place glittered all the time," Kurosaki said. He was eating so fast he had to swallow hard before speaking or he would choke. "It was like downtown Tokyo in that hole."

"Hmmm, the architectural reiatsu and the sand crystals," said Urahara. "That must’ve been very disorienting."

Ishida knew that Urahara was well-intentioned, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being interrogated. Honestly, what was there to say about those sixteen months? For a good part of time, Ishida had planned on killing himself. He felt ashamed about that now. He had fallen in love with Kurosaki … he wasn’t ashamed of that, though … or was he?

"That’s a droopy look, Ishida-kun. Did you sleep well?"

"Oh yes." Ishida lowered his eyes. "Thank you for asking." He felt like a five-year-old at the formal table. He didn’t know what to say or do under the scrutiny of the of the shopkeeper’s gaze.

Even though he and Kurosaki had scrambled to their respective beds before dawn, Urahara had been looking at them funny since breakfast. He had to know. Even if they hadn’t made much noise, maybe the shopkeeper had psychic powers. He was mysterious like that.

Urahara poured milk into a saucer and set it on the table. "Yoru, darling. I bought the high fat this time."

A black cat leapt on the table.

"Anything exciting happen on night-time watch?"

"Not on the watch," spoke the cat in its rough voice. "I came back early to take a nap in the front room. There were already two boys sleeping there. Huddled like kittens."

Ishida choked on his tea, and Yoruichi flared into her true form. Dense white light filled the room for a moment, and then there was a beautiful nude woman sitting at the chabadai. Ishida knew she could do this, but he was still shocked. Everyone could see her nakedness from the waist up!

"Why didn’t you tell me you were serving something special for our guests?" Yoruichi reached for a teacup and emptied her saucer of milk into it. "Just like the British drink their tea, Kisuke. It’s not bad. You should try it."

"I suppose you’ll be wanting eggs and porridge now as well," said Urahara-san. "Tessai!"

Ishida was blinking. He looked at Kurosaki who was staring at his bowl of porridge. The idiot was still chewing.

Urahara continued talking as if naked women sat at his table every other morning. Maybe they did. Ishida struggled to appear as nonchalant as possible while Urahara told him and Kurosaki that last night he’d phoned their families to tell them the good news. Everyone had protested Urahara’s keeping the boys for another day, but the shopkeeper insisted that the quarantine was necessary for the guaranteed good health of the Hollow-reiatsu-ridden boys.

"Doctor Kurosaki-san was very angry. I do believe he said something about coming over today to tear me a new intestinal orifice."

Ishida dared to ask. "Ryuuken?"

"He was particularly hard to reach because he was in Spain."

"Spain?" Ishida assumed a business trip, but Urahara said that the man had been on vacation in Europe for months. Ishida could not remember his father ever having taken time off from work in his lifetime. Maybe Ryuuken had been broken-hearted. Maybe he was colder than ever. How could Ishida know? All he knew was that he dreaded seeing his father again. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Even if Ryuuken had taken the first flight out of Spain, he wouldn’t be in Japan until this evening. He probably didn’t take the first flight out, though.

Yoruichi slammed her teacup on the table too loudly and startled everyone. "Kisuke, this milk tastes like yogurt. Get the flavored kind next time." She winked at Ishida. "I like strawberry milk the best."

Ichigo’s head fell forward on the table. Yoruichi laughed and laughed.

Urahara stood up and raised his index finger. "Now, to the underground training facility. I need to test your reflexes, gentlemen. I’m certain you lost some of your physical prowess in that horrible, lonely place."

"I just want to go back to sleep," Kurosaki grumbled. "Sixteen months I staved off insanity only to lose my mind here within one day."

"Never fear, children, and regret nothing! Chastity is the most unnatural of the sexual perversions, and the soul is forever a virgin to Truth!

Urahara-san never missed an opportunity to spout a proverb. He made them up himself, Ishida thought. He had to.

-----

Ichigo was pissed off because Uryuu had outrun him on Urahara’s impromptu track. It’s not fair. He didn’t even exercise for over a year. He tried to rationalize Uryuu’s winning by telling himself that the Quincy weighed as much as a feather and the wind helped carry him.

"You didn’t cheat and use that Quincy-shunpou-whatever, did you?"

"Hirenkyaku." Uryuu’s voice was indignant. "Why would I cheat? A Quincy doesn’t cheat!"

Ichigo rubbed a towel over his face. His brow was wet to the middle of his scalp he sweating so much. It felt good to sweat again. It felt good to run. Everything felt good. Being human was a great thing.

The morning’s zaniness, however embarrassing, had eased his mind. Urahara-san didn’t give a lecture about homosexuality. No one said anything about telling his dad. And best of all, Uryuu didn’t deny the relationship. He could’ve easily denied it.

Or maybe Quincy don’t lie--even when they want to?

Ichigo shot a glance at Uryuu who was holding a stopwatch and making little marks in a notepad.

Is he going to be obsessive about time now the way he’s obsessive about everything else?

Obsessive. It occurred to Ichigo at that moment that he stood a good chance of becoming one of Uryuu’s obsessions. Uryuu had said once that Quincy don’t do anything half-way.

"I suppose," Ichigo ventured, "that everyone in Karakura is going to know about us now."

"Not necessarily."

"Maybe I want people to find out."

"What?"

"I think a lot of our friends would be just as cool about it as Urahara-san."

"Kurosaki, we’re seventeen years old. What do you expect us to do? Send out wedding invitations?"

Ichigo must have looked crestfallen, because Uryuu’s face softened.

"Kurosaki, there’s a war going on and other things for us to pay attention to besides one another. But the time we spent together the past year--I can’t imagine going back to the way things were before. I don’t believe that things are going to change that much between us, do you?"

"Things always change. Are you going to tell your dad?"

"Are you kidding?"

Ichigo downed an entire bottle of imported water. Urahara’s shop carried all kinds, but they tasted the same. Ichigo was a little suspicious about that. They all tasted just like tapwater.

"It’s really nobody’s business," Uryuu went on. "Some things are still personal. Some things are still private. Even though people around here are mad hedonists, I’m sure they’ve got things they’d like to keep private as well."

Ichigo felt better. The cold water, the sweat, the run, and Uryuu being honest with him.

"When something is private, that means it’s special," Uryuu said. "We don’t have to have sex on a live webcam. Fucking in private is special."

"You sound like a greeting card," Ichigo said, and when Urahara-san was turned away, digging through the ice chest for something other than water (he got to drink cokes because he wasn’t training, he said), Ichigo kissed Uryuu on the white softness of his Quincy cheek.

It didn’t feel like a "happy ending" kiss; it felt like a "I’m not scared of what’s going to happen next" kiss.

And what happened next was that the Urahara Shop got a midnight visitor.

----

That second night, Urahara-san insisted that the boys sleep together in the front room. He had decided that their adjustment to society should be gradual and that maybe he would tell their parents that he needed to keep them for a few more weeks of tests. Yoruichi said she was going to stay out all night this time and maybe buy herself a yaoi manga, and Urahara-san said that there was no real need for reconnaissance missions tonight anyway and that she should rest her little feline self on the foot of his futon.

When all the lights were out, Ishida looked at Kurosaki and he knew they couldn’t have sex.

"We have to make some compromises with civilization," Ishida said. Flagrant exhibitionism wasn’t his cup of tea. He only hoped that Kurosaki wouldn’t take that as a sign that he didn’t care. "It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that people live here."

"Then maybe I’ll have to go back in Tessai’s room because I don’t know if I can control myself."

"Liar." Ishida hugged Kurosaki’s neck.

"Last chance," Kurosaki said. "Last chance with this Shinigami body. Kon’s bringing my real body tomorrow."

They were lying on the wooden floor because neither could bear the softness of futons. Kurosaki’s breath was even and deepening, and the very sound of it made Ishida’s arousal obvious. It poked the shiny fabric of his sleep kimono.

Kurosaki looked down and addressed the prominent bump. "You look very good in blue." He opened the kimono. "But you look better now."

Ishida’s hips squirmed. Oh what the hell. The whole shop already knew. He pushed his pelvis forwards to beg for a lick, and then he got an idea. "Sixty-nine," Ishida said. "Maybe if our mouths are full, we won’t scream when we come."

They didn’t, but Kurosaki’s hands tore the hem of Ishida’s kimono and Ishida made a wailing noise inside his throat that sounded like agony.

"You were louder than me," Kurosaki insisted when they were face to face again.

"But I didn’t open my mouth. At least I followed the gameplan. You opened your mouth."

"I didn’t make a sound."

"Yes you did. You sounded a broken car horn."

Ishida tied the obi of his torn kimono around his waist and lay his head on Kurosaki’s arm. They would always be competitive. That’s one thing that wouldn’t change.

Ishida was almost asleep when there was a knock on the front door.

The boys opened their eyes and looked at one another. Should they answer it?

They didn’t have time to decide before the door was kicked down. Kurosaki leapt to his feet, and Ishida felt for his Quincy bracelet.

It was Kurosaki’s dad.

"It’s been twenty-four-hours Kisuke!" he bellowed. "Is my beloved firstborn still crawling with extraterrestrial germs? Can his father see him now? His father who missed him sooo much?"

Kurosaki almost smiled. He hadn’t tied his obi and his kimono was wide open, exposing all his private parts.

I suppose it doesn’t matter since that’s his dad.

The almost-smile on Kurosaki’s face turned into a full one. His eyes were full of emotion. Ishida couldn’t decide if it was a dumb look or if it made Kurosaki more handsome, but the moment was touching. He was witnessing an actual, normal family reunion.

"You look good," Kurosaki the Elder said. His eyes were bright with emotion too.

Then BAM!

Kurosaki the Elder kicked Kurosaki the Younger in the face and Kurosaki the Younger went sailing to the opposite end of the room.

"What are you doing?" Ishida was incensed. In all his years of living with a cold and demanding father, he had never once been physically abused. He stepped between father and son and summoned his bow.

"Wow," said Kurosaki the Elder with earnest appreciation. "That’s some weapon you’ve got there, boy. Does your father have one like that too? Is this what all the Quincy are carrying these days?"

Ishida blinked. Kurosaki told me that his father was insane but…

BAM again. Kurosaki the Elder hit the floor, and Kurosaki the Younger was sitting on his back.

"Don’t worry about it, Uryuu. He does this all the time. He’s been training me since before I started karate in primary school."

"Good, good," said the Elder. "You caught me off guard."

Ishida’s bow fizzled away.

Kurosaki the Younger muttered about some things never changing, and Kurosaki the Elder insisted that oh no, his dear old dad might surprise him one day. The two were in their own orbit for a moment, so Ishida looked at the clock. Ryuuken wasn’t here yet. Ryuuken wasn’t coming.

"Uryuu, Uryuu," Kurosaki the Elder hugged Ishida’s neck. "I spoke with your father this morning. Ice on the wings. He’s stranded at the airport for a while."

Kurosaki’s dad knew Ryuuken? And he knew Ishida’s first name?

"Oh yes, known him for years," Kurosaki the Elder said, responding to what Ishida knew was a horror-stricken look over his father having a connection to the Kurosaki family. "We’re both in the same profession, you know. Every now and then a poor clinic physician has to make contact with the powers that be at Karakura Hospital. We share the same objectives, your father and I. We just have different ways of reaching them--ICHIGO! Close your kimono! Your sisters are in the car outside. I outran them is all. Any minute now they--

"Since when have you cared about stuff like that?" Kurosaki was wearing a sour face Ishida hadn’t seen since before Hueco Mundo. Ishida had always assumed it was an expression of aggravation about family obligations, like going home on curfew and wearing good luck charms his father sewed on his shirts. Hadn’t Kurosaki been honestly overjoyed to see his father a few moments ago? Why was he suddenly so bitchy again?

Maybe the Kurosaki family communicated in odd ways.

"Don’t look so miserable, boy!" Kurosaki the Elder hugged Ishida so tight this time that Ishida’s feet left the floor for a moment. He almost fell backwards when the crazy man released him.

"It’s going to be an Ishida waterworks show, I bet, when your dad shows up here. Oh, you should’ve heard him on the phone. Throat so full of tears he could barely talk."

Ishida froze. "Ryuuken?"

Kurosaki the Elder’s voice dropped a few decibels and his eyebrows wrinkled. He looked in deep thought. "Damnedest thing," he said. "I didn’t think that Ishidas cried."

-----

Hours later, while Urahara-san and Yoruichi and his dad sat around the table with sake, Ichigo found Uryuu on the back porch with a box of tiny lollipops. Uryuu looked a little embarrassed to be eating little kid treats and explained that didn’t like hard candies but he was starving and the candies and a cherry coke were the only legal cuisine available to him in the place.

"Look, you’ve already had sex, so it’s no big deal if you have a drink." Ichigo was standing in the doorway holding a large cup with a paper umbrella in it. "Tessai fixed this for me. It tastes sweet. Try it."

Uryuu took a sip and made a face. "That’s terrible," he said.

"You’re right," said Ichigo and emptied the cup on the ground.

The crickets chirped. The breeze across the grass made a roaring sound. It wasn’t so loud now, especially when compared to the laughter of his insane dad inside the house.

He and Uryuu had missed two winters, and it was spring. Cool for the season or maybe Ichigo had gotten used to the vague humidity of the cave. Earlier, Uryuu had informed Ichigo it was February--how strange to know what month it was, to know what day it was. Ichigo hadn’t really cared about knowing the calendar date, but Ishida was obsessing big-time about time.

He started up again with the obsession on the porch. Valentine’s day had just passed, he told Ichigo. That explained the lack of chocolate in the front shop because all the leftover chocolate must have been put on sale last week.

"You like chocolate?" Ichigo asked. There were some things he hadn’t learned about Uryuu in that hole.

"We’re seventeen now," Uryuu said.

"I know. If you’d known when our birthdays happened, you would’ve baked cakes, right?"

Uryuu ignored that remark. He looked unusually pensive, even for himself. "Kurosaki, do you feel like you’ve been denied a whole year and gotten emotionally stunted or do you feel like you’ve grown up some?"

"I don’t know what I’m supposed to answer," Kurosaki said. "I don’t want to say the wrong thing and make you cry."

Uryuu turned to look at him and realized he wasn’t joking.

"All I know is that I learned to love you, Uryuu. That’s growing up, isn’t it?"

"I love you too," Ishida Uryuu said. The words didn’t sound ridiculous at all.

Ichigo was leaning to kiss him when Yoruichi’s voice startled them. "Young love!" She laughed. "It’s been done. Done to death. Young people think they invented love."

Ichigo turned around and was relieved to see her wearing clothes.

"Kisuke found some chocolates," she said. She held out some boxes. It was just chocolate pocky, but the boys accepted them like treasures.

The quiet moments while they ate were pleasant. If Ichigo didn’t know better, he would think that time was slowing down.

"I watched hundreds of sunrises on this very porch with Kisuke," Yoruichi said.

Ichigo looked up, and sure enough, there was an orange sun on the horizon. He liked the bright blue skies of midday better because flat colors were a relief after the sparkling cave. He had never dwelt much on the famous charm of sunrises before. There had always been the rush to get ready for school, a whole world of little nothings on his mind.

"Ohhhh," Uryuu said, looking up. "It’s so pretty."

The boy is such a sap, Ichigo thought, and then he realized that this was this voice he heard in his head when watching Uryuu sleep: pretty, so pretty.

"The sun is the most accurate clock we have," Uryuu added.

Ichigo looked again. Okay. This sunrise was interesting. A little pale, not many blues and purples. Not as colorful, certainly, as ones he’d seen before but it gave him a feeling the others hadn’t. The yellows and golds melting into one another reminded him of desert sand.

All the different colors of sand that, once upon a time, he hadn’t known existed.

END