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A Shadow of What Was	By : katami Category: Bleach > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 49594 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 89
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- 91
Author's Notes: I will thank everyone for bearing with me while the bounty hunters try and track down my wayward muse. Also, while I will probably end up regretting this (if only because my memory on such things is terrible), I am starting a notification list for Shadow. If you want an email when a new chapter is posted drop me a line and I will add you to the list. Once again, I will thank everyone who has shown an interest in this story (and if you happen to see my muse, nail her feet to the floor).

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He didn't bother to turn as the door opened. It would be Renji coming to try and reason with him again. The redhead had given up trying to talk to him after Uryuu had twisted around kicked him in the kidneys - hard. The Quincy knew his lover's withdrawal had only been a strategic retreat though, Renji would return with his arguments marshaled and help in tow. Either that or the redhead would return to scream at him until one or the other of them grew tired of the foreplay.

They had long ago turned screaming at each other into some sort of bizarre courtship ritual - half the time their fights ended up with one or the other of them flat on his back. And the other half the time...well, up against a wall was slightly harder to manage but they pulled it off.

Except this time it wasn't foreplay. This was not one of their normal fights where they could scream back and forth before reaching an accord or just agreeing to disagree. Uryuu mulishly set his jaw and remained silent. Renji had trussed him up on their bed, trading the slip cuffs used to bind his hands for padded handcuffs. And while the brunette would privately admit it was more comfortable, he would not acknowledge the kindness - not when he was so angry. Not when he hurt so much.

Eventually the silence began to weigh on him, Renji was never so quiet. His lover was a fount of energy and noise, vibrant and alive, and he was not a man to remain silent when he had something to say. That was one of the things that had drawn them together, they could stand toe to toe screaming at one another and know that neither one of them would back down. They challenged each other, forced each other to be better and stepped in when the other fell short. No, Abarai Renji was many things but he was never silent - especially when he thought Uryuu was being an idiot.

The archer rolled over, glaring darkly at the door, well prepared to vent his ire at his lover only to freeze as the person standing there turned out not to be his redheaded mate.

Kira Izuru stood silhouetted in the doorway, his golden hair shining from the light in the living room and his blue eyes wide and sad. There was something tragic and ephemeral about the blonde, but it suited him thought Uryuu. It always had. Kira wore his heartbreak with a quiet dignity that made it poignant. He hurt and he didn't try and hide it; rather he embraced the pain and shared it with the world, using it as a sort of shield. After all, you couldn't break what was already broken.

The blonde gave him a long searching look before coming in and settling on the bed, as graceful and elegant as a swan. Uryuu stared at him, once again struck by how odd a friend the blonde was for his own volatile mate. Kira was calm and quiet, self-contained. He was refinement to Renji's brashness, stillness to Renji's movement, and sadness to Renji's almost boundless exuberance.

"You are being unfair to him. One might almost say cruel," whispered Kira, his blue eyes filled with gentle sadness and mild rebuke. The blonde cast a sweeping glace around the room, taking in the cool blue walls and white and black accents before coming to rest on his face, that gaze painfully earnest.

Uryuu turned away, not wanting to meet the Shinigami's eyes, not wanting to talk about this. Not wanting to talk at all. The wounds were still too fresh, too numerous, for him to process them. All he seemed to be able to do was bleed and hurt, a deep hollow pain radiating from his chest.

All he had ever wanted was to make Ryuuken proud. Growing up all he had wanted was his father's attention, his father's approval. For some sign that Ryuuken wanted him, was proud of him...loved him. Souken had doted on him but to a small boy a grandfather's adoration was not the same as a father's love - not when his father was alive and well. Not when his father ignored him except to cut him to ribbons.

All he had ever wanted was to make Ryuuken proud and all he had ever gotten was his father's passive abuse - disinterest and rejection. Blue eyes closed as for one agonized moment he was six again, looking out into the crowd at the spelling bee for a father who wasn't there. He couldn't remember when he had stopped looking, but eventually he had realized that Ryuuken was never going to come. It had been easier after that, no expectations meant no disappointment; but there had been times, moments, when he had looked around and wished...longed for just a moment or two to have what all the other children seemed to have -

A mother and father who loved him.

He had moved out of his father's house by fourteen; better to be alone than stay in that cold sham of a home. The small inheritance left to him by Souken and his mother had covered most of his needs. And when it hadn't he had done without; better to suffer through than face his father for anything, to see the sneering contempt in those icy cold eyes. To know that he would never measure up or be good enough, that his father would rather spend time at work than with his son. Sometimes he wondered if Ryuuken had even noticed that he'd moved out.

"Talk to me, Uryuu," prodded Kira's soft voice, dragging him from the past and the endless spiral of hurt and hate.

"He betrayed me," hissed Uryuu mulishly, turning away, not quite sure who he was talking about - Renji's recent betrayal or Ryuuken's lifetime of betrayal. He didn't want to talk about this, didn't want to think about it. All he knew was it hurt. Everything in his life boiled down to the one simple truth, that deep, aching pain radiating through him. In that moment all he really wanted was to curl up in his lover's arms and be held, for Renji to say something to make it right -

But he had driven Renji away

Kira gave him another sad look, this one a mix of grief and weariness. "You know that is not true. Renji loves you. He has never once given you reason to doubt his affection in twenty years, and if you were not so angry you would admit as much," scolded the blonde gently, the disappointment in his tone cutting the anger out from under the Quincy. It was impossible to shout or rage at someone so placid. Kira Izuru was like a force of nature and raging against him was just as productive. Nature did not bow or explain its actions to mere mortals. The blonde projected that same air of timelessness, a silent promise he would withstand all adversity -

Because his heart was already broken and he had nothing more to lose.

Uryuu turned away, unable to meet the gentle condemnation in Kira's eyes. "He's my father," growled Uryuu, because it all came back to Ryuuken. It always did. Renji had taken Ryuuken's side over his. His lover had chosen to protect his sonofabitch father rather than stand with him. The knowledge drew a fresh bout of helpless fury and despair from him.

"He stopped you from harming or even killing your father. He stopped you from doing something you would regret. Not now, but eventually. Love and hate are intertwined, we can not hate without first having loved. You might hate your father very much, Ishida Uryuu, but you once loved him just as much.

"Renji loves you. He wasn't going to let you do something that would tear such a wound in your heart - even if it was what you wanted at the time."

Uryuu glared at the blonde, wanting to refute his words wanting to deny it all. But Renji did love him. He knew that in the same bone deep way that he had known he was a Quincy. In all their years together, through all the fights they'd had, the redhead had never once looked for another lover - and there had been so many times when he could have. When the Shinigami could have walked away and found someone who wasn't a prissy son of a bitch, who didn't fight with him constantly, and who he didn't have to justify over and over. Renji never had though. The redhead had always just marched back yelled at him and reminded the dark haired Quincy why he stayed.

His father, his own father, had let him walk away, but not Renji.

Renji stayed with him. The redhead loved him even when he hated him.

"Do you really want to throw away your whole life for that man? A man you purport hate? You would trade a job that challenges you, and brings you the respect and admiration of perhaps the only people in the world able to appreciate your skills? You would end or endanger a relationship of twenty years with a man who loves you, truly loves you? And for what? To avenge a hurt from your childhood, a hurt that can never be taken back? Is your father really worth that to you? Is he really worth all the things you would have to give up?"

Uryuu turned to stare into those aching blue eyes and felt his breath catch. Lose Renji. To never again wake up wrapped in the redhead's embrace, to never listen to him grumble as Renji watched sports and he read, to never laugh with him, never see that sparkle in his eyes when they fought.

"Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken," murmured Kira softly, giving him a sad smile.

"It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken," murmured the Quincy, blue eyes closing as he recalled the verse. He caught the faintly startled look on the blonde's face and gave a tiny cutting smile. "I may not have Ichigo's love of literature but I didn't sleep through my classes either." Kira snorted softly but there was something very near humor twinkling in his eyes. Uryuu caught the blonde's tiny smile and felt his own lips quirking upward.

"I think I'm ready to be untied," he murmured quietly, meeting Kira's gaze squarely and earning a nod.
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- 91
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A Shadow of What Was