Author's Note

This was for the LJ SpringKink community: Prompt: Anyone other than Gin/Kira -- hurt/comfort "It doesn't have to be this way."

This is actually a prequel to my bdsm fic "Strange Tortures, which is a Ukitake/Kira bondage fic. It can be found on my lj, adultfanfiction, and y!gallery accounts. I had to actually write this before I could write the other one. This one isn't explicit, though.

A Saturday night in the Fourth Division, and Jirou, the night clerk for the infirmary, didn't blink an eye when Kira-fukutaichou staggered in at 2 a.m.. He had a broken nose, a black eye, and a bruise on his jaw that looked like he'd been lucky not to have it broken too.

He was bleeding, too, and left a trail of blood and bloody footprints when he refused a wheelchair. The intern led him to one of the examination rooms. As usual, he asked Jirou to attribute his injuries to a brawl in Rukongai's Ninety-Second District. As usual, he asked for Yamada Hanatarou, and a Hell Butterfly was sent. As usual, the clerk warned him about going to those rough parts of town; and, as usual, Kira-fukutaichou politely thanked the clerk for his advice before limping off to the examination room.

Afterwards, Jirou had the intern mop up all the blood, and swore under his breath about stupid drunks.

Hanatarou sprinted, skidded, and hit the doors of the Fourth Division Infirmary harder than he intended. But he ignored the pain, yanked them open, and went in.

"Room 128," Jirou said, without even looking up from his book.

Hanatarou took a more decorous pace through the hallway: he didn't want to collide with people coming out of the rooms. He worried a little when he realized that the whole path he was traveling had been freshly mopped.

He got to 128, took a breath, and walked in. He blinked when there was no one on the examination table. He looked around, and that was when he realized he was hearing soft, shuddering whimpers of pain. And they were all coming from the tall, blond man who had propped himself in a corner of the room, feet spread for stability. His head was on the corner post, hands spread against the supports for the paper counterpanes. Blood smeared onto pure white paper. It was good that the panes were easy to replace.

"Kira-fukutaichou... why aren't you on the table?" Hanatarou asked. There was no response. He went up to Kira and winced at the pool of blood that had formed under the shinigami's straw sandals. He touched the blond on the shoulder, very gently.

Kira moaned and his knees buckled. Hanatarou used his medic's training to catch the bigger man, who twisted and gave a cry of pain at the pressure against his back. "Kira-fukutaichou, it's me, Hanatarou. You're safe," Hanatarou said.

The unswollen china blue eye looked into his own, focused on him. Then it closed and Kira fainted.

Hanatarou rarely slept Saturday nights, anymore. Even when he was off-duty, he would just sit up with a book or studying healing kidou until the dawn. He wasn't always sure he'd get called, but he was always glad he could respond instantly when he was.

Hanatarou got Kira's limp body onto the examination table, and he carefully took off the layers of the man's uniform. He'd done this enough times before that he wasn't surprised at finding deep, looping bruises and bloody abrasions along Kira's ankles and wrists, or at the blood soaked all the way through to the black shinigami kimono along Kira's back and legs. The cloth was sopping, which explained the trail of blood where he'd walked from the door to the corner.

It was no wonder Kira hasn't wanted to sit or lie on the examination table. This time, however, there were also slashes all along his front, chest, and belly. When he got all the kimonos off in a bloody pile on the floor, he paled at the depth of the cuts on Kira's front and the ground meat texture of the skin of his back.

Oh, kami of sky and air.

Hanatarou pulled a close-weave sheet over Kira, and then a soft blanket, so he wouldn't get cold. Then he left Kira on the table, locked the door with a bit of kidou, and raced for his room. He threw things in all directions, looking for Hisagomaru. Finally, he found the blade and yanked it out from under his bed.

Hmph... you lost me again. You're not going to make me fight, are you? His sword sounded sleepy, grumpy.

Not really... I need your powers to heal someone.

There was a feeling like a grumble. Battle wounds?

Hanatarou bit his lower lip. Well... kinda... and something deeper, too.

Oh, okay. Let's go, then.

Hanatarou raced back and walked the way back to the room, and unlocked the door. He was surprised to see an open blue eye looking at him when he walked in. Kira had shifted to lying on his side, with his face towards the door. Kira closed his eyes after he saw whom it was that walked in, but opened again at the sound of steel coming out of a sheath.

Kira said softly, sounding resigned, "You, too?"

Hanatarou blushed, "What?"

"You want to take a piece of my ass with your steel, too?" The words were bitten out, bitter. "Since you've seen how... he's... used me. But you've been so nice to me... I thought... well, as long as you continue to not tell anyone... feel free."

"No... no, it's not like that," Hanatarou protested. He wasn't quite sure what Kira was saying, but he didn't like the tone. "I can show you."

Hanatarou braced himself, "Hisagomaru, fulfill!"

Hanatarou, those are not battle wounds. The blade sounded suspicious.

I still have to try, and they're... I think they're a mark for something deeper. Hanatarou hoped that would be enough.

Mmm... said Hisagomaru. You may be right.

His zanpakutou only transformed enough to show a gauge on the side of it. Hanatarou squinted at Kira's chest, and then swung.

Kira's breath hissed as the sword made a cut across but mostly parallel to one of the slashes already open on his chest. His hands clenched. But then both cuts suddenly disappeared, and Kira gave a questioning sound. He touched the newly healed skin, smooth under the gore that had been bleeding from it. The gauge on Hisagomaru showed just a peek of red.

"Your wounds aren't serious, or deadly, Kira-fukutaichou, but there are so many of them..." Hanatarou tried to sound very apologetic. "This is the fastest way for me to get to all of them."

"You're... you're healing me..." Kira sounded utterly stunned.

"Of course," Hanatarou said, and swung again and again. Neatly he closed up all the front slashes. "There... you should be more comfortable lying on your front now, sir."

Kira groaned as he finally let himself fall onto his front. Hanatarou eyed the scores of single-tail whip marks across Kira's back. He picked a diagonal line, and slashed through most of them. Kira's back arched with the cut, an inarticulate cry was dragged from his throat that Hanatarou blinked at. It wasn't just pain in that sound.

Hanatarou knew the sounds he closed himself off to every day. Sometimes he had to hurt people in order to heal them; and while he didn't like it, he knew that it wouldn't do them any good for him to hesitate or stop. He just had to let them deal with their pain themselves, and get on with his job. There was something different, almost needy, in the sounds Kira was making.

Kira's back healed in an instant, just two raw patches on the two corners Hanatarou' slash hadn't touched. Those were easy enough to skim a light cut over as Kira whimpered softly. Hanatarou checked the gauge, and it only showed a few inches of red along the full length of it. There was plenty of room left.

A quick stroke down each of Kira's legs, splitting the skin for just an instant, to an almost desperate cry from the fukutaichou; and then the backs of his legs were smooth again, losing the purple and red lines of a crop, though still covered with trickles of blood. The deep bruising along Kira's rear end, though, made Hanatarou frown.

"I'm sorry, but I have to put Hisagomaru's point into the muscles of your buttocks, otherwise I can't get to the deep bruises. So I guess I'm warning you that this is going to hurt."

"Thank you, Hanatarou-san," Kira said softly, into the pillow. "I am warned."

Hanatarou braced himself before he drove the point of Hisagomaru deep into one blue and purple-striped cheek.

Kira gave a choked-off scream, and then a moan of relief as the whole muscle healed, cleared of the ugly darkness of pooling, bruising blood. Kira's hands fisted on the pillow under his head, and on the second stab, his knuckles whitened and he gave a pained gasp, but he didn't scream.

Hanatarou ran his hands over the whole skin, ignoring the sticky lines of drying blood. The muscles under his hands firmed, bunched. Good, they were working just fine.

"Is that good?" Hanatarou asked.

Kira's answer was muffled by the pillow. "Yes. Very good."

"Can I work on your face and neck now?" Hanatarou asked.

"Uhm... may I have the sheet and blanket, please?" Kira asked, a blush rising on his uninjured cheek.

"Certainly. I wouldn't want you to get cold," Hanatarou said, as he bent to pick the sheet and blanket up from the ground, and spread them over Kira's naked form.

"No, you wouldn't, would you?" Kira said softly, sounding puzzled, as he turned over to lie face up under the blanket. "Are... are you going to use your zanpakutou on my... on my face?"

Hanatarou shook his head. "I was just going to use traditional healing techniques for them. They're too close to your eye and the main arteries in your throat. Your ankles and wrists are too full of delicate bones, tendons, and blood vessels. I'd rather just do the usual hands-on techniques of laying reiatsu on those wounds. Also, given that Hisagomaru gains energy by healing, I now have plenty of power to use."

"Ah. All right." Kira sighed softly.

Hanatarou laid gentle fingers over Kira's throat, cradling the blond's jaw. He could feel Kira's pulse pick up at his light touch. Hanatarou summoned his reiatsu with a healing kidou for bruises, and unleashed his power through Kira's battered jaw and face. The swelling softened and drew down. The dark colors of bruises faded. Kira's broken nose shifted and moved back into place. A soft groan was drawn out of Kira, and then he muttered with a clearer voice, "It tingles..."

Hanatarou nodded. "It usually does, doesn't it?"

Kira looked at him warily.

Hanatarou avoided the look and asked, "Can you sit up, now?"

Kira tentatively swung his legs over the side of the examination table, clutching the sheet around his middle. He frowned, and then nodded to the small healer.

Hanatarou deftly took one of the blond's long, strong hands in his. He concentrated as his slender fingers stroked the abraded bruise over the wrist, and the colors faded, disappeared. When he looked up he saw Kira staring at Hanatarou as if he might disappear as well. Gently, Hanatarou lifted his hand from that wrist and lightly captured Kira's other hand, which he healed.

Then the slender Fourth Division healer knelt to put both hands on one of Kira's badly abused ankles. He heard Kira's breath catch again as he lightly slid his hands in a caress along the abraded, darkened skin and applied his reiatsu. He stroked down the swelling and realigned the small bones that had been displaced in whatever it was Kira had been doing. Hanatarou couldn't help himself: he tisked softly at realizing exactly what kinds of forces had to have been applied to do this kind of damage.

He felt Kira stiffen at the small sound, and just shook his head. He caught the other ankle, other foot, and stroked that gently as he healed the hurts upon it. He then ran his hands up Kira's legs, healing the bruises on them, as he got up from the floor.

When he was standing again, Hanatarou looked right into Kira's blue eyes. Kira looked down, eyelids half closing, avoiding the gaze, until Hanatarou put his fingers under Kira's chin to bring his face up a little. Then, startled, Kira looked right at Hanatarou.

"Kira-fukutaichou, I mean no disrespect, sir, but this has been the fifth time in the last two months that you've come to the infirmary in this kind of condition."

"So?" Kira said. His gaze went anywhere but to Hanatarou's eyes. "Can't a fukutaichou have a little fun?"

"This does not look fun, sir. This looks..."

Kira pushed Hanatarou away, violently. The little healer tumbled with a yelp.

Kira jumped up and reached for the pile of dark cloth that had been his clothes, and then made a small sound of dismay at finding them soaked, saturated with his drying blood. Hanatarou had cut them off his unconscious body, so they were in no shape to wear.

"Listen to me, please," Hanatarou pleaded as he scrambled back onto his feet.

"Why? What do you know?" Kira bit out, looking wild, sheets falling everywhere around him.

"I know those were whip marks, not... cuts. That the bruises and blood on your wrists and ankles were from someone binding you carelessly with chain. That whoever did this to you should have taken care of you themselves after... whatever they did. Not... not send you alone to the Fourth, especially not all those times," Hanatarou said, heatedly.

"What?" Kira said, looking confused then angry. "How... how does a kid like you know about these things?"

Hanatarou blushed, "No, I don't do those things at all. But... Ukitake-taichou, he'll ask me to come to his... healing pool... to check on his... his... uhm... lovers... after, to make sure he did things right. He learns like a shark swims and he's great about teaching me what to look out for... and he said it'd be okay for me to use his name if I ran across someone that... needed that."

Kira growled, "So another taichou uses his subordinates this way?"

"Oh, no... none of them report to him. He wouldn't ever... oh..." Hanatarou's eyes got really big. "Oh, that's... bad."

Kira's hand swung up and Hanatarou's eyes tracked it.

Defend yourself! Hisagomaru hissed. Cut this hurt out of him...

Hanatarou listened to his soul, and looked up at those icy blue eyes. "It doesn't have to be this way, Kira-fukutaichou. There is a better way."

The hand fell to Kira's side. The ice cracked, melted into tears tracking through dried blood, and Kira collapsed in on himself.

Hanatarou cautiously approached Kira, and very gently put his arms around the naked, physically healed man. Kira leaned into the small healer and cried his heart out.