Title: the weight of small things
Timeline: between chapters 74 and 75 of Entropy
A/N: I think this is where I'm going to stop. Sorry, guys. I might come back to this in the future, so I'm not going to mark it as "complete", but not right now.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

He's asleep now, but not well. Even with his eyes screwed shut, Ryuuken can make out the red outline. Even sleeping, Uryuu's eyes look bloodshot, and his whole face is still flushed red from weeping. Sleep grants him no peace at all.

Ryuuken supposes he can sympathize, as he stares down at his sleeping son, fitful and curled on the couch. As much as Uryuu can probably still smell blood, even in unconsciousness, Ryuuken can as well. A bitter copper sea, always rising, never ebbing, threatening nausea just as it had then. The heat had pressed down on his shoulders and made the decay stretch out its hands so far. Small things, these details, but the weight of small things becomes a mountain weighing down on your back. Ryuuken knows this, and from one look, he knows that Uryuu does too.

But this, this is not a small thing. Death never is, not to Ryuuken. It should not be treated as insignificant.

His father is dead. Ryuuken has been expecting this for decades, but now, when it's actually happened, it leaves him numb and shocked. He hadn't been at the moment of discovery, but now, with time for it to sink in, the oddest thing has happened, that he is shocked.

As much as he wishes it was otherwise, Soken was always a large part of his life and never stopped being such, thanks to the shadow he cast and the hold the old man had over Uryuu. Ryuuken would have liked nothing better than to cut off all ties with his father and that way of life with his father and that way of life, to never have to be reminded of it again. That's not how it's turned out, of course. Ryuuken can never shake off the old way of life, not entirely. He'll remember it every time he looks at Uryuu. His father has seen to that.

Dead, ripped to pieces by a Hollow, that's how Ryuuken has always expected Soken to die. That is the occupational hazard of being a Quincy, after all. But he never said he wanted him to die like that. Not once.

Just one lamp on, the living room is dimly lit and awash with stretching twilight. Ryuuken sighs as he goes to collapse in the armchair by the couch. "Good God," he mutters. "What a mess you've left me with, old man."

After blood and decay there rises in memory the siren song of weeping. Uryuu had sobbed and cried today until his throat was sore and raw and his voice could barely rise above a croak. Ryuuken's surprised he wasn't sick from swallowing all his tears. He doesn't think he's ever been Uryuu cry so much, or wail so hard. Not even when he was a baby was he capable of weeping so much.

He shouldn't have… Well, maybe he should. But not like this.

Uryuu shouldn't have had to see this. Children, such young children, should not see the people they love die so violently. They shouldn't know the language of blood and brutality. Death should be as distant to them as the stars in the sky. They shouldn't be able to identify It by Its gaunt face.

But at the same time, if this can put Uryuu off that lifestyle, than one good thing will have come of this day. Ryuuken can hope, and he hopes that now, seeing what happens to those who fly too close to the sun, maybe Uryuu will think better of pursuing the old ways. Maybe he won't go that way.

He still shouldn't have had to see it. This was what I tried to shield him against. He should not have had to see it.

Ryuuken swallows bile as he curses his father for subjecting Uryuu to this. Whatever path the boy chooses, when morning comes, all there will be is grief and small things gathering into a mountain. That's all he cares about.