Fic: Sunlight and Song (7/11)
Title: Sunlight and Song
Author: Venefican
Pairing: Nanao/Shunsui
Rating: PG
Summary: The morning after, the confrontation that isn't quite. A world gone mad. Nanao doesn't know what to do and Hinamori is far stronger than anyone gives her credit for.
7
‘How can you do this to me?’
‘Yare yare, Nanao-chan. You’re acting like I’ve betrayed you.’
‘Haven’t you?
She sounds like a harpy, like something possessed, she knows that. But why can’t he see?
*
Pain. That’s all she can think of when she wakes up. Her number one thought is concentrated on the ache spreading down her neck, her spine, and pooling at her hips.
Number two is that someone is watching her.
‘While some people might consider it romantic, I have always considered watching people sleep to be the height of very disturbing.’ She wrinkles her nose, and then adds, ‘Sir.’
When she blinks her eyes open she can see that her - admittedly informed - guess was spot on. Shunsui is lying on his side, head propped up on one hand and looking at her with an expression she doesn’t dare name. He smiles, slow and knowing ‘Good morning, Nanao-chan.’
Good things: 1) She has managed to stay in seiza for approximately three hours, a great sign of discipline if there is any, 2) She has not sub-consciously given in to any desire to move next to him, 3) As far as she can tell, he’s just woken up.
Bad things: 1) So has she.
‘Good morning, sir. Please try to put in an appearance today. The Division is starting to wonder if you still live.’ She rolls to her feet, feeling both shoulders and her lower back twinge in protest. Hm, perhaps some stretches and a bath before heading into the office. It’s still early enough that she’ll still be the first one in the office; the Eighth Division always rises late after an evening of defending their position as the hardest drinkers in Seireitei.
‘I will, if you explain to me just why I woke to find my lovely Nanao-chan at my bedside.’
‘You were...dreaming, sir.’
‘Ah.’ Every vestige of a smile melts away; her pause wasn’t a thought so much as a last-minute word switch. Having a nightmare, sir. About to set fire to the building, sir. Almost ready to kill in your sleep, sir.
‘Indeed, sir. I thought it was best to settle you before you woke the entire Division.’
‘Thank you, Nanao-chan.’ A touch brushes along her reiatsu, still tangled with his. A lover’s caress. She sniffs, and shakes her reiatsu free. A protest shivers along the bond with her sword, and an image forms in her mind - Utagawa curled in the lap of his larger sword’s spirit, fingers knotted in one long sleeve and glaring balefully at her.
Don’t encourage him.
Her spirit shakes her head, frowns, and vanishes. Nanao can’t shake the feeling that she has somehow disappointed her.
‘Nanao-chan?’
‘Apologies, sir. My zanpakutō is being a child.’ An impression of a tossed head, a slammed door.
‘Ah yes, my lovely songstress. I miss her voice, but not half as much as I miss yours.’ His voice dips and lowers on the last word, and the implication of his tone and his bedroom and his eyes makes her flush.
‘You shouldn’t-’ What is there to say? She shakes her head and turns towards her still-open door. Making a swift retreat, before she has to start deflecting questions she can’t answer and suggestions she can’t escape.
‘Nanao.’ It takes a few paces for her to stop. When she hears his voice, she stops listening for her name, just the permanent, inescapable suffix. Whether it’s carolled or shouted and whispered in a dark room that -chan is all that she hears. How long has it been, since she stopped hearing her name? A few months ago she would have praised the heavens for that plain address. Now it takes all the willpower she possesses to turn her head slightly, catch his eye over her shoulder.
‘Sir?’
‘Thank you.’
She dips her head slightly, moves her lips into the syllable ‘sir’, and pulls her door shut behind her. It takes five seconds of staring at her hand to make her white-knuckled fingers unclench from the wood.
She looks at the slight warps she has left on the frame and wonders why she doesn’t feel happier.
*
It’s the fifth form that she’s had to re-do, and Nanao finally drops her pen, pressing her palms into her forehead and tries to feel less bitterly frustrated.
She could go to Rangiku, but with all her friend has been through Nanao feels wrong to go and dump all her problems over her friend. And she would, even if she didn’t mean to. One sympathetic look and Nanao would be reduced to a sobbing child.
No. She just needs to go and distract herself.
She remembers Hinamori mentioning she had finished the book Nanao had lent her while she was recovering. An excuse, a distraction, and someone Nanao is unlikely to start crying on. Perfect.
‘Ah, Ise-san!’
Hinamori is cheerful, kind and unquestioning of Nanao’s sudden impulse to visit, and she finds herself relaxing in front of the desk while the short girl pushes papers out of the way. Hinamori makes distressed noises, waves her hands, stares blankly at official headers and generally looks more alive than she has in years.
‘I don’t even know what half of these actually do,’ she confesses, ‘The work was split pretty evenly between the Captain and myself, before.’
Nanao carefully steers around the mention of Aizen, still a little worried, but Hinamori remains calm and the mention of ‘Captain’ was clearly just that, a mention. ‘Are you sure you should be back at work already? You spent quite a lot of time at the Twelfth; nobody would blame you for taking some more time off.’
‘I’d blame me.’ Hinamori drops another pile of work onto her windowsill and leans back in her chair, cracking her neck. ‘Was there anything you needed, Ise-san? I mean, I’m glad of the company but I got the impression you were really busy.’
‘I am but I decided I need to talk to a real person.’ Before the forms start speaking to me and the Twelfth take me away in a white jacket.
‘That bad?’ Hinamori clucks at her desk and finally pushes everything out of the way, resting her chin on her hands.
‘I never thought I’d say this, but I can’t remember the last time I actually spent a day out of the office that wasn’t due to real-world duty or injury. And even then I usually put in at least one hour of deskwork.’
‘You could apply for the next patrol schedule? Yamamoto-soutaichō is already drawing them up, I think. But that’s not really the same as a day off, is it? All you can hope for is a quiet patrol.’
‘Well, it’s something.’ Nanao sighs, ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. This is for you.’
She proffers the book she brought with her - a Bashō collection that had been a birthday gift to herself a few years back. She had brought Hinamori books while she was it hospital, both women having similar tastes in literature and Nanao having the more substantial collection.
‘Thank you Ise-san. Your taste in books is very interesting; I really liked the last one you gave me. What was it, Le Morte d’Arthur? Though the ending seemed so terribly cruel.’ Hinamori runs a hand down the spine of the books, lips pursed. A question waiting to be asked. ‘How are you? With Kyōraku-taichō?’
Nanao’s hand twitches, the liquid in her cup sloshing perilously close to her fingers. ‘How did you know?’
Hinamori looks a little guilty, ‘Well, I wasn’t sure, but because of Matsumoto-san’s revenge thing, I just...sort of...guessed?’
Oh. Of course. Idiot Nanao, stop thinking you were so subtle. Of course people noticed.
She remembers Rangiku’s raised eyebrows, her affectionate ‘I have a brain, Nanao, and Nature saw fit to attach a pair of eyes to it.’ A rich, bubbling laugh, ‘Don’t worry, if anything happens, I’ll sacrifice my favourite drinking buddy and break his legs for you.’
‘People are always ready to defend you, Hinamori-san,’ she finds herself saying, ‘Do you ever resent that?’
Hinamori looks a little startled, but she tilts her head, eyes thoughtful. One of the things Nanao has always appreciated about her is her thought. She might be a little impulsive, might love a little too strongly and a little too firmly but at Hinamori’s base is a kidō master, just like her. And to be one of those requires a calm, strict discipline that must be maintained at all costs. A master out of control is the makings of a disaster that must be put down.
‘Sometimes, I do. Shiro-chan is always trying to protect me, because he feels he must. And I suppose I need protecting sometimes.’ Hinamori swallows, flushing red then pale alternately. Nanao feels guilty for pouring her own issues over her but Hinamori was probably the only one who would understand, now. ‘But I sometimes want to tell him that I got my position on my own, that must mean something to him. And sometimes I want to be left to fight my own battles. Is that what you mean, Ise-san?’
‘Yes.’ Nanao shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, Hinamori-san, for coming to you with my problems when you have so much to take care of.’
‘No, no, it’s fine. I think I wanted to talk to someone too.’ Hinamori smiles, the corner curling in a wry way Nanao has never seen on her before. ‘I’m glad, actually. That you’re looking at me and just seeing me. Sometimes people look at me and I can see it in their eyes. Poor Hinamori. Poor girl.’
‘That will fade.’ Yadomaru-fukutaichō, all those glances that said pale shadow. ‘Continue as you are, and it will fade.’
‘The whispers or the attention I pay to them?’
‘Both. Either.’ Nanao scrapes back her chair and drags up a smile from somewhere. ‘Thank you for tea, Hinamori-san.’
‘Ise-san!’ She calls just as Nanao gets to the door; and she’s smiling, truly smiling again when Nanao looks back. Her mouth curls up and her eyes are peaceful. ‘I’m always annoyed but a little grateful when people worry for me but step back and let me cope all the same, because that is the truest sign of care. I don’t understand or dare guess at the circumstances, but perhaps you need to find a balance.’
Nanao blinks, tilts her head into a slight bow, and walks away in bemused silence.
Perhaps some of us are coping even better than expected. She wonders what Hitsugaya would think if he found her there, little Momo-chan running the Division with the iron control some Captains would never even hope to possess.
When she arrives back at the office she sits back at her - the Captain’s really, but that’s a minor technicality - desk, contemplating the various piles in her in- and out-trays. She’d be leaving the Division at a critical time, but Nanao reckons it is necessary for the Division’s solidarity - and her sanity - that she does this.
Reaching for a clean sheet of paper and a new ink stone, she starts to make out a Patrol request to the First.
Onwards to Chapter 8
Author: Venefican
Pairing: Nanao/Shunsui
Rating: PG
Summary: The morning after, the confrontation that isn't quite. A world gone mad. Nanao doesn't know what to do and Hinamori is far stronger than anyone gives her credit for.
7
‘How can you do this to me?’
‘Yare yare, Nanao-chan. You’re acting like I’ve betrayed you.’
‘Haven’t you?
She sounds like a harpy, like something possessed, she knows that. But why can’t he see?
*
Pain. That’s all she can think of when she wakes up. Her number one thought is concentrated on the ache spreading down her neck, her spine, and pooling at her hips.
Number two is that someone is watching her.
‘While some people might consider it romantic, I have always considered watching people sleep to be the height of very disturbing.’ She wrinkles her nose, and then adds, ‘Sir.’
When she blinks her eyes open she can see that her - admittedly informed - guess was spot on. Shunsui is lying on his side, head propped up on one hand and looking at her with an expression she doesn’t dare name. He smiles, slow and knowing ‘Good morning, Nanao-chan.’
Good things: 1) She has managed to stay in seiza for approximately three hours, a great sign of discipline if there is any, 2) She has not sub-consciously given in to any desire to move next to him, 3) As far as she can tell, he’s just woken up.
Bad things: 1) So has she.
‘Good morning, sir. Please try to put in an appearance today. The Division is starting to wonder if you still live.’ She rolls to her feet, feeling both shoulders and her lower back twinge in protest. Hm, perhaps some stretches and a bath before heading into the office. It’s still early enough that she’ll still be the first one in the office; the Eighth Division always rises late after an evening of defending their position as the hardest drinkers in Seireitei.
‘I will, if you explain to me just why I woke to find my lovely Nanao-chan at my bedside.’
‘You were...dreaming, sir.’
‘Ah.’ Every vestige of a smile melts away; her pause wasn’t a thought so much as a last-minute word switch. Having a nightmare, sir. About to set fire to the building, sir. Almost ready to kill in your sleep, sir.
‘Indeed, sir. I thought it was best to settle you before you woke the entire Division.’
‘Thank you, Nanao-chan.’ A touch brushes along her reiatsu, still tangled with his. A lover’s caress. She sniffs, and shakes her reiatsu free. A protest shivers along the bond with her sword, and an image forms in her mind - Utagawa curled in the lap of his larger sword’s spirit, fingers knotted in one long sleeve and glaring balefully at her.
Don’t encourage him.
Her spirit shakes her head, frowns, and vanishes. Nanao can’t shake the feeling that she has somehow disappointed her.
‘Nanao-chan?’
‘Apologies, sir. My zanpakutō is being a child.’ An impression of a tossed head, a slammed door.
‘Ah yes, my lovely songstress. I miss her voice, but not half as much as I miss yours.’ His voice dips and lowers on the last word, and the implication of his tone and his bedroom and his eyes makes her flush.
‘You shouldn’t-’ What is there to say? She shakes her head and turns towards her still-open door. Making a swift retreat, before she has to start deflecting questions she can’t answer and suggestions she can’t escape.
‘Nanao.’ It takes a few paces for her to stop. When she hears his voice, she stops listening for her name, just the permanent, inescapable suffix. Whether it’s carolled or shouted and whispered in a dark room that -chan is all that she hears. How long has it been, since she stopped hearing her name? A few months ago she would have praised the heavens for that plain address. Now it takes all the willpower she possesses to turn her head slightly, catch his eye over her shoulder.
‘Sir?’
‘Thank you.’
She dips her head slightly, moves her lips into the syllable ‘sir’, and pulls her door shut behind her. It takes five seconds of staring at her hand to make her white-knuckled fingers unclench from the wood.
She looks at the slight warps she has left on the frame and wonders why she doesn’t feel happier.
*
It’s the fifth form that she’s had to re-do, and Nanao finally drops her pen, pressing her palms into her forehead and tries to feel less bitterly frustrated.
She could go to Rangiku, but with all her friend has been through Nanao feels wrong to go and dump all her problems over her friend. And she would, even if she didn’t mean to. One sympathetic look and Nanao would be reduced to a sobbing child.
No. She just needs to go and distract herself.
She remembers Hinamori mentioning she had finished the book Nanao had lent her while she was recovering. An excuse, a distraction, and someone Nanao is unlikely to start crying on. Perfect.
‘Ah, Ise-san!’
Hinamori is cheerful, kind and unquestioning of Nanao’s sudden impulse to visit, and she finds herself relaxing in front of the desk while the short girl pushes papers out of the way. Hinamori makes distressed noises, waves her hands, stares blankly at official headers and generally looks more alive than she has in years.
‘I don’t even know what half of these actually do,’ she confesses, ‘The work was split pretty evenly between the Captain and myself, before.’
Nanao carefully steers around the mention of Aizen, still a little worried, but Hinamori remains calm and the mention of ‘Captain’ was clearly just that, a mention. ‘Are you sure you should be back at work already? You spent quite a lot of time at the Twelfth; nobody would blame you for taking some more time off.’
‘I’d blame me.’ Hinamori drops another pile of work onto her windowsill and leans back in her chair, cracking her neck. ‘Was there anything you needed, Ise-san? I mean, I’m glad of the company but I got the impression you were really busy.’
‘I am but I decided I need to talk to a real person.’ Before the forms start speaking to me and the Twelfth take me away in a white jacket.
‘That bad?’ Hinamori clucks at her desk and finally pushes everything out of the way, resting her chin on her hands.
‘I never thought I’d say this, but I can’t remember the last time I actually spent a day out of the office that wasn’t due to real-world duty or injury. And even then I usually put in at least one hour of deskwork.’
‘You could apply for the next patrol schedule? Yamamoto-soutaichō is already drawing them up, I think. But that’s not really the same as a day off, is it? All you can hope for is a quiet patrol.’
‘Well, it’s something.’ Nanao sighs, ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. This is for you.’
She proffers the book she brought with her - a Bashō collection that had been a birthday gift to herself a few years back. She had brought Hinamori books while she was it hospital, both women having similar tastes in literature and Nanao having the more substantial collection.
‘Thank you Ise-san. Your taste in books is very interesting; I really liked the last one you gave me. What was it, Le Morte d’Arthur? Though the ending seemed so terribly cruel.’ Hinamori runs a hand down the spine of the books, lips pursed. A question waiting to be asked. ‘How are you? With Kyōraku-taichō?’
Nanao’s hand twitches, the liquid in her cup sloshing perilously close to her fingers. ‘How did you know?’
Hinamori looks a little guilty, ‘Well, I wasn’t sure, but because of Matsumoto-san’s revenge thing, I just...sort of...guessed?’
Oh. Of course. Idiot Nanao, stop thinking you were so subtle. Of course people noticed.
She remembers Rangiku’s raised eyebrows, her affectionate ‘I have a brain, Nanao, and Nature saw fit to attach a pair of eyes to it.’ A rich, bubbling laugh, ‘Don’t worry, if anything happens, I’ll sacrifice my favourite drinking buddy and break his legs for you.’
‘People are always ready to defend you, Hinamori-san,’ she finds herself saying, ‘Do you ever resent that?’
Hinamori looks a little startled, but she tilts her head, eyes thoughtful. One of the things Nanao has always appreciated about her is her thought. She might be a little impulsive, might love a little too strongly and a little too firmly but at Hinamori’s base is a kidō master, just like her. And to be one of those requires a calm, strict discipline that must be maintained at all costs. A master out of control is the makings of a disaster that must be put down.
‘Sometimes, I do. Shiro-chan is always trying to protect me, because he feels he must. And I suppose I need protecting sometimes.’ Hinamori swallows, flushing red then pale alternately. Nanao feels guilty for pouring her own issues over her but Hinamori was probably the only one who would understand, now. ‘But I sometimes want to tell him that I got my position on my own, that must mean something to him. And sometimes I want to be left to fight my own battles. Is that what you mean, Ise-san?’
‘Yes.’ Nanao shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry, Hinamori-san, for coming to you with my problems when you have so much to take care of.’
‘No, no, it’s fine. I think I wanted to talk to someone too.’ Hinamori smiles, the corner curling in a wry way Nanao has never seen on her before. ‘I’m glad, actually. That you’re looking at me and just seeing me. Sometimes people look at me and I can see it in their eyes. Poor Hinamori. Poor girl.’
‘That will fade.’ Yadomaru-fukutaichō, all those glances that said pale shadow. ‘Continue as you are, and it will fade.’
‘The whispers or the attention I pay to them?’
‘Both. Either.’ Nanao scrapes back her chair and drags up a smile from somewhere. ‘Thank you for tea, Hinamori-san.’
‘Ise-san!’ She calls just as Nanao gets to the door; and she’s smiling, truly smiling again when Nanao looks back. Her mouth curls up and her eyes are peaceful. ‘I’m always annoyed but a little grateful when people worry for me but step back and let me cope all the same, because that is the truest sign of care. I don’t understand or dare guess at the circumstances, but perhaps you need to find a balance.’
Nanao blinks, tilts her head into a slight bow, and walks away in bemused silence.
Perhaps some of us are coping even better than expected. She wonders what Hitsugaya would think if he found her there, little Momo-chan running the Division with the iron control some Captains would never even hope to possess.
When she arrives back at the office she sits back at her - the Captain’s really, but that’s a minor technicality - desk, contemplating the various piles in her in- and out-trays. She’d be leaving the Division at a critical time, but Nanao reckons it is necessary for the Division’s solidarity - and her sanity - that she does this.
Reaching for a clean sheet of paper and a new ink stone, she starts to make out a Patrol request to the First.
Onwards to Chapter 8