Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Fairy Tales ❯ Chapter 1

Fairy Tales

By: eternalsailorsolarwind AKA youkai_girl

 

 

Disclaimer: Bleach and all of its characters are owned by Tite Kubo, his Japanese publishers and Viz. I only play with them for grins and giggles.

 

A/N: Written for the Week# 44 prompt at bleach_contest: once upon a time. Byakuya reads a bedtime story to his daughter, and reflects on his domestic situation. Mentions of Baykuya/Ichigo.

 

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Still feeling foolish even after all this time, Kuchiki Byakuya sat down in the rocking chair and opened the book in his hands. Expectant brown eyes stared up at him adoringly, and he opened his mouth to speak.

 

“Once upon a time,” he began, and repeated the story almost from memory as his mind began to wander along familiar pathways.

 

His daughter, adopted several years ago, was the only person he would even think of sitting down to willingly read to. And only at the instigation of the one person who could wheedle such a concession out of the noble: his spouse, Ichigo.

 

Truth be told, he did not mind reading stories and playing with his daughter. On the contrary, he found it to be a deep and abiding pleasure that still had the power to surprise him when he thought about it. Even if it sometimes wounded his noble dignity to be crawling around on the floor with his child. Byakuya found that his family was more important than either his pride or his dignity.

 

Sensing Ichigo's presence, the captain glanced towards the doorway. He saw his husband leaning against the frame, watching him read to their daughter with that warm smile that only their family seemed to bring to the surface. Never stopping his recitation of the Western fairy tale - Cinderella - that had become his daughter's favorite in recent months, he bestowed on the other man a rare smile.

 

A strong, sword-callused hand coming to rest on his shoulder was the only way the noble knew that his husband had entered the room. As always, she fell asleep before the end of the story, and Byakuya carefully closed the book; a relic of Ichigo's own childhood (even if he vehemently denied it), and got up from the chair. Shelving the book, he turned back in time to see his spouse gently tucking their sleeping daughter in and giving her a kiss on the forehead.

 

The two men quietly slipped from the room; leaving the door ajar so they could hear her if she called out for them in the night. As they made their way to the dining room, the couple struck up a conversation; two spouses, still very much in love, discussing their day. Another simple pleasure that Byakuya had come to enjoy.

 

For all his noble birth and upbringing, his family's urging for a blood-heir by a woman of noble birth; it was his husband and adopted daughter that made him happy for the first time in his life. He had a family that loved and cared for him, regardless of his rank, something he had not even realized he'd missed.

 

Happily ever after, indeed.