Fandom: Bleach
Title: "Fatherhood"
Pairing: Ichigo and Isshin interaction. Hinted Chad/Ichigo
Rating: PG or PG-13
Warnings: Isshin's POV on one of the events in my other fanfic – "Memories" (moya-no-baka .livejournal. com/1805. html# cutid1)
Beta: Ryua
Summary: While guarding the sleep of his children, Isshin comes to terms with Ichigo's preferences.

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Isshin once more glanced over the dark room, scanning for all the little details he might have missed. But no, everything seemed alright and he sighed in relief. It was a matter of honor to him, and he could not rest until the task was done.

He leaned over the doorframe as he watched the still figures of his daughters, curled together on one bed. Really, there were far too old to sleep together, yet they kept doing that every time something bothered them.

Isshin sighed, as he made his way to the bed and fixed their covers, tucking in both girls more tightly, until he was pleased with result. Their sleep was undisturbed, but he waited few minutes more just to make sure. As he gazed through their window, he could see lights of Karakura Town slowly going out one by one, as the city started to fall into deep slumber as well.

The girls slept lightly, at least usually. He could see they'd curled close to each other; Ever since dinner time, when Ichigo gave them a cold shoulder and refused to eat, they had both been feeling down and not even his stupid gags were enough to cheer them up.

Ichigo was growing up, there was no doubt about that. He himself, at the fragile age of sixteen had already considered himself an adult. But, Isshin thought, times were a little bit different back then.

He knew that something was wrong today, by the way he acted towards Yuzu and Karin, and his tone when he spoke over the phone earlier. No matter how tough he wanted to act sometimes, Ichigo had a soft spot for his little sisters. If he acted indifferent towards them, that was a first sign that something was troubling him.

Isshin once again made sure that the room was safe; over the years since Masaki died he made a habit of checking up on his children during the night. Back then, she was the one who sometimes got up during the night, to take a quick look at the kids, reassure herself that nothing was disturbing their sleep. Once she got back to their warmed bed, Isshin sometimes made jokes that she was overprotective mother hen, but now here he was, doing exactly the same thing.

He felt a need to smoke, his hands twitched lightly in search of something to hold, a cigarette preferably. Somehow, he willed those thoughts away, once again looking through the window and thinking about the events of the day.

Maybe it was the Shinigami job that had started to wear Ichigo down. He had to admit, he hadn't expected that Hollow attack back then, the first night. The wound on his back was a clear reminder of the fact that he had started to grow too confident of his family's safety. He should have known, that with this high spiritual power of Ichigo's, Hollows would sooner or later come after him.

Then he saw him in the Shinigami robes and his heart skipped a beat from worry, but he had to calm himself down and pretend he didn't know anything. That hurt, more then anything, to lie to him day after day. He secretly hoped for any kind of reasonable opportunity to finally talk to him, to tell him that he already knew what he was. To tell him all about Soul Society, Hollows, Gotei 13. To tell him he knew it was Kon occupying his body sometimes – he could recognize it even by the way he walked; Ichigo's steps were heavy and he stomped his way around. Kon's were lighter, more graceful and a bit jumpy as well.

But instead he chose to remain silent, to tell himself day after day that it was better this way, pretend that he didn't know and discover all of the truth on his own.

Then came the day when he had realized that his son's relationship with that Sado boy had already reached the point far beyond normal male friendship. The realization had struck him down like lightning. At first he didn't want to think about it, choosing to ignore it. A small, confident voice in the back of his head was repeating to him, that he was a doctor, he should know by now that those preferences were as normal as heterosexuality. But the other voice, the 'father' voice inside kept nagging him that his son was gay, that it was unnatural and that he wouldn't be able to hold his grandchildren until the girls grew up and got married.

Whoever came with the idea of fully accepting parents, the ones who would get over their children's homosexuality in few moments was a complete idiot. Coming to terms with a thing like that was hard, it was an enormous task and something he had been thinking about almost every day. Each time Ichigo told him he was going to sleep over at Chad's place, each time that Yasutora boy was coming over to their home, each time he kept on wondering, thinking thoughts that a parent shouldn't have. Sometimes he wondered if it was his fault, if he had done something wrong while raising the boy on his own, but then he silently bashed himself for such a ridiculous way of thinking.

What would Masaki do, if she had lived to that day?

Isshin smiled to himself. Yes, Masaki would have smiled too, would ruffle that spiky orange hair affectionately and told him she was happy that her boy had finally found someone to love, probably embarrassing poor teen to another dimension.

He closed the door to the girls' room gently, making sure the doorknob didn't click too loudly, then made his way across the hall to take a cautious step into Ichigo's room, to check up on his oldest child.

Ichigo laid on his side, back to the door, shoulders slumped slightly. It was a clear night outside and moonlight swept through the room, making it quite bright. Isshin could see Ichigo's uneven breathing and realized the boy was not sleeping, despite the late hour.

Not even asking for permission Isshin padded barefoot through the small room and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, taking a glance on the teen's face. Ichigo was quite awake, staring stubbornly at the wall in front of him, though his features didn't host the usual scowl that seemed to be plastered permanently to his face.

Isshin just sat there, not moving, breathing deeply as he waited for the boy to open up, if he even would. He could sense the presence of Kon's spiritual power in the room, but chose to ignore it.

"How are Karin and Yuzu?"

He sighed, leaning slightly backwards over his son's legs covered with thick sheets and supported his weight on his elbows.

"They're sleeping in one bed again." He could see him wince at the thought. "They were quite upset when you didn't want dinner."

Another moment of silence; Isshin thought that Ichigo was closing up on him once more, but after a while he spoke again.

"They destroyed Chad's locker today." His thin eyebrows pulled together at the memory. "And he says he's used to this, because people always had issues with his looks and heritage. I can't help but think I'm just a reason for them to bother him even more."

Isshin stayed still for a second, trying to digest all of this. So it had come to the point where society learned about them and not all of the people were ok with the fact. He had feared it will come to this eventually.

"Are you ashamed of him?"

"No." The reply was immediate, which almost made Isshin smile. "Not at all."

"Then you're not doing anything wrong. People won't always take you for what you are and it takes a good measure of time to find those that will. Sometimes it's impossible and I'm afraid the world is just made that way." He sighed again. "Hold on tightly to those that really accept you with all your good and bad sides and stand by you no matter what."

Ichigo looked like he was about to say something else, but he just averted his eyes back to the wall in front of him.

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you accept me?"

Then it struck him. Out of nowhere, the realization came and hit Isshin hard, as he watched Ichigo fight with himself to not to look into his eyes.

During all the time that Ichigo had already been with Chad, they never even once talked about this. Isshin suddenly understood what this all was about. It wasn't Chad's locker, or the homophobia that suddenly entered their life. It was about his uncertainty, of Ichigo needing to know that he, of all of people, hasn't turned his back on him.

For god's sake, what kind of father would be if he did? How would he be able to face Masaki after all of this, if he had turned down this plea of acceptance? Ichigo, no matter how grown up he seemed, no matter the whole Shinigami business, was still only a sixteen year old boy. His son, who sought his affirmation that he had done nothing wrong, nothing that was sick or unnatural.

"I can't say I wasn't surprised." Isshin glanced at the teen's face to see a pang of worry there. "But if you think I will look down on you just because you fell in love then I'm afraid you don't know your old man too well."

There was something in a shape of a relieved smile tugging on the corner of Ichigo's mouth but he willed himself to stay still.

"Now go to sleep, because I sure ain't dragging your sorry ass out of bed in the morning."

This time Ichigoactually did smirk, but he wisely chose not to talk back to that comment.

Just as Isshin had made it to the door, a quiet voice stopped him.

"Dad?"

He turned around, but Ichigo was still not moving, his back to him.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Isshin smiled, as he muttered "Go to sleep" again and softly closed the door behind him.

…Dammit, now he really needed a smoke.