By the time Uryuu woke up again, it was late in the morning and he could hear Urahara moving around in the main room.

It was tempting — it was very tempting — to just… lay in bed for a while longer. Maybe for the entire day.

Urahara had, after all, called him in, even if Uryuu highly doubted whoever the man had talked to had actually put the high-handed ‘request’ into the system; for one, Urahara was not on any of Uryuu’s emergency contact forms and so by rights shouldn’t have that power, and for two…

Uryuu paused. Took a careful breath. Buried his head in his pillow and finally acknowledged the elephant in the room.

Urahara had likely called Ryuuken in order to put that ‘request’ in.

There was no way Ryuuken would just calmly accept a Shinigami (ex-Shinigami though Urahara might be) demanding that Uryuu was to suddenly have a week off. In fact, that was probably half the reason why Ryuuken ‘had a new favorite person to hate’; it wasn’t just the fact that Urahara had supposedly co-opted Uryuu’s assistance in some ‘Quincy arts study’ but because Urahara had decided to call Ryuuken directly about it. Using Uryuu’s phone. Which…

Which Urahara still had.

(Ugh.)

Uryuu lifted his head from the pillow and stared despondently at his side table, hoping against hope, but—

No, his phone hadn’t miraculously appeared there while he was sleeping.

(Well… at least Urahara hadn’t come into his bedroom while he was sleeping?)

(…)

(He was just going to banish that thought from his mind right now.)

He let his head drop back down with a sigh and resumed debating if it was worth the effort to get up. Signs currently pointed to no—

(He had a damn day off before the weekend, why shouldn’t he sleep in?)

(Also, Urahara was still in his apartment and he wasn’t certain he was ready to deal with the man so early in the day.)

—but on the other hand, the sooner he got up the sooner they would likely start with the plan to, well, send him back. A plan that meant he really didn’t have to give a damn about how Ryuuken was currently feeling, or about whether he was going to get in trouble for taking a week off so suddenly, or about how Kurosaki or anyone else might feel or react to Uryuu deciding to just… leave like this.

(It did feel a bit shitty to be heaping the fallout atop Urahara’s head if this timeline remained, but the man was over a century old, he could make his own damn decisions.)

(If he hadn’t already made a plan to handle it, Uryuu would be surprised.)

Uryuu groaned and finally pushed himself upright, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and rubbing at his eyes; in all likelihood, even if he tried to sleep in, Urahara would start demanding he get up and continue their work before too long. The man was incredibly driven when he had a goal in front of him, and for some reason the idea of sending Uryuu back had become that current goal.

(It was… very possible that it was one of the first true goals Urahara had had in years.)

(…just like Uryuu…)

(…)

(That was a disturbing thought.)

Banishing that uncomfortable thought from his mind, Uryuu rose to his feet and stumbled out of his bedroom and to the little bathroom his apartment had, ignoring Urahara’s absurdly awake greeting in favor of starting his morning like normal. He emptied his bladder and washed his hands, then leaned in and squinted at his blurry face in the mirror, running a damp hand along his jawline and debating if he should deal with the prickly stubble on his face or not…

…

He didn’t feel like it today. No one but Urahara was likely to see him, anyway, and it wasn’t like Urahara was clean-shaven at any point. It would be fine.

Decision made, Uryuu dragged himself out of the bathroom and into the kitchen, still not bothering with his glasses; the world was a blurry mess and he couldn’t read anything without significant effort, but making coffee didn’t require reading. After so many years of desperately needing coffee to get by, the act of making it was practically rote, and he had it going before too much time had passed.

“Maa, no talking before coffee, huh?” Urahara asked from behind him.

Uryuu twitched and glowered over his shoulder at Urahara, annoyed by both the sudden proximity and how awake the man was; somehow, he’d never quite imagined Urahara as a morning person but here the man was, as energetic as he ever got.

Urahara, however, just laughed, moving around Uryuu to lean against the counter on the other side of the coffee pot. “Is that why you have your alarms set to go off starting at six AM, then? So you have time to turn back into a person?”

Uryuu took a moment to process that question, then barked a laugh at the idea that Urahara — who had kept Uryuu’s phone last night — got woken up by all of Uryuu’s various alarms.

(Good.)

(Payback for stealing his phone last night.)

“Mou, Ishida-kun’s so mean,” Urahara said with a pout, even as he pulled a mug down from the cabinet near him and set it in front of the coffee pot. “Does the no talking before coffee thing mean no talking at you, either?” he asked. “Because I’ve had time to go out to the store and get some supplies and I’ve been practicing drawing the array, so I think we can start whenever you’re ready!”

Uryuu narrowed his eyes at Urahara, then frowned and reached out with his senses; Urahara had said he’d left to get supplies, and yet… his wards still seemed to be intact?

“I wasn’t about to shatter your wards while you were asleep,” Urahara said sternly. He pulled the carafe out from under the coffee pot, poured coffee into the mug, and then slid the carafe back and pointedly set the mug in front of Uryuu. “You put anything in that, or no?”

“No,” Uryuu mumbled as he picked the mug up and cradled it by his mouth, letting the rising steam waft up to warm his face. “S’fine.” Coffee was necessary to wake up and nothing more. It didn’t need to be adulterated with anything to do that.

Silence settled in the kitchen as Uryuu slowly drank his coffee and Urahara just… watched him. It was a bit weird, but it certainly wasn’t the weirdest thing Urahara had ever done in Uryuu’s memory so it was… fine. Mostly. A bit unnerving if he was being honest — who just stood there and watched someone drink coffee? — but not terrible.

(And certainly less… lonely than his normal morning routine…)

Finally, halfway through his mug, Uryuu made a ‘go on’ gesture to Urahara, who immediately perked up and stopped his little fidgety movements.

“So I think you should go take a shower first, because I’m going to be drawing this right on your back. Once it’s dry and has started to charge, it should be fixed in place until it’s been discharged, but…” Urahara trailed off, frowned a bit, then shrugged and continued with, “Well, either way, I’d like to get it drawn on you this morning so we can see whether it starts charging correctly.”

Uryuu hummed in agreement, swirled the coffee still in his mug a bit, then took another sip as he considered his options; he could tell Urahara no, that they would deal with it later, but… what was the point? The sooner they started, the sooner he could go.

“Fine,” he said once he’d swallowed his sip. “I’ll take a shower after my second mug of coffee. Then you can do… whatever it is you need to do to get it on me.”

Urahara made an amused noise and finally, finally pushed away from the counter to head back into the main room. “I’ll leave you to finish waking up, then,” he said over his shoulder as he left, clearly intending on going back to… whatever it was he’d been doing when Uryuu had first shuffled past him. Drawing, maybe. Or reading more of Uryuu’s books. Maybe both.

Well, whatever, it didn’t matter.

He had his marching orders for the day, might as well get on it.

(Not too much longer.)

(He could do it.)

(He would.)