The world is quiet when Erich swims back to awareness: no gunfire, no shouting, no noise, just quiet-safety-peace.
(Quincy wards hum in the back of his mind, protection-reassurance-warmth.)
(He’s home.)
(He home, he’s home, he home!)
Erich takes a careful, shallow breath, braced for pain, but— it doesn’t come. Just a slight tugging at his side, more like fresh scar instead of fresh wound, but that’s… that doesn’t… Degurechaff isn’t a healer and neither is Alexis—
But Urahara is, he remembers abruptly.
(If Urahara has healed him once again, after all the suspicion, all the fear…)
Erich grimaces. Tries to lift his hand—
Realizes that there’s someone at his side. Someone holding his hand, their grip tight-desperate-unwavering even though their breathing is the quiet-even-calm of sleep.
He tilts his head towards the other, slowly prying his eyes open—
Stares blankly at the mop of flaxen hair that meets his gaze. Wonders what he should feel, wonders if it should be a surprise that it’s Urahara asleep at his side, holding his hand as if the moment he lets go, Erich will disappear.
Erich contemplates Urahara for a long moment, debating nudging the man awake, then sighs softly and lets his eyes drift closed again.
(He’s too tired to deal with this right now.)
(He’ll just… rest a bit more.)
(Just a few more minutes…)
“—to you in time,” Alexis is saying the next time Erich drifts awake; she sounds tired but confident, without any indication of worry that he can sense, and it’s… it’s good to hear. Good to sense.
(They’re safe.)
(They’re all safe, and Urahara is here, which means Alexis has done what he’d been dreading and oh, he’s going to need to apologize for that, for getting injured, for failing her, but for now… for now they’re all safe.)
“Mmm, but until then…” Urahara murmurs, his words trailing off with a quiet sigh as his hand tightens slightly around Erich’s and his presence shades towards doubt-worry-exhaustion. When Erich squeezes Urahara’s hand in return, the man freezes then swiftly leans in and asks, “Rerugen-san? Awake?”
Erich hums in agreement and reaches up to rub the grit from his eyes, trying to force his brain back into gear after… however long he’s been asleep. “S’matter,” he asks in concern, then wrinkles his nose and tries to clear his throat, annoyed at how rough his voice sounds.
“Ah, no, nothing—”
“The Clan is torn between ignoring him, being afraid of him, and wanting him to leave,” Alexis cuts in before Urahara can continue deflecting. When Erich turns his head enough to give her a questioning look, she snorts and shakes her head. “No one’s done anything— he saved your life, after all, and everyone could sense that, so it’s making things difficult for the hardliners to stir sentiment against him, but everyone’s… a little jumpy.”
Erich grimaces, knowing that ‘a little jumpy’ is likely to be an understatement, and wonders what — if anything — he can do about it.
(Very little, probably.)
(Damn.)
Discarding that line of thought for the moment, he carefully begins to push himself up, mindful of any lingering soreness or aches. Urahara even reaches out to help, his free hand settling between Erich’s shoulder-blades as a brace. His touch lingers as Erich settles, warm-steady-gentle in a way that Erich… finds he doesn’t particularly mind. The change is… odd, but at the same time…
(Power sheltering him, healing him, echoing trust-home-loyalty as it does.)
…at the same time, maybe it isn’t such a surprise.
Erich gives Urahara a thoughtful look, wondering at the emotions he sensed, then sets his curiosity aside for the moment, inclines his head and says, “Thank you.”
Urahara starts and drops his hand away from Erich’s back. “I… it… don’t, uhm…” he swallows and ducks his head, switching to Akitsugo to say, “I should have been at your side instead of leaping ahead. I’m sorry, Rerugen-san, because of me—”
“Stop,” Erich orders with a frown, disliking the twisting snarl of guilt-discomfort-regret that he can sense from Urahara. “Has Degurechaff been snapping at you?” he asks, wondering if this is just the result of Urahara’s own self-worth issues or if Degurechaff has made things worse.
(He wouldn’t put it entirely past her, either accidentally or on purpose.)
(Sometimes she can sound significantly harsher than she is, and Urahara won’t know how to differentiate those times.)
Urahara hesitates, clearly debating his next words, before lightly squeezing Erich’s hand and saying, “Degurechaff-san has said nothing more than the truth,” with careful, solicitous blandness.
“You are not responsible for me getting injured,” Erich snaps, infuriated by the very thought; he hopes Degurechaff hasn’t actually blamed Urahara for what happened — as much as she seems to despise Urahara, she’s not often given to blatant lies — but if she has…
(No, he shouldn’t jump to conclusions.)
(Until he knows exactly what she’s said to Urahara, he can’t assume anything.)
(Not with how Urahara has reacted to other things that have happened.)
“Erich…?” Alexis prompts as she steps closer, settling on the edge of the bed and looking between the two of them in concern. “Is there something I can help with?”
“Just a misunderstanding about fault,” Erich replies, then makes a pleased noise as Alexis hands him first his glasses and then a glass of water. He puts his glasses on, then takes the water glass and takes a sip, using that moment to put his thoughts back in order; there’s nothing to be done about Urahara except to be patient and reassuring — he knows exactly how pervasive thoughts like that can be, after all — but there are other things he can — should! — be handling, now that he’s awake. “How long have I been out, and how are my men?”
Alexis sighs and shares a commiserating look with Urahara — and when did the two of them form an understanding like that? Surely he wasn’t out that long! — before she says, “About two days, give or take. I’ve gotten most of your men squared away in the hidden caverns, and our healers have begun doing their rounds; you might lose a few more of your worst injured, but Kai seems to think the rest will survive and make a full, or mostly full, recovery.”
He breathes a sigh of relief at her words, pleased that at least something is going right. On the other hand… “Two days?” he asks with a touch of disbelief. “Did I really… that seems a bit excessive.”
Alexis arches an eyebrow at him, then pointedly jabs her finger against the new scar down his side, making him twitch away. “Does it now,” she drawls, expression warming as she flicks a glance at Urahara when the man snickers. “I have no idea why you’d think that.”
“Two days, Lexi! That isn’t just— I’m healed, surely I didn’t need two days of rest!”
“No, you need significantly more than that, but we couldn’t get away with longer, not yet,” Alexis retorts with a scowl, then sighs softly when Urahara reaches out with his free hand to brush against her arm. She moves to catch Urahara’s hand in hers, linking their fingers together, and murmurs, “Thank you, Urahara.”
“Welcome,” Urahara murmurs back, head ducked a bit and color dusting his cheeks, then slants a careful, wary look at Erich as if waiting for a reprimand.
Not that Erich is interested in reprimanding his two soulmates for getting along; he regrets that the cause is likely their shared worry for him, but… but at least something good came of the whole mess.
(He’ll take what few shreds of hope he can get, after everything he’s survived so far.)
(He’s learned that lesson far too well.)
When the wary look in Urahara’s eyes only grows when Erich doesn’t immediately react, Erich clicks his tongue and prods warmth-understanding-thankfulness at Urahara through their connection, pleased at the way Urahara blushes and starts to relax in response.
“I would have appreciated being awake for our arrival and the fallout of our decisions, but what’s done is done,” Erich tells them dryly once the danger is past, making sure to keep acceptance-understanding-warmth towards the surface to prevent another misunderstanding. “Everything seems to have worked out, at least.”
“You… needed sleep,” Urahara says a touch awkwardly, blush beginning to fade again. He takes a moment to collect his thoughts, then carefully adds, “Degurechaff-san… woke. When you fell. Her strength was… too much, with no warning.”
Erich purses his lips and tips his chin down, dredging through his hazy, scattered memories, but… he can’t remember much past the start of the ambush, the blazing agony of his wound, and hazy sense-memories of Urahara’s power sinking into his body.
It’s not much of a surprise — battles are always a bit of blur, especially if he’s been wounded during them — but he still despises how fallible memory can be.
“Even our Clan felt her fully awaken her powers, over a day’s march away,” Alexis tells him, a tiny, crooked smile on her face. “It was strong enough that she drove no few of your men to their knees under her fury, back where I was waiting with them. She is much stronger than I expected.”
Erich stares at her blankly, unable to process the idea of Degurechaff being strong enough to send a division to its knees when she wasn’t even standing in front of them.
(He did this.)
(He created this… this monster with his poorly thought decisions!)
(This is his fault—)
Pain sparks in the palm of one hand, snapping him from his thoughts, and he casts a wide-eyed look at Urahara.
“She was on the cusp of waking for as long as I was following you,” Urahara says firmly, before Erich can gather his scattered thoughts. “The timing was regrettable, but it would have happened eventually.”
“I started her awakening—”
“For as long as I was following you,” Urahara repeats with a frown, leaning in a bit as he does. “Rerugen-san, I sensed the moment you let your strength free, and while it did help her become aware of her powers, they were there before you did that.”
“I showed her—”
Urahara snorts, freezes briefly as his mind catches up with his actions, then swallows and carefully says, “Rerugen-san, she might have known how to weaponize it because of you, but an outpouring of strength like that is one of the first things people tend to do. It’s a natural reaction to suddenly grasping at power they don’t know how to control. I don’t know if it happens differently amongst the Quincy, but even Shinigami tend to do it when we reach a new stage of our abilities.”
Erich inclines his head slightly in grudging acceptance; he doesn’t know if he entirely believes the man about it not being his fault, but he’ll admit that he’s unfamiliar with how regular humans awaken to their spiritual powers. It sounds logical enough, but Quincy don’t (usually) have such difficulty, since they’re often born with spiritual reserves that slowly grow as they do. Desperation can cause something similar, but even then…
Well, he supposes it doesn’t matter.
Whether he’s at fault or not, it doesn’t change the fact that it happened, and that the fallout is now his responsibility.
“I’ve been giving her more focused lessons, now that your men are squared away and there’s less for her to do,” Alexis says before Erich can ask. “She’s a gifted student, though it’s probably best if she masters the basics before trying anything more advanced.”
“Given what you’ve said happened, control is probably a good emphasis for now,” Erich agrees with a wry smile, then gently pulls his hands free from Alexis and Urahara’s grips and nudges the two back a bit. “Is there anything else I should be aware of?” he asks as he shifts to the edge of the bed and sets his feet on the floor, then repeats the question in Akitsugo just to make sure Urahara understands it.
“No for me,” Urahara answers with a small shake of his head.
Alexis hums slightly and taps something at her hip, drawing Erich’s attention to where Benihime is bound to Alexis’ belt. “If the two of you aren’t bothered, I’ll keep hold of her for the moment,” she says, looking between them. “At least until Erich’s been pronounced healthy by Kai.”
“Ah, it’s… good,” Urahara pauses, considers that, then corrects with, “Fine?” before shrugging awkwardly and rubbing at the back of his neck. “Benihime is… uhm…” He frowns, then turns to Erich and says in Akitsugo, “Benihime’s starting to like both of you a bit, so… either of you can carry her, at least, uhm… at least as long as you don’t separate us by too much, or try to attack me or… or things like that.”
“So regular common sense limits,” Erich replies with a touch of amusement, then asks, “How far is too far?”
Urahara blinks at him in surprise. “Uh— she’s gotten a bit antsy during the times when Alexis was in the caves with your men and I was here with you, so probably not much further away than that?”
Erich considers the distance between the cavern shelters and the main house, then nods and tells Alexis, “Urahara says that Benihime will be fine with either of us, so long as we remember common sense and don’t go much further from him than the caverns are from here.”
“I could sense a bit of her unease when we were there,” she agrees. “It’s why I’ve had Briar and Ilsa take over moving our people into the remaining shelters and divvying up supplies.”
“How’s that going?”
“We’re going to need to ration a bit more than we were doing, but we should be fine for a few months, especially if we keep sending foragers out,” Alexis answers as she stands up and offers her hand to him. “Come on, I’ll give you the full report over a meal.”
Erich rolls his eyes at her, pointedly hands her the almost empty water glass instead of taking her hand, and then stands on his own; he doesn’t need to be babied, especially after being fully healed and then being made to sleep for most of two days.
(The soft, breathy laughter his actions startle out of Urahara is a very nice bonus, though.)
“There had better be tea,” Erich says with a playful huff, even as he gestures for Urahara to follow.
“I’ll make sure there’s an entire pot just for you,” Alexis promises with a warm smile.
Erich gives her the exasperated look that deserves, but he can’t — and won’t — mask the warmth-care-love that bubbles up in response. He’s missed her, and this, and even if the war is still grinding on, still grinding down, he’s done. He’s done. He’s done what little he can do, saved the men who look to him, and now the only thing he can do is take shelter and wait for the outcome.
It’s more of a relief than he expected, if he’s being honest.
He still has his duties but… not as many. Not as complicated.
He can just… be a Clan head again.
And maybe, just maybe, he can build something lasting with both his soulmates.
He thinks… he thinks he’d like that.
He thinks he’d like that a lot.