Zoe's Refresher

The Fight

Byakuya is a proud man, Zoe's always known that about him and she loves him, not despite that, but also because of it. When he loves, he loves hard and he does everything in his power to take care of them with his methods. She knew this about him and yet.... and yet.....

"What the fuck do you mean you don't want to involve me!? This is about us!"

Byakuya sighs, "I meant exactly what I said, the elders have nothing to do with our relationship. It's like I allow them insult you, I shut it down every single time. I do what I can in accordance to the laws and everyday I fight for our marriage so I don't understand what the problem is!?"

"You're not doing enough, Byakuya, they insult us everyday. They keep introducing you to other women from different clans and they don't want us to have children because they think I'm just a lowborn human! You can't talk this out with them anymore!"

"I told you that you don't need to worry about it, I promised you that I'll handle it. You are my wife. I want us to have kids one day and I want to raise them here. Just because they introduce me to someone doesn't mean that I'm going to be unfaithful, my heart is your's alone."

"Well at the rate that things are going that's not ever going to happen and why should I stay in a relationship where not a single one of us are allowed to make our own decisions!? Why are they involved in our decision to have children!? Just because they'll be the next heir to the clan or whatever? Who the fuck cares if our children are half soul reaper and half human!? Hell, even if we have kids, if we keep living here they're going to get bullied! I trust you to be faithful but that's not the point if I were introduced to a guy by one of my friends, you'd kill the poor guy so why do you keep going to these damn marriage meetings in the first place!? This place is fucking hell!"

Byakuya flinches, his hand reaches to grab his lover and comfort her as he notices tears running down her face but she slaps his hand away and marches out of the room, slamming the door on her way out. He stares at his palm in silence and shut his eyes, wondering what he can do to make things right with the woman he loves.

Zoe opens the senkaimon and rushes to the other side of the gate, heading towards Karukara town to talk to her close friend, Cayenne. Unlike a lot of her other friends, she doesn't live in Hueco Mundo or the Soul Society, Cayenne's a fullbringer who lives with her husband Ichigo Kurosaki in the world of the living.

"Cayenne!" She shouts as she knocks on the door, hoping to God that she's actually in today. "I need to talk to you about something!"

"Just a second!" The voice of her friend, makes Zoe let out a sigh of relief.

Cayenne opens the door, and Zoe looks up at her friend as she crushes her in a warm hug.

"What's wrong, hon?"

Cayenne brings her friend into her living room and gets some tissues for her her, motioning for her husband to order some food while they talk.

"Did you get into another fight with Byakuya?"

"He never takes my worries seriously!? All he ever says is that he'll handle the elders but we've been married for years and no progress has been made! My trust in him can only take us so far, something needs to change eventually!"

Cayenne grabs a blanket and wraps it around her friend as she listens to her talk about everything that's bothering her. Grabbing some fudge cookies, she puts them onto the table in front of the two girls.

"I wish that he would just let go of his pride for one second and let me stand by his side while he fights the elders. Obviously the elders aren't listening to him alone, so why can't he just let me help. If they don't listen to the both of us then we should just do whatever we want, fuck the elders."

"You have every right to upset hon, the way he said all of that was completely inconsiderate."

"It's like he believes that I'll just make things worse, what happened to trusting one another?"

"You're right, you guys won't be able to move on from this phase in your relationship if Byakuya keeps letting the elders walk all over him. I completely agree that he should let you help him out, I get that he might not want you to feel insulted by what they might be saying about you but he's being over protective."

"What do you mean?"

"It's obvious he doing this to protect you girlie, at the end of the day he loves you more than anyone else."

"That doesn't change what he said to me though..."

"Exactly. Which is why I think both of you need to talk about this again, but calmly this time. If you guys love each other, you can't keep having these misunderstandings. You guys have to try and communicate better with one another."

"I know, it's so hard to do when the idiot's pride gets in the way though," Zoe chuckles, feeling a little bit more refreshed. "I don't really want to talk to him right now though, I feel like if I do I'll just end up yelling at him again."

"That's perfectly fine, you can spend the night here and we can watch some tv together while we're at it!"

"Awesome!"

Ichigo walks into the living room and whispers something into Cayenne's ear and kisses her forehead, she nods at him and then watches as he goes back into their room.

"What'd he want?"

"Oh nothing, he was just saying goodnight since it seemed like we were probably going to spend all night hanging out. He was not wrong. Today's girl night! Cayenne got some wine out of the cabinets and they both watched some BL while drinking till morning came and they just couldn't resist sleep anymore.

Zoe had a dream that night, it wasn't a good or a bad dream, it was confusing at best. A black lion with grey eyes was looking down at the world, so lonely. A brown bunny hops towards it with a heart in its tiny hands and the lion bends down so that the bunny could look him in the eye. Eventually the bunny hops onto the lions back and the lion takes the bunny everywhere it knows to go. The lion's family sees this and tries to tear the lion and the bunny apart but the lion hides the bunny in a bush so that his family could no longer see them together. The bunny stomps it's feet on the ground and when the lion bends down again, the bunny demands they run away together.