Title: From Y to X and Back to Y
Author: Yami no Kaiba
Fandom: Bleach
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Kurosaki Ichigo/Ishida Uryuu, Kurosaki Isshin/Ishida Ryuuken

Summary: Such a clever way to continue a species full of male pride; or alternately: why there hasn't been a female Quincy in the last three generations.
Disclaimers: I do not own the characters. Kubo Tite owns the characters and all of Bleach.
Warning: Crack and unbetaed.
Note: Ignores completely the anime's reference to Uryuu having a mother at one point, and birthdays/ages as well.

*---*---*---*---*

Ichigo had always known that there was something decidedly feminine about the Ishidas. With Uryuu, it was readily apparent; one didn't even need to see the boy's hobbies; Uryuu simply *looked* girly.

Which had been a big plus in helping Ichigo get over his whole I'm-not-gay,-no,-really-I'm-not phase fast enough to actually ask Uryuu out before the end of High School.

With Ryuuken, the feminine traits were less apparent. Mostly because it was hard to imagine Ryuuken in anything *but* his business suit and the seemingly permanent scowl that wasn't even close to what could be termed 'cute'.

Luckily, Ichigo had a good imagination, so when a really girly-looking Ryuuken happened to walk into the Kurosaki Clinic during breakfast one weekend, he wasn't nearly as shell-shocked as his boyfriend at the sight.

Though obviously he was much more so than his father. "Ryuu-chan! It's been far too long! Here, have a seat, sweet-cheeks," Isshin crowed in delight, standing and offering his own chair at the table for Ryuuken.

"Call me that again and you'll be dead before you hit the floor, Shinigami," Ryuuken replied in an obviously automatic response, as he looked far too sullen and distant to have actually paid the exchange all that much attention.

Ichigo noted with bemusement, that Ryuuken was still wearing a business suit -- only one more tailored for his altered frame.

The small exchange though, was enough to snap Uryuu out of his nearly catatonic state -- a state Ichigo thought briefly of teasing the other about, until he thought of what *his* reaction would have been like if Isshin had walked in with such an obvious sex change. Shuddering at the hairy image reminiscent of a bearded lady, he wisely kept silent.

Uryuu relaxed the white knuckled hold on his chopsticks to play nervously with his glasses. "Ryuuken?"

Ryuuken seemed to come out of his own deep thoughts at the sound of his son's voice. Head snapping up to give Uryuu a piercing stare, he raised a single thin eyebrow in answer, before a slow smirk tugged at his lips. "You'll get used to it, or so Souken used to say."

With his boyfriend seemingly lost as to what say next tactfully, Ichigo brashly ran ahead, "What the hell happened to you?"

Both of those thin, elegant eyebrows rose towards Ryuuken's hairline. "I thought that would be obvious."

Ishigo's father's paw of a hand landed squarely on one small sloping shoulder, causing Ryuuken to rock forward with the impact. "You should have warned me your birthday was coming up, Ryuu-chan! Forty-years-old already, eh? You still look like you did when you were twenty!"

Pouring himself a cup of coffee and sipping at the wonderful beverage, Ryuuken made a valiant attempt to ignore Isshin's ranting. When Isshin moved to hug him from the side, Ichigo watched in admiration when that cup of coffee turned from beverage to weapon and left his father retreating to the clinic for burn cream.

Uryuu, however, was not thrown for the tangent. "And exactly how did this happen?"

Ryuuken took his time pouring himself another cup of coffee. "The same way it always happens," he said slowly in mocking tones, "My mother and my father found themselves mutually invested in each other for whatever reason, and for a short time had intimate relations followed by a long nine months and a messy birth."

Uryuu looked slightly paler, but Ichigo was just confused. "What? What does that have to do with you being a girl now? Ow!" Wincing and rubbing the back of his head, he glared at Uryuu in what equivocated to 'what-the-hell-was-that-for'?

Oddly, Uryuu still looked paler than normal. "Moron, he means it's biological. And if what your father said is to make any sense, this apparently only happens every twenty years." The blue-haired genius turned back to his father. "And you were planning to tell me this little family secret when?"

Ryuuken sipped his coffee before replying. "Right now. I figured nine months would be plenty of time for you to cope with the idea before it happens to you, and knowing you the way I do, I realized you'd need proof before believing me."

Uryuu tilted his head in thought before nodding slowly. "True enough."

Standing up, confused as hell, Ichigo tugged at his orange hair. "But if that makes you Uryuu's *mother*, than who's his *father*?"

At that moment, Isshin pranced back in through the clinic door and promptly glomped Uryuu's father. "Ryuu~-chan! Say you'll stay the night again, please~!"

Suddenly, with the sinking feeling of nauseating intuition Ichigo wished he had never asked.

--Fin.