#Shunsui goes “Oh hey dude! You fell asleep! Good to see you awake!”

[swan2swan]

The Aizen-Shunsui scenes absolutely rule because this is the first time the two of them can actually be Genuine around each other.

Aizen spent a whole century as a Captain around Shunsui, who probably never fully trusted him but knew he couldn't suspect Aizen of treachery because he'd seen the man walking around innocently with his own eyes. It was his own fault for trusting Urahara, the fiend, he couldn't blame Aizen for that deception.

Meanwhile, Aizen also never got to see the real Shunsui: Kyoraku was always cheerful, drinking, lazing about. I'm sure such sloth and vice disgusted Aizen: a man with so much potential, wasting it. He could be uprooting Soul Society and its pathetic order all by himself, but he chose to waste his time, instead.

And then Shunsui cut down his most prized Espada. He attacked Aizen during his speech. Aizen could have killed him, but instead, he left him wounded, to see and understand his failure...and then Aizen failed himself.

Now, though?

They're both new men. Aizen's dream of changing the world has been snatched away. Shunsui no longer has anyone to do his job for him. There's no way for him to pretend he's anything but a killer, and there's no bravado that Aizen can sufficiently muster, because both of them lack the power to control the outcome of the situation on their own.

They're just Two Dudes right now. Lonely and sad and at the mercy of the other one...so they're honest and open. In that moment, after a century of neither one even sharing a fraction of who they truly are, there's no one they trust more than the other.