[Log]Rangiku, Toushirou

[kellenanne]

Title: Working Lunch
Characters: Rangiku Matsumoto (some_scribbles) & Toushirou Hitsugaya (kellenanne)
Timeline: June 5, 1950
Rating: PG
Summary: Rangiku takes it upon herself to drag Toushirou out to get some fresh air.

Six days since the explosion and Toushirou could count the number of hours he'd slept - actual restful sleep - on both hands. It might have been beginning to get to him, if the way the words on this piece of paper were starting to blur and swim. He sat back in his chair, rubbing his cheek, and forcing back a yawn. Maybe it was time for another meal and nap. Maybe just a nap; there was a break room with a couch he'd used a few times before.

He shook his head. After he got through this report, he'd get some coffee and then dive back into it. A soft knock sounded at his door and he looked up briefly to see Nora there, lips pressed together in a thin line. "Is this important?"

She sighed. "Not really, Captain. See me when you have a chance. I've got a couple files stacked up, needing your attention. Nothing that can't wait for a couple more days."

He nodded shortly and waved a hand, barely looking up when Nora walked away. More work. Wonderful. He cracked his knuckles and looked back down at the report. Hell, if he had to beat the ink into submission, he'd get through it so he could get coffee soon.

On the sixth day after the explosion which had rocked the city, the air had finally cleared from ash. It had rained the day before, and a cool wind was blowing, chasing white clouds across the sky, erasing the nauseating scent of burnt flesh and rubber, and Rangiku Matsumoto was on a mission.

The pictures in the newspapers were bad enough. But Toushirou had been there. He’d been there, and still, no one knew anything about the whos or whats or whys - she could only imagine what he must be going through. But she didn’t need to imagine what he’d been doing since then. She’d waited for the ash to fade, but it had gone on long enough with him working himself into a stupor.

She entered the police station, smiled at the officer’s she passed in the hall but didn’t pause to greet them. The path she took was familiar, and she smiled at Nora when she came to her desk, and leaned up against it for a moment. “Take a breath, hun. Is he in the office?”

“Is he ever anywhere else?”

Rangiku made a face and nodded towards the door. “I’m going in, why don’t you take a walk? This way he can’t use you as an excuse to stay longer.”

Nora slid her chair out of her desk. “I think I’ll just go get some coffee. I could use a fresh cup.”

Rangiku smiled and shoved off the desk, “Good idea.”

She waited until the sound of Nora’s heels had faded before going up to the door. She took a breath, well aware that this was not going to be easy, straightened her shoulders, and rapped twice on the door before opening it immediately after.

And there he was, near buried in paperwork. Rangiku’s brow furrowed, all the more determined to drag him out. If he didn’t have any answers yet, he wasn’t going to get them going through that stack of paperwork. She quickly smoothed her expression into a smile. “Captain! There you are!”

And that particular voice spelled trouble. He didn't look up when she made her observant, astute announcement. "Where else would I be?" He flipped the page and tried focusing on the next page. He couldn't go get his coffee now; she'd take the opportunity and pounce on the show of weakness.

Nor was he going to yawn like he desperately wanted to do. That'd be worse than getting up for the coffee.

"I have work to do."

She leaned in the doorframe and studied him, well aware that her silence would get his attention far more effectively than if she had immediately started in on him. He looked exhausted. His hair was even more of mess than normal, and he looked just as haunted as she thought he would. It was in the little things; the extra lines around his eyes, the tenseness in his shoulders… A muscle in her cheek pulsed. The explosion had hit everyone hard. The Big Apple was no stranger to a few rotten spots, but it took a special kind of monster to go after children.

Rangiku took that necessary step into his office and closed the door behind her. She folded her arms under her breasts, drawing even more attention to them, and set off her first volley. “You look terrible.”

When the door closed, he held onto the vain hope that she'd actually left. That hope lasted all of half a second. He looked up, resting his chin in one hand, and stared wearily at her. She was giving him that critical look; that one she gave him when he knew good and well she was going to argue some point.

"I've been working." He paused. "A lot." What did she expect? Flowers and damned sunshine? He absently flipped over another page, not really remembering much of what was on it. He should really read these things a little more closely but he couldn't bring himself to actually think about it. Not before coffee, at any rate, and he couldn't help the somewhat longing look at the closed door.

Rangiku let out a long suffering sigh. If he knew the effort she went to in order to keep back her sarcastic comments, he’s build her a monument and call her a saint. The corner of her lip twisted up and she snickered. OK, maybe not. But still, sarcasm would get her a great big bag of nothing, and she was on a mission.

Her eyes narrowed a little in concern. He really did look terrible. She was pretty sure he was just clinging to his desk out of sheer stubbornness right now. That and a mixture of guilt and horror… and pity would get her the same thing as sarcasm.

Instead, she just picked up the coat he had hanging beside his door and plopped in on his desk, on top of the paperwork he was ‘reading.’ “Put that on,” she said with hopefully just the right amount of cheer to keep it from being an ‘order’ and just enough firmness to let him know that he wasn’t going to win this argument. “We’re going to go get lunch.”

He reared back a bit and raised an eyebrow when his coat landed on the desk in front of him. He glanced at the clock; it really wasn't quite lunch time. He'd... well, hell, he'd missed his usual lunch time by an hour or so. He looked back to her, cataloging the way her eyes narrowed at him and the way her cheerfulness rolled off her. If that was genuine cheerfulness, he didn't feel like he'd been hit by a truck.

Or an explosion that took out an orphanage.

Right.

He wouldn't win this argument, not when he realized he dearly needed some sort of break and actual food might work better than just a cup of coffee. He stood, shrugged on his jacket, and gave her a look. "Quick lunch."

Rangiku blinked. That was way too easy. Aww, hell, this was bad. When even Captain Overtime knew it was time to take a break, it could only mean the end of the world. Rangiku snuck a look out the window to check for fire and brimstone.

No, the sky was still clear - no sign of hailstones either. That meant she was almost obligated to give him a hard time about this, if just to swing nature back towards its usual balance. “What?” she said as she followed him out. “No token protests? No glaring? Not even a gruff ‘Matsumoto?”

Every action dripping in melodrama, Rangiku bent exaggeratedly to put her hand on his forehead, “You’re not feeling sick, are you?”

Toushirou was suddenly glad they were still in the office as she bent over - giving him a view he didn't need to see - and laid her hand on his forehead. His eyes narrowed and he gave her a short glare before he stepped back.

He thought this was what she wanted; why would she protest it now? "You have a problem with me doing what you ask now?" He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. "Did you want me to kick and scream while you dragged? It can be arranged."

He scowled and glared and Rangiku moved to impulsively squish him. All was right in the world again. He’d probably be even more annoyed after this-

Good. It would do him good to have an annoyance he could actually deal with, as opposed to what must be piling on his shoulders.

She moved back so he could breathe again and beamed at him, “Only if you want to put on a show for the rest of your precinct. If not, Frank’s hot dogs are calling our name.”

Great, hugging. More than hugging; this was... squishing. He stiffened and held his breath. This could take awhile. He gave her five seconds before he started shoving.

She pulled back after three and a half seconds. Damn it, he almost wanted to have an excuse to start shoving and growling.

Not that he needed much of an excuse for that growling to get started. He cocked his head and gave her a narrow-eyed, thin-lipped look. "I'd rather not."

No shows, thanks very much. Frank's, though, he could do. He motioned toward the door. "If you're done trying to suffocate me..."

Rangiku cast him an arch look, “Some men would be grateful for the privilege, you know.”

She moved aside anyway, a smirk tugging at her lips as she opened the door. Stepping through the door, Rangiku led the way through the precinct. She’d found it was more effective that way, since the cops had an annoying tendency to latch onto Toushirou and ask him questions the moment he made an appearance. Why couldn’t they bother him when he was in his office? She was hungry, darn it. And he needed to get outside.

However, when the men saw her coming, they mostly got out of the way… or slid to the side so they could watch. Either way, it cleared the hall so they could leave with relatively little trouble.

He muttered something about some men being idiots under his breath and followed her through the precinct. Whenever he followed her, no one pulled him aside for inane questions so he wasn't going to mess that up and insist on the lead.

He shaded his eyes when they left the building and sighed. "This is going to be quick," he told her. She could drag him out for lunch without much argument, but he'd put up a fuss if she tried much else.

Rangiku took a deep breath of the outside air. No matter how many times she went in there, or how many of her friends were tinhorns, she always felt like the skin on the back of her neck was crawling when she went into that place.

“Sure, sure,” she said, casting a sidelong glance at him in time to see him shading his eyes. Great. And when was the last time he’d seen sunlight? She took an exaggerated breath and walked beside him towards the street where Frank had set up his hot dog stand. “Take a deep breath of that, Captain! Fresh air! Does a body good.”

He fell in step beside her, nodding once in satisfaction when she turned in the direction of Frank's stand.

He scowled at her. "I get fresh air," he pointed out. He didn't live in the office, as much as she tried to point out otherwise.

“Oh yeah?” she shot back absently, occupied with whether or not she was going to make him pay, “And what about sunlight? When was the last time you caught some of that - good for the brain, you know.”

She slanted him a glance as they rounded the corner. It may have been her imagination, but she thought he was looking better already. Maybe it was the exercise? Whatever it was, she was glad he was out of that office.

He rolled his eyes. Of course he saw sunlight; what was she on about? Because he'd squinted and shaded his eyes, she was going to give him grief? He blamed staring at paperwork and her for dragging him away without warning. Definitely blaming her.

He glanced at her and frowned. "Let's just eat," he said. He wasn't missing those glances toward him, nor did he miss the faint critical look when she'd offered lunch up in his office. They'd eat, she'd go on her way, and he'd go back to work. Win-win situation for all of them.

“Hmm,” she wasn’t making any promises. The food was part of the plan, as was the sunshine, but she wasn’t letting him get back into that place until she was sure he was jake.

Approaching Frank’s hot dog stand, she gave him a friendly wave and then leaned her elbows on the edge of the cart. “Hey, Frank. I’ll take one dog with everything on it-extra Sauerkraut.”

She tilted her head towards the Captain, “He’ll have one with mustard.”

She remembered. Toushirou might be a good part Polish, but he hated sauerkraut with a passion. He had to give her some credit for ordering his hot dog without trying to convince him to try something new and different. It was not new, no matter how different, and he didn't like it.

Toushirou leaned against the wall, arms crossed and eyes half-lidded. The sun did feel good and the short walk and food would do him good. Nice to get a short recharge. He'd not admit it though. Rangiku'd never let him hear the end of it.

With a wink, Frank slid the hotdogs in their paper cartoons onto the space in front of Rangiku. She hadn’t intended to pay for his lunch, or even to make him pay - she’d intended to start this out on even footing and keep it that way.

But when she glanced over at Toushirou, making like a lizard against the wall, she changed her mind. She didn’t want to disturb him when he was resting, and what with the way he’d gone along so easily with her earlier, she had a feeling she’d need to have an extra hold on him later. Toushirou Hitsugaya was never easy. Especially not when he needed help.

Which he did. Or at the very least, someone to listen. Even stoic police captains need to talk after digging out bits and pieces of little kids.

She swallowed and dug through her pockets to pay for the hotdogs, even though she suddenly felt like she’d swallowed a stone. Carrying one hot dog in each hand, she walked over to him. “C’mon. Let’s go sit by the fountain.”

He pushed off the wall when she came back over to him, somewhat surprised she hadn't made any fuss about his paying for his lunch. (Or hers, too.) Another day and he might have offered, but she'd been the one to suggest it. Made sense for her to take the hit on her wallet.

He plucked his hot dog from her hand, lest it get contaminated by that mound of sauerkraut she had on hers. He wrinkled his nose; even the smell was horrid. How did she eat that stuff?

There was a low wall near the fountain, lining the walkway, and a set of wide steps. He didn't think about it long; there were less people near the steps, so that's where he went. He found a fairly quiet spot in the sun - still a lot of people, but that's what this city was, all those people - and sat facing the fountain. People-watching, lunch, the fountain, and he allowed that the company was okay on some days; almost a good afternoon, on a normal day.

Rangiku had to admit: she knew how to pick ‘em. Frank’s sauerkraut was the best in the city. And even though she’d been feeling far from hungry a minute ago, the smell was just mouthwatering enough to change her mind. She lifted the hotdog up and took a big bite, winking at the man who’d stopped what he was doing to stare. He tripped, blushed, and quickly moved on. She stifled a snicker, mostly because it would be unattractive to laugh with her mouth full.

Casting a sidelong glance at Toushirou while she swallowed, Rangiku decided it would be better to move on to Phase Two while he was still eating. Less chance of him just getting up and walking away that way. “So. Talk.”

He shook his head at the man ogling her and her snickering at him. She just got too much amusement from messing with the men around her. Someday he'd call her on it; not today. He wasn't up to the argument and the pouting that would come with it.

He glanced at her, swallowing a mouthful of hot dog before he spoke. Talk, she said. So he would. "It's a nice day."

She hadn't given him a topic. Oh, he suspected what the topic was, but he wasn't going to give it to her easy. He was working hard to get whoever done it tossed in the can; that should have told her enough.

Oh, so he thought that he’d be able to talk around her? That was cute. Annoying, but cute. After all, the captain barely had enough practice talking, let alone talking around a subject.

She made a non-committal noise and took another bite of the hotdog. Seeing how long he was able to talk about nothing before one of them had to get more direct was bound to be amusing.

Ah, damn it, couldn't she give him something to play off of here? Just some noncommittal noise that gave him nothing.

"Sun's bright." See? Still talking. She couldn't complain. "Lot of people out." He could go all day like this. Maybe.

Rangiku raised her eyebrows. Two whole sentences. Not bad. She was tempted, almost beyond reason, to make a pointed comment about the ash finally clearing up, however she decided to stay true to her plan. She gave him two more sentences before he ran out. Maybe four.

“Mm-hmm,” she said, nodded, and took another bite.

He narrowed his eyes. The woman was conniving but he wasn't giving up. He was still talking, damn it all.

"Good hot dog, too," he said and waved a hand toward hers. "Better without all that crap all over it." Then he took a nice bite of his, just to prove his point.

And that was two more. He did better than he thought, throwing in a statement about food and tempting her to answer. But she was stronger than that.

She raised her eyebrows at him, put a hand behind her, leaned against it, and stared at him.

He stared at her with narrowed eyes while he swallowed his bite. Still being a pain in the ass, was she? He should have known better than to think she would relent.

He raised an eyebrow. "What?" he finally demanded. Maybe asking a question - or demanding an answer - would get him somewhere.

Rangiku considered staying silent, just to see if his head would pop off. Amusing as that would be, it would also make it so that he wouldn’t tell her anything out of sheer stubbornness.

“You know what,” she said and leaned over to her side, poking him in the shoulder with hers. She leaned back and stared straight out at the fountain. “You can’t talk to the guys under you, you can’t talk to your boss. You want to protect Momo so you won’t talk to her. You need to talk. You can talk to me.”

Toushirou scowled, not moving away from her gentle poke and stared at the hot dog in his hands. He thought that's what this was about, but hadn't really wanted it to get this far.

"I don't need to talk," he said quietly. Maybe even sullenly, but he wasn't going to admit to that. "Really," he said and took a bite of his hot dog.

She rolled her eyes and rested her elbows on her knees. “Right. You deal with horrible things every day. You eat sleep and breathe trauma.”

Her gaze flickered down for a moment. “But it’s different with kids.” She lifted her hotdog up to her mouth again, “So talk,” she said and took another bite.

He scowled at his hot dog. She kept tying to make him talk and he'd lose his appetite. She hadn't been there and smelled the charred flesh. He cut himself off; kept that up and the smell alone of the hot dog would have him putting it aside. Maybe he should steal some of her sauerkraut or ask Frank for extra mustard on the half a hot dog that was left. Anything to cover up the smell.

"Murder is murder," he said, and knew it wasn't true. Sometimes he couldn't dig up much sympathy for the victim, when it was a bird being stupid or an idiot trying to make a living in the wrong ways. He blew air through his teeth and stared as his hot dog.

Right. More mustard or something.

"Even if they were just kids." And he'd just keep telling himself that. He wrinkled his nose and shifted, leaning his elbows on his knees so he wasn't smelling that damned hot dog.

She forced the food down her suddenly dry throat and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. This was wrong. They shouldn’t be having this conversation under a clear blue sky-that person laughing over there-they shouldn’t be laughing. She shouldn’t have to be pushing and prodding at him to talk about something so horrible.

In fact, she was tempted to let it go. Just change the subject. Start to tease him about something else. Maybe he was right, maybe he didn’t need to talk about it. She sure didn’t want to hear it.

But she didn’t like what she saw when she saw him, sitting there and pretending he was fine. He’d shoved his hotdog away, like he didn’t want to eat it anymore. Maybe the memory was making him lose his appetite? Rangiku was momentarily torn-but no, he could eat later. She wouldn’t let him carry this alone.

Rangiku sighed, “Come on, Captain. You don’t need to lie to me.”

She looked down again and then glanced away from him to the side, “Just talk to me.”

"I'm not lying," was his immediate response. He was sure, though, that she knew as well as he did that he was lying. He sighed heavily and ended up staring at his hot dog. Easier than looking at her or the smiling, cheerful people around them. He snorted; or the bright blue sky, for that matter.

"I've never worked one like this," he said, picking at the bun. The bun didn't smell like hot dog which didn't smell like something resembling meat... which didn't smell like that damned crime scene. She wanted him to talk to her? Fine. He'd say something.

Well, good. That was a start.

Still not looking at him, Rangiku stared straight out into the fountain in front of them. “Yeah,” she paused, her gaze flickering to him for the briefest moment before returning to the fountain. “I know. No reason behind this one. No one taking credit. And the target…”

Toushirou frowned, glancing at her quickly. Right, the press hadn't quite got hold of that phone call he'd had. They'd kept a tight lid on that. Messengers had a habit of being pretty damned loud, though, and he wasn't sure how much longer it would stay quiet.

He tapped his finger against his leg; some things didn't need broadcast, even to Rangiku. He'd told Momo but that was a... a moment of weakness. That's all. She'd find out anyway, when the case came to the DA's office.

And he was going to make sure it went that far. "There are reasons," he said, "and I have... a vague lead." God, it was the vaguest lead he'd ever had. "And the reasons I was given..." He shook his head. "I'll find the bastard." And choke whoever it was with the damned "reasons" and "messages."

At this news Rangiku shifted a little so she could see him better without having to turn her head. He had a lead? That was news. Her natural curiosity was piqued, combined with the fact that ever since she’d heard that explosion she’d wanted to kill the bastard responsible.

She imagined she could almost see the pressure on his shoulders. The weight of people’s expectations was nothing compared to what he put on himself.

Her gaze returned to the fountain and she took another bite of her hotdog contemplatively, before she finally picked out the one rational question she could ask. “‘Reasons you were given?’ What do you mean?”

He narrowed his eyes for a moment before glancing at her. She would ask and he really couldn't give her a real reason for not answering the question. He could tell her it was police business, she didn't need to know, and he had half a feeling she would respect that.

But it was a copout.

"Had a phone call. The bastard said it was a message." He gave her a look. "Press doesn't know this. No one knows this." He'd like to keep it that way until he was ready. Some illusion of control over all this would be nice.

She nodded and said the words, even though he should know it anyway. “No one will hear it from me.”

Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, she made the offer, “You want to tell me what he said, why you think it’s for real, or do you want me to just guess?”

He snorted. She could try to guess and probably couldn't even come close to hitting it on the head. "He made it real."

He shook his head and managed a bite of his hot dog. He was hungry, he needed the food; he just wouldn't sniff. He swallowed quickly. "It was a short conversation. Said it was a message. 'Watch out.' Then he hung up." He shook his head. "Best I lead I got." Best lead he had and he barely knew what it meant, much less how to follow it.

Rangiku huffed. Say what you like about the captain’s brilliance, he really sucked at giving summaries. She could try to get more details out of him, but he’d probably just get ticked and lamb off.

She took the last bite of her hot dog and set the paper cartoon aside. Licking off her fingers, Rangiku considered what he said and what she knew. Someone had blown up an orphanage. Someone had hunted down who was heading the case and given Toushirou a call-not to a tip line, but to the captain himself. That meant whoever was delivering the message was sharp… or whoever had given him the message was sharp.

And what sort of message was ‘Watch out?’ A pretty damn lousy one, that’s what. Watch out for what? Who should watch out-and what was the message? The phone call or the explosion? Both?

If that was the best lead Toushirou had, Rangiku pitied him. She put her hands behind her and leaned back on them, “Sounds to me like your ‘messenger’ was just messing with you. If people are giving a message, they want it to be heard and understood. This doesn’t sound like that to me.”

The question is: why. Why would someone call just to mess with him? To throw him off? Or to lead him to something else?

He snorted and then bit into his hot dog. Yes, he knew it was the worst kind of vague message he could have gotten. He swallowed and considered the rest of his hot dog.

Couple bites left, maybe. He could do that.

"I know." He shrugged one shoulder. "Only thing I've got, though." He had to follow up on it somehow. The problem was, though, that he couldn't; how did one track down an anonymous voice on a phone? He had no recording of the voice even. Not a clue in the conversation - which he remembered in detail - to where the bastard was.

Nothing. He scowled at his hot dog and took another bite.

If that was the only thing he’d got going for him, Toushirou was really behind the eight ball. Rangiku continued to stare at the fountain. There wasn’t anything else she could say. Not without hearing the conversation herself, or pushing him to give her more information than he would be comfortable with. And the investigation was good and the investigation was important, and if she could have any part of bringing the bastard who did this down, she’d jump at it, but the investigation was not her mission. Toushirou was. And he wouldn’t appreciate her trying to tell him how to do his job.

“I’ll keep my ears open,” she said simply, still looking away from him. “I get some strange birds in the shop sometimes… if I hear anything good I’ll let you know.”

She was trying to kill him, wasn't she? Get him to choke on his hot dog with some outrageous thing and call it an accident. At least it'd get him to rest, right, and that's what she'd been after in the first place.

"Don't," he said, "go poking your nose in things." She might not be able to get her nose back out if she tried too hard. "The off-chance you hear something, you call me right away." No poking around, trying to get more. Who knows what might blow up next? After an orphanage, it was a short step to a malt shop. "And don't go looking for it."

Crazy woman. She was going to give him a conniption.

“I didn’t say I’d go poking around!” Rangiku twisted to regard him indignantly. “That’s a fine way to say ‘thank you.’”

She took a breath. This was, after all, Toushirou Hitsugaya. She’d scarcely been able to shake him after that malt shop incident in April. And he had no idea what she was capable of-she couldn’t hold him responsible for what he didn’t know. “Look, I’m not saying I’ll go digging. Anyone I know who might know anything wouldn’t want me to know anyway. I’m just saying that if I hear something, anything, I’ll let you know. It’s not like I go looking for trouble.”

Rangiku turned her head back, a little smile on her lips partially because she was genuinely amused and partially because she knew it would annoy him. Which was good, he needed to blow off some steam. “Trouble just seems to find me,” her glance down to her chest was obvious, and then she shrugged, “I can’t imagine why.”

He returned her indignant look with a tired glare of his own. What's wrong with what he said? Trying to keep her out of trouble wasn't a thank you? He followed her glance down to her chest and rolled his eyes, popping the last small bite of hot dog into his mouth.

He shook his head. Idiot. He swallowed and gave her a pointed look. "Try to stay out of trouble's way this time." He wadded up the empty paper in his hands and considered tossing it at her head. "Looking for it or not," he told her, "you find it and you call right then." No fifteen minute wait, no digging a little deeper, no nothing. That was his job, not hers.

She didn't need to be a moron about it.

Ah, there he went, harping on that ‘right then,’ theme again. Seems like the Captain was still sore about that fifteen minute hold she’d given Nora. Ran would stand by her decision there, though. Who knows what would have happened if he’d come charging in? Everything had worked out all right in the end and she, her eyes narrowed and she was suddenly more conscious of the shiv she was wearing strapped to her thigh, she was just a little bit more aware of what was going on around her again.

She’d let herself start to believe that she was safe. And maybe she was. But the world wasn’t. It was better to be aware.

All the same, they’d had this argument before, many times in, many variations. She didn’t particularly feel like having it again. “But what if there’s no phone around,” she asked in her most innocent voice, knowing full well it would drive Toushirou insane. She wondered if he'd twitch.

He couldn't help crushing the paper in his hand just a little more. She really did try to annoy the hell out of him didn't she? He'd known her two years and she still came up with things to poke at him with.

Maybe he was just getting predictable or something.

He glared at her, paper crushed in his hand, and the muscle above his eyebrow twitching and, damn, but did he hate that sometimes. "You know what I mean."

Ooo, the eyebrow twitch! Not bad. “So did you,” she said mildly, shifting to brace her elbows on her knees and lean forward. “And I still haven’t heard you tell me how you’re doing.”

Maybe drawing the parallel like that wasn’t fair, but if she didn’t come out and say it, who knew how long they’d be dancing around the issue.

Ah, blunt. Finally, something he could if not appreciate, then understand. He sighed - almost a snort, really - and glanced at her.

"Don't worry about me." He hadn't known any of the victims, hadn't been hurt in the explosion, couldn't even claim to be that traumatized. It was the survivors she should be concerned about. Not him. He shrugged one shoulder. "I'm fine."

She cast him a leery glance out of the corner of her eye before returning her gaze to the fountain. Dumb kid probably thought she’d let him get away with that too. “You sleep without the dreams yet? …Or is that why you’re not sleeping?” she asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

He gave her a quick glare. Now her bluntness was turning to prying.

"I'm working." He cut back on the sleep because he was working and that's all anyone needed to know.

Rangiku sighed. She didn’t want to make him even more aggravated than he already was, but keeping it inside like that… She knew that men were supposed to be big and tough and unaffected. She knew that cops, in particular, didn’t like to talk about what they felt made them weak.

And she knew that sometimes a scene could eat you out from the inside. She knew what it was like to be afraid to sleep.

“I was just shy of fifteen,” she said slowly and froze, her throat suddenly stuck. This wasn’t something that she talked about. And even though she knew that talking about it might just be what he needed to be able to sleep, and that her sharing this might be the key to get him to do that-all she could wish for now was to take that half of a sentence back.

And now she’d paused too long to drop it and her throat still wasn’t working right. Rangiku cleared her throat, licked her lips, and decided to start again. It wasn’t fair, to either of them, that he didn’t know this part of her. She’d never had a reason to talk about it before. Now she did. She couldn’t keep hiding forever. “You ever notice how I get around roscoes?”

His glare softened and turned to a confused, contemplative expression. He wasn't sure where this was headed and he wasn't sure he liked it, but if she was going to talk, he'd listen. If she was trying to get him to talk... Well, he could get behind the effort. Her concern was misplaced; he'd find his way through. But he could appreciate the concern.

"I've noticed." She got twitchy. Hated the things; never really said it, but it was there. He shifted, giving her his full attention. She wanted to talk? He'd listen.

Oh, hell. She hated this. Why hadn’t she kept her big mouth shut? “I was working as a cigarette girl in a speakeasy. I’d been there almost two years. They were good people; it was a nice clean joint. The boss let me bunk in the back during the day. Nobody bothered me.”

How could she describe what it felt like, how frightening it had been to leave the only life she’d ever known and to put herself in someone else’s care, to abide by rules that she didn’t understand? All she’d clung to was that it had to be better than what she was facing on the street, now that she was grown. She’d never expected, never even hoped to find barmaids who treated her like a kid sister and dealers who’d buy her drinks and teach her to play with a friendly laugh, a boss who threatened to blacklist anyone who touched one of his girls… to fit in, to almost feel safe?

She couldn’t. She wouldn’t try. He didn’t need to know that part of the story. Besides, Toushirou was smart enough. He could fill in the lines. Rangiku cast him a sidelong glance and teased, “You’re not gonna arrest me for it, are you, Captain?”

He listened - he'd promised himself (and her, silently) that he would. Long way from a cigarette girl in a speakeasy to owner of a malt shop. He knew she was resourceful; this only helped prove it.

He snorted lightly at her question. "Not my jurisdiction."

She laughed softly, keeping her gaze on the fountain. The way her smile faded from her lips was painful, but not as painful as what she knew she had to say next. “I was in the back, filling up my box when I heard the start of some Chicago lighting. So I hid. The hatchetmen didn’t care about what was in back-they’d made their point. And when I was sure they were gone,” Rangiku swallowed, tilting her head forward the slightest bit to let her hair shade her profile, “I walked out into it.

“They weren’t all dead. A few of them were still moaning. I did what I could. It wasn’t enough.”

And she could still remember their names. And if she closed her eyes she could still see their faces. But he didn't need to know that either.

His lips pressed together in a thin line. He didn't have a clue how to respond; he couldn't ask questions like he might have in any other situation. (Momo and Granny had pounded certain rules of etiquette into his head. One of them was 'don't treat every situation like an interrogation.' This? This was probably one of those non-interrogation situations.) She wasn't looking at him and he couldn't really see her face. That didn't sit quite well with him - for reasons he couldn't quite grasp - but it wasn't something he'd get on her case about.

Tentatively - mostly because he wasn't sure about this and he could just hear Granny's voice telling him that comfort and not silence was the way to go in the face of one of these 'personal' things - he rested his hand on her shoulder for the briefest of moments before pulling away. This counted as 'personal,' he was sure of that at least.

He leaned over, elbows on knees and fingers laced together. He knew - maybe - what she was doing. She wasn't just spouting off; her concern earlier negated that. Shared experiences and all that. She talks, he talks. Something like that. He'd never really understood it. Maybe knowing he wasn't heaping things she hadn't dealt with before was supposed to make him open up.

Hell. He didn't know. He opened his mouth to say something but then realized he didn't know what to say and snapped his jaw closed. Say something about what she said? It'd all be useless platitudes. Say something about the orphanage or his lack of sleep? That would completely disregard what she'd just revealed.

This was why he didn't do stuff like this.

Rangiku appreciated his silence more than anything else he could have said or done. She was a bit surprised when he touched her and she jolted under his hand before he removed it. That would have cost him. Heh. Sweet kid.

The corners of her lips curled up before she sobered. “It was a long time ago. Doesn’t mean that sometimes I still don’t dream about it, though.”

She leaned to the side and knocked her shoulder into his again for a moment, still not looking at him, “I know it’s not the same. But I was by myself, then. You don’t have to be.”

Turning to him she met his gaze and gave him a real warm smile, "I'm not telling you this because now you'd have to talk to me." She winked, "You'd have to do that anyway. I just wanted you to know."

Toushirou met her warm smile with a raised eyebrow. He'd talk anyway, huh? He almost believed it; she got something in her mind and she was determined to see it through.

He slowly shrugged one shoulder. He knew he wasn't alone. He'd already shown up on Momo's doorstep once, the night of the bombing. He didn't know about this talking thing, though. Didn't seem worth it, and she was already worrying about it. Didn't seem right to give anyone reason to worry.

Not that a few dreams or a sudden aversion to the smell of cooked meat was worrisome.

But... it wasn't either of those that kept him in the office working. Fingers still laced together, he rested his chin on his hands for a moment. He couldn't deny not being able to sleep well, nor could he deny that uneasy stirring in his gut when he thought about the things he'd seen that day. "This will bother me," he admitted. It would for a long time to come. "But that's not why I'm nearly living in my office right now." He glanced at her and went back to staring at the nothing in front of him.

Now to explain it. He snorted softly; as if he really could. "Those kids didn't have anything and then died for nothing." There were murders everywhere in this city, day and night. He knew; he saw the files and he knew good and well the NYPD wasn't getting every bastard off the streets. Hell, they weren't even getting all the murders reported. People just disappeared sometimes.

And sometimes their orphanage blew up in their faces.

"The bastard's going to be caught. I'm not letting him run around my city, free to do this again."

Ah, there it was. One of her favorite things about her captain… and also one of the most frustrating. Once Toushirou Hitsugaya took on a responsibility, be it a person or the Big Apple itself, he took its care and safety very personally. It was why he’d followed Momo here in the first place, it was one of the first things that she’d found made him trustworthy. It was just who he was.

There wasn’t anything she could do to help him with that-talking through it wouldn’t help. Telling him not to take it so personally… she wouldn’t want to change that about him. Even if he’d listen.

Rangiku nodded and turned towards the fountain again. She was silent a long moment and then, “It’s not something you can do by yourself, you know,” she said softly. “You have a team for a reason. They want to catch the bastard as much as you. And if you need me to do anything… you can let me know.”

And there you have it - offering an open-handed favor like that would have gotten her ten times of dead before lunch time in the good old days. But offering it wasn’t something she even had to think about, in this she was completely on his side.

He snorted softly, almost amused at her insistence that he let his team handle some things, that she could help. He knew. He'd been working his team into the ground.

They probably needed a day off, come to think of it.

"Keep some extra hot fudge on hand," he finally said. Might need a few banana splits before this thing could be called done.

“We don’t do deliveries,” she said, casting him a sidelong glance. If he thought she was going to let him hole up in his office or run around like mad without taking a rest when he needed it, he had another think coming. All the same, less the subtlety of the statement pass him by… “So if you want it, you’ll have to come and get it.”

Her gaze shifted forward again. She still felt-oddly vulnerable now that she’d told him a bit about her past, and she knew that she’d dream about it again tonight, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel more than a passing regret. She’d made her decision. She’d stick by it. “It’ll be there waiting for you.”

Toushirou nodded once, slowly. He didn't expect her to come deliver his banana splits; that hadn't been the point.
Figured he'd concede to her concern a bit, saying he'd come by the malt shop, and she'd keep harping on it. He gave her a sharp look before softening a bit. "Better be." He'd come get it in the next few days.

Just to prove to her he could leave the office sometimes.

He looked out toward the fountain, watching the people milling about for a moment. So many people; looked like some of them didn't have a care in the world. He picked up the crushed paper carton his hot dog had come in. "Thanks for lunch."

“Don’t mention it,” she turned to grin at him, “You’re paying next time.” And she’d make sure to pick a place that served more than hotdogs.

Toushirou snorted and stood, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. "Only paying as much you paid this time." He agreed to pay for lunch next time and he'd find himself in the most expensive place in the city. He wasn't stupid.

Maybe a little overworked, but not stupid.

Rangiku widened her eyes, “Why, Captain. Whatever are you suggesting? You’d walk out with a bill unpaid? Shocking.”

Standing, Rangiku brushed herself off, completely uncaring about the way it emphasized her curves as her mind was already on the last phase of her mission. “Come on. Let’s take the long way back. You can buy the ice cream and we’ll call it even.”

Toushirou briefly considered telling her no, he couldn't do that, just for that crack about walking out on a bill. Left his billfold back in his office. Have to skip on the ice cream. So sorry.

But that wouldn't do, not after their conversation. He wasn't that ungrateful. He could buy her ice cream for her trouble. He shrugged a shoulder. "Even, it is, then."