Bleach Drabble (239-244)
I was lazy this weekend. ^^;;
239.
Title: Sleep Talk
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: KyourakuxUkitake
Word Count: 315
Warning/s: No spoilers, just some strange fluff. ^^;;
Summary: Kyouraku talks in his sleep.
Dedication: Lisa- OMG Ep 54 so COOL.
A/N: I don’t know. I felt like writing something silly. ^^;;
Kyouraku has fallen asleep on top of him again.
Ukitake sighs helplessly when the other captain’s soft snores start right beside his ear, a sure fire sign that tells Jyuushirou he is effectively trapped for the night.
Shunsui’s solid weight pins Ukitake to the mattress, and with the other man’s nose pressed up against the side of Ukitake’s throat, the thirteenth division leader squirms in an attempt to get more comfortable despite the fact that Shunsui’s beard is scratchy against his shoulder and his breath smells vaguely of alcohol.
The white-haired captain wishes this wasn’t as familiar a position as it is.
But it’s very familiar, and he knows now, after many years, that at this point in time Shunsui is dead to the world. The best he can hope for at the moment is to find a way of making himself comfortable enough to get some sleep.
So he relaxes the muscles in his back and presses his cheek against Kyouraku’s hair, grateful that at least his lover isn’t talking in his sleep like last time, murmuring nonsensical words about this and that and a few other things that had earned him a good thwack upside the head come morning time.
“Mmm… ladies… please, please… plenty of ole Shun-chan to go around, hmmm? One at a time now…or maybe two if you’re feeling adventurous…heh, heh…”
Ukitake rolls his eyes when the talking begins promptly after his last thought. He supposes that this is mostly his own fault for having spoken too soon.
But not entirely.
In the morning, the alarm goes off exactly at seven. And the moment Shunsui opens his eyes, Ukitake kisses him good morning, smacks him in the head, and wriggles out from under him so that he can go and fix them both breakfast.
Kyouraku blinks after the other man, and rubbing his head, wonders what he said this time.
END
240.
Title: No Going Back
Rating: PG-15
Pairing/Character/s: RenjixIzuru, mentions GinxIzuru
Word Count: 998
Warning/s: Vague spoilers for the Soul Society arc.
Summary: Sequel to #235 (The Long Road Ahead)- Something’s changed between Kira and Renji now.
Dedication: Nicole- Happy (late now) Birthday!
A/N: Ummmmm, I think I’m very bad at this whole RenjixIzuru thing, but dammit if I didn’t try. Ah well… this is why I suck at gift-fic. ^^;;
Kira can’t quite look at Renji the same anymore, not after that incident a few days ago that left bruises on his throat and a flush on his cheeks, left him panting and aroused in the middle of the street. In contrast, the redhead--stubborn as he is-refuses to look at Kira any differently, is in fact, making a conscious effort not to. However, Kira knows that something has changed between them and there’s just no going back to the way things used to be.
But unmovable Renji refuses to avoid touching Kira like any sane person would after their previous encounter, the other man always reaching out like the honest idiot he is, warm, solid touches that aren’t meant to tease, his fingers strong but not painful on Kira’s skin.
It puzzles Kira, makes him flush in an inexplicable way, and he thinks that something has definitely changed between them, because while those stupidly honest hands on the blonde’s shoulders or brushing his arms or rubbing his back are clumsy and unskilled-- everything that Gin’s weren’t-they make him feel as if Renji’s grabbed him and shaken him all over again.
Something’s definitely changed, and while Renji might act like it hasn’t, his hands on Kira’s body and Kira’s reaction to them say otherwise.
As the days go on, Kira finds that Renji’s touch makes him quiver with anticipation.
It’s driving him mad.
Renji’s stupid and honest as he goes about it, brushing an arm or rubbing the small of Kira’s back or gripping the arch of a shoulder, and it’s all slowly driving Kira a little bit crazy.
The blonde feels as if he’s being struck every time they touch. Sometimes it feels worse than Ichimaru’s Gin’s hands had when they’d been wrapped around his throat.
Because Renji’s hands are beginning to have the exact same effect on him.
Except without the pain.
“Mornin’ Kira.”
Kira feels his cheeks pinken as Renji greets him this morning, exactly as he had the day before, reaching out and gripping the curve of the blonde’s shoulder and squeezing firmly, gently. Acting all stupid and honest and looking at Kira like nothing’s changed at all, even though it obviously has and they can’t go back to their old friendship anymore.
Not after what Renji’s discovered about him.
“M-morning,” Kira stammers back, eyes bent downward so he doesn’t have to see that genuine expression on Abarai’s face.
“How’re you feeling?” the redhead asks gently, not moving his hand.
“I’m… I…”
“What is it?”
Kira looks up at the other vice-captain with stricken eyes. “Please stop touching me,” he asks suddenly, voice so quiet it breaks without a sound.
Renji blinks at that, though his hand does not move from Kira’s shoulder.
After a moment, he asks, “Why?”
Kira balks and turns away at the blatant query, one hand grasping at his own collar in embarrassment. “I…when… when you…”
“Yeah?”
“I…I can’t think when you touch me,” he admits shamefully, clutching himself tighter and wondering what Renji must think of him now.
After a moment he feels the redhead’s hand move away from his shoulder and breathes a little sigh of relief at that, the loss of contact making him feel less confused, less exposed.
He thinks that Renji must be disgusted with him again after that display of weakness, the second time in so many days.
Part of him is relieved at the thought because it means maybe Abarai won’t touch him anymore, won’t make him feel the same heat and flush and loss of breath that Gin did, only without the pain that he’s grown accustomed to, that he’s learned to welcome.
That’s too strange for Kira now, too unfamiliar after the lessons Gin taught with bruising mouth and cutting hands.
It’s a supreme relief, even if his old friend may not be able to stand the sight of him any longer.
“Heh. Atta boy.”
Kira blinks at the sound of Renji’s amused laughter and looks up into the face of the other vice-captain reflexively. “Eh?”
He is very confused.
Renji grins back, stupid and honest and tactless as always, completely disregarding the blonde’s previous words as he leans forward to touch his forehead to Kira’s with surprising gentleness. “So, ya finally noticed, eh?” he asks gruffly, voice rough beside the blonde’s ear as he moves to embrace him.
And even though it’s the complete opposite of how soft and smooth Ichimaru-taichou whispered, Kira shudders the same way anyway, feels his cheeks flush and his knees go weak just like they used to when his captain touched him. “Aa,” he responds, managing to find breath somehow, Renji’s arms solid and awkward, but there to keep him from falling down. “I…”
“I’m gonna show you,” Renji murmurs. “I’m gonna show you that it can be good without bein’ bad, got me?” he asks, fingers curling into the folds of Kira’s sleeves tightly, but not enough to ache.
Kira feels like he’s been struck anyway.
“I…”
Renji smirks and pulls Kira against him, hugging him just hard enough so that the blonde’s nose is squished up against his shoulder, but not uncomfortably. “Gonna make you hot for the good stuff from now on. You’ll see.”
Kira shakes a little and thinks that Renji already has.
And while he’ll always remember Ichimaru Gin’s smooth voice and bruising fingers, while he’ll always have the shadow of his former captain in his dreams, he thinks that maybe this is okay too, with Renji and his gruff promises, with those clumsy, honest fingers touching him without hurting.
Everything is changing now and Kira finds that he can’t look at his old friend quite the same way anymore, not when he’s holding him like this and making Izuru’s blood boil in the same way Gin did at one time, though with very different hands.
Honest hands.
And for the first time since his captain left, Kira thinks that maybe everything will be okay.
Different, but okay.
END
241.
Title: A Mystery, Wrapped in an Enigma, Hidden in a Swishy Scarf
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: Byakuya, Renji
Word Count: 631
Warning/s: Slight spoilers for the Soul Society Arc and a few chapters afterwards
Summary: Byakuya discovers what his appeal stems from.
Dedication: Christine- Happy (now late) b-day! Draw me gaaay!!!!
A/N: Well, I’ve done worse. Maybe? ^^;; Right. I ARE LAME.
There’s something about him that makes Renji call him such silly words as “alluring” and “mysterious”. Byakuya doesn’t really understand what the vice-captain means by that, given that the sixth division captain regards himself as very straightforward, but Abarai insists on it anyway, crowing in amusement whenever Byakuya turns any heads-male or female-as he walks by.
“Taichou is so mysterious. Heh. People like that, I suppose, eh. Eh?”
Byakuya only finds himself able to frown back whenever Renji brings it up, because really, he doesn’t understand a thing the idiot is talking about.
How does walking make him mysterious?
It’s not as if he can just fly to work. Well, maybe he could. But it would be tiring and wasteful.
He asks Renji about it one day, when the redhead is being particularly obnoxious about the whole thing, leering at his captain like they should be in on some big cosmic joke together when obviously, it’s just the vice-captain living in his own cracked world of delusions and general idiocy.
“What do you constantly mean by mysterious? I am not mysterious.”
“Ya gotta be jokin’ me right?”
Byakuya stares back levelly.
Renji snorts. “Oh man, ya mean you really don’t know, taichou?” he asks incredulously.
Byakuya’s eyes narrow. “I wouldn’t have asked if I did, fukutaichou.”
Renji grins back, and Byakuya thinks that ever since they’d come to an understanding in the infirmary after the fight with Aizen, the idiot has become a lot less respectful than he used to be.
“Welllll, taichou,” Renji begins with a shark-like grin, “Lemme explain this so a respectable fella like yourself can understand, yeah?”
“Please,” Byakuya responds dryly.
“Guy like you, good lookin’, don’t talk much, always serious, always responsible… rich… makes people think, ya know?”
Byakuya doesn’t like where this is going.
“They figure you’re ya know, a mystery… no one knows what you’re thinkin’… what your motives are. Chicks-and I guess some fellas-- like that sorta thing. Well, that and the money, I suppose. Ain’t much of a surprise they’re all aflutter for ya.”
Byakuya blinks at the redhead’s assessment. “That’s ridiculous.”
Renji chuckles. “Ain’t it?”
Byakuya has the feeling that he’s being laughed at.
He doesn’t quite like it.
“I think you’re delusional, Renji.”
Abarai smirks at that, because his captain’s naiveté really is too damn cute sometimes. “Na…if you’re so sure, wanna test it, taichou?”
There is a distinct gleam in Renji’s eye that is ever-so-slightly predatory. At that, Byakuya tells himself it’s a sad, pathetic day when he is wary of Abarai, and that in mind, squares his shoulders a little more as he says challengingly, “Oh? Under what terms?”
The next morning, with much reluctance, Kuchiki Byakuya inexplicably stops to greet every person that stares at him on his way to the office, smiling graciously at them and telling them good morning.
Several women flutter and pass out in his arms, and three young men flush so red he might as well have been choking them between his own fingertips.
One man kneels and kisses his hand, a third-chair asks what his favorite food is and if he’d like to eat lunch with her later, and before the walk is done, he gets two marriage proposals from shinigami of respectable noble houses, if smaller ones than the Kuchiki family's.
Renji is behind Byakuya the entire time, strolling along and whistling like he’s won some sort of lottery.
Byakuya, scowling, supposes he has. In a way.
When they reach the office, the sixth division captain, bound by honor, sighs as he takes his chair, wordlessly dismissing his vice-captain for the rest of the week.
Renji grins as he leaves the office for his first ever paid vacation, thinking that he’s never bet on a surer thing.
END
242.
Title: Tact and Diplomacy
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: ShuuxYumi, Yachiru, Ikkaku, Renji, Iba, Kira
Word Count: 990
Warning/s: Soul Society Arc spoilers and LAMENESS.
Summary: Sequel to #238 (Thug Love)- The boys play some mahjong and talk tough.
Dedication: pausedsilence and lune_etsoleil - thanks so much for the icons! <3
A/N: As requested by pausedsilence. Hope this isn’t um, too lame? ^^;;
They’d all appeared in his living room without so much as a word of warning, and while Yumichika wanted to be annoyed for having been left so unprepared for their guests this evening, one apologetic glance from Shuuhei and a shift of his lover’s eyes towards a slightly tipsy Kira Izuru was all it took for Yumi’s pique to dissolve and set him instead, to preparing some snacks as the others set up to play mahjong.
Shuuhei joined him in the kitchen a second later.
“Listen, sorry I…”
“It’s fine,” Yumi assured him, though he frowned a little bit anyway. “But you do remember…”
“Yeah. I know. Yachiru, right?”
“Right.”
They shared a worried look.
It wasn’t that Zaraki Kenpachi wanted to do it, but every so often he was required as a captain to go into the field with some of the senior academy classes for hands-on training, and while those assignments usually took less than three or four days (in his case), the fact of the matter was he couldn’t very well take Yachiru with him.
Which meant finding babysitters.
And that was usually just Yumichika, considering that Zaraki was pretty sure the other idiots in his division were about as reliable as Mayuri was when it came to handling young girls, and hell if he’d return to seireitei only to find his vice-captain bathing in the blood of half his men who, in not knowing how to handle her, had riled her to the point of getting her to want to play with them.
Yumichika was a good, safe babysitter. And while Kenpachi wouldn’t admit it out loud ever, Shuuhei was a pretty reliable type of guy after all, except for his being a magnificent pansy.
In short, the pair had charge of the eleventh division vice-captain for the next few days.
“It should be fine,” Yumichika assured the other man as he pulled various bags of chips and rice crackers from the cupboard. “She’s in our room drawing right now and…”
“Ow, ow, ow… dammit Yachiru, stop that!!!”
A yelp and a crash from the living room confirmed their worst fears, and with another apologetic look at Yumi, Shuuhei rushed back out.
Yachiru never could quite resist giving Ikkaku’s big, shiny head a good chew.
What a relief that that was all.
“Waaaah, everyone’s here!!!” Yachiru exclaimed after a moment, wiping at the back of her mouth with her sleeve as Ikkaku scowled and grabbed a napkin, irately removing the drool from his scalp. “What’re we playin’, shiny-baldy-smooth head?”
“This ain’t a game for kids!” Ikkaku growled. “Past your bedtime too, isn’t it Yachiru?”
She beamed. “Nope, not yet! Why does droopy-eyes smell like stink?”
Kira blinked. “I…”
“Ah…ain’t nothin’ like that, Kira!” Renji hastily covered, patting the blonde’s arm. “You know…these kids. Don’t know what proper booze smells like. Ya smell fine. Ain’t that right, Iba?”
Tetsuzaemon blinked awkwardly at the inquiry. “Come again?”
“Smells fine, right?” Renji reiterated with a bit of a growl in his voice.
“Uh. Oh. Yeah. Ya smell real good, Kira. Like er, flowers or somethin’. Right nice,” the seventh division vice-captain assured the blonde hastily, even going so far as to lean sideways and take a big whiff of the air around Izuru before smiling broadly.
Kira stared a little. “Uh…thanks?”
Yachiru, completely not buying it for a minute, materialized on Kira’s shoulder a second later, sniffing thoroughly before wrinkling her nose and covering it with her sleeve. “Nuh uh, he smells like something died in his mouth!” she accused, looking at Renji and Iba accusatorily.
“Snacks are here!!!” Yumi announced, bursting into the room with well-timed flourish, before Renji and Iba could think of a response to Yachiru’s exclamations. “Ne, Yachiru, do you want to help me get everyone something to drink?” he asked very calmly.
“Nope,” she responded easily, jumping up onto Shuuhei’s shoulder then, so she could look at Yumichika properly. “Ne, feather-brow… you should smell droopy-eyes too… dumb-glasses and butt-monkey think he smells nice, but he doesn’t at all! Smells like how you said ShuuShuu’s breath does in the mornin’!”
Shuuhei blinked. “Wait…what?”
“Ahahahaha…kids, right?” Yumi asked, setting the snack tray down and busying himself with serving the guests.
Renji blinked. “Did she just call me butt-monkey?”
“What’s dumb about my glasses?”
“Oi…Yumi…what’d she mean ‘bout my breath?”
“Nothing, dear! You know how she tends to misquote things and…”
“What the hell would she have to misquote to call me butt-monkey?!”
“Well, ya sort of are Kuchiki-taichou’s bitch. Ehehehehe.”
Renji scowled. “Shut the hell up, Ikkaku.”
Ikkaku continued to preen. “Just sayin’, is all.”
“Oh yeah? Your luck-luck dance ‘s retarded.”
“Hey! When did this get to personal attacks like that?”
“Your dance is kinda stupid,” Iba agreed thoughtfully.
“Not as stupid as your glasses.”
“Say another word ‘bout my glasses and I’ll cut ya, ya bald bastard, I mean it.”
“Oh, threatenin’ me now, are ya? Can ya even see with those stupid things coverin’ your eyes?”
In the background, Kira looked stricken.
He sniffled.
The room went silent.
“Oi…er…what’s the matter Kira?” Renji asked, carefully.
“We’re uh, we’re real sorry ‘bout the noise,” Ikkaku added.
Iba looked abashed. “Heh, right. You know us. Just foolin’ around. How about we start the game now, yeah?”
Kira looked at the others hopelessly. “Are my eyes really droopy?” he asked, bottom lip quivering.
“Yes!” Yachiru responded.
Everyone else yelled, “No!!!!”
They spent the rest of the evening convincing Kira that Ichimaru-taichou had left because he was an evil bastard, not because he thought the blonde’s eyes were droopy and unattractive.
Several exhausting hours later, Yumi thought that maybe it was time to teach his vice-captain the finer points of a little something called…tact.
Shuuhei, feeling headachy, thought it was a little bit sad when Yumichika felt the need to teach someone how to be tactful.
But, he supposed, that was just how some things went.
END
243.
Title: Dead and Gone
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: Hinamori, Aizen
Word Count: 555 (I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear)
Warning/s: Spoilers for the Soul Society Arc
Summary: Hinamori reads his letter over and over again.
Dedication: Joanne- because she’s going to make me Kenpachi Icons. YES.
A/N: Um… I just felt like being mean to Hinamori? I dunno. I’m kind of sick of myself lately so I guess it just shows? ^^;; I am lame with the comedy and redundant with the serious. IS THERE NO SAFE MIDDLE GROUND FOR ME? ;_;
For Hinamori, Aizen-taichou had died the moment she saw his body, somehow still warm and regal to her as it was pinned to the stone wall, looking down at them with vacant eyes.
For her, that was when her captain died.
And as she sat in her hospital room with his last letter in-between her hands, she told herself exactly that, convinced herself that her Aizen-taichou was dead long before she was stabbed, the man from before and the man that hurt her not one and the same.
It was simply impossible to believe.
And so she stared down at the letter in her hands and despite its lies, could not help but consider it her beloved captain’s last words, his very final thoughts to her before he was murdered.
Because the man that betrayed them was not Aizen-taichou. Not to her.
Her captain was dead and cold long before she set eyes on that criminal, the one who wore his face but was not-could not be-him.
Her Aizen-taichou was warm and kind, his hands always gentle, his voice soothing. He smelled of books and ink and finely aged paper and had the kind of smile only good men had. He took his little vice-captain on picnics and read to her in that deep, calming voice after she’d woken up from a nightmare and sought solace in his room. He patted her head and brought her sweets and never once grew impatient with her, never once raised his voice.
That was her Aizen-taichou, the one she really knew and remembered. The one who was murdered on that day what seems like a lifetime ago, left cold and still and bleeding on the pristine white walls of seireitei as some sort of sick sacrifice, a prelude to the birth of Soul Society’s most deadly criminal.
She held the letter containing her Aizen-taichou’s last words between her fingertips and read them over and over again even though she already knew it all by heart, even though she knew it said terrible things, horrible lies.
Because they were still the last precious words to her from her Aizen-taichou after all, and now that he was dead and gone, it was all she really had left.
And so she sat in her hospital bed and read those words over and over again, crying sometimes, numb at others, all the while thinking that this was really it.
Aizen Sousuke was dead.
She clutched her dead captain’s final words to her, held them tight against her chest, and mourned his passing.
And then, with tears in her eyes, she promised herself that one day, one day she would avenge him.
She would kill the man who had killed him, the one who wore his face but could not steal his smile, could not imitate its warmth.
Because the one who it truly belonged to was dead.
Her captain was dead.
And the man who was responsible for that had to pay.
Hinamori Momo sat in her hospital bed and slowly recovered from the stab wound in her chest, holding her dead captain’s precious last words in-between her hands and swearing vengeance.
As the days passed and she started to regain strength, she began to discover that the tears came less and less.
Until eventually, all that remained was revenge.
END
244.
Title: Sixteen Years Ago This Day
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: Ryuuken
Word Count: 679
Warning/s: Um, non-important spoilers for the post-Soul Society Arc. (ie who Ryuuken is)
Summary: Ryuuken bears a heavy burden.
Dedication: Everyone who’s not sick of me writing Ryuuken. -_-;;
A/N: I’m still sick of myself, but I needed to do something for Ishida’s birthday, because I love him. ^_^;;
It’s Uryuu’s birthday today.
Normally Ryuuken doesn’t put much weight into trivial things like birthdays, but oddly enough, he is always conscious of Uryuu’s even several days before the fact. And on the day itself he finds his thoughts full of nothing but his son, finds himself wondering, hoping, worrying without aim, sitting in his office staring out the window and not getting a thing done.
It never fails. On this day every year for the past sixteen years, he finds his thoughts consumed by the concerns of a parent, even more so than on any other day.
Ryuuken thinks that it’s because the birth of a child is something incredibly profound in the life of any person, something so weighty and unforgettable that even someone as busy as himself is forced to remember that day when it comes again, even when at the same time, he might forget his own birthday, might even begin to forget the face of a kindly father or the touch of a long dead wife.
He never seems to forget Uryuu’s birthday, even when his son is far away, even when his son does not wish to see him.
Because on this day sixteen years ago, Ryuuken remembers exactly how it felt to hold his son in his arms for the first time, the overwhelming joy of fatherhood inexplicably swirling together with the debilitating sorrow of becoming a widower at exactly the same moment.
It had been simultaneously too wonderful and too horrible to bear.
On this day sixteen years ago, Uryuu was born and Ryuuken will never be able to forget how it felt to hold that squirming, squalling baby against his chest, knowing that he was the only person left in the world responsible for this child, knowing that it was his job to provide for everything that this precious, tiny life might require.
And maybe that’s why he can never forget this day, Uryuu’s birthday, even sixteen years after the fact. Because the emotions he felt on that day have sunk into every last bone of his body, have become an unconscious trigger that is always there, reminding him that he has a son.
That on this day sixteen years ago, he became a father.
It is too heavy a weight to forget.
And that weight presses into him with every breath he takes as he sits at his desk holding a pen tightly between his fingers. It is truly overwhelming.
Before long Ryuuken finds himself leaving his office early today, finds himself getting into his car and driving to his son’s school and wondering perhaps, if merely seeing that his child is well provided for is enough, that there is yet more for him to do as a father whether Uryuu wishes for it or not.
He parks on the street outside of the school and waits, an hour until the bell, and when students begin to stream out in waves promptly at three, he holds his breath and grips the wheel and allows himself this one weakness for today, because it is a special day.
When he sees Uryuu pass through the gate, surrounded by what looks like many friends, Ryuuken feels the muscles in his neck and arms relax, and with a little breath, he leans back into the driver’s seat of his car and takes his glasses off so he can clean them. It’s exactly the same, he thinks. That feeling is the same today as it had been sixteen years ago.
The profound weight of fatherhood.
He waits until Uryuu has walked out of sight before he starts the car again.
He drives back to the clinic and goes directly to his office so he can go back to work, freshly reminded that this wonderful precious life is his responsibility, that it his job to provide for Uryuu everything he needs as the boy’s only remaining parent.
Ryuuken turns on his desk lamp and bends over his desk, the feeling heavy and wonderful on his shoulders.
In his heart, he wishes Uryuu a happy birthday.
END
EDITS. YESSS.
239.
Title: Sleep Talk
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: KyourakuxUkitake
Word Count: 315
Warning/s: No spoilers, just some strange fluff. ^^;;
Summary: Kyouraku talks in his sleep.
Dedication: Lisa- OMG Ep 54 so COOL.
A/N: I don’t know. I felt like writing something silly. ^^;;
Kyouraku has fallen asleep on top of him again.
Ukitake sighs helplessly when the other captain’s soft snores start right beside his ear, a sure fire sign that tells Jyuushirou he is effectively trapped for the night.
Shunsui’s solid weight pins Ukitake to the mattress, and with the other man’s nose pressed up against the side of Ukitake’s throat, the thirteenth division leader squirms in an attempt to get more comfortable despite the fact that Shunsui’s beard is scratchy against his shoulder and his breath smells vaguely of alcohol.
The white-haired captain wishes this wasn’t as familiar a position as it is.
But it’s very familiar, and he knows now, after many years, that at this point in time Shunsui is dead to the world. The best he can hope for at the moment is to find a way of making himself comfortable enough to get some sleep.
So he relaxes the muscles in his back and presses his cheek against Kyouraku’s hair, grateful that at least his lover isn’t talking in his sleep like last time, murmuring nonsensical words about this and that and a few other things that had earned him a good thwack upside the head come morning time.
“Mmm… ladies… please, please… plenty of ole Shun-chan to go around, hmmm? One at a time now…or maybe two if you’re feeling adventurous…heh, heh…”
Ukitake rolls his eyes when the talking begins promptly after his last thought. He supposes that this is mostly his own fault for having spoken too soon.
But not entirely.
In the morning, the alarm goes off exactly at seven. And the moment Shunsui opens his eyes, Ukitake kisses him good morning, smacks him in the head, and wriggles out from under him so that he can go and fix them both breakfast.
Kyouraku blinks after the other man, and rubbing his head, wonders what he said this time.
END
240.
Title: No Going Back
Rating: PG-15
Pairing/Character/s: RenjixIzuru, mentions GinxIzuru
Word Count: 998
Warning/s: Vague spoilers for the Soul Society arc.
Summary: Sequel to #235 (The Long Road Ahead)- Something’s changed between Kira and Renji now.
Dedication: Nicole- Happy (late now) Birthday!
A/N: Ummmmm, I think I’m very bad at this whole RenjixIzuru thing, but dammit if I didn’t try. Ah well… this is why I suck at gift-fic. ^^;;
Kira can’t quite look at Renji the same anymore, not after that incident a few days ago that left bruises on his throat and a flush on his cheeks, left him panting and aroused in the middle of the street. In contrast, the redhead--stubborn as he is-refuses to look at Kira any differently, is in fact, making a conscious effort not to. However, Kira knows that something has changed between them and there’s just no going back to the way things used to be.
But unmovable Renji refuses to avoid touching Kira like any sane person would after their previous encounter, the other man always reaching out like the honest idiot he is, warm, solid touches that aren’t meant to tease, his fingers strong but not painful on Kira’s skin.
It puzzles Kira, makes him flush in an inexplicable way, and he thinks that something has definitely changed between them, because while those stupidly honest hands on the blonde’s shoulders or brushing his arms or rubbing his back are clumsy and unskilled-- everything that Gin’s weren’t-they make him feel as if Renji’s grabbed him and shaken him all over again.
Something’s definitely changed, and while Renji might act like it hasn’t, his hands on Kira’s body and Kira’s reaction to them say otherwise.
As the days go on, Kira finds that Renji’s touch makes him quiver with anticipation.
It’s driving him mad.
Renji’s stupid and honest as he goes about it, brushing an arm or rubbing the small of Kira’s back or gripping the arch of a shoulder, and it’s all slowly driving Kira a little bit crazy.
The blonde feels as if he’s being struck every time they touch. Sometimes it feels worse than Ichimaru’s Gin’s hands had when they’d been wrapped around his throat.
Because Renji’s hands are beginning to have the exact same effect on him.
Except without the pain.
“Mornin’ Kira.”
Kira feels his cheeks pinken as Renji greets him this morning, exactly as he had the day before, reaching out and gripping the curve of the blonde’s shoulder and squeezing firmly, gently. Acting all stupid and honest and looking at Kira like nothing’s changed at all, even though it obviously has and they can’t go back to their old friendship anymore.
Not after what Renji’s discovered about him.
“M-morning,” Kira stammers back, eyes bent downward so he doesn’t have to see that genuine expression on Abarai’s face.
“How’re you feeling?” the redhead asks gently, not moving his hand.
“I’m… I…”
“What is it?”
Kira looks up at the other vice-captain with stricken eyes. “Please stop touching me,” he asks suddenly, voice so quiet it breaks without a sound.
Renji blinks at that, though his hand does not move from Kira’s shoulder.
After a moment, he asks, “Why?”
Kira balks and turns away at the blatant query, one hand grasping at his own collar in embarrassment. “I…when… when you…”
“Yeah?”
“I…I can’t think when you touch me,” he admits shamefully, clutching himself tighter and wondering what Renji must think of him now.
After a moment he feels the redhead’s hand move away from his shoulder and breathes a little sigh of relief at that, the loss of contact making him feel less confused, less exposed.
He thinks that Renji must be disgusted with him again after that display of weakness, the second time in so many days.
Part of him is relieved at the thought because it means maybe Abarai won’t touch him anymore, won’t make him feel the same heat and flush and loss of breath that Gin did, only without the pain that he’s grown accustomed to, that he’s learned to welcome.
That’s too strange for Kira now, too unfamiliar after the lessons Gin taught with bruising mouth and cutting hands.
It’s a supreme relief, even if his old friend may not be able to stand the sight of him any longer.
“Heh. Atta boy.”
Kira blinks at the sound of Renji’s amused laughter and looks up into the face of the other vice-captain reflexively. “Eh?”
He is very confused.
Renji grins back, stupid and honest and tactless as always, completely disregarding the blonde’s previous words as he leans forward to touch his forehead to Kira’s with surprising gentleness. “So, ya finally noticed, eh?” he asks gruffly, voice rough beside the blonde’s ear as he moves to embrace him.
And even though it’s the complete opposite of how soft and smooth Ichimaru-taichou whispered, Kira shudders the same way anyway, feels his cheeks flush and his knees go weak just like they used to when his captain touched him. “Aa,” he responds, managing to find breath somehow, Renji’s arms solid and awkward, but there to keep him from falling down. “I…”
“I’m gonna show you,” Renji murmurs. “I’m gonna show you that it can be good without bein’ bad, got me?” he asks, fingers curling into the folds of Kira’s sleeves tightly, but not enough to ache.
Kira feels like he’s been struck anyway.
“I…”
Renji smirks and pulls Kira against him, hugging him just hard enough so that the blonde’s nose is squished up against his shoulder, but not uncomfortably. “Gonna make you hot for the good stuff from now on. You’ll see.”
Kira shakes a little and thinks that Renji already has.
And while he’ll always remember Ichimaru Gin’s smooth voice and bruising fingers, while he’ll always have the shadow of his former captain in his dreams, he thinks that maybe this is okay too, with Renji and his gruff promises, with those clumsy, honest fingers touching him without hurting.
Everything is changing now and Kira finds that he can’t look at his old friend quite the same way anymore, not when he’s holding him like this and making Izuru’s blood boil in the same way Gin did at one time, though with very different hands.
Honest hands.
And for the first time since his captain left, Kira thinks that maybe everything will be okay.
Different, but okay.
END
241.
Title: A Mystery, Wrapped in an Enigma, Hidden in a Swishy Scarf
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: Byakuya, Renji
Word Count: 631
Warning/s: Slight spoilers for the Soul Society Arc and a few chapters afterwards
Summary: Byakuya discovers what his appeal stems from.
Dedication: Christine- Happy (now late) b-day! Draw me gaaay!!!!
A/N: Well, I’ve done worse. Maybe? ^^;; Right. I ARE LAME.
There’s something about him that makes Renji call him such silly words as “alluring” and “mysterious”. Byakuya doesn’t really understand what the vice-captain means by that, given that the sixth division captain regards himself as very straightforward, but Abarai insists on it anyway, crowing in amusement whenever Byakuya turns any heads-male or female-as he walks by.
“Taichou is so mysterious. Heh. People like that, I suppose, eh. Eh?”
Byakuya only finds himself able to frown back whenever Renji brings it up, because really, he doesn’t understand a thing the idiot is talking about.
How does walking make him mysterious?
It’s not as if he can just fly to work. Well, maybe he could. But it would be tiring and wasteful.
He asks Renji about it one day, when the redhead is being particularly obnoxious about the whole thing, leering at his captain like they should be in on some big cosmic joke together when obviously, it’s just the vice-captain living in his own cracked world of delusions and general idiocy.
“What do you constantly mean by mysterious? I am not mysterious.”
“Ya gotta be jokin’ me right?”
Byakuya stares back levelly.
Renji snorts. “Oh man, ya mean you really don’t know, taichou?” he asks incredulously.
Byakuya’s eyes narrow. “I wouldn’t have asked if I did, fukutaichou.”
Renji grins back, and Byakuya thinks that ever since they’d come to an understanding in the infirmary after the fight with Aizen, the idiot has become a lot less respectful than he used to be.
“Welllll, taichou,” Renji begins with a shark-like grin, “Lemme explain this so a respectable fella like yourself can understand, yeah?”
“Please,” Byakuya responds dryly.
“Guy like you, good lookin’, don’t talk much, always serious, always responsible… rich… makes people think, ya know?”
Byakuya doesn’t like where this is going.
“They figure you’re ya know, a mystery… no one knows what you’re thinkin’… what your motives are. Chicks-and I guess some fellas-- like that sorta thing. Well, that and the money, I suppose. Ain’t much of a surprise they’re all aflutter for ya.”
Byakuya blinks at the redhead’s assessment. “That’s ridiculous.”
Renji chuckles. “Ain’t it?”
Byakuya has the feeling that he’s being laughed at.
He doesn’t quite like it.
“I think you’re delusional, Renji.”
Abarai smirks at that, because his captain’s naiveté really is too damn cute sometimes. “Na…if you’re so sure, wanna test it, taichou?”
There is a distinct gleam in Renji’s eye that is ever-so-slightly predatory. At that, Byakuya tells himself it’s a sad, pathetic day when he is wary of Abarai, and that in mind, squares his shoulders a little more as he says challengingly, “Oh? Under what terms?”
The next morning, with much reluctance, Kuchiki Byakuya inexplicably stops to greet every person that stares at him on his way to the office, smiling graciously at them and telling them good morning.
Several women flutter and pass out in his arms, and three young men flush so red he might as well have been choking them between his own fingertips.
One man kneels and kisses his hand, a third-chair asks what his favorite food is and if he’d like to eat lunch with her later, and before the walk is done, he gets two marriage proposals from shinigami of respectable noble houses, if smaller ones than the Kuchiki family's.
Renji is behind Byakuya the entire time, strolling along and whistling like he’s won some sort of lottery.
Byakuya, scowling, supposes he has. In a way.
When they reach the office, the sixth division captain, bound by honor, sighs as he takes his chair, wordlessly dismissing his vice-captain for the rest of the week.
Renji grins as he leaves the office for his first ever paid vacation, thinking that he’s never bet on a surer thing.
END
242.
Title: Tact and Diplomacy
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: ShuuxYumi, Yachiru, Ikkaku, Renji, Iba, Kira
Word Count: 990
Warning/s: Soul Society Arc spoilers and LAMENESS.
Summary: Sequel to #238 (Thug Love)- The boys play some mahjong and talk tough.
Dedication: pausedsilence and lune_etsoleil - thanks so much for the icons! <3
A/N: As requested by pausedsilence. Hope this isn’t um, too lame? ^^;;
They’d all appeared in his living room without so much as a word of warning, and while Yumichika wanted to be annoyed for having been left so unprepared for their guests this evening, one apologetic glance from Shuuhei and a shift of his lover’s eyes towards a slightly tipsy Kira Izuru was all it took for Yumi’s pique to dissolve and set him instead, to preparing some snacks as the others set up to play mahjong.
Shuuhei joined him in the kitchen a second later.
“Listen, sorry I…”
“It’s fine,” Yumi assured him, though he frowned a little bit anyway. “But you do remember…”
“Yeah. I know. Yachiru, right?”
“Right.”
They shared a worried look.
It wasn’t that Zaraki Kenpachi wanted to do it, but every so often he was required as a captain to go into the field with some of the senior academy classes for hands-on training, and while those assignments usually took less than three or four days (in his case), the fact of the matter was he couldn’t very well take Yachiru with him.
Which meant finding babysitters.
And that was usually just Yumichika, considering that Zaraki was pretty sure the other idiots in his division were about as reliable as Mayuri was when it came to handling young girls, and hell if he’d return to seireitei only to find his vice-captain bathing in the blood of half his men who, in not knowing how to handle her, had riled her to the point of getting her to want to play with them.
Yumichika was a good, safe babysitter. And while Kenpachi wouldn’t admit it out loud ever, Shuuhei was a pretty reliable type of guy after all, except for his being a magnificent pansy.
In short, the pair had charge of the eleventh division vice-captain for the next few days.
“It should be fine,” Yumichika assured the other man as he pulled various bags of chips and rice crackers from the cupboard. “She’s in our room drawing right now and…”
“Ow, ow, ow… dammit Yachiru, stop that!!!”
A yelp and a crash from the living room confirmed their worst fears, and with another apologetic look at Yumi, Shuuhei rushed back out.
Yachiru never could quite resist giving Ikkaku’s big, shiny head a good chew.
What a relief that that was all.
“Waaaah, everyone’s here!!!” Yachiru exclaimed after a moment, wiping at the back of her mouth with her sleeve as Ikkaku scowled and grabbed a napkin, irately removing the drool from his scalp. “What’re we playin’, shiny-baldy-smooth head?”
“This ain’t a game for kids!” Ikkaku growled. “Past your bedtime too, isn’t it Yachiru?”
She beamed. “Nope, not yet! Why does droopy-eyes smell like stink?”
Kira blinked. “I…”
“Ah…ain’t nothin’ like that, Kira!” Renji hastily covered, patting the blonde’s arm. “You know…these kids. Don’t know what proper booze smells like. Ya smell fine. Ain’t that right, Iba?”
Tetsuzaemon blinked awkwardly at the inquiry. “Come again?”
“Smells fine, right?” Renji reiterated with a bit of a growl in his voice.
“Uh. Oh. Yeah. Ya smell real good, Kira. Like er, flowers or somethin’. Right nice,” the seventh division vice-captain assured the blonde hastily, even going so far as to lean sideways and take a big whiff of the air around Izuru before smiling broadly.
Kira stared a little. “Uh…thanks?”
Yachiru, completely not buying it for a minute, materialized on Kira’s shoulder a second later, sniffing thoroughly before wrinkling her nose and covering it with her sleeve. “Nuh uh, he smells like something died in his mouth!” she accused, looking at Renji and Iba accusatorily.
“Snacks are here!!!” Yumi announced, bursting into the room with well-timed flourish, before Renji and Iba could think of a response to Yachiru’s exclamations. “Ne, Yachiru, do you want to help me get everyone something to drink?” he asked very calmly.
“Nope,” she responded easily, jumping up onto Shuuhei’s shoulder then, so she could look at Yumichika properly. “Ne, feather-brow… you should smell droopy-eyes too… dumb-glasses and butt-monkey think he smells nice, but he doesn’t at all! Smells like how you said ShuuShuu’s breath does in the mornin’!”
Shuuhei blinked. “Wait…what?”
“Ahahahaha…kids, right?” Yumi asked, setting the snack tray down and busying himself with serving the guests.
Renji blinked. “Did she just call me butt-monkey?”
“What’s dumb about my glasses?”
“Oi…Yumi…what’d she mean ‘bout my breath?”
“Nothing, dear! You know how she tends to misquote things and…”
“What the hell would she have to misquote to call me butt-monkey?!”
“Well, ya sort of are Kuchiki-taichou’s bitch. Ehehehehe.”
Renji scowled. “Shut the hell up, Ikkaku.”
Ikkaku continued to preen. “Just sayin’, is all.”
“Oh yeah? Your luck-luck dance ‘s retarded.”
“Hey! When did this get to personal attacks like that?”
“Your dance is kinda stupid,” Iba agreed thoughtfully.
“Not as stupid as your glasses.”
“Say another word ‘bout my glasses and I’ll cut ya, ya bald bastard, I mean it.”
“Oh, threatenin’ me now, are ya? Can ya even see with those stupid things coverin’ your eyes?”
In the background, Kira looked stricken.
He sniffled.
The room went silent.
“Oi…er…what’s the matter Kira?” Renji asked, carefully.
“We’re uh, we’re real sorry ‘bout the noise,” Ikkaku added.
Iba looked abashed. “Heh, right. You know us. Just foolin’ around. How about we start the game now, yeah?”
Kira looked at the others hopelessly. “Are my eyes really droopy?” he asked, bottom lip quivering.
“Yes!” Yachiru responded.
Everyone else yelled, “No!!!!”
They spent the rest of the evening convincing Kira that Ichimaru-taichou had left because he was an evil bastard, not because he thought the blonde’s eyes were droopy and unattractive.
Several exhausting hours later, Yumi thought that maybe it was time to teach his vice-captain the finer points of a little something called…tact.
Shuuhei, feeling headachy, thought it was a little bit sad when Yumichika felt the need to teach someone how to be tactful.
But, he supposed, that was just how some things went.
END
243.
Title: Dead and Gone
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: Hinamori, Aizen
Word Count: 555 (I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear)
Warning/s: Spoilers for the Soul Society Arc
Summary: Hinamori reads his letter over and over again.
Dedication: Joanne- because she’s going to make me Kenpachi Icons. YES.
A/N: Um… I just felt like being mean to Hinamori? I dunno. I’m kind of sick of myself lately so I guess it just shows? ^^;; I am lame with the comedy and redundant with the serious. IS THERE NO SAFE MIDDLE GROUND FOR ME? ;_;
For Hinamori, Aizen-taichou had died the moment she saw his body, somehow still warm and regal to her as it was pinned to the stone wall, looking down at them with vacant eyes.
For her, that was when her captain died.
And as she sat in her hospital room with his last letter in-between her hands, she told herself exactly that, convinced herself that her Aizen-taichou was dead long before she was stabbed, the man from before and the man that hurt her not one and the same.
It was simply impossible to believe.
And so she stared down at the letter in her hands and despite its lies, could not help but consider it her beloved captain’s last words, his very final thoughts to her before he was murdered.
Because the man that betrayed them was not Aizen-taichou. Not to her.
Her captain was dead and cold long before she set eyes on that criminal, the one who wore his face but was not-could not be-him.
Her Aizen-taichou was warm and kind, his hands always gentle, his voice soothing. He smelled of books and ink and finely aged paper and had the kind of smile only good men had. He took his little vice-captain on picnics and read to her in that deep, calming voice after she’d woken up from a nightmare and sought solace in his room. He patted her head and brought her sweets and never once grew impatient with her, never once raised his voice.
That was her Aizen-taichou, the one she really knew and remembered. The one who was murdered on that day what seems like a lifetime ago, left cold and still and bleeding on the pristine white walls of seireitei as some sort of sick sacrifice, a prelude to the birth of Soul Society’s most deadly criminal.
She held the letter containing her Aizen-taichou’s last words between her fingertips and read them over and over again even though she already knew it all by heart, even though she knew it said terrible things, horrible lies.
Because they were still the last precious words to her from her Aizen-taichou after all, and now that he was dead and gone, it was all she really had left.
And so she sat in her hospital bed and read those words over and over again, crying sometimes, numb at others, all the while thinking that this was really it.
Aizen Sousuke was dead.
She clutched her dead captain’s final words to her, held them tight against her chest, and mourned his passing.
And then, with tears in her eyes, she promised herself that one day, one day she would avenge him.
She would kill the man who had killed him, the one who wore his face but could not steal his smile, could not imitate its warmth.
Because the one who it truly belonged to was dead.
Her captain was dead.
And the man who was responsible for that had to pay.
Hinamori Momo sat in her hospital bed and slowly recovered from the stab wound in her chest, holding her dead captain’s precious last words in-between her hands and swearing vengeance.
As the days passed and she started to regain strength, she began to discover that the tears came less and less.
Until eventually, all that remained was revenge.
END
244.
Title: Sixteen Years Ago This Day
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: Ryuuken
Word Count: 679
Warning/s: Um, non-important spoilers for the post-Soul Society Arc. (ie who Ryuuken is)
Summary: Ryuuken bears a heavy burden.
Dedication: Everyone who’s not sick of me writing Ryuuken. -_-;;
A/N: I’m still sick of myself, but I needed to do something for Ishida’s birthday, because I love him. ^_^;;
It’s Uryuu’s birthday today.
Normally Ryuuken doesn’t put much weight into trivial things like birthdays, but oddly enough, he is always conscious of Uryuu’s even several days before the fact. And on the day itself he finds his thoughts full of nothing but his son, finds himself wondering, hoping, worrying without aim, sitting in his office staring out the window and not getting a thing done.
It never fails. On this day every year for the past sixteen years, he finds his thoughts consumed by the concerns of a parent, even more so than on any other day.
Ryuuken thinks that it’s because the birth of a child is something incredibly profound in the life of any person, something so weighty and unforgettable that even someone as busy as himself is forced to remember that day when it comes again, even when at the same time, he might forget his own birthday, might even begin to forget the face of a kindly father or the touch of a long dead wife.
He never seems to forget Uryuu’s birthday, even when his son is far away, even when his son does not wish to see him.
Because on this day sixteen years ago, Ryuuken remembers exactly how it felt to hold his son in his arms for the first time, the overwhelming joy of fatherhood inexplicably swirling together with the debilitating sorrow of becoming a widower at exactly the same moment.
It had been simultaneously too wonderful and too horrible to bear.
On this day sixteen years ago, Uryuu was born and Ryuuken will never be able to forget how it felt to hold that squirming, squalling baby against his chest, knowing that he was the only person left in the world responsible for this child, knowing that it was his job to provide for everything that this precious, tiny life might require.
And maybe that’s why he can never forget this day, Uryuu’s birthday, even sixteen years after the fact. Because the emotions he felt on that day have sunk into every last bone of his body, have become an unconscious trigger that is always there, reminding him that he has a son.
That on this day sixteen years ago, he became a father.
It is too heavy a weight to forget.
And that weight presses into him with every breath he takes as he sits at his desk holding a pen tightly between his fingers. It is truly overwhelming.
Before long Ryuuken finds himself leaving his office early today, finds himself getting into his car and driving to his son’s school and wondering perhaps, if merely seeing that his child is well provided for is enough, that there is yet more for him to do as a father whether Uryuu wishes for it or not.
He parks on the street outside of the school and waits, an hour until the bell, and when students begin to stream out in waves promptly at three, he holds his breath and grips the wheel and allows himself this one weakness for today, because it is a special day.
When he sees Uryuu pass through the gate, surrounded by what looks like many friends, Ryuuken feels the muscles in his neck and arms relax, and with a little breath, he leans back into the driver’s seat of his car and takes his glasses off so he can clean them. It’s exactly the same, he thinks. That feeling is the same today as it had been sixteen years ago.
The profound weight of fatherhood.
He waits until Uryuu has walked out of sight before he starts the car again.
He drives back to the clinic and goes directly to his office so he can go back to work, freshly reminded that this wonderful precious life is his responsibility, that it his job to provide for Uryuu everything he needs as the boy’s only remaining parent.
Ryuuken turns on his desk lamp and bends over his desk, the feeling heavy and wonderful on his shoulders.
In his heart, he wishes Uryuu a happy birthday.
END
EDITS. YESSS.