Bleach Drabble (163-168)
Okay, so I've been gone for a while. It's 'cuz I got back to LA and have been catching up with everyone and marathoning Firefly and stuff. So... yeah. But I wrote some stuff yesterday and today, and while I think the drawls in Firefly have severely influenced my dialogue writing, I'm going to post anyway because if I get yelled at enough for it, I'll theoretically do better in the future. Anyway, Kenpachi and crew have been eating my brain lately because dude, they're sorta the most similar division to Jayne and Mal, who are totally the best characters on Firefly so there.
Anyway...
163.
Title: Duty Bound
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: Hitsugaya, Matsumoto, Renji being an idiot
Word Count: 252
Warning/s: Spoilers for Ch 195
Summary: New surroundings mean new uniforms for the shinigami of the tenth division.
Dedication: JaB- YOUR BOOBS ARE HUGE YO.
A/N: Jumping the bandwagon here and writing a Ch-195 ficlet… I think I’m a world of lame tho. O.o
Hitsugaya Toushirou looked at his vice-captain appraisingly as she declared she was finally dressed for the mission, and after much trial and tribulation the blonde stalked out of the room she had been changing in to meet her captain.
“Sorry for the wait, taichou. But I’m ready now.”
Toushirou arched an eyebrow at her assertion and decided that while these human “school uniforms” were more troublesome for everyone than their usual shinigami uniforms, they seemed to have given his vice-captain an ill-fitting set on top of that. “Are you certain you’re ready?” he asked carefully, eyeing her chest, which appeared as if it could explode out of its too-small confines at any moment.
“I said so, didn’t I?” she asked breathlessly, looking annoyed and taking a step forward.
He took a step back, out of explosion range, and crossed his arms expectantly. “Matsumoto…”
“What?”
“Would you please raise your hands above your head?”
She hesitated. “Both of them?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t…:”
“Do I have to make it an order?”
She sighed and lifted her arms.
The expected explosion had the tenth division captain ducking the trajectory of the red bow and one ill-fated button.
A beat.
And then he cleared his throat, calmly averting his eyes. “Um, fukutaichou...”
“Ah…yessir?”
“I think I know now, what that contraption we previously identified as the eye-protection strap is actually supposed to um…strap.”
“Sir?”
Another beat.
“Ooooh. That’s for…”
He nodded. “I will um, inform Abarai to remove it from his head.”
“Ah, thank you sir.”
END
164.
Title: The Devil Builds a Robot
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: Gin, Kira
Word Count: 507
Warning/s: Erm, vague, vague Soul Society Arc spoilers.
Summary: Gin+Gundam=OTP.
Dedication: Francis- because his birthday was a while ago and I didn’t write anything for him then…;_;
A/N: So a stolen line from a season 5 episode of Angel. It amused me. Yeah. I don’t really know either.
Ichimaru had of late, been enamored of something he had picked up in the human world called “Gundams,” and had spent the last day and a half building what looked to be a small plastic man with strange angular growths all over his body.
Kira, unsuccessfully, had spent the entire time Gin had been occupied desperately trying to convince his captain to hurry and finish his strange plastic man so that they could get to work again, the stacks of paper in the third division headquarters having grown to monstrous proportions.
Gin simply clucked at his vice-captain in his best chiding tone, saying, “Izuru-chan, these things can’t be rushed, ne?”
Kira looked at the toy and said that all the pieces had a set place and could be attached to them much faster than the speed Gin was attaching them, the smiling captain humming to himself as he painstakingly laid and added color to each piece, creating his model from the ground up at the speed plants grow.
“Taichou…please, we need to hurry and get this work done, so if you could urm, either pause in your building or finish it much more quickly…”
“Tch, Izu-chan… it’s best to do things carefully when you’ve only got once chance of doing them right, don’t you think?”
“W-well, yes, sir, but um… but…”
“Look, isn’t it much sturdier if I glue it instead of just throwing it together? And I like the way I can paint it exactly how I want if I ignore the little stickers they gave me… it’s much more well thought out this way, isn’t it?”
Kira blinked, looking over his captain’s shoulder at the strange human-made device. “Um…it’s very nice, sir,” he admitted with some reluctance, clutching a sheaf of very important papers to his chest. “But we really need to get these things done fast…”
“Life can’t be rushed, Kira,” Gin chastised warmly, adding another layer of paint to his model; one downward stroke every three seconds. “If you rush these carefully laid out things, they tend to fall apart much quicker,” he added with an almost paternal tone-an obvious attempt to soothe the flustered blonde. “It’s all about who has the most patience, you see?”
“Y-yes, but, sir…”
“This could take me years to finish, really,” Gin added with a hint of wicked teasing, leaning back to study his handiwork thus far. “But even so, I know it will work beautifully in the end. Every piece perfect in its place and looking exactly how I want it to, ne?”
Kira felt oddly ill in his stomach at the prospect of that, and with sad eyes locked onto the menacing looking humanoid plastic thing, he couldn’t help but wonder…
“Ah, sir… who um, who gave that to you?”
Gin stayed his hand from its work at the inquiry, pausing to turn and look at his vice-captain appraisingly. “Why do you ask, Kira-kun?”
The blonde swallowed inexplicably. “Um, I um, just curious, I suppose, sir.”
Ichimaru’s smile broadened. “Aizen-taichou gave it to me.”
END
165.
Title: Spoiled
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: ShuuheixYumichika, Ikkaku, Iba, Renji, Kira
Word Count: 489
Warning/s: Weird lameness and some OOCness, but not really any spoilers. ^^y
Summary: Shuuhei enlists the help of his friends for Yumichika’s big day.
Dedication: aslah- I got the postcards today, THANKS SO MUCH AGAIN!
A/N: So…happy birthday belated b-day, Yumi!!! I’m a world of lame lately, btw. -_-;;
“You spoil him.”
Shuuhei frowned. “I do not.”
“Do too,” Ikkaku shot back over the rim of his drink.
“Do not,” Shuuhei insisted stubbornly, though he couldn’t really look Ikkaku in the eye right now.
“Do too.”
Shuuhei scowled at the other man’s persistence. “Well…it’s his birthday!” he protested.
“Yeah, okay. Hey… when’s that life-size ice-sculpture of him supposed to get here today?”
“Oh shut up.” Pause. “Three. I think.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”
Shuuhei ignored him. “Little to the left, Renji!” he called out, tilting his head just so.
“If I go any more to the left I’m gonna freakin’ fall off the ladder, senpai!”
“Um… just a little to the left?”
Renji grunted and tried for it anyway, adjusting his hold on the corner of the enormous “HAPPY BIRTHDAY YUMICHIKA!!!” banner and leaning just a little more forward while Kira worriedly braced the ladder for him on the floor.
“There… how’s that? ACK.”
Everyone winced as Renji tumbled off of the ladder.
“Um, that’s good!” Shuuhei assured him.
“This is uncool. This is so uncool,” Iba grumped from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, some distance away weaving fresh-cut lowers into chains that would later be strung from the white tablecloths. “It’s a party! Why the hell does there gotta be flowers? In chains? I feel like a freakin’ fairy.”
“Look like one too,” Ikkaku added helpfully.
Iba glared at both he and Shuuhei. “Why are we doing this again?”
“I uh, bribed you all with lots of free alcohol?”
Iba paused. “Oh yeah.” He went back to the flowers.
Shuuhei felt as if the atmosphere was growing a tad bit hostile. It might have been Abarai glaring at him from the floor as Kira placed an ice pack on his bruised shoulder.
Maybe asking him to hang the glass balls and paper lanterns from the ceiling right now would be a bad idea.
He cleared his throat and checked the time.
Great.
“Uh… keep up the good work guys, I need to go get the ice-sculpture now alright? Gotta make sure it looks just like Yumi but um, not better than him,” Shuuhei explained (though he was a bit confused about that part himself) before he beat a hasty withdrawal out of the room.
On seeing Hisagi’s retreating back, Ikkaku cupped his mouth and called out, “SPOIL!”
“NOT!!” echoed back through the hallways to the laborers and flower-chains.
Left to their own devices, said laborers all sat silently by and wondered if now would be the best time to beat a quick retreat themselves and leave Shuuhei to his own grand ballroom schemes and very gay flowers.
Ikkaku sighed after a moment and set his drink down, heading over to join Iba to aid in the flower-weaving. It was Yumi’s birthday, after all.
“There better be a hell of a lot of alcohol tonight.”
Everyone grunted in agreement and went back to work.
END
166.
Title: Reason for Living
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: KyourakuxUkitake
Word Count: 663
Warning/s: No spoilers save for commentary on Ukitake’s health, I suppose. O.o
Summary: Kyouraku wants to give Ukitake a reason to live.
Dedication: Ann- because it was her birthday a few days ago and I’m LATE FOR THAT TOO. XD
A/N: I dunno, I kind of just wrote this as it came… might kind of make Ukitake seem like an asshole or something… o.o I’m still food coma-y from lunch so it’s all fuzzy on how I’m interpreting my own stuff right now. *deep breath* Just keep writin’… Wanna get to 200 before school starts again, dammit!
Sometimes he’s convinced he’ll spend all of eternity dying.
And that Kyouraku has spent all of eternity worrying about it.
Shunsui’s way of showing concern for Jyuushirou’s health is unconventional of course, but the white-haired captain has known his companion for so long now that it’s easy for him to tell that the other man has his worries, and that more specifically, he’s not afraid of Jyuushirou’s death so much as his surrender to it.
Because sometimes, on days when Ukitake coughs so much or feels so weak that he can’t move, he thinks that maybe it would be better if he just let himself go and hope that the next incarnation will be blessed with better health.
It’s always just a passing thought, something he wonders about when he’s bedridden and unable to sleep. The thought is always gone just as quickly as it comes, and while he knows for certain that he would never simply just die, Shunsui is concerned enough about those fleeting thoughts he sometimes has to smile beseechingly at the white-haired captain as he hovers by Jyuushirou’s sickbed on his off time, talking incessantly of all the wonders he’s seen today and that the moment Jyuu-chan gets better, he’ll take him to see them too.
Ukitake knows that Kyouraku is always trying to give him a reason to live.
He’ll stroll in bearing fresh fruit and a thousand unbelievable stories ready to go, sitting down next to recovering Jyuushirou’s bedside and regaling him with every single one while he peels apples for them both, a grand smile on his face that only Ukitake can see the lines of worry in.
They sit together for hours and hours on those days and Jyuushirou listens to Shunsui’s tall tales with his own small smile, knowing inside that Kyouraku’s trying to give him an incentive to keep going without knowing that there’s motivation enough for Ukitake right there.
Maybe one day, Ukitake will tell Kyouraku that the other man is all the reason he'll ever need to live. It would ease some of Shunsui’s worries, and Ukitake thinks that it would mean that Shunsui wouldn’t have to go out of his way so often, that Jyuushirou would be dragged outside for fewer walks in fields of flowers or secret hideouts or sparkling swimming holes on those days just after his latest recovery.
Maybe one day, Ukitake will sit Shunsui down and take his hand and let the other man know that despite those fleeting thoughts of death, he’s not going to just give up and die anytime soon, no matter how much pain he may be in, because as long as Kyouraku is alive he has a reason to stay in this world because no one else has quite the patience to deal with the other captain’s antics.
If he just went ahead and did it, Jyuushirou knows it would mean less over-the-top exclamations of how beautiful everything is, how good food tastes or how wonderful springtime rain smells. It would mean less of being whisked away from his desk when he’s working to run around a little in the sunshine or share an evening drink or climb a tree or go eat dangerously oily street-vendor fare in Rukongai before playing with the nearest batch of curious children.
If he just let Shunsui know that he felt he already had all the reason in the world to live right there in the other man, it would mean his lover wouldn’t have to try so hard all the time to find all those new reasons.
But Ukitake is pretty sure all those things are exactly why he hasn’t told Shunsui a thing yet.
So instead, he sits in his recovery bed with his hands folded in his lap and waits for Kyouraku to burst through the doors with an armful of fruit and a thousand and one tales to tell him.
And as he waits, Ukitake thinks he’s never felt more alive.
END
167.
Title: A Matter of Succession
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: Eleventh Division
Word Count: 457
Warning/s: Spoilers for Ch 195 and rampant lameness here.
Summary: Kenpachi’s got a skewed version of succession rites in the human world.
Dedication: Sarah- thanks for lunch today! ^^ Sorry about being sleepy and DEAF.
A/N: I dunno. I really, I just dunno. Something is OFF with me a lot lately… o.o But hopefully I’ll work through it soon if I just keep on writin’ yeah? Yeah. Maybe. I dunno.
Kenpachi watched as his two subordinates prepared for their mission, scowling furiously as he did.
“Aw, we won’t be gone that long taichou, promise!” Ayasekawa stated, smiling at his captain as he neatly folded the new uniform that had been issued to him today.
Ikkaku grinned. “We’ll be sure’n write everyday, taichou.”
Kenpachi’s scowl deepened. “Dumbasses. I ain’t gonna miss you.”
Ayasekawa smiled back indignantly. “Of course not, taichou, because we won’t be gone that long!”
“Shut up! I’m pissed ‘cuz I don’t see why you two idiots get to go and I don’t! I wanna fight Ichigo!!”
“Um…no offense or nothin’ sir, but ya don’t really look like a high school student,” Ikkaku explained patiently. “It’d just be weird.”
Kenpachi frowned. “Well uh… I could be a teacher or somethin’. Yeah.” Pause. “They got those, don’t they?”
Ikkaku blinked. “I uh, I guess that’d work.”
An unholy light began to creep into the captain’s previously glaring eye. “Yeah…a teacher or somethin’…”
“But do you actually know a school subject well enough to teach it?” Yumichika posed pragmatically.
The eleventh division captain wrinkled his brow thoughtfully. “Um…” He scowled. “Dammit.”
“How about gym?” Ikkaku suggested hastily upon seeing the downturn in his captain’s spirits. “Right? Right? Ya just make ‘em run a lot, right, taichou? You’re good at gettin’ people to run. Away.”
Kenpachi grinned. “Yeah I am.”
“Yamamoto-soutaichou informed us that there weren’t any current staff openings, or we’d send more people, remember?” the fifth chair pointed out. “So they already have a gym teacher.”
Kenpachi’s eye flashed. “That so?”
“It is, sir.”
“Well that’s easy enough!” the captain announced eagerly. “Means all I gotta do is kill him and take his jacket, right?”
Both lower-ranked shinigami blinked. “Er, what?”
Zaraki grinned maniacally and indicated his white jacket. “I just gotta kill the bastard and take his coat. Then I get his job. Pieceacake.”
Ikkaku and Ayasekawa looked at each other for a minute.
Both sighed.
“So… you want this one?”
“Is it my turn already?”
“Hey, last time I had to explain ‘bout why chicks can bleed for five days’n not die and guys can’t.”
Yumi sighed and paused in his activities, laying his uniform down and patting his captain on the back. “Taichou…why don’t you come with me for a little bit? I’ll make some tea and we can sit down and have a nice chat.”
Zaraki blinked. “Chat? ’bout what?”
Ayasekawa smiled indulgently. “All sorts of fun things, taichou. I’ll make up a tray of those little flower cookies you like so much!”
Kenpachi looked at his subordinate hesitantly. “The uh, the ones with the jam in the middle?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Uh yeah, I guess that’d be okay then.”
“Now…about your jacket…”
END
168.
Title: Bad Boys
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: Kenpachi, Ikkaku, sort-of-not-really KenpachixGin in a cracked out indirect way.
Word Count: 464
Warning/s: OOCness and random fruit cups appearing in seireitei. Leave me alone. :P
Summary: Ikkaku asks why the chicks dig Gin. Kenpachi answers.
Dedication: antiparallel- dude, the Hana fanart was OMGYES and so I owe you a billion thank yous and a bunch of dedications (and stalking… lots of that). XD
A/N: I was just thinking about how everyone (myself included) just thinks Gin is so bad-ass sexy despite the whole being evil thing. And then I sort of wondered why. And then I tried to answer my own question by writing about it, but the fruit cup got in the way and I forgot what I was trying to do. Aheh. ^^;;
“Okay, Hisagi I get. The girls think he’s hot, so of course. That’s not anythin’ weird or anythin’…girls likin’ hot guys. Right?”
Kenpachi, pausing from trying to dig out the peach chunk in his fruit cup and avoid the thrice-cursed mushy green grape, blinked at his third-chair. “Somethin’ you tryin’ to tell me here, Ikkaku?”
Madarame frowned at the tone. “Ain’t nothin’ like that taichou! I’m just wonderin,’ ya know? The chicks seem to dig Hisagi, and I guess the guy’s cool lookin’, so it makes sense. What I don’t really get is…” He motioned vaguely with his hand to the other side of the quad, where Mastumoto chatted cheerfully with an eerily smiling Ichimaru Gin.
Kenpachi’s brow furrowed. “You don’t get talking?”
The third chair scowled at his captain’s obtuseness. “Che. No. What I don’t get is why a lotta the girls like Ichimaru-taichou too. Ain’t he a little bit creepy?”
Kenpachi shrugged noncommittally and picked up the mushy grape that was thwarting his peach excavation efforts, frowning at it before dropping it on the ground. “Some chicks like that, I guess,” he grunted absently, eyeing his long sought after produce like a wolf closing in on its prey.
“Still don’t make sense. There’s just somethin’ ‘bout Ichimaru-taichou that don’t sit right with normal people, ya know? Somethin’ about him that scares you, I guess.”
Kenpachi’s one eye paused in its peach-stalking and roved over the third chair for a moment before the captain flashed a shark-toothed grin at his subordinate. “Don’t have a clue what you’re talkin’ about,” he responded.
Ikkaku didn’t appreciate the fact that his captain decided to, on occasion; display a strangely ironic sense of humor.
Without really getting that he was.
Ikkaku sighed in frustration. “Look, what I’m tryin’ to say, taichou, is that Ichimaru-taichou just seems like the kinda guy that likes the weird things, ya know? Cuttin’ and blood and blood-lickin’, and generally creepy stuff like that.”
Kenpachi glared. “What’s wrong with cuttin’ and blood?”
Ikkaku realized a little too late that maybe he was asking the wrong person about all of this.
He waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind. I just don’t get it, ‘s all. Guy like that, shouldn’t be so popular with the ladies, if you ask me.”
Kenpachi shrugged and speared his coveted peach slice. “Why the hell not?” he snorted, chomping down on the fruit. “Some girls like the manly stuff. They ain’t all squeamish like other girls, ya know?” the captain started around the food in his mouth. “Blood and cutting and fun things like that. Hard to find someone who can enjoy that stuff and still look good doin’ it.”
Pause.
“Hell… I’d do ‘im.”
Ikkaku stared at his captain for a moment.
“Just eat your fruit cup, sir.”
END
As always, comments, crits, and EDITING are much needed appreciated.
Anyway...
163.
Title: Duty Bound
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: Hitsugaya, Matsumoto, Renji being an idiot
Word Count: 252
Warning/s: Spoilers for Ch 195
Summary: New surroundings mean new uniforms for the shinigami of the tenth division.
Dedication: JaB- YOUR BOOBS ARE HUGE YO.
A/N: Jumping the bandwagon here and writing a Ch-195 ficlet… I think I’m a world of lame tho. O.o
Hitsugaya Toushirou looked at his vice-captain appraisingly as she declared she was finally dressed for the mission, and after much trial and tribulation the blonde stalked out of the room she had been changing in to meet her captain.
“Sorry for the wait, taichou. But I’m ready now.”
Toushirou arched an eyebrow at her assertion and decided that while these human “school uniforms” were more troublesome for everyone than their usual shinigami uniforms, they seemed to have given his vice-captain an ill-fitting set on top of that. “Are you certain you’re ready?” he asked carefully, eyeing her chest, which appeared as if it could explode out of its too-small confines at any moment.
“I said so, didn’t I?” she asked breathlessly, looking annoyed and taking a step forward.
He took a step back, out of explosion range, and crossed his arms expectantly. “Matsumoto…”
“What?”
“Would you please raise your hands above your head?”
She hesitated. “Both of them?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t…:”
“Do I have to make it an order?”
She sighed and lifted her arms.
The expected explosion had the tenth division captain ducking the trajectory of the red bow and one ill-fated button.
A beat.
And then he cleared his throat, calmly averting his eyes. “Um, fukutaichou...”
“Ah…yessir?”
“I think I know now, what that contraption we previously identified as the eye-protection strap is actually supposed to um…strap.”
“Sir?”
Another beat.
“Ooooh. That’s for…”
He nodded. “I will um, inform Abarai to remove it from his head.”
“Ah, thank you sir.”
END
164.
Title: The Devil Builds a Robot
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: Gin, Kira
Word Count: 507
Warning/s: Erm, vague, vague Soul Society Arc spoilers.
Summary: Gin+Gundam=OTP.
Dedication: Francis- because his birthday was a while ago and I didn’t write anything for him then…;_;
A/N: So a stolen line from a season 5 episode of Angel. It amused me. Yeah. I don’t really know either.
Ichimaru had of late, been enamored of something he had picked up in the human world called “Gundams,” and had spent the last day and a half building what looked to be a small plastic man with strange angular growths all over his body.
Kira, unsuccessfully, had spent the entire time Gin had been occupied desperately trying to convince his captain to hurry and finish his strange plastic man so that they could get to work again, the stacks of paper in the third division headquarters having grown to monstrous proportions.
Gin simply clucked at his vice-captain in his best chiding tone, saying, “Izuru-chan, these things can’t be rushed, ne?”
Kira looked at the toy and said that all the pieces had a set place and could be attached to them much faster than the speed Gin was attaching them, the smiling captain humming to himself as he painstakingly laid and added color to each piece, creating his model from the ground up at the speed plants grow.
“Taichou…please, we need to hurry and get this work done, so if you could urm, either pause in your building or finish it much more quickly…”
“Tch, Izu-chan… it’s best to do things carefully when you’ve only got once chance of doing them right, don’t you think?”
“W-well, yes, sir, but um… but…”
“Look, isn’t it much sturdier if I glue it instead of just throwing it together? And I like the way I can paint it exactly how I want if I ignore the little stickers they gave me… it’s much more well thought out this way, isn’t it?”
Kira blinked, looking over his captain’s shoulder at the strange human-made device. “Um…it’s very nice, sir,” he admitted with some reluctance, clutching a sheaf of very important papers to his chest. “But we really need to get these things done fast…”
“Life can’t be rushed, Kira,” Gin chastised warmly, adding another layer of paint to his model; one downward stroke every three seconds. “If you rush these carefully laid out things, they tend to fall apart much quicker,” he added with an almost paternal tone-an obvious attempt to soothe the flustered blonde. “It’s all about who has the most patience, you see?”
“Y-yes, but, sir…”
“This could take me years to finish, really,” Gin added with a hint of wicked teasing, leaning back to study his handiwork thus far. “But even so, I know it will work beautifully in the end. Every piece perfect in its place and looking exactly how I want it to, ne?”
Kira felt oddly ill in his stomach at the prospect of that, and with sad eyes locked onto the menacing looking humanoid plastic thing, he couldn’t help but wonder…
“Ah, sir… who um, who gave that to you?”
Gin stayed his hand from its work at the inquiry, pausing to turn and look at his vice-captain appraisingly. “Why do you ask, Kira-kun?”
The blonde swallowed inexplicably. “Um, I um, just curious, I suppose, sir.”
Ichimaru’s smile broadened. “Aizen-taichou gave it to me.”
END
165.
Title: Spoiled
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: ShuuheixYumichika, Ikkaku, Iba, Renji, Kira
Word Count: 489
Warning/s: Weird lameness and some OOCness, but not really any spoilers. ^^y
Summary: Shuuhei enlists the help of his friends for Yumichika’s big day.
Dedication: aslah- I got the postcards today, THANKS SO MUCH AGAIN!
A/N: So…happy birthday belated b-day, Yumi!!! I’m a world of lame lately, btw. -_-;;
“You spoil him.”
Shuuhei frowned. “I do not.”
“Do too,” Ikkaku shot back over the rim of his drink.
“Do not,” Shuuhei insisted stubbornly, though he couldn’t really look Ikkaku in the eye right now.
“Do too.”
Shuuhei scowled at the other man’s persistence. “Well…it’s his birthday!” he protested.
“Yeah, okay. Hey… when’s that life-size ice-sculpture of him supposed to get here today?”
“Oh shut up.” Pause. “Three. I think.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”
Shuuhei ignored him. “Little to the left, Renji!” he called out, tilting his head just so.
“If I go any more to the left I’m gonna freakin’ fall off the ladder, senpai!”
“Um… just a little to the left?”
Renji grunted and tried for it anyway, adjusting his hold on the corner of the enormous “HAPPY BIRTHDAY YUMICHIKA!!!” banner and leaning just a little more forward while Kira worriedly braced the ladder for him on the floor.
“There… how’s that? ACK.”
Everyone winced as Renji tumbled off of the ladder.
“Um, that’s good!” Shuuhei assured him.
“This is uncool. This is so uncool,” Iba grumped from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, some distance away weaving fresh-cut lowers into chains that would later be strung from the white tablecloths. “It’s a party! Why the hell does there gotta be flowers? In chains? I feel like a freakin’ fairy.”
“Look like one too,” Ikkaku added helpfully.
Iba glared at both he and Shuuhei. “Why are we doing this again?”
“I uh, bribed you all with lots of free alcohol?”
Iba paused. “Oh yeah.” He went back to the flowers.
Shuuhei felt as if the atmosphere was growing a tad bit hostile. It might have been Abarai glaring at him from the floor as Kira placed an ice pack on his bruised shoulder.
Maybe asking him to hang the glass balls and paper lanterns from the ceiling right now would be a bad idea.
He cleared his throat and checked the time.
Great.
“Uh… keep up the good work guys, I need to go get the ice-sculpture now alright? Gotta make sure it looks just like Yumi but um, not better than him,” Shuuhei explained (though he was a bit confused about that part himself) before he beat a hasty withdrawal out of the room.
On seeing Hisagi’s retreating back, Ikkaku cupped his mouth and called out, “SPOIL!”
“NOT!!” echoed back through the hallways to the laborers and flower-chains.
Left to their own devices, said laborers all sat silently by and wondered if now would be the best time to beat a quick retreat themselves and leave Shuuhei to his own grand ballroom schemes and very gay flowers.
Ikkaku sighed after a moment and set his drink down, heading over to join Iba to aid in the flower-weaving. It was Yumi’s birthday, after all.
“There better be a hell of a lot of alcohol tonight.”
Everyone grunted in agreement and went back to work.
END
166.
Title: Reason for Living
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: KyourakuxUkitake
Word Count: 663
Warning/s: No spoilers save for commentary on Ukitake’s health, I suppose. O.o
Summary: Kyouraku wants to give Ukitake a reason to live.
Dedication: Ann- because it was her birthday a few days ago and I’m LATE FOR THAT TOO. XD
A/N: I dunno, I kind of just wrote this as it came… might kind of make Ukitake seem like an asshole or something… o.o I’m still food coma-y from lunch so it’s all fuzzy on how I’m interpreting my own stuff right now. *deep breath* Just keep writin’… Wanna get to 200 before school starts again, dammit!
Sometimes he’s convinced he’ll spend all of eternity dying.
And that Kyouraku has spent all of eternity worrying about it.
Shunsui’s way of showing concern for Jyuushirou’s health is unconventional of course, but the white-haired captain has known his companion for so long now that it’s easy for him to tell that the other man has his worries, and that more specifically, he’s not afraid of Jyuushirou’s death so much as his surrender to it.
Because sometimes, on days when Ukitake coughs so much or feels so weak that he can’t move, he thinks that maybe it would be better if he just let himself go and hope that the next incarnation will be blessed with better health.
It’s always just a passing thought, something he wonders about when he’s bedridden and unable to sleep. The thought is always gone just as quickly as it comes, and while he knows for certain that he would never simply just die, Shunsui is concerned enough about those fleeting thoughts he sometimes has to smile beseechingly at the white-haired captain as he hovers by Jyuushirou’s sickbed on his off time, talking incessantly of all the wonders he’s seen today and that the moment Jyuu-chan gets better, he’ll take him to see them too.
Ukitake knows that Kyouraku is always trying to give him a reason to live.
He’ll stroll in bearing fresh fruit and a thousand unbelievable stories ready to go, sitting down next to recovering Jyuushirou’s bedside and regaling him with every single one while he peels apples for them both, a grand smile on his face that only Ukitake can see the lines of worry in.
They sit together for hours and hours on those days and Jyuushirou listens to Shunsui’s tall tales with his own small smile, knowing inside that Kyouraku’s trying to give him an incentive to keep going without knowing that there’s motivation enough for Ukitake right there.
Maybe one day, Ukitake will tell Kyouraku that the other man is all the reason he'll ever need to live. It would ease some of Shunsui’s worries, and Ukitake thinks that it would mean that Shunsui wouldn’t have to go out of his way so often, that Jyuushirou would be dragged outside for fewer walks in fields of flowers or secret hideouts or sparkling swimming holes on those days just after his latest recovery.
Maybe one day, Ukitake will sit Shunsui down and take his hand and let the other man know that despite those fleeting thoughts of death, he’s not going to just give up and die anytime soon, no matter how much pain he may be in, because as long as Kyouraku is alive he has a reason to stay in this world because no one else has quite the patience to deal with the other captain’s antics.
If he just went ahead and did it, Jyuushirou knows it would mean less over-the-top exclamations of how beautiful everything is, how good food tastes or how wonderful springtime rain smells. It would mean less of being whisked away from his desk when he’s working to run around a little in the sunshine or share an evening drink or climb a tree or go eat dangerously oily street-vendor fare in Rukongai before playing with the nearest batch of curious children.
If he just let Shunsui know that he felt he already had all the reason in the world to live right there in the other man, it would mean his lover wouldn’t have to try so hard all the time to find all those new reasons.
But Ukitake is pretty sure all those things are exactly why he hasn’t told Shunsui a thing yet.
So instead, he sits in his recovery bed with his hands folded in his lap and waits for Kyouraku to burst through the doors with an armful of fruit and a thousand and one tales to tell him.
And as he waits, Ukitake thinks he’s never felt more alive.
END
167.
Title: A Matter of Succession
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: Eleventh Division
Word Count: 457
Warning/s: Spoilers for Ch 195 and rampant lameness here.
Summary: Kenpachi’s got a skewed version of succession rites in the human world.
Dedication: Sarah- thanks for lunch today! ^^ Sorry about being sleepy and DEAF.
A/N: I dunno. I really, I just dunno. Something is OFF with me a lot lately… o.o But hopefully I’ll work through it soon if I just keep on writin’ yeah? Yeah. Maybe. I dunno.
Kenpachi watched as his two subordinates prepared for their mission, scowling furiously as he did.
“Aw, we won’t be gone that long taichou, promise!” Ayasekawa stated, smiling at his captain as he neatly folded the new uniform that had been issued to him today.
Ikkaku grinned. “We’ll be sure’n write everyday, taichou.”
Kenpachi’s scowl deepened. “Dumbasses. I ain’t gonna miss you.”
Ayasekawa smiled back indignantly. “Of course not, taichou, because we won’t be gone that long!”
“Shut up! I’m pissed ‘cuz I don’t see why you two idiots get to go and I don’t! I wanna fight Ichigo!!”
“Um…no offense or nothin’ sir, but ya don’t really look like a high school student,” Ikkaku explained patiently. “It’d just be weird.”
Kenpachi frowned. “Well uh… I could be a teacher or somethin’. Yeah.” Pause. “They got those, don’t they?”
Ikkaku blinked. “I uh, I guess that’d work.”
An unholy light began to creep into the captain’s previously glaring eye. “Yeah…a teacher or somethin’…”
“But do you actually know a school subject well enough to teach it?” Yumichika posed pragmatically.
The eleventh division captain wrinkled his brow thoughtfully. “Um…” He scowled. “Dammit.”
“How about gym?” Ikkaku suggested hastily upon seeing the downturn in his captain’s spirits. “Right? Right? Ya just make ‘em run a lot, right, taichou? You’re good at gettin’ people to run. Away.”
Kenpachi grinned. “Yeah I am.”
“Yamamoto-soutaichou informed us that there weren’t any current staff openings, or we’d send more people, remember?” the fifth chair pointed out. “So they already have a gym teacher.”
Kenpachi’s eye flashed. “That so?”
“It is, sir.”
“Well that’s easy enough!” the captain announced eagerly. “Means all I gotta do is kill him and take his jacket, right?”
Both lower-ranked shinigami blinked. “Er, what?”
Zaraki grinned maniacally and indicated his white jacket. “I just gotta kill the bastard and take his coat. Then I get his job. Pieceacake.”
Ikkaku and Ayasekawa looked at each other for a minute.
Both sighed.
“So… you want this one?”
“Is it my turn already?”
“Hey, last time I had to explain ‘bout why chicks can bleed for five days’n not die and guys can’t.”
Yumi sighed and paused in his activities, laying his uniform down and patting his captain on the back. “Taichou…why don’t you come with me for a little bit? I’ll make some tea and we can sit down and have a nice chat.”
Zaraki blinked. “Chat? ’bout what?”
Ayasekawa smiled indulgently. “All sorts of fun things, taichou. I’ll make up a tray of those little flower cookies you like so much!”
Kenpachi looked at his subordinate hesitantly. “The uh, the ones with the jam in the middle?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Uh yeah, I guess that’d be okay then.”
“Now…about your jacket…”
END
168.
Title: Bad Boys
Rating: PG-13
Pairing/Character/s: Kenpachi, Ikkaku, sort-of-not-really KenpachixGin in a cracked out indirect way.
Word Count: 464
Warning/s: OOCness and random fruit cups appearing in seireitei. Leave me alone. :P
Summary: Ikkaku asks why the chicks dig Gin. Kenpachi answers.
Dedication: antiparallel- dude, the Hana fanart was OMGYES and so I owe you a billion thank yous and a bunch of dedications (and stalking… lots of that). XD
A/N: I was just thinking about how everyone (myself included) just thinks Gin is so bad-ass sexy despite the whole being evil thing. And then I sort of wondered why. And then I tried to answer my own question by writing about it, but the fruit cup got in the way and I forgot what I was trying to do. Aheh. ^^;;
“Okay, Hisagi I get. The girls think he’s hot, so of course. That’s not anythin’ weird or anythin’…girls likin’ hot guys. Right?”
Kenpachi, pausing from trying to dig out the peach chunk in his fruit cup and avoid the thrice-cursed mushy green grape, blinked at his third-chair. “Somethin’ you tryin’ to tell me here, Ikkaku?”
Madarame frowned at the tone. “Ain’t nothin’ like that taichou! I’m just wonderin,’ ya know? The chicks seem to dig Hisagi, and I guess the guy’s cool lookin’, so it makes sense. What I don’t really get is…” He motioned vaguely with his hand to the other side of the quad, where Mastumoto chatted cheerfully with an eerily smiling Ichimaru Gin.
Kenpachi’s brow furrowed. “You don’t get talking?”
The third chair scowled at his captain’s obtuseness. “Che. No. What I don’t get is why a lotta the girls like Ichimaru-taichou too. Ain’t he a little bit creepy?”
Kenpachi shrugged noncommittally and picked up the mushy grape that was thwarting his peach excavation efforts, frowning at it before dropping it on the ground. “Some chicks like that, I guess,” he grunted absently, eyeing his long sought after produce like a wolf closing in on its prey.
“Still don’t make sense. There’s just somethin’ ‘bout Ichimaru-taichou that don’t sit right with normal people, ya know? Somethin’ about him that scares you, I guess.”
Kenpachi’s one eye paused in its peach-stalking and roved over the third chair for a moment before the captain flashed a shark-toothed grin at his subordinate. “Don’t have a clue what you’re talkin’ about,” he responded.
Ikkaku didn’t appreciate the fact that his captain decided to, on occasion; display a strangely ironic sense of humor.
Without really getting that he was.
Ikkaku sighed in frustration. “Look, what I’m tryin’ to say, taichou, is that Ichimaru-taichou just seems like the kinda guy that likes the weird things, ya know? Cuttin’ and blood and blood-lickin’, and generally creepy stuff like that.”
Kenpachi glared. “What’s wrong with cuttin’ and blood?”
Ikkaku realized a little too late that maybe he was asking the wrong person about all of this.
He waved his hand dismissively. “Never mind. I just don’t get it, ‘s all. Guy like that, shouldn’t be so popular with the ladies, if you ask me.”
Kenpachi shrugged and speared his coveted peach slice. “Why the hell not?” he snorted, chomping down on the fruit. “Some girls like the manly stuff. They ain’t all squeamish like other girls, ya know?” the captain started around the food in his mouth. “Blood and cutting and fun things like that. Hard to find someone who can enjoy that stuff and still look good doin’ it.”
Pause.
“Hell… I’d do ‘im.”
Ikkaku stared at his captain for a moment.
“Just eat your fruit cup, sir.”
END
As always, comments, crits, and EDITING are much needed appreciated.