Bleach Drabble (477-478)
Two down, two more to go!
ARGH WORK TOMORROW! *working as fast as physically possible*
477.
Title: Doctor’s Orders
Rating: PG-15
Pairing/Character/s: KomamuraxUnohana.
Word Count: 897
Warning/s: No spoilers I can imagine.
Summary: Komamura and his yearly physical exam.
Dedication: sophiap- haha your one liners are always the best part of the week, and I know you’ve got to have lots of perseverance to keep up with it every single week. XD ALSO Thanks for the AMAZING b-day fic. ;_;
A/N: requested by west_side during my last meme. Kind of a… weird topic, but I did my best! Maybe. >> Request was “sex talk.” I KNOW THIS PAIRING IS STRANGE BUT I THINK IT COULD BE SWEET UNDER THE RIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES, OKAY? >>
“Is this absolutely necessary?” Komamura asked, trying to sound commanding but coming out more obviously-uncomfortable instead. “I mean…”
“Protocol,” Unohana told him gently, though the look in her eye said that she was really rather amused by the whole thing. “I’m just doing my job, taichou-san.”
He’d never been particularly happy about having fur before, but he was momentarily thankful that it hid his blush. He coughed. “Well, yes. I agree that protocol is very important, but at the same time….Nnngh!”
“You’re a bit warm,” she murmured thoughtfully-sweetly-to him as her hand brushed his sloped forehead and gentle, probing waves of reiatsu slid into him from the tips of her fingers.
“Warn me when you’re going to do that,” he muttered, sounding embarrassingly petulant
when he did.
“Apologies,” she responded serenely-if not genuinely-- and patted his head. After a moment, she withdrew her touch. “Well then, taichou-san, do you think you’re ready for your annual full physical?” The slight upward quirk of her mouth told him she was rather looking forward to horribly mortifying him over the next hour or so.
“As ready as one can be for these things, doctor-san,” he responded dryly, and sat up a little straighter so that at least he appeared dignified for this assault on his personal space.
She laughed at him then, a quiet chuckle as she prepared a dressing gown for him from one of the nearby cabinets.
Komamura sighed. Well, that was rather unprofessional.
“If you behave I’ll give you a lollipop when you’re done,” Retsu added with a little smile, when she heard him huff. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Very funny,” he told her, and was very, very near to rolling his eyes. “I still don’t see why this is…” he cleared his throat, blushed even hotter, “I mean, there’s obviously nothing you haven’t already seen before.”
“I must admit, I wasn’t being very thorough in my examination the other night, taichou-san,” she said smoothly, and handed him the largest size examination gown they had. “So my apologies, but this is still quite necessary.”
He coughed again. “Er… right. Fine. Protocol is important,” he echoed, and waited for her to leave the room so he could change.
She smiled gently at him, and didn’t move one bit.
He looked at her. “Retsu…”
She cocked her head to the side. “Didn’t you just say there was nothing I hadn’t already seen before?”
He sighed-should have known by now he really couldn’t ever win with her.
He began to disrobe.
He eyed her halfway through, but she simply sat by looking professionally bored, going over his medical charts from the last examination and humming quietly to herself as she waited.
He put the gown on as quickly as he could.
“Well,” she began, the moment he was finished, “from the looks of things you’ve gained some weight since your last physical with me, taichou-san.”
“My girlfriend is a lovely cook,” he informed her.
She smiled. “How nice for you. Still, I would recommend cutting back on the intake-too much of anything-no matter how good-is ultimately no good, after all.”
“Hm,” he grunted, and supposed he could at least appreciate the irony a little bit. “I’ll take that into consideration.”
Her eyes flicked up at him then, and something warm with amusement twinkled at him, making him swallow nervously. “I’m sure your girlfriend would like to be involved in that consideration, taichou-san.”
“Oh, I’m sure she already is, doctor-san,” he sighed, long-suffering.
“Well then, I’ll leave it to the two of you.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled. “And how often do you have sexual intercourse?”
He choked on his own spit. “Excuse me?”
“Standard question, taichou-san, you really ought not to be so surprised, mm? Protocol, after all.”
He blinked at her. “You can’t be…”
“None of it’s worth mentioning then, I’ll presume? Shame.”
For all her warmth the woman could have a rather deadly teasing edge when she wanted to. He cleared his throat. “Twice a week, when I behave.”
“And when you don’t?”
He almost grinned. “Three or four.”
She arched a brow. “A bit excessive, I think.”
His expression fell. “Really?”
“Well, I suppose it’s good exercise. But try not to strain yourself, you’re not as young as you used to be, you know.”
“Indeed.” He very nearly laughed. “Though to be fair, I feel young again, in the right company.”
Her lips quirked, almost imperceptibly. “As your doctor I feel it’s my duty to remind you that feeling young and being young are two very different things, taichou-san.”
“Thank you, doctor-san, for your professional assessment,” he said, pointedly. “And from your personal perspective?”
She practically glowed at him. “I feel nearly one-hundred myself again as well.”
His grin returned then, full force. “Feeling any younger right now, perhaps?”
She looked at him pointedly. “I’m sorry, taichou-san, but we’re far from through here. Protocol is very important, after all.”
He sighed, disappointed but not entirely surprised. “Well, carry on then.”
“Wonderful.” She stood then, put the clipboard with his charts down on the countertop before very calmly-deliberately-- advancing on him.
He blinked. “Doctor?”
She smiled enigmatically. “Well, this is a physical examination, taichou-san. Protocol and all.”
He swallowed.
“Now… tell me how this feels, please.”
He promptly submitted and did as he was told.
Protocol was very important, after all.
END
478.
Title: Waves of the Ocean
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: IchigoxRukia, hinted at KyourakuxUkitake
Word Count: 999
Warning/s: Spoilers for some of Rukia’s back story.
Summary: It all goes back to the same place.
Dedication: jen_kat-sad you’re selling all your IchixRuki doujinshi, but hope you still like the pairing! ;_;
A/N: Requested by ainbthen on my lj- the prompt was “ocean.”
“Life is an ocean,” her captain had told her gravely the two of them, watching their division mates raise their vice-captain’s body high onto the pyre.
She’d felt too filthy to do it herself.
“An ocean,” she’d murmured instead, and didn’t understand.
“Wherever you go, whatever you’re doing, however long you wait, the water always ends up in the same place… eventually,” he’d said, and tried not to sound as sad as he was, even if everyone already knew Kyouraku’s hand on his back was the only thing keeping him standing now.
“The same place,” she’d repeated dully-emptily-- and still didn’t understand.
Ukitake and Kyouraku had shared a look then-she remembered it very well for all its seemingly insignificant wealth of meaning-and thinking back on it, she supposed that her understanding meant very little to them because they’d understood every word of it themselves.
Like some sort of secret for those who weren’t filthy, who couldn’t still feel the blood of their loved ones on their skins and under it, behind their eyelids when they slept.
“Don’t lose hope,” Ukitake had added next, and she’d understood that part at least, even if it felt like the part that was farthest away from her.
“Don’t lose hope,” Kyouraku echoed, and squeezed Ukitake’s shoulder.
Just like she didn’t understand their secret language of looks and touches and words of comfort, neither had she known what was left to hope for.
She thought that maybe she’d lost it that night, as they’d lit fire to Kaien’s body and watched the ashes disappear up into the night sky.
There hadn’t been anything to hope for after that, even if those were the only words of her captain’s she’d been able to make sense of.
For a long time, she just couldn’t find any.
But when she watched Ichigo fight Grand Fisher for the same reasons Kaien had destroyed himself, she remembered feeling something like hope strike again. Strange but familiar-painfully so.
And so she took it and went with it-- hoped he would be okay, that he would live, that another person who was important to her wouldn’t turn to ash.
Watching that battle had somehow felt like watching the one from years before, and she’d clutched her hands tightly at her sides, wishing so hard for something to change this time, in this fight that was different and somehow exactly the same as the one she’d witnessed long ago.
It was strange-- inexplicable. Like the now made a difference in the before somehow, even if Kaien’s ashes had already flown heavenward.
She could still feel his blood whenever she closed her eyes.
Ichigo’s fight that day had made some sort of difference to her, like it was the same thing but not, like it was the same time and place and people but not.
The same feeling-but not.
Standing there in the rain watching, she’d clenched her hands into fists so tightly her knuckles turned white, because watching this brash, loud-mouthed kid she’d just met fight to avenge someone precious to him suddenly meant the world to her.
She didn’t think she’d ever wished so hard for anything before that moment.
“Live,” she’d chanted under her breath. “Please live, please live!”
And he had.
He lived-impossibly, miraculously-and when he collapsed she caught him and put his head in her lap, forced herself to breathe because he was still there, still alive.
“Thank you for being able to survive, Ichigo. Thank you.”
And right before he passed out-she wasn’t sure-but she thought that he’d maybe smiled up at her, tired and bleeding, frighteningly familiar, but at the same time, entirely not.
As they’d looked at each other for that moment it felt as if they’d shared something distantly familiar-- the exact thing she remembered seeing on the faces of two old captains once a long time ago, the two of them sharing some sort of well guarded secret as they’d gazed at each other from across an impossible expanse, somehow managing to close the distance of a hundred thousand years in just its breadth.
He’d passed out right after-- before significance could really register in that look-- something like a “thank you” on his lips never quite making it out. It wasn’t necessary anyway.
She remembered holding his head in her lap and wanting to yell and curse at him after that, to hug him and cry in relief as hope flooded every part of her for the first time in a long time.
Because she understood it now… maybe just a little bit.
The cryptic words her captain had said to her many years ago felt as if they had suddenly resolved from shadows of nothing and focused into a single line of meaning very deep inside her.
Wherever she went, whatever she did, however long she waited, they always ended up in the same place.
Eventually.
She knew this now, just like she knew how the rain falling around her and Ichigo’s blood seeping into the dirt and the tears from her eyes would all flow down through the earth with time, would one day wash into the endless expanses of ocean that covered the world.
Just like that-- one way or another-- she would always find her way here.
The rain soaked them both and she tried not to let the meaning overwhelm her.
She remembered-even unconscious-how he’d smiled in a way that was both purely him and maybe a little bit of someone else as well, different and the same but ultimately, only Ichigo in the end.
Everything was connected.
She fixed him up as best she could and stood again, wiped blood from her hands on the grass and dried tears and rainwater from her eyes.
And she smiled when she looked at him, shook her head and sniffled one last time, thinking to herself that she felt like she’d cried an ocean tonight.
Maybe she had.
END
EDITS PLZ.
ARGH WORK TOMORROW! *working as fast as physically possible*
477.
Title: Doctor’s Orders
Rating: PG-15
Pairing/Character/s: KomamuraxUnohana.
Word Count: 897
Warning/s: No spoilers I can imagine.
Summary: Komamura and his yearly physical exam.
Dedication: sophiap- haha your one liners are always the best part of the week, and I know you’ve got to have lots of perseverance to keep up with it every single week. XD ALSO Thanks for the AMAZING b-day fic. ;_;
A/N: requested by west_side during my last meme. Kind of a… weird topic, but I did my best! Maybe. >> Request was “sex talk.” I KNOW THIS PAIRING IS STRANGE BUT I THINK IT COULD BE SWEET UNDER THE RIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES, OKAY? >>
“Is this absolutely necessary?” Komamura asked, trying to sound commanding but coming out more obviously-uncomfortable instead. “I mean…”
“Protocol,” Unohana told him gently, though the look in her eye said that she was really rather amused by the whole thing. “I’m just doing my job, taichou-san.”
He’d never been particularly happy about having fur before, but he was momentarily thankful that it hid his blush. He coughed. “Well, yes. I agree that protocol is very important, but at the same time….Nnngh!”
“You’re a bit warm,” she murmured thoughtfully-sweetly-to him as her hand brushed his sloped forehead and gentle, probing waves of reiatsu slid into him from the tips of her fingers.
“Warn me when you’re going to do that,” he muttered, sounding embarrassingly petulant
when he did.
“Apologies,” she responded serenely-if not genuinely-- and patted his head. After a moment, she withdrew her touch. “Well then, taichou-san, do you think you’re ready for your annual full physical?” The slight upward quirk of her mouth told him she was rather looking forward to horribly mortifying him over the next hour or so.
“As ready as one can be for these things, doctor-san,” he responded dryly, and sat up a little straighter so that at least he appeared dignified for this assault on his personal space.
She laughed at him then, a quiet chuckle as she prepared a dressing gown for him from one of the nearby cabinets.
Komamura sighed. Well, that was rather unprofessional.
“If you behave I’ll give you a lollipop when you’re done,” Retsu added with a little smile, when she heard him huff. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Very funny,” he told her, and was very, very near to rolling his eyes. “I still don’t see why this is…” he cleared his throat, blushed even hotter, “I mean, there’s obviously nothing you haven’t already seen before.”
“I must admit, I wasn’t being very thorough in my examination the other night, taichou-san,” she said smoothly, and handed him the largest size examination gown they had. “So my apologies, but this is still quite necessary.”
He coughed again. “Er… right. Fine. Protocol is important,” he echoed, and waited for her to leave the room so he could change.
She smiled gently at him, and didn’t move one bit.
He looked at her. “Retsu…”
She cocked her head to the side. “Didn’t you just say there was nothing I hadn’t already seen before?”
He sighed-should have known by now he really couldn’t ever win with her.
He began to disrobe.
He eyed her halfway through, but she simply sat by looking professionally bored, going over his medical charts from the last examination and humming quietly to herself as she waited.
He put the gown on as quickly as he could.
“Well,” she began, the moment he was finished, “from the looks of things you’ve gained some weight since your last physical with me, taichou-san.”
“My girlfriend is a lovely cook,” he informed her.
She smiled. “How nice for you. Still, I would recommend cutting back on the intake-too much of anything-no matter how good-is ultimately no good, after all.”
“Hm,” he grunted, and supposed he could at least appreciate the irony a little bit. “I’ll take that into consideration.”
Her eyes flicked up at him then, and something warm with amusement twinkled at him, making him swallow nervously. “I’m sure your girlfriend would like to be involved in that consideration, taichou-san.”
“Oh, I’m sure she already is, doctor-san,” he sighed, long-suffering.
“Well then, I’ll leave it to the two of you.”
“Thank you.”
She smiled. “And how often do you have sexual intercourse?”
He choked on his own spit. “Excuse me?”
“Standard question, taichou-san, you really ought not to be so surprised, mm? Protocol, after all.”
He blinked at her. “You can’t be…”
“None of it’s worth mentioning then, I’ll presume? Shame.”
For all her warmth the woman could have a rather deadly teasing edge when she wanted to. He cleared his throat. “Twice a week, when I behave.”
“And when you don’t?”
He almost grinned. “Three or four.”
She arched a brow. “A bit excessive, I think.”
His expression fell. “Really?”
“Well, I suppose it’s good exercise. But try not to strain yourself, you’re not as young as you used to be, you know.”
“Indeed.” He very nearly laughed. “Though to be fair, I feel young again, in the right company.”
Her lips quirked, almost imperceptibly. “As your doctor I feel it’s my duty to remind you that feeling young and being young are two very different things, taichou-san.”
“Thank you, doctor-san, for your professional assessment,” he said, pointedly. “And from your personal perspective?”
She practically glowed at him. “I feel nearly one-hundred myself again as well.”
His grin returned then, full force. “Feeling any younger right now, perhaps?”
She looked at him pointedly. “I’m sorry, taichou-san, but we’re far from through here. Protocol is very important, after all.”
He sighed, disappointed but not entirely surprised. “Well, carry on then.”
“Wonderful.” She stood then, put the clipboard with his charts down on the countertop before very calmly-deliberately-- advancing on him.
He blinked. “Doctor?”
She smiled enigmatically. “Well, this is a physical examination, taichou-san. Protocol and all.”
He swallowed.
“Now… tell me how this feels, please.”
He promptly submitted and did as he was told.
Protocol was very important, after all.
END
478.
Title: Waves of the Ocean
Rating: PG
Pairing/Character/s: IchigoxRukia, hinted at KyourakuxUkitake
Word Count: 999
Warning/s: Spoilers for some of Rukia’s back story.
Summary: It all goes back to the same place.
Dedication: jen_kat-sad you’re selling all your IchixRuki doujinshi, but hope you still like the pairing! ;_;
A/N: Requested by ainbthen on my lj- the prompt was “ocean.”
“Life is an ocean,” her captain had told her gravely the two of them, watching their division mates raise their vice-captain’s body high onto the pyre.
She’d felt too filthy to do it herself.
“An ocean,” she’d murmured instead, and didn’t understand.
“Wherever you go, whatever you’re doing, however long you wait, the water always ends up in the same place… eventually,” he’d said, and tried not to sound as sad as he was, even if everyone already knew Kyouraku’s hand on his back was the only thing keeping him standing now.
“The same place,” she’d repeated dully-emptily-- and still didn’t understand.
Ukitake and Kyouraku had shared a look then-she remembered it very well for all its seemingly insignificant wealth of meaning-and thinking back on it, she supposed that her understanding meant very little to them because they’d understood every word of it themselves.
Like some sort of secret for those who weren’t filthy, who couldn’t still feel the blood of their loved ones on their skins and under it, behind their eyelids when they slept.
“Don’t lose hope,” Ukitake had added next, and she’d understood that part at least, even if it felt like the part that was farthest away from her.
“Don’t lose hope,” Kyouraku echoed, and squeezed Ukitake’s shoulder.
Just like she didn’t understand their secret language of looks and touches and words of comfort, neither had she known what was left to hope for.
She thought that maybe she’d lost it that night, as they’d lit fire to Kaien’s body and watched the ashes disappear up into the night sky.
There hadn’t been anything to hope for after that, even if those were the only words of her captain’s she’d been able to make sense of.
For a long time, she just couldn’t find any.
But when she watched Ichigo fight Grand Fisher for the same reasons Kaien had destroyed himself, she remembered feeling something like hope strike again. Strange but familiar-painfully so.
And so she took it and went with it-- hoped he would be okay, that he would live, that another person who was important to her wouldn’t turn to ash.
Watching that battle had somehow felt like watching the one from years before, and she’d clutched her hands tightly at her sides, wishing so hard for something to change this time, in this fight that was different and somehow exactly the same as the one she’d witnessed long ago.
It was strange-- inexplicable. Like the now made a difference in the before somehow, even if Kaien’s ashes had already flown heavenward.
She could still feel his blood whenever she closed her eyes.
Ichigo’s fight that day had made some sort of difference to her, like it was the same thing but not, like it was the same time and place and people but not.
The same feeling-but not.
Standing there in the rain watching, she’d clenched her hands into fists so tightly her knuckles turned white, because watching this brash, loud-mouthed kid she’d just met fight to avenge someone precious to him suddenly meant the world to her.
She didn’t think she’d ever wished so hard for anything before that moment.
“Live,” she’d chanted under her breath. “Please live, please live!”
And he had.
He lived-impossibly, miraculously-and when he collapsed she caught him and put his head in her lap, forced herself to breathe because he was still there, still alive.
“Thank you for being able to survive, Ichigo. Thank you.”
And right before he passed out-she wasn’t sure-but she thought that he’d maybe smiled up at her, tired and bleeding, frighteningly familiar, but at the same time, entirely not.
As they’d looked at each other for that moment it felt as if they’d shared something distantly familiar-- the exact thing she remembered seeing on the faces of two old captains once a long time ago, the two of them sharing some sort of well guarded secret as they’d gazed at each other from across an impossible expanse, somehow managing to close the distance of a hundred thousand years in just its breadth.
He’d passed out right after-- before significance could really register in that look-- something like a “thank you” on his lips never quite making it out. It wasn’t necessary anyway.
She remembered holding his head in her lap and wanting to yell and curse at him after that, to hug him and cry in relief as hope flooded every part of her for the first time in a long time.
Because she understood it now… maybe just a little bit.
The cryptic words her captain had said to her many years ago felt as if they had suddenly resolved from shadows of nothing and focused into a single line of meaning very deep inside her.
Wherever she went, whatever she did, however long she waited, they always ended up in the same place.
Eventually.
She knew this now, just like she knew how the rain falling around her and Ichigo’s blood seeping into the dirt and the tears from her eyes would all flow down through the earth with time, would one day wash into the endless expanses of ocean that covered the world.
Just like that-- one way or another-- she would always find her way here.
The rain soaked them both and she tried not to let the meaning overwhelm her.
She remembered-even unconscious-how he’d smiled in a way that was both purely him and maybe a little bit of someone else as well, different and the same but ultimately, only Ichigo in the end.
Everything was connected.
She fixed him up as best she could and stood again, wiped blood from her hands on the grass and dried tears and rainwater from her eyes.
And she smiled when she looked at him, shook her head and sniffled one last time, thinking to herself that she felt like she’d cried an ocean tonight.
Maybe she had.
END
EDITS PLZ.