Title: Study Buddies
Fandom: Bleach
Pairing: Isshin/Ryuuken. No, darlings, you aren't hallucinating.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 872
Summary/Description: A dynamic duo! Shinigami and Quincy, working together to protect Karakura from evil! None can contend! Not even… Urm, what?
Warning/Spoilers: Crack, though, looking at the pairing, that goes without saying. SPOILERS FOR CHAPTER 186, which sent us all flying on our asses.
A/N: Taking this fic seriously? …Wouldn't be the best of ideas. Inspired by… well, PM'll get it. :D
Dedication: For one of the BEST friends a girl could ask for, fandom and otherwise; funny, sweet, and all-round awesome; the girl with whom I shall one day take over the world (along with her army of plushies!!!): Pikachumaniac. Happy belated birthday, darling!!! (glomps messily all over)
Disclaimer: Insert appropriate denial of ownership here.
"No."
"Wonderful! I knew that eventually you would see the light, and agree to my ingenious pl- EEEEEEEEHHHHHH?!?!?!?! What do you mean, 'no'?!"
Briefly, the Quincy sidled his eyes to the young man next to him, the look on his face suggesting that there were a hundred different ways that he would like to be tortured in lieu of having the current conversation. If 'conversation' was the right word, anyway.
"Strange. I thought your diminutive intellect could at least process two letter words; but alas, it seems I was wrong."
Isshin ignored the insult; he was good at that.
"Come on, Ishida! It's the best idea I've ever had!"
…Too easy, Ryuuken decided, and let it pass.
"Now that you know the truth about me, and I know the truth about you, it makes perfect sense that we should combine our talents to protect Karakura. In fact, it's our duty! Med students by day… protectors of the innocents by night… I know it sounds hard, but we could manage it; I know we could! With our collective talents, no Hollow with a sound mind of its own would dare terrorise this town ever again! What do you say?!" He waggled his eyebrows, like a car salesman throwing a pitch.
"…You do realise that I stopped listening to you a very long time ago." Ryuuken flipped the page of the text book in front of him. His eyes flicked down a list of the twenty most deadly diseases known to man.
Yet still undeterred, the dark-haired boy pushed aside his books, and clenched a fist to his heart.
"Think about it! A Shinigami and a Quincy, working together!" He gestured wildly. "No one would dream of contending!"
"With all your theatrics, one would think you were majoring in drama instead of medicine."
Isshin leaned closer, eyes shining. He was very good at ignoring insults; especially when he was this excited about something.
"What do you say?" he repeated, shrugging his brows.
"What did I say a minute ago?"
"…"
"No."
Isshin's face crumpled like maché paper; he looked about half his twenty two years.
"But why?" No grown man wore petulance very well; Kurosaki Isshin probably least of all. Ryuuken snapped his book shut, glaring. He had had just about enough of his.
"Listen, Kurosaki," he said coolly, sliding his glasses off of his nose to clean them briskly with a kerchief. "I don't know what kind of relationship you think we have, but you are obviously deluding yourself. We are study partners – not even by choice, if you will remember the mandate handed down by Nakamura-sensei. He seems to think that my precision and your blind luck counterpoint well. We study together to maintain decent grades, and that is it. We are study partners, and nothing more. Nothing more," he repeated forcefully, when Kurosaki looked as though he were about to mention what had happened on That Night. That Night had been forcefully scrubbed from Ryuuken's mind, and he intended to let it stay that way, thank you very much. He had been drunk, anyway.
"Also, if you will remember," he continued in his cool register, "I have no interest in following my family's legacy; nor do I have any desire to mingle with you Death Gods. I am studying to become a doctor; that is the way I shall earn my living. Now, if you would please drop this ludicrous proposal, we could get back to studying. Our test tomorrow will not write itself."
Not even bothering to mark his companion's reaction to his icy words, Ryuuken reopened his text.
Nothing but huffy silence came from Isshin's corner for a few minutes; the kind of silence that said the reticent person in question desperately wanted a bit of attention. Ryuuken didn't so much as bat an eyelash his way.
Eventually, there was a loud, harried sigh, and the darker man opened up his books. Ryuuken favoured him a quick glance; he was slouching, but he seemed to have gotten over the whole stupid idea. Good. Shinigami and Quincy working together; really. The white-haired man didn't want to be bothered with such nonsense ever again.
Naturally, Kurosaki brought it up a few seconds later, in answer to the question Ryuuken asked him on the effects of malaria.
"Are you sure???" he whined, bottom lip trembling like no grown man's ever should. "A Shinigami and Quincy team would be… would be… would be…" He gesticulated grandly with his hands, as if to signify the grandiosity of such a union.
Ryuuken touched a finger to his forehead briefly, and closed his eyes.
"Listen, Kurosaki. If Shinigami and Quincies ever work together…" Ryuuken trailed off, looking for the most perfectly inane analogy. "…my progeny will break into Soul Society, defeat enemies far stronger than him or her, and help save the world."
The other man gave him a speculative look.
"…It could happen."
"Test. Tomorrow."
"Alright, alright." Isshin slouched in his seat and propped his chin in his hand. Ryuuken glared at him a bit, and when he was satisfied that the conversation was indeed closed, he turned back to his books.
"Right. Now, why can't people with sickle cell anaemia contract the malaria disease?"
A/N: (smiles serenely)