An old, speculative piece on Ichigo and the Karakura Shinigami interactions. If you don't know about the Karakura team, then there's spoilers ahead. Rated for language and dumbassery.

Soda Bombs, Lay-Z-Boys and Grease Fires

"Why," Ichigo kicked his shoes into the wall with more force than necessary, "am I doing this?"

The group behind him just flooded past, anxious to see what new things they had to mess with in here. "Don't touch anything!" He snapped at them.

"Right, right. Whatever."

Except Renji already found the dimmer for the living room and Yumichika was spinning the lamp around because he thought the way the little dangly things on the lampshade danced and caught the light was beautiful. The fact that he liked something so incredibly gaudy made Ichigo completely rethink his ability to tell fashion. Ikkaku and Rukia were already fighting for control of the remote, except with the way Rukia was sitting on his shoulders and Renji was snapping at him, Ikkaku wasn't putting up much of a fight and was just sprouting insults.

Hitsugaya already laid claim to his father's lay-z-boy. He fairly collapsed into it. "Kurosaki," he called out, "we need food. We haven't eaten in almost two days."

"Fine, sure. You're wish is my command." Ichigo gritted out, sarcasm trailing him into the kitchen. "Why don't you BUY your own food, anyway? You're gonna eat my whole family out the house!"

"Because we're out of money." Hitsugaya raised an eyebrow at the boy. "How do you people deal with these 'bills' anyway?"

Rangiku sat on the arm of the lay-z-boy. "You know, Captain. Maybe we should go without the television. That's the thing that's always costing us the most."

Ichigo frowned. "How does TV cost you the most on your bills?"

"There's this thing called the Home Shopping Network that, admittedly, Yumichika and I can't seem to stop watching-"

"An' buyin' shit off of." Ikkaku snarled, flipping Rukia off his back and sulking on his end of the couch. Rukia just cackled and ran through the channels for something interesting. Or with bunnies.

"Well, yes." Rangiku said amicably, "There's also something called… what was it called again, Captain?"

"Pay-per-view."

Ichigo's jaw dropped. "You guys watch Pay-per-view? Are you RETARDED?"

Hitsugaya growled. "Are we supposed to know what that is, BOY?"

"It means just what it says. You pay for something you want to watch."

"Not all of it's worth watching." Renji said, having finally torn himself away from the dimmer to stop the annoying clinks of the lampshade. "So if we stop watching we only gotta pay part, right? Like if you leave in the middle of a show or somethin'."

Ichigo was utterly dumbfounded. "No." He said slowly. "You pay for the entire thing. You don't get reimbursed a damn thing."

"What? That's bull shit!"

"Can't you guys just get more money?"

"As nice as it is to have an unlimited amount of currency," Hitsugaya replied, "it probably wouldn't be a good idea to crash the market with a sudden influx of the stuff."

"Don't they teach you economy in the schools?" Rangiku asked. "I mean, after all, they teach you worthless things like…international politics? And computer science? What good are those going to do you in everyday life?"

"Maybe if you guys didn't look like you were stuck in the Edo period, you'd probably know."

"Didn't know what the hell that meant, but that sounded like a burn to me."

"Thank you, Madarame, for your stunning play-by-play commentary. Meanwhile," Hitsugaya looked up at Ichigo again, "food?"

"Right, che." Ichigo headed toward the kitchen. "I ain't gonna make stuff for everyone. Someone come back and I'll tell 'em what to do. I'm not gettin' paid to feed you, after all."

"Fine. Who's going back to help Kurosaki cook?"

Two 'fuck no's came up, Rukia mumbled 'busy' while still going marathon pace through the channels. Yumichika waved a hand, saying he just got a manicure and there was no way he'd ruin his nails. Rangiku just smiled down at Hitsugaya and he immediately remembered the last time she was in the kitchen.

The captain scowled. "You three," he waved vaguely, "cook."

"What?"

"But-"

"That's not fair!"

"Better than what you're doing now! Get going!" Hitsugaya commanded irritably. Mumbling dark things, Ikkaku, Renji and Rukia followed Ichigo into the kitchen.

Rangiku, though, found something else to occupy her attention. "What does this thing do?"

"What thi-" Hitsugaya abruptly yelped when the back of his seat suddenly vanished, nearly rolling him right off of it. "MATSUMOTO!"

"I didn't mean to do it, Captain!" She held her hands away from the lever on the side of the chair, lips twitching along the ends.

Hitsugaya just grumbled, getting back onto the chair. And then stared at the nearly horizontal surface. "What the…?"

Even Yumichika came over, curious. "How odd." He pulled at the lever again and the chair snapped back into place, again nearly hurling Hitsugaya to the floor.

"Ayasegawa…."

"Please, Captain." Yumichika sniffed. "Like I know what this technology can do." He pulled at the lever again and this time just the leg rest came up. "Huh."

Hitsugaya pushed his hand away. "Lemme try."

They looked at what Ichigo pulled out of the fridge and looked, well… while unimpressed wouldn't have been the most accurate of descriptions it did very well in stating just what they thought of it.

"What," Rukia wrinkled her nose in the object's direction, "is that?"

"It's meat."

"That's meat?" The other two men leaned in with varying degrees of disgust. "How the hell do you pass that off as 'meat'?"

Ichigo snarled back. "Because it was made from a cow. You wanna eat or don't you?"

The look Ikkaku was giving it said its very existence seemed to have somehow offended him on a primal level. "At this point I think I'm gonna take my chances with starvin'."

"Look, it's very simple. This thing here," he held up the bagged meat, "is called ground beef. It comes from a cow and that makes it very edible. One of the most common and probably best uses of ground beef is something that came from the west- probably the best culinary thing to ever come from the west. That is what is known as a hamburger."

The three shinigami didn't look convinced. "Hamburger…"

Ichigo sighed. While he was digging through the kitchen for some food, he had already resigned himself to the fate of not being able to trust them touching anything- especially in the kitchen which is not only filled with sharp knives, breakable dishware, food which Ichigo would rather eat than have to scrape off the floor but was also the haven of his much less cynical sister –and cook himself. Letting them fuck it up just meant he'd have to see her look up at him with those huge eyes, betrayed and watery and- oh God it hurt just to think of it.

"I'm making hamburger and you'll eat it or you can go hungry. I'm not making anything else and I'm not letting you guy lose in my kitchen." Ichigo pulled on plastic gloves, dividing and molding the patties to his liking.

"Well whaddya got to drink 'round here?" Renji asked. "If you expect me to eat that… thing, I wanna be properly drunk for this."

Ichigo put a pan on the stove, igniting the burner beneath it. "We got water, orange juice, milk and maybe a couple sodas. You guys can drink any of those. ANYTHING ELSE," he injected quickly, "you're not touching!"

"Fine." They deadpanned, raiding the fridge for something that would help dull the pain. Suddenly, Rukia brightened up.

"Oh! I remember this drink! This is great!"

The other two gave her LOOKS. "Are we supposed to trust you when you're that excited?"

The boy just shook his head, rummaging for herbs as the meat sizzled in the pan.

"No, no, look! It's a popular western drink." She said, pulling out a small can covered in red with a white wave. "And the best way to drink it is like this!"

Ichigo looked over and his eyes bulged- Rukia was shaking up the can! "RUKIA! STOP!"

"Drink up!" She told Renji sweetly, shoving the can in his grip before they could figure out what was going on.

"Renji- don't open that-"

PSSSSSHT!!!

…………………….

"Holy FUCK!" Rukia cackled so hard she was clinging to a countertop. Ikkaku gaped, speechless after his initial outburst. Then, looking at Renji's shell-shocked expression, brown soaked clothes and spiked hair drooping down his collar and DIED, howling with laughter.

"Rukia," came a low rumble like a tremor that was about the rip apart the damned world, "I'm going to FUCKING KILL YOU!!"

The girl yelped, scampering to the first safe place she saw- the little space between the top of the fridge and the ceiling. "Renji- RENJI!" She scrambled backward, hitting the wall with her feet and rear. "Keep back!"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Ichigo jumped over Ikkaku (still rolling on the ground) and grabbed Renji by the shirt (which squished disgustingly in his hand). "Knock it off! Don't go roughhousing in the kitchen!"

"You're DEAD, bitch! I'm gonna fuckin' slaughter ya!"

It was only in the background that Ichigo idly realized Ikkaku had stopped laughing.

"Oi, Ichigo. The pan's on fire."

"WHAT!?" He whirled into the kitchen. "WHAT DID YOU DO??"

"Well you see, it's amazing what one little-"

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH ANYTHING!"

"And that is why the pan is on fire."

"Get some water, idiot." Rukia said, still curling away from Renji's cursing. "Put it out!"

"Don't!" Ichigo shouted back as Ikkaku moved toward the sink. "Water only makes a grease fire worse!"

"What? What kind of backward sense does THAT make?"

"Get Hitsugaya-taichou to put it out." Rukia supplied, now having to whack at Renji's hands with the cereal boxes lining the top of the fridge.

"No! No dragons!"

"What the hell is wrong with water?"

"It- it's just, you don't- RRRRRGH!" Ichigo jabbed a finger at Ikkaku. "YOU! You don't move, don't touch- don't even THINK! And you two!" Renji just scowled back at Ichigo. "….stop dripping on the floor so damned much!" With another frustrated growl, Ichigo raided the cabinets for the baking powder.

"What's going on??"

Hitsugaya looked up from where he, his vice-captain and the 5th seat were examining how the sofa bed folded. "Investigation." He told the two girls, intruding rudely in their quest to relearn the world. "Very important. Keep out of it."

"Ah, Yuzu," Karin had to forcibly push her sister from the living room, "let's just go and," they picked up shouting coming out of the kitchen, "and," three males and one female, "uh, and," one of them was Ichigo and all of them were pissed, "not go in- Yuzu!"

"What are you doing to my kitchen!?"

The four stopped in mid tirades, looking at the little girl in varying degrees of surprise. Except for Ichigo who looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole right there. The red head- or was oncee a red head, shirt soaked and liquid still dripping from his hair –stopped straining against a bald guy who had him in an arm lock. A small girl- looking about Yuzu and Karin's size –had tucked herself into the little space between the fridge and the ceiling and was looking at everyone like a bristling cat. Baking powder was every where and caked thick where it mixed with spilt soda.

"Wha… wha…" Yuzu wibbled, unable to comprehend just what disaster had befallen her beloved kitchen.

"Yuzu, it's not that bad." Ichigo said slowly, completely ignoring the fact his hair was now white and had baking powder and smoke smeared across his face.

"It… it…"

Karin pushed Yuzu out of the kitchen. "It's okay, Yuzu. Ichi-nii and his friends will clean everything up." She glared at them over her shoulder. "EVERYTHING."

"Right, yeah. No problem." He kicked one of the others in the shins. "Isn't that right?"

"Ow- you fuc-"

"ISN'T THAT RIGHT, RENJI?"

"Ow- quit it!"

"RENJI!"

"Okay, alright! We'll clean up!"

"You, too, Rukia! Get down from there!"

"Not until Renji stops threatening me!"

"You're lucky I can't reach you, you little bi- what fu- ICHIGO QUIT IT!"

"WOULDYA WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE??"

"What the hell is your- ow, DAMMIT!"

In their room, Karin turned their radio on full blast and wrapped Yuzu up in her favorite blanket. "It's okay, Yuzu. I'll make sure it's all cleaned up before dinner, okay?" Ichi-nii needed new friends. Either that, or he was going to be needing a new place to stay.