Warnings: Some sexual situations, bad language, aimless dialogue about absolutely nothing. Crack.
Sunlight assaulted his eyes. He squeezed them shut and rolled over to lie on his side, immediately bumping his right knee into a hard, unrelenting obstacle.
"Watch it, dumbass," a male voice demanded.
He sat up, alarmed, eyes wide open.
The two of them sat cross-legged on the right side of the futon, half-naked and entangled in a mess of white sheets and pillows. Rukia faced Renji's back, a comb in her hand. He looked grumpy and impatient as she pulled and twisted his hair into a bundle that only vaguely resembled a braid.
Ichigo remembered where he was and sighed, half relieved, half exasperated. He could tell it was far too early to be awake - the sunlight was weak, the weather too cold and he felt like he'd fallen asleep just minutes before. It was bad enough having to wake up in the cold, ostentatious Kuchiki palace on a bed he was forced to share with two other people without also being sleep deprived.
He groaned and collapsed back onto his pillow. "What're you doing?" he grumbled, a little whiny. And why can't you do it later, he wanted to add but decided it was too much work.
"We're trying to contain Renji's hair," Rukia answered, distracted. She was wearing his shirt, he noticed, but on her it looked less like a shirt and more like a loose knee-length dress. She was too damn short.
"...Why?" He'd almost decided not to ask.
"Sparring with the 11th this afternoon," Renji explained, sounding no less grumpy than he looked. "Can't have it getting in my eyes."
Ichigo yawned disinterestedly, "Just cut it off, then." He'd never understood why a warrior would let his hair grow down to his waist in the first place.
Both turned to glare at him in perfect synchrony. "Don't be ridiculous," Rukia snarled, like she took personal offense to the suggestion.
"Nobody's cuttin' anything," Renji added, tone allowing no room for discussion.
Ichigo shrugged and watched as Rukia clumsily used the comb to smooth over the messiest section of her "braid".
He shook his head. "You're doing it all wrong."
She glared. "Shut up."
Renji raised one eyebrow at him. "Think you can do better?"
Ichigo knew it was meant to be sound disbelieving, but he thought there was an undertone of...hopefulness, maybe. He was about to scoff and turn away when he caught a glimpse of Rukia's tiny hands trying to fix the mess she'd made of the bottom of the braid and getting it even more tangled and disheveled. For some reason the sight of it made his hands itch.
"Ow," Renji complained when she pulled a couple of strands off his scalp. "I told you, you're not supposed to be pullin' at it!"
"It's because you're not staying still, idiot."
Rolling his eyes and mentally cursing himself, Ichigo pulled himself up to kneel on the futon. In five minutes this would be over, he told himself, and then they would both shut up and let him sleep.
He unceremoniously took the comb from Rukia's hand.
"What are you doing?"
He pushed her aside, taking her place behind Renji.
"Taking over," he answered.
She scowled, trying to extricate the stolen comb from his strong grip. "What? How would you know how to do this?"
"I have two sisters, okay?"
She hesitated for a moment, but then huffed in defeat, either satisfied with this answer or not caring enough to fight him any further.
Ichigo began undoing her crazy idea of a braid with his fingers, separating the easier tangles.
"You better know what the fuck you're doing," Renji warned, as if actually trying to be intimidating.
Ichigo scoffed and tried to rearrange himself into a better position, stretching out his legs on either side of Renji's. Rukia had to lean against the wall and hug her own knees to give them more space.
"This bed is too small for the three of us," he complained, going back to the ridiculous task of combing through Renji's hair.
"You weren't complainin' half as much a couple of hours ago." He pinched Ichigo's right thigh to better make his point.
"Yeah, well, I was busy," he grumbled back, slapping teasing fingers off his leg.
Rukia leaned over his shoulder. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Yes. Well, more than the two of you, anyway," he pointed accusingly at the both of them with the handle of his comb.
"I can't see how you'd ever be able to braid your hair." She reached behind him, and ran her fingers through his hair like she was trying to measure its length.
"I don't braid my own hair," he wanted to roll his eyes again but his head hurt. He sighed instead, resigned to telling the truth if only because lying required more energy. "I told you, my sisters-Yuzu's hair was longer when she was six, okay?"
Rukia's face lit up after a moment of confused silence. "So you used to braid her hair for her," she realized, smiling.
He felt his face get hot.. "Shut up."
Renji snickered in front of him. "That's cute, you and your sisters."
"You ever tell anyone about this," he warned, splitting the hair in his hands - now that the de-tangling process had been successfully completed - into three sections, "and I'm coming back up here with a very sharp scissor."
Renji scoffed. "'S if letting you mess with my hair is something I'd wanna go off boastin' about."
Ichigo did roll his eyes, this time. "Right, because you wouldn't want me to mess up the girliest hair ever seen in a dude."
Renji turned to glare over his shoulder, causing Ichigo to drop one of the strands in his hand. "Shit-Idiot, stay still!"
"Shh. This is not the time or the place for a shouting match," Rukia scolded in a low tone. "We wouldn't want to draw undue attention."
This understatement caused Ichigo to freeze with a tuft of Renji's hair in one hand, distracted by the sudden mental image of Byakuya in a fancy sleeping robe, sakura petals swirling around him as he busted open Rukia's door.
He shook his head, horrified. "Yeah, alright," he muttered. Renji grunted his own agreement.
Ichigo began to weave together the three strands of Renji's hair, slowly and carefully, trying to remember how he used to do this during his embarrassing hair-styling sessions with Karin and Yuzu. Turned out this sort of thing wasn't anything like riding a bike.
"Why can't you just tie it into a ponytail or something?" he asked, kicking himself for not having suggested it before.
"'cause Yumichika says a braid'll hold better," Renji replied.
Ichigo stopped braiding, indignant. "That's where you're getting your beauty tips? From the guy with the fake eyelashes?"
"Why, better to ask the idiot with the orange head instead?"
"That's different! This is my natural color!"
"Be quiet!" Rukia hissed.
They ignored her. "How about showing a little gratitude, eh? I'm the one doing your hair first thing in the fucking morning!"
"I'll show ya gratitude after I see how this thing tur-" Rukia slapped the back of his head. "The fuck, Rukia?"
"I said, shut up! You're being too loud!"
Ichigo tried forcing Renji's head to look back straight ahead. "Yeah, and stand still, will you, otherwise-"
"Ichigo, would you get your reiatsu under control! When you get excited it explodes out of you like lava out of a volcano! It's uncivilized, not to mention alarming enough to attract the servants' attention, you clueless moron."
Her own reiatsu spiked with her outrage. Ichigo wanted to point this out, but figured pissing her off any further would not be a good idea when they were so close to her brothers' quarters.
"Stop insulting me, then!" he barked, but obediently sucked his reiatsu back in and resumed his ridiculous hair-braiding task.
Renji glanced at her, trying not to move his neck. "Not like you're being so quiet, anyway," he muttered.
She glared at him as she sat back down, crossing her arms. "If I didn't raise my voice you wouldn't have heard me over all your childish bickering."
Ichigo's braid turned out a little crooked, tight in some spots, loose in others, but still undoubtedly better than anything Rukia could've made of it. He sighed, tilting his head to examine it from an angle. "Yeah, I'm done, and not about to accept any complaints."
Renji managed to grasp the braid and pull it past his shoulder, twisting his neck to try and get a look at it. "Rukia-how does it look?"
"It's alright," she shrugged, running her hand over it. "I think I quite agree with Yumichika, strange as it is. This seems tighter than a ponytail. And," she smiled and touched Renji's neck with the tip of her nose, making him shiver slightly, "I like braids in a man."
Ichigo made an indignant sound. "Girly men, you me-"
Renji suddenly pushed him down on the bed, an open palm over his chest. "Oi, what the fu-mmf"
He seemed to have decided this was an appropriate moment to stick his tongue down Ichigo's throat. Ichigo put up a front, trying briefly to flip them over by pressing on his shoulders and yanking down on the braid as if trying to tear it off his scalp. Renji grunted in protest, but didn't budge, keeping their mouths pressed together.
Defeated, Ichigo closed his eyes - rolling them a little first to express his displeasure -, telling himself he would have tried harder if he wasn't so exhausted. He found himself trying to run his fingers through Renji's hair, as he was used to doing during make-outs, momentarily forgetting all about the braid he'd worked so hard on.
Well, fine, maybe he was a tiny little bit fond of Renji's mane of long, vivid red hair. But he sure as hell wasn't ever going to say it out loud.
Renji pulled away just when Ichigo was about to suffocate. "What the hell was that for?" he asked between gasps, their foreheads still pressed together.
"I thought you wanted gratitude." Seconds before he'd looked like the grumpiest man on earth, now he was oozing smugness and had that look he got whenever he had something fun planned.
"Yeah, alright, you're welcome," Ichigo told him, fighting a creeping feeling that he wasn't going to get to just roll over and fall asleep.
He heard Rukia snort somewhere nearby.
Renji grinned at him. "But I ain't done yet."
Ichigo made sure his scowl was looking especially irritated, though parts of him were starting to feel less sleepy and more...restless. "Don't you people ever get any sleep?"
He was ignored completely, his legs straddled and the sheet he'd wrapped around his waist pushed off.
Any protests he might have made were forgotten when Rukia leaned over and licked his ear, startling him into speechlessness. And then there was Renji's mouth...places...and suddenly speaking seemed like a colossal effort.
"What-ugh-what do you...have to thank me..for?" he managed to ask her, voice strained.
Rukia bit his shoulder. "I really like the braid," she smirked against his neck.
He grinned weakly before he could help himself, eyes only half open.
Oh, what the hell.
Ichigo let his eyes close all the way and accepted their gratitude.