I've edited this now because the entire thing was underlined for some reason. I didn't do that on purpose, so I'm sorry! I doubt any of the first people to read it will come back to it, but the underlining is fixed now. Haha.
The dark haired woman sighed, looking down at her drunken, sleeping captain. His pink flowery haori fanned out about him, and his hat was tilted down over his eyes. His chest rose and fell even as he gently snored, lost in the confines of his own dream world.
Ise Nanao, the woman standing over him, ran a hand down her shihakusho to smooth it out, groaning under her breath. She always hated having to wake this man up. Not only because he would say something suggestive in a teasing manner each and every time, but because she had actually, over her years as his lieutenant, developed feelings for him. She hated waking him up because his teasing was only that; teasing. And also because, she grudgingly admitted to herself, he was so breathtakingly handsome when he was asleep and the worries of the world were washed from his features.
"Captain Kyoraku!" she finally barked before she lost her nerve. She hid her silent affection for the man with snapping and irritability, so that she hardly even knew how to be polite to her captain anymore. "Captain Kyoraku, wake up! You've got duties as a captain, you know, and sleeping and drinking in the middle of the day are not a part of those duties!"
He grunted, twitching, and his hand reached up to tilt his hat back.
"But, dear Nanao, don't you think a poor, old, weary man like me needs a break at least every now and then?"
"Every now and then is not every day, Captain," the raven haired woman stated in a scolding tone.
"You know, Nanao, you could use a break, too. Why don't you sit up here with me for a while?"
Her heard desperately wanted to accept the offer, but her stubborn mind quashed the aching of her heart, stomping out the urge as though trying to snuff out the existence of her attraction to him.
"The only reason that I may seem like I need a break, Captain, is because I have to take care of the things that you are supposed to do, and then take care of my own duties on top of that. You need to handle your own duties at least before choosing to slack off like you do!"
What must this look like? Nanao thought then. Insubordination? A lieutenant with the nerve to blatantly and constantly scold her captain as though he were a misbehaving child? An unheard of occurrence in Seireitei, surely, before she had come along and became the lieutenant Kyoraku Shunsui of the Eighth Division.
"Then," she blinked at the already noticeable change in the man's tone as he began to speak once more, "Why don't you take a nap while I handle both your duties and my own? Does that sound fair to you, dear Nanao?"
To hide her flush at the tone that seemed to convey true sincerity on his behalf, the lieutenant turned her back on him and pushed her glasses up. Nanao swallowed the lump that was in her throat and then said, "It would seem fair, sir, but only if you would actually follow up on it. Now, if you don't mind, I'll be going."
The captain watched her go, an unreadable expression in his eyes. When she was gone, back in the Eighth Division office where she dutifully completed the paperwork every day, Kyoraku Shunsui sighed.
"Oh, Nanao," he murmured, now sitting up and resting with his chin in his hand and his elbow on his knee.
The brunette captain of the Eighth Division was no different than his fiery lieutenant thought or accused him of, except for one small thing.
Ever since the first time Shunsui had met Ise Nanao, his lieutenant, his womanizing days were at an end. Her explosive personality was enough to see that, her daring to go where no other had gone in attempting to make him work and the fact that she plainly hid most of her emotions, held his interest far longer than any other woman ever had before. Still, Shunsui pretended to be the same womanizing man he had been when she first met him and he her, but he really wasn't the same. Not at all. And another first for the flirtatious man was that he really and genuinely meant every single loving comment he made toward his lieutenant.
Did he feel bad for neglecting his work and thus leaving it to his precious Nanao to finish? Did he ever worry that it would cause her to overwork herself? Did he fear that there would ever come a day when she would no longer be there to scold him, making him lose track of his thoughts because he couldn't focus on anything other than how beautiful she was when she was angry? The answer was a heart-shattering yes. The captain did not know what he would do if she just wasn't at his side anymore.
This isn't right, the man gazed up at the clear blue sky, eyes full of regret and confusion. It isn't right that a man can love a woman so much and yet she never realizes it.
The man sighed, standing up wearily. Now, before he lost his determination, he would set in motion a plan he'd begun to concoct when he first worried that Nanao may overwork herself. Mind made up, he was gone from the roof of his division in an instant, headed first to talk with his dear friend Ukitake Jushiro, then with the Fourth Division's captain, Unohana Retsu.
Feeling his presence disappear so quickly from almost right above her, the lieutenant couldn't help but wonder why he was in such a rush. Could he have possibly been informed by Hell butterfly that Captain Ukitake had fallen ill again? As much as her captain frustrated her at times, she hoped he wasn't all in a dither because of Captain Ukitake. The sickly captain was perhaps the closest friend that her captain had or had ever had, and he was such a kind and insightful man. He didn't deserve to be so ill, and as Nanao often thought, Captain Kyoraku could do with taking a leaf or two from the book of the Thirteenth Division captain.
Forcing thoughts of her captain far from her mind, Ise Nanao forged defiantly through the mound of papers that made up the Eighth Division's quota, placing the stack on Captain Kyoraku's desk around midnight, when she was done filling them all out. With a yawn and a quick scan of the room to be sure she hadn't missed anything, a stray paper or a random stray cat or something, she made her way slowly to her own quarters.
She barely had taken off her glasses before she fell into her bed, and she was asleep practically before her head hit her pillow.
"Just as I thought," Captain Kyoraku sighed to his companion, watching his lieutenant's almost immediate collapse into slumber upon reaching her room. He left his perch from the roof across from Nanao's room, the other person falling in step beside him as he led the way to the sleeping woman's room.
"So, I'm making her sleep until her exhaustion is dulled, am I correct? That is what you asked?" Captain Unohana Retsu asked in her soft voice as they gently eased open the door to Nanao's room.
"Yes. Do you have any idea how long that might be?"
Genuine worry fairly laced the captain's features and his voice as he watched the other captain examine the sleeping Nanao without waking her.
"You caught on to her symptoms early," she announced softly, "she'll be asleep until around two in the afternoon, unless you've changed your mind."
"No, that's fine," Shunsui said, watching as the Fourth Division captain placed a finger on Nanao's forehead, murmuring one of her healing kido spells to make the other woman sleep. Once done, she stepped out of the room and Shunsui followed, closing the door quietly behind them. Together, they began to walk back toward the entrance to the division.
"You really care about her, don't you, Shunsui?" the silence was broken by the woman's softly spoken words. "If I'm correct, you aim to take care of both her duties and your own tomorrow, don't you?"
"If that's what it takes, I'll do it a hundred times," the man said in confirmation to his Fourth Division counterpart. "Do you think she'll find it in her heart to forgive this lazy old man? Especially when the man in question just likes to make her angry?"
Retsu chuckled, then said, "I think she has already forgiven you to some degree - at least subconsciously. Why else would she keep doing all of this, day after day?"
"I really don't know," Shunsui said softly as they reached the markers of the entrance to his division. He looked at the ground and said in an even softer tone than before, "I have no idea how the woman continuously puts up with me, even when she makes it painfully clear that I annoy her. But I just can't help myself - I'd do anything to see her show some sort of emotion, even if it's just to completely lose my mind when she's yelling at me because I can't focus on anything but how beautiful she is to me."
"Perhaps there is more to how she feels than you understand yet," the other woman suggested in that same gentle voice she always used. "Good night, Shunsui."
"Night, Retsu," he raised a hand to her retreating form in farewell, brooding slightly on her parting words to him. When she was a fair distance away, he let his hand fall and turned, retreating to the comfort of his own room for much needed rest. It would come in handy for the day he had planned.
Nanao awoke, groggy but feeling much more rested than she had in a very long while. She rubbed her eyes tiredly and forced those same tired eyes to read the clock. The woman's eyes widened and she barely bit back her surprised scream as she lurched to her feet like the devil himself had possessed her. In less than thirty seconds, she threw on a different uniform in a rush, barely took time to correct her tousled bed-head, and almost forgot to grab her glasses as she barreled out of her room. She nearly ran over the surprised fourth seat, and took the man's arm in a vice grip before he fully realized how much of a rage she was in.
"Why wasn't I woken?" Nanao demanded, nearly shouting at her poor, unsuspecting subordinate.
"O-orders, Lieutenant Ise!" the man supplied as quickly as he could.
"I didn't give anyone such an order!" Nanao snapped.
"No, Ma'am. The order came directly from the captain himself! He said that we were to stay quiet so that you could rest."
"What?"
This really did come out as a shout and very nearly a shriek with the shrillness of the sound. The fourth seat flinched away, but a relieved expression crossed his features as the angered lieutenant released him and ran for the main building. She leapt onto the roof and made her way to where the captain usually slept when neglecting his duties. Sure enough, his reiatsu was there, but strangely, he was not. Nanao felt like shouting in frustration.
"In the office, Nanao!" his voice offered helpfully from below.
Of course, she thought with pink cheeks, the last place she'd ever think to look would be where he was.
After feeling his lieutenant's presence above him, Kyoraku Shunsui knew she was furious and had learned of his order to let her sleep. Knowing that, when she was so angry, she wouldn't even consider checking to office even if she sensed that his reiatsu was nearby, the captain called out to her. Her own reiatsu fluctuated oddly, and he decided that she was nothing short of pissed. Precious Nanao probably assumed that none of the paperwork was done, when in reality all of hers was complete and so was half of his.
Nanao shoved open the door at that moment.
"Captain Kyoraku!" the door slammed closed behind her, as if in effort to trap some of her carrying voice inside. "What gave you the insane notion that you could forbid someone from waking me? I have duties, and paperwork, and plans for improvements for the division that I have to oversee in your stead! I can't afford to sleep in so late!"
"Ah, dear Nanao, I think you'll find your duties have been taken care of for the time being and your paperwork is completed to near perfection, if I do say so myself. I've instructed the members of our division to report all ideas for improvements to me first, submitting them in letter format," Shunsui informed her, still filling out papers. He had her full attention and had since he had said her paperwork was done. His continued writing only dumbfounded her farther. As for the proclamation of his idea about the letter submissions for the improvement ideas, she wondered why she hadn't thought of it earlier. It seemed so convenient.
"I think I should call Captain Unohana," Nanao said then, eying the working man carefully. "I'm afraid you may be ill."
He looked up at her. To Nanao, it would seem like a fake pout when she lied to herself about the hurt in his eyes, but it was real; it did sadden him a great deal to find that she really had little to no faith in him.
"Can't I do something nice for my dear, sweet Lieutenant Nanao sometimes?" he asked innocently, ticking the 'yes' box on his current paper.
"You never have before. I don't see why you'd want to start now."
He looked at her then, closely and calculatingly, trying to gauge her true feelings on the matter. He couldn't ever really tell with her, she was so good at hiding her emotions - mostly when she wasn't trying to.
"You've still got some exhaustion," he said gently, "You should lie down. You've been overworking yourself."
"Why does it matter so suddenly?" she asked defensively, then threw in quite hurriedly, "And I have not been overworking myself!"
"You are overworking yourself," he returned to his paperwork with a sigh after looking up at her seriously for a moment. "That's why I had Retsu come over after you fell asleep and use one of her nifty little kido techniques. It's meant to let you sleep off the largest part of your minor to mild case of exhaustion, you know."
"You didn't answer why it mattered," Nanao stubbornly repeated, a light pink across her cheeks at her foolish thoughts when he expressed his worry for her.
"I care about you, Nanao."
Shunsui said it without thinking, but didn't regret it as he left his signature on another sheet of paper. His head snapped up quickly, however, at the loud thump that accompanied his words. He could no longer see his lieutenant over the piles of paper that sat upon his desk.
"Nanao?" he asked, his voice altered in his worried state as he leapt from his chair and made his way around his desk to sit beside his fallen lieutenant. She sat on the floor, one hand over her face and the other propping herself up. "Nanao, are you okay?"
The hand covering her face was an attempt - in vain - to hide the dominant red that spread across her nose and cheeks. For him to say such a thing - I care about you, Nanao - outright had shocked her.
"I - I'm fine, Captain Kyoraku!" She stuttered. "It's just…I think I'm still a bit tired, actually, and I ran right after I got up, so my legs might be a bit weak at the moment…"
She rambled on, but Kyoraku Shunsui's attention was no longer on her words when he caught sight of the color in her cheeks. He worked up the courage then as he chuckled lightly to do the one thing he had desperately wanted to do for a long while but was too unsure to try.
"Oh, Nanao," he murmured gently, and he leaned his head beneath her own slightly tilted one in order to kiss her - full on the mouth. One hand rested gently on the side of her neck, while the other covered the hand that was supporting her. Under his touch, he felt her tense. Her eyes shot open as she tried to understand the situation that was currently unfolding.
It took a few moments, but finally her eyes fluttered closed and the hand that had fallen from her face then covered part of her captain's larger one. His lips parted from hers briefly, but he didn't move farther than a half an inch away, as though he was waiting to be yelled at. And slowly, he let them push back against Nanao's in a gentle kiss, and she tentatively allowed her ice cold walls to melt and returned the pressure.
It was during this interaction that his dear Nanao finally realized that not only was he her captain, but he was her captain. And Shunsui understood for the first time that she was his lieutenant.
And neither would really have it any other way.