Now this was just a little something that resulted from too much free time and too short an attention span. This could possibly go on to be more than a one shot, but I'll wait for your guys' opinion on that :)
Rukia sat, knees curled up to her chest in the fetal position, casually observing the melee of summertime activities unfolded in front of her.
It was about midday, and the gulls were wheeling listlessly up above, lazily navigating their way past clumps of kites in search for an unattended sandwich. Grey blue waves stretched and retreated, stealing footprints and small bits of shell with each tug. Children laughed and dumped buckets of water on their fellows, crabs scurried hopefully towards a draining tide pool. A father cursed under his breath as he struck a box of uncooperative matches, and a group of beachgoers tossed a Frisbee to a hyperactive dog.
A small distance away, a gaggle of teenage boys watched slack-jawed as a beautifully busty woman applied tanning oil to her arms. She flipped her wet, strawberry-blond tresses over her shoulder, managing to whack her red-head companion in the face. Renji seethed as the teenage boys looked jealously on.
Rukia sighed, settling herself more conventionally underneath her umbrella.
This was why she insisted on a separate umbrella. Rangiku drew hoards of lusty males like you wouldn't believe—and that was when she wasn't half clothed.
Dusting some gritty sand off her blanket, she did her best to ignore the wolf-whistles carrying from thirty feet away.
Plopping against her Chappy-fied umbrella, she sighed, and tugged her sunhat over her eyes. This wasn't exactly how she imagined spending her day off, but she had to give Matsumoto some credit—sneaking a whole group of seated officers from the Soul Society unnoticed was about as easy as robbing a bank with a nametag on. And admittedly, it was just as harebrained.
She didn't care that it was only because of her endless pleading and nagging that she managed to escape the doldrums of office life. Rukia didn't do beaches well. Her idea of fun wasn't jumping headlong into the ocean, or splitting a watermelon, or get her face pounded in by a volleyball.
Sure, she found it all very scenic (considering the beaches in the Soul Society were few and far in between) but that was only when it was uninhabited. At twelve noon on a scorching summer's day, that was but a fanciful dream.
She shrugged her shoulders, eyes vaguely taking in the swells. Ah well, at least no one was bothering her here. Rangiku, Renji and Hisagi seemed content to go wreak havoc far from where she lay, and Ikkaku was too busy terrorizing some smart-mouthed tourists. Yumichika she could see just a little ways off, being fawned over by some giggling, bikini-clad girls. That just left her alone.
She smiled to herself. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.
That was when a family of four came and plopped a tent-sized umbrella in front of her view.
Raising one eyebrow indignantly, she stared at the newcomers; a highly energetic father and younger sister… along with two lethargic others. The second child, who she could now see was also a girl, shook her black hair out of face and hid her eyes under a baseball cap. She looked embarrassed to be alive.
The last member of the pack, from what Rukia could tell, was acting the official family pack-mule; staggering under the weight of a minivan sized load of beach equipment. The mound of dangerously balanced blankets, umbrellas and picnic baskets pretty much buried his features, so it wasn't until he let them crash from his arms and started cursing his aching back that Rukia could see that she recognized him. Her good day was instantly ruined. He had orange hair.
"Damn it, old man!" Ichigo raged, pointing a condemning finger at his father. "Why do I have to do all the lugging around here?!"
Isshin patted his son's cheek, further enraging the teen.
"Why, Ichigo! You don't want Daddy to throw his back out, do you?"
"I want you to fall into a ditch!"
"Shame, boy! What kind of son says that to his Daddy?!" Isshin wailed, drawing the attention of several beach goers. They discretely gave him the fish eye and gave the spot a wide berth.
"WHAT KIND OF FATHER TREATS HIS SON LIKE A HUMAN VOLKSWAGON?!" This was greeted by morefish eyes and an even wider berth.
"Ichigo!" Yuzu scolded reproachfully. "Stop it, people are staring! You're scaring them!"
"LIKE HELL I AM!!"
Up to this point, Rukia had been discretely gathering up her things, and searching for a more remote area to sun bathe. Of course, Fate just had to interfere. At that moment, Yuzu happened to look up and notice her beloved Nee-san trying to make a break for it.
"Kuchiki-san!" The blond called delightedly. At this, Ichigo, row forgotten, whirled around, eyes wide. Rukia froze where she stood. Crap.
"Rukia?!"
"Ichigo!"
"What're you doing here?! I thought—" The rest of his shout was cut off as Isshin, delighted by the sudden appearance of his 'adopted' daughter, clouted him on the head and ran over to bear-hug Rukia. She all but toppled over in the onrush.
"Hello Ojii-sama," she managed, plastering on that familiar fake grin of hers. Ichigo's eyes bulged. Isshin took no notice.
"RUKIA-CHAN!!" He shouted ecstatically, squishing the air from her lungs. "What a surprise! I thought you'd been condemned to that foreign exchange school in Switzerland for good!"
This was the last lie that her kiokuchikan, her memory replacement module, had fed the family. Obviously, Ichigo was the blatant exception to that rule, as he was still staring at her with a strangled expression on his face. At that, she grinned, deciding to put on a good show. If only to annoy the hell out of him.
"Why yes, I thought so too, ojii-sama," she said sweetly, widening her eyes and donning the unconvincing mask of innocence. "But the strangest thing happened just as I arrived at the school! Just as I got out of the bus," here she Ad-Libbed a little, "A plane flying overhead suddenly blew up both its engines and fell in a death spiral towards the school! There, it hit an electrical pole and snapped the wires! The sparks and leaking engine caused a flash fire, which leapt from pole to pole until it burned practically the whole school to the ground! We all only survived this harrowing experience because at that exact moment—" she paused for a millisecond to catch the expression on Ichigo's face. Priceless.
"—at that exact moment, a group of SWAT trainees happened to be jogging past! It was only with their help that we escaped with our lives! No one was hurt, of course, but the school is now damaged beyond repair, and so here I am!"
She concluded this with a brilliant smile. This announcement was greeted by stunned silence. Then…
"OH, RUKIA-CHAN!!" Isshin and Yuzu both cried, suddenly sandwiching her with sympathetic hugs. Ichigo looked like his jaw might unhinge from the rest of his face.
"Oh, COME ON! Even you people can't be thick enough to—"
But his father and sister had eyes and ears for nobody but Rukia, who stood sandwiched between them, smiling a smug grin that only Ichigo could see. When they finally released her, (after being fed more false assurances about where she was staying and who she was with) Ichigo asked to have a word with her. In private.
"Wow, Ichi-nii. It's only been three minutes and you're already all over her," Karin commented, sipping jadedly at a can of soda. Ichigo ignored her, frog marching Rukia over to a secluded area where no one was likely to overhear.
Under the cover of a loud hip-hop song blaring from someone's radio, Ichigo wheeled her around and began the onslaught of questions.
"What are you doing here! I thought you were supposed to be stationed in the Soul Society! What is it?! More news about the Arrancar? Has Aizen made another move? Are Renji and the others—mulpmmb." Here, Rukia had clamped his lips together with her fingers.
"Nothing's up, Ichigo," she hissed. "Calm down, people are starting to stare." Ichigo pulled away, obviously confused.
"Are you here on normal orders then? I thought I was the one who had to take care of this part of-"
"Will you listen? NOTHING'S HAPPENING. Breathe." He did so, heavily, through his nose.
"Then what's up? You hardly ever come down here anymore, 'cept for delivering bad news." He raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you're here just to sight see."
"It is my day off," she said grudgingly. "It was Matsumoto's idea. Something about needing to let loose." She heard him snicker, and instantly, her eyes narrowed.
"What?" She snapped, obviously irked that he found the idea of her relaxing amusing.
"Okay, don't take this the wrong way, but you're just not one of those people who can 'let loose.' A martyr burning at stake could do a better job."
She punched him in the shoulder and waited for him to stop cringing before saying, "You're a fine one to talk. You don't HAVE a social life. If someone offers to take you anywhere, they'd have to pry your fingers off the door first and then tie you to the car roof."
"Not usually. They just handcuff me and toss me in the trunk." She rolled her eyes.
"Funny, Ichigo."
"It's summer," he said in way of an explanation, sticking his hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts. "I'm here to enjoy what time I have. I mean, after the whole Hueco Mundo episode, I figured I needed a break."
Just this past fall, after the sudden start of the winter war, the Soul Society and all involved with it had been stretched pretty thin trying to keep the Arrancar at bay. In the months it took to combat Aizen, they'd sustained heavy casualties. Thankfully, the sudden withdrawal of the Arrancar had given them some time to patch up. Not that much though.
"You look like you could use a good night's sleep," he murmured, suddenly reaching out and stroking the purple shadows under her eyes with his thumb. She started back at the movement. "Is your gigai running that low on juice, or are you guys still stretched thin?"
"The war's been pretty hard on everyone, Ichigo," she muttered, lowering her head. "Besides," she raised her impudent indigo stare, "I'm not the only one who needs some serious best rest. Have you looked in a mirror?" There was a joke in there somewhere, but she was too far gone in her ribbing to notice it.
Ichigo rubbed the back of his head, turning his glare to the cloud dotted sky.
"It's nothing," he muttered awkwardly, taking the accusation at face value. "School's just gotten to be a handful, you know? It sucks, 'cause most superheroes I know," he turned his gaze significantly on her. "Don't have to run around saving the world and figuring out Geometry at the same time." Rukia snorted.
"Just because I can skip out of your classes whenever I want…"
"You're damned right. Why don't I get that privilege? If you or any of the others have to kick Hollow ass, you don't have to cut fifth period to do it. Do you have any idea how boring detention is? The teachers there know me by face now-"
"Oh spare me the waterworks." Then she paused for a rare moment, seriousness starting to cloud her features. Speaking of Hollows…
"That hollow of yours…" she began, but stopped at the significant look on Ichigo's face. The previously nonchalant air evaporated.
"Let's just say I've got him on a very short leash," he said grimly, his eyes darkening despite the sunlight.
At that, Rukia's insides suddenly turned to molten lead. Boiling. Surging. She gritted her teeth.
That freaking Hollow… She hated that thing. Hated it every bit as much as the Council loved it. Though Ichigo'd been careful never to open their eyes to the fact that he was a Vaizard, the crazy power that he possessed couldn't be hidden. The raw power he used to beat back the Hollow hoards had suddenly become their hidden ace. They counted on it too much. They never stopped to consider how much it cost him to use it.
Suddenly, the sunny day turned cold. Rukia felt sick with anger, knowing that they were weighing so much on a teenage boy. Her fingers balled themselves into fists.
He was only fifteen. Sixteen this year. He had so much ahead of him. Looking at him, stooped with exhaustion, with that haunted expression on his features… it took her longer than it should've to realize that he'd aged.
Ichigo'd dealt with things no adult could be expected to handle, much less an adolescent. Time over and again, they'd relied on him to fight alongside them, put him directly in the line of fire…
She blinked, coming back from her dark thoughts. She shook her head, feeling a bit dazed at the rage that weighed itself in her chest. She was actually shaking with anger.
What was with her? Of course she'd have reason to feel angry that they were using him as a tool… but what was with this aggressive protectiveness that suddenly sprang into existence?
Ichigo could take better care of himself than anyone she knew. In a fight, it was usually she who needed the assistance, as much as that annoyed her… and yet, she suddenly wanted to pick up her sword right then and run it through the nearest person who looked at him funny. More than that, her fingers itched to drag that monster parasite kicking and screaming out into the real world, where she could freely hack at it.
"Rukia?"
She snapped back to reality.
"What?"
"Why're you staring at me like that?" He asked, raising one eyebrow. Abashed, she tried looking at this from his point of view. What would it look like to him—her, staring vacantly at his face, seeming to focus mainly on his eyes… and then hurriedly turning away? It took her a second. Then a tornado of butterflies erupted in her stomach as she came to terms. Good lord. Crap. She must've looked like she was- Did he suspect-?
"I mean, I know that hearing voices in my head isn't a good sign," he continued, smirking a little at the flustered look on her face. "But that doesn't mean you have to look at me like some lunatic hobo pushing a cart of cans down the street."
The butterflies dissolved. Oh, was the grateful thought. He just thought she was worried about the Hollow. He didn't think-
Didn't think what? A voice asked in the back of her head. She couldn't answer that. Luckily, at that moment, she was saved by a loud, wailing cry for help.
Looking away from his bemused brown eyes, she whipped her head to the source of the shrieks. What she saw was self-explanatory. An unfortunate tourist was being hoisted by his boxers by a grimly gleeful Ikkaku.
"—AND WHAT WAS THAT?" She could hear him roar. All the way from over here. "BALD AM I? WELL WHAT'S IT TO YOU?! YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY, PUNK? COME ON, YOU'RE NOT EVEN PUTTING UP A FIGHT, ARE YA? ARE YA?" The terror he was saturating the air with was punctuated very nicely by a volley of squealing apologies. From the sizable crowd that now gathered around the psycho, Rukia could hear Rangiku's melodic laughter. She could also see a bobbing crimson ponytail trying to force its way to do damage control. A shock of black hair with a 69 tattoo was assisting him.
Rukia was still pounding herself in the forehead when she turned around. She could hear Ichigo chuckle.
"Looks like the gang's all here." Then he did a double take. "Where's shorty? Thought he'd be here keeping Rangiku on a leash."
"Are you kidding me," Rukia half-growled. "Why would we take him along? Hitsugaya-taicho would skin us alive if he found out."
"Ah, so I take it you've all gone AWOL? Nice." He sounded appreciative.
"If you ask me, it's not worth it," she muttered, still picturing the basilisk glare on the miniscule captain's face should they ever return. She winced internally.
"Ah, come on, Rukia," Ichigo drawled, smirking. "You're on vacation. Relax," He said, throwing her own advice back at her. She scowled.
"What's there to do around here?" she muttered, readjusting her sunhat. To her astonishment, she heard him laugh.
"What's there to do," he chortled. "Rukia. We're at a beach.Think a little, will you?"
She huffed, crossing her arms across her chest.
"Sorry, I'm not into being burnt to a crisp." He half smiled.
"No one really tans at the beach, you know."
"Oh? Then tell me, what exactly do they do?" He scratched the back of his head for a minute, apparently thinking hard. Then, he grinned and offered her his hand.
"Why don't I show you?"