Disclaimer: - I don't own Bleach. Kubo Tite owns Bleach.

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This is my first attempt at angst

Kurosaki Ichigo, 25 years old, warehouse worker, laboured all day on cross dock. The sweat caked on his face and his arms as he hoisted yet another large box over his shoulders. Marching through the maze like warehouse, he found the store number he had been searching for. Throwing the box into the relevant spot between the yellow lines, he turned it over one last time to check the barcode store number against the store area he placed it in. '2016' he read in his mind.

The store numbers had been separated to prevent ambiguity, so the next number up was 2028 and the number before it was 2005. This was a dead end job that morons could do but he was stuck with it. It wasn't his fault that Rukia had come into his life and given him Shinigami powers. It wasn't his fault that during the last years of high school, Aizen had launched an attack on earth. It wasn't his fault that fighting for the survival of all existence meant that his attendance was poor and his marks plummeted. Unable to get into a decent University or College he was stuck where he was now. Working shiftwork or temporary jobs that allowed him the flexibility to choose his hours, at the cost of poor pay.

He grunted as he reached the stock pylon, staring at the never ending pallets of goods that needed to be sorted through to their respective stores. "Hurry up, Kurosaki!" His bulging team supervisor yelled at him, "we've got more shit comin' in soon. I need all this stuff cleared."

Ichigo frowned as he hefted another large box over his shoulders, this one, to store number 96, on the other side of the gargantuan warehouse. The humidity in the air, beaded moisture on his skin. "Shit!" he silently cursed to himself. Why had he bothered saving these morons for anyway. No one would ever know how much he had done for them nor would they ever find out.

The whirr of forklifts whizzing in and out of the warehouse, the clack of wooden pallets landing on pallets signalled more incoming stock. He wiped away some grime on his chest, noting he smelled like a bad, damp sock. Two circles of moisture clung to his t-shirt under the pits of his arms. His fluorescent safety vest was blackened with soot and paper dust. When he spat or blew his nose, the colour matched the filth on his steel capped boots.

"Ow! Shit!" Ichigo swore as a wayward pallet jack ran into his ankle.

"Sorry mate!" came the nonchalant reply from one of the 80 floor staff present.

That had been a polite encounter, some had been worse. "Shit! Numbskull! Watch where you're walking!" an irate worker shot at him as he accidentally cut the man's walk path off.

"Sorry!" Ichigo replied wiping the sweat off his forehead.

They day meandered like so, carton after carton, pallet after pallet. The honking of trucks informed Ichigo that more goods had arrived in the inbounds dock. The exhaust fumes mingling with the humid air raising the temperature yet again under the aluminium ceiling.

He had tried to redo his last year of high school again at one stage, trying to go for University entrance. But the long nightly shifts with Rukia, hunting down Hollows and burying souls meant that he failed again. He even remembered the words of a counsellor he had talked to, "Maybe you're just not right for education, Kurosaki. It might be better if you tried to find gainful employment instead."

The words had hurt him. He was once a top 50 student in his grade, until he got messed up with the world of the dead. A bobcat had once backed into him on a job he had done. Lying there, he had actually hoped to die, joining Soul Society properly. But Hanatarou had arrived and no one saw him heal Ichigo. In doing so, his lack of substantial injury had meant that his workers compensation pay out had been meagre, at best.

Ripping the shrink wrap off a new pallet, he began to work on the next load. He lugged another heavy box onto his shoulder. 4216, he read the store number. It was the middle aisle off to his left. Dodging a trolley, he weaved around another pallet jack as he made his way to the store.

All he had going for him was his strength. He was stronger than the average man and those who knew him were often surprised by how much his average frame could carry. 100kg boxes was a medium weight for him, if that. His reiatsu had helped in that instance, keeping his stamina and strength beyond normal. However the warehouse supervisor had taken note of this and had given his trolley away to others, less stronger than him. Arguing that they had need of it more than he did considering his carrying capacity.

A spider leapt out of the carton and ran down his neck. Without flinching he swiped at it with his grubby hands, flicking the arachnid away from his body. The sight of moisture and green bits beneath his fingernail told him he had flicked a little too hard. He wiped the gore off onto his vest as he threw down his parcel in position and double checked its label.

Walking back to the pallet, he picked up the strewn shrink wrap on the ground and tossed it into the garbage pile for collection later. He felt moisture. He looked at his scarred, blackened hand. "Fuck!" he cursed under his breath.

The bubbly liquid splattered on his fingers meant that someone had spat in the shrink wrap he had just tossed. He wiped it off on his vest again and went to the water cooler, pouring himself a plastic cup of water. He gulped it down hurriedly and poured a second, sculling that down too. But it was not quick enough for his pig of a team leader. "Are you gonna drink that all day?"

"I'm just getting a drink. I'll be there in a sec."

"Fine. Just hurry it up. Sea freight just landed on inbound dock 2. We're gonna need to have that floor clear before then." He examined Ichigo through squinted eyes, "ya' up for overtime or ya' gonna go home 'n bludge, fuck the missus and go ta' bed?"

Ichigo bit his temper, smiling as if he'd heard a joke. "No, overtime is fine by me." He needed the money anyway.

It was dark as he got home. Public transport was a nightmare at the best of times. Buying a car was out of the question for him. Once he had bought a small hatchback to get to work, but a Hollow targeting him put an end to that. Insurance didn't pay out on monster crushings and because he couldn't logically explain what had happened, it was written off as an act of god. His income had gone into paying off that damned car and now it was used for rent and supporting his precious lifestyle.

He opened the door to his small, dilapidated apartment to the smell of fresh home cooking and a sleeping figure on the couch. Kissing her forehead, she stirred as she woke up.

"Hey honey," he whispered. "I'm home."

"You stink," she smiled and made it sound like a compliment. "Go have a shower."

She pecked him on the lips and pushed him towards the bathroom. Ichigo stopped by the small paper door and slid it open. He smiled when he saw the two reasons that kept his heart beating for another day. The babies lay quietly sleeping in their cots, wrapped up snugly under warm blankets. Blowing them an air kiss he marched off towards the shower.

AN: Should this be a one shot? Who's his wife? Who cares? LOL. I wrote this when I had a bitch of a day at work!