A/N: Split into two parts due to length, as requested. :)

After a marathon Bleach session, this fic began nibbling at my heels. Takes place a couple of months after Rukia's rescue from Soul Society, and post the second OVA. Enjoy! And as always, reviews and feedback are welcome and appreciated!

Summary: Rukia corners Renji for one of his more infuriating habits. Renji thinks she's got pretty crappy timing. Rated T for language.

Blunt Force Trauma

He nearly makes it to the end of the week, this time.

Looking back, he supposes the first warning signs should have been evident in the almost organised manner with which Ichigo managed to dispatch the night's first Hollow. Nevermind the way he - almost - bought it. He is no longer sure which days surprise him more – those that go according to plan, or ones like today. What he does know, with a certainty that can only come from mounting firsthand experience, is that the universe is fucking with him. Again.

"You weigh a shit-ton, you know that?"

A rough hand balances him as he sways. The blackness in his vision is replaced with too-bright orange light and equally offensive orange hair. He lifts a hand with a curse, shielding his eyes against the sudden glare and the ever-present scowl with an arm that feels like it's come between Yumichika and his favourite eyeliner.

"Seriously," Ichigo grunts as he deposits him on the nearest chair. "Could be a great time to lay off the junk food."

The pissed-off growl he musters in response to the deliberately laid bait is a poor effort and they both know it. Regardless, it renders a barked laugh from the substitute shinigami in front of him. "Yeah, yeah, die in a fire. I got it." Ichigo's finger lingers a moment longer on the light switch before he jabs it point blank between his eyes. "Whatever. Stay put. If you bleed to death all over the floor the midget'll kill me."

There's a pause, a snort, and he actually sees the moment the kid fails to resist his parting shot of, "Like you could go anywhere the state you're in. Idiot."

Renji lets his head thud to the table, fighting to keep his food down with the abrupt change in altitude; as if he doesn't get a hard enough time about freeloading without losing his mooched lunch all over Kisuke Urahara's floor. He hears Ichigo ranting to himself as he wanders off, calling for the shop's owner in between bitching about rescuing damsels in his homework time, and it's all he can do to fight gravity as he prepares for the final nail to be hammered into the coffin of his pride. Maybe if he starts crawling now he can escape before-

"Renji!"

Ah, hell.

He rolls his head toward the voice, feels his spine do something unpleasant as a result, and squints against a shower of dust that dislodges itself from his hair. The face that materialises inches from his is a pale blur framed in black, but he knows the deceptively tiny silhouette almost as well as his own.

"Oi, Rukia."

"Don't 'Oi, Rukia' me." The hand that hovers near his face is small, gentle as it settles on what it decides is a safe spot. Commanding as it coaxes his head this way and that to get a better look at the carnage. "What did you do to yourself?"

Her voice bears a hint of trepidation, suggesting she isn't really sure she wants to know. He grins crookedly, more to do with the cracked jaw than any real intent. "Y'want the dull version or the highlights?"

The fake bravado is ruined by the slur to his words, and Rukia sighs. "Why do I suspect they both end with Ichigo dragging you half-dead back to Urahara's store in the middle of the night?"

"Not quite how I planned it," he grumbles.

"It never is."

Her fingers trace a cut on his neck before sliding into his tangled mop of hair, carefully tugging it free of its tie as she hunts through the chaotic strands for the source of the blood. The sensation is almost pleasant until she stumbles across the culprit at the base of his skull, and what he has managed to scrape together of his dignity dissolves into a string of expletives.

"Fuck, Rukia!" He swats at her. "Give it a rest, will ya? That's my head, not a slab of meat!"

He is told repeatedly he speaks without thinking. It is just as frequently his outbursts backfire on him. This time is no exception as Rukia's hand snaps back, and there is a frozen moment where her eyes are wide enough for him to see the surprise, irritation, and something else he can't quite pinpoint all at once. A moment later it barricades itself behind a wall of upper class conditioning.

Instantly, he regrets opening his mouth. Barely two months since Rukia's failed execution and the events at Soul Society are still fresh in their minds. Not once has he allowed himself to linger on how abruptly they have been tossed back into each other's lives, lest the fickle powers that be mistake it for a complaint. Moments like these are a cautionary reminder: though it is as if someone has turned the dial back to a less complicated time in their friendship, it is easy to forget that while he has spent the past forty years brawling his way up the ranks, he is equally responsible for helping to usher her down a different path. A naivety he is bitterly reminded of each time she hides behind that infuriatingly Kuchiki mask.

He drops the wrist he has grabbed on impulse, fumbles a sheepish apology, and scowls down at a seeping tear in his thigh. Ever the dog with its tail between its legs, he is almost too late to realise the energy spent sulking would have been put to better use keeping himself upright.

A hand comes out of the haze in his vision to brace his chest against the back of the chair. There is a swish of cloth as Rukia stoops to better prop him up, stubbornly re-establishing herself in his line of sight. He feels himself saturated by healing kidou, and he swallows down any further complaint as he is - gently, reprimandingly - smacked over the head.

"You certainly look like a lump of meat. Now quit being a baby."

He glances up at her through a web of red, and can't resist a chuckle at the nostalgic expression that has found its way onto her face. It is one that has been painfully absent for decades, that every time draws him back to the dusty shitheap of his childhood, chastises him for being a naive fool as he eternally connects the wrong dots, and makes him want for more.

"Yeah, yeah." The grin skips boyish and borders on manic in its enthusiasm, but he doesn't care - this is the Rukia he should have encouraged. "My head's a giant fucking steak. Y'weren't there, though. Wait till ya see the other guy."

Rukia rolls her eyes, but can't keep the fond edge from slipping through the cracks as she mutters a token, "Idiot." It is the second time he has been called that tonight; he is sure it won't be the last. "Sit still and let me take a good look at you. You can't be hurt too badly if your testosterone is still running unchecked."

"Hard to brain damage someone with a skull that thick," a voice chimes in. "And for the record, he's definitely in worse shape than the other guy."

"Now, now, Kurosaki-san. That's hardly a nice thing to say to someone bleeding all over the floor." Urahara's voice is like silk on sandpaper from where he appears with Ichigo. "Why are you bleeding all over my floor, Abarai-san?"

Renji knows that tone. It's the one that promises he'll be on mop and bucket duty for the next century.

"Can't wait to hear this one." Ichigo flips a chair around and parks himself on it backwards. He is still in his shinigami attire, Zangetsu strapped across his back. Renji can't help but notice he seems more comfortable now than in his own skin. It doesn't mean he approves of the kid getting him out of a tight spot, especially not when the expression he wears is one of such blatant sarcasm.

Rukia's look between them should be warning enough. "Do I want to hear this?"

"Sure you do. Because I want to see you tear him a new one. How the hell did you get to be a Lieutenant with shit for brains, Renji?"

He is struck with the familar urge to grind the boy's head into the floor. He has no doubt he would be if he could tell which of the three Ichigos is the real one. "Shut up," he growls lamely in response, trying and failing to pick pieces of gravel out of a gash on his arm. "If I had a dollar for every time a Hollow got the jump on someone I'd be pissing money."

"So your bankai just up and unleashes itself, that it? In the basement. Of a condemned fucking warehouse. The hell did you think'd happen?"

"Pretty damn sure of himself for someone with his back to the action, don't ya think?"

"I might have been occupied, but I can think of better ways to distract Hollow from a group of kids than bringing the whole damn building down on top of us!"

"Says the man who routinely carves up buildings on his own-"

"-Not when I'm in them!-"

"-An' the hell do you mean 'us'?" he snaps, giving up on his arm and devoting his dwindling concentration to his defense. He glares and flaps his shredded sleeve emphatically. "Last time I checked the building pancaked me while you were off playin' babysitter. I don't see what you're getting so bent out of shape about!"

Ichigo rocks his chair forward onto two legs, annoyed. "Because I spent half the evening digging you out of rubble, nearly an hour consoling a bunch of kids, and just as long carting your fat ass back here! And now the midget is probably going to spend the rest of the evening drawing us shitty diagrams lecturing us about how, if she had been there, this shit never would have happened! Right, Rukia?"

Next time I will pancake him, Zabimaru huffs.

Renji's lips twitch absently, but his attention is drawn back to the elephant in the room.

She is holding a small piece of rubble plucked from out of his hair, her expression thoughtful as she rolls it between her fingers. For once she appears to be resisting the urge to referee their banter. Her other hand is still to his chest, the light cast from the healing kidou bouncing eerily off her features, and through the blurriness in his vision he is unsure if the glow is flattering or vaguely sinister. The silence steers him toward the latter. It is a technique commonly used by his Captain to make he and his subordinates sweat, after all; that she has mastered it so aptly is another mark on Kuchiki Byakuya's grave, and a comparsion he draws reluctantly.

"Midget?" Ichigo is like a dog with a bone.

A flutter of black is the only warning they get before the piece of debris rockets across the room. Ichigo squawks, shoves backward to dodge the tiny projectile, and the chair he balances on topples. He crashes to the ground.

"What the hell, Rukia?!"

Renji is about to crow his approval at her choice of target practise, but thinks better of it as Rukia's gaze hones in on him, and he knows from the set to her jaw that she's onto him. A moment later he too is flat on his back, wheezing and glaring up the nostrils of the diminutive woman towering over him through the spots in his vision. Her eyes are narrowed to demonic slits. He has been on the receiving end of this look countless times in the past, and has suffered through one too many horror movies since coming to the World of the Living to expect this to end well.

His saving grace, of all things, comes in the form of a slow clap from the doorway.

"Quite the show, wouldn't you say?" The shadow cast by Urahara's hat hides just enough of his face to gauge his level of amusement, but the woman now slouched lazily against his shoulder makes no such secret of her mirth.

"For me. Seems like a dangerous night to have balls." Yoruichi's voice is light, as always. "Better watch yourself, Kisuke."

"Hm. All the same. Kuchiki-san? Please refrain from redecorating too much of my home with Abarai-san's insides. I rather like that rug, and I wouldn't want to have to pawn your gigai to recoup the costs."

Anyone else might be wary of the threat under such a jab, but Rukia doesn't miss a beat. "After what happened with the last one, you should be paying me."

"Oh?"

Urahara's sanguine stare marches boldly onward, and with it Rukia's homicidal rampage is momentarily aborted. It doesn't mean Renji dares to remove her foot from his sternum. The floor is as good a place as any to bleed, and if he can creatively ruin some of the slave driving shinigami's décor while he's at it, then he might even call the evening a draw. He watches benignly instead as Yoruichi pushes off the shopkeeper's shoulder and wanders over, crouching beside him and whistling appreciatively as she picks at his ruined shihakushō.

"Hope you're good with whites and delicates."

He jerks his chin, instantly regretting it as the room spins. "Your sweatshop-owning buddy over there's made sure of that."

"You can't mean me, surely?"

Yoruichi cackles at Urahara's coy wasp of his fan. "Pick on him when he can fight back, Kisuke." She leans in a bit and sniffs. "Dumpster or trash heap?"

He has given up hiding how bizarre he finds it that her more feline aspects roll over in this form, knowing full well she gets a kick out of expressing such oddities. "Nothing quite like rotting trash bags to break your fall," he drawls. That, and there's no sense in denying it, especially not with a witness out for his blood in the same room.

"The padding's not much use to you if you're going to plant an entire warehouse on your skull. Still!" She extends a hand. "They just don't make buildings like they used to, huh?" The wince she affords seems genuine, and Renji wonders what club he just joined as he regards the distant glimmer in her eye.

The wisecrack on the tip of his tongue dies as he is hauled to his feet. The events of the evening catch up with him, causing the world to shift around him unpleasantly. He feels like a half empty bottle as what seems like his remaining blood drains from his face and sloshes somewhere about his ankles. It is with detached interest he notices his vision is going dim, and he can't help but feel dizzy relief: if he passes out soon he will be blissfully ignorant to whatever punishment Rukia dishes out.

"Dumb-ass doesn't know when to call it quits," someone scoffs to his right.

"You're one to talk. Might want to give up on the rug, Kisuke. I think it's done for."

"It was an antique, too," Hat-and-clogs whines theatrically.

"We're antiques and I was never particularly fond of it. If you ask me, he's doing you a favour."

"I can't help my eclectic taste, there's no need to be cruel!" Even sounding miles away, Urahara's switch in demeanour borders on the bipolar. "I suppose it can't be helped. Give her a hand with him, Kurosaki-san, let's find him someplace more comfortable. I think he's had enough grief from us for the moment."

"More-than. Careful, down he goes."

He vaguely recalls hearing a collective gasp and a commotion around him, then his vision goes black.