I love the majorly cracky but totally smexy pairing of Matsumoto and Shuuhei, so I figured I might as well take a stab at them. There is a small, vague spoiler for the end of the SS arc, but that's it. I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: Do. Not. Own. Capisce?

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Cold Turkey

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For the first time in her life, Matsumoto Rangiku seriously questioned her decision to drink alcohol.

And then she dismissed the notion on account of it being the craziest thing she had ever heard. Even crazier than the time she had gotten her precious little captain drunk. And that had been really crazy. Which just proved how valuable alcohol could be, enough to make her captain not notice that she hadn't done her paperwork. The mind boggled.

And then she thought about it again and decided that it wasn't the alcohol's fault that she decided to get drunk, but hers.

And then she dismissed that ridiculous idea as well.

So she shifted her head on the soft paperwork on her desk, nursing a cup of tea and a whopping hang-over. She really shouldn't be thinking about this when she couldn't even think about opening her eyes without feeling slightly sick.

It had been a late night and she had been a busy girl, Matsumoto could remember that much. The heavy drinking from the night before probably didn't jog her memory, but she was fairly content to leave that as it was; some things weren't meant to be remembered after a long night of debauchery.

Something else popped up in her mind, and she made a strangled noise in the back of her throat as she shoved it back down.

"Ah, so you are alive," the flat timbre of her captain's voice said.

She gave him a low whine, shifting her head so that she was facing his vague direction. Pain throbbed in her temples and she whimpered in spite of herself, earning a soft snort from her captain. She opened a bleary eye to catch sight of his hair, his eyes slowly coming into focus only after she forced her concentration on that slim eyebrow quirked in faint amusement.

Words were too much, so she settled for a half-hearted, one-eyed glare. Her captain's brow threatened to disappear into his hairline before he turned back to his paperwork, becoming the stoic boy genius he was best known as once again.

"This is good news. I was afraid I would be short a vice-captain by the end of the morning," he said, signing one of the documents and moving it off to the side. "I really don't need any more paperwork. Though, a vice-captain that actually does hers would be welcome improvement."

Matsumoto intensified her glare before she found that it hurt her head too much to keep up. She groaned and lifted her cup of tea just enough to tilt it against her lips and take a small sip, sighing and dropping her head back down on her stack of paperwork once the maneuver wore thin on her brainpower.

She closed her eyes, welcoming the returned silence and wishing that she could curl up in a ball and stay like that for all of eternity. Her mind wandered again to the events of the previous night, the dark sake and sticky bars and red of Renji's hair and shine of Ikkaku's head all blurring into one strange mental picture. One image stood out the most, Shuuhei's damn tattoo. She could practically feel his spiky hair under her fingers, his hard skin pressed against her body.

She jumped about a foot at the sound of her captain's voice, nearly turning red until she recovered enough to remember that she never blushed.

"Wha…?" she asked, rubbing her temples and blinking at him.

"I said 'Oi, Matsumoto.' About four times."

"Oh." She propped her head carefully on her hand, making sure of its stability before completely slouching over. When her captain didn't say anything further, she looked up to find him frowning at his paperwork, though his eyes weren't moving enough to be actually reading it.

"What, taichou?"

He gave her an annoyed noise, shifting a little in his seat and carefully keeping his eyes trained on the papers in front of him.

"Oi, Matsumoto… are you alright?" He signed another paper brusquely, placing it in one of the stacks at the top of his desk without so much as a look in her direction.

She smiled faintly at his masked concern. "Yes, taichou."

He paused in his work to give her a look, narrowing his eyes before turning his head completely away from her.

"Good, then you can do your paperwork."

She found herself caught in the trap before she knew it, her eyes wide and mouth agape. She stuttered out a few indistinguishable sounds, pouting when her mind came up with no good excuses.

She huffed, sticking her finger in the air triumphantly when an idea finally came to her.

"Actually, taichou," she said, standing up quickly and swaying. She put her hands on her desk to steady herself, knowing that her plan left no room for error. "I have a headache, so I'm going to go to the Fourth Division now. I'll be back in a little while."

She bolted out the door before he could get a word in edgewise, sighing in relief and smiling victoriously as she swished down the hallway outside. Then the nausea poked her again, leaving her leaning against the wall and taking deep breaths.

She closed her eyes, scenes from last night rolling through her mind. Renji and Ikkaku and Iba staggering off to their quarters, singing about wearing no pants and their dancing lances, leaving her and Shuuhei alone at the bar, the only relatively sober ones left. Matsumoto because she had drunk them all under the table and Shuuhei because he had taken it slow. She was fairly certain that she had been the only one who had noticed that.

Regardless, she was still very drunk, even by her standards. Not enough to actually make her stagger, but enough to make her seriously consider leaning over and kissing him. She was horny as hell and he had been so nice to her recently and she was sick of being hung up on Gin and he looked so damn sexy sitting there with his tattoos and his fingers tracing the edge of his glass. The thought was so tempting that she was acting it out before she realized it, leaning forward and pressing her lips against his.

"Rangiku?"

She was shocked back to reality by that familiar voice, her eyes widening and her mind silently berating her for not noticing him approach. She looked up into the eyes of the last person she wanted to see right now, another wave of nausea hitting her hard as his gaze swept over her. She had a pretty good idea that the nausea wasn't from her hang-over.

She slid her back down the wall, her knees buckling so that she plopped down on the ground.

"Are you alright, Ran—Matsumoto-san?"

She stared up at Shuuhei, the feel of his fingers through her hair, his lips against her own, his hands brushing over her breasts assaulting her senses and leaving her blinking wordlessly up at him. He sighed softly, sitting down next to her, far enough away so that their bodies didn't touch but still close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off of his skin.

She briefly mourned the loss of her given name spilling from his lips, remembering how much he put behind it last night.

"I'm… alright," she said finally, turning her head to look at him almost shyly, except that she was never shy.

"We need to talk," he said, and Matsumoto envied his lack of apparent hang-over.

"Yes," she replied, squinting up at the late morning sun and rubbing her temples.

She had woken up just that morning in his bed, snatches from the night before flickering hazily through her head. It had taken her a while to figure out where she was, but previous experience lent her the wherewithal to stop and look at her surroundings. In the end, it was the sleeping form of Shuuhei at her side that had given it away. She fought against the headache that was enveloping her, strangely calm and accepting of the whole thing.

For some odd reason, she found herself wondering why it hadn't happened sooner.

"Good morning," he had said, waking her up entirely with the husky tone in his voice.

She blinked at him. "Good morning."

He had given her an inscrutable look, but for all her searching she could not find any regret. It surprised her; she had become so accustomed to it since Gin left.

And now they were back to where they had started, trying to figure out the words they wanted to say to each other. He stared at her thoughtfully, that serious expression on his face that had gotten her into this situation in the first place, long ago.

"Look, Shuuhei," she began, leaning her head back against the wall.

"Just tell me what you want, Matsumoto-san," he said, his voice far more confident than hers.

"First off, I want you to stop calling me 'Matsumoto-san,'" she snapped, poking him in the shoulder before catching her head when it started to swim.

"You shouldn't drink so much," he said, the trace of a smirk pulling at his lips. "It gives you hang-overs."

She glowered at him and the deadpan tone of his voice. "I could out-drink you any day."

"Yes, but can you account for what happens afterwards?"

She opened her mouth in protest before shutting it again, turning her head away to stare down the empty hallway. She couldn't help but think that maybe her drunken self knew what she wanted more than her sober self. Especially after last night's incident.

She shook her head; she needed to find out what she wanted. What did she want?

She wanted what she had last night, that's what she wanted. She realized with a shock that she had been thinking about this subconsciously for a long time. How else had she been so calm the moment she had woken up in his bed?

Shuuhei had always been there, an arm's reach away. She had just never tried to reach before.

Maybe it was her fault, maybe it was Gin's fault. But she found herself dwelling less and less on him every day, more so when she was with Shuuhei. She realized that it wasn't the alcohol that drowned his memory away, but the people she was with.

The people that cared about her.

She supposed that there would always be a small part of her that loved Gin, but now all she wanted was someone she could love now. Someone who was just an arm's reach away. Someone who cared about her.

"You," she whispered.

He furrowed his brows, frowning at her. "What?"

She leaned towards him and pulled his head down, pressing her lips against his insistently. His fingers immediately snaked through her hair, pulling her closer as he deepened the kiss with the flick of his tongue.

"So, this is what the Fourth prescribes nowadays?"

They jumped back from each other like guilty children. Matsumoto raised a brow at the irony, her captain standing above them with his arms crossed and mouth set in a frown. It was the glimmer in his eye, however, that belied his stern expression.

"I should have a talk with them about their cures," he continued, giving Shuuhei an evil eye as he stood up and tipped his head.

"Hitsugaya-taichou," he said, Matsumoto standing up more slowly next to him.

Her captain rounded on her, his brow quirked and questioning.

"I can explain," she said quickly, knowing her dear captain far too well to hope she would get off scotch-free.

She stopped once she caught sight of the looks exchanged between her captain and Shuuhei. It was a silent threat and a silent assurance, delivered in the space of a second so quick Matsumoto could have sworn she imagined it.

Her captain's brow twitched and he looked towards her, apparently finding whatever he needed to know before he looked at Shuuhei again.

"Maybe you can get her to do her paperwork," he said.

"I doubt anyone could do that, taichou," Shuuhei replied, the both of them trading knowing glances.

For the second time in her life, Matsumoto Rangiku seriously questioned her decision to drink alcohol.

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END