Title: Hoist, meet Petard

Characters: Kyouraku, Matsumoto, Ukitake (friendship)

Pairings: ShunNanao

Rating/Spoilers/Warnings: PG or T/None/Crack

Summary: Kyouraku has bitten off more than he can chew and must now pay the piper. Matsumoto and Ukitake have a conversation about the payment.

Disclaimer: Don't own Bleach, not even bleach.

AN: Written as a Christmas fic for MatsuMama, who played around the themes mentioned here with me! This is very different from our original conception, but hope you get a laugh out of it! It was fun to write, though I had thought I was dried up on this prompt!

"At least," Kyouraku Shunsui's mouth retained its amused quirk despite the pallor of his face, "I can say that I am the only man who will fully comprehend the female experience of pregnancy and labour."

"Not the only man, Shunsui-san, but the first." Matsumoto Rangiku's expression was gleeful. "You don't think the women of Soul Society are going to let the men off once they know that they could also experience pregnancy and childbirth in every ex- cru- cia- ting detail, do you?"

"Really, Shunsui, you're setting a very bad precedent," scolded Ukitake Jyuushiro gently. Despite his words, he, too, looked amused, with a kind of light-hearted sympathy any male would have recognized screamed, "Thank goodness it's not me!"

Kyouraku did not quite manage a glare. After all, he had never really practiced the fine art of looking fierce and left things like that to other people. But he did achieve a weak pout. "You don't have to look so tickled, the both of you! I'm suffering here, you know!"

"You shouldn't have been in such a hurry to test Nemu's prototype then!" returned Matsumoto. "She said she told you to wait, that she was still fine-tuning it." She stuck her hands at her waist. "But you had to insist, didn't you!"

"I didn't know she would manage to reduce the effective period of the injection to only two months so quickly! I thought it would take ages for her to find something that would work for less than the original year." Shunsui's voice was hurt, and his lips tilted downwards in his most pathetic look.

One delicate eyebrow lifted as the full lips quirked. "Oh, she's reduced the effective period even more. But rest assured that she will still be producing the original one year serum. After all, after delivery, there's still the first three months of late-night feedings and random disturbances to get through. We wouldn't want the men to miss out on that, would we?"

Shunsui's hangdog look deepened. "You don't have to rub it in, Ran-chan." He shifted on the bed, trying to find a comfortable spot.

"I'm trying to be sympathetic, Shunsui-san," Matsumoto's twinkling eyes belied her words, "but I can't help feeling you deserve it."

"Ran-chan!"

"He is rather miserable, Rangiku-san," come Ukitake's gentle, teasing voice. "Perhaps we should be gentler with him?"

At his words, Kyouraku nodded vigorously, then gasped and covered his mouth, his body heaving. With a sigh of bemusement, Ukitake rubbed his back lightly in a strange reversal of their usual roles.

At last, Kyouraku managed a weak whisper. "So how long is this going to last?"

Matsumoto tapped her chin thoughtfully. "First trimester." At Kyouraku's look of relief, she added, "If you're lucky. Some women go on for the entire term of the pregnancy." She eyed the supine man critically. White and green did not go with a bronzed tan.

"You know, you're going to be hated by every straight man in Seireitei once this story explodes, and there's no way you're going to keep the lid on it. Everyone knows that Kyouraku Taichou collapsed in the Thirteenth Division while visiting Ukitake Taichou. At the same time, Ise Fukutaichou consults with Unohana Taichou supported by several female friends."

"Though they will probably laud you for your bravery as well," Ukitake added mirthfully.

"Kyouraku Shunsui, Taichou of the Eighth Division, sacrificing himself on the frontiers of science!" Matsumoto drew her shoulders back, lifted her head and went into a martial stance, then relaxed and patted Kyouraku's shoulder comfortingly.

"I didn't foresee it would turn out like this," said the scientific martyr, looking put out. Then his expression turned soulful as he eyed his friends. "I thought I could use this to enter into a deeper relationship with Nanao-chan."

Matsumoto snickered and exchanged a look with Ukitake, who appeared fondly exasperated. "How about some honesty among friends, Shunsui-san? You were using the serum as a sex aid, both for the feedback loop and to gauge Nanao's reactions during sex. You just didn't expect her to get pregnant so quickly!"

"Ran-chan! You wound me with your suspicions." Kyouraku looked mournfully at Matsumoto, who blew him a kiss and returned her attention to Ukitake.

"Isn't this more like him, Jyuushiro-san? Rather than all that nonsense about, 'I want to know when Nanao-chan's injured, or unwell, or not eating enough, so I can take care of her!'"

Ukitake nodded with judicious humour. "She does have a point there, Shunsui. You're more likely to exploit that particular set of possibilities."

"Otherwise," continued Matsumoto, "you would never have rushed to Nemu when you heard the rumours that she was working on a serum that, when injected, would tell a person what physical sensations another designated person was experiencing, once those sensations went above a normal threshold. I'm sure you were delighted to hear that those sensations felt by the designated person were transmitted in their entirety to the injected person."

"I have heard," mused Ukitake, "that women are particularly sensitive during pregnancy. All sensations become magnified." He nodded at Kyouruku's stomach. "Hence the strong nausea. And all the discomforts of carrying another entity in a small space." Kyouraku eyed his flat abdomen dubiously. "Tightness, back pains, loss of agility, tendency to faintness or light-headedness..."

"Breast-feeding is a pain too, after pregnancy," Matsumoto took up the conversational thread cheerfully. "Full breasts! Sore nipples or worse! Bites and blisters! Fatigue! And I've heard that tearing during natural childbirth is agonizing and the healing after that very unpleasant!"

Ukitake tilted his head. "But of course, Shunsui's a fighter and a taichou. It can't be more painful than the injuries sustained on the battlefield, can it?" He smiled serenely.

Kyouraku was starting to look mildly panicked. "But Nanao-chan's with Unohana Retsu now! Surely there must be ways to deal with all this! Herbs, or kidou, or diet, or whatever!"

"Well," said Matsumoto consideringly, dragging out the word, "I've heard that if the mother is in good health, the less medical intervention the better, for a pregnancy to be successful. Besides," her grin turned wicked, "since Nanao knows about the serum, do you think she's going to let you off the hook?"

Kyouraku looked thunderstruck. "My Nanao-chan wouldn't do that to me, would she? My sweet Nanao-chan!"

Matsumoto crossed her arms and exchanged significant looks with Ukitake. "Guess again, Shunsui-san!"

"Then what about blocking the serum from my side?"

Ukitake's brows lifted. He rarely heard his friend so agitated. After all, Kyouraku was probably the laziest man in Seireitei, and with that indolence came a well-rehearsed and untroubled unflappability.

Matsumoto shook her head pityingly. "No one quite knows what Nemu did, except that the serum works on both nerves and reiatsu. And she's not quite sure herself if she can reverse the effects before they wear off." Then her tone hardened slightly, though only her intimates would have detected the change. "Besides, even though the serum was injected into you, it does represent an invasion of Nanao's privacy and her psychosomatic integrity without her consent, so neither she nor Unohana Taichou are going to be very sympathetic towards you. Nanao's going to draw up a code of ethics governing the use of the serum, its production, control and distribution, and possible penalties for violations the first opportunity she gets."

Ukitake eyed the busty fukutaichou with quiet speculation. "You sounded very much like Nanao-san there, Rangiku-san."

Matsumoto widened her eyes innocently. "Who do you think I was quoting?"

Kyouraku's groan was heartfelt and pained.

Matsumoto patted his shoulder again. "Relax, Shunsui-san. It's not as bad as I painted it. Personally, I think a new era has dawned for male-female relations in Soul Society. Finally, both men and women will be able to step across a biological and gender divide and literally walk in each others' shoes! So I'm more inclined to see the positive aspects of Nemu's serum, though I do agree with Nanao that a code of ethics needs to be written. However, at long last, true somatic integration is no longer a pipe dream!"

"Somatic integration?" Ukitake's voice was quizzical. Kyouraku remained immobile, an arm flung over his face. Matsumoto's words had obviously not brought him any solace.

"Yes, I believe Unohana Taichou mentioned something about promoting better understanding between the Fourth and the Eleventh Divisions." Ukitake blinked. The images that crossed his mind were disturbing, to say the least, as was the question of who was injecting whom.

Then, Matsumoto was pointing towards her chest. "As for me, my friends will get at last the pain and strain of living with breasts like mine, day in, day out!" Matsumoto's expression was serious and earnest despite her laughing eyes. "Of course, I won't ask that of them until Nemu has managed to reduce the effective period to a day!"

Postscript. It came as no surprise to anyone when Kyouraku Shunsui suddenly collapsed like a kite during a crucial taichous' meeting several months later. After all, every shinigami knew Ise Nanao's putative due date. Her pregnancy was probably the most microscopically scrutinized pregnancy ever in Seireitei, since it had established a watershed for women's maternity rights. Kyouraku was carried out of the taichous' meeting by none other than Zaraki Kenpachi and accompanied by both Unohana Retsu and Ukitake Jyuushiro, whereupon the meeting was adjourned. At the Fourth Division, all was in a ready state of preparation, and apart from Unohana Retsu, Kotetsu Isane and Yamada Hanataro, who were responsible for monitoring the status of both parents and their unborn child, Kuchiki Rukia and Matsumoto Rangiku were on hand as commentators for a live broadcast of the proceedings. It was noted that Kyouraku Taichou fainted several times during the long drawn-out labour, while Ise Fukutaichou remained conscious throughout the entire process. Many of the male shinigami also remarked on the extent of Ise Fukutaichou's vocabulary, but were assured by their female compatriots that it was to be expected under the circumstances. Kyouraku Taichou refused any comment.

Matsumoto Rangiku's wish was fulfilled on her birthday when a group of her nearest and dearest gathered in the office of the Tenth Division Taichou and ceremoniously injected themselves with Nemu's Serum, which had become the proprietary name of the invention. Thereafter, no one, not even Hitsugaya Toshiro, rolled their eyes when Matsumoto complained about her bosom.

As Matsumoto Rangiku and Ukitake Jyuushiro had predicted, the straight men of Seireitei regarded Kyouraku Shunsui with mixed feelings at best. The precedent he set raised expectations among the female shinigami they courted, and any man worth his salt was faced with the prospect of the year-long Nemu's Serum treatment. As for those who loved their own gender, we may take the reactions of Byakuya Kuchiki and Abarai Renji Taichous as typical of their ilk. When Kyouraku had been carted from the First Division, they had glanced at their discreetly entwined hands and the faded marks of the needle, and given thanks with all they had that they were both men, and thus knew what to expect from each other's bodies.

Owari