-2-
"You've got to be kidding me."
"Now, dear, don't be so dramatic," her mother clucks, disapproving because when is she not?
Not for the first time, Rukia thinks she shouldn't have answered her phone. Nothing good ever comes from picking up her mother's calls, and her father's, on the rare occasion that he remembers he has children. Nonetheless, that the usual internal scolding also (annoyingly enough) sounds like her mother doesn't help matters at all.
Rukia had thought moving out of her parents' house would spare her the grief of their general existence. Evidently not.
She wishes she'd taken Byakuya-niisama's route of stoically ignoring them, but then again, Byakuya-niisama was an alpha and could. Even without the advantage of his secondary sex, Byakuya-niisama was everything their parents wanted – barring his choice thus far in mates, past and future – and had never really needed their approval.
Rukia, on the other hand.
While an omega-daughter was exactly what her parents required from her to complete the image they want to put out about themselves and their family; they were betas, and had no idea what to do with her. In the end, it shouldn't have surprised Rukia one bit that this was the conclusion they had come up with:
"I'm not getting married."
"Well, not yet." Like that technicality was the only problem. "We'll shop amongst a few appropriate alphas, of course. It's important to consider our options, after all. I've already met up with a matchmaker to do some preliminary screenings."
How positively medieval. Nanao was going to have a field day.
Then, "You know, dear, if you'd be a little more…omega, we wouldn't have to interfere."
There's a flash of pain in her chest before it's replaced by searing hot anger. "More omega, Mother?"
"Lady-like, dear. Don't be so sensitive," she replies, dismissive. "You know. A little more…open, friendly. Like that Inoue girl you live with. Now, she's delightful." Her mother sighs, and Rukia can practically see her shake her head in disappointment. "You get that frigidness from your father you know, you and your brother both. There's more warmth in a cold fish."
Over the grinding of her teeth, Rukia manages, "Have you considered that I'm not open because I'm not interested in other people, let alone in getting married. Right now, or ever?"
"Oh, don't be silly!"
Trying for a controlled breath as her mother continues to prattle, Rukia interrupts to demand, "I get no say in this?"
"Of course, you do, darling," her mother tsks, "you'll have to let me know your schedule so you'll be able to meet them. In fact, make sure you're free on Saturday, I have a candidate that would be just perfect for you." Then, gasping, "I have the perfect outfit to go with it too! I'll send it with the car. Ta, dear!"
Rukia's this close to throwing her phone at a wall. Instead, with as much control as she can muster, she shoves it into her pocket, and shoulders her way into the Sand Dollar.
She's already late.
Inside, she finds two of her three housemates all dolled up for a night on the town, and clearly too many drinks ahead of her as Inoue pleas: "Did you call him? Did you call him, Tatsuki-chan – Tatsuki-chan!"
"Yeah, yeah," the alpha says, sounding exhausted. Her buzz having clearly been affected by her darkening mood.
"Hey," Rukia manages, trying to smile through the anger that's still gripping her chest, vice-like and unyielding. "Where's Ran?" Because if anyone can get her to completely cut loose and calm down about the fucking fantastic state of her life, it was Rangiku.
Tatsuki replies, "Hell if I know, probably flirting with that poly-sci weirdo again. The one that's always smiling?"
Rukia doesn't shudder, but it's a close thing.
Ichimaru Gin is an acquired taste, and she spares the thought to wonder if whatever type Gin fits into, if it also happens to be Rangiku's. Either way, Rukia doesn't have much time to wonder about it when Inoue starts crying, "Ano-ano, Tatsuki-chan! Did you call him? Is he coming?"
And it says something about Tatsuki's state that she shrugs her best friend off angrily, and jabs at the phone in her hand.
Inoue doesn't really notice though, drunk off her ass as she is.
"What's going on?" Rukia asks, wincing against the pure distress Inoue's giving off with her scent alone, never mind the spectacle she's making of herself.
Usually, Inoue would attract attention by sheer virtue of existing in any general vicinity; being the perfect, stereotypical omega will do that. But this time, all she's doing is attracting stares. At this point, most, if not everyone, has moved away from the tiny table they've commandeered for themselves.
"The plan isn't working," Inoue all but sobs, collapsing on her arms to muffle her cries which is a small mercy, truly.
She's giving off desperation so potently Rukia's afraid of how it'll embarrass Inoue once she realizes that it's coming from her.
For all her dramatics, Inoue isn't so forward as to behave like this without alcohol being involved. Though, that doesn't change the facts here: "Another plan, really?"
Rukia's heard far too many of them since Inoue's moved into their apartment. Something Tatsuki had bitterly admitted made Rukia lucky because, quote: "She's been in love with him since junior high." Despite the fact that Inoue's never actually met this Kurosaki-kun she gives verbal dissertations about on a regular basis.
Nonetheless, there've been multiple attempts to initiate the "ultimate meet-cute" since, and clearly this is just another in a long line of failed ones.
"Step one: Get tipsy," Tatsuki intones expectantly, "step two: Get Ichigo over here to save her. Step three: -"
"Our meet cute!" Inoue bursts, "He's late; he's not coming!" And then she's too busy crying and wailing to care that Tatsuki tells Rukia, "He said he'd be here after work, but Orihime hit the bottle too hard and now -"
"He's not coming, you said he'd come Tatsuki!"
To that, Tatsuki sighs in return, squeezing the bridge of her nose. "Even if he does come, do you really want him to see you like this?"
The crying is happening double time now, and it's almost as loud as the music.
She can't believe she agreed to go out just for it to be another "Ichigo and Inoue meet-cute attempt" instead of a de-stressing bar hop with her housemates. Misleading plans on top of that phone call with her mother seems like a suitable follow-up, though.
Edging away from the table, Rukia says, "I'm gonna…not be here."
"I really don't blame you," Tatsuki sighs, abandoning her phone on the table as a lost cause, as well as Inoue herself, and downing her drink in one.
Shaking her head, Rukia considers heading back to the apartment until she sees an open spot at the bar and well. There are worst coping mechanisms for dealing with shitty parents and ruined plans, right?
She doesn't know how long she sits there nursing her cocktail and trying to will the loud music to drown out her still simmering rage, but it must've been long enough for it to cool because the next time someone slides into the seat next to her, Rukia lets the passing contact of their shoulders linger.
The first person who'd done it, a beta using too much alpha-designated cologne, had only managed to open his mouth before being scared off with a disapproving side-eye.
This should be considered progress.
From the corner of her eye, she sees the owner of the Sand Dollar, Urahara, raise his sake cup in mocking congratulations.
Rukia exhales a breath in an unwilling chuckle.
"Something funny?" the guy beside her asks, and thank the gods, he's got scent blockers on rather than the cologne the beta was wearing.
Though with a subtle sniff, Rukia thinks it would suit him better than the other guy – this one's actually an alpha. Not that that really improves the situation.
"Nope," Rukia says, resolutely not looking his way.
Betas are easier to scare off, but most alphas tend towards a persistence that usually requires Tessai's, the bartender and the Sand Dollar's unofficial bouncer, very specific brand of interference. And Rukia's basically given him the night off with her general attitude, it just wouldn't be fair to put him back on the clock.
After all, she had taken care of the alpha just fine before this one. She can handle another.
Although, he muses, "Huh, and here I was thinking you'd be ready to tear me to ribbons."
"Is that how you get your jollies off?" Rukia drawls, and instead of spluttering in indignation, or launching into some speech about omega manners and etiquette and other fucking bullshit like the alpha woman before him that's getting Rukia heated just thinking about it again; this alpha just snickers.
Still spoiling for an excuse to flash her teeth, and growl in a very-not-omega-approved-way, Rukia prods with words too sharp just to be a tease, "So you do."
"Maybe," he allows, and from the corner of her eye, she unwillingly catches the curve of a smirk at his mouth. "God knows I could use a break from the usual bullshit."
"Such as?"
At that, he sighs, dramatic and long-suffering; his elbow jostling hers against the counter. Rukia's prepared for some mediocre man-pain problem, and isn't entirely wrong: "Omega scheming, for one."
But Rukia's ears flush furiously at the stereotype because it is one which is also the moment she remembers Inoue – hears her even, still at the table moaning to Tatsuki about where's Kurosaki-kun? – And Rukia can't tell if she's more embarrassed or angry. She decides she can be both. "Would you like me to play you a song on the tiniest violin?"
He smothers his response with another pull from his beer, and his non-answer is enough to drag her attention towards him.
He looks different than she expected him to, but its Rukia's own fault, really.
Despite herself, she'd tried to imagine the kind of lips that could exhale a low, rough voice and the reluctant laugh that came with it, and how the sparks of gold in a depth of burned honey would look like flint from a fire when something caught his interest.
Seeing him in his entirety is a mistake.
It's like catching the wink of the sun through the storm clouds; magnetic as the only bright point in the darkness, and mesmerizing in its subtlety and delicate in its suspended fragility. To have that sun take her in; linger on her eyes and her lips in the same way she does him. Well.
Rukia looks away abruptly, mentally blaming her blush on the alcohol, and thanking the gods she wears scent blockers as religiously as she does.
Though, she does, for a moment, hate that he uses them too.
She'd only known he was an alpha because of the general "base" tone of his scent that pinpointed secondary gender – omega, beta or alpha. But when it came to the more complex notes of a person's scent, most alphas don't smell that good to her: too blunt with no subtlety whatsoever; too thick and heavy in body that it felt like you were being suffocated beneath them.
Even Renji's scent puts her off sometimes, and that's without the gross "mate me" pheromones he gives off whenever Byakuya-nissama is in the room. And. That works. Yes.
Think about your brother and your idiot of a best friend. Not –
"I'm not gonna lie, I've had a day," the alpha beside her interrupts smoothly; voice steady, deliberate. "And honestly, you aren't helping."
Rukia's so turned around at that, that she's the one that splutters, "What?"
Even beneath the blockers, his scent reaches out to her in seeming answer; deceptively sweet in the form of a crisp autumn air and a touch of Christmas morning that grows steadily headier; curling thick, mouth-wateringly good, and – oh.
This is definitely a mistake waiting to happen.