.
No vacancy
.
Rukia has exactly a minute and a half to regret dragging Kurosaki into her loft, and in his defense, it doesn't actually have anything to do with him so much as it has to do about him.
She may know he isn't actually some serial killer (ish?), but she also doesn't even know his first name, and that seems like an important precursor to bringing someone into her home and telling him to take his clothes off – He's dripping all over her floor!
He's peeling off his layers by the closed front door, expression set in a grimace as the material clings persistently against his jacket onto the floor in a puddle with a loud, wet squelch that she belatedly realizes this might not have been the best idea.
"Don't move," she orders anyway as she heads over to the small washroom near the kitchen and snags the towel on the rack – it's just a hand towel and it won't help with much of the damage from the rain, but it's better than nothing.
By the time she's thrusting it at him, he's managed to toe his boots off, and is trying to remove the flannel while trying to peel the layer beneath it off at the same time, teeth set into the hem, and brows furrowed in adorable concentration.
Rukia might even coo and pat him on the cheek for it.
If – maybe – she hadn't gotten an eyeful of tanned skin and flash of hip bone, and what were the muscles of his abdomen even doing? Jesus.
"You know, I can just go next door and change, right?" he says around the material of his shirt as he struggles out of it, completely distracted from the fact that Rukia's brain had gone dial-up for exactly twenty seconds and that her face was probably redder than a tomato.
"Yeah, right, and then you'll lock yourself in there and never come out, and you'll be stuck in your creative rut forever," she says in a huff, and climbing the stairs to get to the split level. "I know exactly, how to help. Trust me."
"I have no reason to do that," he deadpans.
"And yet you took off your clothes just because I asked," she reminds in a singsong which she thinks is proof enough when he can't do anything more than grumble under his breath.
By the time Rukia's dried and changed into her jean dungaree she uses for painting – Kurosaki is still grumbling.
And he's shirtless.
Because why would she expect otherwise?
He's running the hand towel over his damp hair, miles of tanned skin flecked with goosebumps from the slight draft in the room, with his jeans hanging wetly from sharp hips and clinging to thick thighs, bare toes flexing against the floor. Seriously, who is this guy even? She throws the bath towel she snagged from her bathroom upstairs, over his head, and leaves some clothes on the barstool closest to the washroom nearby.
"It's my brother's, it should fit you. Let me just get the rest of the stuff."
Peering through the folds of the bath towel, hair peeking out in fuzzy spikes and expression disgruntled, he frowns at her. "I don't do any…stuff."
"Stuff," she repeats as she sets up one of her plaster models on a stool atop a white trap. "What stuff?"
"…drug related stuff."
Rukia bodily pauses. "What?"
He huffs out a breath, looking a little uncomfortable now. "I know what I look like, but I don't do -"
"No, no, don't say it again. I'm still a little convinced 3D bugged the loft," she says, throwing a suspicious look around the space. It wouldn't be beyond 3D's capabilities, Rukia is sure, the woman always seems to catch Rukia doing the worst things – you know, when you're lacking the context of artistic creation.
She shakes her head. "Don't worry, I'm not offering you drugs. Although, wouldn't that be something?" Rukia thinks aloud, "I had to sit through so many just say no to drugs school assemblies, and they've severely oversold how often it would happen because I've never been offered drugs once. Except by a doctor, but you know that's not what I meant."
3B looks a combination of unimpressed and embarrassed which Rukia just waves off with a scoff. "Go change, or you'll complain about being sick, and I already have to listen to all your murder stories at two in the morning, the walls are so much thinner than I thought they'd be."
Huffing out a breath, Rukia is answered by the washroom door closing, and his muffled retort, "You know, most people wouldn't be so calm about that. My neighbors before you all thought I was a serial killer."
"What kind of shitty serial killer recites their crimes for their neighbors to hear, anyway?"
"Exactly," he says, "Thank you!"
"Oh, so you are capable of being polite, good to know," she says, and then the washroom door is opening with a squeal of its hinges before being followed by Kurosaki's somewhat bewildered expression.
"Is there a reason your brother has a hazmat suit, and why you own it, period?"
"It's not a hazmat suit. Well, not really. My brother used to do some intense paint jobs when he was super stressed out, and he'd rather cut off his arm than wear 'painter's rags', ergo," she handwaves over him in demonstration to his eye roll as he comes to stand beside her.
"Whatever you say, Breaking Bad."
Rolling her eyes in kind, she complains, "I can't believe I'm helping you."
"Sure, you are," he says, eying the set up skeptically. "What is this, exactly?"
Taking it in, Rukia settles on, "Artistic fury."
"I'm not following."
"Use your imagination."
"If I had any to spare, I wouldn't be struggling with writer's block," he grumbles.
"See, that's the problem: You're so caught up in your medium and the little box that is your story that your brain's feeling all claustrophobic," she says, "You need a new perspective, air out the old noggin."
"And I 'air out my noggin' by doing something with this…doll?"
"Don't make it weird." His look is withering, though it does nothing to dim her enthusiasm. "Just give it a try, come on, you know you want to…" She's waving the paintbrush in his face, already dipped in paint, and after a moment's contemplation and a long-suffering sigh, he moves – though, not to take the offered brush, but to grab one of the open cans of paint Rukia had pulled closer to the space, and proceeding to dump it over the seated model.
"Well, you don't go halfway, do you?"
Standing over the model, who's dripping in red paint, Kurosaki gives her a blank look. "It didn't work."
"Only half of the fun," she retorts, "observe."
Reaching for a dart on the table, she shoots it close enough to him that he almost trips trying to dodge it – though it lands its target regardless – one of the inflated pouches of paint that practically explodes as it pops, spraying blue paint over the model, and a little on Kurosaki.
"What the hell -"
"Bet you can't hit more than me," she says, wiggling her brows in challenge.
He narrows his eyes, approaches cautiously, before grabbing a handful of the darts and going to town.
"No fair!"
"It's not my fault you're slow," he retorts.
"Clearly you'd have to go faster because you can't aim for shit," she volleys back.
He scowls back, and the game is on.
They spent ten minutes trash talking before Rukia asks, "What are you writing anyway?"
"What do you think?"
"I'd go for a crime book, but from what I've heard you've dropped waay too many bodies. Unless you're writing about actual serial killers."
Huffing out a breath, Kurosaki replies, "Good guess, but no."
"No?"
"It's a horror."
Rukia perks up. "Really?"
His ears are red, though she can't tell if it's from exertion or not, but he's also resolutely avoiding her gaze before he huffs again, "Yeah."
"That's all you're gonna give me?" she pouts.
His cheeks fill with a flush, and he pauses to rub the back of his neck. Uncomfortable. "I don't really…talk about it. My editor does that. I just write them."
"You any good?"
"I do it for a living," he says, "so, I guess."
"Huh…have I heard of you?"
"At two in the morning like clockwork."
"You're hilarious," she deadpans to his smirk.
It takes at least twenty minutes for all the pouches of paint to be popped – it turns out both their aims suck – and an extra twenty to flick the brushes clean of paint on it.
"What exactly is this anyway?" Kurosaki finally asks when they take a breath.
"A sculpture," she answers with a noncommittal shrug, and at his blank expression, Rukia shrugs again. "It's not my favorite type of art, but I drew the short straw so to speak. Better than having to organize an actual performance art piece."
"Not a fan?"
"Don't know any performers," she admits. Despite being in the heart of the creative hub of Soul Society, Rukia had been too busy trying to meet her deadline to explore much of Rukongai, and hadn't met any other creatives beyond those that frequented the gallery. "Maybe I'd have convinced you to do a reading of one of your bloody books?"
Snorting, he turns away to say, "Don't know if that's a pun or not."
"Well, all you're giving me is horror as a genre, and a mind-numbing amount of dead bodies; I'm taking creative liberties here," she informed primly.
There's a noticeable pause that Rukia can actually feel, and she thinks what he'll say next is an announcement to leave, instead what she gets is his quiet, "You think there are too many dead bodies?"
"Wouldn't know, what's the context?"
"Cult."
"Huh…go on."
And even though their 'artistic fury' is over, Kurosaki stays an hour more – Rukia makes hot chocolate and they finish the Oreos she bought until they're juggling ingredients and arguing over cooking methods because:
"What are you doing?" he'd asked, sounding offensively incredulous.
"What does it look like? I'm making pasta."
"You're doing it wrong."
"What the –"
"You're supposed to – no, god, how haven't you set the fire alarm off yet? Give me that, go – over there, I feel like you'll cause the food to spoil just looking at it."
"I'm not that bad! And you should talk about making food spoil, you glare any harder and you'll make the milk go off!"
And that's how one hour turned into two.
Rukia's pretty surprised at the ease with which it happens.
Between their joint attempts at cooking – and okay fine, he's comfortable enough in a kitchen – Rukia didn't think that her invitation would last very long, but Kurosaki doesn't look like he wants to bolt out the door whenever a gap presents itself to leave, and isn't that a surprise on its own?
Beyond his snarky quips, and for his constant scowls and monosyllabic grunts, Rukia didn't expect Kurosaki to be much of a talker, but she'd been wrong. His train of thought runs in every direction imaginable, and while he might not always be particularly articulate in getting his points across, he manages fine enough that Rukia's already trying to figure out how to get him to give up the name he writes under just so she can read his work.
"Why do you write under a pseudonym anyway?" she asks, twirling her fork around the spaghetti. They're seated diagonally at the corner edge of her dining table which she's appropriated as another work surface, his injured foot elevated on the chair beside her, she nudges his knee with her own as she takes another mouthful of their dinner because see, I told you I cooked it right!
"My dad."
Immediately sympathetic, she asks, "He's not supportive?"
"A little too supportive, actually." And his cheeks are flushed again as he shakes his head. "It's…a lot." To that she doesn't know what to say, though she crushes the envious curl in her stomach. Fortunately, Kurosaki isn't done. "And what I write isn't exactly…healthy. He's an idiot, but he worries."
"You're a fully functioning adult, with your own place and a career writing from home, I don't think he'd worry too much," Rukia decides. "Besides, I think it's sweet that you worry about your dad." The look he gives her is forcibly deadpan, but he can't hide the redness at his ears if he tried which only makes her smile saccharine as she teasingly whispers, "It's too late, I already know you're a huge dork."
"Really," he says blandly, "and what gave that away?"
"I don't know, maybe it's the fact that you spent five minutes lecturing me on how to properly cut onions -"
"Only because you were going to cut yourself," he protested, though she speaks over him to continue like he hadn't spoken at all, "and then you went on for another ten minutes about onion growing."
"Leftover research knowledge; when was I ever going to get the chance to tell anyone about it?"
At that she wiggles her brows as if to say See?
Kurosaki's response is to sigh like he's greatly exhausted which is something he almost chokes on when there's the loud creak of her front door which is frankly so rude, what the hell – who immediately goes to open someone else's front door without knocking anyway? Which is what Rukia would have gone on her own tirade about if 3D wasn't currently holding out the cat-like she was trying to re-enact the Lion King.
"Your vermin of a cat won't stop scratching at the door and it's -"
"It's…?" Rukia trails off, brow raised unimpressively, but all 3D does is stare.
And Rukia looks around, tries to think back on what awkward thing 3D is possibly being a witness to now except – except it could only be one of two things: the product of her and 3B's artistic talents is still on display like a person they've both collectively bludgeoned in paint, and Kurosaki himself – looking comfortable in a red-stained painting jumpsuit, only looking all the redder in appearance thanks to the whiteness of the white vest he'd made visible by unzipping the jumpsuit when they were cooking and –
Almost stiffly, 3D begins, "Are you two…"
"Having dinner?" Rukia finishes, "Yes."
"You can put Kon down," Kurosaki adds, turning his head for just a second to acknowledge their little art piece, catching Rukia's eye and smirking. "He knows better after last time than to go near the bodies."
With a slackened jaw to match her slackened hold, the yellow cat hops merrily onto the floor. He greets Rukia and Kurosaki both with an incessant rubbing of their legs and a meow that sounds almost like a scolding which could've just been the sound of the front door hinges whining as 3D makes a hasty escape.
Rukia's too busy snickering to take it seriously because The Big Bad Serial Killer of 3B actually named the cat?
A/n: Thank you so much for your comments so far, as usual, I'm answering comments over on the ao3 version of the fic so if you'd like a reply, please head on over and drop me a line.