Disclaimer: Kon would suffer if Bleach was mine XD

A/N: Happy Holloween people! ) A IchigoxRukia Halloween fic for the Holloween challenge on kurosakiclinic. This was written by a deranged and sleep-deprived author, so liberties have been taken with the characters XD Read on!

Trick or Treat?

Ichigo rubbed his scalp in irritation. There was a loud ruckus going on downstairs, and he rolled his eyes as the sounds of Isshin whining in response to something Karin said reached his ears. He really didn't see the point of celebrating a Western like Halloween; his family had fun for sure and enjoyed dressing up – heck, even Karin enjoyed the dressing up part! – but he preferred to treat it like any other day and just wanted to get some much needed studying done. Considering the meagre time that he had to himself (and sleep, come to think of it, he thought to himself) after becoming a Shinigami, he needed to spend as much free time as possible getting schoolwork done.

Turning towards his empty cupboard for the moment, he wondered why Rukia still hadn't returned yet. She had muttered something in the afternoon about having to go somewhere, but he hadn't asked her what she had to do or where she was going, and she'd been gone since then. He assumed that she'd gone to visit that weirdo Urahara again, but surely she couldn't be gone so long? He mulled over his homework for a few minutes before finally deciding that he was concerned about her whereabouts. She'd always returned before the sun went down, but now the stars were starting to come out. He refused to admit to himself that he was worried about her; scoffing at the very idea, he'd go as far to say that he was concerned, but never worried. It wasn't as if she was defenceless...but then again...

Huffing to himself, he had gotten up from his chair to grab his jacket and was about to leave his room to go find her when he heard a tapping sound at his window. He frowned, forgetting that he'd locked the window; he usually locked the window after she'd come in, but today he'd locked it earlier forgetting that she hadn't come back yet. Maybe that was her now.

He walked over the window, but when he peered out through it, there was no one there. His eyebrows furrowed slightly, wondering if he'd misheard the sound, but nonetheless he unlocked the window and pushed it up a little, leaving it open slightly just in case Rukia came in before he came back from searching for her. He turned his back on the window again towards his room door when the tapping sound came again. This time, his eyes narrowed, and he stalked purposefully to the window, pushing it higher, and stuck his head out.

Only to come face to face with a pair of obsidian eyes heavily made up that had seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"Gyaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!! What the fuck?!" The sudden shock made him yell and back away from the window hurriedly.

There was silence from the window for a moment, and then a disgruntled figure wrapped in black robes crawled in through the window. Ichigo's shock turned into outrage that this...thing was crawling in his room.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing trying to climb into my room? Halloween doesn't mean you can go around sneaking into people's houses and—"

"It's me, you fool! And stop yelling otherwise your family's going to come up and they'll find me here." The figure pushed the dark robes away from its face and Rukia's face emerged. She stood up from the floor and brushed herself off. The Deathberry was struck speechless at the get-up that the petite Shinigami was wearing and gaped for a few seconds before Rukia spoke again.

She rolled her eyes at his gaping face and responded.

"It wasn't my idea. I'm lucky I got away while I could." She grumbled. "Kami-sama only knows what else they would have done if I didn't run while they were looking for more clothes."

Her eyes were lined in black kohl, making them stand out darkly against her face that had been splotted all over with white makeup powder. Her lips had been painted ruby red with lipstick, and were caught in a pout that only emphasised the curve of her mouth. As she flipped the black cloak away from her body, Ichigo's eyes goggled and he swallowed nervously at the rest of the outfit: knee-high black leather boots and a short, just above knee-length very short black gypsy skirt emphasised the alabaster skin of her legs. He coughed and averted his eyes hurriedly as his eyes came upon her top: a satiny-red top clung to all her curves and two of the top buttons were unbuttoned; if she leaned further forward...

Trying to get such a sultry image of Rukia out of his mind, he hurriedly started blabbing.

"Where the heck did you get those clothes from? Did that weirdo Urahara give them to you or something?" He watched her from the corner of his eye as she tried to wipe off the white make-up on the black cloak. Judging from the looks of it, she was dressed to be a vampire. A damned good-looking vampire too, his mind mentioned before he squashed the traitorous thought. It was Rukia damnit! He shouldn't be thinking of her in that way!

She looked up from scrubbing her face on the black cloak to answer him before she went back to her task.

"Some of the girls nabbed me after school saying that they had a surprise and it seemed impolite not to go, so..." Her sentence trailed off for a moment before speaking again. Ichigo noticed that her face was starting to turn red from the scrubbing of the cloth on her face and wondered fleetingly if he should get a wet towel for her to clean it up. "Then they asked me if I'd ever dressed up for this Halloween thing and I said no, so this is the result of that." She smiled wryly. "They seemed to have a lot of fun and it was...interesting."

"Hnn." He muttered noncommittally. He didn't want to look her in the eye because his stomach had seemed to be doing funny things since she'd emerged from the window dressed like that. Rukia seemed to notice because she scrutinised him closely from where she was standing.

"Ichigo." At his name, he finally, reluctantly turned his eyes to meet her. His heart skipped a beat. Most of the makeup had been rubbed off, but the kohl was still there and her eyes seemed to draw him in. He inclined his head in enquiry.

"Do I look weird? Humans sure like to dress up even for such funny festivals. There's no 'Halloween' in Soul Society." He was beginning to stare, and she was starting to feel weird. When he didn't answer her, she finally walked up to him and waved her hand in front of his face. He blinked once and looked down at her.

"Hello? Earth to Ichigo? I asked if I looked weird." He stared blankly at her. Her eyebrow twitched.

"Judging from that response, I take it that I look really weird." His stare was getting kind of unnerving.

Finally breaking from his staring, he answered, smiling wryly in answer.

"Nah, not really. It's just...different." He hurriedly added as an eyebrow lifted. "I don't mean in a bad way of course. It's...new and just...different." Then he grinned again.

"It is your first Halloween after all."

owari

A/N: Liked it? Hated it? Either way, I wish you all a Happy Holloween!