Crushing

"So tell me, what does that tattoo mean?" Kisuke asked his new lieutenant.

"It's…important to me," Shuuhei said. He was still nervous around his new captain and wasn't really sure how much personal information he should give him.

"You do know that it means something else, don't you?" Kisuke said with a lopsided grin. "OW!" he yelled, as Ichigo pulled the back of his hair sharply.

"Leave Shuuhei alone you pervert," Ichigo said before letting him go.

"That really hurt!"

"You knew I was here," Ichigo said. "It's not like I'm good at hiding it. Besides, it's just too tempting now that you're not wearing your stupid pimp hat all the time."

"My WHAT hat?" Kisuke said, clearly hurt.

"You…can't…he's a captain," Shuuhei said, slightly dazed by what was happening in front of him. "You should show him more respect."

"You have got to be kidding me," Ichigo laughed.

"How is your captain, by the way? Does he hog the covers when it's cold at night?" Kisuke said with a malicious smile.

"You…" Ichigo swung at him, missing. He did manage to sweep kick him, but Kisuke recovered before hitting the ground.

"Fine, I take it back. You're way too pretty for Renji anyways."

Ichigo was still mildly insulted by that but decided it wasn't really worth the effort. "Hey, old man, I'm surprised that you and Mayuri aren't feeding each other poison by now."

"Oh, we decided that we'd only try to kill each other on Wednesdays," Kisuke explained.

"That's…really weird," Ichigo replied.

"Well, both of us are pretty busy and it would be a pain to have to worry about it every day."

"But, you don't want to kill Captain Kurotsuchi," Shuuhei said.

"Well no, but he doesn't need to know that. He's having fun trying to kill me, and I'll probably play some pranks on him," Kisuke said with a dreamy smile.

"You probably should kill him, he's super creepy," Ichigo pointed out.

"ICHIGO!" Shuuhei said, aghast.

They both looked at him and laughed hard.

"You are way too serious," Kisuke said. "Anyways, I'm off to meet with Yoruichi. I'll be back in about an hour."

"Hey, Shuuhei," Ichigo said just before he left. "We should hang out tonight, grab some dinner together. I can give you some advice on how to handle Kisuke, and a lot of warnings. You're going to need those."

That worried Shuuhei. "Sure," he agreed.

After work he found Renji and Ichigo waiting for him outside of the Squad 9 gate.

"Renji is coming along too, although I don't know what advice he could possibly give since Kisuke basically owned him," Ichigo said with a smirk.

"That's not true!" Renji protested.

"He had Renji washing windows and sweeping," Ichigo confided. Renji hit him in the arm.

Shuuhei laughed.

"Ok, let's get some drinks!" Renji said.

"What? We're grabbing food," Ichigo replied.

"Fine. Food first, then drinks."

"I don't drink," Ichigo said.

"Yeah I know, but that doesn't mean you can't have a little," Renji pressed.

"I've…never had anything," Ichigo explained.

Shuuhei and Renji looked at him in horror.

"Unforgivable!" Renji said. "As a member of Squad 5, you must drink."

"That's not true at all!" Ichigo replied.

"It is now. My squad, my rules," Renji looked at Ichigo. "My rules include drinking."

"Drinking?" Rangiku said.

"She's like a blood hound or something," Renji said, shaking his head, wondering where she had popped up from.

"Yeah, we're going out," Shuuhei smiled at her.

"I don't know why you have to make fun of my articles," Shuuhei was saying to Rangiku.

"They're boring," she shrugged.

"I love them!" Ichigo slurred. "I think I've probably read them all."

"Thank you," Shuuhei said.

"Oh come on, you're lying. You just got here," Rangiku said.

"Naw, there was a huge pile of back issues of the Seireitei Communication in the office and I took them home and read them all," Ichigo replied.

"Are you crazy?" she asked.

"It's just that most of my friends and my family are in the world of the living, so it's not like I have much to do."

"What's it like," Shuuhei said, "having a family?"

Ichigo looked up at him. He remembered that Renji had mentioned that Shuuhei's background was similar to his.

"His family is great," Renji said with a wide smile, taking another large sip of sake. "His dad dresses like a clown and acts like a loon."

"You didn't see him when he was fighting against Aizen, he was massively powerful," Shuuhei said.

"That's what everyone says, but I'm not gonna believe it until I see it," Renji laughed. "Ichigo's sisters are the best. Yuzu is adorably motherly and is a great cook. She used to always send me back to Urahara's shop with extra food in case I got hungry. Karin is more like Ichigo. If you can believe it, she actually was able to bully Captain Hitsugaya into playing on her sports team for awhile."

"Hey, idiots," Rangiku interrupted. They looked at her, or rather at the person next to her.

Ichigo was looking at his empty sake glass sadly.

"Sorry, Ichigo," Renji said, belatedly realizing that he might be depressing his friend.

"You know, I've been away from then longer than this before, but not knowing when I'll get to see them again is what sucks. It could be years, or decades, or never," Ichigo sighed.

"What? That's insane! Why can't you visit them?" Rangiku said angrily.

"I need to get formal approval to go, have a big escort, and go in spiritual pressure regulator cuffs," he explained.

"What, like a criminal?" Shuuhei was shocked.

"Well, I guess I am," Ichigo replied. "Oufff!" he said, as his head was suddenly pressed between Rangiku's breasts.

"You are not a criminal! You saved Orihime and the Soul Society. You're a hero!" she said, hugging him fiercely.

"MMmfff!" Ichigo said before finally being released, face red. "Uh…" he said.

Lucky kid, Shuuhei thought with a sigh.

Those are probably the only boobs he's ever going to touch, Renji thought with a smirk.

Later on, as Renji and Ichigo stumbled back towards their quarters, Ichigo asked Renji. "Hey, I meant to ask you; how did that tea thing with Byakuya go?"

"It was nice actually. He was dressed casually, or at least what he would consider casual. It was kind of a shock to me to see him out of his uniform, and I almost felt bad for wearing mine. We just sat outside and had tea and chatted. It was just…nice. Almost friendly," Renji said.

"Gonna be sick…" Ichigo said, lurching suddenly.

"Not on me!" Renji said, panicked.

Ichigo was sick in some bushes, his knees shaking slightly. "I told you I don't drink," Ichigo said.

"Yeah, but you had like nothing," Renji complained. "Lightweight," he said, laughing.

Ichigo almost toppled over and Renji grabbed him.

"If you try to carry me, I'm going to break your jaw," Ichigo threatened.

"Oh shut up. Just lean on me," Renji said, wrapping an arm around Ichigo's waist to support him.

Captain Kuchiki had been feeling decidedly off in the last week. He didn't quite feel sick, but he felt drained and lackluster. He kept finding himself looking out the window at nothing and zoning off instead of doing his work. He hadn't even started to pick out a new lieutenant yet of course, which wasn't surprising since Renji hadn't been gone that long, but he was wondering if there was really that promising of a pool of candidates to choose from. He had finally just forced himself to stay late and get everything done before heading home.

He heard Renji's raucous laugh and stopped. I'm losing my discipline, Byakuya thought to himself. I wasn't paying enough attention to even notice that Renji and Ichigo are nearby. He saw their forms ahead, Renji's arm around Ichigo, the two of them laughing and talking.

Are they together…romantically together? Byakuya wondered. He frowned. It wouldn't be very professional for a captain to date his subordinate. He should probably confront Renji about that right now.

He moved towards the shadowy figures, stopping in front of them. Renji looked at him in shock. "Byakuya?" he asked.

"Hey, was Captain Kuchiki just here?" Renji asked to the half unconscious Ichigo.

"I don't know, it kind of felt like he was here."

"He didn't say anything though, he just left."

"Well, we were talking about him, maybe we just imagined it," Ichigo said.

Did I just run away? Captain Kuchiki thought to himself. For some reason, when he said my first name, and that look on his face…It's late, I need some sleep.

"Hey Shuuhei, you look a little beat," Kisuke said the next morning.

"I'm fine," Shuuhei replied.

"Do you want some tea?"

Shuuhei thought back to the previous night.

"Don't ever accept anything he offers you to drink," Ichigo said.

"Or to eat," Renji added.

"Yeah, basically if he offers you anything that is going to go in your body, avoid it like the plague," Ichigo said.

"Because it probably is," Renji laughed.

"Um, no thank you, Captain. I might make some later," Shuuhei said uneasily.

Kisuke's face showed his obvious disappointment. Shuuhei looked at him in horror.

Oh my god, he really was going to poison me with something, Shuuhei thought.

A couple of days later, Shuuhei came by the Squad 5 offices to personally drop of the new issue of the Seireitei Communication to Ichigo.

"Thanks," Ichigo said with a smile.

"I should really be the one thanking you," Shuuhei said. "The very next day Captain Urahara tried to give me something in my tea," he shuddered.

"It probably wasn't anything too bad," Ichigo admitted. "He saves the big ones for when he's really bored and he just got here."

"You mean he'll get worse? He threw itching powder on me this morning!" Shuuhei complained.

Ichigo stifled a laugh.

"Lieutenant, a package for you," someone came in with a large box.

"Thanks…uh…," Ichigo tried to remember the guy's name. He was terrible with names. He wondered if he could get away with what Yachiru did and just give everyone a nickname based off of their appearance. Hm, that probably wouldn't be a good idea, because the only name he could think for this person would be "slightly balding paunchy guy", which probably wouldn't go over well.

Ichigo opened the box and made a happy little noise.

"What is it?" Shuuhei asked, peering into it.

"When I first came here they didn't let me go home for anything. It's a package from my dad with some of my stuff," Ichigo replied, pulling out some books and manga.

Shuuhei began to look them over.

"Shakespeare?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"What's wrong with Shakespeare?"

"You just don't seem the type," Shuuhei replied. "What are these?" he looked over the manga.

"Have you never seen manga?" Ichigo asked.

"Guess not," Shuuhei started flipping through one of the volumes.

"Oh thank god," Ichigo said, clutching something to his chest.

"What is that?"

"My ipod. I've been going crazy without any music. I'll have to get Kisuke to set up something for me so that I can keep it charged," Ichigo answered.

"It plays music?" Shuuhei looked at it curiously.

"Yeah, you can listen with headphones or stick it into these speakers," Ichigo demonstrated by sticking the ipod into the speakers and randomly starting a song.

"What…what is that?" Shuuhei asked quietly after a couple of minutes.

"Classic Queen. I keep forgetting you guys don't know a lot of this stuff," Ichigo quickly turned it off.

"Wait, why did you stop it?"

"I figured it was annoying you. I know that your music is a lot different here."

"No, I love rock music, at least what I've heard of it. I even have an electric guitar," Shuuhei explained.

"Really? Tell me what kind of music you like and I'll find something for us to listen to."

After about half an hour Renji finally barged out of his office.

"What the hell? Aren't you guys even going to try and pretend like you're working?" he said angrily.

Shuuhei look abashed. Ichigo did not.

"Don't be so pissy," Ichigo said, waving him off. Renji's eyes bulged.

"LOOK HERE," Renji began to rage.

"You got a package from Yuzu," Ichigo said calmly.

"I did?" Renji's anger quickly dissipated.

Ichigo tossed him a package that was wrapped loosely in cloth. Renji opened it and then disappeared back into his office with a big smile on his face.

"What do you think it was?" Shuuhei asked.

"Probably taiyaki," Ichigo shrugged. "I should probably actually work, but you can come over to my quarters whenever and listen to music, if you want."

"Yeah, I think I'd like to," Shuuhei responded. "Do you mind if I borrow this as well?" he asked, holding up one of the manga volumes.

"Sure, but you're going to want to take a couple. That one is really good."

"How are you planning on getting a high alcohol tolerance if you never drink?" Renji was saying.

"Yumichika isn't drinking," Ichigo pointed out.

"Yeah, but he can if he needs to," Ikkaku mentioned.

Shuuhei casually slung his arm around Ichigo's shoulder. "Come on, Ichigo," he said.

Over the last couple of weeks Ichigo had been completely aware of his growing attraction to Shuuhei. There was the fact that he was incredibly good looking of course, and exactly in the way that Ichigo liked. Ichigo secretly thought it was adorable that Shuuhei was so serious at work. He loved how Shuuhei would try to usher him out of the office when he came by to chat, but would spend half the affection doing nothing if he visited the Squad 5 office. They had spent a lot of time just lying on cushions on the floor of Ichigo's quarters listening to music or talking about the manga that Shuuhei was making his way through. Shuuhei would invite him over all the time for dinner, knowing that Ichigo couldn't cook well and that lonely meals made him think about his family. Ichigo also knew that Shuuhei was 100% straight. He could wax poetic for half an hour about Rangiku's breasts if given a chance, and not in an overdoing it "no seriously, I'm straight" way, in a very sincere "I'm kind of turned on" way that made Ichigo sigh. Ichigo had tried very hard to not think about Shuuhei as more than a friend, but there was no stopping what happened in his dreams. Still, Ichigo had definitely been trying his best to fight it, because Shuuhei was turning out to be a really great friend.

"Come on, Ichigo," Shuuhei repeated, with a wide warm smile, his arm around Ichigo. "One won't hurt."

Anything, Shuuhei. If you asked that way, I'd do anything. "Yeah, sure," Ichigo said in a shaky voice, a slight blush on his face.

Shuuhei got up to go to the bar.

He touched me, Ichigo thought, biting his lip as he watched Shuuhei walk. He wasn't aware of the two men across from him that had been studying him intently.

"Poor kid," Ikkaku said quietly to Yumichika.

"Yeah," Yumichika sighed.