Chapter 2:

Everyone reacted differently to sake. For example, when Shunsui got a hold of sake, he became very flirtatious, overly friendly and a bit wild. When Kira had just a little too much sake, he would get overconfident and sometimes nasty. Ikkaku had a tendency to challenge anything he saw to a fight, becoming even more of a handful than usual. Hisagi became uncharacteristically talkative and downright weird. He usually knew when to stop before he ever got to that point, but sometimes he just had to cut loose and free himself from himself. When he had just a little bit too much sake, his personality changed. How? Well, it tended to shift depending on the day. It was like a toss of the dice; you never knew what you were going to get with him. Sometimes, he would be in a fetal position begging for help or crying or both. Other times, he was everyone's buddy and always wanted to party. It was always something different with that drunk. Now that Hitsugaya had tasted sake, he had a drunken personality, too. He was just downright strange. He would get fascinated by the simplest of things and find humor in just about everything. He would get childish and whine and run around in circles laughing his head off. He would also start to get just a little horny after a while and throw himself onto anyone he found the least bit attractive; at least in his mind anyway.

Now all those drunks were in the same room drinking Rangiku's sake stash dry. This wasn't good.

Shunsui and Hisagi were sitting on the couch having their own drunken conversation. Shunsui poured himself another cup while Hisagi went on and on about something he was too drunk to pay attention to.

"So as I was sayin'," Hisagi slurred his words. "I don't know which one is better… They're both really good in their own ways but I mean really? So you see my point, right?"

"Huh?" Shunsui sloshed a little sake down the front of his kimono. "Oh, sorry, I wasn't listening. You were saying?"

"Never mind. It's not important." Hisagi watched him drink the sake and chuckled.

"What?"

"You…" he pointed a finger in the captain's face. "… are so drunk."

"News flash, so are you."

Hisagi shrugged. "Not really."

"Yes, really." He took another swing. "You should see yourself.

Hisagi leaned back in his seat, sinking deeper into the couch cushions. "I don't see it… I think you are way more drunk than me."

"See? Even your grammar is slipping a little."

"Is not. I can talk anyway I want."

"You think you're all that, don't ya? Well, you're not! You are a weak little girl, that's what you are!"

They turned around to find Ikkaku yelling at himself in a mirror.

"Ikkaku, you realize that's your reflection, right?"

Ikkaku spat at the mirror and flipped it off. "Don't look so cocky, bastard!"

Hisagi turned back around. "Idiot… He doesn't even know what he's doing, he so drunk."

Just then, Kira popped up and sat between Hisagi and Shunsui on the couch. "Yo, whazzup?"

"Hey, what's up, Kira?"

He grabbed an empty cup and thrust it to Shunsui. "Fill 'er up."

The captain pulled the bottle away from him. "I think you've had enough, Kira."

Kira suddenly became very angry. "I'll damn well tell ya when I've had enough, now fill it up!"

"Okie-dokie." Shunsui didn't even hesitate to fill up his glass. "Why should I deny a man his pleasures? We're here to have a good time, right?"

"Yup!" Kira was happy again. "Just us lieutenants and captains… and Ikkaku."

"Wanna fight?!"

Shunsui made himself at home on the couch, sprawling his legs out and leaning back. "Yup, just us manly men having our day before getting back to work."

Kira nodded his head, splashing sake all over his hand with the energy behind the movement. "And how! We all need to loosen up a little bit. Even Captain Hitsugaya." He started to look around. "Speaking of which, where is the little guy?"

Toshiro Hitsugaya came popping up from behind the lieutenant and wrapped his arms around his neck. Kira was pushed onto the floor with the force behind the captain's hug. He giggled loudly in his ear and rocked from side to side. "Howdy!"

The two men on the couch waved at him. "So how do you feel, Toshiro?"

"Great!" He threw his arms up in the air and fell over backwards. "I've never felt better! That didn't even hurt!"

"Glad to hear it." The captain in the hat raised his glass to his fellow drunken captain.

Hitsugaya crawled up onto the table and rested his chin on the tabletop. His cloudy eyes studied the sake bottle in front of him with awe. "Ooh! I could have some of that!" He reached up with a clumsy hand and knocked the bottle over. Luckily it was corked so nothing spilled. He picked it up and tried to pour himself a cup with the cork still on. "It's broken."

The other captain laughed. "No, no. It's just not open yet. Here." He reached out with his hand to open it for him, but the little captain wanted to do it himself.

"I can do it." He took the bottle in both hands, popped the cork off and tipped it over above his cup. He missed, spilling it on the table. The sake spread, taking the cup with it like a leaf being swept up by a river's current. "Whoopsie." He brought his head down and started to slurp up the spilled sake with his lips and tongue. He gave it another try. This time he managed to get a few drops into the cup before spilling it again.

The older captain tried to help him. "Perhaps I can..?"

"No!" he whined, waving his hand to shoo him away. "I'll do it."

Hisagi watched him in silence. When he spilled the sake for a third time, he had to say something. "I think you're a little too drunk, Hitsugaya. You can't even pour yourself another drink."

"I'm fine."

Shunsui pointed to the bottle in Hitsugaya's hand. "Why don't you just drink it out of the bottle?" he suggested.

Hitsugaya looked down at the bottle still closed in his hand. "Oh. Oh! Good idea!" He brought it to his lips and drank straight from the bottle. This saved him so much time and effort.

Kira reached for his own bottle. He was too drunk to lift it off the tabletop, so he dragged it across the table until he reached the end and let it drop off the edge into his lap. With great effort, Kira raised the bottle to his lips and drank deeply. Then he slammed it back down on the table with a belch. "Ya know what I don't get?"

Judging from Kira's slurred words and the opening of his statement, Hisagi could tell that he was about to start one of his drunken rants. He prepared himself for the worst. "Yeah, what?"

Kira swayed. "I don't get why we have captains. I mean, no offense to you guys…" He gestured to the two drunken captains in the room. "But I mean, what about us?"

"Us who?"

He pounded his fist on the table. "The lieutenants, of course! I mean, we do all the real work 'round 'ere! We bring ya guys your papers and your forms and all the other crap you guys need for your whatever! All ya ever do is sign the stuff. I mean, sure, you're strong and all, but wit'out us, y'all would be not'in'! All the runnin' and sortin' and filin' and all that crap! What do we ever get? Not'in'! We get crap!" Kira took another swig to fuel his drunken speech. "If I could, I'd rule over this whole Soul Society… Just you wait and see. I'll have the best crew you ever did see. You cap'ins suck! Just look at mine. Look what he did, the damn snake-man! Screw 'im! He's a zerk!"

Hisagi tried to make sense of that last word. "What'd you say?"

"He's suck a zerk!"

"He's a what?"

"A zerk! A zerk!"

"I think he means 'jerk'," Shunsui offered up, taking another drink.

"Oh. Why didn't he just say so?"

"I did! Are ya deaf?!"

"No, you're just slurring so much, I can't understand you."

"No!" Kira threw himself forward onto the table to point in Hisagi's face. Too drunk to control his momentum, he ended up falling onto the tabletop, knocking over several empty bottles and cups. "No, you're slurrin'!"

"That's it, you're way too drunk. No more sake for you."

"What?! This is an outrage! I'm fine! Tell, 'im, cap'in."

Shunsui looked up from his cup. "Huh? Sorry, I didn't hear any of that."

Kira pointed at Hisagi again, still laying half across the table. "He thinks we're too drunk!"

"We kinda are. I mean, you turn into a real idiot when you drink. Sake clouds your judgment. It turns you into something you're not. I mean, look at him." He pointed to Hitsugaya who was in the middle of another giggle fit, sake bottle still clutched in his hand.

"Well, he's just not used to it. We are. I know when I'm too drunk or not."

"Apparently not…"

"You wanna step outside?"

Hisagi interfered again. "Now, now. One nutjob at a time. Ikkaku already wants to fight. Let's not add fuel to the fire, ok?"

Kira looked at Ikkaku who was still picking a fight with his reflection. "I guess you're right… But at least I'm not that bad."

The group heard a crash and looked down at the floor. Hitsugaya was rolling around like a log, laughing his head off.

"Oh, yeah. He's wasted."

Hitsugaya raised his pink face up at them and laughed out loud. "Dude!"

"What?"

"I see funny things!"

Hisagi was afraid to ask. "Such as?"

"This many!" Hitsugaya held up three fingers.

Kira looked at his friend. "What's he talkin' 'bout?"

"I think he means that he's seeing double."

"Oh, that's what he means."

Hitsugaya sat up taking a good long, hard look at his hands. "Ever notice how when you move your fingers, they curl up in the same direction? They're kind of like those party things that roll up and out when you blow into them. You know what I mean?"

"Not really."

Hitsugaya curled his fingers and stretched them out again over and over as if to prove his point. Actually, he was just fascinated by their movement. He giggled and looked back up at the two staring at him. He pointed at Hisagi's face and shouted, "You have numbers on your face!" He rolled onto his back and fell into a huge giggle fit.

"Yeah, they're tattoos. You already knew that. What's so funny?"

He sat up, calming down. Then he looked at Kira and his giggle fit started all over again. "You have funny bangs! They cover one eye!" He fell back in hysterics again, kicking his legs wildly in the air.

"Man, he is really wasted, isn't he?" Hisagi said. "How many did he have to drink anyway?"

Shunsui took another couple swigs between his answer. "About ten."

"Ten cups? That's not so bad."

The captain laughed, telling him to think again.

Hisagi's eyes widened. "He… He had ten bottles?!"

"Oh, yeah. At least."

"Oh, man…" Hisagi rubbed his head. It was a lot to consider while still intoxicated himself. "When he snaps out of this, he's so going to kill us."

"Yeah… But that's a ways away from now. I prefer to live in the here and now." Shunsui drank deeply from his bottle, drinking it dry.

Suddenly, Hitsugaya threw himself into Hisagi's legs and gave him a big drunken hug. "I love you."

"Yeah, remember that when you sober up, ok?"

There was a knock at the door and all went quiet for a moment. Who could that be? The door slid open and in came a familiar face. It was Yumichika looking for his friend. He walked inside with a clipboard in his arms. He stopped in his tracks when he saw the red-faced people staring back at him. The room stank of alcohol and was filled with empty sake bottles. It didn't take him long to figure out what had happened. He shook his head with a sigh.

"What a surprise… I listen to him and leave him alone. Now what do I find but a room full of drunks, Ikkaku included. Well, what have I learned?"

"Never to listen to what Ikkaku tells you?" Kira asked.

"Bingo. I knew this would happen." Yumichika sighed again when he saw Ikkaku yelling at a plant. "He'll fight with anything, won't he?"

Giggling his head off, Hitsugaya lunched himself into Yumichika's arms. "Yay! Chika-chika's here! Now it's a party!"

Yumichika staggered and looked down at the boy in his arms. He noticed his pink face and the stench of sake on his breath. "Not again… It was weird enough the first time. Really funny, though." He looked around for the person he believed to be responsible. "Where's Rangiku?"

"Not here. We snuck in here to sample a few of her drinks."

Yumichika looked around at the empty bottles and the unopened ones littering the room. "My God, she sure has a lot, doesn't she? But then how did he get drunk?"

Hisagi rubbed the back of his neck. "Well… I suppose that was our doing. Sorry, but at the time we just thought that… We were really drunk!"

"You still are."

"Yeah, but… What we did was-"

"Stupid?"

"Yeah, that's the word."

Hitsugaya hugged Yumichika even tighter. He smiled. "But that doesn't mean that we can't still have a little fun, right?"

Ikkaku staggered over to him. "What'cha talkin' 'bout?"

"I mean, he'll blame you guys for getting him drunk, but he can't blame us for anything he does, right? He probably won't remember any of this anyway, right? So let's have a little bit of fun, ok?"

"You're evil."

Yumichika smiled. "I picked that up after being in Squad 11 for so long."

It was horrible. But all so funny. Yumichika felt very proud of himself for doing this. He knew the danger, but he had it all planned out in his head. Even if he died doing this, he would at least die happy. It was a great idea.

It was a real drunken party now. Hitsugaya and Kira were on the table, dancing like fools. They were singing some drinking song loud and off-key, but they could care less how they looked. They were having a great time. Hitsugaya jumped up and down, wiggled his hips and laughed while Kira kept skipping from corner to corner, still downing those sake bottles. They were so wasted. The others sat on the floor and watched them make fools of themselves. Yumichika sat between Hisagi and Ikkaku with a smile on his face.

Totally worth it...

But this party was just getting started.

Please review! This fic isn't too long.