Title: Lily and Thistle
Author: paws_bells
Beta-ed by: MelissaRose85
Characters/Pairing: Sarugaki Hiyori and Hirako Shinji
Type: One-shot Collection (InComplete)
Genre: Romance/Humor
Word Count: 1731
Rating: T (Contains content not suitable for children)
Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite.
Summary: 'Say Please'-verse. The language of flowers. The devoted and passionate Lily. The brave and loyal Thistle. A bouquet of love. One-shot series.
Created on: 26/07/13
Completed on: 26/07/13
Chapter Last Revised on: 12/08/13
Hiyori, Drunk – Part I
He had been teasing her for hours now.
It had been a couple of months since he last came to the Living Realm; winter had always been a busy period for the entire Goteijusantai as all the individual divisions were bogged down by the tedious annual auditing and inspection process to keep operations in check and ensure that all the squads were being run properly and efficiently. Apparently, the Sanbantai, the Gobantai and the Kyuubantai had only very recently cleared all of their overwhelming bureaucratic obligations, allowing their Vizard Captains (and the female Ninth Division Lieutenant) to slip back to Karakura town for a short visit with their comrades. Hiyori would never openly admit it, but it had been good to catch up with the others as well, with Yoruichi, Urahara and Tessai added into the mix, though the golden-haired baldy beside her had been making it extremely difficult for her to concentrate on the conversation flowing around the table.
His very presence alone was already distracting enough, and since they were all gathered around a kotatsu in the Urahara Shoten, food and sake flowing freely, his close proximity to her also meant that she could acutely sense his warmth and familiar, masculine scent as he sat close to her, their thighs touching and her shoulder brushing against his arm, and it was slowly driving her crazy. Then, there was also the fact that his hand was resting on her knee under the table, and even as he was very nonchalantly responding to and interacting with the rest, those sinfully long fingers of his were lazily caressing her leg through the fabric of her tracksuit.
For Hiyori, who had not been touched by him for quite some time, this form of teasing was sweet torture. A small part of her was infuriated by the fact that she was becoming so weak to his acts of affection that she could not even bring herself to pull away from his hand, while the rest of her just wanted to shove him to the floor, climb on top of him, and have her wicked way with him right there. Not surprisingly, the conflicting emotions of irritation and desire made her very edgy and jumpy, though since she usually appeared quite moody, no one found her behavior out of place at all. Hiyori was mostly quiet as she hunkered over her plate and turned her full concentration on eating and drinking, vaguely listening to the others as they chatted around her and replying every once in a while to words that were directed at her, completely avoiding even looking at her lover as she did so.
Shinji, on the other hand, was ever the consummate social butterfly, never missing a beat as he easily interacted with the people around him, even very casually directing some of his banter towards Hiyori, who could not even look at him and just mumbled her responses to the dishware in front of her, much to his amusement.
"Why're ya so quiet today, brat?" he asked teasingly, propping his elbow on the table and idly resting his cheek against his palm as he watched her shovel her food into her mouth and quickly chase it down with large enthusiastic gulps of her drink.
"Perhaps, if you take your hand off of her leg, Shinji, then maybe Hiyori'll be more willing to speak to you," Lisa remarked rather flatly from the other side of the petite blonde then, and the other Shinigami and Vizards who overheard the exchange showed varying expressions of amusement and exasperation. The Fifth Division Captain's affection towards his lover was hardly a secret to this group, and as such, he was completely shameless and unapologetic about it, tossing a lazy, unbothered smirk at the lot of them.
"Hiyori ain't complaining," Shinji remarked slyly. It was obvious that he was asking for a beating from his other half, and the rest of the group waited for the trigger happy young woman to gladly comply.
Imagine their collective surprise when petite Vizard just blushed. It wasn't just a light, near imperceptible smattering of pink, but a full on, maidenly flush that turned her small face bright red. The visibly flustered female just took up her cup and completely drained its contents before setting it back on the table with a loud thump.
Even Shinji was taken aback by her suspicious lack of an explosive reaction. His golden eyes narrowed slightly.
"Brat?" There was an unspoken question in his sobering tone, and she finally lifted her head to look at him. Her catlike ochre eyes were large and wide, her pupils dilated, her cheeks red, and she blinked languidly at him. Shinji quickly froze – he had seen that look before, a long time ago.
"Shinji…?" she murmured dazedly, and then, she just leaned over to him and plopped her forehead against his arm, turning her hot face towards him and rubbing her burning cheek against the cool material of his Captain haori with a sigh of relish, a small, disarmingly cute kittenish churr escaping her mouth even as her hands came up to clutch onto his sleeve.
Yoruichi shook her head with disappointment. "Hiyori-chan's such a lightweight," the cat woman remarked, even as Lisa peered at the empty sake flask beside the young woman's cup.
"She only had one flask the whole night," the ebony haired, bespectacled Vizard observed calmly. "I'd never guess that Hiyori had such poor tolerance."
Shinji looked horrified. "You gave her alcohol?" he demanded, outraged. "I thought that was just a soft drink!" He had not paid attention to what she had been chugging down for the past few hours, mainly because her drink had been placed on Lisa's side all this while.
Both women appeared remarkably unconcerned for having corrupted the innocent. "I don't know how old you think Hiyori is, Shinji," Lisa commented, "but she has been over the legal drinking age for a very long time, and besides, it was only one flask of sake."
"Only one flask-" Shinji broke off, looking visibly alarmed. The last time, it had taken only two small ochoko cups to down her, and since he had been careful to keep her away from any types of alcohol after that interesting experience, he highly doubted that she had built up any tolerance whatsoever.
Kisuke coughed then. "Anou, Lisa-san, it's not an issue of age. Hiyori-san has an interesting reaction to alcohol." The bucket hat wearing Urahara would know, being the other person who had been on hand the last time Hiyori got drunk.
"That's why I never let her drink," Shinji muttered as he placed an arm around Hiyori's shoulder, the latter who was now curled up at his side like a docile kitten, looking at the rest of them with sleepy eyes.
"In Lisa's defense," Rose interjected calmly then, "you never told us any of this before, Shinji."
The Gobantai Taichou rolled his eyes slightly in exasperation. "Yeah, well, if I told you guys, how much do ya wanna bet that those two-" there, he inclined his head towards Mashiro and Lisa, "-would immediately try to get Hiyori drunk just to see what I'm talkin' 'bout?"
The green haired Lieutenant just giggled impishly whereas her black-haired counterpart didn't even bother to deny it. "You've made me very curious now, Shinji," Lisa stated, and the blonde man sighed. He gracefully unfolded his lean frame from his seat, tugging an unresisting Hiyori along with him as he did so.
"Well, that's it for us," he announced. "We're goin' back. This fella's down for the count anyway; I'm takin' her home."
"Are you coming back later?" Kensei asked.
"Nah." Shinji shook his head, supporting his lover's weight easily with one arm as she leaned against him, then hid her flushed features with the flowing sleeve of his haori as he drew her close. She immediately pressed her face into his chest, and her hands came up to grab the lapels of his shihakusho. "No offense to you guys, but I'd rather stay with Hiyori."
"None taken, Ero-Shinji," came the returning chorus, and he scowled at the lot of them for the stupid nickname. The irritated man looked like he wanted to take issue with his idiotic friends, but one look at the increasingly inebriated female in his arms immediately changed his mind. Shinji muttered his goodbyes and took his leave with Hiyori.
"He's pretty whipped, isn't he?" Love remarked after the couple had left.
Kensei grunted. "She's always had him by the balls, so I don't see how anything has changed at all."
"I think it's cute," Mashiro threw in her two cents then. "Shinji has always been sweet on his Hiyori-chan!"
"Kisuke," Lisa interjected then, "what happens when Hiyori gets drunk? You seem to know something."
The ex-Captain shrugged. "If I remember correctly, Hiyori-san becomes very…emotional."
"Emotional?" Yoruichi repeated with a raised brow. "Do you just mean that her inhibition is completely shot, Kisuke? That's pretty normal for drunk people."
"No," the Urahara replied. "It's not like that at all. When I say 'emotional,' I do mean 'emotional,' and it's the cute, defenseless little baby animal type of 'emotional.' Shinji and I sure were surprised when we first found out about Hiyori-san's unusual reaction to alcohol."
The gathering of Vizards and Shinigami paused and tried to picture the ornery and quick tempered Hiyori they knew as 'cute and defenseless.' They failed completely.
"…That's good, isn't it?" Hachi commented cautiously at last. "They are lovers, after all. If it's like that, I can understand why Hirako Taichou is reluctant for other people to see Hiyori in that state."
Kisuke took a sip of his sake. "The really interesting thing was, Hiyori-san didn't remember a thing the next day."
"Ah." Came the collective response. That was a problem.
"So, how did you guys deal with Hiyori-chan the last time?" Yoruichi asked then.
Kisuke shrugged again. "I didn't. I had just recently become a Captain at that time and wasn't very close with Hiyori-san yet. Shinji took care of it."
There was a brief pause as everyone took the time to digest the information.
"Well then, in that case, everything turned out as it should," Rose ventured. "Shinji's always the best at taking care of Hiyori; it's just as well that they ended up together."
And no one could disagree with that.
::tsuzuku::
Questions That I Would Like To Answer Before You Ask:
Headcanon: Hiyori is a complete lightweight when it comes to alcohol. She's so bad with it that just a bit would get her completely out of her usual frame of mind. It's not that implausible, really, if you consider her physical weight and height. People who are smaller/shorter has less blood volume in their bodies, and since level of alcohol intoxication is measured by percentage of alcohol in the blood, it make senses that a smaller person would only need to take a smaller amount of alcohol to have the same blood alcohol content (BAC) as a larger/taller person.
Do keep in mind that BAC is not a measure of alcohol tolerance though – the latter varies from person to person, and let's just say that Hiyori's is nearly non-existent.
And okay, so I probably exaggerated it a bit, but come on, Bleach is a series full of flying supernatural beings and magic swords – I think I'm entitled to a bit of exaggeration here, haha.
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As for Hiyori's reaction to being drunk, well, that's another headcanon for the next chapter – I won't spoil it for you guys yet.
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And yes, Ero-Shinji is the new nickname that the other Vizards and exiled Shinigami had taken to calling him. Shinji is not amused.
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Also, in other news, I'm very excited to announce that 'Lily and Thistle' has received its second fanart, made by the sweet and lovely lilithkiss on tumblr. I have linked the piece (as always, it can be found on my profile page, under 'Fanarts'), so do have a look if you are free. lilithkiss has also other amazing ShiYori works on her blog, so go check her out, and do remember to leave a nice comment if you like her works!
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Last but not least, thanks for reading!
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Your reviews fuel my passion for writing. So please leave a comment if you like this fic!
-paws