A/N: Hi there. Have not been here for a while. Well, unfortunately my laptop is kaput so...well, let's just say I'm not a fan of writing on a touchscreen. Nevertheless, I love writing and this pairing and this site so here we are. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: All belongs to Tite Kubo and company, I'm just playing.

"Restraint"

There was a saying that war bred strange bedfellows, and certainly this war had, what with the shinigami having to depend on Hollows, and one Quincy-Shinigami-Hollow hybrid to save the realms. It was just that in this one particular situation there was far too little bedding for Rangiku's liking, as in, no bedding at all, or so she told Nanao as she collected her from the First Division for this ultra top-secret level one emergency shopping trip to the Living World. And if nothing happened soon, so help her, she was not going to be responsible for her actions.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming out, and remember, don't spare my feelings, lay it on me, I want to know exactly what you think of this one," Rangiku said as she stepped out from behind the changing screen.

Nanao looked up from her magazine, swept her gaze from Rangiku's head to toe and said, "No."

Rangiku's hopeful expression crumpled into a pout and she said, "What? This one too?" She turned to the floor length mirror on the adjacent wall and twisted left and right and left again to get a look at herself. After a moment her pout became a frown and she sighed and said, "Yes, you're right…I look like an old maid."

Nanao, reading again, lifted an eyebrow at that. The lingerie outfit, a silk and lace beribboned turquoise bustier and thong combination actually brought out the rich cerulean of her friend's eyes and helpfully pushed up her bosom. It was definitely sexy, and eye-catching, but…not really Rangiku's style. Nanao sighed and said, "You don't look like an old maid, you are not an old maid. Try the black one. That should be easy to conceal under a kimono."

Rangiku paused a moment to consider this and then exclaimed, "Right, you're right, especially if I misread the situation it would be good if he were none the wiser." Then she scurried back behind the screen.

Nanao looked up then to find that more than a few of the small lingerie boutique's customers and staff in the act of turning away. Of course Rangiku would draw attention. Honestly, Nanao loved her friend, she really did, but sometimes she really hated the other woman's guts. Rangiku was hot, like take-your-breath-away hot, like movie-star drop-dead-gorgeous. Tall, athletic, and generously-proportioned, with a pretty face and bubbly personality so that it was hard to hate her, which she knew and flaunted, she had been Nanao's friend almost from the first day they met. And as far as Nanao knew, Rangiku did not really mean to make her friend feel bad about not looking as…attention-grabbing as she did, but there were days.

Then Nanao's brain finally picked up on something her friend said and she called out, "Hey, what do you mean that you think that you might have 'misread the situation'. Didn't you two talk about this before he left?"

There was silence from the other side of the screen and Nanao sighed again. Then Rangiku said, "Well, see, that's the thing. He did not actually say anything about it…I just thought…well, it felt implied…"

"Implied?" asked Nanao, brow furrowed. "As in…how?"

Another long silence and then, "Well, I told you, he said 'I will visit you when I return', you know, in that tone with that look and well, I just thought, finally, I mean it's been a year and everyone thinks we are so we might as well, and then he kissed me, like you know, one of those kisses and…I can't be blamed for thinking that was what he meant…"

Ah, well no, Nanao supposed that she could not blame her. But then this whole thing was Rangiku's fault for deciding to start dating the most tight-lipped man in the Seireitei. What the hell was with the woman's attraction to men who liked to mask their true intentions under layers upon layers of bullshit so deep you could lose a shovel trying to get down to something solid. At least Captain Kuchiki was an improvement on Ichimaru Gin; his mask was not "creepy asshole" but rather "cold, arrogant bastard" over the heart of a true romantic. It was kind of surprising then that a whole year had passed in their relationship and the most physical thing they had done together was go for long walks after dark.

Nanao felt a migraine coming on. She pushed her glasses up her nose and said, "Why did you not ask him directly then?"

Rangiku's head peeked around the edge of the screen, an eyebrow raised. Her eyes said what she did not: kind of hypocritical coming from you, no? Nanao's neck, cheeks and ears warmed, the blood rushing to display her embarrassment. Yes it hypocritical of her to suggest that when she had yet to work up the courage to ask Shunsui directly if he was serious, really serious about what he had asked. She cleared her throat and said, "He just might give you a sincere answer. You said yourself that you don't think he's playing with you. It would be damned strange if he was after all this time."

"Yes," said her friend, disappearing behind the screen again. "But it's just that…well, it feels stupid, not understanding, but he's so…proper, you know, not like other guys who just straight up tell you what they want. And I mean, after that kiss, well, I was not really thinking all that clearly so I just…well, he's never been to my place before and there's really nowhere else to go and I did promise to make him dinner…"

"I understand," said Nanao, nodding. And she did, kind of. It was just as likely that Byakuya just wanted a quiet evening alone with Rangiku. Well, until Rangiku's frustration got the better of her sense of danger and she decided to take matters into her own hands.

"Right, how does this look?" asked Rangiku, stepping from behind the screen again.

Nanao's eyes went wide and her face flushed all over again. This outfit was a see-through black polka-dot baby-doll dress made of lace under which was a silk thong. It fit Rangiku better than the blue bustier, and goodness knows some of the others in the store agreed from the way Nanao caught them looking from her peripheral vision. If her friend chose this one it was quite unlikely, once revealed, that she would be wearing it for long.

"Well?" asked Rangiku and Nanao snapped out of her daze to meet her friend's gaze. No, she was not smirking, but it was implied.

Nanao cleared her throat again and said, "Much better…but try the red one…what did you say was his favourite colour?"

Rangiku, in the act of checking how it looked from the rear, said, "Blue, I think, he usually wears something in that colour when he's not in uniform…"

Nanao dropped her gaze back to her magazine and said, "The black looks good, maybe they have one in blue though…but try the red first. You can never go wrong with red."

Her friend nodded at this and walked back behind the screen to change. Nanao turned to look at the others in the boutique, to find that some were whispering among themselves. The words "gravure model" got tossed around once or twice, but then so were "movie star" and "mistress". This was exactly why this shopping trip could not have been conducted in Soul Society. For one, the Kuchiki family directly and indirectly owned a number of boutiques that sold this type of clothing and it would take only one call to alert the captain to what was going on. Two, almost everyone in the Seireitei knew that the Sixth Division Captain and Tenth Division Lieutenant were dating and if they saw her shopping it was only a matter of time before the lowliest grunt slaving away in the sewers found out and would start speculating about their sex life.

Okay, so the concern was weird in a situation that included Matsumoto Rangiku of all people, who dressed provocatively and liked to draw attention to her breasts, but the fact was she was a very private person. Just like the men she was drawn to, she wore a mask as well, "sexy airhead" that often kept people from looking too closely at her when she did not want them too. Well unless they were people like Nanao, who learned to pick out the cues, and Kuchiki Byakuya who spent most of his time silently observing people, if only to gauge how best to defeat them. That propensity for misdirection was why it took all of nearly seven months before anyone found out about the relationship and that was only because someone had stumbled across them out walking in the middle of the night. Because seriously, these two people, together, really?

The way Rangiku told it, the whole thing started at the last annual post-war commemoration party hosted at the First Division by Captain Commander Kyouraku, as a matter of course. There were no happy memories to be had, so the sake flowed freely and as the night wore on, people drifted off to do their own thing. Most of that included hook-ups. Nanao's face still burned at the sight of people she knew and worked with, people considered friends, in flagrante delicto.

Rangiku had been drinking, of course, with some of the other lieutenants: Hisagi Shuuhei, who looked on the verge of a confession; Abarai Renji, still coming down from the confusion of his short-lived affair with Sui-Feng; Izuru Kira, who regularly drank with Rangiku now, thanks to Ichimaru Gin and the first war, and surprisingly, Kuchiki Rukia, while Kurosaki Ichigo hovered and fretted and eventually succumbed to one drink before skipping out on the group to go to bed. He was still a bit of a teetotaller and in those moments, well, a baby. At some point, Rangiku must have wandered away from the group, alone, and all the way up Sougokyu Hill to the site of the "Great Betrayal". She always described the place like that now, Nanao could practically hear the capitalisation, and that was where Captain Kuchiki found her.

He had been to the party only briefly, to hear the speeches and dedications and then disappeared. Rangiku, in the act of pouring a libation to her dead friend and occasional lover, had started at the opening crack of the firework presentation and then nearly fell over to see the captain approaching. He was looking straight at her, and held her gaze until he stood before her under the columns that had nearly become the site of his sister's dramatic exit. Rangiku wondered what rule she had broken and asked him so and instead he asked her if she minded his company. When she told him no, she did not, actually no one really wants to drink alone, he had sat down beside her and asked what she was doing and the next thing she knew they were talking and sharing the bottle and then she woke up in her room at the Tenth barracks covered in his haori.

It turned out to be the perfect excuse for her to see him again and before she knew it they were dating, somewhat, going out for late night walks or having private picnics in the first few districts of the Rukongai or finding reasons to be in the same area though with different people. But it took more than three months for him to kiss her for the first time, after a near disastrous training run with Tenth Division recruits that landed them all in the Fourth. She described walking out of the division, late in the night but utterly fed up with being there "for observation" to find him standing just down from the entrance, debating whether or not to go to her and how he would excuse it. His face had gone completely blank for a moment, and then, totally forgetting that they were in a public, he had grasped hold of her hands, pulled her into his arms and kissed her until her knees were weak. Then he had walked her back to the Tenth and opted out of taking it any further by bidding her farewell at the gate. And that was how they continued until the other night, when, on the eve of his departure for some short mission they had sought shelter after a bout of rainfall in the middle of their walk and he had made her a promise.

Nanao looked at the screen behind which her friend was changing and marvelled at his restraint. Festivals, birthdays, the New Year celebrations, various parties, a few private dinners at the manor and goodness knows how many nights they were together alone and the most he had done was mess her hair up a little. He was very lucky that Rangiku was still unsure about the relationship, mindful of the fact that he was a captain and a noble, or she might have jumped him already.

Of course if he did not do anything that night it might still happen.

"Alright, how's this one?" asked Rangiku, stepping out from behind the screen a third time.

This item was a red see-through tulle shift, which came with a matching lace bra and panty set underneath. Very sexy, but harder to hide. "I think I should get this one anyway," said Rangiku, turning about before the mirror, "but without the shift. You never know."

"You should," said Nanao, nodding. "But my vote goes to the black."

"Mine too," said Rangiku, still turning. Then she stopped, folded her arms and said, "Men! The things we do for them!"

Nanao shrugged and said, "Well, you don't have to. Since this is supposed to be a surprise, he won't be troubled if you're not wearing anything special…besides, have you come up with your menu yet?"

Rangiku waved away her question, still frowning, and said, "Yes, yes, but…well, I haven't had to do this in a long time and the styles are way different now. I mean, he probably does not even know what any of this stuff is."

Nanao lifted an eyebrow at that, both at the rare reference to her relationship with Gin and her statement about Byakuya, then said, "I find that unlikely, or you would not be here in the first place. And this is not just for him; this is about making you feel good. I don't think there's a woman alive who buys these things solely to make a guy happy for the, what, ten seconds that she's going to be wearing it?"

Rangiku turned to her then, grinning, and asked, "So what you're saying is this is about my ego?"

"He has no idea you're going to be wearing it," said Nanao.

Rangiku seemed to consider this for a moment, a finger to her chin, and then her eyes widened and Nanao felt a chill. Her friend took one last look at herself in the mirror and said, "Yes, I think the black one is better…and since I've found myself an outfit, it's your turn! Who knows, maybe somebody is going to get lucky tonight!"

Nanao sighed. She just knew she was going to regret this trip.

0o0

Okay, so maybe Rangiku had made a little prevarication when she told her friend that she had already completed the menu for that evening's dinner but she was the kind of girl who went with the flow and it was only after she returned from the Living World that the flow decided that they should have salmon and that was what she would cook. As it was, she had only just finished when she felt a familiar thrum of reiatsu approaching.

Oops.

She had already showered and dressed, and yes, she was wearing an outfit they had selected: a turquoise see-through lace teddy with a high waist and cute little bow in the middle of the back. It was also much easier to conceal under her yukata than the shift and relatively more comfortable. Throwing off the apron she had donned to protect her yukata while cooking, she hurried to set up everything on her tiny living room table.

A year, they had been dating an entire year and she still could not believe it, still wondered sometimes if she was dreaming, that she had fallen asleep under the execution block and this was all a dream.

He did not knock when he arrived at the door but waited for Rangiku to open it, which she did, rolling her eyes a little at the fact that he expected her to recognise him by his reiatsu. She had, but would it kill him to be normal?

"Hi there!" she said, grinning at him. "Are you hungry?"

"Rangiku," he said. No honorific, no title, just her first name and only ever when they were alone. He wore, as she expected, a dove grey kimono with matching haori and his hair was loose. It was the most casual she had ever seen him, and it made him look younger, softer too, as if he could not hurt a flea.

She stepped back from the door to let him in, and said, "You're on time, I just finished with—"

She had a little trouble finishing her sentence on account of him suddenly grabbing her and kissing her, even though the door was open and it was still light out and for goodness sake, you would swear the man had been gone for a year not three weeks. In a matter of moments she was up against the wall, his hands on her hips while he thoroughly explored her mouth with his tongue. She let her hands go over his shoulders and into his hair, allowing him to press closer and goodness she felt the heat pooling low in her belly and if he did not stop soon she was going to be unable to stand.

Then he released her mouth to go for neck and she gasped out, "Hey now…d-door's open…"

There was a pause and then he released her, stepping back less than a foot as if he somehow expected her to manoeuvre under his arm to close the door. She lifted an eyebrow, but still holding her gaze, he closed it himself. She waited for him to move then, so that they could go to the living room and he said, "What did you make? It smells…delectable."

She heard the slight pause and felt her cheeks flush, then she looked away to the living room and said, "Salmon…and you better eat all of it because you would not believe what I went through to make it."

He took a step closer and her breathing stopped. "I intend to," he said. "All of it." And then he kissed her again. This time was long and slow and sweet and full of intent. But then suddenly, he stopped.

"Tell me to stop," he whispered against her neck, his breath tickled her skin.

"Why?" she asked, tightening her hold onto his bicep.

There was a pause as he breathed in, and that tickled too, and then he said, "Because you made a delicious dinner and I would like to have some of it."

He lifted his head to look her in the eyes. She stared back at him, and then released her hold on his arms to undo the tie of her yukata. His brow furrowed in confusion which cleared a moment later when she pulled open the yukata to reveal the teddy underneath. He let his gaze rove her form and then up at her face again and said, "All your hard work will go to waste."

She shrugged and said, "Do you know how long it took me to find this? The lies I told to get out of the Seireitei? I worked equally as hard."

His expression did not change but there was a slight gleam in his eyes and he leaned in again and whispered, "Tell me what you want. Tell me what to do."