* * *

The night before
by jamjar

* * *

It's loud, loud music and a mixed club. Lots of boys that don't want to admit they're gay, as well as the ones that actually are, in clothes that are usually sparklier and dressed up by their girlfriends. Renji tries not to think what this means, because Rukia didn't choose his clothes. She just made fun of everything he selected until he ended up with this.

It's hot, but the good kind of hot, when there are too many bodies and you don't quite care. Dancing with Rukia is always good, even if they don't quite dance with each other. Facing, but not touching, exactly, with, but not together. It's better, because this way he can see her move, and it's practical, because she can detach when she sees someone likely.

"Thirsty?" she says over the music, standing on her toes and pulling him in so she can shout the words in his ear.

He nods and they head to the bar, where she scams two drinks out of separate men without ever saying a word to them. The problem with this is that it means Renji inevitably ends up with drinks that are fruity, brightly coloured and with enough alcohol to lay out a small elephant, but it's still better than paying for his own. Occasionally, he sees Rukia grin when she watches him drink his cocktail of whatever, and he has a sneaking suspicion that she's asking for girlier and girlier drinks, but he can't prove it. Yet.

This one tastes of melon and has some kind of sparkly ice-cube in it that flashes in pattern. He drinks it anyway - he's man enough that he can sacrifice a little of it in exchange for alcohol - and looks around. It's the usual crowd and he can't pick anyone specific out, but Rukia does because something catches her eye.

It's a patch of orange and she smiles at Renji, and heads over. She gets sidetracked along the way, dancing with one pretty boy, one pretty girl and one person that's none of those things, as far as Renji can tell. It doesn't matter, because she dances the same with all of them, head back and open, moving to the music and making her partner do whatever she wants them to. She's one of the fiercest dancers Renji's ever seen, smiling and frowning a little and focussing on the music, and some of that goes into whoever she's dancing with, transferred along when they put their hands on her hips or she presses against them.

She finds her target, some scrawny boy with orange hair, and pulls him on to the dance floor. She's helped by his friends, who shove him off when she does, except for one that appears to be crying into his drink even as he helps push orange-head on to the dance floor.

Rukia pulls him a bit more into the middle, positions him properly - he can't see, but he can imagine the look of concentration on her face - and starts to move.

The guy doesn't know what he's doing, so she keeps correcting him - steering him with her hips - until he gets it, and they're moving properly.

The music changes, turns into a familiar song that gets the floor packed and makes all dancing into jumping, singing along with the words. Renji joins in. He likes dancing - he's good at it, maybe not as good as Rukia, but better than 99.99% of the people on the dance floor - and he still loves this maybe the most. Nothing but energy, everyone feeling the same and loud, and he can get close enough to Rukia and her pick to see that she's doing the same, jumping high enough that he can just about see her head over the crowd.

He makes his way over and she passes him the guy's wallet and keeps moving, orange-head behind her doing the same, them and the four hundred other people in the club joining in with the chorus, loud like cheering on teams at a baseball game.

The song ends and he gets a few moments dancing with someone nervous - he has that effect on a lot of people - and he makes his way over to the exit. Ducks outside, opens the wallet - Kurosaki Ichigo, new driver's license, 3 man in cash and a card and - huh, visa. Nice. And car keys, tucked into the side pocket.

"What have we got?" Rukia asks. Renji tries not to jump, but it's not his fault he didn't see her coming. She's sneaky and she's below eyelevel anyway.

He holds up the keys.

"Car."

She nods, satisfied, and they head to the alley outside to look for it.

Not many cars outside, and most of them are obviously brands, BMW, Volkswagen, even a Porsche. Rich kids come here, which is why Rukia and Renji come too.

"It's a Toyota," she says, looking at the keys. They try a few and it doesn't fit any.

"Maybe he didn't drive?" Renji says, but Rukia's staring at something. "What?"

And then he turns to see what she's looking at and...

He's not a pessimist, but sometimes he just knows how things are going to go.

It's barely even a car. He doesn't know how it got on the road.

"I think it's older than I am," he says. Rukia starts walking towards it.

"No," he says. He tries it again, more firmly. "No! We've got money, we can do better."

"Renji, it's the car," she says.

"We can get another! If you want to die, there's better ways of doing it than getting in a car like that. You want that in your obituary?"

She puts the key in the lock, and Renji breathes a sigh of relief when it doesn't turn. Rukia frowns and tries again. Nothing.

"Hah! Looks like we're going to have to get something else. Maybe you can go back and pick up something European, something better than this pile of cra--"

He hears someone come up behind him and starts to turn, which just means he's facing the punch that knocks him to the ground. Rukia's mark - Ichigo something - is there, fists clenched and glaring at them.

"You have to push the key in and kind of wriggle it," he says. "And it's not a pile of crap. It just looks that way to put off low-life pathetic weakling thieves."

It's almost kind of good that Rukia jumps. Not that they should both be taken by surprise, but it's fucking embarassing when she pulls that knows-everything act whenever Renji's even the slightest bit off-balance. "You..." she says, and then straightens up. She's never gonna be tall, but most people don't notice, not when she's standing like that. She shrugs. "I don't know why you're upset, it's not like we took anything valuble."

"You took my keys! You took my wallet! You were trying to steal my car!"

"What? You're angry at us? We should be fucking angry at you! Look at how crap this car is! You should be thanking us! You'd have to pay to get this towed away, and we were gonna do it for free!"

"Yeah? Still better than anything you've got--" And technically, Renji throws the first punch, but the bastard gets in the first kick, knee going to Renji's side and Renji hits the ground and is up, aiming hard and low, and just misses. He has just enough time to grin and roll back, but the guy's on him and it's not fair, because the bastard's skinny enough that it's hard to find anywhere to hit, like trying to punch a dancing broomstick. He's grinning, partly because he can see how much it annoys that orange-haired bastard, but also because this is how he likes these things to go. Picking up keys and finding some place nice to borrow is good, but a fight like this, bastard enemy in front of him and Rukia watching is--

He didn't see that kick coming, and it's small comfort that the strawberry-bastard didn't either. They're both rubbing their jaws and Rukia's standing in between them. She doesn't wear high heels, but they're high enough and hard enough to give her kicks a little extra something that they really didn't need.

"Rukia! I was--"

"Well, we don't have a place to stay now," she says. She smiles and sighs, dramatically. Renji rolls his eyes. "We're just going to have to roam the streets. Poor Renji will have to sell himself for a place to sleep and breakfast."

"Hey!"

"Heh." The bastard starts to laugh and then stops himself, frowing. "That's a stupid lie. Like me not letting you steal my car means you have to force him in to prostitution. Like anyone would buy him anyway."

"People have strange tastes," Rukia says. "You'd be surprised."

Renji's surprised when the guy starts laughing. "No, I wouldn't. My dad's a doctor. You don't want to know what kind of emergency calls come in to our place." He shakes his head.

Rukia gives him a little smile, and Renji frowns at the guy. What kind of idiot goes around making the people that were robbing him smile? The guy glares back, and Renji grins, just to annoy him.

"I can't believe you actually admitted this thing was yours," Renji says. "I'd be ashamed to say it in public. You can't even get without breaking a window or something. They actually let something like this on the road?"

"It starts, it goes, and it stops when you hit the breaks," he says, but something in his voice suggests that there should be a bunch of qualifiers on that. It starts, mostly. It goes, as long as it's going downhill. It stops when you hit the breaks or drag your feet along the ground through the hole in the floor.

"You were going to let Rukia drive this car? That's practically murder," Renji says.

"Does it start by itself?" Rukia says.

"Sometimes it needs a little-- dammit." Ichigo kicks the car, but gently. "It needs a little push, sometimes."

Rukia raises an eyebrow. "You were going out to dance, maybe pick up a girl, and have her push-start your car?"

"No! My friends, they're were going to-- but--" he glares at them. "They left when I was dancing with you, said I was probably going to have all the company I needed." He shakes his head.

"You really thought you'd be going home with me?" Rukia says, and she's got just the right amount of insulted disbelief in her voice.

"No! But they're-- just way too fucking pushy," he says.

"Ah," Renji says. "They want to see their little boy grow up? Don't worry, some boys are just a little slow to--" he moves back when Ichigo aims another kick at him.

Rukia sighs and shakes her head. "I suppose we do owe you something. Alright, open the door."

"What?"

"I'm lightest. I'll drive, you and Renji can push."

* * *

"You're so fucking che--" Renji turns around, putting his back against the car. "You can't do any better than this? I'd be embarrassed to drive a car like--"

Ichigo braces and pushes forward.

"I earned this car! And you were the ones trying to take, you've got--" He slips when the car starts rolling, landing with a bump next to Renji. They shoot each other identical looks of surprise and then start running, trying to get in the car.

Ichigo grabs shotgun, Renji's stuck in the back. He leans forward, his head next to Rukia.

"So, where are we going now?" He shoots Ichigo a glance that doesn't actually manage to show all his contempt. "This guy's not gonna have any place worth going."

"Fuck you," Ichigo says. "I've got a -- fuck you anyway. Don't do that!" He slaps Rukia's hand when she goes to turn on the radio.

Rukia looks at him.

"It breaks if you change the channel."

She shakes her head and looks at him. It's that older-sister look, that one that's rolling her eyes and smiling and just that bit superior, and it makes Renji dig his fingers into the seat a little, before she meets his eyes in the mirror.

"I'm hungry," she says. "You have food?"

Ichigo looks at her. His hair is standing on end, like a cat, and Renji has to remind himself that it was doing that all night, even before Rukia got her hands in it on the dance floor.

"I have to feed you now? You steal my keys and my car and now I have to--"

"We're hungry. Renji is a growing boy," she says.

"Yeah, and Rukia's not," he says. She reaches back without looking and hits him.

Ichigo looks at both of them. "Buy your own food," he mutters, but he starts giving them directions anyway.

His place turns out to be a small apartment above a doctor's clinic. He makes them be quiet as they go up the stairs, but it's not quite enough, because a window opens and a girl - pretty, if kind of young - sticks her head out.

"Brother? It's late. Are you--"

Ichigo waves them down, gesturing for them to duck. "Yeah, I just got back."

The girl yawns, cracking her jaw open wide enough for Renji to see her back teeth. "S'okay. You want breakfast in the morning or--"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" A third head joins them. "It's two in the morning! I'm gonna kill you!"

"You're the one yelling!" Ichigo says. "I was being quiet, but you--"

"Talking at two in the morning! I'm gonna go back to bed and when I wake up, you and you are dead." She ducks back in the house, and the first girl - both his sisters, Renji assumes - smiles sleepily and joins her.

Ichigo glares at them and Renji straightens up, knowing how stupid he must look. "You two! You get me in trouble and you steal my car and you take my food and--"

"You get your little sister to make breakfast for you? What, you're not allowed to touch the stove in case you hurt yourself?"

"Renji, you can't cook either," Rukia says. She nods at the stairs. "I'm cold. This isn't a good dress for outdoors." She starts back up the stairs, the keys dangling like sparkly jewellery from her hand.

Ichigo is grinning at him.

"Shut up," Renji says. "I could cook, but I don't want to. I can buy my food, I don't need my little sister to make it for me."

"Yeah, right," Ichigo says, and pushes past him to where Rukia is trying to open the door. "You have to kind of push it in, then turn the handle and--" He demonstrates, taking the keys from her, and lets her in.

Rukia kicks off her shoes and puts them neatly together, toes facing outwards, silvery straps trailing over the sole, before stepping in. She ignores the guest slippers and walks, barefooted across the wood.

Ichigo looks a little awkward, standing there, before he goes in and turns on the light. "It's small, but I've got -- my dad stores some of the old futons in my cupboard, so--"

Renji kicks his shoes off and shoves them across so they mess up Ichigo's, then changes his mind and arranges them so they're not touching his.

"Food," Rukia says. "We're hungry. Do you actually have any?"

"Of course I do!" Ichigo walks over to the fridge, standing in the short entrance corridor next to the sink. He pulls out some containers. "I've got some pasta, and there's some katsudon, and--" He pulls out some more things. "Huh. I think this is still good."

Renji grabs Rukia's arm. "Don't eat any of it. You don't know what he has, it's probably all gone bad and--"

Ichigo starts opening up the containers and it does look good. Renji's stomach starts to rumble and he picks up one suspiciously.

Rukia's looking at him, smiling a little. "Why don't you try it first, then?"

He knows what she's doing, but he smiles anyway. Ichigo glares at him.

"Don't know why I'm wasting my food on you," he says. "You're not even pretty."

It's insulting, and even worse, it's one of those insults where trying to defend yourself just makes you look like more of an idiot, so Renji growls and digs in a drawer for a pair of chopsticks.

Rukia walks past him into the main room. There's not much. Tatami mat flooring, a little worn, one set of doors for a cupboard. A couple of cushions. Ichigo goes to the cupboard and starts pulling down futons and looking for sheets.

Renji gets a cushion, puts it against a wall to sit on, and looks for the remote for the TV. Ichigo grabs it off of him.

"Keep it down! My family's asleep!"

He turns the noise down so far Renji can barely hear it and keeps getting the futons out. Renji eats his pasta and watches Rukia looking around the room. Rukia always does this, telling him things about the people whose apartments they're "borrowing", stuff based on photos and what they have in their book shelves or DVD collection. Ichigo's got a lot of photos and not much furniture.

"Is this your mother?" she says, stopping by a picture of a woman. She doesn't look so much like Ichigo, but she's smiling and the picture is older. She's got a couple of babies in her lap and one scowling toddler that she's apparently holding in the frame.

"Yeah. It is." Ichigo's voice is quiet and Renji can hear the past-tense in it, and looks away.

"How long ago?" Rukia says, because Rukia's always been capable of more bluntness than him.

"Years. I was only a kid," Ichigo says.

"You look like her," Rukia says, which isn't true, but it makes Ichigo smile.

"Thanks." He shrugs, embarrassed and says, "I've got some drinks. Some tea, some pocari sweat, some--"

"Sit," Rukia says. She gestures at one of the futons.

Ichigo frowns, but sits down.

"I like this show," she says. She takes the remote from him, turns the volume up a little, and gestures at Renji for the food. He passes it over and she eats it with his chopsticks, red sauce from the pasta getting on her lips a little.

It is late, enough for Renji to think they'd be better off staying awake, but Rukia's settling down. If Ichigo goes to sleep, they can steal his car again and go home. Instead, Renji moves so he's on the futon, sitting with his back to the wall, between Ichigo and Rukia.

"This place sucks," he says. "You don't even have any furniture!"

"Hey, I just moved in! My bed is still in my old room. I'm gonna move stuff up tomorrow," Ichigo says. "At least I have a place, I don't have to steal other people's--"

"Should have known you didn't have anything worth taking," Renji says. He gives Ichigo a look and shakes his head.

"Yeah, maybe I don't have anything for you to take because my clothes don't look like a girl's," Ichigo says. He picks at Renji's sleeve. "Glitterboy."

"It's not a girl's!" Renji says. It's cool, he likes this shirt, black with dark green metallic stripes woven in, and he looks fucking awesome in it. "At least I don't dress like some cross between a delinquent wannabe and somebody's dad. You should have known something was wrong when someone like her wanted to dance with someone like you."

"My clothes are cool!" Ichigo says. "Just because they're not shiny--"

"You'll wake your sisters," Rukia says. She leans forward to look at Ichigo. "Are we getting fed in the morning too?"

Ichigo looks like he's going to protest, then shrugs. "Probably."

"Remember to thank his sister," Rukia says to Renji.

Rukia always sleeps less than Renji, and she's awake by the time he wakes up in the morning, but he likes to imagine her sleeping, curled in a little. Maybe with her dress riding up, not too much, but enough so he can--

"There's no bath," she says.

Renji blinks and sits up. "What?"

"There's no bath. We'll have to use the one in the main house, or wait till we get back."

Renji nods and cricks his neck. Rukia hands him a glass of water. "Drink this."

He winces, but takes it. Rukia looks at him.

"His father's a doctor. He'll have some painkillers or something," she says.

Renji kind of wants to say that it's not a hangover, it's just a headache and he didn't sleep well, but Rukia's looking practical, which is also how she looks concerned. She offers him her hand to help him up. It's a little cool and her fingertips are a bit wrinkled, and when they head out, he can see that the dishes have been washed.

They head down the stairs and he wonders how they got up them last night in the dark. They're metal and slippery, real crack-your-head type things, clinging to the side of the building. They head in to the main building and follow the noise to the kitchen. It's loud, and Ichigo is apparently in the middle of being murdered.

There's a crazy man in a white coat and the two girls they saw yesterday, and the crazy man is strangling Ichigo. The girls don't seem to care, which makes sense to Renji.

"Excuse us," Rukia says politely. "We don't want to bother you."

The crazy guy drops Ichigo with a crack that Renji can hear and comes over, jumping over the table, to grab Rukia's hand.

"You're here for breakfast! You're the pretty girl my idiot son picked up!" He lowers his voice to just a rumble. "Were you very drunk? You can tell me--"

"Idiot old man!" Ichigo aims a flying kick at his crazy father's head.

"Rice is in the cooker," the first girl from last night says. "How much fish do you want? Do you want omelette as well?"

"Why are we feeding Ichigo's crazy friends?" the other girl says. "Pass me the tea, Yuzu."

"We're not crazy," Rukia says, sitting down and starting to serve herself some rice.

"You're friends with my brother, aren't you?" Karin says.

"Karin, that's not nice," Yuzu says. "Ichigo could have normal friends."

"I've never met any," Karin says.

"These are new." Yuzu smiles and hands Renji a bowl of miso.

Ichigo's father turns out to be a crazy doctor, and gets called away halfway through breakfast. Ichigo finishes off his father's food, then stands up.

"There's a bathroom through there," he says. "If you want to shower before you leave."

Rukia looks at him, then looks at the clock.

"...No," she says, like she regrets it a little. "We have to get back." There's a pause that makes Renji push his chair a little closer to hers. "Brother will be waiting."

"You have a brother?" Yuzu says. "Is he too protective, too?"

Rukia shakes her head. "No. I've always been -- independent."

Karin's looking at them, like she's seeing more than Rukia's saying, but that's maybe just a family thing, because Ichigo has the same look and he's obviously an idiot.

Rukia stands up.

"Thank you for the meal," she says politely, and elbows Renji.

"Uh, yeah, thanks," he says.

Rukia looks at Ichigo, arms crossed, waiting.

"What?" he says.

"Are you ready?" she says.

"Huh?"

"We can't walk back," she says, like he's being stupid. "And you took the keys."

He looks at her like he can't believe it, then explodes again.

"You steal my keys and my car and you make me feed you and you steal my covers and you practically suffocate me--"

"That was Renji," she says. "He was sleeping next to you, not me."

"I only had to do that because you kick in your sleep," he says.

Ichigo looks like he wants to say something, but his sisters are looking at him and smiling.

"I'll drive you home and then I never want to see you again," he says.

Renji grins. "Yeah, yeah, kicking us out after." He elbows Rukia. "I told you he wouldn't respect us in the morning."

She looks at him. "Any disrespect he shows wasn't caused by me." She smiles, just a little, that smile that's all about her being good and knowing it. She gave that smile when they were kids playing baseball or doing homework or later, dancing at clubs or anything.

"That's not nice," Yuzu says to Ichigo, frowning. "You should be a little more polite, brother."

"Didn't you hear what I said? They stole my keys and my car and--"

Karin snorts. "Yeah, right, like anyone would steal that piece of junk."

"It's got wheels! It moves! It's more than--"

Yuzu puts her hand on Ichigo's arm.

"Even if they did try to steal it, they didn't do a very good job," she says. "Or they'd be able to go home by themselves."

He looks at her, and Renji grins at him, because Ichigo is so obviously his sister's bitch, can't argue with her at all. Ichigo swears under his breath and goes to get the keys.

In the car, the music's playing on the one channel that works - enka, which Renji knows Rukia secretly likes - until they pull up to the doors of the estate. Rukia gets out and punches in the code.

It's a short drive up to the house.

* * *

The garden looks nice.

Ichigo doesn't know much about gardens, but he'd guess this one is nice and expensive and, as he looks about, old. Twisted trees and smooth rocks in with the perfect grass. It feels old and groomed and makes him feel scruffy in comparison. Someone else would probably feel insecure about that.

Someone else would probably care about the tension in the backs of the two conartist thieving-- that redheaded bastard ate the last banana! It was his, dammit! And the girl, Rukia, just sat there and ate with his family and somehow Ichigo was the bad host for not offering to take them back and no-one would believe him when he said they'd wanted to steal his car.

He wanted to meet Mizuiro and Keigo and watch Mizuiro pick up girls and Keigo implode, but no, he had to come here and--

He'd be angrier, maybe, if the evil pair didn't look so-- uncomfortable.

The thing about that little dress with the thin, thin straps is that he can see all the tension in Rukia's back. The redhead bastard - Renji whatever, and Ichigo's not going to call him by name if he can help it - looks even worse, and Ichigo gets that. Coming home early in the morning... if Karin or Yuzu tried to do that... But it's not that kind of tension.

When they get to the front door, he's a little surprised that the person who opens it isn't a butler or something. It's a guy, tall and he looks kind of like Rukia did this morning, all pale skin and black hair and arrogance. Her brother, he guesses, unless he started really young having a family.

"Brother," she says. She steps in and Ichigo's watching, so he sees that she's not-- it's not that kind of fear, which is a relief. She's on edge, but she's not got that kind of fear that he's seen in some other people.

"You were out where?" he says. Not like he's angry, but like he's confirming something.

She straightens up and looks at him. "We went to a club in Shinjuku, then to Ichigo's house."

Brother looks at Ichigo for the first time, and Ichigo looks back. He stands straighter, and crosses his arms.

"You went home with him?" he says.

"We did," she says, firmly, and her brother doesn't look at the bastard - reluctantly, Ichigo has to admit that the bastard is now reduced to junior bastard, with the brother taking prime spot - but he gets the impression that it's not much of a comfort.

"You usually make better arrangements," Chief Bastard says.

"Hey! We gave her breakfast! My sister made her some onigiri to take with her!" Ichigo says.

Chief Bastard ignores him and turns back to his sister. He lifts up his hand and touches the side of her face, then looks at his fingers. She blushes and looks younger than Yuzu. "Glitter. We bought some in a conbini."

Ichigo has to fight the urge to check himself. He had a shower that morning - he can smell the shampoo still, in his hair, but he knows from experience that glitter stays, and they danced close last night.

But it's not like Chief Bastard's looking at him anyway. Chief Bastard's still looking at his sister, blank-faced for what seems like too long, before he breaks it and turns to go.

"The main bath is being drained. If you want to get clean, you'll have to use the smaller one or shower."

Ichigo waits until he's down the corridor, but can still probably hear, before he says,

"You're one freaky family."

"I was adopted in to the Kuchiki family," she says. She shivers, then looks at them both. "Renji, you still need a wash."

"I don't smell!" And the boy says it loud enough that Ichigo can hear the relief at being able to speak at all.

"You stink worse than his apartment," she says, pointing at Ichigo. "Go, wash."

She starts to leave, then turns and bows down, very low, to Ichigo.

"Thank your family for the food," she says.

"Thank me!" he says. "I was the-- yeah, whatever." And then, even though he doesn't really want to say it, it comes out anyway. "See you around."

She looks surprised and Renji looks like he's about to start ranting again.

"Maybe," she says.

"Never! Why'd we wanna--"

Ichigo grins, turns around and walks back to his car.

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