Moderation [Bleach, Nanao/Shunsui/Matsumoto, PG-13]

[venefican.livejournal.com]

Title: Moderation
Author: venefican 
Prompt: Bleach - Nanao/Shunsui/Matsumoto - the perils of drink
Rating: PG-13
Warnings:  hints of sex
Words: 972
Summary: Nanao tries, and finds that sometimes she misses things right in front of her.

 

The liquid caught the colour of the chaos about it. Red, green, blue, hints of violet and dashes of pink. Or at least it would have done, had anyone eyes to see it.

Ise Nanao is blindingly, disgustingly, irretrievably drunk. A rare instance in itself, moreso that she was in the company of a more-or-less sober Matsumoto. There’s no special occasion, no anniversary missed or remembrance to be dwelt on, just survival.

The floor of her office was not meant for the job of propping up an inebriated lieutenant but it’s performed the task often enough in the past that once more will change nothing. She leans against her desk, watching Rangiku slump in a gorgeous shamble on the floor, illuminated in bronze-gold-copper by the fire Nanao lit an hour ago when her hands were steady and her kido even more so. Rangiku  is trapped in some reverie, and Nanao watches her, pinned in place. She could, should say something to make a fox-eyed man scuttle back into the dust of time but he will resurrect himself eventually. Walk again. Some ghosts are not made to rest, and in Soul Society they’re a more unquiet than usual.

She mentally shakes herself. The plum wine – liberated from the Captain’s personal supply – oils her thoughts and makes them turn grey. She takes another sip and watches the 10^th’s lieutenant mirror her. Rangiku has very long fingers and a habit of absent-mindedly licking the edge of the cup. Nanao shifts a little, bites her lip.

‘Such reverie, my lovely ladies.’ Kyoraku rolls in – reeking of sake, had he been bathing in it? – a hand gripping her shoulder and making a play for underneath it before she can slap in hands away. She can’t remember where her fan is.

‘Has my lovely Nanao-chan been drinking? And to think, I almost missed it!’

‘Captain.’ She flicks her eyes towards Rangiku, watches the Captain read the tiniest of gestures and write an entire story from it.

‘And my lovely Ran-san. I’m positively spoilt.’

‘Shun, really, you crashed our girls night in.’ The bubble in her voice is orchestrated but Nanao can’t help but follow the line of her leg where she has rolled up her uniform. Nanao needs to stop drinking. Preferably right this second.

She rolls to her feet, stretching. Clumsily, the shoulder the Captain had been fiddling with sliding off, displaying – to Nanao, at least – pasty skin speckled with scars like snowflakes. She turns, a little, and notes with some shock and a little surprised gratification for there are two sets of eyes on her. And neither is completely mindless.

Has she missed something?

There’s a look exchanged between Rangiku and the Captain. Swift, gone like a butterfly’s wing, but she has been watching her Captain trying to convince others to annoy her with his eyebrows alone for almost seventy years. Jyuushiro is apparently the only one fluent in Kyoraku-eyebrow-speak. It’s rather like a dead Amazon language where the only speaker left is a parrot. Except with one intelligent human. And the Captain.

She’s seen Rangiku’s ‘have-sex-with-me-now’ look, and the Captain’s own version of it. No eyebrows. Just leering. And it’s usual to see it directed at each other – Nanao has gotten skilled at flicking away the little cockroach of jealousy that inevitably refuses to die when she sees that happen. And even more skilled when refusing to contemplate who she is jealous of. Not that she’s jealous. At all.

But this look slides back to her. And she suddenly feels very stupid.

Rangiku’s eyes are like glass, clear through to the bottom. Shunsui watches her, calm and still as he never is and she feels like this is an old living world movie the SWA dragged her to sixty plus years ago. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And she isn’t so drunk she can’t make a choice for herself. Just enough she is likely to be as brutally honest as possible. Not bound by any attempt at rules. Or sanity. She knows she loves them, that is a fact that comes as clear to her as the strokes of her name, or the first taste of tea in the morning. But there are things bigger than her, than them, even standing on each other's shoulders.

You’re drunk, Nanao.

This is stupid, Nanao.

You’ll regret it, Nanao.

You might not...

In the end, it’s not the alcohol that makes her reach for them. She sighs around Shunsui’s mouth, at Rangiku’s too-clever fingers, unknotting her where it matters.

She sits bolt upright. They’re in a pile of warmth and skin in his – oh god his – quarters. There are far too many arms over her and her thighs ache in the most deliciously painful way possible.

Oh god. Ohgodohgodohgod. Was running away too much of an over-reaction? If she flash-stepped, she could be by the gates in ten minutes. She could live as a hermit. Maybe she could convince Ukitake to open the gate to the living world? She could bribe him with completed paperwork.

‘Nanao-chan.’ There’s a rumble from her right side, and she freezes into stone. ‘Are you having cold-light-of-day thoughts?’

‘Y-yes, sir.’

‘Save it for the morning.’

There’s still a headache that feels like her conscience telling her to get as far away as possible, it’ll all end in tears, you’ll regret it. Except the tension isn’t entirely hers. Shunsui – no, the Captain – is dead silent in a way he never is in sleep, and she can already feel Rangiku trying to inch her arm away. Slowly, slowly. Letting her run. And not come back. Even when they waited this long for her.

She has been naïve.

She leans back, curls up into someone’s shoulder and knots her legs with someone else’s. The perils of drink. It’s not a bad way to destroy her life.

 

Comments

[marajade116.livejournal.com]

A little dark, a lot sexy and absolutely breathtaking. I adored everything about this. <3

[venefican.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!