Title: Annoying Acquaintances
Fandom: Bleach
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Aizen, Urahara, slight suggested Kyouraku/Ukitake
Word Count: 1,591
Warnings: SPOILERS PAST CHAPTER 186 OF MANGA/EPISODE 111 OF ANIME. drinking, hints of m/m
Summary: Drinking with people you hate can often lead to mental anguish. Direct sequel to my other fic Surprise Visitor. This won't make sense without having read that first!

Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite and no copyright infringement was intended by this work of fiction. Thanks.

Annoying Acquaintances

Aizen didn't remember being so drunk in a long time. Not that this was unusual when drinking with Urahara and Kurosaki; rare was the night that he could feel his toes after those two were finished. But it had been over twenty years since he'd last drank with Kurosaki, and over a century since he'd even seen Kisuke before he showed up in Hueco Mundo, and he had definitely needed the last three drinks after the other two morons had decided to see how different things exploded when placed in a human contraption called a microwave.

Kisuke chucked a warped CD at his head and Aizen almost caught it, reflexes off enough that it smacked him on the forehead. "You're still a stick in the mud, Sousuke!" he drawled.

"POOOOOOOOOR SOUSUKE," Isshin crooned. "Do you miss your glory days?"

"These are my glory days," he snapped irritably, ignoring the fact that his words were sounding more and more incoherent with time. "Fools."

"You call us fools, I might just have to start calling you four-eyes again," Isshin said, sprawling drunkenly across the mats in Urahara's shop. "Kisuke, I thought you said we were going out tonight."

"Too many people might notice him," Urahara replied, stabbing one finger in Aizen's general direction. "Your son would probably have fits."

"ICHIGO ALREADY HAS FITS!" Isshin declared, and Aizen could almost feel the sparkles coming off of him. "HE IS A HEALTHY TEENAGED BOY WHO INDULGES IN—"

"Teenagers," Aizen growled. "They all act the same. If Grimmjaw pisses and moans one more time because I ask him to take out the trash, I'm going to have Tousen cut off his other arm."

"Awww, Mommy Tousen-taichou!" Isshin crooned. "That's so cute. Do you take the Arrancars to the park? MY DARLING DAUGHTERS LOVE THE PARK. I OFTEN LIKE TO PUSH THEM ON THE SWING—"

"Why was he ever allowed to become a parent?" Aizen asked, feeling a headache approaching.

"Masaki-san calmed him quite a bit," Kisuke explained, beaming. "And Kurosaki-san is a good kid!" His sensible words would have been a bit more trustworthy if he hadn't, at that moment, reached for his sake dish and tipped over the jug. "Oops! Tessai-san will kill me if I make a mess!"

"I hate your damn smile," Aizen growled.

"So SOUSUKE!" Isshin decided he was finally drunk enough to attempt small talk. "Do you still have those dorky glasses somewhere?"

"They were part of his disguise," Kisuke said brightly. "Of course he got rid of them!"

Suddenly, whistling could be heard outside the shop, and Urahara reverted back to normal, looking amazingly sober, and quickly crept out to see who it was who would be stopping by at 1am on a Saturday morning. Aizen leveled a cool stare at Isshin in his absence, but was pretty sure he was so drunk it probably looked like he was making a face like a monkey.

"SHUNSUI!" Kisuke's voice exclaimed, and Aizen froze at the same time Isshin lumbered up from the mats and yelled, "WHAT? SHUNSUI? OH MAN, WHAT PERFECT TIMING!"

Kisuke and Shunsui made their way back to the small room they'd been drinking in. "I was in the human world doing research for Jyuu-chan and—" He stopped dead, noticing their other visitor. "What. What. SOUSUKE WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE."

"I should kill you all," Aizen informed them. "Do you know how that would fix all my problems?"

"You'd have ten more," Kisuke told him wisely. "Since Kurosaki Ichigo isn't here, and neither are most of the other captains, and we all know you can't kill me."

Shunsui still had a look of stunned disbelief on his face, but it began to fade as Kisuke thrust the sake jug into his arms and handed him a dish. "He's a traitor. I should kill him right now," he said, but his heart wasn't in it, and they all knew it.

"You're not the type to…KILL people," Isshin declared stubbornly.

"Drink with us. He'll return to hell tomorrow, and we'll take pictures with a camera and put his face on a dartboard!" added Kisuke, smiling as always.

"Let's try to microwave Sousuke's glasses!" Isshin decided.

"I don't have them anymore," Aizen explained patiently. "I never needed them. I broke them when I left Soul Society and why are you touching my hair." The last was directed at Kisuke, who'd wandered over and started peering at the strands.

"Did you know too much gel makes your hair look crusty and odd?" he asked. "I experimented with hair gel my first couple years here in the human world, but oddly the style didn't seem to suit me!"

"I can't believe I'm sitting here drinking with Aizen Sousuke after everything that just happened," Shunsui muttered. He regarded the man in front of him with a scowl, thinking about how betrayed they'd all been. Kurosaki Ichigo could rant and rave about how much he wanted Aizen's head – he wasn't the one who'd had a good friend turn his back and walk away, he wasn't the one who'd had a man he'd thought he could trust turn into someone he'd never even met.

He wasn't the one who might have to kill someone he once confided in.

"SHUNSUI I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN DECADES," Isshin cried, enveloping the other man into a bear hug. "Don't let SOUSUKE get you down! We'll pretend it's like that night when we graduated and Yama-jii told us we were his favorites!"

"I bet he regretted that," Aizen sneered darkly.

"Don't be such a cynic!" Kisuke chirped, yanking on some of the gelled strands of his hair. "Lighten up! Have fun! It's too bad Jyuushirou couldn't be here."

"He would have killed Aizen the moment he walked in," Shunsui said dramatically. "He's not weak like me, wooed by alcohol and companionship! The steady warmth of sake in my stomach is like the beautiful waterfall of Jyuu-chan's hair, and I can resist neither—"

"I forgot how he goes on like this," Isshin said with great joy. "BUT I UNDERSTAND YOU, SHUNSUI!"

"LOVE IS IMPORTANT!"

"MASAKI WAS EVERYTHING!"

Aizen stood up abruptly. If they were going to talk about love, he was going to leave, because he was an evil overlord now and he'd probably lose his cred if he was seen anywhere near these morons. He stumbled over his own feet and clutched the doorframe.

The idiots, of course, had no intention of letting him go.

"I can't open the portal to Hueco Mundo in this state," Kisuke explained, his eyes going in and out of focus. "I guess you'll have to spend the night with the rest of us! I hope Kurosaki-san doesn't drop by tomorrow before school, like he has a habit of doing sometimes."

"NAW," Isshin thundered. "HE'S TRAINING WITH THOSE VAIZAARDS."

"He's what?" Aizen's ears perked up. Perhaps his objective to obtain information about the enemy hadn't been a bust after all.

"Oh shit," Isshin muttered, sobering slightly. "I don't think we wanted you to know that."

"This," Shunsui began, enunciating clearly, "is why fraternizing with the enemy is bad. But guys, Sousuke looks trashed. He probably won't even remember this conversation." Aizen was indeed becoming more and more out of it, but he didn't exactly appreciate the reminder.

"You've always been a bad influence," he growled at Kisuke, who was directing him towards a spare futon.

"I have a bucket you can puke in!" he was told with a typical Kisuke-smile.

"Shut up," he snarled. "I'm not done. You're a bad influence. Yamamoto-sensei always thought I was a delinquent because of you." The three of them stopped and stared at him, then burst out laughing in unison.

"Sousuke, no one in all of sereitai thought you were a delinquent." Shunsui refilled his sake dish with a grin, but Aizen only scowled further.

"We all thought you did GREAT WONDERFUL GIVING KIND THINGS. Like planting trees and giving food to homeless kids and rescuing drowning kittens!" elaborated Isshin.

Aizen rolled his eyes. "You were supposed to think that."

"But Kisuke never did!"

"Two hundred years ago, Kisuke told us you were dangerous. And we laughed at him!" Shunsui looked angry at himself.

Aizen laid flat on the futon, arms spread outward, marveling at how nice it was to feel the numbness in his feet, the drink in his blood, and the voices of his old acquaintances (friends? They were never truly his friends, after all.)

"Oi! Sousuke, are you passing out?!" Isshin was apparently offended.

"What a lightweight!" Kisuke smirked next to him.

"If you try to kill me in my sleep," Aizen growled, already drowsy, "I will kick you in the face."

"This is a truce, Sousuke," Kisuke explained gently. "Nobody's going to try to kill you. And tomorrow, I'm opening the gate and you can go home."

"Good," Aizen snapped, and passed out without further warning.

----------------------------------

The next morning, he woke up to a splitting headache and a lot of noise.

"THAT'S AIZEN, LYING THERE ON YOUR STUPID FUTON WHY WON'T YOU LET ME KILL HIM LET ME GO SANDAL-HAT," someone was yelling, someone who sounded suspiciously like Isshin's spawn. Aizen opened one eye, winced at the light, and focused slightly on the room. Isshin and Shunsui were long gone, probably back to their respective homes, and the yeller in question was indeed Kurosaki Ichigo.

Aizen sighed the sigh of the long-suffering and closed his eyes again.

He was really not in the mood for this.

-the end-