A/N: This was just a short fic I wrote on tumblr for the lovely kenpachiis, because she gave me a truckload of feels just by making this simple comment: "*pictures Ichigo snuggling his and Rukia's kid*...*dies*" And that's all it took for me to write a whole fic.

I didn't plan on putting this up on FFN, simply because I don't tend to post my tumblr fics on this site (because 1) they're usually pretty short, and 2) it would be redundant for the people who follow me on both sites). But then, the incredibly sweet llama-in-socks asked me to and it left me in a puddle of happy goo :3 So here it is!

Warning: BEWARE THE FLUFF.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters.

When the baby's wails drifted into their room for the first time that night, Ichigo was out of their bed in a flash, his heels thumping down the hall before Rukia had even cracked open an eye.

She contemplated getting out of the warm blankets herself, but decided against it, sure that Ichigo would come to her himself if this was a matter of breast-feeding. Eventually the wails died down, fading into the quiet shushing noises she could hear from her husband. It was something he did often, gently patting little Ichi's back while soothingly whispering into his ear: sh, sh, sh, sh, sh.

The soft sounds even lulled Rukia to sleep, and she barely felt the mattress dip when Ichigo returned to her, only aware of his arrival when he threw an arm over her waist.

It was only an hour later when the baby woke them again. Rukia was quicker to return to conciousness this time, but it seemed Ichigo had an internal sensor of some sort that just knew when little Ichi was awake. He was out the door before she could even offer to be the one to go this time, and was back even quicker than before.

"His blanket fell off," was his brief, sleep-muddled explanation before he tucked her into his chest and fell asleep once again.

By the third interruption, Rukia was starting to feel guilty. It was always Ichigo who was up faster, at their baby's beck and call before she could even react to his wails. The lack of sleep couldn't have been good for him, yet he never thought to rouse her and ask her to go in his stead.

"You're making me feel bad," she mumbled when he returned, frowning as he got under the blankets. "Let me do some of the work, too."

"You do plenty," he grunted, shutting his eyes and already slipping back into sleep. "Hell, you gave birth to him, so what more could I ask you to do? I can't do anything when it's feeding time, so at least let me do what I can."

She shook her head, unable to stop the smile twitching on her lips. He might possibly have been the only father who was actually eager for their baby to cry in the middle of the night, just so he could rush to his aid – anything to spend more time with their son.

He could grumble all he wanted about his own father's over-abundance of love, but Ichigo had turned out to be just as much of a doting father as Isshin.

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Rukia returned from a fukutaichou meeting one afternoon to find Ichigo in the kitchen with little Ichi, in the middle of a feeding session gone wrong. Their son was securely locked away in his high chair, and Ichigo had turned around a chair and straddled it. In his hands he held a bottle of baby food and a tiny, plastic spoon.

Both boys were a complete mess. Little Ichi's lips were smeared with the pasty goo, and it seemed it had gotten everywhere but inside his mouth. Ichigo's hair was dishevelled and his eyes haggard, obviously not having much luck with this particular task.

"Come on," he urged their son. "You need to eat. It's not that bad! See? Look!" He proceeded to place an entire spoonful of the mush into his mouth, then promptly spit it out and started gagging horrendously on his own tongue. "Ew! Blugh."

Little Ichi started to cry at the spectacle, while Rukia almost bust a gut trying not to laugh. Noticing her presence at the kitchen entrance, Ichigo glared at her.

"What the hell are we feeding our kid?" he demanded, turning the bottle over in his hand and redirecting his glare onto the label.

"You're just not experienced enough," she declared smugly, picking up a stray toy from the counter and snatching the bottle from his grasp. "Watch and learn."

She wiggled the colorful train in front of their son and made whistling noises that immedaitely drew little Ichi's notice. He watched the toy with rapt attention, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging, before clapping his hands and laughing gleefully at the show.

"Now," Rukia hissed when he opened his mouth, and Ichigo fed him a spoonful of baby food without delay. Their son was too distracted by the display to notice and instinctively swallowed without giving it much thought.

"It worked," Ichigo said in awe, then immedaitely motioned for the train. "Let me try."

Lunch passed fairly quickly after that, as Ichigo used the trick he had learned to sneak the entirety of the food to the distracted toddler, looking mighty proud of himself. Rukia ruffled both their hair as she passed, leaving them to their bonding to change out of her uniform.

Even long after feeding time had ended, Ichigo still sat in the kitchen with little Ichi and entertained him with his toy train for hours, content with just making their son laugh.

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Peaceful moments like these were really nice, Rukia mused as she smiled at the sight before her. She hadn't been prepared for her heart to melt when she passed through the living room with a basket of laundry in hand, but it would have been impossible for it not to.

The two must have fallen asleep while watching TV, for a sports game was blaring from the screen behind her. Ichigo was stretched out on the couch on his back, his head resting on a cushion and the lines of his face smoothed out into complete serenity. One arm rested against his side while the other dangled over the edge of the couch.

What drew her attention was little Ichi, who had dozed off on his stomach, laid out on his father's chest. Mouth slightly parted, his little body moved with each breath he took, his breathing almost completely in sync with his father's. He had tightly clutched Ichigo's shirt with his tiny fists.

He was so tiny, especially in comparison to his father's gigantic frame, and she took the time to notice the difference when it was laid bare before her. Little Ichi's head was on his father's chest, and from where Ichigo's shirt had slightly ridden up to his waist, she could see his tiny toes lightly grazing his father's belly button. He wasn't even as big as Ichigo's torso yet, and Rukia's heart melted all over again.

She promptly put down the laundry, pulled out her phone, snapped a picture of the heartwarming scene before her, sent it to both Isshin and Yuzu, and then went about her business once again, leaving her two boys to doze together on this quiet afternoon.

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Ichigo returned from grocery shopping one afternoon with a strange limp, both his hands laden with giant bags and with little Ichi nowhere to be found.

"What happened?" Rukia demanded in worry. "Where's our son?"

Ichigo just gestured down to his feet, and with a frown, she rounded the dining table to look. There was their son, his arms and his legs all jumbled together and tightly wrapped around his father's leg as he curled up into a ball like some baby monkey. He blinked up at his mother without a word as she gaped.

"Did you come home all the way like this?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"He wouldn't let go," was Ichigo's explanation, which he passed off with a shrug as if to say, what are you gonna do?

She grinned at the thought of what people must have made of the unique pair, because it was sure to have looked funny to see Ichigo widely limping down the street with a toddler attached to his leg as if he were some jungle gym.

Hands on her hips, she looked down at their son and said playfully, "You were supposed to help your father, not use him as transportation."

Little Ichi just mumbled some intangible words in his garbled baby talk before burying his face into Ichigo's pants, and the couple exchanged amused grins. To his credit, Ichigo didn't even pry him off when faced with the task of putting the groceries away, too soft to deny his son the use of his leg, and Rukia spent a memorable day watching him limp all through their home as little Ichi's baby transportation.

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Sometimes, they didn't even need toys to play.

Ichigo was content with bopping his nose or burying his face in their son's neck for a series of rapid kisses that always had little Ichi squealing and giggling and generally making a gleeful fuss. Perhaps Rukia's favorite pastime was watching Ichigo get on all fours, their son secured on his back, and crawl through the entirety of the house.

It seemed Ichigo had favorite moments, too.

"I like watching you take his hand whenever we go out," he murmured into her ear one night, his arms wrapped around her hips and his chest pressed to her back. "Reminds me of me and my mother."

Rukia's answer was accompanied with a sad smile. "It's too bad she never got to meet him. I'm sure she would have loved him more than anyone."

"Yeah…" he answered softly, going quiet for a moment.

Her smile suddenly turned wider, no longer so sad, and she craned her neck back so he could see it. "But it's all right, because you give him enough love for tenpeople. Even if she can't be here physically, he's got you here to receive her share of love, too."

That got a chuckle out of him, and he swooped down to peck her lips. "Yeah."

This time, it didn't sound so melancholic.

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Little Ichi had been blessed with his father's hair color, a fact which had most of the female officers in Soul Society squealing. Rukia had walked in on her fair share of dress-up sessions to find cameras flashing and her son dressed in a costume similar to Ichigo's bankai release, a plastic toy sword strapped securely to his back. That was the last time she asked Matsumoto to babysit.

Ichigo's family, for the most part, was ecstatic about his hair, and even Ichigo couldn't help the glint of pride in his eyes whenever someone marveled how much his son had grown to resemble him.

But there were insecurities there, too.

"You don't think the kids will pick on him, do you?" he asked with worry as they cleaned up the table after dinner one night, little Ichi securely tucked in a play area in the living room.

She knew he was thinking of his own experiences, when kids had refused to play with him at a young age and when he'd been branded a delinquent and roped into dozens of fights through high school. Rukia took a moment to softly cup his cheek.

"We won't let them," she swore. "We'll never let our son go through anything horrible, even if our lives depend on it. You're with me, right?"

"Of course," he sighed, putting a hand over hers, "but there will always be people out there who don't listen to reason. Maybe…" He bit his lip unsurely, then plowed on, "Maybe if he dyed it…"

"Absolutely not," Rukia hissed, but she knew it was the spur of the moment talking. Ichigo had never been the type to care what others said, and he mostdefinitely never wanted his son to grow up believing he needed to change to fit someone else's criteria of "normal."

"Our son's hair has always been that color, and it always will be that color," she carried on, vehemently. "There's no reason for him to change it, because it's his. That alone is reason enough for me to know it's the most gorgeous hair color anyone could ever have."

Ichigo's lips twitched into a playful smile. "I have gorgeous hair?" he mumbled, holding her hand tighter. He'd gotten over the serious conversation mighty fast.

Rukia rolled her eyes and snatched her hand back, but the effect was lost at the first sight of her loving smile. "Just go tuck your son into bed, would you?" she huffed, stalking into the kitchen to finish cleaning up.

He laughed even as he dutifully left to go find his son.

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She found them in her and Ichigo's room much later, a picture book tossed open on the bed and a single lamp lighting up the room. The two were tucked under the blankets, their heads bent together as little Ichi used his father's arm as a pillow.

Ichigo stirred at the sound of her footsteps, lifting his head and peering at her through half-lidded eyes. A small smile broke out across his lips, and he silently offered her his free hand, beckoning her to join them in slumber.

Sliding off her slippers, she accepted his hand wordlessly and shifted under the covers herself, getting as close as she could to them without waking little Ichi and curling into their warmth.

They drifted off with interlocked fingers, and as Ichigo fell back asleep with his wife and son in his arms, his last thought was that this was bliss.

A/N: Just a fic about Ichigo being a cute father, because he totally would be :) Possible Rukia version on the way - I'm definitely thinking about it.

And I didn't even name their baby. He was just 'little Ichi,' haha.