Rating: T-ish (?)

Warnings: Angsty thoughts, canon!AU, friendship schmoop (if that's a thing?), etc.

Word Count: ~3000

Pairings: Ikkaku/Yumichika, Renji/Ichigo.

Summary: In which the Seireitei gets a new captain, Yumichika gets a new drinking partner, and Ikkaku and Renji gets jealous. IkkaYumi, RenIchi

Disclaimer: I don't hold the copyrights, I didn't create them, and I make no profit from this.

Notes: IkkaYumi was actually one of the very first slash pairings I ever shipped, and RenIchi was one of the second. Therefore, why not combine them? Also, I have a thing for canon AUs and captain!Ichigo, so I'm tossing a bunch of my favorite things in a fic and shaking. Expect one more chapter, maybe two—I'm not looking to write an epic, just a self-indulgent bit of angsty friendship-and-unrequited-longing fluff. Happy ending, though, I promise.

(Another U2 title, as is my wont. This time it's my Yumichika headcanon song, All Because of You from How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.)

not broke (but you can see the cracks)

Normally, Yumichika is more than happy to keep up with Ikkaku drink for drink, but right now it feels like things are weighing on him, like all the secrets he's accumulated over the years are conspiring to crush him. Simply put, he's just not in the mood.

Besides, he's not the only one skulking in the corner tonight.

Kurosaki Ichigo, newly instated captain of the Fifth Division, the first shinigami to be promoted to captain right after his death, is seated across the table from him, sipping his sake slowly and watching Ikkaku and Renji humiliate themselves on the other side of the room. Yumichika studies him for a moment, surveying the easy, confident way he holds both himself and his cup, and can't help a small smile. Ichigo is a world away from the awkward, angry boy he was in his teenage years—not that those are far behind him, really, in terms of length of time. But in temperament and attitude, he's galaxies away.

"You're smirking," Ichigo needles without looking at him. "Stop it, it's creepy."

Yumichika huffs at him, folding his arms across his chest and offering up the pout that makes Ikkaku cave like wet cardboard. "I was just admiring the way you fill out your haori," he says haughtily. "But if that's the unbeautiful way you go about responding to compliments, I won't bother."

Ichigo doesn't smile—he never smiles, and while it's entirely unbeautiful, Yumichika has come to accept it as one of the man's major flaws—but there's a certain up-turn to one corner of his mouth that suggests he might someday. With enough work, perhaps. "You're lying," the new captain parries, but his eyes are amused in a way that says he doesn't mind. "Besides, Ikkaku's more your type, right?"

Damn the man for being so observant. The pout fades away, and Yumichika sinks a little lower in defeat. It's hardly the first time someone has implied that his relationship with Ikkaku isn't exactly chaste, but here and now, with Ichigo, he hasn't the strength to deny that he wants it to be what they think it is. Also, Ichigo manages to combine being supremely perceptive with being an absolute thickheaded moron, and it's always fascinating to observe. "That obvious?" he asks with a faint wince, hoping that the answer will be 'no', but not expecting much. Ikkaku's got a thing for busty beauties, and there's a new one in the Eighth who's making him drool at inopportune moments. It's disgusting, and ugly, and Yumichika's wanted to claw some eyes out for weeks now.

Surprisingly, Ichigo doesn't immediately confirm his fears. Instead, he regards Yumichika for a long moment, brown eyes warm and a little sympathetic. At length, he shakes his head. "No," he answers carefully, clearly picking his words—and that's also new, another thing that will take time to adjust to. Yumichika's used to Ichigo stomping right in where angels fear to tread. "I think…most people here have been around you both too long. They're used to seeing you through their own assumptions."

That's rather liberating to hear, and Yumichika will forever deny that he slumps a bit in relief, but that's exactly what he does. "So unbeautiful," he huffs, but his heart isn't in it. From the way Ichigo's looking at him, he notices that, too. Still, there's no pity in his eyes as he nudges Yumichika's sake closer to him and then raises his own.

"Toast?" he asks, and maybe it isn't cheerful, but there's a certain amount of wry humor to it that makes Yumichika sit up straight again.

"To?" he inquires, even as he lifts his own cup, because not wanting to get drunk with Ikkaku and not wanting to get drunk period are two entirely different things. Yumichika is simply the former—he's never in his life been the latter, when faced with the opportunity.

Ichigo snorts self-deprecatingly, but says, "To pining." At Yumichika's blank look of shock, he tips his head at where Renji is draped, giggling and completely plastered, over a long-suffering Kira. When Yumichika manages to drag his gaze back, eyebrows very nearly touching his hairline, Ichigo just shrugs and offers, "I get the whole 'best friends' thing, really."

They're a sorry pair, and Yumichika can't help but laugh, bright and real, for the first time what he knows is far too long. He lifts his cup again, still giggling, and Ichigo does the same, eyes crinkled faintly with shared mirth.

"To pining," they intone together, mockingly solemn, then clink their cups and down their drinks.

"More?" Ichigo asks, already rising to his feet.

"Lots," Yumichika agrees, and feels like the night's finally looking up.

Somehow, they're still (mostly) sober when the night ends, the barman kicking them all out with a disgusted growl. Ikkaku and Renji are largely unconscious, clinging to each other like teddy bears in the dusty street and drooling all over. Yumichika spares them half a glance as he anchors an arm over Ichigo's shoulders, careful of the monstrous cleaver that is Zangetsu, and steels himself for the long trek back to the Eleventh. It makes him feel a bit better that Ichigo, also slightly unsteady on his feet, returns the favor.

"Bastards," the captain mutters, carefully skirting the two wasted men.

"Unbeautiful morons," Yumichika agrees, far more cheerfully than he might have done a few hours ago, picking his way down the street in the faint light of the lamps.

There's a few minutes of comfortable silence between them, easy as they walk, and then Yumichika asks curiously, "Do you like being a captain?" He's been wondering for a while now, because even with Ichigo's maturity and reserve, he's still Ichigo, and there will always be a part of him that's wild and headstrong and reckless—not exactly prime leadership material.

Ichigo hesitates for a moment, and then huffs out a soft breath. "Mostly," he allows, even though he sounds like the admission is being dragged from him. "Everything but the paperwork and the meetings, really. I need a lieutenant, but after Hinamori…" He trails off with a grimace. "No one in the Fifth wants the job."

Yumichika considers that for a moment, hardly even noticing when they bypass the Eleventh Division entirely and head towards the Fifth's barracks. "I can help with the paperwork," he offers, surprising himself even as his brain seizes the idea gleefully, mouth running away with him as he adds quickly, "But in return, teach me bankai."

(Because Yumichika is used to hiding, used to keeping secrets that he's been forced to keep, that he can't control. But this, this will be a secret he chose, not something thrust upon him by fate or chance or fuckery like that. His. And right now, with Ikkaku weighing heavily on his mind and Ruri'iro Kujaku a lead weight at his side, he needs that so very, very much if he wants to stay sane.)

Ichigo doesn't immediately shoot the idea down, but he doesn't leap on it, either. Yumichika looks over to see sharp brown eyes on him, judging and weighing, and tries to meet them steadily. There's a weight to Ichigo's gaze, something that makes Yumichika remember just how damned powerful this lean young man is, just what kinds of monsters he's gone up against. Because while the captains and lieutenants went up against Aizen's followers, his soldiers, Ichigo hurled himself headlong at the very madman in question, the madman and the Hogokoyu, and emerged victorious. Scarred and battered and not without cost to himself, perhaps, but victorious nevertheless.

"Sleep on it," Ichigo says at last, guiding them through the Fifth's gates and into the main building. "Make that offer sober and we'll see."

He leads Yumichika down a long hall and slides open a door at the end, then steps inside. Yumichika follows, taking in the room with curious eyes. It's neat, neater than he expected, but then again he remembers Ichigo's bedroom in the world of the living, not a single book out of place and everything carefully maintained. This place is the same way, clean and open. There's a shoji door leading out to a small garden, standing open to let in the night breeze, and Yumichika can see glimmers of moonlight reflecting off water near the center—a koi pond, most likely.

"Beautiful," he offers, because it feels like he should.

Ichigo snorts softly, shrugging out of his haori and carefully hanging it in the closet, then unabashedly stripping off his shihakusho. "Yeah," he says, a faint, pleased tilt to his lips. "It's home." He rummages in the depths of the closet for a moment, then emerges with two yukatas. "You sleeping here?"

"Apparently." Yumichika studies Ichigo in the moonlight, taking in the long, lean lines of his body and the curve of his impressive musculature. Such a ridiculously big sword is good for something, apparently. His hair's grown out, a little shaggy around the edges, but it suits him, and the lines of his face in the half-light really are beautiful, elegant and entirely masculine in the same moment that they're striking.

It would make sense for Yumichika to be attracted to him, for him to want this boy-turned-man with his power and fire and drive, his ease with himself and his unconscious authority and his martial grace. But even now, with the single futon between them and all of Ichigo's tanned skin visible in the moonlight as he pulls on his yukata, the only thing Yumichika wants is a big, dumb, bald thug with no social graces and the temperament of a mangy stray dog. He has to laugh a little at himself, pressing a hand over his eyes. At this point, it's either laugh or cry, and Yumichika has never been able to cry beautifully.

"Why now?" he asks, equally to himself and Ichigo. "I've lived with this for decades, and now it becomes too much to bear?"

Gentle fingers on his shihakusho startle him, and he drops his hand to meet Ichigo's quietly compassionate gaze. There's steel in it, though, some hardened core of fire and strength and blazing determination. "It happens that way," the captain says, sliding Yumichika's uniform off with entirely impersonal hands—a friend's touch, more than a lover's. "Everything builds until it's got nowhere else to go. You have to either give in to it or get over it, at least until the next time it happens."

One look at Ichigo makes it clear which method of coping he chooses.

Brown eyes meet violet, and then Ichigo says, "I'll ask the old man about having you as my acting lieutenant. We can start training whenever you're ready."

With warmth spreading through his chest, Yumichika takes the offered yukata and slides it on, belting it loosely. Ichigo is already settling down on the futon, tossing the covers back in clear invitation, and Yumichika can't even comprehend how they got from being passing acquaintances to this, but the mere thought of sharing a bed with someone, even to simply sleep, is overwhelmingly lovely. He sinks down onto the mattress with a long sigh, rolling just a bit closer to Ichigo's heat. The captain snorts a little at him, but slides over nevertheless, tucking himself up against Yumichika's side as though they've done this countless times before.

Their foreheads are almost touching, black and orange hair entwined on the single pillow, and Yumichika lets out a long, slow breath and closes his eyes, giving in to sleep more easily that he has in a very long while.

The first light of dawn through the east-facing door wakes Yumichika, because he's always been a morning person. From the faint stirrings of the body in his arms, Ichigo is apparently the same way. Brown eyes flutter open as the captain rolls onto his back, stretching gracefully, and then sits up. There aren't as many lines around his eyes this morning, and though that could be because it's still early, Yumichika would like to think it's for the same reason that he feels so incredibly refreshed, far more so than usual.

"Breakfast?" Ichigo asks as he rises, already stripping off his yukata and starting to pull on his uniform.

"Certainly." Yumichika is glad he isn't the only one reluctant to leave this bit of peace behind, so he nods, sliding out from under the blanket and picking up his own uniform, wrinkling his nose at it. Yesterday's clothes seem to be his only option, though, since Ichigo is both taller and more muscular than he is, and his clothes will likely make Yumichika look as though he's playing dress-up with a parent's shihakusho. So unbeautiful.

They leave together, flash-stepping past the startled eyes of the Fifth's early risers and out into the street. This time, Yumichika takes the lead, heading for a small food stand he and Ikkaku usually stop at when they're in too much of a rush to cook. There are several shinigami already in line, and they shoot the two men confused glances that are definitely not as subtle as they think they are. Ichigo catches Yumichika's gaze and rolls his eyes expressively, and Yumichika has to smother a chuckle. By the time they get to their divisions, the news that Captain Kurosaki and Fifth Seat Ayasegawa ate breakfast together will be all over Seireitei. Yumichika has always delighted in providing fodder for the gossip mills, though, and apparently Ichigo isn't as opposed as one would think, because he's not doing anything to quell the whispers already springing up.

When the stand owner has deposited piles of steaming sweet bean buns in their hands, Ichigo starts walking, and Yumichika falls into step beside him. They meander in peace for a few minutes, no destination in mind, until Yumichika breaks the friendly silence to say, "They're going to make us out to be lovers, you know."

The boy that Kurosaki Ichigo used to be would have spluttered and turned red, but the man he's become simply shrugs. "Probably," he agrees, casting a sideways look at Yumichika. "It might be good for getting a reaction from our idiots, you know."

Yumichika considers that, because he hadn't before. It's true, and the worst thing that could happen would be for them to get no reaction at all, which would be just the same as things now stand. There's really nothing to lose. He nods, agreeing, and drops the paper wrapper in a waste bin on the corner. They're close to the Eleventh, and he offers his arm to Ichigo with a coy flutter of his long lashes. "In that case, Kurosaki, care to walk me to work?"

Ichigo snorts at him in a way that Yumichika's come to learn means he's actually laughing, the repressed bastard, but he slides his arm through Yumichika's and links their elbows. "Why not?" he says with amusement, shaking his head, even as the shinigami passing them on the street turn to stare. "And it's Ichigo."

Yumichika hums cheerfully under his breath, guiding them around the corner and towards the Eleventh, only a few hundred meters away. When they come to a halt, he leans over to press a careful kiss to Ichigo's cheek, and though it's partly for show, his murmured, "Thank you, Ichigo," is entirely heartfelt.

Ichigo regards him for a moment, eyes crinkled in his version of a smile, and then he returns the gesture, lips surprisingly soft against Yumichika's skin. "No," he answers, and it's so very, very kind. "Thank you, Yumichika."

Then he's gone, so fast he doesn't even stir the dust under their feet, too fast to leave even an afterimage behind, and Yumichika smiles to himself as he turns towards his division.