Fair warning: This is a sequel. If you haven't read my other story, Skeletons in the Closet, I would suggest starting there because you might be a little confused and there will be references with little explanation here. Also, that one is done, so you might as well start there and nor have to wait for updates :)

"Nanao-chan," came a singsong voice from around the corner.

She sighed and leaned her head back against the rock behind her. She'd really thought that conversation was going to hold him up longer.

"Lovely, lovely, Nanao-chan," he sang out again. "Where is my most beautiful darling angel?" She wondered briefly if she could drown herself in the hot springs before he found her. "There's my Nanao-chan," he said, finally appearing from behind a building. Too late.

"Kyouraku Taicho," she greeted, not bothering to lift her head from its relaxed position.

"What'd I do now?" he pouted. He always hated when she called him that outside of work, really he hated it at work too, but in the year and a half they'd been together she'd refused to call him anything else in the office.

"You interrupted perfectly good quiet time," she said, lifting her head to glare over at him. He stood at the edge of the hot spring with a white towel slung around his waist looking like a kicked puppy.

"But I hurried just to enjoy the hot springs with my Nanao-chan," he replied, sticking out his bottom lip and looking like a dejected child.

She snorted at this explanation and said, "You hurried to see me naked in the hot springs."

"Well, there was that too," he confirmed grinning.

"You might as well get in," she said, raising a dismissive hand from the water. "Stand there any longer and you'll catch a cold, and then I'll have to put up with you being unbearable and demanding to be waited on hand and foot while you're sick."

"Your life is so hard," he replied in a fake pitying voice as he let his towel drop away and slid into the hot springs across from her. She prided herself on the fact that she no longer had to look away and didn't even blush violently anymore whenever he so casually stripped himself bare, but she still couldn't help the tiny bit of embarrassment she felt every time it happened anywhere other than in total privacy. She'd never been good at nudity as a whole and had mainly avoided public baths, even where the sexes were separated, for the majority of her life. It had been one of the main reasons she'd moved out of the barracks as early as humanly possible.

"People often tell me they feel sorry for me," she agreed as he started moving towards her through the steamy water.

"Then they don't know us very well. They should really feel sorry for me, as all I can do is beg and plead for my warrior princess' good will."

"Your life is so hard," she said, mocking his earlier comment.

He gave a hum of agreement as he leaned over where she was seated and kissed her lips softly. "Hello, love."

"Hi," she said quietly. "I thought you'd be a while longer."

"I managed to get my mother's attention on the fact that Seichii still hasn't produced an heir and slipped out while she was reaming him," he said, kissing the juncture between her neck and her shoulder.

"Why did we have to come here again?" she asked, raking her nails up his chest and settling her hands on his shoulders.

"Because it's a family reunion so we had to come," he explained patiently.

"Ok, clarification, why did I have to come?" she asked.

"Silly Nanao-chan, you are family," he scolded happily.

"I don't see a ring," she said, wiggling the fingers on her left hand.

He captured the moving hand and kissed her knuckles. "That's only because you keep turning me down," he said lightly. "You know, one day I might really get discouraged and stop asking."

"Yeah right," she said rolling her eyes. "You are persistent to the point of exhaustion."

"Marry me," he requested, holding her gaze.

"No," she laughed.

"Come on," he wheedled. "Marry me and have my babies."

"You're only suddenly so insistent on knocking me up because you discovered that rule saying pregnant women aren't allowed out in the field," she said.

"Hey, I want to knock you up because I love you and want little baby Nanaos and Shunsuis," he said smiling. "Having you safe and sound behind the Seireitei walls is just an unexpected added bonus."

"Well, I'm not getting pregnant anytime soon, so keep dreaming," she replied grinning.

"As long as we get to keep practicing," he said, picking her up by her waist and twisting them around so she was sitting straddling his lap.

"We're out in public," she protested.

"It's my family's private hot springs," he said easily.

"Which means any member of your family could walk in at any moment," she clarified.

"They're all old, they go to bed early," he argued.

"You have like two dozen cousins that are around the same age as us, and then about three quarters of them have children," she said, trying to ignore the fact that she was sitting naked in his equally naked lap.

"Nanao-chan worries too much," he said, cutting off her protests with a languid kiss that had her pressing closer to him unconsciously. They carried on this way for a few minutes before they were interrupted.

"Shunsui, are you out here?" his brother's voice called. "You better not be having sex in the hot springs again. I swear to kami if I catch you at it one more time."

"Again?" Nanao whispered, quirking an eyebrow at him and backing up as far as his lap would permit. She'd never been out to his family's country home before, so it certainly wasn't her his brother was referencing. She tried to wiggle further away from him and out of his lap, but he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Nanao," he said softly.

"Let me go," she replied calmly. "If you keep me here then your brother is about to get an eyeful." He looked torn, but after glancing down at her naked form once more, released his hold on her. She made her way over to the side of the hot spring and pulled herself out of the water, wrapping her previously abandoned towel around her. She was just in time too, as his brother rounded the corner.

"There you are," Seichii said, spotting Kyouraku. "Ise-san," he added nodding to her politely, though she could hear the quiet distaste in his tone. Her and Shunsui's brother may have gotten off on the wrong foot during their first meeting, i.e. she set his clothes on fire, and they'd only ever managed to tolerate each other ever since.

"Something you wanted nii-chan?" Shunsui asked sweetly, just to annoy the older man.

"Passing on a message," Seichii explained simply, and then looked at Nanao expectantly.

"Whatever you have to say can be said in front of her," Shunsui said darkly.

"I'm going to bed anyway," she said with a shrug. She really didn't care what the latest family emergency was. For all she knew Seichii just wanted to curse his little brother out in peace for leaving him alone with their mother. Heck, Shunsui probably deserved to be cursed out. Their mother did not take kindly to her two son's lack of children. She'd actually ambushed Nanao about three months into her and Shunsui's relationship, claiming to be taking her out to lunch, but instead dragging her into a healer and making the healer run all sorts of test to make sure she wasn't barren. The only good thing that had come out of that, was that from there on out his mother had decided to blame Shunsui for her not being pregnant instead of her.

"You can stay," Shunsui said firmly.

"But I don't want to," she replied with a laugh. She moved around the pool and moved passed his brother.

"Thank you, Ise-san, for seeing reason," Seichii said, which just rubbed her all sorts of the wrong way.

"I certainly am not doing it for you," she said primly, pulling her towel closer around her in the cool night air.

"Of course not," he agreed coldly.

She sighed as she reached her room. She'd changed in the stalls of the building next to the hot springs before she came back, and she was suddenly rather exhausted. Heading towards the bed she made a face at the blanket folded nicely on top of the covers and shoved it onto the floor before crawling in.

She'd already dozed off a bit when she was woken up to Shunsui entering the room. He moved around a bit in the dark and she heard him sigh heavily. "You can turn on a light if you need," she said tiredly. "I was just barely asleep."

"I'm fine," he said, and she heard cloth rustling as he stripped down to his usual sleepwear.

She murmured an agreement and rolled onto her side closing her eyes again.

"Are you really that angry with me?" he asked quietly.

Surprised by the question, she rolled back over to see him standing in the dark next to the bed holding the blanket she'd shoved onto the ground earlier. "What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Look, I only had sex in the hot springs once and it was way back when I was attending the academy. My brother just likes to think I'm getting it on in there whenever I visit."

"Shunsui," she said tiredly. "If I freaked out every time we were somewhere you'd had sex with someone else sometime in the past, I wouldn't be able to rise from bed due to exhaustion. I'm never happy hearing about it, but I'm not upset at you. I don't know why you even thought that."

"Because you put the blanket on the floor," he said, holding it up like it was proof. "You wanted me to sleep there."

"I shoved that blanket off the bed because it's the one your mother tried to give us earlier," she said lightly. It took a moment for the comment to set in, and then he dropped the thing like he'd been burned.

"Kami, you could have warned me," he said sounding sick.

She just laughed and tugged the covers back for him to crawl in beside her. "I didn't think I would have to."

"It's dark. How am I supposed to be able to tell?"

"Well, I told you to turn a light on," she pointed out.

"Ugh, I feel dirty," he groaned giving an overdramatic shiver. "What part of her brain thought it was alright to give that thing to us?"

"The part that wants grandchildren at any cost," Nanao said with a laugh as she curled into his warm side.

His mother had presented the blanket to them when she'd shown them to their room. She'd said it was a family heirloom that had been passed down since Shunsui's father's grandfather. When Shunsui had asked why he'd never heard or seen it before, she'd replied simply that he hadn't needed it before. Of course Shunsui, being Shunsui, had curiously pressed for further explanation and it had finally come out that his great-grandmother had sewn the thing while she was having problems conceiving, and the first night it was done and on his great-grandparent's bed she'd gotten pregnant. After that it'd been passed down at every immediate Kyouraku family wedding and had been doing a good job keeping the line going. They'd both stared at the thing in Shunsui's hands in horror until his mother added, "Well it obviously hasn't worked for Seichii, but I conceived you two boys just fine with it." To which Shunsui had turned very pale and had thrown the blanket in the corner. His mother had made a big fuss over it, and they'd both bolted from the room at the first opportunity they got.

"I wouldn't be able to even get turned on near that thing, knowing my parents and their parents before them had had sex all over it," he said.

"Well, I'm sure they washed it," Nanao said logically.

"You can't get that sort of thing out with a simple wash," he argued, pulling her closer to him for comfort. "She even made it sound like Seichii's used it."

"Your brother does conform to family traditions more than you do," she stated.

"If I get you pregnant, I'm doing it on fresh blankets that only you and I have slept on," he stated in a matter of fact tone.

"I'm ok with that," she said with a laugh. "Though like I said, not anytime soon."

"Oh don't you worry, I'll find other ways to keep you safely out of the field," he promised.

"You're an overprotective ass," she said sincerely. "What'd your brother want?"

"Mainly to yell at me for pointing out to our mother once again that he had no children, and then also to inform me that my father doesn't believe it is appropriate for you to attend the family function tomorrow as we're not married."

"Do I get to stay here then?" she asked excitedly.

"You could at least try to sound a little offended about it," he whined.

"Oh come on, Shunsui. You don't even want to go, that's why you dragged me along. I'd be more than happy to spend my day reading in the hot springs, while you attend your noble family reunion," she said happily.

"You should come to prove a point," he pouted.

"And what point would that be?" she asked with a small laugh. "The only reason you want me to come is to piss them off further and hope you get sent home."

"It's so boring though, Nanao-chan," he cried.

"Tough, your family, your problem," she replied gleefully. "Oh tomorrow is going to be absolutely wonderful. Do tell your brother and your father thank you for me."

"Oh that will go over real well, since they think they are punishing you for being a commoner," he said.

"Yes, whatever would I do surrounded by nobles?" she mocked. "I might make some terrible faux pas that my high society social life shall never recover from. Woe is I."

He tickled her side then until she gave a little shriek and wiggled away from him. "You are supposed to be on my side and come with," he huffed.

Still laughing she crawled back over to him and laid her head on his chest. "Poor baby," she cooed. "Does he have to face his big scary family all alone? However will he survive?"

"You make jokes, but when you go to visit your brother you just get to attend a drunken riot with a bunch of criminals, so you wouldn't know. You get to have fun at family events," he whined.

She laughed and snuggled closer to him. He'd been deeply upset the first time she'd stumbled home tipsy from visiting her brother and the Yakuza family he worked for out in the Rukongai. When she'd told him she was going to visit her brother that evening he'd thought it'd be like visiting his family, where you all sat around rather stiffly and the servants brought you dinner and tea. Given, he knew her and her brother were rather close and not in the least bit stiff with each other, but he'd still expected her to meet Mamoru for dinner, have a good talk, and come home. What he hadn't counted on was the Higurashi family considering itself extended family, and thus when she'd shown up they'd been in the middle of a party, band, dancing, drinking, and all. She'd had a good time, and when she'd left she'd decided to go to his place and had tripped over a pair of his sandals and broken a vase as she'd reached for something to steady herself when she fell. Of course, that had sent Kyouraku running to her side, but once he'd figured out she was just slightly drunk, he'd just been upset he hadn't been invited along. In her defense, she really hadn't thought it was going to be the entire yakuza family, so she hadn't left him out on purpose. She'd invited him along on subsequent visits, and she was pretty sure he fit in better with the Yakuza then she did.

"It's going to be awful, Nanao-chan, listening to the whole family politely insult each other and argue about money and such," he sighed and her head bobbed with the movement of his chest.

"Oh don't be so overdramatic," she said. "You'll last five minutes of that, and then you'll spend the rest of the day playing games with all your cousins' little children, and you'll be favorite Uncle Shunsui all over again."

Nanao had, over the hundred or so years she'd known him, attended some less formal Kyouraku family events where friends were invited, like weddings, birthdays, and some festivals. She usually spent most of them standing off to the side, as most of the adults in his family wanted little to do with a commoner, bemusedly watching Shunsui roll around and play chase with all the six year olds in his family. Often times she was roped into providing additional traps or special effects for the games by way of simple kido spells, and she'd had her own secret swell of pride when, years ago, the children had clamored for Shunsui to bring her back the next time, not that she'd ever admit that to him. She was very used to being the boring, slightly invisible one in the corner, and it'd been vaguely pathetic that she'd felt as pleased as she did that a bunch of children had wanted her back to play. Her Taicho had, of course, seen right through her, but had merely smiled and said that if she didn't politely agree to attend with him the next time, he'd drag her with him. It'd become a bit of a game itself with her refusing to attend, and him devising various ways to force her. This had all been before they'd started dating though, so she'd had much more anonymity from the adult side of his family, which she had discovered lately had been its own blessing.

"But what will our games be without kido traps and fire dragons lurking around every corner?" he whined. She'd figured out how to make some of her kido hold forms for short periods of time specifically for those children games, though she'd never admit it, and the children had been delighted when a red kido flame dragon and flown out of the bushes.

"I suppose you'll have to supply your own kido," she said smiling.

"Nanao-chan knows I'm too lazy," he replied. "Besides you're better at it then me."

"Well, I don't want to anger your father any further with my presence so I suppose you'll have to manage," she said.

"Liar, you just don't want to attend," Shunsui said with a sigh. "All the kids are going to be miserable too. They're going to force them into their best kimonos and make them sit still."

"I'm sure Uncle Shunsui, will get grass stains on them somehow," she said pushing herself up to grin down at him.

"Come with," he begged. "They won't make a scene until after if you just show up on my arm."

"I don't see what's in it for me," she replied still smiling.

"Your wonderful man's happiness isn't enough?"

"Give you a cup of sake and you're happy," she said. "It's not like it's a difficult thing to do. I'll make you happy some other time."

"I refuse," he said. "I'm going to stay unhappy forever if you don't come." He crossed his arms for emphasis and looked like a giant, scruffy, overgrown pouting six year old.

She laughed and leaned down to kiss the stubble on his cheek. "Somehow I don't believe you," she said. Then she trailed her lips down his throat and her hands across his chest, trying to hold down her chuckle when she felt him tense himself and try not to react to her. She leaned back again and threw a leg over him to straddle his middle and grinned down at him.

"I'm not going to be happy," he said petulantly. "I can't always be distracted by sex you know."

"You mean I have to do it all by myself tonight?" she asked pouting.

"I'm not going to crack," he said narrowing his eyes at her. "We can't even do anything, because my mother placed kido disruptors around the room so we can't use the kido contraceptive spell."

"I believe you were the one who taught me all the fun things we can do without having to worry about that," she said, smirking down at him as she rolled her hips once.

"You have to come with tomorrow," he said again.

"Not a chance," she replied happily. "I'm going to sit in the hot springs unmolested and read. Then at lunch I'll get out and eat some of that delicious food your cook whips up if you degrade yourself enough to enter the kitchen with the serving staff, and then it is right back out to the hot springs. After that, I may have some tea in the late afternoon and take a nap."

"No fair," he whined. "I want to do that too."

"Your family, you have to suffer," she said with a shrug. "In fact this may be the most convincing reason as to why I should never say yes to marrying you."

"Nanao-chan is cruel," he said glaring up at her. Then in one smooth movement he flipped them both over so he was pinning her to the bed, and she just grinned at him in return.

"You could always fake being sick," she offered.

"My mother would see through that," he sighed.

"Well then, you're stuck," she said helpfully. "Now are you really going to pout for the rest of the night? Because in that case I'm going to have my own fun and then go to sleep, so get off."

"Nanao-chan knows I'm not going to sit on the other side of the bed and listen to her play by herself," he said. "Though she is very naughty for thinking of doing as much in my parent's home."

"Says the man who harassed me until I said yes the first time we stayed with them after we got together," she said rolling her eyes. "You are constantly degrading my moral standing."

"Hmm, and it's so much fun," he said leaning down to kiss her.

"Put the blanket on the bed," his mother's voice called through the door. Shunsui basically collapsed on top of her and pressed his face into her neck.

"Please tell me I just hallucinated that," he said.

"Oh, don't fuss so much," his mother called. "I've only been here for a few moments. Just enough to know you aren't a total waste and won't let a woman take care of herself."

"And everyone wonders why I drink?" he grouched.

"Don't mind me," his mother called again. "I'm leaving. Just make sure to stay warm under lots of blankets tonight!" Her footsteps moved away from the door, but neither of them moved.

"Can we both agree the mood was official killed?" Nanao asked running her hands through his hair.

"Stabbed through the gut with a giant zanpaktou," he concurred.

"Well, get off, you're heavy," she said with a laugh. He rolled over and she curled into his side.

"Nanao-chan is still mean, leaving me alone with them," he pouted, curling his arm around her and dragging her closer.

"I'll make it up to you when we go home," she said yawning.

"I'll hold you to that," he said firmly.

"Goodnight, Shunsui," she said lightly.

"Goodnight, sweet Nanao-chan," he replied. "Goodnight, Mom!" he yelled.

They heard a shuffling in the hall, but no other signal that anyone had still been out there.

"Your family makes mine look normal," Nanao said.

"I have an idea. You ask me to marry you, and I'll marry into your side of the family instead," he said.

She just laughed. "You're an idiot."

A/N: So here's the start of what is sure to be another long story. Hope you all like it, and as always reviews help me keep writing :)