I said quite a while back that I was going to write something that was inspired by a pic that kiiroi yumetobu drew (you know, dear, the smutty one in the kitchen!). Well, I originally meant for this to take place in a kitchen, but it just didn't happen that way…Ah, well! The setting's not that important anyway…he-he.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. Warnings: graphic smex and fluffiness! Also: the title is from a song by The Kills.

And lastly: To my dear editor Jorgmund Piper—Happy Birthday!

U. R. A. Fever

Bam-bam-bam!

Ichigo burrowed further into his fluffy blue comforter in a subconscious attempt to escape the intruding, echoing noise that persisted from somewhere downstairs. It came again, this time louder: BAM! BAM! BAM! "Go away," Ichigo muttered from within his artificial blue cocoon. The cold medicine his dad had given him earlier that day made everything in his head sound like it was underwater, like he was submerged in a lake and could only hear things through thick waves, distant and metallic. "Go away, I wanna sleep," he murmured again with a voice that was laced with sickness and delirium and cough syrup. In response, the sound from below stopped. Pleased, Ichigo allowed himself to drift quietly back into his drug-induced sleep, rolling into a compact ball within his nest of warm robin's egg blue.

The comforter was snatched away, and suddenly there was a blinding yellow light. Ichigo pressed his face into his pillow and said, in a raspy voice, "Gah! Bright light! Ugh! No light! No…"

"Ichigo, why didn't you answer the door?" A very familiar and very annoying voice said from above him.

"Ishida?" Ichigo shielded his eyes with his hands as he looked up. Ishida was frowning down at him with his usual scowl, the burning overhead light haloing his hair in shimmery brightness, turning it a shiny blue-black. Like a raven's wings, Ichigo's drug-addled mind thought, but thankfully he didn't say it out loud. No…instead he said something much worse:

"Uryuu, you look like an angel with that light behind you. Hmm…ha-ha, does that mean I'm dead then?" Ichigo giggled and reached out a hand.

A horrified look crossed Ishida's face, the same look he reserved for hollows and other decidedly detestable things. Ichigo immediately dropped his hand. "Pissy angel," muttered Ichigo, and he drew the comforter back over his head in a petty attempt to escape Ishida's wilting look.

Ishida tugged the blanket back down. Fortunately, the evil look was gone, replaced by one of obvious concern. "Are you on some kind of weird medicine? Look, I came over because you haven't been to school in the last couple of days. Inoue said she heard from your sister that you were sick. I thought maybe you'd been attacked by a hollow…" Ishida allowed the sentence to trail off, and he turned away, but not before Ichigo caught a glimpse of the archer's usually pale face turning into a bright, unfamiliar shade of red.

"Why, Ishida, it almost sounds like you're worried about me," Ichigo said with a lop-sided grin, pushing himself up on his elbows. The statement earned him another withering look.

"We are all worried about you, Kurosaki. Me, Inoue, Chad. All of us. We thought maybe something terrible had happened; you know how reckless you can be, how careless." Ichigo's cloudy brain failed to register that Ishida had gone back to using his last name. What he did notice was the business-like tone of his voice, the way his fingers pushed his glasses up his nose in an annoyed gesture. The tone alone was enough to send Ichigo slinking back into his pillows. He muttered an apology, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you guys worry. It's just a case of the flu. Nothing to concern yourself about." His voice was dead, flat.

He found that he liked it better when he thought it was Ishida visiting him out of concern, coming over because he cared. Just him. No one else. He thought…

Wow! I really am high! Ichigo's other mental voice interjected, the reasonable one. Hmm…that stuff dad gave me must be super-powerful to make me think stupid crap about Ishida like this…

"Where is the rest of your family?" Ishida suddenly asked, drawing him out of his hazy train wreck of a thought. Ichigo had to stop and flip through an unreliable mental rolodex of drug-addled conversations. "They went to the store to buy Karin a new soccer ball. Because I, uh, might have, uh, accidentally punctured the last one with Zangetsu." Ichigo didn't bother to elaborate on that, and thankfully, Ishida didn't ask him about it. He merely nodded as if this were a common occurrence. Then another thought occurred to Ichigo. "Hey, how did you get in here anyway? There was no one around to let you in."

Red crept back across Ishida's pristine white features. "I, uh, well…I might have picked your lock with my sewing needles."

Laughter echoed throughout the room, but quickly degraded into a sickly, ugly cough. Ichigo panted and rasped, "Such…cough…juvenile delinquent behavior, Uryuu…cough…I would have thought…cough…it was beneath you…"

The scowl was back in full force. "I only did it because I was worried about you, you insensitive prick."

Ichigo slid back up on his elbows again. "Because you care so much about me?" The lop-sided grin was back on his face, his pupils dilated with amusement and narcotics. A small voice in the back of his head argued that it was suicide to tease the quick-tempered Quincy this way, but luckily (or unluckily), the drugs in him won out. "And what is this you've brought me, huh?" Ichigo inclined his head toward a small rectangular box that had appeared on his nightstand.

Ishida glared at the box as though it contained something foul. "Well, you're right, it was something for you, but since you're behaving like such a prat—" The archer suddenly snatched up the box and turned to leave, but Ichigo grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down. The dark-haired boy ended up half-sitting, half-reclining on top of him. Ichigo didn't catch the look of undisguised distress on Ishida's face. That, coupled with something else.

Ichigo's full attention was on the box. "So, what do we have here?" he asked. He didn't realize that he still held Ishida's arm in his grip, or that Ishida had gone rigidly still and had practically stopped breathing. Instead, Ichigo flipped open the lid on the box. A look of pure, innocent child-like delight lit up his already bright, feverish features.

"Cupcakes! Ha! I can't believe it!" Ichigo reached in and plucked one of the pastel pink confections from the box. Without conscious thought, he started laughing again, and before life-preserving reason had a chance to intervene, he said: "Uryuu, I can't believe you made me cupcakes! That is so…so…girly! I mean, just like your freakin' sewing and stuff—"

Ichigo stopped speaking at the sight of unchecked, burning fury that crossed the archer's face. It was so potent that Ichigo dropped the boy's arm and shrank back toward the bed's headboard. Without speaking, he watched Ishida snatch up the box, walk to his window, open the sash, and up-end the entire contents of the box outside his window. The cupcakes fell like fluffy, rainbow-colored h-bombs. Ichigo winced as Ishida snapped the glass shut with an angry bang! Then he watched Ishida drop the box, march toward his doorway, muttering under his breath, "You insensitive, ungrateful little shit! I don't even know why I bother…"

Ichigo bounded drunkenly from the bed, flinging his arms out comically in front of the doorway, blocking Ishida's escape. His pupils were as big and as round as vinyl discs. He sputtered helplessly: "I'm sorry, Ishida! I didn't mean it! It's the drugs talking! I don't think you're girly at all! Honest! I don't think—"

"That's the problem, Kurosaki. You never think—"

"You're right. I don't think. I'm terrible at thinking. I'm sick and I'm high and I'm…" Ichigo started moving towards Ishida with his hands up in supplication.

"Kurosaki." There was a warning tone in Ishida's voice as he backed away in response to Ichigo's movements. He was staring at Ichigo's palms with something akin to fear. Ichigo's face fell.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I said I was sorry, didn't I—"

"Ichigo, stop moving—" This time, he actually noticed when Ishida went back to using his first name again.

"Why are you shrinking away like that—"

"Why are you trying to trap me-" Ishida's back hit the front of the cupboard where Rukia sometimes slept.

"I'm not trying to trap you," Ichigo insisted even as he moved in on Ishida. His eyes glittered bright with fever as he placed his hands on the wooden surface on either side of the archer's head. The look of fear was still on Ishida's face as Ichigo moved in closer, murmuring, "Okay, maybe I am, a little." The kiss he bestowed on the Quincy's lips was direct and forceful and completely unplanned, just like all his best attacks were. Ichigo was equally surprised when Ishida began kissing him back, just as hard, the archer's lips equally hot and demanding and burning with a fever all his own. Moments passed and the kiss broke long enough for Ichigo to murmur an apology:

"I'm really sorry about the cupcakes."

In response, Ishida grabbed the front of Ichigo's t-shirt and backed him toward the bed, pushing him down on his back on the mattress. As the archer straddled him, Ichigo muttered, "Jesus, I hope this isn't a drug-induced hallucination," before their lips crashed together again in a violent dance of flesh-on-flesh. Ishida was the first to break the kiss as he sat up and said, with his own eyes glittering wildly, "Still think I'm too 'girly,' do you? I oughta make you pay for all the time that I spent on making those damn things for you."

Ichigo shook his head like he was hooked up to an electro-shock machine. "No, no, no. I swear I didn't mean—hmph!" All thought fled Ichigo's brain as he felt Ishida's nimble fingers begin working at his drawstring: corrupting, invading, teasing him. Ichigo's body vibrated like he was still hooked to that electro-shock machine as he felt those pale, knowing fingers brush freely against the hot skin of his unconfined, straining cock. Every touch, every twitch, seemed amplified by the power of the drugs.

"Touch me harder!" Ichigo rasped as he pushed himself wantonly against Ishida's hand. After a few rough strokes, Ichigo sat up impatiently and grabbed Ishida by his upper arms and flung him over on his back. His big, clumsy hands tore senselessly at the other boy's zipper. "You're right; you're right. I need to pay you back for those," he mumbled feverishly—nonsensically-as he yanked down Ishida's pants and underwear and began to stroke his darkening, bobbing cock. Ichigo stared hazily down at Ishida, who was breathing heavily with his eyes closed, his dark hair splayed across his too-white pillow in an inky oil spill of shiny black. "I still think you look like an angel," Ichigo muttered, his hand working up-down-up-down the other boy's rigid shaft.

"Ichigo, please," Ishida sputtered, his pale hands reaching out to snag Ichigo's fiery hair, pulling him downward. Ichigo understood the wordless request: he bent and wrapped his lips around the other boy's cock and began to suck, pulling on him greedily, tonguing him like he was licking frosting from one of his cupcakes. "Ah…so good." The Quincy muttered above him, his voice filled with a raw, lusty delight, a dark, quaking tone in his voice that Ichigo wasn't used to hearing.

But he thought he could get used to hearing it. More than used to it.

"Almost…almost." The Quincy's words were a distant, watery whisper, and time seemed to slow down as Ichigo's lips, neck, and hands all worked together in a decadent choreography that was meant to make the other boy come. Long-fingered hands as white as lilies pulled roughly at his orange hair. The blue comforter underneath him felt as soft and as fluffy as a cloud. Ishida's low moans played like a secret, erotic symphony in the back of his narcotics-filled head. Being sick and on drugs had never felt so good.

"Ichigo…ah!"

Ichigo's head was spinning like a carousel ride as he felt a hot, slippery sweetness, tangier than cough syrup, slide down the back of his throat. The intense moment was almost ruined when he suddenly shot up and began coughing violently again. Ishida, looking half-dazed, crawled over and began rubbing his shaking back; his glasses were off and the look of concern was back on his face. His eyes were a darker shade of blue than the comforter. "I'm sorry Ichigo. Maybe…uh, maybe that wasn't such a good idea…"

"No…cough...it was an excellent…cough…idea." Ishida continued to look skeptical as Ichigo ceased coughing and slumped listlessly back into the pillows. Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed Ishida's hand and pulled him down beside him, saying, "Hey—will you stay with me for a bit?" Ishida stared at his face but didn't speak. Instead, he turned and laid his head across Ichigo's chest, and that answer alone spoke louder than words.

"I'm sorry again about the cupcakes. What I said was stupid; I'm a complete jackass," Ichigo muttered with his eyes closed. His fingers crept blindly across a sea of fabric, seeking out the long, dark strands of Ishida's hair. It really was just as silky as it looked, confirming one of Ichigo's secret, long-held suspicions. Ishida's voice was little more than a distant, underwater whisper as he said, "I would say that you more than paid me back for those. So let's just call it even, okay?"

Ichigo gave Ishida's shoulder a squeeze and answered sleepily, "'Kay." He pulled the other boy closer to him, his fingers still twined in the dark fall of his hair. "Uryuu, I'm really glad you came to see me today," Ichigo muttered with a sleepy grin. Despite his cold, he was starting to feel one hundred percent better.

It's all because of him, said the little voice of reason in the back of his head. Because he obviously cares for you as much as you do him. And now you no longer have to wait, and wonder…

Ichigo could still feel the lingering heat of a residual fever draped around him like a wool coat, but now it felt more like a sweet, comforting warmth, something he attributed to the living, breathing body that was locked against him. "Stay…" he whispered again to the air one last time, before he quietly drifted away into a calm, peaceful, and utterly dreamless sleep...

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Ichigo was jolted awake by a heavy fist hammering on his bedroom door. He sprang into a sitting position on top of his comforter where he had fallen asleep, his hair sticking up wildy in every direction and a dazed expression on his face. Hands rubbed at sleep-crusted eyes. "Come in," he said in a hoarse voice.

The door crashed open and his dad's burly frame filled the doorway. A beatific (or perhaps sadistic) grin covered the older man's face as he announced: "We're back, Ichigo! Time for more medicine!"

Ichigo stretched languidly like a cat, testing out cramped muscles, touching his own forehead. "It's okay, dad—I think I'm feeling better now."

Isshin looked almost disappointed as he brandished a bottle of sinister-looking cough syrup. "Pity. You say the most amusing things when you're high on this stuff." His dad turned away but then froze in the doorway. "Oh, yey, I almost forgot—this package was left for you by the front door." He walked over and casually dropped a white rectangular box onto Ichigo's bedside table.

Ichigo smiled at the box. "Thanks, dad," he said as the other man retreated from the room, closing the door behind him. Ichigo scooted to the edge of the bed and picked up the box. On the outside was a note, bare and dry and to the point. It said: I made extra. He flipped open the lid. Inside there were a half-dozen, perfectly made pastel-colored cupcakes. The smile on Ichigo's face widened, and he laughed to himself, thinking back to what had happened earlier that day. Not a drug-induced hallucination. He remembered the way Ishida's face had looked as he lay splayed across Ichigo's pillow, his expression one of complete ecstasy as Ichigo sucked him into oblivion. Ichigo's own expression turned wicked at the thought. In his head, he began plotting…

Because, of course, he would have to come up with some wonderfully creative way to pay Ishida back for this new set of cupcakes…

End/Fin.

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