FIC: Chicken Soup For The Shinigami Soul [collection of drabbles]
Title: Chicken Soup For The Shinigami Soul
Chapter Title: {Those Who Wait}
Author: Cella [stereotype_vamp]
Fandom:BLEACH
Ship: Renji/Orihime
Challenge: The Make Seren Feel Better With A Drabble Challenge! [unique]
Prompt: butterflies
General Summary: Inoue Orihime is widely regarded as a dangerous cook. However, there is one thing no-one can deny. She always makes the best chicken soup. On the importance of being well fed, listened to, and on having a shoulder to cry on.
Chapter Summary: They’re like a butterfly. Worm, cocoon, butterfly. RENJI. ORIHIME. On how good things happen to those who wait, and how broken-hearted people shouldn’t make metaphors.
Spoilers: Vague over-all spoilers. Let’s say, basically, post-Soul Society arc.
Dedications: To ran_huo, who knows when to prod me to write, and who dug my whole for this fandom, making it so deep that now I can’t get out. Not sure I want to get out. Seren, every time you feel bad (and even when you don’t), expect a drabble here.
A/N: This will be a collection of drabbles, with different ships, or no ships at all. The chapters are not related to each other. At all. And Orihime might, or might not appear in each of them. But then again, she might. You might find that many of them are AU. Live to deal with that.
{Those Who Wait}
The rain outside shouldn’t be as comforting as it is.
The sound it makes is soothing, because he’s listening to said sound from the confines of Inoue-san’s apartment. It’s warm inside. There’s a towel draped over his shoulder, and one over his hair. He knows he should be drying himself off, but he doesn’t want to. Not yet. It’s so awkwardly peaceful inside here, it shouldn’t feel so right to be inside here, but then again a lot of things aren’t right.
It’s not right, not fair that Rukia’s off somewhere, all heart-eyed over Ichigo. It’s not right, because that should have been him, dammit. He had worked so hard for that, why couldn’t Rukia realise? Didn’t she notice he had joined the Shinigami for her, trained for her, came back for her, lived for her, breathed for her? He had. Had. Past tense.
Because it’s a fucked up world, and the stray dogs like him only bark at the stars, they never reach them. And Renji probably never will. He shouldn’t be here, he remembers. It’s not right, that it had to be Orihime the one to find him, sitting on a bench, rain pouring down on him. Orihime, who probably felt the same as he did, he muses. After all, wasn’t she in love with Ichigo? Now look at her, look at them, all heartbroken. Feh, love. Renji didn’t really need love, anyway. What he really needs is--
“Ah, here you go, Abarai-kun!” Orihime says, placing a steaming plate in front of him.
--something that looks suspiciously like…chicken soup.
“Do you need some dry clothes, maybe?” Orihime asks. “Um…I don’t think I have any boy-clothes, but I guess there’s a spare bathrobe somewhere. I’ll go fetch it!” And she leaves before Renji can protest that he doesn’t need boy-clothes. He’s a man. Right. A man who’s ready to cry (a bit) because the (former) love of his life is now jumping into his (still) enemy’s arms. Yes, he is a man.
“Here you go,” Orihime says, placing the dry bathrobe around his shoulders. She giggles down at him.
“What?” he snaps.
“Abarai-kun looks like a Taichou like that,” she murmurs, avoiding his eyes. He looks down at himself, and notices the bathrobe is white, and that, indeed, with it draped around his shoulders like so, over his (admittedly wet) Shinigami robes, he looks just like a Taichou.
He smiles bitterly, because he doubts he’ll ever be a Taichou, because he thinks it’s pathetic, the way his heart beats harder when he sees the admiration in Orihime’s eyes. Still, he decides he’ll change into the bathrobe later. There’s soup waiting. “Is this chicken soup?” he asks.
“Yep,” Orihime nods. “And it’s safe to eat it, it’s not poisoned, and I didn’t add any of my ingredients, I swear.” She pinches her cheek, and blushes. “I…I know what the others think of my cooking, but this one isn’t weird. Honest.”
Renji blinks at her once, and shrugs. “I never said it would bother me,” he says, and takes a spoonful. It’s… “Whoa…”
“What? Is it bad? I can make something else, but I just thought you’d like something warm! Maybe tea? Or…or hot chocolate, or something--”
“Orihime.”
“--else…yes?”
“It’s…wow,” he breathes out, and continues eating. The way he downs the bowl of soup, like a hungry wolf, makes Orihime realise he likes it. Either that, or he’s particularly masochistic. Which Abarai-kun never is.
“Thank you,” she murmurs, settling down across of him, and eating her from own bowl.
Renji pauses and looks up from his plate. “Wha’ fo’?” he asks, spoon hanging from between his lips. (He’d lick the spoon if it wouldn’t make him look like an idiot.)
“For liking it.”
“Ah.” But that’s not it, right? She’s not thanking him for that. “Now seriously.”
Orihime blushes, and looks at the wall behind him as she speaks. “I guess…I guess it wouldn’t have been a nice night, tonight…if Abarai-kun weren’t here. I don’t…I don’t think I’d have been okay, if I had been alone…tonight.”
Renji removes the spoon from his mouth, and tilts his head to the right. He studies her, head to waist, and offers her a grin. “Yeah,” he admits. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have been okay either.”
Orihime nods solemnly. “It’s better, with company.”
“Strength in numbers,” he mutters. He remembers this from his early days in the Sereitei, and it’s nostalgic because it reminds him of back when Rukia could’ve been his. Only not. Because Rukia was no one’s to begin with. Other people were hers, maybe.
“I’m happy for them,” Orihime murmurs, after she finishes her soup.
Renji’s head snaps up, and he glares at her. “Bullshit.”
Orihime looks up at him, eyes wide. “I am!” she presses. “I’m happy. They’re my friends, and they deserve being happy, even if it’s together!”
Renji sneers at her, standing up to lean over the table. “Liar. Deep down, you know you’re the one who’s supposed to be with him. She’s been here less than you, you’ve always been there for him. You’ve followed him to the Soul Society, at the risk of your life. You’re what you are, in danger of dying every day now, because of him. You should be there with him, because you were there first. You held him, or tried holding him when he was hurt, you’ve loved him for longer.”
Orihime’s eyes are filled with hurt, and pity, and compassion. “Abarai-kun…are you still speaking of me, now? Or are you speaking of yourself?”
“Feh.” He bites back his sneer, and pokes her between the eyes. “Stop being so good to them. You deserve to bitch out. You’ll snap if you don’t.” And what a sight it would be, red hair flowing all around her, energy flowing, clothes fluttering, and those eyes, harsh, steel, hurt and strong…he shouldn’t feel as attracted to the image as he does, and yet still.
“We’ll get over it, eventually,” Orihime voices. “It hurts now, but it’ll end well, you’ll see. Good things come to those who wait.”
“We’ve waited, Orihime. And look,” he says, pointing at the window, an allusion to Rukia and Ichigo being out there, somewhere. “Tell me how this is good?”
“We’ll just have to wait longer.” She sighs. “You should change into dry clothes.” She stands up. “I’ll go get some more soup.” She walks towards the kitchen door, and stops. She turns around, and looks at him, determined, that rage skimming under the surface. “I am happy for them.” She leaves.
Neither she nor Renji believe that lie.
----------
Orihime makes kick-ass chicken soup.
If anyone asks Renji why he visits her apartment so often in the evening, that’s his answer. The food. The food, the shoulder to ‘cry’ on. The fact that Orihime gets it. She’s been there, done that, got the T-shirt. The fact that there’s strength in numbers, and even if they’re just two, they’re thinking of putting up a club for the broken-hearted. For those who have been loving a person only to see them go off with someone else. Someone new.
The club idea is deserted after the first week, however. After the first week, their discussions have stopped being short-tempered, edgy and sad, focusing around Ichigo or Rukia. They start talking about everything and anything. They’re like a butterfly.
Small worm. When they’re hurt, hurt like hell, but still strong. Determined to get over it. So they eat, and eat, and eat their sorrow, or share it with each other over a bowl of chicken soup. Because they can’t have who they had wanted most, because he’s a stray dog who’ll always bark at stars, and she’s a flower-girl who’ll never reach the strawberries. Because they’re silly in the way the spit out those metaphors and comparisons, and because it fits anyhow.
Cocoon. When they surround themselves with silken walls, and grow. Grow relationship-wise. When they get to know each other, when Renji starts coming over for more than just chicken soup, when Orihime finds herself looking forward to a cup of tea with him. When Renji decides that one day it’s too sunny for them to stay inside and whine, so he takes her to a park; and that’s when they start being friends. When Orihime knows Renji is coming from the noise he makes, running down the street. When Renji knows Orihime’s in danger, and runs to find her.
Butterfly. When he realises Rukia is still in his heart, but not like before. When Orihime realises Ichigo and Rukia being together doesn’t hurt that much anymore. When he realises he’d place himself in front of an offensive sword for her. When he does just that. And when she heals him, later, crying because he was an idiot, and silently realising she’d have done the same. When he brushes her tears away. When he kisses her, and she kisses back. And it’s better now, because they became friends over bowls and bowls of chicken soup, and fell in love, and sealed with blood and devotion. It’s better, because Orihime was right. Good things happen to those who wait. And they’ve waited long enough.
It’s their turn now.
::end::
:
:
::a butterfly’s life is short, but theirs in eternal::
Chapter Title: {Those Who Wait}
Author: Cella [stereotype_vamp]
Fandom:BLEACH
Ship: Renji/Orihime
Challenge: The Make Seren Feel Better With A Drabble Challenge! [unique]
Prompt: butterflies
General Summary: Inoue Orihime is widely regarded as a dangerous cook. However, there is one thing no-one can deny. She always makes the best chicken soup. On the importance of being well fed, listened to, and on having a shoulder to cry on.
Chapter Summary: They’re like a butterfly. Worm, cocoon, butterfly. RENJI. ORIHIME. On how good things happen to those who wait, and how broken-hearted people shouldn’t make metaphors.
Spoilers: Vague over-all spoilers. Let’s say, basically, post-Soul Society arc.
Dedications: To ran_huo, who knows when to prod me to write, and who dug my whole for this fandom, making it so deep that now I can’t get out. Not sure I want to get out. Seren, every time you feel bad (and even when you don’t), expect a drabble here.
A/N: This will be a collection of drabbles, with different ships, or no ships at all. The chapters are not related to each other. At all. And Orihime might, or might not appear in each of them. But then again, she might. You might find that many of them are AU. Live to deal with that.
{Those Who Wait}
The rain outside shouldn’t be as comforting as it is.
The sound it makes is soothing, because he’s listening to said sound from the confines of Inoue-san’s apartment. It’s warm inside. There’s a towel draped over his shoulder, and one over his hair. He knows he should be drying himself off, but he doesn’t want to. Not yet. It’s so awkwardly peaceful inside here, it shouldn’t feel so right to be inside here, but then again a lot of things aren’t right.
It’s not right, not fair that Rukia’s off somewhere, all heart-eyed over Ichigo. It’s not right, because that should have been him, dammit. He had worked so hard for that, why couldn’t Rukia realise? Didn’t she notice he had joined the Shinigami for her, trained for her, came back for her, lived for her, breathed for her? He had. Had. Past tense.
Because it’s a fucked up world, and the stray dogs like him only bark at the stars, they never reach them. And Renji probably never will. He shouldn’t be here, he remembers. It’s not right, that it had to be Orihime the one to find him, sitting on a bench, rain pouring down on him. Orihime, who probably felt the same as he did, he muses. After all, wasn’t she in love with Ichigo? Now look at her, look at them, all heartbroken. Feh, love. Renji didn’t really need love, anyway. What he really needs is--
“Ah, here you go, Abarai-kun!” Orihime says, placing a steaming plate in front of him.
--something that looks suspiciously like…chicken soup.
“Do you need some dry clothes, maybe?” Orihime asks. “Um…I don’t think I have any boy-clothes, but I guess there’s a spare bathrobe somewhere. I’ll go fetch it!” And she leaves before Renji can protest that he doesn’t need boy-clothes. He’s a man. Right. A man who’s ready to cry (a bit) because the (former) love of his life is now jumping into his (still) enemy’s arms. Yes, he is a man.
“Here you go,” Orihime says, placing the dry bathrobe around his shoulders. She giggles down at him.
“What?” he snaps.
“Abarai-kun looks like a Taichou like that,” she murmurs, avoiding his eyes. He looks down at himself, and notices the bathrobe is white, and that, indeed, with it draped around his shoulders like so, over his (admittedly wet) Shinigami robes, he looks just like a Taichou.
He smiles bitterly, because he doubts he’ll ever be a Taichou, because he thinks it’s pathetic, the way his heart beats harder when he sees the admiration in Orihime’s eyes. Still, he decides he’ll change into the bathrobe later. There’s soup waiting. “Is this chicken soup?” he asks.
“Yep,” Orihime nods. “And it’s safe to eat it, it’s not poisoned, and I didn’t add any of my ingredients, I swear.” She pinches her cheek, and blushes. “I…I know what the others think of my cooking, but this one isn’t weird. Honest.”
Renji blinks at her once, and shrugs. “I never said it would bother me,” he says, and takes a spoonful. It’s… “Whoa…”
“What? Is it bad? I can make something else, but I just thought you’d like something warm! Maybe tea? Or…or hot chocolate, or something--”
“Orihime.”
“--else…yes?”
“It’s…wow,” he breathes out, and continues eating. The way he downs the bowl of soup, like a hungry wolf, makes Orihime realise he likes it. Either that, or he’s particularly masochistic. Which Abarai-kun never is.
“Thank you,” she murmurs, settling down across of him, and eating her from own bowl.
Renji pauses and looks up from his plate. “Wha’ fo’?” he asks, spoon hanging from between his lips. (He’d lick the spoon if it wouldn’t make him look like an idiot.)
“For liking it.”
“Ah.” But that’s not it, right? She’s not thanking him for that. “Now seriously.”
Orihime blushes, and looks at the wall behind him as she speaks. “I guess…I guess it wouldn’t have been a nice night, tonight…if Abarai-kun weren’t here. I don’t…I don’t think I’d have been okay, if I had been alone…tonight.”
Renji removes the spoon from his mouth, and tilts his head to the right. He studies her, head to waist, and offers her a grin. “Yeah,” he admits. “Yeah, I wouldn’t have been okay either.”
Orihime nods solemnly. “It’s better, with company.”
“Strength in numbers,” he mutters. He remembers this from his early days in the Sereitei, and it’s nostalgic because it reminds him of back when Rukia could’ve been his. Only not. Because Rukia was no one’s to begin with. Other people were hers, maybe.
“I’m happy for them,” Orihime murmurs, after she finishes her soup.
Renji’s head snaps up, and he glares at her. “Bullshit.”
Orihime looks up at him, eyes wide. “I am!” she presses. “I’m happy. They’re my friends, and they deserve being happy, even if it’s together!”
Renji sneers at her, standing up to lean over the table. “Liar. Deep down, you know you’re the one who’s supposed to be with him. She’s been here less than you, you’ve always been there for him. You’ve followed him to the Soul Society, at the risk of your life. You’re what you are, in danger of dying every day now, because of him. You should be there with him, because you were there first. You held him, or tried holding him when he was hurt, you’ve loved him for longer.”
Orihime’s eyes are filled with hurt, and pity, and compassion. “Abarai-kun…are you still speaking of me, now? Or are you speaking of yourself?”
“Feh.” He bites back his sneer, and pokes her between the eyes. “Stop being so good to them. You deserve to bitch out. You’ll snap if you don’t.” And what a sight it would be, red hair flowing all around her, energy flowing, clothes fluttering, and those eyes, harsh, steel, hurt and strong…he shouldn’t feel as attracted to the image as he does, and yet still.
“We’ll get over it, eventually,” Orihime voices. “It hurts now, but it’ll end well, you’ll see. Good things come to those who wait.”
“We’ve waited, Orihime. And look,” he says, pointing at the window, an allusion to Rukia and Ichigo being out there, somewhere. “Tell me how this is good?”
“We’ll just have to wait longer.” She sighs. “You should change into dry clothes.” She stands up. “I’ll go get some more soup.” She walks towards the kitchen door, and stops. She turns around, and looks at him, determined, that rage skimming under the surface. “I am happy for them.” She leaves.
Neither she nor Renji believe that lie.
----------
Orihime makes kick-ass chicken soup.
If anyone asks Renji why he visits her apartment so often in the evening, that’s his answer. The food. The food, the shoulder to ‘cry’ on. The fact that Orihime gets it. She’s been there, done that, got the T-shirt. The fact that there’s strength in numbers, and even if they’re just two, they’re thinking of putting up a club for the broken-hearted. For those who have been loving a person only to see them go off with someone else. Someone new.
The club idea is deserted after the first week, however. After the first week, their discussions have stopped being short-tempered, edgy and sad, focusing around Ichigo or Rukia. They start talking about everything and anything. They’re like a butterfly.
Small worm. When they’re hurt, hurt like hell, but still strong. Determined to get over it. So they eat, and eat, and eat their sorrow, or share it with each other over a bowl of chicken soup. Because they can’t have who they had wanted most, because he’s a stray dog who’ll always bark at stars, and she’s a flower-girl who’ll never reach the strawberries. Because they’re silly in the way the spit out those metaphors and comparisons, and because it fits anyhow.
Cocoon. When they surround themselves with silken walls, and grow. Grow relationship-wise. When they get to know each other, when Renji starts coming over for more than just chicken soup, when Orihime finds herself looking forward to a cup of tea with him. When Renji decides that one day it’s too sunny for them to stay inside and whine, so he takes her to a park; and that’s when they start being friends. When Orihime knows Renji is coming from the noise he makes, running down the street. When Renji knows Orihime’s in danger, and runs to find her.
Butterfly. When he realises Rukia is still in his heart, but not like before. When Orihime realises Ichigo and Rukia being together doesn’t hurt that much anymore. When he realises he’d place himself in front of an offensive sword for her. When he does just that. And when she heals him, later, crying because he was an idiot, and silently realising she’d have done the same. When he brushes her tears away. When he kisses her, and she kisses back. And it’s better now, because they became friends over bowls and bowls of chicken soup, and fell in love, and sealed with blood and devotion. It’s better, because Orihime was right. Good things happen to those who wait. And they’ve waited long enough.
It’s their turn now.
::end::
:
:
::a butterfly’s life is short, but theirs in eternal::