Never

Shinji came to consciousness very slowly. Very, very slowly and very, very cautiously. His head ached, but he could remember worse hangovers. His mouth tasted like he’d been sucking on rotten eggs all night. His hair was wet, but after a second’s panicked consideration he decided he didn’t smell piss, so he relaxed. Opened his eyes. Very. Slowly. As his vision focused, he could make out a ceiling fan. This was either the kitchen or the bathroom. He went over his checklist before moving. Nothing was on fire, he didn’t feel like he was bleeding, and he did seem to be wearing pants.

Excellent.

***

Rukia stumbled across the floor of the warehouse. Not because she was still drunk, which she was, but because there were so many people and so much trash in the way. She came to a clear box and sat on the edge, scanning the nearest people for signs of life. Chad was sitting quietly on a stool across from her box. He didn’t look the slightest bit intoxicated or hungover.

“Did you have a wild night as well?” she asked conversationally.

“No. The best part of these parties is staying sober and watching those who drink make fools of themselves.” He pointed. “Like those two.”

Rukia turned her head to follow in the direction he indicated. Her own division’s lieutenants were sprawled across a box, unconscious, wearing each others' clothes. Rukia had to admit, Sentaro didn’t look bad in Kiyone’s kimono. Too bad they hadn’t worn their regular uniforms to the party, or it wouldn’t have been noticeable.

***

Hanataro came to soaking wet in an empty bathtub, curled up with a green haired girl who was snoring softly. He closed his eyes and hoped his Captain wouldn’t need to use this bathroom before he managed to get up.

***

Orihime was sitting at the kitchen table with her head down when she felt someone nudge her shoulder. She raised her head and looked around blearily, thankful that there were no lights on.

Hirako Shinji was standing unsteadily behind her, holding two cups of sake and offering her one.

“Nothing kills a hangover like getting drunk again.” He said with an agonized grin. She took the cup with the best smile she could manage. It couldn’t possibly make things worse at this point, right? Shinji took a sip from his own glass and grimaced painfully. “Ow—oh, shit. Shit!”

“What’s wrong?” she croaked, taking a sip from her own glass. It tasted normal to her. Shinji, however, ran two fingers through his mouth, his bloodshot eyes widening.

“My tongue ring is missing.”

***

Ishida, Ichigo and Nemu carefully helped themselves and each other down the main stairwell without any of them falling once. Ishida was more at himself than the others, so he led the way, with Ichigo clinging to the fabric of his blue shirt and Nemu close behind, gripping the railing. When they got to the bottom and turned into the main floor they almost ran into Shinji, who was in a panic. Inoue was behind him, straightening her skirts.

“Hirako has swallowed his tongue ring.” She said. She had a cup of sake in her hand. To Ishida, that seemed the logical cure for all this fuzzy stumbling around they were doing. Sure, he knew it would only make things worse in the end. But at this point, who cared about the end?

“No, I think he took it out when he was making out with Sarugaki.” Said Ichigo, and Ishida nodded in agreement.

Shinji turned white with horror and flew up the stairs three at a time. Ichigo rather hoped that Hiyori remembered as little as Shinji did.

***

Rose just couldn’t stand a mess. After he showered, dressed, and combed out his hair, he went downstairs and started picking up the remnants of last night’s party. He got all the glasses and cups in the dishwasher, and had tossed out three trash bags of cigarette butts, beer cans and paper plates. He recruited Kurosaki and a small dark-haired girl who was with him to sweep the floors. They did so carefully, cups of sake in one hand and brooms in the other. Several others had awakened as well and organized themselves, and it appeared Love was handing out more alcohol. Well, if the celebration was going to continue, at least it wouldn’t be in such a mess.

***

Shinji raced up to Hiyori’s room only to find she wasn’t there. Kensei and a younger shinigami with a 69 tattooed on his face were asleep in the floor though, covered with a plastic Twister mat. If they were lucky, at least one of them would wake up before Lisa found them.

He found Hiyori in his own room, wearing only a purple t-shirt and panties, asleep on the foot of his bed. He shut the door behind him, and walked up a little closer. She was so much cuter when she was asleep and not screaming at anyone. His tongue ring was sitting innocently on the nightstand. He picked it up and snapped it in with one hand,then looked back at Hiyori. Had he really made out with her? On the one hand, he hadn’t had any action in a long time. On the other, it was Hiyori, and that was fucking dangerous. Either way, he hoped she didn’t remember any more than he did.

Shinji tossed a spare blanket over her and laid down on the bed next to her. Perhaps a couple hours sleep would settle his nerves, and then he could get up and have breakfast. Hiyori curled up to his side with a soft mumble, but he was too afraid to move away lest he wake her.

Outside, somebody turned the music back on.

***

When the music woke him, Byakuya got up from the couch where he’d been dozing with Ukitake and Shunsui and walked out onto the main warehouse floor. From the sunlight flooding through the windows, he guessed it was around noon. Someone had been cleaning up the mess, and there were a few people sitting around with bottles and cups on the mass of boxes. It looked like the chaos was about to start over. Byakuya had just made up his mind to leave when he walked around a corner to find his sister dancing with a broom. Well. He couldn’t exactly take her back to Seireitei like that.

***

Renji was lying on a bench somewhere with a lot of smoke. Hinamori was sprawled across him, sleeping soundly. Renji looked down at her face quietly; she was a little flushed, but she looked pretty much ok and as cute as she ever was.

The dark haired Vizard girl with the glasses wandered by and took a few snapshots of them with a very small camera, then stuck it in her pocket and went on her way. Renji frowned. They were both fully clothed, right? Yes, they were. No harm, no foul.

But what would happen if Hitsugaya walked by? Renji started to sweat.

***

Rangiku checked that all her clothes were in their proper place and crawled out from underneath the table, using the chair legs and backs for balance. Kyoraku and Ukitake were asleep together on a couch nearby, Ukitake's head resting in Kyoraku's lap. Komamura was sprawled out on the floor, covered in something red and sticky looking that was too thick to be blood. *It's going to be a bitch getting that out of his fur.* On the other side of the room was a wide, shallow plastic tub filled with that same red mushy stuff that he was covered in. Rangiku knew she should just walk away from it, but curiosity got the best of her as always, and she knelt down next to the little pool, brow furrowed.

It was marinara sauce.

***

Hangovers were not beautiful, but the sight of Ikkaku on his hands and knees and vomiting into a shower stall was absolutely priceless. He let his forehead fall to land in the puddle of puke that was slowly swirling down the drain, and pulled his knees up underneath him in a child's pose.

Yumichika splashed some water on his own face from the sink, then turned the shower on to cool off Ikkaku's head. He muttered something incoherent and vile at Yumichika, but either couldn't or wouldn't move from where he was. Well, that was his own problem. People should know how much liquor they can hold, just as they should know their limits on the battle field. As often as Ikkaku drank sake with Iba when they were supposed to be training, one would think he of all people would not have this sort of problem. Perhaps this would be a good lesson for him.

Yumichika examined himself in the mirror. He combed his fingers through his glossy hair, straightened his feathers. His face and clothes were clean and dry. He was certainly in better shape than most everybody else here, and that was a beautiful thing.

***

Rukia's chin was bleeding. A lot. Ichigo wasn't sure what had happened, but he thought it had something to do with a bookcase and a tube of wasabi. She walked straight toward him, eyes as clear and steps as sure as if she hadn't had a drop of alcohol. She was shouting something at him, but he couldn't hear her over the music, so he took her by her free hand (the other one was gripping a bottle of cheap whiskey) and dragged her off to find a first-aid kit before Byakuya saw.

***

Lisa wandered upstairs with her camera to find Nanao and a white haired boy (wasn't he the 10th captain?) asleep against the railings outside the nearest bathroom. They both looked quite a bit younger with their hair in disarray and their grumpy faces off. Click. Inside the bathroom, Mashiro and a dark haired boy were asleep in the bathtub. Click.

Downstairs in the kitchen, the girl with the hairclips was trying to offer Soi Fon a glass of water. Soi Fon merely banged her head on the table in despair and shame. Click. Yoruichi in cat form was sitting calmly on the counter, lapping daintily at a small bowl of gin. Click, click.

***

They never found a first aid kit, but they did find Ishida in a game of Twister with Nemu, Love and Yachiru, and he agreed to step out and sew Rukia up.

Ichigo was as impressed as ever when Ishida pulled from nowhere that little sewing kit that somehow held so much *stuff* in it. (Seriously, where did he keep it?) Ishida instructed Ichigo to restrain Rukia, so he sat on the floor and yanked her down across his lap. Hmmm. She looked somewhat skeptical, but he locked her arms behind her and wrapped one of his own around her neck in a loose headlock.

They watched quietly while Ishida sterilized his sharpest needle and a length of black silk thread by pouring half a bottle of vodka he'd found on the floor over them. He poured some on his hands as well, and wiped some across Rukia's chin for good measure. Then he knelt down in front of them and instructed Ichigo to hold her a little tighter.

"Is the headlock really necessary?" she asked. Ishida tipped her head back onto Ichigo's shoulder and inspected the cut with a frown. Her little wrists twisted experimentally in his hand, and she pressed back against his chest as Ishida's face got closer to hers. They both smelled of booze.

"Well, I don't have anything for pain, and it's going to hurt quite a bit." Ishida said, pressing the cut closed with two fingers. Ichigo's own bottom lip twinged when he saw the needle glint cheerfully in the bright afternoon sunlight pouring in from the windows; that looked... sharp. Ichigo wondered if this may be a bad idea since they were all so messed up.

"Yeah," he added, to cover his own nervousness. "Can't have you jerking away and tearing the stitches out when it smarts, right?"

"It's ok." she told them frankly. "I can take it like a man."

***

Shinji and Hiyori were asleep together in Shinji's bed, tangled up in spare covers. Click. Hiyori wasn't wearing pants, and her fingers were closed tightly on Shinji's checkered tie. Click, click. And her hair had come down. Flash.

Shinji opened his eyes briefly, but couldn't move without waking Hiyori, which would be disastrous.

"I hate you so much." he mouthed soundlessly at Lisa.

"I know." she replied just as soundlessly, and shut the door behind her with a grin of satisfaction.

***

"Princess is going to be really mad about your face." Renji observed, leaning down over Rukia. Ishida had made six neat stitches across the cut, which was still bleeding a little. Renji had found them and the Twister game in his search for his captain, who was nowhere to be found. Somehow finding Rukia imprisoned across Ichigo's lap hadn't really surprised him.

"I'm not scared of Princess." she replied, and used his sleeve as leverage to climb off of Ichigo. "He can't protect me from everything, can he? He couldn't protect me from Espada Nine. He can't protect me from myself. And he can't protect me from wasabi." She nodded to herself as if this were one of the deepest truths of the universe, and took another drink of whiskey.

***

Lisa passed by a giant of a man wearing the haori of the 11th Division's captain. He was crouching under a table with a stuffed lion, looking a little shell-shocked.

Click.

***

Hinamori found a group of Vizard and Shinigami in the back room, again around the round table with shot glasses and bottles set up.

"We're carrying on." Kyoraku told her. "Rose sent someone out for more alcohol, so have a seat."

Ukitake was next to him, looking somewhat weary but cheerful all the same. Hinamori wondered briefly where his lieutenants were, but she suspected he'd ditched them. She couldn't really blame him; it wasn't as if a grown man of his standing needed a babysitter all the time, much less two of them.

Inoue Orihime sat next to her, and briefly Urahara Kisuke and Shihoun Yoruichi arrived (at least, that's who Hinamori thought they were. She was still learning names, and she was still a little hungover) with boxes and bags of bottles and cans in tow.

"Shall we begin with our friend from the Real World?" Urahara asked kindly, looking around? Yoruichi sat on a box behind him with a bottle of something blue.

"Okay." said Inoue shyly, her face reddening. "I've never.... fought with a sword."

Everyone took a drink but her. Hinamori thought this might turn out to be a long game.