Title: Yarn.

Universe: Bleach

Genre: Crackfic

Pairing, Characters: mild Ichigo/Renji, Zangetsu, Rukia, and Hichigo (off screen)

Rating: G

Word Count: 1441

Summery: Hichigo gets a new hobby.

A/N: Loosely inspired by Akuni's Covent. It occurred to me that so many of Ichigo's problems could have been solved if only Hichigo had a non-killing-people hobby.

The biggest problem Ichigo had with his own personal hollow wasn't the fact that the bastard was just waiting for him to screw up so he could displace him. It wasn't that the damn thing was a hollow, and therefore likely to attempt to harm his friends and relatives. It wasn't even that on a deep level he knew that the cursed thing wasn't actually an independent being, that it was nothing more than the dark half of his own soul and that its bloodlust and ambition were actually his own. No, the biggest problem was that sometimes he couldn't tell the difference between his thoughts, and the hollow's.

Now, over the years Ichigo had learned how to identify them. For example, if he found himself looking at a particularly powerful plus soul and feeling a tad…hungry he knew that was his hollow, and could shove that weird hunger back into the back of his mind were it fucking belonged. (or, better yet, grab the guys and go out for Korean barbeque later) If he found himself facing a powerful opponent and thinking the bastard would be fucking easy (eh King?) to take down, if only he let loose a little, let go of all that control and shit and…

Well, he knew that was only the hollow, itching for a fight.

So he was a bit surprised to find himself one day while watching movies at Ishida's eying the Quincy's latest project, and thinking shoulda used self-striping yarn.

Ichigo had no idea what the fuck self-striping yarn even was.

After that he started noticing more weirdness. Like the time Rukia dragged him to the bookstore to look for the latest volume of whatever drug-of-choice she had going this week and found himself wandering over to the magazines and actually flipping open a copy of some weird knitting mag, something with a title like Xtreme Knits or some such shit. He forced himself to put it down almost immediately--he was not interested. At all. That was Ishida's thing, and Ichigo would rather let Orihime cook for him then take up one of the Quincy's hobbies.

There was more stuff, like glancing at a woman's sweater and thinking store bought. Which, yeah, it was. So what? Why would he care? Or the time on patrol with Renji when they passed a 24 hour fabric store (he was amazed to discover that Ishida was right, they did exist. Beyond weird) and glanced at a sign and thought yarn and needle sale. Or looking at Byakuya's scarf and having the weird feeling that he, or rather, some very distant and rather hollow part of himself had some idea how that thing was made and how much it must have cost.

He had no idea a stupid scarf could be that expensive. The hell.

It all came to a head one day while he was in bed with Renji back in Soul Society, stroking the redhead's hair, and found himself thinking that it was just too damn bad that they just couldn't dye wool that color, silk yeah, but wool's warmer. Which was, well, weird.

Very, very weird.

So weird in fact that he actually forced himself to stop petting Renji's hair and get out of bed.

"Whatcha," yawn, "doin?" his lover asked, more than half-asleep.

"Gotta talk to Zangetsu about something," Ichigo said, picking up his zanpaku-to from his stand.

"Wha?" asked Renji, swallowing another yawn.

Ichigo hesitated, but only for a second. If he was right this wasn't really a big issue, more annoying then anything else, but his lover had a right to know. Even if this was more embarrassing then anything else.

"It's nothing. Just, the hollow's acting weird."

That made Renji sit up abruptly. "What? Ichigo…"

Ichigo scowled. "It's nothing. Just that," he could feel his face start to heat and was glad that it was dark, "he's obsessing about knitting and shit."

There was a moment of silence. Then, "Knitting."

Ichigo was sure he was strawberry-red. "Yeah."

"You mean with actual yarn and needles, and not people's intestines."

Ichigo winced and hoped the hollow hadn't heard that. No reason to him ideas.

"Yeah, yarn. Wool and stuff."

More silence. Then the sound of someone lying back down and something that sounded suspiciously like a muffled snicker. "Tell me about it tomorrow."

Still blushing hotly Ichigo grabbed a floor-pillow and sat down, Zangetsu on the floor in front of him and closed his eyes. A subtle twisting of his mind and suddenly he was in his mindscape. He took a moment to orient himself, from all appearances the cityscape hadn't changed much, if at all. It was still that strange sideways place of glass and steel and he wondered for the first time what would happen if he walked down to the ground.

"Ichigo."

"Hey Old Man." He turned, and found Zangetsu standing behind him. The guy looked pretty much the way he always did, except for a couple of new additions. He snorted at the white wool scarf the man was wearing, then found himself looking down at a pair of multi-colored woolen socks. The socks had been knitted with individual toes, and each toe had a little animal face knitted at the end. Rather vicious-looking animals, actually. He didn't think Rukia would have liked them.

"Nice socks," he said.

The Old Man just nodded.

"What's going on?" Ichigo asked finally, scratching the back of his neck.

The zanpaku-to just gave him a look, but Ichigo could have sworn that the Old Man was smiling just a tad. "He has a new hobby."

"I can see that," he said, dryly. Did the man just wiggle his toes? "But why knitting?"

Zangetsu just shrugged. "You'll have to ask him, but I do not know if he will answer. He seemed rather…sensitive when I questioned him."

"Uh." Ichigo thought about it for a moment. All things considered, knitting was fairly harmless, especially given everything else his hollow could be doing with himself. He could probably live with knitting. Probably.

If it didn't drive him nuts first..

"No, it's okay. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay around here."

The Old Man nodded, and this time Ichigo was positive he saw the socks wiggle. He opened his mouth to ask another question, then closed it. The fact was he really didn't want to know where the hollow got the knitting supplies.

"Okay, well, if everything's fine, I guess I'll go," he said, turning to leave.

"Wait." Ichigo paused, feeling a trace of alarm trickle through him. "He made this for me, too," said Zangetsu, and held out a long triangular…thing made out of the same multi-colored yarn his socks were. Ichigo took it and looked it over, puzzled.

"What is it?"

Zangetsu gave him his usual cool look. "A sword-cozy, for when I'm on my stand."

"Uh, okay…" The colors had formed jagged lines. It looked as if the yarn had been dyed in a pattern and just great now even he was thinking about yarn and knitting and if he hadn't decided he was going to try to live with the hollow Ichigo would have hunted him down and killed him. Just for that.

He found himself wondering if Ishida would give him lessons, and scowled.

Anyways, now he knew what 'self-striping yarn' was.

Some time later…

Rukia was digging through the boys' room (and they would always be 'the boys' to her), partly because she had left her sketchbook over there somewhere, and partly because if there was one thing having a couple of 'brothers' was good for, it was snooping in their stuff. One never knew when one needed to blackmail them, after all. Whether it was a photo-shoot for the Shinigami Woman's Association or to get Ichigo to buy the latest volume of Yotsuba she always needed ammunition.

Her eyes lit up as a questing hand found a magazine behind a bookcase, only to squint puzzled at it. Instead of the porn she was expecting (not that those guys would have needed it, in her considered opinion, but guys were guys) it was something dedicated to knitting.

Suddenly inspired Rukia shoved her hand back behind the bookcase and came up with a few more mysterious items. A ball of yarn. Needles. And a half-finished sock. A rather large triangular object that appeared to be the right size and shape to fit Zangetsu. She stared at the things for a moment, then an evil grin spread itself across her face. Ammunition indeed.

This was worth a week's paid vacation to her favorite hot spring resort. At least.