Bleach fanfic - Heavier than a Mountain
Title: Heavier than a Mountain
Author: Akuni
Universe: Bleach
Genre: Romance, Angst
Rating: PG-15
Pairing: Renji/Ichigo
Spoilers: up to and including HM arc
Word Count: 1591
Summary: Death is lighter than a feather, while duty is heavier than a mountain.
A/N: This is my contribution to the Halloween 'Come As You’re Not' event. The idea was intriguing, but I was intimidated at the thought of doing something so different. conjure_lass was considering it, too, and so we challenged each other to write against our happy ending natures. We promised to write each other gratuitously happy and fluffy OTP fic to console ourselves and make it all better. We wibbled and we wept but in the end, we both succeeded. :)
I wasn’t sure I was going to make it when I agreed to it. But one night I couldn’t sleep, my brain kept spinning this story out, and so I crawled out of bed somewhere around 3am, wrote like a fiend until 5:30am, then sent the whole mess off to moshesque for beta with only a single quick editing pass. After making the edits the next day, I put the fic away for three full weeks, and didn’t look at it again until just this week.
Thanks for the encouragement and the beta, Moshy. I really don’t think I would have the guts to post this if you and Sekra hadn’t insisted it was worthy. Look at me, doing all these weird and uncharacteristic things. It’s good, really good, but I feel the need to dive back into my comfort zone. ;)
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, I'm just borrowing it for a while.
Distribution: Crossposted eventually to ren_x_ichi, kurosaki_clinic, and bleach_yaoi. Please ask if you want to share it. :)
Dedication: For all the folks over at the ‘Come As You’re Not’ event, for giving me a reason to write this.
Heavier than a Mountain
“We gotta stop. This can’t go on.”
Those weren’t the words Ichigo had been expecting to hear. When Renji had messaged to tell him he’d taken a day off to visit the living world, he’d been looking forward to having the unexpected time.
Clearly, Renji wasn’t making any sense. “What are you talking about?” Ichigo grinned. “You don’t like sneaking over rooftops to come see me anymore?”
Renji stood in the centre of Ichigo’s tiny rooftop, arms folded tightly to his chest, and Ichigo’s grin faded as he realized something was very wrong.
“You need to live - a real life, not this half life you’ve been having. There’s a reason substitute shinigami are rare, and this is it.”
“I like my life just fine,” Ichigo replied, uncertain, still not sure where this was going, or where it was coming from.
Renji shook his head. “How long do ya think that’ll last? Five years? Maybe ten?” His eyes were dull as he looked away. “I can’t take those years away from you.”
Something cold and uncomfortable started swirling in Ichigo’s gut. “This isn’t funny,” he snapped. “Start making sense, or shut up and let’s go fight someth-”
“You’ll need to get married and have a family someday,” Renji blurted in a rush. “I can’t be part of that.”
Married? Kids? “Where the hell did you get that idea? Has my father been going on about grandkids again? You know he’s just teasing Yuzu.” Ichigo laughed, but stopped when he realized Renji wasn’t laughing with him.
Renji was serious.
As Renji paced around the low wooden box of sun-crisped grass that Karin and Yuzu had insisted on planting, Ichigo tried to wrap his mind around the idea that Renji wanted them to stop, wanted Ichigo to be with someone else, but the idea was just too absurd. The more he thought about it, the colder he got, chilly tension winding through him until he thought he might just crack.
Seven months. It had only been seven months since they’d been… what? It had taken years to work up to friendship, but only a single heated moment for all those years of tension and foreplay to spark a blazing inferno between them.
Ichigo had never known such intensity from another person; Chad’s solid, stoic loyalty, Ishida’s cool, focused deliberateness, Tatsuki’s fierce friendship - none of it held a candle to the sheer magnitude of Renji’s company.
They had their quiet moments, to be sure, but the fire was always there, simmering just below the surface, waiting for the next gust of wind to stir it back up.
How was he supposed to deliberately just let that flame fizzle out?
“You’re a coward,” Ichigo spat. He pointed at Renji’s back, stiff and straight as he paced. Ichigo jabbed his finger through the air viciously in lieu of the punch he wanted to deliver. “You haven’t learned a thing these past few years, have you? You walked away from Rukia because you didn’t have the guts to hold onto her, and now you’re walking away from me the same way.”
Renji stopped mid-stride. “I know.” His slumped shoulders and hollow, rasping reply sent Ichigo’s stomach plummeting and his anger trickling away like water.
“Then why?” Ichigo asked, grabbing Renji’s arm, letting his fingers dig deeply as he hauled Renji back around to face him.
“You know it’s gotta be this way.” Ichigo watched Renji’s adam’s apple move up and down several times. “We shoulda known from the start but… I guess we were selfish. We chose not to think about the rules, but we shoulda known that can’t go on forever.”
“Since when do we care about the rules?”
“This ain’t the same!” Renji retorted, the muscles of his arm jumping under Ichigo’s hand. “This is nothing like storming the castle and saving the girl, and everyone lives happily ever after.” He blinked, twice, then his eyes stared hard into Ichigo’s. “You’re alive, and this is life,” he said. “You got a responsibility to your family and society, and I got a responsibility to Soul Society. Neither of us can do what we need to if we’re tied up with each other.”
Ichigo scowled. “My father…” he began, trying another tack.
“…hid in a gigai that sapped his reiatsu and took your mother’s name to hide from Soul Society,” Renji finished. “He left during a different time, for damn good reasons. We… that wouldn’t work for us. You can’t afford to give up being a shinigami here, not with the mess we’ve got to clean up after the war, and there’s no way they’d let me stay even if I wanted to.” Renji grimaced. “You know they’re gonna throw me into training and shove me through the tests. I’ll come out a captain or I won’t come out at all.”
“We’ve managed pretty well so far.”
“You only finished high school because Chad and Ishida helped you cram.”
“In case you forgot, there was a war going on, I didn’t exactly have time to keep up with things here!”
“That last year, when-”
“Don’t go there,” Ichigo warned. He shoved away the black memories, but he still smelled the stench of broken bodies, heard the screams, tasted the blood…
“That kinda thing’ll always be happening, now more than ever. You really wanna add trying to hold this together on top of that, plus a wife and kids?” Renji’s mouth closed to a tight, thin line. “I can’t live that way. It’s all or nothing, and we can’t have it all. We got too many other obligations to have it our way anymore.”
Ichigo took a deep breath around the heavy weight settling on his chest. Renji was right, damn him. Who he slept with didn’t really matter, just as long as he did his duty publicly. But Ichigo could never live that kind of life, and he could never ask someone else to do it, either.
“And don’t you dare try’n tell me those obligations matter less than…” Renji faltered, and his face twisted. “…this. Us.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Ichigo sighed, then lifted his hand from Renji’s arm and ran it through his hair. “I don’t want to do this,” he said simply, letting his hand fall limp at his side.
“Me either.”
Ichigo closed his eyes and took another deep, calming breath.
“It don’t gotta be forever,” Renji said eventually. “Just…”
Ichigo snorted. “Just ’til I die?”
There was no guarantee that things would work out again after a lifetime apart. It was impossible for them not to change, and maybe the fire they’d stoked between them wouldn’t burn again after being buried under a lifetime of cold ash.
If this was to be the last… if this was really it, then he really had nothing left to lose, and every reason to lower the walls, just once. Ichigo smiled, oddly without any difficulty. “I love you, you know,” he said softly.
Renji’s answering smile was only a little bit crooked. “I’m just glad I didn’t love you ’til you were legal.”
Despite the freezing hole in his middle, Ichigo managed to chuckle and roll his eyes. “You’ll never change, will you?”
Renji’s smile faded. “Not as much as you will.”
They stared at each other silently.
“I should be getting back. I got no time to spend socializing in the living world.” Renji lifted a hand then stopped abruptly. After an awkward, unmoving moment, he fisted both hands at his sides and took one step backward. “Well, see ya ’round, Kuro-”
“No!” Ichigo snapped his hand up before Renji could finish. “Not that.” He took one step forward, bringing them back within arm’s reach. “You only ever called me that once, just the one time. We’ve always had a personal connection, as enemies, rivals, and allies, before we were ever friends or… lovers.” Ichigo was proud that he only faltered a little on the last.
“Yeah, you were always a personal pain in the ass.” Renji’s mouth turned up in a one-sided grin. “I’ll see ya on the other side, Ichigo.” He turned to one side and drew his zanpakutou.
Ichigo stared up at the sky, a knot of anguish twisting his stomach. Just one more person to have to say goodbye to, something he’d grown used to over the years of his unique life, but this time it was someone he’d let himself believe would never have to leave. He didn’t think he could bear to watch.
He waited for the surge of power, for the static hiss of the portal to Soul Society opening, but it never came. Instead, the air grew thick and tense, and something loomed in the oppressive silence.
Against the thrumming atmosphere, Ichigo’s resolve stood no chance. He steeled himself as he directed his gaze back down toward Renji.
His heart splintered when he saw the fierce shine of Renji’s eyes, locking onto his own and reeling him in.
There was an explosion of movement as they lunged and crashed together.
The kiss was hard. It wasn’t much of a kiss as far as kisses go, more of a clash of unhappy mouths, desperate hands clutching shoulders and heads. Bitter salt mingled with Renji’s taste on Ichigo’s tongue, and then all he could taste was the fabric of Renji’s uniform as they held on tightly for just one more moment.
The surge of power faded, and the portal hissed closed.
Ichigo wiped his cheeks and neck and went back inside his empty flat.
“Goodbye, Renji.”
END
A/N2: The title is taken from the Japanese proverb ‘Death is lighter than a feather, while duty is heavier than a mountain’. (No, it’s not from Robert Jordan’s ‘Wheel of Time’ series, though he did use it there to great effect. :p)
Fanart!
sekra treated me to several sneak peeks of some Halloween projects she was working on, so I sent her this story to return the favour. She bribed me with the promise of a fluffy sketch of my choice in return, so I drew her one of my super special MSN stickman pictures (which I somehow neglected to save, woe!) as my request.
The sketch I got back, however, was something entirely different. She said sorry, but the sad story had inspired her, and she sent me this. As always, click for full size.
‘Goodbye’
*sniffle* WAAAAAAAAaahhhhhhhhhhh! Sekra, that didn’t make me feel better!! ;_; It did, however, make me feel very happy that this story touched you so keenly. Thank you. :) (Do you want to watermark this? I'll UL a new version if you do, just email it to me whenever.)