Black-and-Red Conflict - Ch.26

[feathers_of_ice]

 
Pairing: Renji and Byakuya
Rating: PG (overall M)
Spoilers: for the end of the SoulSociety arc
Discl.: Bleach and all its characters are (c) to kubotite
Content: Byakuya is an arrogant bastard, says Renji. Abarai is an impertinent nuisance, says Byakuya. Unfortunately for them, opposites attract.
Notes: i feel as if i'm about to compete with some weird japanese drama series here.... please, my dear readers, comments!!... yes, please? believe me, after writing like... 5 or 6 different versions of this, deleting them completely or part of them, and starting from scratch, i'd be seriously happy about some thoughts on this...

beta-read by marinliliz , also thanks to the people who spotted the typos! ^^

~~~Twenty-Six~~~
Family

Byakuya sat alone in his most private room far from the front of the mansion. It was barely illuminated by a single lamp shining yellow light. The paper doors were closed, shutting out the garden, the late evening, the cool air; shutting the noble in to give him a meager illusion of security that was but a small consolation. What really threatened him now wasn't anything he could keep at bay by doors or walls or guards. After having been wound so tightly for the time Renji had been unconscious, after hardly eating and sleeping while working practically nonstop, his emotional crash had had its toll on his body as well. Even though the nausea had abated by now and his guts weren't cramping anymore, his body was tense, his hands were still trembling and he was covered in a thin layer of cold sweat.

And he was so tired, more tired than he remembered ever having been before. But he still could not sleep. He sat with his back towards one wall, head leaned against it, eyes closed, taking deep and slow breaths as if he could make himself fall asleep simply by willing it hard enough. But it didn't work like this. Discipline couldn't help him in this, none of his power could ease the restlessness.

At least he felt like the worst was over. For the most part the whirlwind of emotions that had clouded his mind this morning after seeing Renji wake up and had made him move to his mansion without even remembering how he got here, seemed to have calmed down. He had reached a small island of control that, as long as he was alone, allowed him to at least think more or less clearly, to analyze. Only, nothing that came to his mind was very comforting.

For one thing, there was the terribly strong urge to see Renji, to have proof that he really was alright, but there also was the exact opposite: the fact that Byakuya had no idea how to act towards the redhead, how to face him. He knew that the way he had fled the hospital room would not only raise questions from the two captains and Rukia present, but especially from Renji. The times the dark-haired man had been misunderstood by his lieutenant before, even when Byakuya had meant well, made him dread to imagine what the redhead would think now after his captain had left the room like that.

And lastly, like a dark shadow hanging over Byakuya, the knowledge that he needed to make amends. Again.

He knew he had to prove that he was finally willing to change, but how to make Renji believe it? How to get the redhead to trust in Byakuya after he had given him little reason to do so? The noble knew there was at least one thing he would have to do, but it was so alien to his character that, even now, it seemed nearly impossible.

Byakuya was startled out of his thoughts as he heard a slide door being pushed open.

“I instructed you to leave me alone!”

The words that left his mouth even before he looked up, were unusually sharp, lashing out in a way he had never done against his servants before. But as he turned his head towards the door he did not find a cowering attendant there, but his sister.

“Rukia!” The features of his sister, which were so similar to Hisana's, made him blanch and rise to his feet slowly. He had expected nobody to come here. She should not have come. Not now, now that he needed to concentrate, to think.

He could hear hurried footsteps as servants were approaching fast in the hallway. He had told them to stay away, forbidden them to come anywhere close to his private rooms, and thus they had not been near enough to hinder Rukia when she had appeared, searching for her brother. The guards at the main door had not stopped her since she was a member of the family, who could enter and leave the house whenever she wanted to. He should have told them not to let anybody in. But then he had been too confused, too shaken to think of it when he had come back. And now, the fact of her finding him before being noticed by his attendants, was it pure luck, or had he not even been able to cloak his reiatsu properly?

Now it was too late. She entered the room and slid the door closed, shutting the servants out, then stood before her brother, her body tense, looking up at him with those dark, big eyes he had known so well from her sister.

“Kuchiki-sama!” The voice of the head of servants was only slightly muffled and Byakuya could hear the agitation and some kind of fear in it as the old woman stood closely before the door, hesitating to just push it open. “I am so sorry. We were staying away not to disturb you, we only noticed Rukia-sama had come here when it was already too late. Should we...”

“No,” Byakuya heard himself say. “Leave.”

His voice sounded strained, but carried an edge that made the servants vanish in a scurry.

Maybe it had been Rukia's eyes, or the determined way she stood before him without backing away that made him let her stay. Maybe it was even a little curiosity, the question why she would come to see him. He knew the concept of worry, especially well after the last few days, but then he was hardly able to grasp the idea of it being directed at him. Because it never had been. He was confused enough not to realize that in his right mind he would have just told her to leave.

“Nii-sama...,” she said hesitantly as he scrutinized her for long moments until he turned away, only glancing in her direction from the corner of his eyes.

“You should not have come,” he said, trying to look as apathetic as always, but finding it hard to do so.

It wasn't only her resemblance to Hisana that unsettled him now. It was that glimpse of determination and some kind of understanding or knowledge in her eyes that put him on edge. And it was the compassion he could read on her features, too.

Even though he realized that she knew him better than most, it still seemed wrong that she should feel that for him. He did not need compassion, did not want it. He just wanted to be left alone. He didn't want her to see him as somebody who needed sympathy. Because he didn't. He was the head of a clan, the captain of a division. He was Kuchiki Byakuya. He was...

His hands had tightened into fists without him consciously willing it, he suddenly realized and abruptly opened them again. Then he breathed deeply, forcing himself to calm down.

This was Rukia, his sister. Why could he not keep better control of himself? If anything, he needed to act normally in front of her now. He could do that at least, couldn't he? Until she had said whatever she had come here to say, and would leave again.

He turned and sat down, trying to keep his back as straight as he normally would, to keep his face as blank as always, while he fastened his eyes back onto his sister.

But Rukia was not any closer to knowing what to say than she had been a few hours before. She knew she needed to be here and do something, but at the moment she was hardly able to suppress a tremble, let alone talk to her brother about Renji.

She was scared, but then that wasn't all. Fear was something she had felt a long time for Byakuya, especially when she had first met him and was adopted into the Kuchiki clan. He had been so far from her, so cold. He had for forty years supposedly not even looked at her. Even though their relationship had become much more comfortable since he had told her about her sister and the reason Rukia was adopted into the clan in the first place, it was hard to forget a feeling that had been associated with him so closely for so long. And the way he had acted this morning, and acted now, so completely out of the ordinary; the way the fists of Kuchiki Byakuya had been balled just moments ago, it was more than enough reason to be scared.

But then she realized she was somehow sorry for him too, though she couldn't fathom at all where that came from. And she was angry, knowing pretty well were that came from. The one thing she didn't know, though, was what to do with these feelings, or how to act on them. For now, she only knelt down in front of him hesitantly.

Silence settled between them like an unpleasant guest. Boding and oppressive, it weighed both of them down, choked them, taunted them. But even with the precarious state Byakuya was in, it was far more difficult to bear for Rukia. She lowered her head because she could not look into the gray eyes before her, only now and then daring to glance up to find them still focused on her. She shifted uncomfortably. She bit her lower lip and then, eventually, words forced themselves out of her mouth.

“Why did you flee when Renji woke up? Why do you hurt him? He can't do anything against his feelings, he... ”

She stopped in mid-sentence after looking up.

Byakuya's face had been blank for the first moments, but now a look of surprise and shock came over it, which made Rukia swallow hard with anxiety. His eyes widened and he sat stock-still, only the muscles in his jaw moving now and then, the fingers of both his hands tightening on his knees.

This was alien, unreal, scary. This was Kuchiki Byakuya, one of the most powerful men in Soul Society, head of one of the most prestigious clans. The man who never showed weakness, who always obeyed the rules, even if it meant sending a member of is his family to execution or fighting his lieutenant to death. The man who always stood above everything and everyone else.

But then Rukia knew this wasn't the whole truth and even if she hadn't, it was made obvious now. She was one of the few people who had seen more of him than just that cold mask. He, and only he of the whole clan, had over just the few last months become something worth calling 'family' to her, if in a very difficult and complicated way. She knew that all Byakuya wanted was to do the right thing, was to balance all those rules and duties, his roles and functions as best as he could. She had learned to see through many of the strange ways in which he treated her and had realized that there was more between both of them by now than just the obligation to his dead wife. Byakuya really saw the small dark-haired woman as a part of his family. It was something none of them would probably have ever seriously expected, but that had come to pass nonetheless. And Rukia knew that he did feel, however well he hid it and whatever everybody else might think. She knew he had loved her sister.

And she realized, he loved again.

His reaction in the hospital, his reaction right now; this kind of shock that was not one of outrage, but one out of being discovered, exposed. She knew it.

All she saw there, in this moment, sitting close to the wall in an empty room, desperately trying to keep himself under control, was a man that seemed terribly lonely. Lonely and caged in a castle he had built for himself long ago. One he had become so used to, so dependent on, that he did not know how to step out of it anymore. One that, now that its doors were forced open, left him vulnerable and insecure. It deepened her compassion enough to, for a minute, almost make her forget the anger she had felt since Renji had told her everything that had happened.

But as Byakuya suddenly stood up and started pacing, she was startled out of her thoughts. She lowered her head again and started fidgeting with her uniform, trying not to flinch whenever he walked by briskly. Once, twice, thrice...

“What did he tell you?” His voice trembled ever so slightly as he passed her again.

Rukia swallowed.

“Everything,” she answered and this time, as her brother abruptly stopped dead in his tracks somewhere behind her, the silence was like the edge of a sword against her throat.

As the moments between each of her heartbeats seemed to lengthen into infinity, it was only the sound of him forcing slow, deep breaths into his lungs that showed her he was still there. She herself did not dare to move, holding her own breath in expectancy of something dreadful.

He would throw her out, she thought. That, if she was lucky, or something much worse. For coming here and intruding on him, for daring to confront him with this, he would expel her from the clan, from her squad. He would draw his sword, attack her.

Her mind conjured up dreadful scenarios in abundance, each new more terrible and also more unlikely than the one before. She should have been sensible enough to know that not even a fraction of them was even possible, but these minutes of uncertainty, waiting for the worst to happen, with a man at her back who had never been so unpredictable as right now; there wasn't much room in her head right then for reason.

But as minutes passed without a reaction, those rampant, panicked thoughts abated and she realized that there was nothing left to lose. So she went on, voice trembling, but quiet.

“Why? Why hurt him, why not trust him after all of this? I don't understand. After all that's happened he still kept quiet. He's told nobody but me, and only now. Because he didn't want to expose you. That's how much he cares. He...”

She hesitated, not yet able to bring those words over her lips.

“And you must care, too. Why else the dinner, the training... you must care. You do. So why continue to hurt him?”

With her back towards Byakuya, she did not see how he flinched as her words revealed how much she really knew. She felt his spirit energy rise and being reigned back in a few times, but nothing more. He still did not turn, he did not flee, he did not speak.

“He loves you.”

And there, after the words which Rukia had thought impossible to speak out loud, had left her mouth, she realized there was nothing more. Nothing more left for her to do or say. No reason to stay here any longer.

She rose slowly, of course still very much aware of Byakuya behind her, but amazingly she wasn't scared any longer. Now that it was over, she felt mostly empty, and maybe strangely sad. As she looked at her brother, still motionless with his back to her, she wondered what would happen now and if anything would change.

She contemplated excusing herself before she left, as was the proper way of departing in this house, but then refrained from it.

Even if she had dared breaking the silence once again, Byakuya wouldn't have heard her. In fact he hardly consciously noticed when she left and still didn't move for a long time after she had closed the sliding door behind her back.

~~~