Bleach- "Stunted Forward Motion" 1/2
This really is a horrible story. ^^;;
Proof that I should never write long-range, I suppose. XD
Title: Stunted Forward Motion
Universe: Bleach
Theme/Topic: 10,000 word challenge
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: RenjixByakuya , mentioned IchigoxRukia and some Byakuya+Hisana and Renji+Rukia.
Spoilers: Whole Soul Society Arc
Word Count: 11,274
Time: Days and days and days. -_-;;
Warnings: Spoilers for the Soul Society Arc and slight spoilers for around… 193 to be safe?.
Summary: Sort-of companion piece to “On the Next Go Round”- Byakuya and Renji battle loneliness and rejection.
Dedication: Ann- because she challenged me.
A/N: I say companion piece because it sort of follows events I set up in “On the Next Go Round” but at the same time, that story doesn’t have to be read for this one to make sense. Hopefully. Done for a fic challenge/contest thing over at gwyaoi.org because Ann thought I should give it a shot. I totally procrastinated until the last minute, but I got it done! Miracles do happen. Even you know, if they're a bit shoddy. XD
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
He almost feels horrible for thinking it, but as he sits beside Renji and sips his sake, he can’t help but feel glad as well, because there’s someone else in the world who understands how he feels even if that feeling isn’t exactly the most pleasant one in the world.
Renji is drunk, and smiles at Byakuya in a half-vacant way, raising his glass and smacking his lips and slurring his words even worse than he does when he’s with his thug friends and they’re talking about women.
“Ne…women, eh taichou?”
Byakuya sips his drink calmly. “What about them?”
“’S okay…don’t need ‘em, right? You’n me… just ain’t in our stars, I s’pose.”
“No, I don’t suppose they are,” Byakuya allows with a certain level of amusement. It had taken his sister’s marriage for he and Renji to find common ground strong enough to stand on side by side as friends, and while he should sympathize with Renji on the matter, he’s been lonely enough for many years now and can’t help but appreciate sharing his pain with someone who knows the same kind.
When Rukia left them both behind to marry Ichigo, the competition had ended and Renji had to cede victory to his long time rival, forcing a smile at the wedding and kissing the bride on the cheek as he wished her a very happy life.
Byakuya understands that sort of pain, the kind where you make yourself smile at the person you love and have them look back at you as something less, as perhaps, a dear friend and not someone they can ever love in return. Byakuya, like Renji, knows what it is to love and be everything but a lover to the person that matters most.
And so they drink sometimes, on those especially lonely nights, sitting together on the porch of Byakuya’s quarters and staring at the sky, drinking sake and taking each other’s company to try and stem off the overwhelming feelings of loneliness that just take them on certain nights without any rhyme or reason. It’s been their secret ritual for seven years now, and while the time has been long, the pain doesn’t seem to really change regardless of how much they talk about it or how much they try to drink their problems away.
“So… how’re the rugrats?” Renji asks after a moment, setting his drink down and resting his chin on his knees as they watch the fireflies zip out over the still pond in the courtyard’s garden.
Byakuya supposes that even if Renji resents that Rukia didn’t choose him in the end, his vice-captain can’t help but love Rukia’s children all the same, if only for the fact that Byakuya thinks that Renji sometimes imagines what a child between he and Rukia might have looked like, had things been different.
“Ichiro is six,” Byakuya responds absently, swirling his drink in its dish with a precision that means he hasn’t drunk nearly enough yet tonight. “He’s long graduated from the rug,” the sixth division captain adds with a fond smile, because while he feels for Renji, he is also a proud uncle, and he loves Rukia’s children for entirely different reasons than the redhead. “The other two aren’t far behind their brother.”
“Oh…well. Okay then. Didn’t know the runt had a birthday since I last saw ‘im,” Renji muses aloud. “Gotta send him a late present or somethin’…” he says, and with a tone of longing that echoes Byakuya’s own.
“Aa.”
They sit in silence for a while, and Byakuya finally stops swirling his drink around and just knocks the entire dish back, letting the warm burn of alcohol stop him momentarily, from feeling the cold chill of loneliness.
Renji raises his own dish at his captain’s act and knocks it back shortly after him, and after a while several bottles are empty between them and they can’t watch the fireflies very well anymore because it’s hard to follow them with their eyes.
“I saw Hisana the other day,” Byakuya manages, because sake seems to lend him the courage he needs to be able to speak about what’s bothering him.
Renji blinks dumbly. “What?”
It sounds absurd, and Byakuya knows they’re both a little bit drunk, but he feels the need to say what’s on his mind anyway, because if he’s drunk when he does, it might seem less ludicrous in the morning when he’s sober. “I saw her today. Well, not her… but I saw…”
Renji stares, his mouth gaping a little, and before Byakuya can, he chokes out, “Next life?! You saw the… you saw the reincarnation?”
And that’s what he’d been looking for but unable to say, and the hardest part thus dealt with, he tells Renji about his little nephew’s first-grade teacher and the conference he went to just to be able to see her.
“Man…what’re the odds? You… you hadta… man. Ain’t that a bitch?” Renji marvels after the story is told, pouring Byakuya another drink because he, even in his drunken buzz, still knows that his captain needs maybe a few more before the night is through. “Ain’t life a bitch?”
Byakuya is inclined to agree, and graciously accepts all the alcohol Renji sees fit to pour him.
“So she was married?”
“With a son.”
At that, Renji hisses like he himself has been burned, and Byakuya knows it’s horrible, but he’s just very glad right now, to have someone beside him who really understands how he feels.
“Life’s a bitch,” the redhead murmurs around the rim of his drink, looking up at Byakuya with alcohol glazed eyes and offering a lopsided smile. “Shit… we’re two damn unlucky sonsabitches ain’t we, taichou?”
And Renji bursts out laughing at that, because between the two of them, they have to laugh sooner or later or just be driven mad with everything.
So Byakuya smiles back and chuckles a little and toasts his vice-captain’s last statement as a matter-of-fact.
It’s a little strange, granted, that Kuchiki Byakuya runs to his vice-captain when he’s unbearably lonely, runs to his vice-captain when he needs comfort and alcohol and a sympathetic ear. It’s a little strange given how vastly different they are. Byakuya, a prince of Seireitei and Renji, an urchin of Rukongai. But oddly enough, all of those differences melt away when they’re side-by-side like this, the only thing between them the various empty bottles of sake consumed in the night.
And Byakuya feels that years of this has led to what he considers a solid friendship built on the common ground of their grief. He and Renji are two of a kind, really, and the bond that has developed out of their most painful experiences is stronger than any line between prince and pauper that there might have been earlier.
In the end, both of them are agonizingly lonely.
And that’s enough.
It’s enough to overcome the extensive differences of their upbringings and the varying experiences of their past, enough to cut through the animosity that had once been between them before, back in a time that might have been a lifetime ago.
It’s enough so everything that happens between them on these nights is tempered by the fact that some nights are worse than others, and Byakuya knows that when Renji is drunk and reaches forward to kiss him, it’s only for the touch of someone else, anyone else, and nothing more.
The fact that Byakuya lets it be him is testament to his own loneliness as well, after all.
When the last bottle empties between them, Renji crawls forward and touches his captain’s face with a small, drunken smile, looking up at the other man with a sort of unfocused desperation that makes Byakuya instantly open to him, makes him relax his shoulders and close his eyes.
It’s all the invitation he ever needs, and Renji reaches forward and grasps a handful of his captain’s clothes in his fist, pulling the older man down roughly and kissing him with an aggressiveness that almost makes it impossible for either of them to imagine the women they’d loved in the place of each other.
It’s a messy thing, but it’s something.
And so Byakuya opens his mouth to Renji’s tongue and lets himself be pushed onto his back with a little sigh, the taste and smell of alcohol enveloping them both in a haze of cloudy perception that for a moment, lets them feel something other than lonely.
It isn’t always purely pleasant feelings between them in these times of course, but it’s better than nothing, and there’s something about the roughness of Renji’s hands tearing his expensive clothing from him that’s real and solid and different enough from every one of Hisana’s tentative touches such that Byakuya doesn’t feel bad about gripping Renji back with his arms and legs or kissing roughly or biting his shoulder, clutching at his vice-captain with all the power he possesses without having to hold back, without the fear of frightening or breaking the other man.
It’s all very different from Hisana, and he thinks that sometimes, it’s exactly what he needs.
Renji always falls asleep when they’re finished, right on top of him and snoring in his ear like he’s in the most comfortable drunken slumber in the world despite them both being sticky with sweat and cum, the air thick with alcohol and uncomfortable heat.
It’s always up to Byakuya to push Renji off of him and clean them up, to dress them again and carry Renji to his quarters before he staggers back to his own in a rather undignified fashion.
He collapses, exhausted, into his bed and sleeps deeply until morning, momentarily relieved of his horrible solitude and grateful that there’s someone out there who understands him enough to give him nights like these.
~~~~~
Come morning Renji is always there bright and early to wake him up, a good vice-captain despite the fact that he might be slightly hung-over, bringing tea and a quick fix breakfast and marveling about how drunk he must have been last night because he can’t remember a thing.
Byakuya smiles indulgently and takes his tea from the other man, ignoring the slight pounding of his own head because there is work to be done today and he can’t begrudge Renji for not remembering what happened the night before as he thinks he prefers it that way anyway.
It’s not that he believes that there would be any awkwardness between the two of them should Renji remember, but it’s rather because Byakuya feels that last night is irrelevant as of today, because those nights should remain in their own space and time and not spill over into his duties as a captain.
He takes refuge in alcohol and his vice-captain on the worst of his lonely nights, but every day he is the commander of the sixth division shinigami and that takes precedent over any personal issues he might be going through at any one time.
So Renji never remembers and Byakuya always does, but as far as Byakuya is concerned, it changes nothing because there can be no love involved, no real sentiment other than the mutual relief of loneliness between friends and comrades.
Perhaps it is cold of him to think of it that way when Renji doesn’t even have the chance to remember and judge for himself, what it is between them, but Byakuya feels that it is best not to examine things too closely in this case, because while he is very fond of Renji, he feels no desire to try and make more of what is obviously drunken desperation, especially considering the last time he tried to make something more of simple affection, the only result being the knowledge that his most precious person would never feel more for him than just that.
She hadn’t been able to love him.
And now, he doesn’t think he is capable of love anymore himself. He doesn’t want to chance pursuing it again should the results be the same as before.
For now, he is satisfied in being only a captain and a friend.
It’s as simple as that.
“Oi, taichou… ready? We’re gonna be late,” Renji urges from around a mouthful of pastry, inadvertently spitting a few crumbs into Byakuya’s face as he does. “Er…whoops.”
Byakuya arches a brow at his vice-captain, half disgusted and half amused at having been thrown from his musings in such a crude manner, and is about to reach for his napkin when Renji does instead, looking sheepish and wiping the offending flakes from his captain’s face like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Sorry ‘bout that, taichou,” he reiterates, setting the napkin back on the table.
“It’s fine,” Byakuya responds, looking down at the uneaten pastry that remains for him on the tray.
“’s apple,” Renji offers, pushing it towards his captain. “Lucky, I got the last one before they sold out this mornin’.”
“Thank you.”
It had been discovered some time ago that in addition to their mutual stories of love lost, the other thing they had in common was a fondness for certain apple pastries from a certain Rukongai bakery, and on occasion, Renji would trek out in the wee morning hours to obtain the treats for the two of them on the days when both men were sick of commissary breakfasts whose main aims were nutritional rather than taste.
The second half of Renji’s pastry today reveals cherry filling, and Byakuya looks at it oddly for a moment.
“Er, just thought I’d try somethin’ different this mornin’, is all,” Renji says by way of explanation, dismissing his captain’s furrowed brow. “Now hurry up, taichou… ya got a captain’s meetin’ later this morning, remember?”
“Of course.”
Byakuya takes his pastry and bites into it and thinks nothing more on any of it because it’s time to get back to work now.
Deep in the back of his mind however, he knows that Renji’s had cherry before because he remembers the other man stating exactly how much better the apple was once over a breakfast like this some time ago.
~~~~~
“I’m visiting again next week,” Byakuya says a few days later, carefully watching his vice-captain’s reaction because he’s not sure if this is one of the better days or if it’s just one of the bad ones. “I um… did you want me to bring anything for Ichiro?”
Renji smiles a little at the kid’s name, though there’s still a residual flash of regret in his eye when the subject is broached.
“Yeah, I’ll go pick up somethin’ for the brat and get it to you before you go,” Renji assures him with an awkward laugh.
“Very well.”
He doesn’t know what possesses him to ask the next question when he knows very well he should just leave it be, but before he can stop himself, Byakuya finds himself asking his vice-captain, “Do you want to come with me?”
Renji chokes a little on his own air and bursts out coughing at the inquiry, looking strangely up at his captain after he’s regained some sense of self. “What?”
Byakuya frowns to himself as if he’s just realized the mistake he’s made and shaking his head, he looks at the other man apologetically. “Sorry, I…”
“No, it’s… ha, I should probably go sometime soon really, but um…”
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No big deal, taichou,” Renji assures him, though the redhead’s eyes suddenly feel a little bit lonely.
Byakuya moves to voice his regret at having been so insensitive, but Renji, seemingly reading his mind, holds up a hand to stop him.
“I’m sure I’ll head over for a visit soon, just need to you know, sort some things, taichou. ‘s not a big deal, really. Thanks for askin’.”
Byakuya doesn’t really know whether to believe him or not, but there’s something strange about the way Renji looks at him when he speaks, and so Byakuya feels that it’s best to simply withdraw, and with a small nod at his vice-captain, he departs into his office, closing the door behind him and wondering what exactly, possessed him to provoke the other man like that.
Rukia always accused her older brother of being too clingy when it came to certain things, challenging him to maybe try something new and stop trying to keep things from changing.
Her way of telling him to get over her sister, but he doesn’t think it’s that easy, that it should be that easy, and he’d told her as such.
She’d asked him to count the years since Hisana’s death and he’d been unable to answer really, because when he’d stopped to think about it, it had been a long time.
His silence had been answer enough for her however, and she’d looked at him knowingly, telling him very matter-of-factly, that it was time to stop fearing change and to maybe go out there and try to be happy himself one of these days.
“Normal people tend to do it, niisama.”
And maybe he can admit that he is a bit clingy when it comes to certain things, not wanting them to change or not wanting himself to change, and when he stops to think about it, normal people do get over themselves and move on while here he is, still years behind and not really wanting to budge.
Perhaps he’d provoked Renji because it seemed like after all this time; he was being left behind again.
He finds himself noticing more and more lately, that his vice-captain is trying to move on with his own life. Of course, it’s unquestionable that Renji still loved Rukia, but the effort is there, as proven by yesterday, when Byakuya had spied Renji laughing rather flirtatiously with Matsumoto in one of the hallways, his smile a little bit forced but the effort visibly there.
And Byakuya supposes it’s selfish of him, but the thought of losing his commiserator is an idea that he instantly doesn’t like.
Because having someone who really understands him is sometimes, the only thing that really gets him through the worst of the lonely nights.
But Rukia had been right, and normal people, even the kind that are normal in the sort of way Renji is normal, tend to move on after a period of time. And it looks as if the redhead is making efforts to do so after only a handful of years, whereas Byakuya’s time spent regretting is double that already.
Even if Renji’s efforts are small, they are there.
And Byakuya feels as if he is being left behind again.
It had been cruel of him to just out of the blue, invite his vice-captain to his sister’s home with him, but Byakuya thinks that he doesn’t want to lose whatever understanding had come between he and Renji in their mutual pain should Renji be able somehow, to really move on.
Byakuya thinks that maybe he’s afraid of it changing.
And it’s horribly petty of him to try and keep Renji from moving on by throwing old wounds back into his face, picking at them with his words just so he won’t be left alone again now that he’s grown accustomed to having someone there for him, someone to share a drink with, someone to sympathize with and touch for the sake of being able to touch someone else and not be left by himself.
Later, there’s a knock on his office door and it’s Renji, with his eyes cast downward.
“Renji?”
“Say, taichou…”
“Yes?”
“You wanna have a drink later?”
And part of Byakuya feels a heady sort of self-loathing guilt build in his stomach when he hears those words, when he sees Renji, who, with his captain’s callous words, has unquestionably spent the last few hours thinking about Rukia and her house in the suburbs and her three children and her doctor husband who adores her and whom she adores back.
Part of Byakuya is filled with sorrow at having brought this on.
But part of him is glad, too.
“Alright, Renji.”
“Great. I’ll uh, I’ll bring the alcohol. See you then, taichou.”
“Aa.”
~~~~~
That evening, when Renji is deep into his cups and contemplating some deeper meaning of life, Byakuya sits beside him and listens to his every word, pouring the wine and hating himself a little because he knows that it’s selfish to keep pulling Renji backwards with him like this when the redhead wants to move forward, when he’s making an effort and everyone can see it.
“Oi…taichou, ya hear me?”
Byakuya blinks at the inquiry, realizing that he hasn’t been paying attention like he should be, and almost apologetically, he looks at Renji and asks, “I’m sorry, Renji… what was that?”
“I said… it’s possible right?”
“What’s possible?”
“Carin’ ‘bout someone else. It’s possible right? I mean, that first person… it doesn’t always haveta be the first one, right?”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t have to be them,” Byakuya responds quietly. “Though neither should you forget them,” he adds with a certain level of conviction.
“Che, course not.” Renji scoffs into his cup before knocking it back completely. “That ain’t gonna happen. I mean…I guess I just thought that maybe…”
“It’s time to move on?”
“…yeah. Time to… grow up, I s’pose,” the vice-captain agrees, grabbing the bottle from between them and toasting his captain with it.
Byakuya can’t help but wonder at the choice of words there, but he supposes that the redhead is very nearly sloshed and word choice isn’t exactly at the top of his priority list. Getting the rest of the way sloshed seems to be the only real thing on Abarai’s mind right now, and that’s far simpler to deal with than the fact that sometime in the near future, Renji is intent on leaving Byakuya alone in his misery.
They sit together for several hours more, just drinking, Renji on his side, head propped up with one elbow, studying the empty bottles in front of them both and occasionally asking the off-beat, drunken question. What his captain’s favorite color is or what he does when they aren’t working, where he goes to think by himself, and what he liked best about the person he loved.
Byakuya indulges his vice-chair’s inebriated curiosity with honest answers, a sort of amused guilt building in the pit of his stomach as he says “black, I’m always working, my office, and her laughter.”
Renji can’t help but snort at that last part, thoughtlessly chortling that he wouldn’t ever have pegged taichou as someone who liked laughter.
Byakuya smiles crookedly at the unintentional barb and simply murmurs, “neither did I.”
And then Renji looks up at him with his own little smile, cheeks flushed and eyes ever so slightly glazed with wine, his empty cup spinning between his fingertips. “Ya know what, taichou?”
“What?”
“I think I like ya best when you do that.”
The sixth division captain blinks. “Laugh?”
A look of amused disbelief flashes across the redhead’s eyes. “Che, ain’t ever seen that, taichou! Kinda wish I have before, but don’t think it’s gonna happen, really. What‘m talkin’ about is when you smile, when you smile.”
“Oh.” Byakuya doesn’t quite know how to take that, and frowning, he simply says, “I see.”
Renji makes a face. “There’n gone again, huh? Probably shouldn’ta said nothin’,” he mourns, looking up at Byakuya with a furrowed brow. “You were doin’ it just now ya know, I saw it.”
Byakuya blinks. “Was I?”
“Yup. And don’t say ‘m drunk. I know what I saw.”
Well, Byakuya had been about to say that Renji was drunk, but he supposes that’s beside the point.
“Alright then.”
“And it was kinda nice,” Renji reiterates decisively. He grins stupidly and scoots forward so that he can rest his head against Byakuya’s shoulder. “I like it.”
And Byakuya thinks that Renji’s probably the only one to have seen it for a long, long while, but he doesn’t bother telling the redhead that.
He probably knows it already anyway.
~~~~~
Later, when Byakuya is wiping himself off and Renji is snoring away on his bed, he inexplicably smiles a little bit again, because he’s had enough to drink at this point where it’s alright to think that there’s something oddly charming about how loudly and energetically the vice-captain can sleep even after the sex and the alcohol, and Byakuya finds himself feeling strangely content for brief moments at a time after their nights together, when he’s cleaning up and looks at Renji, knowing that there’s someone near him who understands how he feels.
That it’s not so lonesome after all.
He hopes a part of Renji feels less lonesome at those times too, hopes that even under the influence of all that sake, the redhead can find something comforting in his captain’s touch that makes whatever pain he feels over Rukia subside for a little while.
It’s the least he can do, he thinks, for dragging his vice-captain back into this when it’s plain that he’s been trying lately, to move on and “grow up,” as he said, to maybe find something in life that the first time around, he ended up losing. That he can maybe catch on the second go round.
Renji smacks his lips and scratches himself absently in his sleep, rolling onto Byakuya’s side of the bed and patting it like he’s looking for something.
The sixth division captain watches as his snoring subordinate gives up after a moment and buries his face into Byakuya’s pillow, grunting indecipherably before inhaling deeply, curling around his new cuddle toy with both arms and managing to knock the blanket onto the floor in the process.
Donning his robe, Byakuya wraps it tightly around himself, frowning slightly when he sees Renji clinging to his pillow, wondering if that will be a problem when he has to transport the sleeping man back to his own quarters.
He reaches forward and tries to reclaim his pillow, but Renji holds fast. Obviously, easing it from his vice-captain’s hold isn’t an option, and slightly exasperated, Byakuya braces himself on top of the bed and leans forward, trying to get a hold of as much fluffy white as he can in preparation for a fierce tug.
Except before he can, he finds himself yanked forward and on top of Renji, the redhead muttering sleepily and rolling onto his back, his hand wrapped around his captain’s arm and pulling him along.
Byakuya lands atop his subordinate’s chest with a rather undignified grunt, soon finding himself trapped under both of the younger man’s arms, Renji’s nose buried up tight against his collarbone.
Another deep breath and Renji murmurs, “’s better,” in his sleep, Byakuya’s hair tickling his cheeks as he settles down again with a satisfied sigh.
There is something, despite everything they’ve done together tonight and on previous nights, that is too intimate about the way Renji is holding him and Byakuya surmises that it really is his sister whom the redhead is thinking about right now, if Renji’s semi-aroused state is any indication of what direction his dreams are leaning in.
He feels his cheeks go uncomfortably pink at that, and squirming, he works to extricate himself from his predicament as quickly as possible without waking Renji, who, even drunk, would have to recognize their current embrace as something beyond the boundaries they’ve long ago established in this game of once-in-a-while lonely trysts.
There’s no way they can stay like this, because that means facing the morning together.
And that isn’t what their meetings are about.
It takes some creative maneuvering, but Byakuya manages to wiggle out without waking Renji, though as he leaves, the redhead snorts disruptively in his sleep, brow furrowing slightly at the loss of warmth or contact or perhaps even the dream-image of Rukia.
A part of Byakuya apologizes to his vice-captain for that, for ruining the complacent look on the redhead’s face and taking even his dream away from him, but being held disturbs Byakuya too much for him to indulge, and unnecessary complications could only arise should he allow the other man to stay until morning.
That decided, Byakuya stands and straightens his clothing, before moving to dress his sleeping vice chair again.
He manages to tug on a sleeve when he hears, “Mmmmph…taichou?” and promptly drops the other man in surprise.
Renji’s hits the bed with a pillowy thud and like nothing ever happened, his snoring resumes shortly thereafter. Byakuya, heart in his throat, chides himself for being uncharacteristically jumpy when he’s done this dozens of times before without worrying a moment about it.
Steeling himself, he finishes dressing Renji hastily and picks him up, making his way towards the other man’s quarters as quickly and quietly as possible.
Renji sighs and curls up against his captain’s chest with a gruff, unintelligible murmur, looking strangely content again, and Byakuya holds on to him and increases his pace, thinking to himself that this one is the longest of the many walks he’s taken this way.
He just doesn’t know why.
~~~~~
Come morning, he wakes up to the sound of Renji’s fumbling at his doorway but is too exhausted at the moment to deal with it. So he closes his eyes again and hopes that Renji will maybe take pity on him and come back in an hour or so, because as nice at it is, today he’d really rather sleep than eat breakfast.
As usual however, no one is listening to his prayers, and the door slides open a minute or two later, the crinkling of a paper bag telling him that his vice-captain is really here and not hung-over enough to want to skip on their breakfast date despite last night, and really, the man shouldn’t be such a morning person when he drinks that much in any one sitting the night before.
Byakuya wonders if ignoring the redhead will successfully force Renji into leaving for now.
“Taichou?” the voice is soft, as if Renji, after all his stumbling and fumbling outside, suddenly realizes that he should be quiet when someone else is sleeping, and in a classic case of too-little-too late, begins making tentative (and respectably stealthy) movements towards Byakuya’s bed. “Taichou?” he asks again, this time in a whisper, only crinkling the paper bag from the bakery a little bit as he does.
Usually, Byakuya is roused easily from sleep at the first few loud noises his vice-captain makes, and today, when he doesn’t stir, Renji surmises that his captain is uncharacteristically exhausted, and at a loss, the redhead stands in the middle of the room holding his pastries and not quite knowing what to do now that their familiar patterns are beginning to diverge so suddenly.
Byakuya continues to ignore him, believing that given Renji’s record for impatience, the redhead will get the hint eventually and leave the room once he gets bored enough of watching another man sleep off a night of alcohol and comfort sex and strange, follow-up discomfort.
It’s completely silent between them for a while then, and just as Byakuya feels as if he’s finally drifting back to sleep again, there’s a hand on his head, fingers gently running through his bed-matted hair. They’re gone as suddenly as they were there, but the damage is done and Byakuya knows he won’t be able to go back to sleep after that, not with the way his heart rate has increased and he’s inexplicably beginning to feel vaguely nauseated deep in the pit of his stomach.
“Sorry, taichou,” Renji murmurs after a second, taking a decisive step backwards from the bed, as if suddenly remembering that it is only a place he is welcome when the both of them are not entirely themselves.
A couple of quiet footsteps follow and Byakuya hears the pastry bag being carefully deposited on top of his desk before Renji backs out of the room and closes the door gently behind him.
The sixth division captain cracks an eye open at the sound and rolls onto his back once the coast is clear, staring at the ceiling with brow furrowed.
He touches the side of his head absently and wonders what, exactly, Renji is sorry about.
He doesn’t exactly know why, but some part of him is convinced that it had nothing to do with the noise.
~~~~~
Byakuya stays in bed for a little while longer, though he knows that rest is completely out of reach now, he staring at the white bag on top of his desk without really seeing it and thinking to himself that it was rather cruel of him to just ignore their usual morning-after tradition today. Changing the routine meant changing the dynamic after all, and more than being simply inconvenient for Renji in that he missed his breakfast, there was something dangerous about altering previously set-patterns in Byakuya’s opinion, because that meant an open invitation to create new ones.
Byakuya doesn’t really feel like he likes change all that much, at least, not when it comes to how he feels about things.
Rukia says he’s rather immature for it, he remembers speaking to her one time, his little sister putting her hands on her hips and speculating rather sarcastically, that her niisama was either a giant chicken or stubborn to the point of retardedness.
He’d taken umbrage at her crude assessment of his situation, but hadn’t really been able to argue because after becoming a mother, she was rather an intimidating opponent to debate with.
So he’d schooled his expression to its usual deadpan calm and asked her, very reasonably, what it was about him that made her assume those things.
She’d responded that she didn’t need to assume because she knew and the only person in the universe who would pine over one dead woman for x-number of years would be her brother, because he’s the sort that clings to the past (she should know, having picked up a penchant for it herself in her time under the Kuchiki household) and on top of all that, he’s also a strict big brother who believes too much in absolutes.
So she knows that her brother believes that it’s only possible for love to be true if it is eternal and for the same one person forever, and ever, blah, blah blah.
He’d frowned minutely at that, because he didn’t think he was so absolute that compromises couldn’t be made with him if the arguments for such were especially compelling, and he’d told her as such as he’d bounced his toddler niece in his lap and hoped she would stop drooling over his suit.
“You don’t compromise until it’s a life or death situation, niisama. And sometimes not even then,” she’d responded easily, eyeing a stain on the counter with no small amount of suspicion as she’d prepared to attack it with a chemical laden sponge.
“I do not. I…” he paused when she threw him a significant look.
Well, maybe sometimes he did avoid compromise. But that had been a long time ago! He likes to think that he’s learned how to make better promises since then. But honestly, if a man can’t keep his word, what kind of world would they be living in?
She’d smirked at him and told him point-of-fact, that it would at least be a world where he could maybe get laid again sometime this century.
He’d sputtered indignantly at that and she’d laughed at him, telling him that the promise he’d made when he’d wed Hisana didn’t much count anymore, and the fact of the matter was, while everyone understood that he would love her forever, no one quite understood why he was determined to love only her forever. Really, it was a little bit childish on his part as far as she was concerned.
He’d had an answer to that, really, but then Ichigo had swept in, plucking his daughter off of her uncle’s lap and declaring that Rukia should leave Byakuya alone because the day he changed his old man ways meant Apocalypse for them all and he would appreciate it very much, if his wife would refrain from trying to bring about the end of days before Ichiro was fully ten.
Byakuya had glared openly at that, but Ichigo had been ignoring him at that point, tossing little Masaki in the air and making ridiculously undignified cooing noises while she gurgled and drooled on him in the manner that only happy babies can make cute.
He thinks there is something uncanny about Rukia and Ichigo’s teamwork and its ability to make him feel much younger (and much more foolish) than he is.
The point of the whole thing was to try and get him to change his ways, he supposes, and when their combined efforts have thus far failed, he doesn’t like very much, the fact that Renji is getting him to alter his patterns on some things, like breakfast for instance, no matter how small such a matter may be.
He gets out of his bed and pads over to the abandoned breakfast goods, uncurling the top of the bag from where it had been clenched in Renji’s fist and peering in.
One apple, one cherry, and a handful of unsettling thoughts to the nature of why there aren’t two apples in there like there should be.
He closes the bag back up and leaves it on the desk, moving about the room to prepare for today’s workday.
On his way out, he grabs the food, tucking the bag under his arm and moving rather stiffly towards his sixth division headquarters office to see about having his morning meal with his vice-captain, like he usually does on their mornings after.
He doesn’t like change.
He finds Renji in his office balancing a pencil on his nose and staring at the ceiling with a look of thoughtful boredom on his face. And despite everything, Byakuya can’t help it when he reaches out and flicks the pencil off, startling Renji enough to almost make the redhead fall out of his chair.
“Ah, er, mornin’ taichou!”
Byakuya nods and sets the bag on his vice-captain’s desk. “Good morning.”
Renji looks up after seeing the bag, something in his eyes that seems anxious at having his gift returned. “Er… taichou?”
Byakuya looks at those eyes and reminds himself that it can’t be helped, because he just doesn’t like change. “Shall we have breakfast, Renji?”
It takes a moment to process, but the vice-captain smiles after a second and moves his chair over, clearing some space off his desk for Byakuya to perch on. “Sure, taichou. Shall I go get some tea?”
“That would be nice.”
Renji grins and heads off to get the tea, Byakuya watching him and thinking to himself that maybe his sister was right and her niisama is a big, stubborn, retarded chicken.
TBC
Edits needed, but probably too much of an effort at this point. o.o Because really. IT'S SO CHEEEEEEEESIE. ^^;;
Proof that I should never write long-range, I suppose. XD
Title: Stunted Forward Motion
Universe: Bleach
Theme/Topic: 10,000 word challenge
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: RenjixByakuya , mentioned IchigoxRukia and some Byakuya+Hisana and Renji+Rukia.
Spoilers: Whole Soul Society Arc
Word Count: 11,274
Time: Days and days and days. -_-;;
Warnings: Spoilers for the Soul Society Arc and slight spoilers for around… 193 to be safe?.
Summary: Sort-of companion piece to “On the Next Go Round”- Byakuya and Renji battle loneliness and rejection.
Dedication: Ann- because she challenged me.
A/N: I say companion piece because it sort of follows events I set up in “On the Next Go Round” but at the same time, that story doesn’t have to be read for this one to make sense. Hopefully. Done for a fic challenge/contest thing over at gwyaoi.org because Ann thought I should give it a shot. I totally procrastinated until the last minute, but I got it done! Miracles do happen. Even you know, if they're a bit shoddy. XD
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
He almost feels horrible for thinking it, but as he sits beside Renji and sips his sake, he can’t help but feel glad as well, because there’s someone else in the world who understands how he feels even if that feeling isn’t exactly the most pleasant one in the world.
Renji is drunk, and smiles at Byakuya in a half-vacant way, raising his glass and smacking his lips and slurring his words even worse than he does when he’s with his thug friends and they’re talking about women.
“Ne…women, eh taichou?”
Byakuya sips his drink calmly. “What about them?”
“’S okay…don’t need ‘em, right? You’n me… just ain’t in our stars, I s’pose.”
“No, I don’t suppose they are,” Byakuya allows with a certain level of amusement. It had taken his sister’s marriage for he and Renji to find common ground strong enough to stand on side by side as friends, and while he should sympathize with Renji on the matter, he’s been lonely enough for many years now and can’t help but appreciate sharing his pain with someone who knows the same kind.
When Rukia left them both behind to marry Ichigo, the competition had ended and Renji had to cede victory to his long time rival, forcing a smile at the wedding and kissing the bride on the cheek as he wished her a very happy life.
Byakuya understands that sort of pain, the kind where you make yourself smile at the person you love and have them look back at you as something less, as perhaps, a dear friend and not someone they can ever love in return. Byakuya, like Renji, knows what it is to love and be everything but a lover to the person that matters most.
And so they drink sometimes, on those especially lonely nights, sitting together on the porch of Byakuya’s quarters and staring at the sky, drinking sake and taking each other’s company to try and stem off the overwhelming feelings of loneliness that just take them on certain nights without any rhyme or reason. It’s been their secret ritual for seven years now, and while the time has been long, the pain doesn’t seem to really change regardless of how much they talk about it or how much they try to drink their problems away.
“So… how’re the rugrats?” Renji asks after a moment, setting his drink down and resting his chin on his knees as they watch the fireflies zip out over the still pond in the courtyard’s garden.
Byakuya supposes that even if Renji resents that Rukia didn’t choose him in the end, his vice-captain can’t help but love Rukia’s children all the same, if only for the fact that Byakuya thinks that Renji sometimes imagines what a child between he and Rukia might have looked like, had things been different.
“Ichiro is six,” Byakuya responds absently, swirling his drink in its dish with a precision that means he hasn’t drunk nearly enough yet tonight. “He’s long graduated from the rug,” the sixth division captain adds with a fond smile, because while he feels for Renji, he is also a proud uncle, and he loves Rukia’s children for entirely different reasons than the redhead. “The other two aren’t far behind their brother.”
“Oh…well. Okay then. Didn’t know the runt had a birthday since I last saw ‘im,” Renji muses aloud. “Gotta send him a late present or somethin’…” he says, and with a tone of longing that echoes Byakuya’s own.
“Aa.”
They sit in silence for a while, and Byakuya finally stops swirling his drink around and just knocks the entire dish back, letting the warm burn of alcohol stop him momentarily, from feeling the cold chill of loneliness.
Renji raises his own dish at his captain’s act and knocks it back shortly after him, and after a while several bottles are empty between them and they can’t watch the fireflies very well anymore because it’s hard to follow them with their eyes.
“I saw Hisana the other day,” Byakuya manages, because sake seems to lend him the courage he needs to be able to speak about what’s bothering him.
Renji blinks dumbly. “What?”
It sounds absurd, and Byakuya knows they’re both a little bit drunk, but he feels the need to say what’s on his mind anyway, because if he’s drunk when he does, it might seem less ludicrous in the morning when he’s sober. “I saw her today. Well, not her… but I saw…”
Renji stares, his mouth gaping a little, and before Byakuya can, he chokes out, “Next life?! You saw the… you saw the reincarnation?”
And that’s what he’d been looking for but unable to say, and the hardest part thus dealt with, he tells Renji about his little nephew’s first-grade teacher and the conference he went to just to be able to see her.
“Man…what’re the odds? You… you hadta… man. Ain’t that a bitch?” Renji marvels after the story is told, pouring Byakuya another drink because he, even in his drunken buzz, still knows that his captain needs maybe a few more before the night is through. “Ain’t life a bitch?”
Byakuya is inclined to agree, and graciously accepts all the alcohol Renji sees fit to pour him.
“So she was married?”
“With a son.”
At that, Renji hisses like he himself has been burned, and Byakuya knows it’s horrible, but he’s just very glad right now, to have someone beside him who really understands how he feels.
“Life’s a bitch,” the redhead murmurs around the rim of his drink, looking up at Byakuya with alcohol glazed eyes and offering a lopsided smile. “Shit… we’re two damn unlucky sonsabitches ain’t we, taichou?”
And Renji bursts out laughing at that, because between the two of them, they have to laugh sooner or later or just be driven mad with everything.
So Byakuya smiles back and chuckles a little and toasts his vice-captain’s last statement as a matter-of-fact.
It’s a little strange, granted, that Kuchiki Byakuya runs to his vice-captain when he’s unbearably lonely, runs to his vice-captain when he needs comfort and alcohol and a sympathetic ear. It’s a little strange given how vastly different they are. Byakuya, a prince of Seireitei and Renji, an urchin of Rukongai. But oddly enough, all of those differences melt away when they’re side-by-side like this, the only thing between them the various empty bottles of sake consumed in the night.
And Byakuya feels that years of this has led to what he considers a solid friendship built on the common ground of their grief. He and Renji are two of a kind, really, and the bond that has developed out of their most painful experiences is stronger than any line between prince and pauper that there might have been earlier.
In the end, both of them are agonizingly lonely.
And that’s enough.
It’s enough to overcome the extensive differences of their upbringings and the varying experiences of their past, enough to cut through the animosity that had once been between them before, back in a time that might have been a lifetime ago.
It’s enough so everything that happens between them on these nights is tempered by the fact that some nights are worse than others, and Byakuya knows that when Renji is drunk and reaches forward to kiss him, it’s only for the touch of someone else, anyone else, and nothing more.
The fact that Byakuya lets it be him is testament to his own loneliness as well, after all.
When the last bottle empties between them, Renji crawls forward and touches his captain’s face with a small, drunken smile, looking up at the other man with a sort of unfocused desperation that makes Byakuya instantly open to him, makes him relax his shoulders and close his eyes.
It’s all the invitation he ever needs, and Renji reaches forward and grasps a handful of his captain’s clothes in his fist, pulling the older man down roughly and kissing him with an aggressiveness that almost makes it impossible for either of them to imagine the women they’d loved in the place of each other.
It’s a messy thing, but it’s something.
And so Byakuya opens his mouth to Renji’s tongue and lets himself be pushed onto his back with a little sigh, the taste and smell of alcohol enveloping them both in a haze of cloudy perception that for a moment, lets them feel something other than lonely.
It isn’t always purely pleasant feelings between them in these times of course, but it’s better than nothing, and there’s something about the roughness of Renji’s hands tearing his expensive clothing from him that’s real and solid and different enough from every one of Hisana’s tentative touches such that Byakuya doesn’t feel bad about gripping Renji back with his arms and legs or kissing roughly or biting his shoulder, clutching at his vice-captain with all the power he possesses without having to hold back, without the fear of frightening or breaking the other man.
It’s all very different from Hisana, and he thinks that sometimes, it’s exactly what he needs.
Renji always falls asleep when they’re finished, right on top of him and snoring in his ear like he’s in the most comfortable drunken slumber in the world despite them both being sticky with sweat and cum, the air thick with alcohol and uncomfortable heat.
It’s always up to Byakuya to push Renji off of him and clean them up, to dress them again and carry Renji to his quarters before he staggers back to his own in a rather undignified fashion.
He collapses, exhausted, into his bed and sleeps deeply until morning, momentarily relieved of his horrible solitude and grateful that there’s someone out there who understands him enough to give him nights like these.
~~~~~
Come morning Renji is always there bright and early to wake him up, a good vice-captain despite the fact that he might be slightly hung-over, bringing tea and a quick fix breakfast and marveling about how drunk he must have been last night because he can’t remember a thing.
Byakuya smiles indulgently and takes his tea from the other man, ignoring the slight pounding of his own head because there is work to be done today and he can’t begrudge Renji for not remembering what happened the night before as he thinks he prefers it that way anyway.
It’s not that he believes that there would be any awkwardness between the two of them should Renji remember, but it’s rather because Byakuya feels that last night is irrelevant as of today, because those nights should remain in their own space and time and not spill over into his duties as a captain.
He takes refuge in alcohol and his vice-captain on the worst of his lonely nights, but every day he is the commander of the sixth division shinigami and that takes precedent over any personal issues he might be going through at any one time.
So Renji never remembers and Byakuya always does, but as far as Byakuya is concerned, it changes nothing because there can be no love involved, no real sentiment other than the mutual relief of loneliness between friends and comrades.
Perhaps it is cold of him to think of it that way when Renji doesn’t even have the chance to remember and judge for himself, what it is between them, but Byakuya feels that it is best not to examine things too closely in this case, because while he is very fond of Renji, he feels no desire to try and make more of what is obviously drunken desperation, especially considering the last time he tried to make something more of simple affection, the only result being the knowledge that his most precious person would never feel more for him than just that.
She hadn’t been able to love him.
And now, he doesn’t think he is capable of love anymore himself. He doesn’t want to chance pursuing it again should the results be the same as before.
For now, he is satisfied in being only a captain and a friend.
It’s as simple as that.
“Oi, taichou… ready? We’re gonna be late,” Renji urges from around a mouthful of pastry, inadvertently spitting a few crumbs into Byakuya’s face as he does. “Er…whoops.”
Byakuya arches a brow at his vice-captain, half disgusted and half amused at having been thrown from his musings in such a crude manner, and is about to reach for his napkin when Renji does instead, looking sheepish and wiping the offending flakes from his captain’s face like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Sorry ‘bout that, taichou,” he reiterates, setting the napkin back on the table.
“It’s fine,” Byakuya responds, looking down at the uneaten pastry that remains for him on the tray.
“’s apple,” Renji offers, pushing it towards his captain. “Lucky, I got the last one before they sold out this mornin’.”
“Thank you.”
It had been discovered some time ago that in addition to their mutual stories of love lost, the other thing they had in common was a fondness for certain apple pastries from a certain Rukongai bakery, and on occasion, Renji would trek out in the wee morning hours to obtain the treats for the two of them on the days when both men were sick of commissary breakfasts whose main aims were nutritional rather than taste.
The second half of Renji’s pastry today reveals cherry filling, and Byakuya looks at it oddly for a moment.
“Er, just thought I’d try somethin’ different this mornin’, is all,” Renji says by way of explanation, dismissing his captain’s furrowed brow. “Now hurry up, taichou… ya got a captain’s meetin’ later this morning, remember?”
“Of course.”
Byakuya takes his pastry and bites into it and thinks nothing more on any of it because it’s time to get back to work now.
Deep in the back of his mind however, he knows that Renji’s had cherry before because he remembers the other man stating exactly how much better the apple was once over a breakfast like this some time ago.
~~~~~
“I’m visiting again next week,” Byakuya says a few days later, carefully watching his vice-captain’s reaction because he’s not sure if this is one of the better days or if it’s just one of the bad ones. “I um… did you want me to bring anything for Ichiro?”
Renji smiles a little at the kid’s name, though there’s still a residual flash of regret in his eye when the subject is broached.
“Yeah, I’ll go pick up somethin’ for the brat and get it to you before you go,” Renji assures him with an awkward laugh.
“Very well.”
He doesn’t know what possesses him to ask the next question when he knows very well he should just leave it be, but before he can stop himself, Byakuya finds himself asking his vice-captain, “Do you want to come with me?”
Renji chokes a little on his own air and bursts out coughing at the inquiry, looking strangely up at his captain after he’s regained some sense of self. “What?”
Byakuya frowns to himself as if he’s just realized the mistake he’s made and shaking his head, he looks at the other man apologetically. “Sorry, I…”
“No, it’s… ha, I should probably go sometime soon really, but um…”
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No big deal, taichou,” Renji assures him, though the redhead’s eyes suddenly feel a little bit lonely.
Byakuya moves to voice his regret at having been so insensitive, but Renji, seemingly reading his mind, holds up a hand to stop him.
“I’m sure I’ll head over for a visit soon, just need to you know, sort some things, taichou. ‘s not a big deal, really. Thanks for askin’.”
Byakuya doesn’t really know whether to believe him or not, but there’s something strange about the way Renji looks at him when he speaks, and so Byakuya feels that it’s best to simply withdraw, and with a small nod at his vice-captain, he departs into his office, closing the door behind him and wondering what exactly, possessed him to provoke the other man like that.
Rukia always accused her older brother of being too clingy when it came to certain things, challenging him to maybe try something new and stop trying to keep things from changing.
Her way of telling him to get over her sister, but he doesn’t think it’s that easy, that it should be that easy, and he’d told her as such.
She’d asked him to count the years since Hisana’s death and he’d been unable to answer really, because when he’d stopped to think about it, it had been a long time.
His silence had been answer enough for her however, and she’d looked at him knowingly, telling him very matter-of-factly, that it was time to stop fearing change and to maybe go out there and try to be happy himself one of these days.
“Normal people tend to do it, niisama.”
And maybe he can admit that he is a bit clingy when it comes to certain things, not wanting them to change or not wanting himself to change, and when he stops to think about it, normal people do get over themselves and move on while here he is, still years behind and not really wanting to budge.
Perhaps he’d provoked Renji because it seemed like after all this time; he was being left behind again.
He finds himself noticing more and more lately, that his vice-captain is trying to move on with his own life. Of course, it’s unquestionable that Renji still loved Rukia, but the effort is there, as proven by yesterday, when Byakuya had spied Renji laughing rather flirtatiously with Matsumoto in one of the hallways, his smile a little bit forced but the effort visibly there.
And Byakuya supposes it’s selfish of him, but the thought of losing his commiserator is an idea that he instantly doesn’t like.
Because having someone who really understands him is sometimes, the only thing that really gets him through the worst of the lonely nights.
But Rukia had been right, and normal people, even the kind that are normal in the sort of way Renji is normal, tend to move on after a period of time. And it looks as if the redhead is making efforts to do so after only a handful of years, whereas Byakuya’s time spent regretting is double that already.
Even if Renji’s efforts are small, they are there.
And Byakuya feels as if he is being left behind again.
It had been cruel of him to just out of the blue, invite his vice-captain to his sister’s home with him, but Byakuya thinks that he doesn’t want to lose whatever understanding had come between he and Renji in their mutual pain should Renji be able somehow, to really move on.
Byakuya thinks that maybe he’s afraid of it changing.
And it’s horribly petty of him to try and keep Renji from moving on by throwing old wounds back into his face, picking at them with his words just so he won’t be left alone again now that he’s grown accustomed to having someone there for him, someone to share a drink with, someone to sympathize with and touch for the sake of being able to touch someone else and not be left by himself.
Later, there’s a knock on his office door and it’s Renji, with his eyes cast downward.
“Renji?”
“Say, taichou…”
“Yes?”
“You wanna have a drink later?”
And part of Byakuya feels a heady sort of self-loathing guilt build in his stomach when he hears those words, when he sees Renji, who, with his captain’s callous words, has unquestionably spent the last few hours thinking about Rukia and her house in the suburbs and her three children and her doctor husband who adores her and whom she adores back.
Part of Byakuya is filled with sorrow at having brought this on.
But part of him is glad, too.
“Alright, Renji.”
“Great. I’ll uh, I’ll bring the alcohol. See you then, taichou.”
“Aa.”
~~~~~
That evening, when Renji is deep into his cups and contemplating some deeper meaning of life, Byakuya sits beside him and listens to his every word, pouring the wine and hating himself a little because he knows that it’s selfish to keep pulling Renji backwards with him like this when the redhead wants to move forward, when he’s making an effort and everyone can see it.
“Oi…taichou, ya hear me?”
Byakuya blinks at the inquiry, realizing that he hasn’t been paying attention like he should be, and almost apologetically, he looks at Renji and asks, “I’m sorry, Renji… what was that?”
“I said… it’s possible right?”
“What’s possible?”
“Carin’ ‘bout someone else. It’s possible right? I mean, that first person… it doesn’t always haveta be the first one, right?”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t have to be them,” Byakuya responds quietly. “Though neither should you forget them,” he adds with a certain level of conviction.
“Che, course not.” Renji scoffs into his cup before knocking it back completely. “That ain’t gonna happen. I mean…I guess I just thought that maybe…”
“It’s time to move on?”
“…yeah. Time to… grow up, I s’pose,” the vice-captain agrees, grabbing the bottle from between them and toasting his captain with it.
Byakuya can’t help but wonder at the choice of words there, but he supposes that the redhead is very nearly sloshed and word choice isn’t exactly at the top of his priority list. Getting the rest of the way sloshed seems to be the only real thing on Abarai’s mind right now, and that’s far simpler to deal with than the fact that sometime in the near future, Renji is intent on leaving Byakuya alone in his misery.
They sit together for several hours more, just drinking, Renji on his side, head propped up with one elbow, studying the empty bottles in front of them both and occasionally asking the off-beat, drunken question. What his captain’s favorite color is or what he does when they aren’t working, where he goes to think by himself, and what he liked best about the person he loved.
Byakuya indulges his vice-chair’s inebriated curiosity with honest answers, a sort of amused guilt building in the pit of his stomach as he says “black, I’m always working, my office, and her laughter.”
Renji can’t help but snort at that last part, thoughtlessly chortling that he wouldn’t ever have pegged taichou as someone who liked laughter.
Byakuya smiles crookedly at the unintentional barb and simply murmurs, “neither did I.”
And then Renji looks up at him with his own little smile, cheeks flushed and eyes ever so slightly glazed with wine, his empty cup spinning between his fingertips. “Ya know what, taichou?”
“What?”
“I think I like ya best when you do that.”
The sixth division captain blinks. “Laugh?”
A look of amused disbelief flashes across the redhead’s eyes. “Che, ain’t ever seen that, taichou! Kinda wish I have before, but don’t think it’s gonna happen, really. What‘m talkin’ about is when you smile, when you smile.”
“Oh.” Byakuya doesn’t quite know how to take that, and frowning, he simply says, “I see.”
Renji makes a face. “There’n gone again, huh? Probably shouldn’ta said nothin’,” he mourns, looking up at Byakuya with a furrowed brow. “You were doin’ it just now ya know, I saw it.”
Byakuya blinks. “Was I?”
“Yup. And don’t say ‘m drunk. I know what I saw.”
Well, Byakuya had been about to say that Renji was drunk, but he supposes that’s beside the point.
“Alright then.”
“And it was kinda nice,” Renji reiterates decisively. He grins stupidly and scoots forward so that he can rest his head against Byakuya’s shoulder. “I like it.”
And Byakuya thinks that Renji’s probably the only one to have seen it for a long, long while, but he doesn’t bother telling the redhead that.
He probably knows it already anyway.
~~~~~
Later, when Byakuya is wiping himself off and Renji is snoring away on his bed, he inexplicably smiles a little bit again, because he’s had enough to drink at this point where it’s alright to think that there’s something oddly charming about how loudly and energetically the vice-captain can sleep even after the sex and the alcohol, and Byakuya finds himself feeling strangely content for brief moments at a time after their nights together, when he’s cleaning up and looks at Renji, knowing that there’s someone near him who understands how he feels.
That it’s not so lonesome after all.
He hopes a part of Renji feels less lonesome at those times too, hopes that even under the influence of all that sake, the redhead can find something comforting in his captain’s touch that makes whatever pain he feels over Rukia subside for a little while.
It’s the least he can do, he thinks, for dragging his vice-captain back into this when it’s plain that he’s been trying lately, to move on and “grow up,” as he said, to maybe find something in life that the first time around, he ended up losing. That he can maybe catch on the second go round.
Renji smacks his lips and scratches himself absently in his sleep, rolling onto Byakuya’s side of the bed and patting it like he’s looking for something.
The sixth division captain watches as his snoring subordinate gives up after a moment and buries his face into Byakuya’s pillow, grunting indecipherably before inhaling deeply, curling around his new cuddle toy with both arms and managing to knock the blanket onto the floor in the process.
Donning his robe, Byakuya wraps it tightly around himself, frowning slightly when he sees Renji clinging to his pillow, wondering if that will be a problem when he has to transport the sleeping man back to his own quarters.
He reaches forward and tries to reclaim his pillow, but Renji holds fast. Obviously, easing it from his vice-captain’s hold isn’t an option, and slightly exasperated, Byakuya braces himself on top of the bed and leans forward, trying to get a hold of as much fluffy white as he can in preparation for a fierce tug.
Except before he can, he finds himself yanked forward and on top of Renji, the redhead muttering sleepily and rolling onto his back, his hand wrapped around his captain’s arm and pulling him along.
Byakuya lands atop his subordinate’s chest with a rather undignified grunt, soon finding himself trapped under both of the younger man’s arms, Renji’s nose buried up tight against his collarbone.
Another deep breath and Renji murmurs, “’s better,” in his sleep, Byakuya’s hair tickling his cheeks as he settles down again with a satisfied sigh.
There is something, despite everything they’ve done together tonight and on previous nights, that is too intimate about the way Renji is holding him and Byakuya surmises that it really is his sister whom the redhead is thinking about right now, if Renji’s semi-aroused state is any indication of what direction his dreams are leaning in.
He feels his cheeks go uncomfortably pink at that, and squirming, he works to extricate himself from his predicament as quickly as possible without waking Renji, who, even drunk, would have to recognize their current embrace as something beyond the boundaries they’ve long ago established in this game of once-in-a-while lonely trysts.
There’s no way they can stay like this, because that means facing the morning together.
And that isn’t what their meetings are about.
It takes some creative maneuvering, but Byakuya manages to wiggle out without waking Renji, though as he leaves, the redhead snorts disruptively in his sleep, brow furrowing slightly at the loss of warmth or contact or perhaps even the dream-image of Rukia.
A part of Byakuya apologizes to his vice-captain for that, for ruining the complacent look on the redhead’s face and taking even his dream away from him, but being held disturbs Byakuya too much for him to indulge, and unnecessary complications could only arise should he allow the other man to stay until morning.
That decided, Byakuya stands and straightens his clothing, before moving to dress his sleeping vice chair again.
He manages to tug on a sleeve when he hears, “Mmmmph…taichou?” and promptly drops the other man in surprise.
Renji’s hits the bed with a pillowy thud and like nothing ever happened, his snoring resumes shortly thereafter. Byakuya, heart in his throat, chides himself for being uncharacteristically jumpy when he’s done this dozens of times before without worrying a moment about it.
Steeling himself, he finishes dressing Renji hastily and picks him up, making his way towards the other man’s quarters as quickly and quietly as possible.
Renji sighs and curls up against his captain’s chest with a gruff, unintelligible murmur, looking strangely content again, and Byakuya holds on to him and increases his pace, thinking to himself that this one is the longest of the many walks he’s taken this way.
He just doesn’t know why.
~~~~~
Come morning, he wakes up to the sound of Renji’s fumbling at his doorway but is too exhausted at the moment to deal with it. So he closes his eyes again and hopes that Renji will maybe take pity on him and come back in an hour or so, because as nice at it is, today he’d really rather sleep than eat breakfast.
As usual however, no one is listening to his prayers, and the door slides open a minute or two later, the crinkling of a paper bag telling him that his vice-captain is really here and not hung-over enough to want to skip on their breakfast date despite last night, and really, the man shouldn’t be such a morning person when he drinks that much in any one sitting the night before.
Byakuya wonders if ignoring the redhead will successfully force Renji into leaving for now.
“Taichou?” the voice is soft, as if Renji, after all his stumbling and fumbling outside, suddenly realizes that he should be quiet when someone else is sleeping, and in a classic case of too-little-too late, begins making tentative (and respectably stealthy) movements towards Byakuya’s bed. “Taichou?” he asks again, this time in a whisper, only crinkling the paper bag from the bakery a little bit as he does.
Usually, Byakuya is roused easily from sleep at the first few loud noises his vice-captain makes, and today, when he doesn’t stir, Renji surmises that his captain is uncharacteristically exhausted, and at a loss, the redhead stands in the middle of the room holding his pastries and not quite knowing what to do now that their familiar patterns are beginning to diverge so suddenly.
Byakuya continues to ignore him, believing that given Renji’s record for impatience, the redhead will get the hint eventually and leave the room once he gets bored enough of watching another man sleep off a night of alcohol and comfort sex and strange, follow-up discomfort.
It’s completely silent between them for a while then, and just as Byakuya feels as if he’s finally drifting back to sleep again, there’s a hand on his head, fingers gently running through his bed-matted hair. They’re gone as suddenly as they were there, but the damage is done and Byakuya knows he won’t be able to go back to sleep after that, not with the way his heart rate has increased and he’s inexplicably beginning to feel vaguely nauseated deep in the pit of his stomach.
“Sorry, taichou,” Renji murmurs after a second, taking a decisive step backwards from the bed, as if suddenly remembering that it is only a place he is welcome when the both of them are not entirely themselves.
A couple of quiet footsteps follow and Byakuya hears the pastry bag being carefully deposited on top of his desk before Renji backs out of the room and closes the door gently behind him.
The sixth division captain cracks an eye open at the sound and rolls onto his back once the coast is clear, staring at the ceiling with brow furrowed.
He touches the side of his head absently and wonders what, exactly, Renji is sorry about.
He doesn’t exactly know why, but some part of him is convinced that it had nothing to do with the noise.
~~~~~
Byakuya stays in bed for a little while longer, though he knows that rest is completely out of reach now, he staring at the white bag on top of his desk without really seeing it and thinking to himself that it was rather cruel of him to just ignore their usual morning-after tradition today. Changing the routine meant changing the dynamic after all, and more than being simply inconvenient for Renji in that he missed his breakfast, there was something dangerous about altering previously set-patterns in Byakuya’s opinion, because that meant an open invitation to create new ones.
Byakuya doesn’t really feel like he likes change all that much, at least, not when it comes to how he feels about things.
Rukia says he’s rather immature for it, he remembers speaking to her one time, his little sister putting her hands on her hips and speculating rather sarcastically, that her niisama was either a giant chicken or stubborn to the point of retardedness.
He’d taken umbrage at her crude assessment of his situation, but hadn’t really been able to argue because after becoming a mother, she was rather an intimidating opponent to debate with.
So he’d schooled his expression to its usual deadpan calm and asked her, very reasonably, what it was about him that made her assume those things.
She’d responded that she didn’t need to assume because she knew and the only person in the universe who would pine over one dead woman for x-number of years would be her brother, because he’s the sort that clings to the past (she should know, having picked up a penchant for it herself in her time under the Kuchiki household) and on top of all that, he’s also a strict big brother who believes too much in absolutes.
So she knows that her brother believes that it’s only possible for love to be true if it is eternal and for the same one person forever, and ever, blah, blah blah.
He’d frowned minutely at that, because he didn’t think he was so absolute that compromises couldn’t be made with him if the arguments for such were especially compelling, and he’d told her as such as he’d bounced his toddler niece in his lap and hoped she would stop drooling over his suit.
“You don’t compromise until it’s a life or death situation, niisama. And sometimes not even then,” she’d responded easily, eyeing a stain on the counter with no small amount of suspicion as she’d prepared to attack it with a chemical laden sponge.
“I do not. I…” he paused when she threw him a significant look.
Well, maybe sometimes he did avoid compromise. But that had been a long time ago! He likes to think that he’s learned how to make better promises since then. But honestly, if a man can’t keep his word, what kind of world would they be living in?
She’d smirked at him and told him point-of-fact, that it would at least be a world where he could maybe get laid again sometime this century.
He’d sputtered indignantly at that and she’d laughed at him, telling him that the promise he’d made when he’d wed Hisana didn’t much count anymore, and the fact of the matter was, while everyone understood that he would love her forever, no one quite understood why he was determined to love only her forever. Really, it was a little bit childish on his part as far as she was concerned.
He’d had an answer to that, really, but then Ichigo had swept in, plucking his daughter off of her uncle’s lap and declaring that Rukia should leave Byakuya alone because the day he changed his old man ways meant Apocalypse for them all and he would appreciate it very much, if his wife would refrain from trying to bring about the end of days before Ichiro was fully ten.
Byakuya had glared openly at that, but Ichigo had been ignoring him at that point, tossing little Masaki in the air and making ridiculously undignified cooing noises while she gurgled and drooled on him in the manner that only happy babies can make cute.
He thinks there is something uncanny about Rukia and Ichigo’s teamwork and its ability to make him feel much younger (and much more foolish) than he is.
The point of the whole thing was to try and get him to change his ways, he supposes, and when their combined efforts have thus far failed, he doesn’t like very much, the fact that Renji is getting him to alter his patterns on some things, like breakfast for instance, no matter how small such a matter may be.
He gets out of his bed and pads over to the abandoned breakfast goods, uncurling the top of the bag from where it had been clenched in Renji’s fist and peering in.
One apple, one cherry, and a handful of unsettling thoughts to the nature of why there aren’t two apples in there like there should be.
He closes the bag back up and leaves it on the desk, moving about the room to prepare for today’s workday.
On his way out, he grabs the food, tucking the bag under his arm and moving rather stiffly towards his sixth division headquarters office to see about having his morning meal with his vice-captain, like he usually does on their mornings after.
He doesn’t like change.
He finds Renji in his office balancing a pencil on his nose and staring at the ceiling with a look of thoughtful boredom on his face. And despite everything, Byakuya can’t help it when he reaches out and flicks the pencil off, startling Renji enough to almost make the redhead fall out of his chair.
“Ah, er, mornin’ taichou!”
Byakuya nods and sets the bag on his vice-captain’s desk. “Good morning.”
Renji looks up after seeing the bag, something in his eyes that seems anxious at having his gift returned. “Er… taichou?”
Byakuya looks at those eyes and reminds himself that it can’t be helped, because he just doesn’t like change. “Shall we have breakfast, Renji?”
It takes a moment to process, but the vice-captain smiles after a second and moves his chair over, clearing some space off his desk for Byakuya to perch on. “Sure, taichou. Shall I go get some tea?”
“That would be nice.”
Renji grins and heads off to get the tea, Byakuya watching him and thinking to himself that maybe his sister was right and her niisama is a big, stubborn, retarded chicken.
TBC
Edits needed, but probably too much of an effort at this point. o.o Because really. IT'S SO CHEEEEEEEESIE. ^^;;