Seeking Guidance, chapter 4
Author: honey_mellon
Title: Seeking Guidance
Rating: R
Pairing: Ukitake Juushiro, Abarai Renji
Warnings: Nothing you wouldn't expect from an R-rated yaoi fiction
Summary: Juushiro watched the swirling tattoos come to life as the young man flexed his arms and snapped his whip-like zanpakutou forward. He saw the anger that saturated every thrust of those muscular arms and the strain in those narrow, tired brown eyes. Juushiro had a good idea where these hurtful feelings came from, and he wanted to help.
COMMUNITY DISCLAIMER: All characters depicted in sexual situations in this post/fanfiction/fanart (including material in the comments) are fictional and are intended to be and considered to be by the author of said material of the legal age of consent in the United States state of California, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from.
Thank you so, so much for the encouraging feedback for the last chapter.
To make up for the geeky 3rd chapter, here's a fast update! 3
"Your fangs will never reach me," the cold, emotionless voice said.
Renji couldn't see the face, but he recognized the voice. His heart rate immediately jumped up several notches and he began to hyperventilate. Instinctively, he reached for his sword only to find that it wasn't there-he was unarmed! In a panic, he turned to his weakest skill and started the incantation for hado no 31, but it was too late.
His vision blurred, then he was suddenly surrounded by a flurry of pink. A burst of pain racked his body-the sting was so sharp and so deep that he felt it even in his bones. Despite his best efforts to stay on his feet, he gasped and fell onto his knees. His skin burned-every inch of his body felt as though it was going up in flames, and he clawed at his hands, his face, shrieking as every touch brought forth even worse jolts of pain. Tears ran down his face, the salt in the liquid searing his tortured skin.
Renji sat up in his bed with a hoarse cry. Eyes wild and heart pumping erratically, he clung desperately onto the blanket that was pooled around his waist and gasped, his voice and breath spilling out at broken, uneven intervals. He lost track of how long he sat like this, but when he finally stopped sobbing, he held up his hands and stared numbly at them. Even when he thought he was holding them steady, they still trembled.
With a final sob, he buried his face in his hands-they were ice-cold and damp. In fact, his entire body was drenched. Suddenly cold, he pulled his covers up to his neck, ignoring the discomfort when the fabric stuck to his sweat-slicked body.
Tomorrow...tomorrow he would go to Ukitake-taicho.
Juushiro looked at the young man sitting cross-legged in front of him. "Remember, relax, and listen only to my voice. Tune out everything else," he said.
Renji nodded. The words that were meant to be reassuring instead made him clench his fists, and his shihakusho was pulled taut across his thighs in his grip.
"Relax," Juushiro repeated. He rested a palm on the lieutenant's hand and couldn't help flinching at the contact with the unnaturally cold skin. He decided to wait a few more minutes to let the man calm down a little more.
Earlier, when Renji told him that he had had a particularly bad nightmare last night, he had been shocked to hear the tremor in the man's voice. He could tell that Renji was already holding himself back, so Juushiro could only imagine what it was like to wake up from such a traumatic experience in the darkness...alone.
"I think I'm okay now," Renji said, interrupting Juushiro's thoughts.
Juushiro took in a deep breath. He had gone over his notes again to make sure that he remembered every single detail. Theoretically, with his level of knowledge and spiritual strength, it should not take long for him to coax his patient into the right state of mind.
"Close your eyes," Juushiro instructed.
Renji hesitated for a split second, then, almost reluctantly, he closed his eyes. His grip on his shihakusho tightened.
"Relax," Juushiro said soothingly. "Don't be afraid, I'm right here. Take a couple of deep breaths...that's it...slowly..."
The redhead's fingers relaxed slightly.
"Now, I'm going to start slowly," Juushiro said, keeping his voice low and steady. "I need you to imagine that you're in an empty room. It's square, with white walls, and completely empty. And you're sitting on the floor, cross-legged as you are now."
Renji's brows furrowed a bit, then he nodded and tried to picture the room. It's square...it's empty...wait, what color walls is it supposed to have?
Juushiro saw the young man's head cock to the side. "Is something wrong?"
Renji blushed in embarrassment. "Sorry, I, uhh...forgot the color of the walls. Can you please tell me what I'm supposed to see again?"
Juushiro repeated his instruction and watched as the lieutenant close his eyes again. He waited. After a moment he asked gently, "What do you see?"
Renji blushed again. "Umm, still working on the walls. Give me a minute."
Juushiro smiled to himself. "Okay, take your time."
When he said that, he certainly did not expect that, half an hour later, they would still be having the same conversation. Juushiro would ask the question, and Renji would either frown and say he couldn't picture the room, or he would suddenly sit up straight with a start, obviously having drifted off to sleep.
"I'm sorry, Ukitake-taicho," Renji said, face pink with a mix of shame and frustration. "I'm wasting your time."
The captain shook his head. He could tell that the young man was getting tired, and the harder he tried, the more impatient he became, and the more difficult it was to get him to relax. "Don't apologize, Abarai-fukutaicho," Juushiro said, giving Renji an understanding smile. "Let's stop for today, I don't want to cause you too much stress."
Renji let out a dejected sigh and clenched his fists. "I don't know why I-"
"It's not entirely unexpected," Juushiro interrupted. "You are, after all, distressed after what happened during the night, and you're exhausted. I should have taken these into account, so it's my fault, not yours."
Renji immediately opened his mouth to protest, but Juushiro held up a hand. "Please, do not apologize," he said, giving Renji a kind smile. "This exercise, as I like to call it, is supposed to help you, not to give you more guilt or stress. Go home and rest for a few days, then we can continue."
"A few days?" Renji asked in surprise as he stood up. "I'll be back tomorrow, and I'll do better, I promise." Then, he bowed deeply in apology before leaving.
Staring at the lieutenant's back, Juushiro wondered with a worried frown if he had just made things worse.
For the next two weeks, Renji returned every night. And he tried, night after night, to achieve the proper state of mind. But for the life of him-and Juushiro's-he just could not.
At least he had improved to the point that he can now picture the room, but the slightest distraction-the ticking of a clock, a random rustling of leaves-would jolt him out of it.
Juushiro tried other methods too. Instead of a room, he asked Renji to follow his voice as he led the young man through a path in the woods and eventually, to a clearing that was meant to be a soothing environment-the equivalent of the empty room. Renji would look as though he had gone into a trance-like state as he listened to the captain's gentle voice, but the moment Juushiro stopped speaking, he would snap out of it and become fully alert.
It was, needless to say, frustrating. But it was more so for Renji-Juushiro had the patience of a thousand men, but Renji, being naturally outgoing and hotheaded to begin with, became more and more agitated as the sessions wore on.
So, when it finally happened, Juushiro was caught completely unprepared.
One minute Renji had his eyes closed with a slight frown on his face, and the next, he had collapsed to his side, his body convulsing as though he had gone into a seizure.
Juushiro immediately rushed to his side. Sliding one arm under the young man's neck, he pulled Renji up to rest against his own chest. With his free hand, he swept the bright crimson locks-which had fallen loose when Renji collapsed-away from the man's face. Only then did he realize that Renji was not having a seizure.
He was having one of his terrible visions. And based on the words and cries spilling out of Renji's lips, Juushiro had no problem identifying which one it was.
"Taicho!" Renji screamed, tossing in Juushiro's arms. He jerked his head side to side as if he was shaking something off his body, and his breaths came in ragged gasps and whimpers. Juushiro cradled the man's head and rubbed a palm soothingly on the heaving chest, his mind churning for a way to stop this.
Using the same calm voice that he used to lead the exercises, Juushiro said, "Wake up, you can wake up now." He patted Renji's cheeks gently and repeated the same words.
Renji continued to thrash in Juushiro's lap. On top of the cries, he was now clawing at his body as though he wanted to rip his clothes apart. His screams were so hoarse and filled with so much anguish that Juushiro instinctively tightened his hold around Renji's shoulders and chest. There was no doubt that the lieutenant was experiencing the same pain he felt the day he was nearly shredded into pieces by Byakuya's bankai.
Juushiro gritted his teeth and fumed. What kind of man could put his subordinate through such agony and then leave the man to die?
Hugging the lieutenant tightly against his chest, Juushiro rocked his body gently and chanted "You're okay, you're okay" over and over again in a futile attempt to calm the man down. Looking down, Juushiro's heart clenched as he took in the battered sight of the young man. His skin was ghostly pale underneath a sheen of sweat, and a thin trail of blood trickled down from his lips where he had bitten through them. He looked broken, and suddenly so, so young.
"Shhh..." Juushiro continued to rub Renji's chest in little circles, feeling the impossibly fast heartbeat under the man's damp shihakusho. As if in response, Renji began to sob. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes and began to slide down his cheeks.
Before he could think of what he was doing, Juushiro leaned down and pressed his lips over one of Renji's trembling eyelids. He tasted salt, and for reasons he could not understand, he, too, began to cry.
Was it a natural response to the other man's tears? Was he crying for Renji's suffering? Juushiro didn't know. All he knew was that he wanted to do something, he needed to do something-anything-to comfort the young man lying in his arms. Breathing heavily between his own sobs, Juushiro kissed Renji's other eyelid, then, slowly, he brushed his lips along the man's cheeks, following the salty trail of tears.
If I could take on some of this pain myself, I would.
Then, before he could stop himself, Juushiro planted his lips on Renji's quivering ones.
To be continued...
Hearts beating faster? Anyone?