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Renji figured it happened somewhere between Rukia riding him about being too tense around his taichou, and that slow loosening of protocol between him and Byakuya after hours.
The start, that was. He had fallen before he even knew what hit him, because one night it came up behind him and clubbed his ass like some low-level Hollow with bad aim.
These days Byakuya would bring out a bottle some distilled liquor or some high-class wine when it was just them in the office, and they’d shoot the shit (Renji’s words, of course; Byakuya called it “wrapping it up”), and this was Renji’s official go-ahead to relax and let the guard off his tongue.
It was in the middle of a recounting of the latest training fiasco, which had sent Byakuya chuckling and covering his eyes with his white hand, that Renji realized the damning truth.
Holy hell.
Not good.
It was there every time he looked at Kuchiki Byakuya’s still and stoic posture, the graceful turn of his head, the slow lift and slide of his indigo eyes. It was in the memory of the long swath of black hair, unbound, and now it was in the scent that was only detectable in close proximity, some sweetish spice.
But, hey, he figured that was okay. Byakuya was beautiful. Many had dashed their hearts against that particular stronghold. Renji could live with that, because his captain had loved and lost, and between Renji’s realistic estimation of his own charms and his knowledge of those of Hisana’s, Byakuya’s late wife, he could shelter in the consolation that even if he was confused and diverted, at least Byakuya could not remotely return those sentiments.
Not that he didn’t often wish for some alternate reality where Byakuya would look at him, and … well, find something to love.
This undercurrent of longing was not enough to fuel his active fantasies, because his imagination wasn’t creative enough to show him what Byakuya would look like, in love. Every time he tried to imagine it, he hit a wall. Really, he wouldn’t be the sort to absolutely lose it? But how did one make love without letting go?
One night, they managed to break off early enough so that Renji could reciprocate Byakuya’s previous invitations to dinner at the Kuchiki residence. He didn’t want to know what people thought of seeing them together; certainly, it was obvious that the owner was delighted to serve the aloof captain of the 6th division. Byakuya’s manner altered not at all, and just as his own underlings, the staff responded to his condescension with eager and efficient service.
Byakuya watched with a tinge of intrigue as a kimono-clad waitress set up the fire, placed the kettle, and began the water at a boil between them.
“You really never ate nabe?” Renji asked, disbelievingly. Hot pot cooking was the staple of every family and bachelor he knew. As long as you could afford the vegetables and meat, you just had to cut it thin and throw it in.
The Kuchiki heir merely raised a brow at him. Oh, right. Byakuya probably didn’t know how to cook anything.
“Well, it’s really easy. They just throw in whatever’s seasonal. Then you eat it out of the pot, with rice.”
Dark blue eyes studied the cauldron. “I see.”
“It’s tasty. You won’t be disappointed.”
Byakuya glanced at his face with a genuine smile, and Renji stopped breathing, pinned. “I’m not disappointed, Renji.”
Oh, hell. Now his imagination had something to go on.
“I’m perfectly able to sit in a cab,” Byakuya protested mildly, as they climbed unsteadily into the rickshaw side by side.
“Yeah, let’s just say that fourth bottle went down far more smoothly than the first three,” Renji muttered, and told the runner where they were headed first before sitting back.
“I blame you,” the captain said inexplicably.
“That’s okay. I can handle it,” the lieutenant said in a soothing tone, secretly amused. Drunk, Byakuya wasn’t much different than sober, except that he seemed a bit more belligerent. It was kind of cute.
He hadn’t figured the closeness of the quarters in the rickshaw; the bouncy transportation forced them to sit, unapologetically, almost in each others’ laps. He could feel the sweat dampen his collar, but he pretended that his thoughts weren’t steadily sliding into unexplored territory. Or that his body was reacting. Or that he should have just bundled his captain into the rickshaw by himself, and pleaded a total lack of manners the following morning.
When they drew up to the courtyard of the mansion, Byakuya was moving very carefully, most probably overcompensating for the dizzying after effects of the journey combined with sake. Renji didn’t dare help him down, but he stood at the side, just in case. Byakuya gave him a hard stare, daring him to be chivalrous.
As he passed into the house, the spicy scent caught Renji’s nose. Cinnamon. Byakuya’s dark eyes turned back on him for a moment in silence before he vanished into the doorway.
Renji was instantly hard.
He suffered the torturous ride back to his quarters. He half wanted to tell the runner to sidetrack to the red district, but he ground down on that incredibly bad idea. Better his own hand than coming in a warm body that instantly regretting it. Oh, he would regret it, as soon as he saw Byakuya in all his glory the next morning.
Once inside his own rooms, it was a scramble to get at his cock out of his clothes, and barely a few imagined scenarios and a dozen strokes took him to a barely satisfying end. Panting and cursing, he pulled off the uniform in pieces, wiped himself down and dropped them on the way to the bed.
Thankfully he was too tired and drunk to stew on the unfairness of life. He dropped like a stone down a well, and when the servant clacked his wooden plaque outside of Renji’s door at the appropriate time the next morning, Renji rolled over, groaning, and eyed the telling trail of garments in the scattered morning light. He buried his face for half a minute, muttering, and then forced himself up.
There was something annoyingly refreshing about Abarai Renji, Byakuya reflected. Renji did and said exactly what he wished, whereas Byakuya had not done so since a small boy, growing in the shadows of his noble ancestors and tutored by retainers who knew exactly how everything was meant to happen. Outwardly, Byakuya distained such inelegance, but privately he rather envied it.
Once, long ago it seemed, he had broken with tradition; at first he’d ascribed it to the nature of love, to fall for a woman and rebel for her sake. Certainly, society forgave that sort of indiscretion over other kinds. Later, he realized that it was a weakness in his nature, that no matter how hard he worked at being the perfect lord, he was essentially flawed. That small capacity for sympathy was an aberration for which he had never quite forgiven himself, but by which the rest of Soul Society had long since acknowledged the newest Kuchiki heir as the man to watch.
Shame could be just as blinding as love, and mourning took a multitude of forms.
He had fallen for Hisana as a man slowly descending into a field of waving grasses, with a sense of relief and calm pleasure, and there was still that feeling when he thought of her, despite the pain.
When he fell for Abarai Renji, it felt as if it was in one moment, as a man falling from a cliff.
It was that moment when he was so sure that Renji’s bloody body would not survive, that he realized that one form of mourning would be replaced by another, that he had fallen off the cliff the moment he had felt the enormity of Renji’s riatsu snuffed out by his own. This mourning would be for his stupidity in not understanding himself until it was too late. His hand pulled his scarf free, and he saw its white silk slither through his fingers, drifting down across Renji’s still form, his length of bright hair surprisingly beautiful amid all that blood. Byakuya had taken one long look, then closed his eyes, and walked away.
But Renji lived, and the mourning Byakuya expected to take up residence in his heart shaped itself into an uncomfortable sort of self-knowledge. Once again, his capacity for lying to himself exceeded all expectation. He told himself it had been an illusion. He could not love this cocky street-dog, and even if he could, surely that straight-forward, passionate man could not love a coldly correct Kuchiki.
Recently there was a loosening of discipline in private, and Byakuya was blessed in experiencing Renji’s smile and laugh, little gifts that he could be grateful for, while knowing that true friendship, or any relationship for that matter, would not follow.
Still, he was used to appreciating little bits of happiness when he could get them and not asking for too much. Such muting of his personal desires had been the entire tone of his marriage.
There was a night, though, pressed together in a cramped rickshaw, that Byakuya began to wonder. Having been trained from an early age to interpret subtle body language, and see whole paragraphs in the smallest shift of expression, he could recall to the minute when Renji began to become aware of him on a sexual level. This was not particularly alarming or gratifying; after all, he saw these sorts of responses around him almost on a daily basis. People were, for the most part, sexual creatures; it was their ability to suppress those instincts that refined them.
Renji indeed heroically struggled to suppress them during the ride home, and the next day Byakuya could see he had come to some sort of understanding with himself. It looked a lot like resignation. Byakuya could have predicted this manly self-denial from anyone but the impulsive Renji, but it seemed that his lieutenant was operating under the impression that his feelings were not returned. It seemed Byakuya was far too skilled in disguising himself, even now when Renji was closer to him than ever.
Byakuya mulled over this state of affairs for some time, expecting that Renji would smother this new awareness to death with continued suppression. It did not happen, though, and almost daily Byakuya was subtly reminded that Renji was agitated under his attempts at disguise. He carefully drank less in Byakuya’s presence, obviously avoiding loosening his behavior, perhaps afraid to disclose too much.
Perhaps if his feelings hadn’t been reciprocated, Renji’s unease might have continued uninterrupted, but there was another part of this equation. Byakuya had come to his own understanding. He could renounce this new outcropping of weakness, certainly. He even considered simply allowing things to go as they had until either or both of them finally allowed the feelings to die. He immediately abhorred that idea, for Renji’s sake more than his own.
Well, that was the rationale. On a rainy night, standing side by side under the eaves of the newest restaurant adventure and staring into the deserted street through the cold deluge, Byakuya realized that he was fooling himself. Renji stood stoically at this side, politely waiting with him until Byakuya’s conveyance would arrive to fetch him, and Byakuya merely took in the controlled profile of his lieutenant with a painful glance that undid all his careful and neatly structured thoughts. In that moment he realized that he had not fallen over the cliff; he had stepped off the edge of his own free will.
“Renji,” he murmured softly.
The redhead turned his head to look at him and swallowed, eyes widening. The silence stretched, charged. Byakuya knew his own face gave away some of what he was feeling, and as they stared at each other, Renji’s cheeks colored, his chest rising and falling in ever-increasing breaths, steaming in the cold air. But he did not move, neither forward nor back.
Byakuya could almost hear the rickshaw splash and clatter a block away, under the thrum and drip of rain, and almost in the same moment, Renji heard it too. It seemed to be a signal; a determined, desperate look flared in Renji’s amber eyes, and then they were reaching out for each other in the same instant.
Byakuya had imagined some soft acknowledgment, and it certainly seemed to begin that way, but then Renji’s arms tightened, and Byakuya’s body caught fire, responding to a guttural sound in the redhead’s throat and a hot tongue that sought his. Open-mouthed, they kissed each other. Byakuya’s hands had begun at Renji’s waist, but he found that he could not stop them from moving upwards and clutching – undignified! - even as Renji was pulling him in close when a long arm about his slighter shoulders.
Self-awareness or the sound of the rickshaw’s wheels hitting the curb brought Renji to a self-conscious and abrupt withdrawal. He released Byakuya and took a step back as if avoiding an adder’s strike.
Byakuya blinked. His eyes felt huge, as did several other responsive parts of his body, and he avoided licking experimentally at his lips because Renji self-control seemed very much tested. Instead, he examined his lieutenant’s face, looking for clues. Was Renji as shocked and aroused as he?
The rickshaw pulled alongside, the runner apologizing for the weather. Byakuya gave Renji one long look and a small smile before alighting. “Good night,” he said, as he settled back in the seat.
The redhead opened his mouth, then shut it with a snap. “Good night, Byakuya.”
When the dreaded “Kuchiki-taicho” did not appear, and “san” did not follow, Byakuya could feel his smile deepen.
It would be all right, then.
If the definitive picture of “awkward moment” were to be created, it would be this scene: Byakuya opening his office’s door to find a self-conscious Renji bent over his desk, furiously working on his paperwork and studiously avoiding meeting his eyes.
The captain surveyed this scene, raising an eyebrow. “Renji?” he asked.
“Yes, sir?” Renji’s pink face showed his discomfort.
“Oversee the training for today. I will see you after the noon meal.”
The lieutenant’s relief was palpable as he hurriedly stood and bowed. “Yes, captain. Thank you.”
Byakuya sighed as he watched Renji hurry out. Perhaps it had been a mistake, then. Renji was young, he reprimanded himself, over-emotional and impulsive. Perhaps he regretted what had happened.
But later, after a more subdued Renji returned and they were in the midst of comparing a new set of maps of the Rukongai with the old, Byakuya leant over to a map in front of Renji. His lieutenant had been talking, and instantly his words dried up and his back stiffened, as if he were holding his breath. Byakuya realized the mistake and moved away, glancing at Renji’s expression, which was the epitome of strained self-control.
Ah. Perhaps he’d misinterpreted Renji’s earlier behavior. Turning his head back to the maps, Byakuya could not help the small smile that slipped through before he suppressed it.
“Taichou,” Renji grated in a strained voice.
Byakuya’s eyes darted to Renji’s face. The lack of personal name was not a good sign. “Yes?”
“Could you excuse me? I have those scrolls to run down to Division 1, and it’s…” The shinigami glanced away from him. “…it’s almost closing time.”
Meaning, Byakuya interpreted, that Renji did not want to be here alone with him at the end of the day. He took a painful breath. “Certainly.”
“See you in the morning, Kuchiki-taichou.”
Byakuya managed not to wince.
He was surprised, much later that night, to hear one of the younger servants running down the wooden passageway as he pulled on his outer sleep robe. He watched as his personal man went to see to the matter, and followed once he caught Renji’s name amidst the furiously whispered conversation.
“Sir, your lieutenant is here, and he’s asking to see you…” But Byakuya could hear the heavy, impatient, unmistakable tread coming from behind the runner, and there was Renji in the doorway of his sitting room.
Renji.
Glowering. Obviously drunk. Vibrating with resentment.
Terrifying his servants.
Byakuya nodded them out of the room, and caught their anxious expressions as they closed the door, leaving him alone with his lieutenant.
“Renji?” he asked, searching for patience, but most likely expressing disapproval.
“Byakuya,” Renji returned, a hint of a slur to his voice. His eyes raked over the captain with his loosened hair and robes, and a gleam heated them up.
“Renji, why are you here?” There, a note of outward impatience, and Byakuya found himself clutching his robe self-consciously. “And more importantly, why are you here, drunk?”
Renji stared and then laughed, a rough bark. “Yeah, that’s the question, isn’t it? I couldn’t… I couldn’t forget…” He seemed to lose track of his words, and blurted: “Do you think it’s funny, that the street-dog can barely control himself?”
Where was this coming from? “No, Renji. I don’t find much humor in it.” He watched as Renji ran a shaky hand over his face. “Nor do I think you can’t control yourself…unless you’ve been drinking.”
“What was that, then, today? Was it a test, to see just how far you can push the mutt before he cracks?”
“Renji, that’s not…”
His lieutenant took a step forward. “I saw you smile! Laughing at me!”
Byakuya could feel his eyes stretch open. Was that it? “I wasn’t laughing.”
“Oh, yeah? What was it, then?”
The captain took a breath and closed his eyes, searching inwardly for an appropriate descriptor. “I was happy.”
Silence. Byakuya opened his eyes to look at Renji, whose stunned expression seemed to ask a question as well as tell him that he had not expected to hear those three words.
“Renji, won’t you sit down?”
The shinigami started, then glanced around, face reddening. “Uh, no, that’s all right. I … I shouldn’t really be here –“
“Renji.” Byakuya intentionally lowered his voice to a silky command. “Sit down.”
His lieutenant sat abruptly. Byakuya glided to the door and told the servant outside to bring water. Turning, he considered Renji, who was busy hanging his head and further disheveling his hair by running his fingers through it. The whole attitude said busted, but curiously, Byakuya imagined Rukia’s tone when he thought of it.
He took the water and cups, and quietly told the servant to go to bed. Sliding the door shut, he set his burden down and poured, handing a cup to Renji, who accepted the cup and gulped down the cool liquid. “Sorry, Byakuya. Is this where you kick my ass out the door and down the street?”
Byakuya knelt before him with a sigh, and leaning in, took the cup from his hand, and kissed him.
For a moment, Renji stilled, passive, but after a beat his hands grabbed at Byakuya’s shoulders, pulling him roughly against him, and his mouth angled and took what it was offered. One would think Renji had been starving for touch, Byakuya thought dazedly. Renji’s hands were yanking his robes down his arms and his mouth was making its way to Byakuya’s throat. His weight and enthusiasm tumbled them to the floor and they both groaned as Renji’s groin settled atop of Byakuya’s.
“That’s it,” Renji growled, and bit down on Byakuya’s shoulder. Byakuya clenched his teeth against the ridiculous moan that welled up, and squirmed instead, making his lover laugh breathlessly against his neck. Byakuya grabbed for any hold he could find, his fingers sinking into bright hair and the despicable tie that kept it back. He pulled at it at the same instant that Renji’s wandering tongue found a nipple and flicked it; he jerked upward, his hand bringing the hair-tie with it, loosening a torrent of crimson long hair over Renji’s shoulders and across Byakuya’s vision. “Mnm,” Renji groaned, and sucked.
“Renji!”
He wasn’t sure if he was fighting to get closer or farther away, but either way, it was futile because Renji’s strength held him subject to his whims; Byakuya’s body began to shiver with an overload of pleasure at the thought that Renji could do whatever he wished, and Byakuya would not deny him. He was done with not taking what was offered!
Renji slowed, then stopped, raising himself up to stare down at him. Byakuya merely fought to catch his breath, and saw Renji’s eyes, alight and feverish, begin to narrow in bewilderment. The captain could predict what confused thoughts were vying for attention in his lieutenant’s brain.
Not acceptable. He knotted his fingers in the long hair at Renji’s nape and brought his face down until there was less than an inch between them. “Renji, listen very carefully.”
“Uh, yes…?”
“I want you to stay the night.”
The redhead blinked. “Uh, all right.” Then he did it again. The hopeful intensity of his eyes began to dim in doubt, as if he were thinking of all the possible meanings of that phrase, beginning with the least likely.
Byakuya’s fingers tightened, and Renji winced. “You need to listen carefully; it’s important.”
“…sure.”
“I want you to stay the night...” He paused deliberately. “…in my bed.”
Renji’s breath quickened. “Okay…yeah, is that all right?”
“It will be once we’re there,” the nobleman replied, thinking he’d better move fast or his lieutenant would begin to start rethinking this conversation and figure it was all misinterpretation. “If you would…?” He shifted his hips.
Renji grunted, and the grin that had begun small was now stretching wide, turning appropriately feral. “Right now?” he asked
Byakuya laughed softly as Renji closed the small space and nudged Byakuya’s mouth open with his tongue, driving it in. Byakuya tried not to squirm again; he felt it somehow undignified. Yet he’d never felt such a thing in his life, as if a lightning’s electricity connected Renji’s tongue with his own sex. He couldn’t help it; his hips arched up hard into Renji’s.
“All right, all right,” Renji mumbled, lifting his head reluctantly. “Bed, it is.” He lifted himself up, leering at the pale, half-naked man underneath him. “Uh, I’m feeling really inspired.”
Huffing indignantly, Byakuya shoved him all the way off, and gazed down at what little of his sleeping robes still remained on his body. Shrugging as he stood, he allowed them to fall away. He could hear Renji gulp as he picked up the clothing and walked to the door of his bedroom.
He did not have to make any other invitations. Renji was close behind him, in fact close enough that Byakuya could hear him shedding his outer coat and fighting with the tie on his hakama, then a soft sound as that clothing dropped. Byakuya, who had been contemplating his futon with consideration to the mechanics, turned and paused to look at Renji in the plain under-kimono, his crimson hair falling forward over his shoulders as he worked on the last thin obi that held the final layer together. He was making quite a disaster of it.
“Come here,” he said in his captain’s voice. Renji glanced up at him, his face flushed, obeying in a single stride. While Byakuya worked out the knot, he could feel Renji’s body heat coming off of him in waves, hearing his deep breaths. As soon as the fabric came apart in his hands, he heard Renji’s breath hitch, and then the larger man had him in his arms and was bearing him down on the bedding.
“I don’t know - ” Renji muttered against his throat, his hands resting on Byakuya’s slim hips possessively. “…I wish I could take this slow.”
“Next time,” Byakuya assured him breathlessly. He lifted his ankles and rested them behind Renji’s calves. There was a small shift, and then they were against each other at last, with not a single barrier.
“Ah, fuck,” Renji whined. “Ah, fuck, this isn’t going to - ” He thrust himself against Byakuya desperately. “So good-- ”
Byakuya was surprised that Renji could still string comprehensible words together in some semblance of language; he was not even attempting such a thing. Instead, he arched his head back and drove his nails into Renji’s lower back. He was so hard that the pleasure was akin to pain and he felt, as he hadn’t felt in a long time, that coming now was pretty much the order of the moment.
Renji was wet with sweat, his body shivering and convulsing, so close to orgasm that Byakuya knew one small impetus would throw him over the brink. He relaxed his hands, flattening his palms against his lieutenant’s tensing buttocks, and lifted his head to hiss in Renji’s ear: “Now.”
Renji’s cry was a howl of pain and pleasure, release and relief. That sound reverberated through Byakuya’s being and in surprise, he bucked against Renji as the lightning struck up his spine as well.
He collapsed, dazed, under Renji’s warm weight as they both struggled to control their breathing. They were both messy with sweat and semen, but he was strangely not in any rush to set them to rights. He sighed and ran his fingers through Renji’s hair, who made a contented sound.
“Byakuya,” the lieutenant whispered.
“Hm?”
“I don’t get it. You could have anyone. What the fuck are you thinking, giving me hope?”
The lord stared at the ceiling. What, indeed?
“I mean, I suppose it’s no surprise, you know, that I wanted you. I guess I’m no good holding back that kind of thing. I just don’t understand what you would see in someone like me.”
After a long, dozing silence, Byakuya murmured: “I suppose it is because you cannot hold it back…no one ever looked at me as you look at me.”
Renji shifted. “How do I look at you?”
“As if I matter …” Byakuya let out a breath. “Underneath it all, I am not Kuchiki, or taichou, or shinigami. I am myself, but no one seems to see under it all, except you.”
Renji drew himself up slowly, looking at Byakuya’s face. Then a small smile appeared. “But that’s how you’ve always looked at me. You’ve always stripped me down until it’s just me there; it used to piss me off so much that I couldn’t keep my guard up.”
“Is that when you fell in love with me?” Byakuya teased with a twinkle.
Renji’s heart lurched in his chest. “Yeah, I guess so. Though I can’t say exactly when it began. One day you were taichou, and the next I was thinking that you smelled really hot.” At Byakuya’s odd expression, he inwardly cursed. “Or was that joke I was supposed to have some witty comeback to?”
“Not a joke,” the captain said with a softer smile. “It always surprises me, your honesty.”
“Yeah, well.” He was acutely aware that Byakuya was not reciprocating, but what did he expect? The Kuchiki had many levels. “Do you want me to go?” He was thinking that he’d have to drop by the public baths first. And then jerk off fifty times to the memory.
“I should like you to stay,” Byakuya said, “if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Yeah, like hell I mind,” Renji replied, surprised. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,”
“Well, all right.” Yeah, that was him. One huge martyr. Reluctantly sacrificing himself to the wicked intentions of his sexy superior.
“Would you care to bathe? I’ve a private bath…”
Lucky! “That sounds great.” Boy did it ever. Both of them naked, with hot water and soap? Endless possibilities. He wasn’t sure exactly where this was going, but he was pretty open to anything if it included a naked and willing Byakuya. Who was he to nitpick? So what if Byakuya’s feelings weren’t so clear, or that Renji had no idea what the hell he was doing? He was damned fortunate to get whatever he could.
“Renji?”
“Uh, yeah?”
Byakuya was looking at him with some amusement. “You do realize that I don’t commonly invite men into my bed?”
The hell! “I was under that impression.” In fact, most people assumed Byakuya didn’t have a sex life to speak of.
“…and that you crashed through about a dozen servants before arriving in my rooms, not to mention taking a public conveyance to my gate at some ungodly hour and never left?”
What was he getting at? “Sure, I suppose. Is this some etiquette issue?”
They were slowly disentangling themselves. Byakuya sat up. “It is a privacy issue.”
“Oh.” He scratched his head. “As in…”
“As in half of the divisions will have wind of this by morning.”
“What?!” Renji stared at him in shock as his captain rose, beckoning him through one of seemingly hundreds of sliding doors. “What … but why would you..? Why didn’t you just chuck me out, then?”
Byakuya gave him an enigmatic glance. “Perhaps you should reflect on it for a moment. The answer might come to you.”
Renji tilted his head to the side, watching Byakuya’s white and naked form turn and disappear into the next room. As running water greeted his ears, he thought about it, running the facts through his mind. He knew how much Byakuya treasured his dignity and privacy, and he just couldn’t understand -
Well, damn. Renji would be the first to admit he was always slow on the uptake. Grinning, he straightened up and stood, stretching his arms thoughtfully upwards.
He guessed Byakuya had declared his feelings, after all. Leave him to do it without words and make Renji work at figuring it out.