Black-and-Red Conflict

~~~Two~~~
Breach


Even though evening was approaching fast and changing the light into a softer shade of yellow, Byakuya went back to his office and dismissed everybody who was anywhere near it with a few curt words.

There was always enough paperwork to be done and since Byakuya definitely needed to get his mind off what had just happened out there, he could as well tend to it. It wasn't new for him to sit in his office until late at night, working. Everything was better than to be alone in the huge Kuchiki mansion, a horde of servants waiting behind closed doors to run immediately if he had just the tiniest desire for anything. He had nothing to do there, nothing but feeling like a spoilt child, which brought him back immediately to what Renji had called him.

Your highness...

Byakuya scolded himself for thinking back on it. He knew Abarai Renji. The lieutenant was a loud man, strong but too fast with his mouth, too easily carried away by his emotions. Byakuya as Abarai's captain knew this very well. What Renji had said had been an offense, but it should have been dealt with as only that.

Why had Byakuya taken it as so much more? Why had he answered the way he had? Why was he grasping his brush so hard that his knuckles turned white, when he just thought about that grin, that sneer as his Fukutaichou had dared calling him 'your highness'?

Byakuya lifted one of his hands to his forehead and tried to focus, tried to order the mess in his head, to calm down all the emotions that invaded his walls. He had to have a clear mind if he wanted to work out this problem in a way that could be called appropriate. He knew that he himself had reacted wrongly too, so maybe it was best if he let Renji's remark slip this time, trying to act as if nothing had happened. Yes, that and he probably should stop those training duels in general. They didn't really amount to anything after all.

Your highness...

He pressed the brush onto the paper so hard it left an ugly black blotch even on the wood underneath. He forced his fingers to loosen, then put the utensil to the side and shuffled through some more documents just to keep his hands occupied.

There he noticed that a few of those forms seemed somehow strange. They dealt with things not important enough to be on his desk. Now that he took a closer look at them, he realized they should in fact have been a Fukutaichou's task. So how did they end up on his desk? He did not actually need to ask himself but had a very clear idea indeed, how it had happened. A certain redhead had been shuffling a few additional papers into the stack that needed to go to the Taichou's desk.

The tension in Byakuya's hands sent a shiver through the forms he held. He swallowed once and then forced himself to put them to the side with exaggerated care, arranging them neatly into an additional stack that would be sent back to Abarai first thing next morning.

He scowled at the slight trembling of his fingers and short thereafter he scowled even more as he heard steps in the hall before his office. They were loud and angry steps, leaving no question as to whom they belonged. The one single knock against the door was sharp and relentless and almost made Byakuya flinch in his chair.

“Come in,” he said, striving to keep his voice steady and calm.

Renji looked him straight in the eye as he entered and closed the door behind him with slightly more force than would have been necessary. His hair was still the same half-loose mess it had been after their fight. There was still dust and dirt clinging to his clothes and skin and he had only tied his kimono loosely, leaving bared a great part of his strong chest with its famous tattoos. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides and as he took a few steps forward, Byakuya noticed how his lieutenant moved his left leg awkwardly, as if trying to hide an injury.

It seemed impossible hard to hold Renji's gaze as the other stepped up to the desk and leaned forward, placing his hands on the wood.
“Why?!” It was the only word that Renji pressed out, his voice coarse, anger still gleaming in his eyes as Byakuya looked into them.

The dark haired man wouldn't, couldn't answer. He averted his eyes and absent-absentmindedly lifted one hand to his forehead, massaging his temples, taking a deep breath but remaining silent.
This was a strange feeling for him – not to be able to say anything, not having any idea whatsoever as how to explain himself or how to analyze the situation – the Taichou didn't like it at all.

Renji pushed away, went a few stiff steps toward the door, then turned back, eyes narrowed. He suddenly felt very cold. There was this man, his captain, sitting at his desk, perfect as always, all well groomed and proper, as if even the dust from the training grounds had decided not to settle on that well-bread creature and Renji just couldn't stand it anymore. Another wave of anger was washing up his shores, but he knew he had to stay calm, at least long enough to bring out this one sentence which he had repeated in his head over and over again on his way here.

His voice, as he finally spoke, surprisingly clear and strong, “I request to leave this squad, to be transferred to another, whatever the seat or position may be.”

Byakuya's head snapped up and before he even realized it, the rest of his body had followed. He stood, then he frowned. The word "No!" escaped his lips and sounded like a croak. It caught him as much off guard as it did Renji. His dark gray eyes went wide and he almost felt as if a completely different person had uttered this objection. He himself, thinking about his squad, his clan, his career, about everything, should have agreed. He should have gotten Renji away from him, as far as possible. But instead, he stepped around the desk and closer. A shiver was running down his spine.

“No?!”
Again Renji didn't know what to think. Again Byakuya had managed to get him into a state where he was completely and utterly confused. He decided he really was tired of it. With two long steps, ignoring the sharp pain in his knee, he stood in front of his captain, rage turning his face once more into a demonic mask.

“What? Whaddaya think ya doin`?” Suddenly his street kid's slur came back with full force. This was impossible, how could this man make him feel so unbelievably stupid every single time they met? “Callin' m'a fuckin' stray dog 'n now ya...”

“Renji...,” Byakuya tried to interrupt the heated flow of words, but his voice seemed way too quiet to be heard over the storm raging in Renji's head.

“...don'even care ta gimme...”
“Renji!”
“...my damn rights ta choose...”
“ABARAI FUKUTAICHOU!”

“FUCK YOU!”

Both froze and for a few seconds, silence was the strongest exclamation mark possible.

“What...?!” Byakuya had retrieved his voice but just to realize that he was in fact speechless. Had he just heard right? Had his Fukutaichou just told him to...?

Before he was even able to notice how his mouth stood wide open and his eyes even wider, he found himself being pushed hard against the wall a few feet behind him, his head colliding with it painfully. He suppressed the hiss of pain, but only barely the growl of anger as he looked up to see Renji standing above him, one hand gripping the front of his haori.

Byakuya swallowed at the lump in his throat, but it wouldn't leave. He slowly lifted a hand to Renji's wrist and took hold of it with a grip so strong most people wouldn't believe could come from those slender, long fingers. His eyes were dark and boding, focusing on his opponent, trying to outstare him.

Renji looked back, with eyes filled with fire as much as Byakuya's were filled with ice. They were the strangest color, somehow reddish, but not entirely. Rather a kind of brown, a fluctuating one, which, just in the right light, was orange, sometimes but seldom almost black, more often, as most people perceived it, red. Renji's eyebrows were knotted deeply and his mouth a thin line. Slowly he uncurled his fist, but his hand still didn't leave Byakuya's chest. He took a deep breath and looked to the side, and suddenly there was nothing left in his eyes but hurt.

He let his head hang and leaned forward against the wall, but keeping a distance between their bodies.

Too close, but yet not close enough. Too much on his mind to leave him in any kind of control. Anger drowned in the coldness he'd stared into. Everything too much. And now that somehow his rage had just vanished, though Renji couldn't really identify a good reason for it, the only thing he wanted was to lie down and sleep.

Byakuya took a deep breath. His personal space was being invaded so blatantly, that he should definitely not be comfortable with it at all. Especially not since the person invading it was someone who would have to face a lot of problems the next morning, not only for insulting, but also for assaulting his captain.

But there he was, pushed against the wall, his hand still around Renji's wrist, loosening its grip now, the man in front of him so near that some loose strands of red hair tickled the noble's pale face and he could hear the shaky breaths in his vice's throat.

He could also smell him. The sweat and the dust, leftovers from their encounter and more. The musky, heavy scent of Renji's skin, a scent that sneaked deep into Byakuya's nose and spoke of something wild, uncontrolled and free.

Byakuya closed his eyes for a moment and tried to shake his head to clear it. Now, neither anger nor indignation were left in him. Suddenly Renji's hand on his chest didn't seem threatening anymore, but somehow strangely comfortable. The need he suddenly felt to take another deep breath just for the sake of Renji's smell, confused him. And from one moment to the other he felt just so unbelievably tired.

But of course, he couldn't and wouldn't give into that. What had happened was not to be forgiven, there would, had to be consequences. Those were the rules, they ran Byakuya's world and kept it in order, made it possible for him to wake up every morning and go on with a life he felt he had actually never had much power over as to how he lived it.

Renji was dangerous. He was something that threatened Byakuya's illusion of how thing were meant to work. He was something that planted the strange idea in the captain's head that maybe he actually might want to change something. But he knew it would not bring anything positive about. He had once attempted it and the only thing he had achieved was to lose her. He had broken all rules but the dream had only ended in glazed, shattered pieces. He was not able to withstand a pain like that again.

Byakuya laid his hand flat on Renji's chest to push the other away but almost faltered as he met the bare skin and felt the strong heartbeat beneath it. He didn't dare look. He knew he would see his own pale skin against Renji's darker tan, would see how the dark lines of that ridiculous tattoo moved just the slightest over the well formed muscles. Lines that mocked Byakuya and his golden cage, to which he had thrown away the key a long time ago.

As Renji felt the touch of the other's hand he raised his head to stare at the wall, dark strands and a silver Kenseikan in the corner of his view. He was for a second surprised that he was still standing upright and breathing, after all he had done.

The hand against his skin was cool and spoke of control, of discipline and a power that was so much greater than Renji's own that just the thought made him want to turn and run. His pride would have never let him do so, of course, would have never let him cease his pursuit, but sometimes, sometimes he just wanted to vanish and never come back to look into those dark, cold eyes again that told him that, however much he trained, however much he fought and sweat and bled, he would never even come close. His claws would never reach the other, just as he had been told, more than once, in fact.

Byakuya didn't need to push any more. Renji receded and turned and walked a few steps until he stood in the middle of the room. Neither of them said a word.

The pale hand that still remembered the warmth of the broad chest fell down slowly until it buried itself somewhere in the white of his haori. Byakuya looked at a point somewhere over his Fukutaichou's right shoulder, as long as he didn't have to look at the man himself.

As the door fell into its lock, the captain went back to his desk, sat down, took up a plain pencil and started to leaf through the papers once more. All was over now, he tried to comfort himself, but he knew that to be a silly lie. His mind became numb and then, slowly, void of anything. But it wasn't reassuring at all.

So he remembered on purpose Renji's snarl, his growl as he insulted Byakuya, but still there was nothing but emptiness. Unwilling he thought further, of his retort and Renji's humiliation and suddenly there was a different feeling gnawing deep into his core. One that a Kuchiki Byakuya didn't generally feel too often in his existence.

Without himself ever registering it, his lips formed a silent apology.


~~~