Substitute Training

Author's Note: This was a response to a challenge from Kikiko, who dared me to "Write a Lemon in 15 paragraphs with Bleach characters." Well, I went a little over the paragraph limit, but there it is. ^_^
____________________________________________________________________

“What the hell are you doing!”

Ichigo tried to shove him off, but Renji ignored the flailing fists and kissed him again, backing him into the rocky cliff contained inside the impossibly large training space underneath Urahara’s Shop. Ichigo grabbed onto his shoulders and shoved, but Renji was pissed, and Ichigo was the last person allowed to push him around. He trapped him against the rocks, nipping Ichigo’s lips in warning.

“Just shut up,” he ordered, shoving his tongue back down Ichigo’s throat and making short work of their Shinigami uniforms, getting them mostly naked in a matter of seconds. The younger man’s skin was warm and sweaty, just like his—they’d been training all damn day in this bleak basement, and still neither of them had produced their Bankai. Renji seethed and reached beneath Ichigo’s undergarments to stroke his erection.

“Fuck!” Ichigo bucked into his hand, and Renji chuckled and then kissed his mouth again. Ichigo started to kiss back, but then Renji felt hands on his shoulders once more, and the mouth under his jerked away.

“I’m with Ishida, you asshole- fuck off!” Ichigo shoved again, and Renji planted his feet more firmly, refusing to move or to let go of the stiff cock pulsing in his hand.

“Ishida’s not here, jackass!” Renji closed the distance again, kissing him so hard his orange head smacked into the rocks. He swallowed Ichigo’s curses and worked his undergarments further down his narrow hips. They were fucking, and they were fucking right now. He’d had enough of all the games, all the frustration. Besides, he was sure it was the thing holding them both back. Renji tilted his head and teethed down the angular line of the blond’s jaw.

“Ishida’s never here, and I know he hasn’t let you fuck him since you left Soul Society months ago,” Renji muttered angrily against Ichigo’s neck, “Doesn’t sound like a relationship to me.”

“Fuck you, Renji!” Ichigo bent his long leg and put his foot against his thigh, nearly kicking them off balance. Renji started to adjust to remain upright, but then growled and let them fall to the ground in a tangle, rolling over their discarded black robes and throwing his weight so that he was pinning Ichigo to the dirty ground.

Ichigo spat into his face, “Don’t you talk about Ishida! He just needs some time…”

Renji pressed his forearm across Ichigo’s throat to subdue him, “Yeah right, Kurosaki.” He rubbed the spit from his cheek. “Keep telling yourself that.” Ichigo’s mouth was showing all his teeth in a display of righteous fury, but his brown eyes were just shaky enough to tell Renji he’d hit home. All the more reason for them to keep going.

Renji tugged off his own undergarments, nudging Ichigo’s legs apart none too gently before lowering his red head to lick over the washboard abs stretching down from Ichigo’s scarred chest. He lapped the salt from his skin, hearing Ichigo’s breath slipping from between his teeth in a hiss of desire. The hands clutching at his forearm loosened slightly when Renji had licked his way down across the flat area of skin just below the navel until his chin bumped into the hard cock that belied Ichigo’s growls of protest.

Renji silenced him with suction, drawing his length down the back of his throat and closing his own eyes from the relief of doing something he’d been longing to do for the three months he’d been stuck in Karakura. The growling stopped, and moaning began, and Renji moved his arm away from Ichigo’s throat and went to town, determined that things would happen his way for once.

It wasn’t that he wanted Ichigo, per se. But Ichigo would do, and Ichigo was someone he wouldn’t get overly attached to if they satisfied each other’s needs occasionally, which might be for quite some time if things like producing Bankai didn’t occur sooner rather than later. At least that’s what he told himself while he used every trick he knew of to make Ichigo pant and strain from the desire to blow his load.

Ichigo sank his fingers roughly into his ponytail, catching hairs on the edges of his cracked nails and reminding Renji that this wasn’t the man he’d been pretending it was. Ichigo’s next muttered words brought his lover’s memory into clear focus, driving a wedge into Renji’s heart—

“What about…,” Ichigo gasped, arching his back a bit while Renji deep-throated him, “What about Byakuya… Renji…?”

Renji stopped what he was doing and scowled at the orange-haired pitiful excuse for a Shinigami, his eyes flashing with the image of his Taichou lying flushed and breathless with the same desire, only in a much more freakishly refined manner.

Renji licked his fingers and pressed them against Ichigo’s entrance, “Fuck Byakuya.”

Ichigo twisted away from his touch, and Renji had to wrestle him once again, both of them getting their sweaty skin caked with the rocky dust that covered the floor of the secret training grounds. They fought with everything they had, which felt almost as good as when they’d been sparring, but it wasn’t enough to ease what was making them both so testy and careless with their Zanpaku-to. It ended with Ichigo pinning him solidly to the ground, smirking in that overconfident way of his. Renji scowled and turned his head to the side, giving up the fight and slackening all his muscles, the truth a heavy weight that he just couldn’t keep fighting against all by himself. He just managed to keep his voice even, barely.

“He… sent me away without even a goodbye. I haven’t heard a word from him since last month when he requested a more detailed report on the Bountou.”

When Renji glanced back, Ichigo’s mouth was closed, his eyebrows creased severely in his forehead. They glared at each other for a full minute, both of them angry and hurt like a puppy that’s been kicked, and yet—somehow Renji knew that Ichigo now understood his reasoning. There was a practical reason to this situation, and before Renji could balk at the mutual feelings of sympathy that started to swell inside their locked gaze, Ichigo lowered his head and forced their lips together.

Renji kept his eyes open for a few seconds, momentarily surprised by Ichigo’s tongue twining so hungrily with his own after so much resistance. But the rocking of the younger man’s hips, pressing between his own drove all thoughts from his mind, and he kissed back with fervor, feeling that walled-up place inside him start to crumble from the wave of lust that started somewhere between their mouths and crashed somewhere between their legs.

Ichigo palmed his length, stroking him and licking over his Adam’s apple, and Renji scratched down his back and groaned. Their reiatsu was starting to leak, and he was glad of the underground location for its insulation, even if he wasn’t overly appreciative of the decidedly uncomfortable landscape. He gritted his teeth against the knowledge that they’d need to do this again at some point, musing that maybe next time they wouldn’t have to fight so much about it first. In any case, he just wanted to get this over with. They had needs to satisfy, and then more training to do—any lingering would only lead to complications.

Renji thrust his hips impatiently, “Just fuck me, Ichigo!”

Their eyes met for a moment, as if to dare each other to stop, and then Ichigo was positioning himself. Renji closed his eyes and relaxed, disregarding the slight sting of fingers penetrating him without the right type of lube. Renji had thought it would be easier for them to switch roles—less of a reminder of the ones who’d cast them aside—but maybe the reminder is exactly what would make this possible, each of them pretending their own things to try and mend the parts of them that seemed broken. Ichigo was clearly well-versed in being the Seme, stroking him right where he wanted it and making him ready, and Renji made urgent noises, wanting to drown in physical sensations to block out the others.

Ichigo’s cock followed his fingers with long-practiced surety, and they didn’t wait long before moving together and rubbing flesh against flesh, powerful bodies churning in a powerful rhythm against the hard stone. It was a bittersweet heaven of sensation, and Renji pulled Ichigo against his chest while he moved, rolling his hips around the younger man’s thrusts and making him groan uninhibitedly into his collarbone. He tugged on Ichigo’s orange hair, mussing it with his fingers, giving himself permission to do something Byakuya would never have allowed with his own, silky black hair.

Renji bit back an insane urge to laugh—Byakuya would never fuck him like this, on impulse, on the ground, in the dirt, with such aggressive, passionate rage. He clung harder to Ichigo, relishing in the fact that it wasn’t Byakuya, hoping his lover knew what he was doing, and trying not to listen to the voice inside him that was noting all the differences with a sorrowful twinge. Renji scowled, and opened his legs wider, Ichigo automatically hooking them over his shoulders to make both of them moan even louder, plunging himself harder, deeper, his eyes closed and brow furrowed against his own personal demons.

For all the anger and need they’d been holding inside them, their furious lovemaking went on for longer than Renji had expected, until Ichigo’s fingers groped for his own cock and pumped him until he spurted a white, sticky mess. Only then did he allow himself release, clenching his teeth and thrusting to the hilt five, six, seven times—and then falling in a heap of sweaty, dirty muscles beside him.

They lay panting on the ground for several minutes. Renji felt dizzy. He also felt queasy, and a bit elated—like some kind of awful weight had been lifted, even while his heart grew heavy in his chest from the fact that he’d just had his first climax in countless years with someone other than his Taichou. He glanced over at Ichigo, who was already getting back up and brushing himself off, the sweat and other fluids turning the dust from their wrestling into a thin film of mud on his skin. Renji watched in fascination while he walked over to their robes and redressed himself, tying his sash and coming over to stand with hands on his hips, looking down on him.

Ichigo’s mouth curled in a partial smile with the boyish pride of just having topped a vice-captain. “Oi. Ready to fight now? Or do you need a nap?” He held out his hand, inclining his head in a cocky fashion, pretending in his own way that nothing had changed.

Renji chuckled and took the hand being offered. “Trust me, Kurosaki. You’re the one who’s going to need the nap when I’m through with you!”

Three days later, they’d both achieved Bankai, tipping the scales against the Bountou in their favor as the battle waged onward. And if sometimes he caught Ichigo looking at him with something other than irritation, Renji pretended not to notice. And later, if Renji slipped into his bedroom, Ichigo pretended it was normal long after it had moved from normal to comfortable, and the sex was no longer about pretending anything for either of them.

Afterwards, Renji would sigh into Ichigo’s shoulder, holding the younger man against his tattooed chest while he slept soundly, pretending that he might not have to leave Karakura for a good, long time.