discolored rainbows
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.
Char./Pairing: Yoruichi/Renji
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, sexual content
Summary: He can't stop and she won't let go.
-x-
Her hair covers his pillow, violet colors in strands against the striking white. It could be a peaceful scene but there's no way he can be at rest. His heart thumps slowly, but loudly with the pending morning light to rush through his windows. She'll awaken and leave. It's how the cycle goes, right? These things happen often, apparently. So he really doesn't know why he holds on to her still.
Rising from his seat in the corner, he strides out of the room. He can't be disappointed if he doesn't see her go.
-x-
"Didn't see you this morning," she states nonchalantly, as if it were normal, as if she doesn't know how much it hurts (because she does, actually). "You have to meet someone?"
There's a small pause before he answers. It's impossible to tell her to just shut up before he starts yelling; he has to straight out respond right, or else that small bit of hope he's kept will probably be extinguished in an instant. It's still ridiculous, he thinks. Because what's he hoping for? A real relationship with her? That's funny. To leave her first? Yeah, right. Take initiative for once? Just tell the truth? Maybe.
Placing the broom down behind the store's counter, he begins to organize the candy. It's a normal job for him now, since he's decided to stay for just a little while longer. Of course, that decision was based off a few things other than just the desire to help out with Rukia and Ichigo. Glancing over to the princess, he offers a sarcastic smirk.
"You missed me."
A slight frown crosses her brow and she leans against the wall. "No. I just wanted to know what you were doing."
Renji doesn't know how to feel about that statement since it sounds a whole lot like denial. He'd like to think that maybe she enjoys seeing him every morning she's there, waking up to see him day dreaming in the corner. But, again, that's just straight out stupid because it's not him she desires. It's someone else—whoever the hell else she wants and he's tired of pretending that's not the case.
"I've got work to do," he informs, sure not to look at her in the eye. "I'm not getting paid to talk to Her Majesty, I'm afraid."
The snark remark causes her to crinkle her nose for a moment. But she grins, kicks off the wall and begins to the door outside. "Then I'll be on my way."
To be honest, it's the only power he ever will have over her, Renji thinks. He can persuade her to leave his presence too easily, but it's really up to Yoruichi and her powers of manipulation to gravitate him to her. There's never been a moment he could tell her anything. She's Princess and he's a mere servant, after all.
-x-
The whole situation is so cliché. Those stupid phrases like "friends with benefits" and "kiss, don't tell" float through his mind as he thinks about their relationship. What's worse is there's someone else in her life and she's just using him.
It's his bed she sleeps on. It's him she comes to. It's everything about him she surrounds herself with. But he cannot call her his.
-x-
Princess sits on the porch tonight, watching the dark sky in only his bed sheet. Without a second thought, he drops next to her quietly and ignores it when she shifts away just a little.
"I'll be taking a trip to the Soul Society in the morning."
Renji knows what's coming, but asks anyway. "Will you need anyone with you?"
"I want you to come."
And the faithful servant obeys.
-x-
He hates standing in his captain's office, especially when he'll be rebuked for coming back from an unfinished mission.
"Why are you here," Byakuya asks, but the question is not directed at Renji.
Yoruichi waves a careless hand and yawns. "It's been a hundred years. Thought a little visit would warm your heart."
"Or harden it further."
She turns to Renji and smiles. "I won't be long, if you could excuse us."
When he leaves the room, Renji thinks he knows who she wants him to be.
-x-
"I want to stay awhile," she states, placing a hand on her hip and glancing at the Sixth Division's barracks. "I could finish some business here."
"With Captain Byakuya," Renji questions, more spiteful than he wanted.
Acknowledgment flashes through her eyes before she sniffs. "Not just him."
Renji realizes he doesn't like the look of denial on her.
-x-
"Hey," she pats his arm in the middle of the night and he just barely understands, "If I wanted go somewhere, you cannot follow me, all right?"
It is as if she's referring to some event in the past he wasn't a part of; something like a lesson never learned. He frowns before answering with drowsiness.
"I'll follow you because you want me to."
-x-
Trust hasn't been much an issue for two reasons:
For one, he's not about to double-cross her with "cheating" (but, then again, how could it be cheating?).
And the other: trust passed them by a long time ago, since the beginning.
But he's starting to think she's instilled trust into him after all, whereas he's taken it for granted.
-x-
When he spots her come from his captain's quarters, Renji can't do anything but narrow his eyes. She sees him there and quickly looks away, adjusting her hair hastily. In seconds, he's striding next to her, glaring.
"You know it never mattered before," he says in a low whisper, "but I'd like to know when I'm being cut loose."
She tightly closes her eyes. "It still doesn't matter."
And she flash steps away, dust in her wake.
-x-
He sees Byakuya in a new way each time he looks over to his captain. Something twists inside him violently; Renji calls it jealously, she'd probably name it arrogance.
There should be shame, he thinks, on both their ends. He should feel sorry because he's let this go on for so long, not taking initiative to cease the foolishness. And she should hurt because she's the only crossing all the lines possible.
(And, yeah, she started it.)
Byakuya turns to him with a silent inquiry. It's just like him to act that way because Byakuya always has a question for him. There's nothing said, but Renji knows Byakuya believes something is happening. Of course, no one's going to realize they're sleeping with the same woman. But he's not about to release that information to his captain.
The room falls into a deeper silence as Renji bows his head, deciding to forget about the troublesome matter for now. Picking the paperwork off the desk, he starts out the room.
"Wait."
Frowning, he turns with a respectful, "Yes, sir."
Indecision flickers through his eyes but it disappears in the next moment. "You escorted Shihouin Yoruichi to the seireitei, correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are still in contact?"
Renji grits his teeth and wants to think of all the reasons why he shouldn't be "in contact" with her. Swallowing the urge, he nods. "Do you have a message for her?"
"Give this to her," he hands a small, folded paper to the subordinate and turns away.
-x-
"You ready to tell me when you don't want me anymore?" he bites out, trumping into the living room.
The paper from Byakuya is thrown carelessly on the table and she glances up without emotion for only a moment. Displeased by her lack of response, he leans over the table, face-to-face with her. However, her gaze is still on the book in her hands.
"Don't pretend this isn't happening."
Slamming the book on the table, near the message, she glares at the man. "And what is happening here?"
"You can play games with that bastard, but I'm tired of letting you run circles around me," Renji stands straight and she mirrors the action. "I'm done with this."
The second he turns to leave, she's in front of him, hands on her hips. "It's not done until I say it is."
With narrowed eyes, "You're right. Because, you know, I'm the servant, right?" When she doesn't answer, he continues his sarcastic comments. "Because Princess wants everything her way and, for once, it actually is going her way. For once, she has someone to come to because everyone else treats her like a damn goddess. For once, someone listens and does everything she wants."
"Stop fooling yourself, Renji," she tells him, averting her gaze.
He's not going to stop now, though.
"And, this time, this servant is done with the idiocy. He's finished with unnecessary wounds."
"Being with me hurts you?" she whispers with confusion, "Do you hate me so much?"
He doesn't answer (because he's afraid he'd probably tell the truth).
-x-
The silence stretches longer and longer as he sits at the table, looking over paperwork in the captain's office. He's read the same paragraph over more than once and he still doesn't understand. Everything doesn't make sense, even now. Work should be on his mind—these stupid reports should be on his mind. But something so much more idiotic takes his thoughts away.
Her words pound at the beat of his heart, overcoming his bearings. Why couldn't she leave him alone from the start? Princess was just asking for a plaything and he was a doormat. Renji wants to blame her because he could always get away with that (blamed the rich for stealing his childhood, blamed Byakuya for taking Rukia, blamed Ichigo for taking her heart) but he knows the part when he could have placed the responsibly on her passed a long time ago. So he's left picking up her pieces, for she won't do it herself.
There's some rustling behind him but he doesn't notice, being too involved with his inward raging battle. With a steady, clear voice, his captain speaks:
"She's known to do that."
Shocked, his heartbeat quickens as he whips around in his spot on the couch, only to gasp in surprise as Byakuya stands above. Eyes closed and calamity brushed over his face, his captain walks to the side of the couch, where Renji is still seated. Taking a breath, he steadies himself.
"Do what?" he asks before he can really understand what they're talking about to begin with.
Byakuya opens his eyes, staring apathetically at his subordinate . "Run away with your logic."
And it all makes sense. Yoruichi, he thinks with dismay. Of course Byakuya would choose her to talk about to him. Wouldn't he? Anyone who has managed to touch the barrier of Byakuya's facade somehow is a conversation topic between Renji and him the next day. Because, apparently, there's no one else the captain wants to speak with. But, this time, Renji's tired of listening to half-sentences and his patience has already run dry a week ago.
With reddened cheeks of both rage and embarrassment, "She didn't. It's my fault this happened."
"The two of you are at fault."
"No," Renji goes on, forgetting who he's talking to, wrapped in his own world of hurt and anger, "This whole time I thought she was the one leading this. But she depends on me somehow. I know it because I was wrong to think I was just a lapdog."
Byakuya raises an eyebrow. "Lapdog?"
It goes unnoticed. "And maybe if thought I was of value before, this wouldn't have happened." His head falls into his hands with a sigh. "I can't escape her anymore."
Byakuya stays quiet. What thoughts that could possibly be reining his mind are a mystery to Renji. Sad thing is he doesn't care right now. All he wants is to spill words all over the place, he wants to tell someone about this. She needs to hear it, but hell will freeze over the moment they have a therapeutic scene together. Renji thinks that maybe there's a chance. But he snorts, reminded the thousands of roadblocks in his way.
It's always been Byakuya she's desired, he knows. The one person he's always striving to surpass has managed to twist the knife into his chest again. There's not going to be a day Renji will forget how hard it is to live under this man. And it's just something else he'll have to overcome. But Renji has no idea where to start. It's been fine up until she came along. She pines after the man he wants to overshadow. Perhaps he would have been fine if it were someone he didn't recognize, or maybe someone who actually made sense for her.
But it's Byakuya who she had wanted from the start, and maybe that's where he should begin.
With a desperate look, Renji pleads quietly, "Please...don't let her escape me."
-x-
Yoruichi sits in the darkness, listening to him come through the door. He knows she's been waiting; it's almost the only job she keeps up in the "relationship". Striding into the room, she snaps her gaze up to him, locking eyes.
"Don't say anything, all right?" he murmurs, choosing to sit across the room. When she nods, he sighs and slouches in his seat. "This thing has changed us. Maybe I should have stopped it the first time it happened. And maybe you should have let me go. But since I still can't stop and you won't let go, don't you think we should at least try to make this right?"
Her eyes avert from him and she matches his sigh from earlier. "I'm sure how to yet."
"We can learn, right?"
He's sounding desperate all over again, but she's just as tired.
"Yeah. We can." Her nature is to continue and slowing down isn't an option, he knows. He faintly wonders if that's how they can be comparable. Standing, she makes her way to him and kneeling down to his eye level. "Let's try this...thing."
And so their story truly begins.
-x-
Strands of violet are entangled with scarlet, a strong contrast against the white pillows beneath them. It's a new cycle. But he likes this one better than the last.
-x-
fin.
-x-
Byakuya and Renji remind me of Batman and Nightwing. I DON'T KNOW WHY. But at least Bruce Wayne talks more than Byakuya, which is one of the main reasons I didn't like this fic, considering Byakuya seemingly has spent his conversational skills for the year in this. However, I'm wondering if that means Yoruichi is either Catwoman or Batgirl?
Despite how terrible this fic is, I just wanna put more of this pairing out there. Sorry if your eyes are bleeding now.