When I started this fic, I couldn't feel for this pairing. At all. In fact, I've historically had such strong ambivalence regarding all female Bleach characters that it's edged on loathing. BUT. Res + House of the Moon + adorable baby tiger pictures made me think I might maybe ought to give it a shot, though I am crap and have never written Bleach before. I ended up actually liking the pairing, to an extent. So, we'll see how it turned out.
When Memory Said
By Rurouni Star
"So. We made it in."
He grins at her, showing his teeth. Bravado—it's what she likes most about him, and he knows it. It's not an accident he's become the kind of person that walks confidently, talks loudly, laughs loudest.
"We did." She grins back, and even though she's no longer colorful, and black makes her look too pale, and maybe he's absolutely certain she's shaking like a leaf in a harsh wind—he finds she's somehow even more something than before.
"Don't wimp out on me," he says, swiping his knuckles across the top of her head in what he later feels might be too telling a manner.
Her smile is stronger, but she's still shaking.
When was the last time he saw her?
He doesn't know the last time he saw her.
Of course he does. It was across a crowded hall, for just a moment, and she was still much too pale, even if she wasn't shaking anymore. Her eyes descended to the floor demurely even as he met them, and he realizes only now how much she's changed.
The sudden weight of this thought distracts him long enough for a wooden sword to come down hard on his shoulder. Something snaps—it's entirely possible it's the sword.
His opponent hits the floor a moment later. If he used a little too much force in that blow, he thinks it's understandable.
When he speaks to her next, she's wearing a title.
"You're set, huh? Guess they'll be feeding you well." He might be shaking. He can't tell if she is, anymore.
Her eyes glance up at him quietly, and down again. "…yeah."
"Hey—enjoy it. You've got a family. Bet you can't even remember your last one."
But there's such a sudden change in her expression that he figures he's wrong.
"So… ah… take care, huh?"
She smiles a little. It's not carefree, but it's something like what carefree would be if you could attain it just by trying. "You too."
The conversation dies in the air, but he thinks maybe she says something while he's leaving.
It sounds suspiciously like do you remember when…
He's not sure why she's in thirteenth squad. Isn't that an unlucky number? Why isn't her big, strong, noble brother looking out for her?
He sees Shiba Kaien, and he understands why. Her eyes no longer watch the floor—they watch him.
And he thinks: I could be even better than that.
And he sets out to prove it.
Vice-Captain Abarai Renji.
Renji, Vice-Captain, Sixth Squad.
Abarai Renji, he's a vice-captain now, stay the fuck out of his way, he's crazy, didn't you know…
He can deal with that title.
He almost stops by, just on a whim (it is a whim, it's nothing to do with the way something's lodged itself in his throat). But he knows, or maybe fears - she'll only look at him, and maybe smile a little, and say 'congratulations'. Perhaps she'll return to looking at the ground again, afterwards.
Later, when he sits down hard and stares at the tattoos that run along his hands, he thinks that maybe he's changed too.
When next he sees her, she's in blue and white.
She's weak, and soft, and everything shows in her face as she begs. Her brother. Him.
"Renji… please…"
From the moment she says his name, he knows someone is going to end up hurt. And it all makes sense, where her eyes rest on the bloody ground, on him.
There's a crude satisfaction in watching him bleed that he knows he shouldn't be taking. He looks so much similar, and even though he couldn't hate Kaien, he can hate him, for creating this situation. If things were different, just a little, he wouldn't be saying 'let's go'—he might be saying do you remember—do you remember when…
She goes so quietly, eyes on the ground, but she looks back, and it's not at Renji.
As they walk back, he considers all sorts of things to say to her, but he doesn't have the courage to open his mouth in front of his captain (her brother, more important) and she wouldn't respond anyway.
Even so, as he stares down new twists and turns of ink upon his skin, he wants to say: We should have stayed in Rukongai.
There exists no word to properly describe it.
Sixth Squad, Vice-Captain, Abarai Renji. Abarai, that stupid, clumsy idiot who couldn't beat a single ryoka, who begged on his knees… no, that doesn't matter. It's Renji, who helped capture her, who knows she's going to die now, who didn't tell her to just run while he had the chance, who probably couldn't have done a single goddamn thing about the whole situation even if he'd tried.
There is a word, after all, though, and his captain told him. You're pathetic, Abarai Renji.
She's sitting in white at a window somewhere, looking even paler. In a few days, she won't even be a ghost.
There is such a thing as living out of sheer desperation.
He's discovered this is it—the moment where strength, determination, willpower, rage, all end up being insufficient, and all that's left is some hungry boy from Rukongai, living so he'll live.
It's not enough to win—not by a long shot. It's enough to survive, which is what he does.
He wonders if they'll feed her, before she dies.
And he can't win, but at the end of it all, he realizes that he doesn't need to win.
"Renji—"
"Do you remember running?" he asks her, between gasps.
She's shaking once again, her arms tight around his neck as he gives in to that original impulse and takes her far away from everyone but him.
"I was supposed to die," she says, and means it.
"So what?" he manages brashly, showing his shark's teeth and grinning like a hungry thief. "I stole you back, fair and square."
She laughs a little weakly—but she does laugh, and he notices she doesn't argue the point.
Vice-Captain, Sixth Squad, Abarai Renji, that tattooed freak who somehow survived the whole damn thing.
He supposes he'll take what he can get, one way or another.
He chews at an apple absently, the sweet juice running down his chin. She's been behind him for a while now.
"Do you remember when we were hungry?" she asks him suddenly. He can feel her eyes tracing the ink of a tattoo down his neck.
Renji snorts and turns around, to toss her another apple. She catches it deftly, with fingers that once slipped into pockets on the street.
"I couldn't forget if I tried."