Chapter 2: Bleeding Souls
Renji laid in complete blackness, the only sound reaching him the steady thrum of heavy, falling rain. He tried to remember what had been happening before the darkness had set in, then felt a deep jolt of panic as images of his taichou's fall returned to him.
He can't be dead.
He can't be dead.
Taichou, please don't be dead...
He kept his eyes closed tightly, scared to death that he would be told that his taichou was gone. He didn't want to hear the words, even if that meant never waking, himself.
But I know what happened.
I saw it.
I saw those petals swallow him up, not once or even twice, but three times! I have had those blades slice through my body only once, and I remember how I didn't feel it when it was happening...just after, as my body started to fall. But those blades cut him again, and again after that! I know he's strong. I know he's the strongest shinigami I've ever met besides old man Yama, himself. But three times being hit with his bankai?
Taichou...
Taichou...
Taichou, please, please, please don't be dead!
Hot tears leaked onto his face, mixing with the rain that still fell. And Renji wondered if he was still lying where he had fallen on the battlefield, or if he could have been collected by the fourth division and carried to their base for treatment. And, he decided, if he was still lying where he had fallen, then that meant that there hadn't been time for the healers to come. And every moment that Byakuya waited for aid, might be his last moment. That meant that his fukutaichou had no choice but to drag his sorry ass off of the ground and find the fallen noble.
Gods, Taichou, please still be alive! Renji thought, struggling to turn onto his stomach, then forcing his burning eyes open and looking around.
"What the...?"
He wasn't in the Seireitei anymore. There were no places in the Seireitei that looked like the place he now laid in...a vast jungle that seemed to have crashed haphazardly into a serene, tree dotted garden. He would have thought he was in his own inner world, but for the gardens. He studied the jungle carefully, noting the familiar layout of the trees and vines. He couldn't sense Zabimaru, but he was fairly sure he couldn't have gotten himself away from the battlefield and stumbled out far enough into the Rukongai to be in a place like that.
It is my inner world, then. But...what's with the gardens? I don't get it.
He didn't like the fact that it was raining, or that it was raining so hard.
It means my inner world is in danger of collapse. I should try to stabilize it.
He gathered what reiatsu he could, then focused deeply and tried to sense the boundaries of his damaged inner world.
Damn, it's bigger than I remember. What's that all about? And where did that garden come from? What the fuck's going on?
He began to sense another presence, one so weak that it was barely recognizable. But whose it was, was enough to have him on his feet and stumbling drunkenly out of the jungle. He tripped and fell, crashing down onto hard ground and making a large splash in a puddle of water. He groaned and dragged himself to his feet, then staggered onward, honing in on that desperately weak life sign.
Come on, come on, where are you, Taichou? I can feel that you're here, but where?
Byakuya's reiatsu flickered fitfully, nearly disappearing as the frantic redhead searched madly, ignoring the pain in his own wrecked body and focusing everything on finding his superior officer.
"Damn it!" he panted, stopping and leaning against a tree, hurting so badly that it brought tears to his eyes, "Taichou...Byakuya..."
He caught his breath and ambled forward, tripping and falling several more times, and finally resorting to calling out to his wounded taichou. He heard no answer and could sense the fading of that familiar life force.
"No!" he half sobbed, "Byakuya, come on! Where are you?"
He turned in this direction and that, the tension in his body so fierce that he shook all over.
"Taichou!"
A small flicker nearby made him turn and run blindly. He almost tripped over Byakuya's collapsed body in the semi-darkness, as he passed beneath one of the trees, then he crawled to Byakuya's side, gathering the limp and bloodied body of his taichou into his arms and holding on to him tightly.
"B-byakuya!" he sobbed, "Byakuya, come on! Wake up! Taichou!"
He would have been in despair, but for the soft beating of the noble's heart that he could feel with his bare arms and hands where they touched the other man.
"You're alive," he panted harshly, "I've got you, Taichou. I have you and I'm gonna take care of you. I don't know what happened or why we're here, but I'm gonna take care of you, okay? Just hang in there!"
He looked around for any sign of someplace out of the rain they could go, but couldn't see more than a few feet ahead through the falling rain. He gathered up Byakuya in his arms and stumbled forward, peering into the darkness ahead of them and searching for some kind of refuge.
After several minutes, long enough that he was soaked to the skin, and that the worst of the blood on Byakuya's pale body had been washed away, he spotted a small cottage and angled towards it, turning Byakuya's face into his shoulder to better protect him from the driving rain. The wind roared around them, tearing at their clothes and making the rain sting where it struck his bare flesh.
"You're kinda lucky, being out cold," he told the noble, panting softly with exertion as he carried the noble hastily to the small house, "You don't know that we're freezing our wet asses off, here. Just hang on a sec. I'll have you inside and dried off in a flash, okay?"
He wasn't surprised at receiving no answer. Byakuya laid, unmoving in his arms, his face frighteningly drawn and his reiatsu barely readable.
"Ah!" the redhead sighed in relief, upon reaching the wooden steps leading to the front door of the cottage, "Finally..."
He found the door to be unlocked, but knocked, just to be sure he wouldn't be barging in on anyone. Hearing no answer and being desperate to get his taichou out of the rain, he walked inside and paused, looking around in the half light. He was immediately stricken with the fact that, just as the jungle he had seen before had been something of his inner world, the gardens they had come through, as well as this cottage and all of the things in it appeared to be Byakuya's. The cottage even still bore the light scent of sakura that always radiated around the noble.
"That's so weird!" he exclaimed softly.
He looked around and spotted a large, comfortable looking bed in the back of the one room dwelling. He carried Byakuya to the bed and laid him down carefully, then undressed him and slowly cleaned away the rest of the blood. An odd, sick feeling passed through him at the sight of the cuts that seemed to be everywhere, and he remembered waking up with cuts like that on his own body after his battle with the noble.
"Damn..."
He understood that they were both, in reality, unconscious and that he couldn't heal the wounds on Byakuya's real body. But within their collided inner world, he could heal and stabilize him so that Byakuya could better manage to fight for his life.
"You're a mess, Taichou," he sighed wearily, "And I'm sure I'm pretty fucked up too. I just wish you'd wake up and tell me what to do here. I'm feeling kinda lost, you know?"
He went quiet, gazing down at Byakuya's lovely, naked body as he gently erased the damage the quincy had done to him.
"I wish I could do more than just stabilize things a little, but I realize we're not exactly in the seireitei anymore. I'm not sure, but it looks like you and I are in some version of our inner worlds. But it seems like they crashed together. I'm glad for that, Taichou. If I'd woke up alone in my inner world, I'd just be sitting there worrying about what was happening to you. This way, I can feel that you're still alive. As long as I have that, I'll be okay."
He finished the healing to the best of his ability, then rested for a moment, admiring Byakuya's beauty and feeling intensely saddened at the raking memory of seeing the man's great strength fail him.
"It wasn't your fault, Taichou," he assured Byakuya, "What they said was wrong. What the quincies had was no seal."
He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, forcing off the burgeoning worries and trying to focus only on doing whatever it seemed that he could. Opening his eyes, he located a clean yukata and dressed his unconscious taichou, then tucked him in warmly and took up a position beside him. His warm hand found the noble's limp, cold one, and he looked solemnly down on the noble's lovely sleeping face, imagining that they were back home, that the quincies had never come, and that he and Byakuya had met at the restaurant as planned.
"I don't know what it was that you wanted to talk to me about," he said softly, "But I know what I wish it was, Taichou. There's been something different in the way that you've looked at me lately...something I've felt when I knew you were watching me out of the corner of your eye like you sometimes do. I just didn't know if maybe I was going out of my mind or something...maybe I was imagining it. Because, how in kami's name would someone like you ever even begin to fall for someone like me, right? You're so beautiful, so powerful and you have everything a guy could want. What could a guy like that see in someone like me? I feel like a bumbling idiot compared to you. The only time I don't feel that is when we're training together and you look at me with those beautiful, dark eyes of yours. Those eyes don't look at me like they're seeing a bumbling, useless idiot. They make me feel like a damned work of art...something you've been making with your own hands. And it seems like every step forward I have taken since our battle, you've taken them all with me, Taichou. That's why you can't leave me. You have to stay here so that I can tell you, okay? I want to tell you as many times as I can say the words that I am so grateful to you. But I can't tell you that if you leave me. That means you have to get better so that we can wake up and finish what we were just starting."
A heavy wave of sadness and heartfelt pain passed through him as he remembered the horrid damage done to the seireitei in the quincy assault.
I wonder if any of the places that were there just this morning are still standing or if everything's just in ruins. Our home...our plans...maybe even our dreams are all destroyed. Even we are destroyed.
"I'm just glad that we have this time alone together, Taichou," he whispered brokenly, "If this is the only way I can tell you, I'm going to just forget being afraid you'll reject me and just tell you, I think you're beautiful. You're the most beautiful person I've ever met, and I love you. I hope that we wake up, back home and we can pick up the pieces of our lives together, But just in case we can't do that..."
He was surprised to find himself leaning forward, touching Byakuya's soft face with his rough hands and closing in on the man's always slightly frowning lips. He touched those unbearably soft and sweet lips with his own, then sighed and sat back, with nothing left to do but wait.
"What's gonna happen, Taichou? What happens now?" he whispered, "Are we ever going to wake up, or are we just here, waiting to die and fade away. I'm just glad we're here together. If we've gotta die, then together is better than us doing this alone, right? I'd be completely freaked out if I was stuck here alone. But being with you makes me feel like it's going to be okay. If we're in this together, we're going to come out again, ne? We always have before. We can do it again. Can't we, Taichou?"
He went silent, staring with widened eyes as Byakuya stirred slightly and his eyes cracked open.
"R-renji?" he whispered haltingly.
"Yeah, Taichou," the redhead responded, tears of joy coming on at seeing those dark, beautiful eyes opened and trying to focus on him, and hearing that deep, comforting voice speaking to him, "I'm right here."
He felt the noble's hand move in his, then felt it tighten like he was hanging on.
"Renji," he said again, his eyes fixing on the redhead's worried face, "Renji, I am...sorry."
The redhead blinked in confusion and shook his head gently.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, "What do you mean, you're sorry? You didn't do anything wrong, Taichou."
"But, I d-did," Byakuya whispered, gazing up at him with a gentler and more somber eyes than he ever had before, "I meant to p-protect you...you and Rukia. I failed to do that...and I am sorry."
"Stop it, will you?" Renji said, smiling as he regained a small measure of his usual good nature, "It's not your job to save everybody, is it? I should be the one protecting you, anyway. I'm the fukutaichou here and it's my job to protect my taichou. If anyone's got reason to be sorry, it's me, not you."
Renji took a steadying breath, reassured now by the fact that the noble was awake, and at least recognized him.
"You want some tea, Taichou?" he asked, starting to withdraw his hand, then catching his breath in surprise as Byakuya's hand tightened and the noble made a sound of objection.
"D-don't go."
Renji smiled.
"It's okay," he assured his superior, "I'm only gonna make some tea for you."
"I don't want tea. Stay here."
The redhead's smile faded and he nodded briefly.
"I'm not goin' anywhere," he said, reassuringly, "I'm gonna stay here with you, Taichou."
"It's cold."
"You're cold?" Renji asked, touching his face, "You feel okay. I wrapped you up, nice and warm, Taichou. I'm sure you're not really cold. And you don't feel like you have a fever."
"It has been cold ever since..."
Byakuya's body stiffened suddenly, and terror rose in the dark pools of his eyes. The redhead stared in dismay at seeing those usually calm, intelligent eyes go wide with intense fear. The look in them was so haunted and horrified, he wondered if Byakuya was still aware he was there.
"Renji!"
He felt it then, the presence of that malevolent reiatsu that the quincy had used to first pierce, then to corrupt and possess Byakuya's usually fearless heart.
"That's right," he reminded himself, "There will still be traces of his reiatsu in you, harassing you. Don't worry, Taichou. He isn't here. The battle's over and he's gone, okay?"
"Renji, you are still alive?" Byakuya asked, his eyes looking as though they no longer saw him, "Are you really here?"
"Y-yeah," Renji assured him, "although I don't know where the hell we are exactly. I woke up in my inner world and it seemed like it had crashed into another. I looked around and I found you, lying out in the rain. I brought you here to take care of you."
Byakuya looked back at him, his eyes calming somewhat as he registered that the redhead was still with him. He looked around the room, taking in the facts and processing quietly before speaking again.
"This is my inner world," he mused, "How are you here, Renji?"
"I haven't got the slightest idea," Renji admitted, "I just woke up and our worlds were...sort of...connected. I don't know how it happened."
"Nor do I," Byakuya said, his eyes blinking slowly and beginning to clear, "I have never heard of this happening. Some people...twins...and soul mates, share inner worlds. But we are..."
Renji's warm smile made the words disappear before he could finish.
"Aw, Taichou, don't break my heart here. You know, I was hoping that the reason you asked me to meet you at that fancy restaurant was so that you could tell me that we had become so close that we were like soul mates. I won't lie to you. That's what I was hoping you would say. Don't tell me now that nothing like that exists between us. Leave me a little bit of my pride."
Byakuya's eyes darkened and gave him a disapproving glare. The feeling was so natural and such a relief that Renji's smile only widened in response.
"I was going to say," the noble went on, "that...what was between us was only in it's infancy...that we had far to go before we were able to forge so deep a connection."
Renji's lips curved downward.
"Taichou, tell me something," he said, an edge of worry rising inside him, "Why are you putting this stuff in the past tense? You know, those bastards knocking down our homes and wrecking the place doesn't mean that we have to forget what we were starting. We can still..."
"But Renji, haven't you realized?" Byakuya asked, the tension in his voice freezing the redhead in place, "This world is crumbling. Renji, I know you feel it."
"Taichou..."
"I am dying."
Renji stared back at him as a peal of thunder sounded and the rain came down harder.
"I am dying, Renji," Byakuya repeated, "And you should go before you are trapped here with me and you die too!"