This story takes place between "I Will Make this Sacrifice" and "Winterborn Dreams". I wasn't planning to write within the Sacrifice/Winterborn Dreams universe again, but the other night this plot bunny tried to eat my face while I washed dishes. So, here we are.
Additional content note: This work depicts grief and mourning in the aftermath of a major character's death. There is some depiction of self-destructive behavior (excess drinking, lashing out), and a character is perceived as suicidal due to grief.
This is how it was supposed to go: Ichigo and Rukia, embarrassed and a little embarrassing as they finally stop dancing around each other and just kiss, already. With Yhwach dead and the Sternritter defeated, they hold hands, make eyes at each other, and their arguments end with one or the other flinging paperwork off of Rukia's desk so that they can make out on top of it instead.
Byakuya pretends to be the overprotective older brother, but he is secretly pleased that his sister is being courted by an honorable and powerful man who would take on the entire universe to keep her safe. Renji pretends to be grossed out by their not-quite-furtive public affection but is secretly pleased that his best friends have found each other, and maybe screws up his courage to approach the object of his own affections.
Rukia will become captain of the Thirteenth, and Ichigo will join the Gotei 13 as a seated officer, and maybe a captain in his own right someday. In the meantime, there will be a wedding, and children with his hair or her eyes and reiatsu strong enough to knock over half of the Fourth Division. Byakuya will dote on them and Renji will be the cool uncle who teaches them dangerous things.
Instead, there is this: Renji stares at the burning funeral pyre as the heat of it sears the tears from his skin. He chokes on the smoke and ashes that blow towards him, and watches as the other lieutenants and captains around him do the same. Kyōraku looks older than he's ever seen him – the war, the loss of Ukitake, and the loss of Ukitake's protégé must be weighing heavily on him.
Ichigo and Byakuya are closest to the flames and he sees the iron grip that his captain has on the younger man's shoulder. In his grief his friend has shorn his hair and he's nearly as bald as Ikkaku, and somehow small in the jet-black kimono he wears. Renji's pretty sure that Ichigo's already tried to jump in the pyre twice. He's watched Byakuya's hand tighten, watched him pull, subtly, to keep the other man in isn't sure whether he wants his captain to succeed; he still remembers seeing Rukia's body, motionless in Ichigo's arms with her lifeblood soaking her lover from the chest down.
All Renji can see now is Rukia burning, ashes drifting away on the wind. His hands clench into fists as he watches, wanting to grip Zabimaru. It's Ichigo's fault it's Ichigo's fault some part of him insists, and he wants to fight and kill something – anything. But the zanpakutō is back in his quarters, set aside for the funeral. He wants to scream, but watching his captain and Ichigo standing before pyre, one stoic and the other completely shattered, chokes the words in his throat. After the destruction of the Seireitei, after the loss of Captain-Commander Yamamoto and Captain Ukitake, of Lieutenant Sasakibe, of so many officers and unseated shinigami, this – this last loss hurts all the more and feels even more pointless.
Slowly, the other shinigami around him begin to drift away as the fire begins to die down. Renji stays as the flames become flickers and then only embers, but eventually Momo and Izuru nudge him away and stifle the protest he wants to make. They get him drunk, obscenely so, and practically pour him onto his futon to sleep it off.
It's a shock to his system when, a week later, Ichigo stands before Captain-Commander Kyouraku and joins the Gotei 13. Renji wonders what he told his sisters and his friends – or if he needed to tell them anything at all. He wonders what happened to Ichigo's body in the living world. But even more shocking is the fact that Ichigo carries two zanpakutō, one on either hip: Zangetsu and Sode no Shirayuki both, his unruly zanpakutō finally sealed to make room for Rukia's blade. He doesn't understand why the blade hasn't disintegrated. No one understands at first why Ichigo's reiatsu has changed, become colder and less chaotic.
The very next day, Ichigo shows up at the Kuchiki Manor, weaponless but in his shihakusho, purple hyacinths and pink camellias in hand. Renji snarls when he sees him, and his hands fist in black fabric. "The hell are you doing here?" he demands. He can't help the rage that wells up; he sees her bloodied body, still, and Ichigo carrying her. The other shinigami doesn't even defend himself. He just hangs there, eyes dark and averted: in his rage, Renji has lifted him clear off his feet. The teenager has grown, but he's still shorter than the crimson-haired lieutenant.
"Lieutenant."
At the sound of Byakuya's voice, Renji swings around and drags Ichigo with him. "Caught him trying to get in," he snarls.
Byakuya can't quite suppress the flicker of emotion on his face as he sees the flowers before Renji catches it, but all he says is, "Your intervention is not necessary, Lieutenant. You are welcome to pay your respects during the mourning period, Kurosaki Ichigo."
Renji drops Ichigo, who grunts as he lands on his feet. "But Captain—" He shuts his mouth when Byakuya just looks at him, eyes hard.
"Thank you." The words are hoarse and almost inaudible as Ichigo takes the opportunity to slip past him; he even bows to Byakuya, a quick bob of a motion that Renji almost misses.
When the younger man is out of earshot, Byakuya just stares at him silently, face stony, before he turns on his heel and walks back through the gates of the manner. They swing shut behind them as Renji watches, jaw dropped. And he thinks again: this isn't how it was supposed to go.
Renji gets drunk again, and doesn't even get out of bed the next morning. He growls something incoherent at the nervous, unseated cannon fodder that drew the short straw to check on him. His mouth is drier than the sands of Hueco Mundo and his head feels like an entire herd of goats is running roughshod over his skull. With the clarity that comes after drunkenness he thinks that he and Ichigo are both grieving in their own ways: Ichigo's always turned inwards in response to grief, always blamed himself. Rukia told him that. Renji would be more sympathetic if he didn't blame Ichigo, too.
Rukia. Thinking of her brings on another wave of nausea and he leans over to vomit into the bucket beside his bed. He brings up nothing but bile and he coughs to get the last of it out, spitting to try and clean out his mouth. A glass of water appears next to his head and Renji takes it without thinking about whose hand is holding it until he has rinsed, spit, and gulped down the rest of it.
Then his head turns and he sees Byakuya, impeccably dressed and not a hair out of place as he looks at him. He's not wearing his haori. "Captain," he rasps out, and scrambles to sit up despite the pounding in his head and the lurch of nausea that the movement creates.
"Hn. Our third seat tells me that you did not report for duty this morning," he says calmly.
Renji's head aches and there's a sharp point of pain behind his left eye that gets worse every time he moves. "Shouldn't have had so much sake," he admits. He has a vague recollection of getting drunk with Ikkaku – the Eleventh Division's new Lieutenant was mourning his own loss. "Forgot that Lieutenant Madarame can drink more than me."
Byakuya looks – more sympathetic than Renji expected, but he still has that old judgmental look in his eye as he says, "Drinking is not a healthy response to grief, Lieutenant. And your duties do not stop because of that grief."
He's suddenly so tired of Byakuya's stoicism. He didn't cry at his own sister's funeral for fuck's sake. In the back of Renji's head a voice jabbers That's not fair, he was grieving his own way and keeping Ichigo from killing himself on his sister's pyre. But he still spits out, "Guess not. Won't happen again, Captain."
"Hn. I have told Kurosaki Ichigo that he is welcome to leave offerings at the Kuchiki family butsudan or at Rukia's grave site. You are welcome to do the same, if it helps your…grieving process." There. There's something under those words at least, tightly-leashed anguish held behind perfect teeth.
But Renji's hungover, and the flame of anger still burns so very hot as he says, "Don't see why he's welcome. He got Rukia killed."
"You dishonor my sister's memory by ignoring her sacrifice and turning your grief on him." Byakuya's voice is calm but implacable.
Renji squints up at him through bleary eyes and strands of crimson hair. There is a tightness to his captain's mouth. "Thought you didn't even like him," he gets out, voice still hoarse.
"Then you know me less than I thought." The words sting, and for one wild moment Renji wonders if both Kuchiki siblings are – were – are? – in love with his idiot, tangerine-haired friend. The idea spins dark and dangerous in his head, a bolt of pain in his heart and a searing jealousy that feels petty and awful just days after the funeral of his first and best friend.
"But it's his fault," he says wildly - because it has to be someone's fault that Rukia is dead.
"You heard his report," Byakuya says quietly, and to the other man's surprise he seats himself on the chair by Renji's bed. He glances down at the wastebasket and wrinkles his nose in disgust, but continues, "The arrancar in question was much stronger than either of them expected, and they were both still weakened from the war."
"But he killed the Quincy king," Renji says, and there is desperation in his voice as he speaks. "An arrancar shouldn't have even been a challenge."
"He had help killing Yhwach," Byakuya points out. "Aizen, Ishida, you."
It's a reminder of that moment, not triumphant but final, and Renji hangs his head. They are both silent for a time, until Byakuya stands again. The redhead thinks there's something disappointed in his superior's expression. "Do not dishonor my sister's memory by turning your grief on yourself, either, Renji."
Then he leaves before Renji can say anything else – he can't even stutter out an apology for being too hungover for his duties. Clearly, his captain doesn't want to hear it.
The rumors, when they start, are quiet at first. Rumors that Ichigo and Byakuya have tea together every week, and that Ichigo is a welcome guest at the Kuchiki Manor every single day. Opinions are split on that – whether it's terribly tragic and romantic that Ichigo brings offerings to the butsudan every day of Rukia's favorite things – eggs, cucumbers, even chappy – and flowers that say I'm sorry, or whether he's being melodramatic and should just get on with his shinigami duties.
Renji wouldn't know anything about those rumors – he hasn't spoken to Ichigo since that first day, and he barely speaks to Byakuya. Instead he lets the wounds fester for months, taking his anger out on squad recruits and rebuilding projects. The idea of Ichigo and his captain spending so much time together makes him unaccountably angry and jealous; it eats at him almost as much as his loss does.
He gets drunk pretty often, despite his captain's admonishment. Sometimes alone, but mostly with his fellow lieutenants.
"It's not his fault, you know." Rangiku's voice is only a little slurred, but Renji is already so drunk that he can barely understand them anyway. He's had a lot of sake, and he knows his hangover in the morning is going to suck even more than the last one did. In fact, it might already be starting: his head is pounding and all he wants to do is take his hair down to relieve some of the pressure.
"He should have been able to kill a damn arrancar. He killed the fucking Quincy king," Renji snarls. It comes out garbled by drink, but he drains his cup anyway while Izuru and Shūhei watch. They have more self-control than he does: Izuru is barely tipsy, and Shūhei looks about as drunk as Rangiku.
"That doesn't change what happened," Shūhei points out.
"Hn. Byakuya tore a fucking strip off me when I said it was Ichigo's fault. Told me I was dishonoring Rukia." It stings, that. After Renji tried to save her from her own brother, after he fought alongside them both.
"Well she did sacrifice herself for him," Rangiku warbles. Her eyes are reddened and Renji pretends not to notice, but he can see Shūhei's hand resting on her arm and he remembers that Rangiku and Rukia had gotten close after Ichigo rescued her. He bets the Shinigami Women's Association has somehow made Rukia's sacrifice seem romantic.
"Hn."
"Would you have preferred it if they both died?" Izuru asks quietly. Renji looks at him. The man is still not fully healed from extensive surgeries after the war; he can see bandages peeking out from under the collar of his uniform.
"Of course not – I just…"
"Would you have preferred it if he died instead, so you could comfort her?" Momo's voice is a little sharper than Renji is used to, and it sends a shock of guilt through him.
Is that what he wanted? He'd thought himself in love with her, for a time, before they parted ways for decades while he climbed his way through the Gotei's ranks. But – for years now his focus has been on Byakuya, on surpassing his captain and then on impressing him, on being good enough for him.
"No," Renji finally admits. He doesn't want either of his friends dead, he wants Rukia to laugh at him and Ichigo to make fun of both of them for not knowing anything about the World of the Living. He wants Byakuya to stop looking so pained and Ichigo to stop looking so broken.
"Then maybe you should stop blaming Kurosaki and go talk to him. You know he's a mess. Kensei's got two seated officers and that Yamada kid from the Fourth keeping an eye on him, discreetly, just in case," Shūhei adds.
Renji startles at that. "In case what?" he asks, but that's a stupid question he already knows the answer to: he can see, again, Byakuya's hand keeping Ichigo from throwing himself into the fire. Shūhei must see something in the expression on his face, because he just nods. "Yeah. Maybe I should see him," he admits.
He has to be dragged back to his barracks again, and when he wakes there is a glass of water and a hangover remedy on his nightstand. It smells a lot better than the concoction he normally drinks, and Renji drinks it down in a couple of gulps even as he wonders who left it there.
It's Byakuya whom Renji talks to first, despite his guilt over freezing out Ichigo. He's barely spoken to the older man since that first morning after the funeral, instead staring silently at paperwork and making his verbal reports using as few words as possible. So it's no wonder that Byakuya looks surprised – surprised for him, anyway, which is to say that his eyebrows quirk up – when Renji shows up at the manor with offerings for Rukia and a request to speak with him.
He sees Rukia's portrait first, placing her favorite sushi and a bouquet of white chrysanthemums on the butsudan before he settles into seiza to pray. Renji hears Byakuya settle into seiza not far from him in a flutter of fabric and the creak of a joint. He wants to pray for Rukia, but his mind is full: the rumors have changed, saying that Ichigo wields both Zangetsu and Sode no Shirayuki regularly. He never uses Rukia's bankai but Shūhei has described the oddity of watching Ichigo call dance, Sode no Shirayuki and use hakuren with abandon. No one but him seems disturbed by it.
"This is the first time you have come to leave offerings for Rukia," Byakuya says quietly after a long time. Renji opens his eyes and turns his head, looking at him. His captain is – changed. He still wears the kenseikan of the Kuchiki clan and the tekko as well, but his hair is cut shorter and his face is thinner, as if he's lost weight.
It only adds to Renji's guilt. As his lieutenant he's supposed to notice these things. "Yeah," he agrees just as quietly. The only light in the room comes from small candles dotted around the butsudan and the sunlight that spills, weak and pale, from the engawa outside the sliding shoji doors.
"Have you spoken to Kurosaki Ichigo?"
Renji blinks and looks at him more closely. "Not yet," he says slowly. "Heard a lot of rumors. You see him every week." The words sound jealous in his ears, and the tips of his ears burn with shame. It's embarrassing.
Byakuya doesn't even flinch. "I do. He pays his respects here, and we have tea."
"And you talk about – what?" Those words sound sharper than he means them, but there's an itch between his shoulder blades and an ache in his heart. And he feels – stupid, stupid, stupid – for sitting here in front of the Kuchiki family butsudan trying to find out what Byakuya's relationship is with Ichigo.
But Byakuya just watches him calmly, hands palm-down on the fabric of his hakama. "We speak of his training. His kido is much improved." He takes a breath and adds, "Often, we do not talk at all. I think he finds it necessary to keep me company and…check on me, on Rukia's behalf." There is a hint of ruefulness to his tone, as though Renji's captain finds it puzzling and a little amusing that anyone would feel the need to "check up" on him.
"There's a rumor that you're seeing each other." The words blurt out before Renji can stop them, and they're – well, they're not untrue. There have been a few whispers about it – people love gossip, even in Soul Society. Maybe especially in Soul Society.
When his captain actually snorts, it's so entirely out of character for him that Renji's mouth drops open. "Do not be ridiculous, Lieutenant. Ichigo is a man in mourning. And even when he has moved on from the worst of his grief, he will still be tied to my sister by fate."
"By fate," Renji says flatly. But there's some relief, too – even if he won't admit why.
"Hn. Most shinigami become the reishi around us when they die, and their zanpakutō die with them. Yet Ichigo wields Sode no Shirayuki. I do not think he will move on from his bond with Rukia," Byakuya acknowledges. "Now," he says, and turns to his subordinate. Renji's sure he's probably being found wanting: hair braided messily, bandana hiding his hairline less than neatly tied. But Byakuya just says, "Come have tea with me."
It's the start of – something. Like Ichigo, Renji has tea with Byakuya every week, sitting in the Kuchiki tea house (the manor has an entire tea house) or in the gardens with a tray settled between them. It's always the best tea Renji has had in his life, whether it's ceremonial matcha or hojicha.
On the anniversary of Rukia's death, Renji receives an invitation to join Byakuya at the manor for a ceremony and dinner afterwards. He digs up a better kimono than his shihakusho – it's navy blue and appropriately somber – and dons it. His hair he wears down and well-brushed.
When he arrives at the manor and then in the small yard where Rukia's grave marker rests, Ichigo is already there. He looks…less like he's going to fall to pieces, though his face is thin and his eyes are dark. His hair has grown back and is even a little longer than it was before the funeral. The kimono he wears is black, with dark chrysanthemums embroidered into it. It looks more mournful than Renji's does – but then, it's Ichigo.
"Renji," he greets, tone even. Unlike Renji, he has a zanpakutō – Rukia's, he realizes. Maybe Rukia's zanpakutō wanted to mark the anniversary, too.
Byakuya arrives a moment later and Renji bows in greeting; he sees Ichigo do the same, though it's briefer. Soon there are others: Isane, Rangiku, and Nanao join them, as do Kiyone and Sentarō, not fighting for once. Renji doesn't recognize some of the others; he thinks they must be from the Thirteenth Division. Hanataro stands beside Ichigo, and a murmur passes between them.
The ceremony is quiet; a priest is there to say a blessing and lead the group in prayers. Ichigo and Byakuya clean the grave site before they all leave offerings, an array of things that each of them thinks Rukia would have liked. There are flowers and chappy merchandise, food and even drinks (those seem to be from Rangiku). Ichigo places a juice box down beside the flowers he's left, and Byakuya doesn't even bat an eyelash. Renji wonders where the hell he got it from – Urahara, maybe.
Renji expects that the dinner he's been invited to is for all of them, but he's surprised when everyone else – even Ichigo, walking beside Kiyone and Sentarō – quietly leaves the grave site.
"Shall we?" Byakuya asks beside him, and gestures.
"…Yeah," he says, and follows his captain away from the grave site and then down a pathway that cuts through a courtyard. They arrive at a small dining room set for two. "Kind of expected Ichigo to be here too," he adds as he removes his shoes and places them next to Byakuya's.
"Hn. I understand he is having dinner with the co-third seats of the Thirteenth," Byakuya says as he gestures for Renji to sit and joins him at the table. Almost immediately, servants in dark kimonos enter the room and begin filling the table with food. There is miso soup, served in delicate porcelain bowls, and thinly-sliced sashimi alongside artfully-crafted rolls made with eel, salmon, and other fish. Soon the table is so full that Renji's surprised it doesn't groan from the weight of everything. There is sake as well, served in delicate sakazuki.
Their meal is quiet at first as they serve themselves. Renji doesn't know what Byakuya is thinking; the man has never been an open book, after all. A year on, the grief does seem to sit lighter on him, though – Byakuya's face has filled back in and he looks less…weighed down, Renji decides.
"I hope you will still take tea with me now that the first year has passed," Byakuya says suddenly, and Renji almost drops the piece of yellow tuna in his chopsticks.
"If that's what you want, of course I will, captain," Renji says, a note of confusion in his voice. Byakuya is looking at him, and Renji shoves the tuna in his mouth before setting his chopsticks down. The other man is silent until he has swallowed the piece of fish. Like everything that comes from the Kuchiki kitchens, it's some of the best he's ever eaten.
"Byakuya."
"Huh?" Smart, Renji berates himself.
"I'd like you to address me as Byakuya when we are off duty," the man in question explains.
"Oh – yeah, alright," Renji manages to get out. There's heat in his cheeks, which is stupid – all the man's asked is that he call him by his first name after all. But when he looks closely there is just the slightest, slightest hint of pink in Byakuya's cheeks as well.
"Good," his captain says, and serves them both more sake. Dinner takes on a more casual air after that, and they call each other Renji and Byakuya as they speak of inconsequential things and more important matters.
"Kyouraku is holding the Thirteenth Division captaincy open for Kurosaki," Byakuya says partway through the meal, as they are eating thin slices of the most delicious steak that Renji has ever eaten. It practically melts in his mouth. "Unless you wish to take the captain's exam? You have bankai, and it will take time before he is ready to take on a leadership role."
"Trying to get rid of me, Byakuya?" Renji finds himself teasing. When his captain's cheeks actually flush, he clears his throat. "I'd rather not. I uh." His own cheeks heat again. "I don't think I'm ready for a captaincy and I'd rather stay in the Sixth." With you, he wants to say but doesn't.
He gets the impression that Byakuya can see through him, but all his captain says is, "Good. I would find you difficult to replace."
That sends more heat into his cheeks, and Renji takes another sip of sake to try and cool himself down. "Is that why you talk with Ichigo about his training? Because he's been tapped for the Thirteenth?"
"Yes. And he is aware that he needs to increase his skill and experience in certain areas before he can take on the responsibility of captain." Then Byakuya looks at him over the rim of his sakazuki. "I am surprised he has not spoken of this to you."
Renji squirms uncomfortably. "It's…" He takes a breath. "It's still difficult to talk to him. He still blames himself, and I have a hard time not blaming him."
"Because you were in love with my sister." The words are toneless, so toneless that Renji stares at him.
"I thought I was, a long time ago," he admits. "But then she became more like my sister, too. I was happy for her and Ichigo. I uh – I moved on a while ago."
"I see." Byakuya pours a little more sake for them both. "I did not realize that you were seeing someone."
Renji eyes his sakazuki suspiciously. He isn't drunk, doesn't even feel that intoxicated, but he's already shared more than he intended to with his captain – with Byakuya. And Byakuya's being more curious than usual about his personal life. "I'm not. They don't…" He clears his throat. "They don't know how I feel."
Byakuya takes a sip from his sakazuki and leans back against the padding behind him. "I see. You're concerned that this woman doesn't feel the same way."
"Not a woman." The words are a mumble, and Renji barely keeps from startling when Byakuya straightens up. "Hope that doesn't change your opinion of me, Cap – Byakuya."
"Of course it doesn't," he says smoothly. "Your choice of who to court has no bearing on your skills as a shinigami and my lieutenant." But there's a slight tone there, and Renji really hopes he isn't misinterpreting it. "Is there a reason you haven't told this man of your feelings?"
Renji really does blush, then, and wonders when the hell Byakuya became so interested in his personal life. "Ah, well. It's been a difficult year for him," he admits. "It didn't seem right to add to that if he doesn't feel the same way."
"You have feelings for Kurosaki?"
Renji chokes before he spits his mouthful of sake all over his empty plate, thankfully missing Byakuya's impeccable kimono. "No!" he exclaims hoarsely, as a few drops of sake burn their way down his airway. "I'm not that stupid, Captain."
Byakuya just hums under his breath thoughtfully and takes another sip of his sake as if his expensive alcohol wasn't just spit onto his table. "Well, that is a relief. I agree that anyone after his affections would likely be on a fool's errand."
Renji coughs into the sleeve of his kimono and catches his breath. "Yeah," he agrees. But Byakuya is looking at him closely. After a moment he signals, and a servant bustles in, clearing away empty dishes and leaving only the white tokkuri of sake and the two sakazuki.
When they are alone again, Byakuya raises an eyebrow at him. "More sake, Renji?"
"Ah. I think I've had enough, thanks." This conversation is already hard enough, trying not to blurt out that he's enamored of his own captain, a widower and as unreachable as the stars in the night sky. Tramp down to his bones, indeed.
But then Byakuya says, as if he isn't throwing rocks in a proverbial pond, "I, too, have harbored affection for someone for some time. But he has also had a very difficult year."
Of course he has. Byakuya mourned his wife for over fifty years, after all – at some point he was going to feel affection for someone again, Renji reasons. "And why haven't you told him?" he asks daringly. Then he immediately drinks the last of his sake, because he can't believe he just said that.
The look Byakuya gives him is positively withering. "I am attempting to as we speak."
Oh.
Oh.
"Oh," Renji says, and he's sure his entire face is as red as his hair. "Uh…really?" He sets his sakazuki down and suddenly he's very annoyed at the table between them. He's had enough to drink that it seems like a good idea to crawl off of his cushion and shuffle toward Byakuya on his knees.
Fortunately, Byakuya seems to think that's a good idea, too, because when Renji reaches him, one of those elegant hands, devoid if his tekko, slides into his hair. "Really," he confirms.
"Oh, good," Renji gets out before Byakuya's mouth is on his. His lips are warm and soft, and they taste of the sake they've both been drinking. Renji's hand anchors itself in the silk of Byakuya's kimono and he holds on tight as they kiss.
Though Byakuya is the smaller of the two men, it's him who takes control, tongue teasing at the seam of Renji's mouth until he parts for him and lets his captain lick into his mouth. He gives as good as he gets, lips moving under his and tongue sliding against Byakuya's until they are both just this side of breathless. Byakuya's heart pounds against his hand, still fisted in the fabric of his dark kimono, and Renji's sure that his heart is echoing the fast beat.
When they break apart, Byakuya's slate-hued eyes are darker, pupils wide in the soft light from the wall sconces around them. "Yes," he says, and has just enough difficulty getting the word out that Renji smirks.
"That mean you'll let me court you, Captain?" he asks.
"Hn. I imagine the elders will have something to say about this," Byakuya muses, but his hand is still wrapped in crimson hair and he leans closer to kiss Renji again.
The Kuchiki elders have a lot to say about their relationship. So much so that Renji gets to court Byakuya for the better part of fifty years before the last holdout actually dies and removes the last barrier by default. But eventually – fifty years after their first kiss – Byakuya threads silver-white kenseikan through Renji's hair and they say their vows as they drink from san san ku do cups. When the priest pronounces them married, a cheer goes up from Renji's friends, the men and women who have become his family: Rangiku, Izuru, Momo, Shūhei – and Ichigo, smiling even though there are still a few shadows lingering in his eyes.
As Renji leans down to kiss his husband, he smiles, and hair crimson red and dark as a raven's wing mingle together as their lips meet in front of their family and friends.