I wrote this some time ago, with the intent that it would someday fit into a longer TYBW fanfic, but I really like it, and it fit today's Renruki Week prompt of Hot Springs and fits into the recent episodes of the anime. Maybe someday I'll work it into the real fanfic, but that's ages away, so you might as well enjoy it now!

As Renji checked over his shihakushou for the thousandth time- tightening his wrist wraps, tugging on his sword knot, he glanced over at Kurosaki, squatting at the edge of the hot spring. He couldn't see the kid's face, and he was too far away to pick out individual words of the conversation, but he could tell from the tone and cadence of the voices that Ichigo and Rukia were trash-talking each other.

Renji was glad. He was grateful, actually, unspeakably grateful to Ichigo, not just for showing up in the nick of time to save Soul Society once again, but for being here in the Royal Realm, for talking and laughing with Rukia, for giving Renji the cover to get the Hell out of here. He just wished they'd managed to escape a few hours earlier.

Renji had felt it, of course, the moment Rukia woke up. Her reiatsu had spiked wildly, exploding outwards in a panicked tidal wave until it washed over his own and abruptly calmed. Renji knew that relief. He had felt it himself after waking in sheer terror, his heart threatening to burst through the cage of his chest in the few seconds before he was able to feel both Byakuya and Rukia close at hand, his captain and the other half of his soul, unconscious, but blessedly, miraculously alive.

That didn't mean he was ready to talk to her.

Kurosaki said something that sounded like a farewell, and stood up, cracking his back. He sauntered over to Renji, and jerked a thumb back towards the spring. "Your turn."

"We gotta go," Renji grumbled, adjusting Zabimaru against his hip one more time.

Ichigo gave him a look that was half disbelief and half disgust. "She asked for you," he repeated, and Renji knew he was lost, there was no arguing with that. "Take as much time as you need, man. We're in a hurry, but we're not in that much of a hurry," Ichigo called to Renji's back, and Renji flinched at the easy kindness in the kid's tone. Renji didn't deserve this adolescent goon as a friend any more than Soul Society deserved him as a savior.

Rukia had her arms crossed, propped up on the stones that ringed the healing spring. She bore the folded towel draped over her head as regally as a tiara. Through her exhaustion, there was a contented happiness on her face, a momentary peace in having her important people around her, a peace that Renji couldn't bring himself to share.

"Hey there, y'big dummy," she greeted him. "Get down here so I can see you."

Renji squatted down, resting his forearms across his thighs. "Hey, there, y'little dummy," he replied gently. "Whaddya want? Ichigo and I got places to go, heads to crack open."

"You better wait for me to catch up before you go back down there," Rukia warned. She made a very Kuchiki-like face. "I'm trusting you to keep an eye on my boy, okay? I'm taking care of your captain for you, so you owe me." She jerked her head back toward the spring, where an unconscious Byakuya slumped against a rock.

"Rukia…" Renji started, not even sure of what he was going to say.

"Listen to me, Abarai," Rukia said, suddenly very serious. "We both know you shoulda stayed in here a little longer. I'm gonna let that slide, but you gotta promise me you'll take your time and get trained up right. You think I don't know what's going on in your thick skull right now, but I do, and I need you to listen.

"You did your best. Those guys beat Brother. They beat the Captain-Commander, Renji. You. Did. Your. Best." Rukia's eyes locked with his own, big and serious and beautiful. "You gotta put what happened behind you and concentrate on making your best better. You're really good at that, Renji, but sometimes you panic and think it would be better to just sacrifice yourself, throw yourself in the path of a sword meant for someone else. Don't do that." There was exasperation in her voice, but something else, too. Fear. Fear that he was gonna blow this, Renji supposed. Rukia furrowed her brows. "You're strong and you can get stronger, and you're important. We're gonna need you at your strongest when we pound these guys back into the shadows they crawled out of. So take care o' yourself, y'hear me?"

"Okay," Renji agreed.

Rukia scowled for a moment, and then stood up.

Renji kept his eyes glued to her face with the discipline of a career soldier.

Rukia reached out and wrapped her hand against the line of his jaw, her thumb resting gently on his cheek. "And my brother needs you, Lieutenant Abarai, and so do I. So wait for me before you do anything stupid, you got it?"

Renji swallowed thickly. "Got it."

"Promise me, Renji."

Renji closed his eyes and leaned, just for a moment, into her hand. "I promise." He opened his eyes again. She was studying his face, looking for what, he didn't know.

Whether or not she found it, she made a little sigh, and slipped back down into the water again.

Renji might have the discipline of a soldier, but he also had the lightning reflexes of one. His eyes flicked down and then back up again, just fast enough to catch a glimpse of something he could reflect on happily in his dying moments if the next few days didn't go so well.

"I saw that," Rukia noted dryly, but she seemed more amused than angry.

"Like you wouldn'ta spent that entire conversation blatantly staring at my package if our situations were reversed," he returned.

"I wasn't criticizing you for being an opportunist, I was making fun of you for trying to be sneaky and failing."

Renji smiled fondly at her. Not for the first time, he felt immensely grateful to have been a part of her life, even if he had never managed to make himself worthy of telling her how much she meant to him. He had come close. So close. "Take care, Ru," he bid her. "I'll catch you on the flipside."

"It's a date," she agreed.

As Renji stood and prepared to go, there was a brief, jarring spike of reiatsu, like a stutter in reality itself.

Byakuya cracked one eye painfully open. "Lieutenant," he croaked, his voice faint and caked with rust. "Come here."

"Brother, you're not ready to be up yet," Rukia scolded. "You need to be resting!"

Resigned to his fate, Renji made his way around the perimeter of the spring. Naturally, trying to sneak a glance at his sister's tits would bring Captain Kuchiki back from the dead. Renji was happy enough to accept his dress-down, though- he'd take a dozen scathing lectures on propriety and then cheerfully scrub the floors of every training room in Squad 6, just as a reminder that his captain was still alive.

"Down here, Abarai," Captain Kuchiki commanded through slitted eyes.

As Renji crouched low on the bank, a damp hand clamped onto the back of his neck, fingertips like brands digging into his flesh, pulling him almost nose-to-nose with his captain.

Byakuya was not well. His reiatsu was uncontrolled at best, non-existent at worst. Nevertheless, his closeness, his presence, forced all the air from Renji's lungs. Renji was a kid again, gangly in his student robes, standing frozen in an Academy doorway, unable to move, unable to even think.

"If you return to the battlefield before I, Abarai," Byakuya wheezed, "Give. Them. Hell."

Renji's lip curled into a fangy, humorless smile. "Sir, yes, sir."

Byakuya gave the smallest of nods, then closed his eyes and leaned back again. The iron grip on Renji's neck loosened, and Renji reached up to lower Byakuya's hand back down into the water.

He looked up and realized that Rukia was watching him, her eyes soft. "I'll keep him out of trouble," she promised.

Good luck with that, Renji wanted to say, except that he wasn't entirely sure if Byakuya was still conscious or not. "You just focus on healing up," he said instead. "I'm not gonna wait forever for you, you know."

"Ha," barked Rukia. "We'll just see about that."