Chapter 2: Heart Full of Poison
Renji stood quietly in the dressing area of Byakuya's room, trying to keep his eyes respectfully lowered, but unable to keep from stealing glances at his handsome taicho's lovely, pale body as the noble's attendant slowly removed Byakuya's night clothes and began to dress him.
Man, I feel jealous of Torio for getting to see him like this every day, the Rukon mongrel mused inwardly, I think I'd forget being a Gotei officer in an instant if Taicho asked me if I wanted that guy's job.
To be that close to someone so beautiful every fucking day…to get to touch him...
"I suppose you wonder why it is that I have called you here today, Renji," the noble said, partly jolting his subordinate out of his lusty thoughts. Just the low sound of his superior's voice was enough to make his body throb in response.
I know what I wish it could be.
"Yeah, I am a little curious," Renji admitted, trying to ignore his body's lecherous demands, "I mean, I woulda been at headquarters with you in an hour or so anyway and you never just summon me out of the blue to come to your house. Add to that, I'm not usually invited in to where you're being dressed (not that I mind…). So, what's up, Taicho? Is something going on that we can't talk in our own headquarters?"
A little twinge of uncertainty flickered in the redhead's insides at the look that crossed his superior's handsome face.
"Perhaps," Byakuya admitted as he adjusted his position slightly to accommodate the man who was dressing him, thereby giving Renji a better view of sleek muscle, "To know for sure, we will need to travel to Karakura Town, where we will be meeting this morning with Urahara Kisuke."
"Kisuke," Renji repeated, biting his lips slightly to keep from smiling too much at the suggestion.
"Is something wrong, Abarai?" the noble asked, his reiatsu flaring slightly in warning.
"Eh, no, Taicho," the redhead answered quickly.
His breath caught and a scarlet blush rose on his face and throat as he forgot himself for a moment and turned his full gaze on Byakuya's still mostly naked body.
"S-sorry, I ahm…um…I…yeah, it's nothing," Renji stammered as Byakuya's cool grey eyes observed him with forced patience, "I just…I thought that Kisuke wasn't your favorite person."
Byakuya sighed.
"He is a disturber of the peace, a rebel and he is all too willing to bend the rule of law simply to see what boundaries he can push."
"Well, he hasn't been pushing too many boundaries since the war," Renji chuckled, "Since he an' Ichigo got married, he's been totally focused on finding a way for them to make babies together."
"Ichigo is pregnant."
"What the hell'd you say?" Renji yelped, almost falling over as his body stiffened involuntarily, "Ichigo's…what?"
He could have sworn he saw a very tiny smile touch the usually stoic noble's fine lips.
"Pregnant," Byakuya repeated.
"Holy shit, the guy actually did it!" the redhead said in a shocked tone.
Byakuya dark, lovely eyes narrowed.
"Yes, by breaking a very old law that Central 46 would banish him all over for doing so."
"Huh?"
Byakuya turned to fully face Renji, offering the instantly stunned Rukon rat a full-frontal view of luscious expanses of porcelain flesh. Renji almost didn't notice the frown deepening on the noble's face.
"There is an old story about a rather scandalous action that was taken by a scientist in the wake of the first quincy war," Byakuya explained, looking as though he had no idea at all that Renji was barely capable of listening at this point, "That war was every bit as bloody and destructive as the one we have recently endured. The quincies of that time were every bit as determined to end the shinigamis, and in actuality, they came equally close to doing so."
Renji gave him a little nod, the only movement he could muster as Torio paused in dressing the noble, to let him speak. This left Byakuya still mostly nude, unwittingly torturing his subordinate.
"You know, because you are taicho class, and a fukutaicho, that the king that sat on the throne before the travesty that sits there now, was also a stand in."
"Y-yeah," Renji managed, sweat breaking out on his forehead, "Ywach's father. He was behind the first quincy war. But…"
"The populace was never told," Byakuya related solemnly, "It was thought by the leadership that it would disturb and frighten the general public to know the king had fallen and that our fate rested in such unfit hands."
"Right, I heard that."
"Well, what you heard is what most of the ranking elders of Central 46 wanted the rest of us to believe," Byakuya said bitterly, "The truth is that they did not concern themselves so much with calming the peasants. What the elders did not want…was for a strong, rightful monarch to ever sit on the throne again."
"Huh?" Renji said, his mouth dropping open," What did you say, Taicho?"
"I said just what you heard me say," Byakuya answered sternly, a look of disgust on his comely face, "The elders of Central 46 made up that lie because they did not want the king to return."
"Shit…" Renji breathed, his chest constricting, "Taicho, that's…"
"Yes," the noble agreed, "it is enough to set the entire population against them and cause untold death and destruction if it ever got out."
"And you just told me…" the redhead mused strickenly.
"I trust you."
The words jolted Renji all over again.
"I entrust this information to you, because I need your help if I am going to have any chance of setting things right."
"Whoa!" Renji gasped, paling, "Did I hear you right, Taicho? You're going to go up against Central 46? Seriously? You've gotta be kidding me, right?"
Byakuya's beautiful, steel eyes looked deeply into Renji's, freezing the redhead in place and leaving him unable to draw a breath.
"I am being perfectly serious," Byakuya said in a low, angry voice that only seemed to accentuate his overwhelming beauty to the enthralled warrior in front of him, "Renji, I feel partially responsible for all of the death and destruction we have endured."
"That's ridiculous, Taicho," Renji objected, "You fought as hard as anyone to…"
"I was part of the lie that led to there being a second blood war," Byakuya snapped, cutting him off, "That is not saying that there wouldn't have been a war. Perhaps the war was fated, but part of the reason we were ravaged so badly at first by the quincies is that we have had no real leadership since the true king disappeared."
Renji reached up to scratch the back of his neck and he gave Byakuya a mystified look.
"Well, Taicho, what're we supposed to do when the king is dead? How do you find a new one?"
Renji's jaw dropped and his body seemed to go numb and almost painfully alive at the same time as Byakuya's hand wrapped suddenly around his forearm and the noble moved in closer to him, as though to protect his next words.
"You do not simply find a new king," Byakuya said in a carefully lowered voice, "He must be reborn."
XXXXXXXXXX
Tetsuya felt a little twinge of surprise at finding hot green tea and a large plate of food beside his bed when he woke. Not one to ask questions, he sat up and immediately began to eat, not noticing at first, the other man who stood near the door of his cell, watching him. So intent on filling his aching insides, Tetsuya startled at the sound of his master's voice when Orochi did speak.
"You told him, didn't you?" Orochi said in a low, accusing voice.
Tetsuya swallowed the mouthful of food he was working on and paused, looking up at Orochi questioningly.
"You told him that he was serving me sexually?"
The words echoed strangely in Tetsuya's head and he heard the poisonous hiss beneath them that told him Orochi was not fully in control of himself.
"I told him nothing he didn't already know," Tetsuya said solemnly, bowing his head, "and I did not tell him who."
Orochi's slow footsteps echoed softly as he approached, and Tetsuya stiffened, his body beginning to shake softly.
"You," Orochi's voice intoned with a strange roughness as he approached, "You knew better than to give him anything at all!"
Orochi slipped two fingers under his captive's chin and raised it, then he paused, glaring down into Tetsuya's widened sapphire eyes so that the prisoner could see the wicked glint of the malevolent spirit he was hearing.
"You will pay for that."
Orochi felt a sliver of surprise as he felt Tetsuya's shaking subside.
"Are you going to kill me?" Tetsuya asked.
Orochi's glaring black eyes flashed with the beginning hints of red and gold that warned Tetsuya of what was coming next. He drew in a shaky breath and was careful not to resist as Orochi moved suddenly, striking him hard across the face, then he climbed onto the bed and trapped Tetsuya's thin body beneath his. The prisoner's teeth clenched, but he held still as his master's hands worked to bind him in heavy leather straps.
I don't know why he bothers. I am too weak and too beaten down to resist. Still, when the snake spirit takes over, it makes him tie me up as tightly as if I was someone who could hurt it.
He shuddered as Orochi's hand parted his thighs, then he wrapped the straps around, leaving Tetsuya's naked body fully exposed and tantalizingly vulnerable.
I wish that I could!
I wish my body wasn't too weak and my powers held back. I wish that I had the will to fight him. But, even if Orochi didn't have that horrid thing inside him, he's stronger than me. There is nothing I can do as long as I am this weak.
He couldn't help quivering as he watched Orochi slowly bathe his fingers in lubricant, then those unrelenting digits began a harsh invasion. Tetsuya closed his eyes and clenched his teeth harder, tightening his throat to hold back any sound. He heard the snake spirit's hissing laughter in his mind.
Little fool!
There is nothing you can do, is there? I know that your obedience is only skin deep, and that if you thought you had the slightest chance, you would defy me. You give me no choice but to dominate you.
His master's fingers thrust in deeply, dragging a ragged cry from deep in Tetsuya's heaving chest.
I could hurt you, the snake's voice went on in the prisoner's reeling mind, but I think it would be more useful to show you how futile your desires are, Tetsuya. I know that you hate me. I know that you cringe at my touch. You fancy yourself willful enough to be aloof to my ministrations, but I will show you now exactly how little control you have over me and over even your own body.
Tetsuya felt Orochi's fingers stop moving inside him, and he shivered and risked a look through barely opened eyelids. Orochi's possessed red-golden eyes froze him in place, and Tetsuya felt a jolt of near terror as his master's fingers moved more slowly, caressing a place inside him that they usually never attended to during their coitus.
"N-n…ah!" Tetsuya gasped, struggling against his bonds as his heavily bound body reacted to the deep stimulation, "S-sto…!"
The fingers continued their deceptively tender pursuit as Tetsuya writhed and groaned fitfully, fighting the rising feeling of arousal they elicited from him.
"P-please stop!" the captive sobbed, straining against the leather bonds, "Orochi-sama!"
He reeled as Orochi's fingers were removed and replaced with the calm, unhurried entry of his hot, unyielding member. When he was fully entrenched, his still possessed eyes found Tetsuya's damp, stricken ones and held them fast as he began methodically thrusting, at the same time biting and sucking at the prisoner's soft throat and teasing Tetsuya's exposed nipples where they peeked out from between the leather straps. Unused to having his body teased in such a way, the captives defenses crumbled and his body rebelled against him, arching and rising to meet each of his master's now hard and fast thrusts. A feeling of being in a place that was too bright, one of being separated from his trapped body, began to sweep over Tetsuya's pale form, as he was completely overcome. He disappeared into near delirium and all feeling left him for a moment, so he was blissfully unaware as a glowing golden snake suddenly burst from Orochi's chest and plunged down and into his enraptured heart. The captive's body stiffened, jolted by the sudden, violent entry, but his impaled heart continued to beat, even as the monstrous snake slowly fed on his reiatsu and blood. It continued for several long minutes before its vibrant glow faded, and the snake just as slowly retreated, back into its host's body. Tetsuya collapsed onto the bed, unconscious and mercifully unaware as the hole in his heart and breast slowly mended themselves. Orochi rested on top of Tetsuya, their bodies still joined, as the red and gold color gradually drained out of his eyes, leaving them their normal black again. He blinked slowly, regaining his senses, then he let his spent member slide out of the prisoner's resting body. He rose and left Tetsuya's sleeping as he made his exit, only looking back once.
"You are nothing," Orochi sighed wearily, "and you have nothing. You exist to meet the snake spirit's need and you will give all of yourself to doing that, Tetsuya…no matter what you may think or what you may feel. That is your purpose. Remember that."
Orochi left the cell, locking the door behind him, and Tetsuya laid, unmoving, for several hours after. When he did wake, he found his seed and blood splashed body freed of the leather bonds and curled on the bed, shivering. For a time, he simply laid still, breathing slowly and feeling the odd afterglow of sexual pleasure that clashed with everything else he could feel.
The snake spirit was here again.
It comes regularly to feed on my blood and reiatsu, but it has never tried to give me pleasure until today. The spirit wanted me to know that nothing I do matters…no thought or feeling or bit of will I have makes any difference.
The snake wants to squash any desire or defiance I have in me.
For some reason he couldn't fathom, Tetsuya's mind drifted back to his last visit to Aizen Sosuke's cell. The traitor's piercing eye appeared in his mind and Tetsuya's heart flickered as he heard the man's words again.
"Is he going to come to you soon?" the traitor asked.
"Probably," Tetsuya admitted, "He usually comes during the night so that his father will not become suspicious."
"He admits to you that his father would object, and he continues to support his father's persecution of your kind, but he…comes to you frequently to rape you, Tetsuya?"
"It is not rape," Tetsuya said in a low, defeated tone, "I am his property."
"You are not rightfully his, and both you and Orochi know this," Aizen insisted, "Yet, you do not resist him in any way…and he continues to come to you. Is this some strange sort of obsession? Do you think he is lashing out at his father? Or…is there something else that draws this man to you, Tetsuya?"
Tetsuya shivered harder, recalling then the red golden gleam in his master's possessed eyes and the hissing voice of the snake spirit.
I feel like something else happens when Orochi is dominating me. I know that the snake spirit takes over, but I do not know what happens besides sex. I wake feeling cold and drained, as though the very life was being sucked out of me when the snake spirit is there. When Orochi has sex with me, there is something different in the act. He still likes to see me tied up and helpless, but there is a disruption in his reiatsu, a disturbed feeling that hangs all around him…almost as though…
…maybe I am not the only one who is a prisoner…
He turned the idea over in his mind as he sought the now cold meal that he had been eating, prior to his master's arrival. After, he rested quietly, letting his strength come back, so that when his cell door rattled and the guard arrived, he was feeling calm and was able to flow reiatsu properly again. Tetsuya was quiet as he was led to Aizen's cell and left inside with an admonishment to heal the traitor and to not stupidly get himself killed. He set the two keys he was given in their places, watching and walking slowly to the other prisoner as the bindings over his eye and his chest were drawn back.
"Ah, Tetsuya," Aizen greeted him.
Tetsuya somehow knew the man was smiling beneath his bonds.
"I am glad to see you again."
Tetsuya said nothing in reply, but only sat down in front of traitor and began his healing. Aizen's uncovered eye observed him for several minutes before he spoke again.
"Is…something wrong?" he asked curiously, "You seemed more willing to speak to me before. Did Orochi come to brutalize you?"
"Yes," Tetsuya responded, his hands pausing briefly as he looked into Aizen's eye, "but it was strange."
"Oh? How so?"
Tetsuya bit softly at his lips, trying to find the way to express what had happened.
"Usually, there is no pleasure that he gives me. Orochi only takes his fill and he leaves. But…this time, he pleasured me."
"Hmm."
Aizen's brown eye blinked slowly.
"Did he say anything about why the change?"
Tetsuya flinched as he heard the snake spirit's voice in his head again, and his teeth clenched as indecision flooded his mind. Aizen waited patiently as he watched the younger prisoner silently struggle with himself. But finally, Tetsuya sighed softly and answered him.
"He said…that my desires are futile. He said that I have no control, even over my own body."
Aizen's eye brightened and Tetsuya felt once more that he was certainly smiling under his bonds.
"What is it?" he asked softly, "Why do you look so amused?"
"Why do I look amused?" Aizen repeated, little flickers of his reiatsu leaking out to brush brazenly against the younger man's senses, "Why Tetsuya, do you understand? If Orochi thought that he had to say something like that to you…then…he is the one who is afraid that he does not have control."
Aizen's dark eye narrowed and Tetsuya felt a dark chill in his belly.
"Now," the traitor went on, "we just need to find out why."