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Consolation Prize (of Victory)	By : blackfox1 Category: Bleach > Het - Male/Female Views: 5764 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, any of the characters mentioned here and I'm certainly not in this for the money.

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
Consolation Prize

Interlude 5: To Walk in Fields of Gold (Hope)

…and a window is thrown wide.
The biggest problem with trying to give flowers to a woman in the middle of autumn was the lack of flowers to give.

October wasn’t exactly the best time of year for roses. Most plants were long past their flowering stage for the year and the ones that did bloom, such as chrysanthemums, asters and the red spider lilies that decorated the hillsides had less-than-romantic connotations. Nothing quite killed one’s chances with a woman than handing her a bouquet more appropriate for a funeral display than a token of affection.

Then again, Renji had once given a girl a fistful of crispy, Kido-singed wildflowers and she’d reacted as if she’d never seen anything prettier, until he’d managed to get it right with the next gift by giving her a live pot of plants he’d hastily dug from a field.

Zabimaru let him fret for about a week before his blade decided that it couldn’t stand him dithering about it any longer.

You’ve got all of the flowers you need, banana-brain.

Not everything fitsss into a nice glasss vassse…

When he finally managed to suss out what the Nue meant as the creature messily bit into the mango he held in in his paw, Renji had to agree with Zabimaru.

If only he could get her to see it…

Renji still wasn’t sure she would show up, given how they had last parted. That fear kept gnawing at him as the day and time drew closer, his uneasiness mirrored in the shrinking amount of daylight.

If she didn’t walk through the door and the hour passed with no sign of her, he would have to find another means of obtaining a Claim and he hadn’t quite forgiven Szayel enough to endure another session with the Seventh Espada. He also had good reason to believe that Szayel would do everything in his power to avoid sleeping with another man, courtesy of Aizen.

You’ve no room to dissemble, Abarai Renji. Hopefully, the truth will be enough to convince her you’re worth keeping.

Be honessst. Itsss all you have right now, ssskippy…

He’d once had to fight and overcome the manifestation of his Zanpakuto to achieve Bankai. Renji paused to consider drop kicking the serpentine part of his blade on principle and for nostalgia’s sake.

No, he thought, he was going to need Zabimaru to make this work, if such a thing was possible, which stayed his foot. The Nue was also right; when he’d pursued Rukia, he’d been a Fukutaichou and he’d been a respected part of the Gotei 13’s model 6th Division. At present, he played the role of a dutiful slave, even if it was for a good cause. He couldn't even count the clothes on his back as his. Renji had less now than he did when he and Rukia had left the Inuzuri, intent on bettering themselves.

Good. It means that there’s less clutter she’ll have to wade through to see what you wish to show her.

Renji could only hope the Baboon King was right about that.

She was late.

He sat on the edge of the bed, head bent, with his hands clasped in front of him.

For the fiftieth time in what had only really been ten minutes, his hands reached for Zabimaru’s hilt, though he didn’t bother slipping into Jinzen. It wouldn’t do him any good anyway, since the beast had made it clear to him what needed to be done. Trotting back now, in search of solace, wasn’t going to help Nel materialize before him any faster.

Closing his eyes, he tried to picture her instead. Madarame Ikakku once told him, whilst beating him into a cliff face in the middle of a training session, that he needed to visualize victory before he could actually attain it. Renji doubted that the late 3rd Seat meant it literally, since visualizing a future with Rukia over the last several decades had resulted in a large amount of nothing.

Of course, he’d never bothered to make his case to Rukia either, which might have been that plan’s fatal flaw.

To his chagrin, especially after hearing Grimmjow’s assessment of what constituted the typical union between Hollows of any class, Renji knew he’d never considered what Rukia might have wanted either. He’d tried to amass as many credentials, as much power as he could and tried to make a name for himself that could compare to all that the Noble House of Kuchiki represented.

Instead, she’d chosen a teenaged human. Kurosaki had a blunt way of speaking, no respect for authority, a high school education and a dangerous Hollow camped out inside his noggin. The Kuchiki elders, depending on how many were left after living with Yammy for so many years, would shit themselves if they knew. Then again, he doubted Rukia cared much for their opinion at this point. They weren’t the ones living her life and for that matter, neither was Renji.

Rukia had made her choice and if he gave a damn at all about her happiness, Renji came to understand, he would have to honor it.

That did not mean, however, he was going to concede Nel. Not by a long shot.

He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

He was going to plead his case and use whatever he had within him to make it.

The only thing stopping him was Nel’s absence.

That, he decided, was a serious impediment to his plans.

Renji again tried to envision Nel, big platinum-colored eyes looking up at him, her curves pressed up against him as he’d let her go back, almost two years ago. Karin had been right, in that he’d needed her to get through the wretchedness Yammy’s revelation inflicted on him. He actually groaned out loud, as he revisited the better parts of their last, ill-fated tryst, before he’d reacted and she’d retaliated.

He didn’t want things between them to end like that.

Hell, he didn’t want them to end period.

Another five minutes passed and he fixed his eyes on the shifting Kido patterns that made up the walls. If he ever got the chance to meet the genius that created it, Renji swore he was going to try to latch on to this Hachi and not let up on the begging until he agreed to teach Renji everything he could about Kido. Renji had never had an issue with the use of Kido, other than the fact that Kido and he were like oil and water… or Yachiru-chan and broccoli. Maybe he'd discover some aptitude for it with the right sort of teacher.

The air pressure around him suddenly intensified and he’d never been so happy to feel shooting pains in his eardrums. Working his jaw to get his ears to pop, Renji closed his eyes, took a deep breath and waited, trying to keep calm.

Hearing the door slide open with a whisper of air, he held his breath. A moment later, and he heard hesitant footsteps making their way towards him. The mattress shifted as a body sat down on the opposite side of the bed. Another thin ‘whoosh’ told him the cube had closed in on them. Still, she didn’t say anything and as the silence settled around them, Renji felt himself getting lightheaded.

Breathe, ssstupid! Then sssay sssomething…

Filling his lungs with air helped clear his head. With the out-rush of breath, he opened his mouth…

“I’m sorry.”

Said in unison, the words had the power to startle both speakers. This led to another minute of long silence, unbroken by anything but the shift of the covers as Renji heard her turn around to regard him.

Well, he told himself, here goes nothing… and everything.

“I’ve been a complete prick to you and I’m sorry, Nel. I had no right to yell at you for saying… what you did. I’ve no right to get jealous when I’ve been doing the same damn thing to you for five years now. I hope you can forgive me enough to want to keep me Claimed, because I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”

She said nothing in answer to this and he decided to press on, to get all of it out in the open.

“I do love Rukia. Always have, from the time we were kids. She’s the one who wanted to become a Shinigami, to enroll in the school, so that she could use her gifts and make something of herself. She wanted more than the kind of life she could have had with me in the 78th District and she made me want it too, if only for her sake.”

Renji opened his eyes and looked at his clasped hands, fingers lacing and unlacing as he tried to put his thoughts into words.

“But she wouldn’t have been happy for long with me and I think, deep down, that I knew it too. That’s why, when Kuchiki Byakuya came to offer her a place within his distinguished family, I told her to take it. Even then, I was selfish. I secretly wanted her to say no, to stay by my side, even though it was an incredible opportunity for her."

“I kept making mistakes like that too. If I had truly been in love with her, the way she deserves, it wouldn’t have taken me as long as it did to turn on my former Taichou to try to free her when she faced execution. I wouldn’t have fought with Kurosaki in the first place. I’d have dropped Zabimaru the moment The Strawberry told me to step aside and followed him and his friends without question. I didn’t though, because I wanted to be the one to get her to safety, again because I was being selfish… and a jackass.”

He sighed and sat up, placing the palms of his hands on either side of his body.

“Ichigo is the one that really loves her, the way she ought to be loved. He’d walk through fire for her, take on the entire Gotei 13 and not stop until she was safe. He wouldn’t care if he were the one to do it or not, either. He’s a better man than I am, I guess, when it comes to Rukia. If… if she’s happy with him, then… I’m happy for her. For them.”

Staring up at the cube’s ceiling, his eyes caught a thin ribbon of Kido symbols before they melded back into the layered wall.

“There’s this other woman, though, that makes me feel things that scare the hell of out me. Fierce things… wrong things, since she isn’t a possession. She’s got a brain and a soul and she has the right to do whatever the hell she wants to do in this life, and I’m bloody lucky that she decided to save my sorry ass. In addition, she keeps doing it, despite the fact I’ve paid her back by wishing she were someone else. I’ve been an ungrateful asshole to her and yet she keeps coming back because… I dunno, maybe she sees something valuable in me. Maybe she…”

Reaching up, he rubbed his forehead, fingers pressing against the black fabric.

“Or maybe, I’m a fool and she’s only putting herself through this because Yoruichi thinks I can be useful. I can understand why she might not want to deal with me any longer. I had a little chat with Grimmjow about the things that female Arrancar have to put up with and there are a lot of similarities between what I’ve been doing and what some of these fucks would have done to her. I’ve treated her as if she was some trinket to win, or to fuck, without regard to what she might want… or who she might be in love with herself.”

The mattress shifted again, and he could imagine her tucking those long legs up beneath her.

“Renji-kun…”

“I’ll understand if you don’t want to do this with me any longer. You were upset the last time and I ended up thinking with my cock instead of figuring out why you were hurting. If I have to… I’ll even submit to Szayel.”

“No, you won’t. I won’t let you do that!”

Nel’s soft voice seemed to cut through him and he stopped, waiting for her to speak again.

“I… I was wrong to use you like that… and I did use you.”

Her admission hurt, surprisingly so.

“Ichigo-kun and Rukia-chan always go out to see the Christmas lights, even though Yoruichi-san doesn’t like it. She says we should only go out for necessary things, so that a patrol doesn’t spot us while we’re out. They always get into an argument about it too and Ichigo-kun usually wins. Just like with Uryuu-kun’s family marker.”

“When they came back, Ichigo-kun announced that they were getting married. I… I didn’t understand at first, until Yoruichi-san explained what it meant.”

He heard no small amount of resignation in her voice.

“They’re mated and will be until Ichigo dies in the Living World. After that… no one’s sure what will happen to him.”

Renji froze as he heard this. Living in the Seireitei, one tended to lose track of time in a way that those in the Living World could not. He’d missed nine whole years himself, and yet there were things that remained constant on this side of the grave, things the long years barely touched. That wasn’t true in the Living World, where the body felt every second as it passed and old age, if one made it that far, was inevitable.

Ichigo would be a man of thirty now, and what were arguably the best years of his life had been spent in hiding, fighting a shadow war with Heaven and trying to keep the Realms from collapsing on the side. For all of Renji’s anger at what had happened to the Seireitei and the souls within it, he was still alive to fight, to try to overthrow the motherfucker who had destroyed so much of it. His body, now back to normal, was in good enough shape to go all out with an Espada of Grimmjow’s caliber. However, once a human’s best, strongest years were behind them…

Suddenly, Renji begrudged Ichigo nothing, absolutely nothing.

“Being with all of them is wonderful and it’s never lonely, even if I can’t ever go outside, because I don’t…well, let's just say that a gigai won’t work with me… but… only Hachi and Hiyori really understand what it’s like to be an Arrancar, even though they aren’t. They started out as Shinigami. Aizen turned them into hybrids as an experiment and Urahara-san and Yoruichi-san went into exile so that they could protect all of those who Aizen changed,” Nel said. “They’ve had over a hundred years to overcome the Hollows inside of them and keep them in check. Their Shinigami soul is in control. But Ichigo…”

With startling clarity, Renji grasped what had attracted Nel to the Shinigami substitute, and he found the answer both tragic and understandable.

Of course, she’d want someone who had rescued her, kept her safe, healed her wounds, and looked out for her while she was a vulnerable damaged child. By his actions alone, Ichigo would have earned a place in the heart of any female Arrancar he’d treated thusly. Toss in the possibility that the ridiculously-strong Hollow taking up space in Ichigo’s head might be able to cast a Claim as well, and her distress at losing out on the closest thing to an acceptable partner made much more sense to him. So did her subsequent actions, which her next words confirmed.

“Our meeting time was two days later and… I had you to go to, to try to feel like something worthwhile, even if you had mixed feelings about me. I knew you at least liked my body, what we did here and that you liked the feel of my Claim. But I also knew you loved Rukia too. I… I thought that would be enough, but the way you took me was so much like what I wanted…”

She stopped and Renji buried his face in his hands, knowing instinctively she would say next.

“…no, what I’d wanted Ichigo-kun to do that I… oh, Renji-kun, I’m so sorry. I hurt you! Then, when you got angry and jealous… I hurt you again. I felt it all and I couldn’t stand to see how much pain you were in, so I ran. I hurt something inside you, Renji-kun and I did it deliberately because I was angry! I’m… I’m no better than Yammy…”

Something snapped when Renji heard this. He pushed himself up by his elbows and scrambled to turn around. A wall of long, aquamarine hair greeted him. Nel was hunched over, head bowed, her posture one of miserable penitence. Whatever small amount of resentment he’d felt about her calling out someone else’s name during the heat of the moment vanished and he threw himself across the narrow, single person bed. She gasped as his arms encircled her and he buried his nose in the spot where her neck met her shoulders. Her mask made it a position he wouldn’t be able to sustain for long, but for now all he concentrated on was taking a deep breath of the clover-and-lemony-grass perfume clinging to her hair and her skin.

“Stop, Nel! Stop it now. You’re nothing like that nightmare!” he insisted.

Nel stiffened in his hold, her form quivering. Renji thought that if he said the wrong thing, did the wrong thing, she’d bolt and he couldn’t… wouldn’t have that. Therefore, he did the only thing he could think of, which was to drop any and all of the shields he’d developed to mask his emotions over the years. At the same time, he pulled her against him, scooting his rump back on the bed until his shoulders found the lone pillow resting against the headboard. The redhead fell back and then to the side, taking her with him and hooking one of his legs over hers, to effectively half-pin her beneath him. Shocked gray eyes met his narrowed brown ones. Renji reached up and brushed a few strands of her hair away from her face, then gently traced the right half of the mark below her eye with his fingertips.

“Yes, you hurt me,” he growled, “but I deserved it, for making you feel as if you were some second-rate consolation prize.”

Her hands braced against his chest, holding him back while she stared up at him, uncertainty clouding her pretty features. She seemed stunned as the mixture of desire, raw need, hope, worry and his own long-held, deep-seated insecurities washed over her from the Claim.

Renji also noticed that she’d worn the pink dress he’d liked so much and a small cheer, followed immediately by a massive amount of covetousness directed at what that fabric covered, arose in the back of his mind.

“You want to know something? I’m glad Ichigo is about as observant as a brick wall. I don’t want him seeing you the way I see you, because if he did, I probably wouldn’t stand a chance. He’s stronger, he’s less cowardly about so many things and hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if the jerk could cast a Claim. He’s managed to do a lot of other things that no one thought he could pull off.”

All of the possessiveness, all of the worry he’d felt about whether or not she’d come back, whether or not she’d finally had enough of him… he held none of it back and her hands fisted against the dark tattoos peeking from beneath the cloth of his kosode, eyes getting wider by the second. Renji could see small amounts of moisture forming in their corners, and then shook his head.

Now. She needs to see this now, to understand what I’m talking about…

He shifted and with his other hand, pulled Zabimaru, sheath and all, from his obi. Renji laid the sword, hilt and tsuba between her breasts, so that the entire Zanpakuto made contact with the woman below him. She moved one hand away from his chest to touch the tsuka and Renji’s hand joined hers.

“Listen to me. I don’t know if this will work or not, but I need to… to show you something, Nel.”

He could see the faintest of nods and Renji gripped her hand a little tighter. Then he surged forward and captured her mouth with his. At the same time, instead of trying to clear his mind to enter his inner world, he opened everything up for her to see, laying it at her feet. Everything within that sanctuary was a metaphor for something about him, some truth or fact that he acknowledged. The greater the understanding, the greater the warrior’s abilities, or so Ikakku once said.

Renji, in his mind’s eye, conjured every block of carved stone that made up the center temple, every leaf, every vine, every moss-covered rock, every rustle in the underbrush and every birdcall. He summoned the dappled, green and black shadows and the patches of gold filtered through the canopy, wanting her to see them through the same lens of emotion that he did. The place was the sum of his being, his accomplishments, the things of which he was most proud as well as the things he considered his worst failures, his trials and his fears.

Lastly, he let her see the latest addition to his world: a carpeting of sand so white it sparkled where the sporadic sunshine hit it and the thick, fragrant meadow growing from it. Clover sprouted from deep beneath the grains and protected the roots of the taller swaths of bending grass and wildflowers. His self-acknowledgment had restored some of its health, but it was still waiting for something more. She went stock still beneath him as Renji’s sanctuary sprang to life around them through the Claim, coloring it as best he could, as honestly as he could.

“This has been here for the last two years, since you brought me that taiyaki,” he whispered against her lips. “At first, I thought it was your Claim manifesting, but now I know what it really is.”

Her fingers tightened around the tsuka, pressing into the ray-skin wrappings along the hilt as he deepened the kiss between them. Renji then pulled his hand away from hers, to skim along her body coming rest on the curve of her hip. His thumb twitched at the spot just below her hipbone.

He let her feel the warmth that pooled in his belly every time he thought of her, let her know how much he wanted, needed her presence, how much he looked forward to the sixty short minutes get got to spend in her company. Renji let his utter gratitude that someone so beautiful, so perfectly made wanted him fill the link between them.

The redhead revealed the truth behind what he’d shouted out, under Grimmjow’s direct, Claim-induced order:

I am in love with the Third Espada.

I need her, as growing grass needs rain.

I want her, the way she ought to be wanted, the white sand beneath her writhing form.

There is a piece of her within me and whether she’s placed it there or I’ve allowed it to be placed, it is real and I want it to stay.

I need her to stay.

Renji’s hand left her body and reached around until his fingers came into contact with the cool metal of the weapon she carried, still slung about her body on its belt. She gasped and arched up beneath him and it was all he could do to keep his thoughts straight. Nel felt as if she was burning beneath the layers of cloth between them and as much as he wanted to rid her and him of them, he had to make her understand what he wanted first.

Therefore, he flared his reiatsu, the bright red, hungry shade temporarily shining around them like a beacon. Nel’s eyes flew open and Renji stared right down at her, lips breaking away from hers. He did not let go of her weapon’s saya. Instead, he let his fingers travel the length of it, to the spacers, across the twin-mooned tsuba and upwards still, until they traced the pommel. The Espada’s expression seemed a little glazed and he quickly pressed a kiss to one of the teeth of the mask that covered her forehead while he had her so thoroughly cornered.

“All I have in the world, other than the regard of a few people, and the twins, is in that small space I just showed you. It’s all I can promise you, but what’s there is yours if you want it. I can’t Claim you with power and from what Grimmjow told me,” Renji said a little sadly “I don’t think I could do that to you, even if it was possible.’

His hand drifted away from Gamuza and reached up to cup her cheek, thumbing away another salty drop as it tried to trickle down to disappear into the turquoise hair below.

“What I show you is what’s inside of me, to let you know much you affect me. No one, not Rukia, not Ichigo… no one has ever left their mark on me as you have. Everything there I’ve had to fight for, to earn with hard work, with pain and training.”

Finally, he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers, conjuring every emotion, every little bit of his soul that he associated with Zabimaru. He pictured the creature as he’d seen him at his most contented, stretched in the sunshine in the midst of the grass, drowsy and laconic, the well-fed, tail-end serpent basking on the stone steps.

“You’re the only one who has ever brought peace to my inner world, Nel.”

Her hands slowly relaxed and he felt them glide up until they reached his shoulders. Nimble fingers undid the headband he wore and once they reached his hair tie it only took a few seconds for the riot of red to fall around his face like a curtain. Her nails carefully, gently, combed through the long length until she seemed satisfied, and then traced the black ink markings across his eyebrows.

“You keep giving me meadows, Renji,” Nel said softly, a look of utter wonder on her face as she gazed up at him through thick, dark lashes.

“It’s yours if you want it, for as long as you want it,” he replied, equally awed that not only had she understood, but also that she’d managed to see it for herself. “Forever, if you want it.”

He said this resolutely, his heart thudding in his chest when he not only realized what he was implying, but also realized that he meant every damn word of it. Renji let her share in that as well. They lay there, regarding one another as the redheaded Shinigami laid bare everything within him, poised on the brink of something strange and momentous. It.felt like nothing he’d ever experienced before, save for the moment he’d learned Zabimaru’s name. There were a hundred unanswered questions in her eyes and slowly, what he showed her seemed to resolve most of them.

Zabimaru still lay sandwiched between them and Nel reached down, gingerly taking his Zanpakuto and setting it carefully next to Gamuza. Renji heard the faint sound of well-worn leather scraping against metal. Without looking down, he knew she was undoing the buckles holding it in place.

He rose up on his heels, taking both weapons and carefully placed them at the foot of the bed, out of the way and cushioned by the blankets. Then he turned back to regard the disheveled creature sprawled out wantonly on the rumpled blankets.

“I can’t Claim you with power,” he repeated, running his hands up both of her legs, fingers teasing the flesh as his actions pushed the soft fabric up. “But I can let you feel everything you mean to me, Nelliel Tu. It’s the truth. All of it.”

His mouth followed his hands, lips and tongue urging her to part her thighs wider, to let him have better access to the soft skin and the sweet flesh. An occasional scrape of his teeth made her twitch and he heard her sharp intake of breath, but he never let up. He also didn’t stop his bombardment of their connection with all of the desire, all of the animalistic lust that heretofore had only surfaced in the dead of night. Instead of quelling it with the application of cold water, Renji let it loose.

The effect on Nel was breathtaking. Creamy skin flushed as pink as the dress bunched up just below her hips and her lips parted for air. Renji decided to try and apply a small amount of boldness, stilling his hands before they could touch anything higher.

“Take this off before I tear it off of you and send you back through the Dangai naked. I don’t want to ruin it.”

To encourage her, he let his fingers just brush the rapidly dampening curls beneath the crumpled fabric of her skirt, the touch glancing along her soft folds. Then he let her feel what that one little gesture had done to him physically.

Nel reached down, as if hypnotized and she shakily took hold of the dress hem, arching up off of the bed to free the cloth beneath her bottom. She crossed her arms to pull it higher and Renji felt the flesh between his own legs harden to a state he could only describe as ‘diamond-like’ as she revealed more of herself to his scrutiny.

When she’d pulled the garment off completely, he found himself at a loss for words.

Perfect. She was utterly perfect and spread out like a fucking banquet before a starving man. Renji allowed his eyes to feast accordingly and sent every drop of want he was experiencing washing down the Claim to her.

“Oh!”

The woman below him clenched the blanket with her hands, squirming and Renji found himself crawling over her, tossing one leg and then the other over his shoulders. He slid his hands beneath her bottom, lifting her just enough so that he could cover her sex with his open mouth.

She wailed his name, skipping the honorific and then let out a small sob when he attacked her entrance with his tongue, her head thrashing against the pillows, waves of her long hair fanning out over the bedding. His unbound red mane tickled the skin of the backs of her thighs and her belly as he worked her over. Renji slid the muscle in and out of her tight passage, lapping up the wetness that began trickling across his lips and teasing the sensitive bud of flesh above it until it swelled and flushed. Her hips began to move in response and her fingers touched the top of his head. She carefully ran her nails over his scalp, the touch light so that she wouldn’t break skin, encouraging him to continue.

Who was he to tell her 'no'?

Nel’s thighs slid down his arms, until her bent knees rested in the crook of his elbows and he took the opportunity to pry her nether lips farther apart, letting him delve deeper and get at more of her slippery sweetness.

Renji knew he was never going to tire of this, but the trembling in her abdomen told him that she was close. Pulling back, he heard her protest, a small ‘no, please’ dropping from her bitten lips. Wiping her juices from his chin with the back of his hand, he licked his lips.

“I keep having these dreams, Nel,” he said, and kissed the skin just below her navel. Settling his body between her parted, shaking thighs, Renji undid the tie to his kosode, pulling it off before his mouth began to plant small kisses on her lower belly. His hakama and underthings were the next things to go. “There’s no moon and no stars and all I can see in front of me is you, spread out like this, on the sand…”

Two fingertips traced a circle around and around that little nub of flesh at the top of her sex, the movement not enough to give her any relief, but enough to wrench another sob from her.

“… and you’re just dripping into the dune below us. I’m so ready for you it hurts and all I want…”

He said this as he kissed his way up her form, pressing his lips to her ribs, the valley between her breasts and ran his tongue briefly along her collar bone. He reached up and took her chin in one hand, pulling back and looming over her. Nel slowly opened her gray eyes to stare dazedly up at him.

“…is to fill you and then fill you again and again, as many times as I fucking can. It’s torment Nel, to feel you beneath me, only to wake up to an empty bed.”

Renji reached down and tugged her hips up, as he’d done last time, until his swollen, aching length rubbed against her wet entrance, his folded legs under her ass. One hand kept her in place while he locked eyes with her.

“I want more than that… much more.”

Nel’s mouth opened slightly and he could see the slight bruise forming on her lower lip.

“You… you can’t cast a Claim, Renji.”

His fingers returned to teasing her clitoris, which made her moan and try to squirm to get them where they could ease some of the tension. He denied her that, though they both knew that she could have forced the issue with the connection between them. Renji’s fingers left her in favor of palming his cock and aligning it with her soaked opening. He was so close to being where he wanted that it made him dizzy, but he held back just long enough to give her a long, measuring stare.

“I can’t Claim you with power, Nel, but I can do this…”

Taking a long breath, he concentrated on everything that one patch of sand, grass, wildflowers, clover and sunshine in his inner world meant to him. Renji left nothing out. He allowed it to spill over and through him, acknowledging her place there. All of the emotions that came with it burst forth, like water flowing from a broken dam. While he did so, he eased his hips forward, breaching her excruciatingly tight channel, sliding into what he could only describe as living perfection. He wanted to throw his head back, close his eyes and revel in the sensation, but that wasn’t his goal. Grimmjow’s words came back to him:

"...any male who’s lucky enough to get a powerful female like that to lay back and wrap their legs around his waist, to let a female like that Claim ‘em…"

He gritted his teeth, seating himself deeply within her, never losing eye contact with Nel. It was important that she comprehend everything he was offering, everything he could give her, even if the only real things he had were his body and soul.

“You’re mine, Nel, for as long as you want.”

Renji uttered this as he kept up the emotional barrage. He hit her with everything he had, while letting her adjust to his size and the angle. He tossed his head, getting the red length of it out of his face before pushing forward a little, using the Claim between them to let her know just how fucking much he wanted to be here, in her. Reaching down, he sat up on his knees, sliding his hands to cup her bottom again and taking her hips even higher. He hooked her knees over his elbows again, giving them a place to rest while he did his best not to just start thrusting.

She’s practically begging for a Mating Claim at that point.

“I don’t want Rukia, and I’m going to make sure, with this…”

He sent another surge of emotion to Nel and a cry worked its way out of her open mouth as she tried to reach up for him. Sinking down again, working his cock into her as he drew back and slid forward, Renji kept his eyes planted on her face.

“...that you’ll never want anyone else.”

Renji kept rolling his hips against hers as he forced her to wrap her legs around him. Nel’s fingers dug into shoulders, tracing over the skin, hard enough to bruise, but he didn’t care.

“Your back…!” she suddenly whispered in his ear and through the haze of pleasure, Renji realized that she’d encountered the year-and-a-half-old scars left by Aizen’s whipping.

“Not… important… right now. This… you… are all I… give a damn about…” he replied breathlessly, picking up the pace of his thrusts and letting his left hand find and cup her breast. Renji cut off any protests she might have made by kissing her soundly, coaxing her tongue to play with his.

Her reiatsu crept along his limbs and if she had any objections to being drilled into the bedding, as well as nearly flattened by the extent of his emotions, she said nothing. Instead, her energy rose around them, winding like the thick vines that slithered through his inner world, binding the two of them together. Renji did all he could to chase it with his tongue, to lap at it as he felt it move from the pulse point in her neck to curl through his hair, and across his inked back and legs, as if encouraging him to take her harder and faster.

“Renji… oh, Renji… that feels…”

He was on the brink and from the way her channel had begun to tighten and flutter, she was as well.

“Mates, Nel… make it complete… because you’re… already mine!” he growled through gritted teeth into her ear.

Fingers tilted her head towards him. He kissed her deeply, running his tongue over her sharp lower fangs. The coppery taste that resulted only served to heighten things.

“Love you, Nelliel… only you…you’ll never want for it again,” he murmured into her mouth, the quiet pledge leaving his lips to mingle with their breathing.

Renji heard her answer only because her strangled scream was slightly louder than the thundering in his ears. His body lost the fight to stay poised on the edge, waiting for her. As it turned out, she rushed past him and dragged him with her as a reiatsu geyser entwined with chained lightning lit him up from within. His reply to it, coupled with all of the pleasure scorching every single nerve ending in his body, was to grind his shaking hips against her sex, sending a torrent of love and want to her. His cock shot spurt after spurt of cum into her, while he swallowed everything she poured into him. Nel let little whimpers escape her throat as her tight passage massaged his flesh, pulling him even farther up into her as she came.

Slowly, he dragged his body up, touching her face, her hair, her lips with trembling fingers. She gasped as his cock brushed that one spot within her and her channel tightened again.

“Renji… Renji… Renji…” she chanted as her renewed Claim settled over his sweat-drenched skin.

It was the prettiest sound he’d ever heard. The redhead gave up on doing anything other than whispering small endearments into her ear and her mouth as he kissed her again, moving his hips in an effort to try to prolong the bliss for the both of them.

The cube surrounding them had other ideas.

Everything around them turned crimson and Renji let out what had to be the most vicious string of profanity of his entire career, including his time with the 11th Division. Then the woman beneath him pushed him aside, frantically looking for something with wide, terrified eyes.

“Nel, what…”

“My dress! Help me find it! Hurry!!” she cried.

The redhead cursed again and rolled off the bed, finding his hakama and one tabi and his inner kosode. The vermilion light coming from the walls made it hard to find a pink dress on the gray floor. Then he heard her give a small cry of triumph as she pulled the clingy thing from beneath the bed. Renji had no idea how it ended up there, but that mattered less to him than the idea of Nel being trapped here.

“Nel, you have to…”

“There it is!”

She pulled something, thin and shining, from a small pocket, hidden in the lining of the dress hem and dashed, naked, to the wall she’d come through. Renji, confused and a little stunned, watched as she searched the barrier for something, precious seconds ticking by, then pounced, shoving the small light into the wall. From that miniscule spec of brightness a growing circle of the cube's normal iridescence formed, erasing the red as it expanded. Nel sank to the floor, kneeling on the tile as the angry crimson color retreated.

“What in the hell…?” he began, but Nel, breathing heavily from her sprint and the rigors of Claiming him, held up one hand.

“Time. Hachi-kun gave me some extra time. It’s a risk but… he told me that I might need some extra time with you, considering what happened…”

“How much time?” Renji asked, rounding the bed and approaching her, both his expression and his footsteps determined.

Whoever this Hachi was, the former Fukutaichou was beginning to consider the Kido expert a saint on the magnitude of the Buddha himself. He hoped he’d live long enough to find a proper way to express his gratitude to the guy, perhaps with Aizen's head in a gift-wrapped box.

Nel looked up at him, her warm gray eyes large as the last of the red faded away.

“About thirty minutes,” she answered. “He thought we might need to talk to one another, to sort things out and that I might not have time to convince you to let me refresh your Claim if… if things didn’t go well…”

She didn’t get to finish that, because Renji pulled her up into the circle of his arms and buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply and letting his hands wander all over her.

“Remind me to thank him when all of this is over with. He’s given me a little extra time with you. Right now, that’s worth more than gold to me.”

“Renji, I… you really want…?”

“When we manage to kick Aizen’s stinking corpse off of the Spirit King's throne, if you still feel the same way about me, I’ll gladly give myself over to any Claim you want to cast on me. If you doubt me…”

The renewed Claim seemed to conduct emotions even faster, because she sagged against his chest, weak-kneed and searching his face for any sign that he might not mean it.

“A Mating Claim,” she whispered up at him, “…is the closest thing we have to… a human marriage. Life is so hard and so short in Hueco Mundo. Partnerships like… like marriage… they just don’t exist the way they do for Shinigami and for humans.”

“Doesn’t matter, Nel,” he replied. Renji bent his knees and scooped her up, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her feet off the floor. Not only did this give him the perfect eyeful of her assets, it also allowed him to walk with her, not towards the bed but towards the wall she’d just touched. The Espada gasped loudly when her backside came into contact with the surface. Renji inserted himself between her thighs again, this time pinning her curves to the barrier itself.

“I said it once and I’ll say it again, as many times as you want me to. I’m yours until you decide otherwise and I’m going to make very,” and here he let his half-erect arousal rub against her lower belly and the sopping turquoise curls guarding her sex, “…very certain that you’ll keep me around.”

Renji grinned up at her, raking his fingers through aqua-colored tresses to loosen the tangles before running his knuckles across her cheek.

“Mates,” she murmured and part of him ached to hear so much hope in her voice. “Even when we… while you’re still a prisoner. I don’t want to leave you here alone!”

“Kurosaki isn’t the only one who isn’t willing to wait, Nel-chan,” he stated firmly, and his tattooed arms lifted her just a little higher, enough so that she could cross her ankles behind his back and he could sink into her again, groaning as she surrounded him a second time. “Mates, Nel. If nothing else, we have this.”

He sought out her mouth and the next few minutes involved a mixture of sighs and slow thrusts that nearly crushed her against the wall. Renji swore he could feel the high vibration of the Kido as it passed through her to him. Nel’s hands snaked around his neck, beneath his loose hair and she traced the long scars that she had yet to see with feather-light touches.

“What happened to your back, Renji?” she asked softly and bit her lip. He sighed and thrust upwards again, just to see those long lashes flutter and her kiss-swollen lips part to gasp what sounded suspiciously like his name.

“Aizen happened. Someone broke into Szayel’s storehouse in Las Noches. They took Uryuu’s weapons and then set off the alarms. Aizen wasn’t thrilled. Instead of just calling Szayel to the Palace to get an explanation, he ordered Szayel to bring Vindula-chan.”

Nel went rigid in his arms, her expression horrified. He reached up and brought her mouth back down to his, kissing her gently before quickly finishing his explanation.

“It was the only thing I could think of at the time," he concluded. "She’s only four-and-a-half years old, Nel, and she’s got the burden of being the child of someone that Aizen considers his personal toy. That puts me in the line of fire, by being associated with the Seventh. Just… tell me what happened with Uryuu’s weapons, if you know. If not, it doesn’t matter.”

Renji pushed a long tendril of her hair over her shoulder and replaced it with his mouth. It was too bad her Hierro prevented him from leaving a mark on her, but maybe it was just as well. She looked down at him earnestly, as if trying to explain why she’d taken that sort of crazy risk without telling him too much.

“He… wanted Uryuu’s things and he wanted a way into and out of Hueco Mundo. We needed his services, so we arranged a trade. I opened the Garganta for him, and closed it behind us when he returned with what he wanted. He was going to be there for five days, he said, to figure out the best way to complete his task. He can be… very intimidating when he wants to be. That’s all I’m allowed to tell you. I’m so sorry, Renji. I had no idea you would end up being punished for that!”

Before she could get depressed or feel guilty over something that, while he wasn’t happy about, couldn’t have been prevented anyway, Renji thrust upwards into her velvety heat, belly to belly, speeding up in order to force her to think about something better, something more immediate.

“If it wasn’t that, he would have found something else to use to try to hurt Szayel. Nel, I’m a Shinigami. I’m a soldier, an officer, even if I’ve been stripped of my rank and everything else. It’s better for me to take a whipping than let a little girl be punished because Aizen’s in a ‘playful’ mood. I’d do it again if I had to, for any of those kids. They don’t deserve to be caught in the cross-hairs. Yoruichi needs to know Aizen isn’t above hurting the children in order to punish their parents. Every day she waits gives him more leverage and more tools to keep his minions where he wants them.”

“It’s so hard to not drag you through the door with me when I leave, Renji,” she admitted, her teeth worrying her lip to the point where Renji grew concerned that she was going to bite through it if she kept it up. Regret colored her voice. “I'm so afraid that we’ll be found out, or betrayed and that Aizen will be waiting for you when you leave this little ‘room’, or that something will happen to you and the gate won’t work the next time I try it.”

Her fearful confession made him kiss her again and he temporarily paused, resting his head beneath her chin and listening to her pounding heartbeat.

“I don’t want you to go either, but it’s safer for you to leave me here and get to where Aizen can’t easily reach you. I don’t want him to get his claws on you, not after seeing the kind of things he enjoys. Aizen’s losing it, Nel and sooner or later, he’s going to do something that even the Espada won’t tolerate. A leader who won’t follow his own rules and victimizes his subordinates won’t be a leader for long,” he said darkly, eyes hooded, envisioning Aizen’s body hanging from Sōkyoku Hill, joining Vindula’s assailants.

“I’m convinced Szayel only follows him out of terror, and fear for Nemu and the children. After watching them carefully during the Claim meetings, I think some of the smarter ones are figuring out that their ‘glorious leader’ will eventually turn on them like he turned on the Seireitei. It’s all in the report I wrote out. I’ll give it to you before you need to leave. Take it to Yoruichi and tell her to hurry up. I don’t think the more mistreated of the captives can take another decade of this. ”

He thought of Yumichika and Soi Fon, and, most importantly, of Byakuya. He thought of Rangiku, too frightened to hug him for more than a few seconds upon seeing that he’d been restored to normal for fear of what her ‘master’ might do to her. Those were three Espada he’d have no trouble purifying and sending for a spin on the great karmic wheel of fate. If there was any justice in the universe, they’d come back as one of the scrub brushes he normally used to keep Szayel’s labs clean.

Renji took a deep breath and began pushing into her again, this time intent on making her toes curl and getting to watch her lovely face when she reached the point of no return. The redhead pressed a series of light kisses along her jaw line, down her throat and just to feel her gasp and clench around him, he brought his fingers up and traced circles around a nipple.

“I don’t want… to spend… the next ten years… living for one hour… every ten months… oh, Nel… Kami, you’re perfect…” he whispered breathlessly, trying to get as far into her as possible. He felt her breath hitch, saw her eyes go wide as his last two thrusts undid her completely.

“RENJI!!!”

She screamed out his name and he let himself go, pounding into her as hard as he could, letting her know with a harsh cry of his own, with sound and with his emotions cascading to her via the Claim, how good she made him feel.

“Love you,” he breathed against her skin, gasping for air. “Can always feel you, even when you’re not here, always around me, like this. I wish I could give you something to take back with you, something that could comfort you the same way.”

Her response was to tear up and drape her arms around his shoulders as she slowly came down from ttheir mutual high, legs still shaking and her body shivering.

Renji pulled away from the wall, planted his feet a little farther apart and eased her down, sliding from her with a rush of wetness. Hurriedly, the redhead tugged her back to the bed, where he used his outer kosode to clean his release from where it trickled down her inner thighs. He pulled a sheaf of carefully folded papers from the white, under-kosode and handed them to Nel.

“Yoruichi needs to see these. I also have a couple of people she needs to look up. They’re hiding in the countryside. I ran into one a few weeks ago while he was bringing in a cart full of yams from some backwater farm, past the Southern reaches of the Seireitei. It’s… not far from where I collected those plants you like. I hardly recognized Rikichi when I saw him, and he did a good job of trying not to faint when he saw me. Tell her to look for him there. He was a member of my Division and someone who helped me when I needed it. He put his faith in me then and I want to help pay him back.”

Nel nodded and took the small packet, placing it beneath Gamuza’s hilt so that she wouldn’t forget it, as she had the purse and the notebook. She lay back and pulled him up onto the bed with her, playing with his hair and scattering kisses wherever she could find a patch of bare flesh. He answered in kind, wishing he had more time.

The next ten months were going to be agony, now that he’d confessed and been accepted.

“Mates… it’s… an odd word, but I like it.”

Renji rolled the word around on his tongue and found that it seemed a better fit than any other descriptor. It was free from all of the societal baggage that came with a more formal title and it felt more primal, more real.

“If you were an Arrancar, and you had managed to defeat me with your power, we’d be denned up now while you Claimed me. You wouldn’t let me go until every other creature knew I was yours.”

Renji propped himself up on one elbow, staring down at her, letting his hand caress the bony mask that served as a reminder of her heritage, before kissing her nose and splaying his palm out on the smooth skin of her abdomen.

“If I could, I’d be shouting this out at the top of my lungs from the highest point in the Seireitei and to hell with anyone’s opinion. I’m yours, Nel. But in all honesty, I’m glad you’re not here. If Aizen captured you, I’d be done for. Please, no more crazy stunts like Los Noches.”

“Renji, show me one more time…” she suddenly asked, and he nodded, curling up around her. Her fingers reached out and lazily brushed Zabimaru’s saya as he lowered his mouth over hers.

She’d have to leave soon, a fact that both killed and relieved him.

His Zanpakuto was going to have a couple of things to say. He was pretty sure those words would be less derogatory and more dumbfounded, but that was fine with Renji. Zabimaru would be half-asleep in the courtyard, sprawled out in the middle of a patch of meadow that he suspected would look far more lush once this afternoon was over. If there were any objections to him taking things to this level, and he knew they would be feeble at best, Renji would quash them.

He was still going to be stuck here, as cover for Karin and Szayel, sniffing out anything he could that might help those in the Living World, and the moment he left this small sanctuary, he’d be back to his regular, mundane routine, pretending to be Szayel’s lackey and running the risk of having Nel’s Claim used against him. Now that he knew what might trigger it, he could try to avoid situations where there might be a danger of someone guessing that Szayel wasn’t his ‘master’.

At least he knew that the woman he loved was safe, or as safe as anywhere in a universe where Aizen ruled could ever be.

In a way, now, he understood a little of what Szayel was thinking whenever he observed the Espada looking at Nemu, or on those rare occasions when he saw Karin and Grimmjow together. Grimmjow’s protective nature, on exhibit when he’d asked about the human girl, made more sense as well. It also put the small gestures that Harribel directed towards Toshiro into a completely new light.

Renji was going to have one hell of a time trying to explain to Szayel why the cube hadn’t spat him out after an hour. He hoped that the scientist and Karin weren’t having a collective cat about the fact he hadn’t emerged yet. If they were, well, that was their problem. He would be back far earlier than he ever wanted to be, much to his disappointment.

Mates. A picture suddenly came to him, one that involved a young woman with long, wavy ocean-colored hair in a simple, pink and white yukata, the one he usually slept in. She stood on the sunlit front porch of a long, low house, built on the edge of the meadow where he’d pried her gift out of the ground, and the woods beyond it. Autumn had turned the tall grasses gold and the seed heads bowed heavily, swaying in the breeze. He could even hear the sound of the nearby stream he’d had to wade through to get to Rin’s blasted coordinates. Renji remembered thinking that the spot was surprisingly beautiful when he’d seen it, but now it took on a new significance.

He knew it was a variation of the same dream he’d once had of Rukia, but this was sharper, clearer and before he turned it into another ‘someday’, he’d show it to her, to make sure it was what she wanted as well. Then he had to grin; maybe he was thinking more like a male Arrancar these days after all, if he was planning out the perfect den.

Renji sighed and decided that he was probably getting ahead of himself, as well as wasting precious time.

He had Abisara and Vindula, safe in his keeping for now. He had Zabimaru back, the Baboon King’s wisdom and snark resurrected along with Renji’s mind. He had Nel, stretched out like a reclining goddess next him, waiting for him to show her, one last time before she had to flee back to the Living World, the place she’d earned within his soul.

Renji gathered the foremost of his prizes to him, letting what he felt for her fill her via the Claim and took his consolation of her.
Fin

Or is it?

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you've enjoyed it. Reviews are appreciated, since feedback helps create better writing and reading. I have it on good authority that PoV2 will begin soon, for those who have been waiting. In addition, thanks are due to NovaAlexandria, for going over each chapter and for the notes that allowed me to work with some of the things that are particular to her version of the Bleach-verse.
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Consolation Prize (of Victory)