Adult-FanFiction.org : Bleach

Consolation Prize (of Victory)	By : blackfox1 Category: Bleach > Het - Male/Female Views: 5760 -:- 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
- 2
- 3
- 4
Consolation Prize

Interlude 1: Butterflies and Bouquets

In which Renji achieves a second impression, despite his best efforts.

If anyone had asked him to pinpoint the moment when the nagging restlessness started, Renji would have put its beginning about two weeks prior to his first official, scheduled and definitely clandestine rendezvous with Nel. For months, he’d had the date and time simmering on his mind’s back burner but the amount of work that filled his waking hours kept him from dwelling on it for too long. Something always needed moving, or hoisting or scrubbing somewhere within the Science and Research Division. Szayel took the opportunity to assign him many necessary, if unpleasant, tasks now that he had his own, private agreement with the pink menace. Those were tasks that he didn’t want to throw at his more scientifically inclined staff members, like scraping the messes from laboratory walls created when one of Szayel’s numerous experiments would go astonishingly and explosively wrong.

Then one morning, roughly five months after Nel cast her Claim on him, Renji’s schedule got much, much busier. He’d heard his ‘master’ yelling his name in a similar tone to what he might use if his hair spontaneously combusted. For a second, Renji thought that was the case, then realized that there was only one thing that could have set him off like that. Sure enough, Nemu had gone into labor in the lab that housed the Defence Net’s monitoring system. Her labor wasn’t long, either and Renji swore he could still feel his forearm throb when he thought about how easily she’d snapped the bone as she’d pushed the two chrysalides out of her body and into Szayel’s waiting arms.

Renji had never been happier to see Unohana-Taichou than he had been at that moment.

Now his existence, when he wasn’t occupied with necessary manual labor around the Division, revolved around changing diapers, bath times, laundry, tidying the nursery, bringing the twins as needed to their mother for daytime feedings and handling bottles of formula by night. He had a small, assigned room with an adjoining shower and the necessary facilities, but he hardly used it. Instead, he’d set up a cot in the twins’ nursery. That way he could at least deal with any nighttime crying quickly and ensure that Nemu and Szayel rested enough to capably deal with the day-to-day workings of the Division. He couldn’t really fault the two for concentrating on their respective jobs either, considering the threat that hung over both of their heads as well as his own by association.

Aizen’s little ‘visit’ to the 4th Division’s makeshift maternity ward to deliver his unspoken threat, in addition to the work that two, newly-hatched half-Arrancar infants created, left Renji almost sleepless for two months. In fact, he was the one that suggested that he, Abisara and Vindula remain locked up after he put the children to bed, as the twins’ last line of defense. Szayel hadn’t been thrilled with the idea at first. However, when he discovered that the arrangement would allow him and Nemu a full night’s slumber, leaving the midnight feedings and the soothing of colicky babies to his ‘pet’, he grudgingly agreed.

Thus, the former Fukutaichou had spent the last four months in a haze due to both sleep deprivation and overwork. Then, one day, he looked up and realized that his time to meet up with Nel was almost upon him. The result was a completely different sort of stress.

Admittedly, he’d been blindsided by the whole affair the first time around. There was no advanced notice given to him that he was about to be re-Claimed and afterwards, the redhead figured that it was probably for the best. He might have seriously objected if he’d been given a choice and then he would have missed out on what he’d decided was one of the top three best experiences of his lifetime. Part of him was also very much looking forward to adding a fourth to that number.

The other half of him wanted to kick the first in the cranium for thinking with the wrong ‘head’.

Unfortunately, there was nothing ‘normal’ about the situation, and a mix of apprehension and anticipation, as well as a ridiculous amount of nervousness took up residence in the pit of his stomach as the time they’d agreed upon to meet and refresh his Claim was fast approached. She was a complete cipher to him; he knew next to nothing about her, save for what little she’d mentioned about her place with those that had escaped Aizen’s clutches and the fact that at some point in the past, she’d been the Third Espada. Nel was, however, nothing like Rukia, at least physically. He was grateful for that that, since it lessened the feeling that he’d somehow been unfaithful or betrayed her, even if the only thing he’d betrayed was the hope that someday, somehow, Renji would be worthy enough, strong enough, to court Rukia properly like the noblewoman she was.

Then there was his status as a Shinigami, something on shaky grounds at present. Under any other circumstance, the old Gotei 13’s standards would consider Renji’s ‘tryst’ an act of treason. He couldn’t even consider it a normal ‘date’. ‘Normal’ would have been a walk in the park, some handholding and maybe a meal at a restaurant with cloth napkins. ‘Normal’ certainly wasn’t a shag with someone he barely knew while sequestered behind layers of impenetrable Kido to prevent detection.

While he did his best to act the way he always did around them, his charges could tell that something was off the closer the date got. They’d been especially fussy in the last week and Renji berated himself for letting his inner unrest to leak out and affect Abisara and Vindula. They were sensitive little things and he found that they noticed his moods within seconds of him walking into the room. He’d had very little shut-eye the night before the day of his next meeting with Nel, mostly thanks to Vindula’s refusal to go to sleep. She’d whimpered and cried well into the early hours of the morning and just as he’d almost fallen back to sleep, she’d needed a diaper change.

Abisara, on the other hand, had a different way of expressing his unhappiness with the level of tension Renji carried around with him.

One of the downsides to being a nanny, Renji found, was the lack of time available for one’s own laundry. Nemu usually took care of the children’s breakfast, but occasionally, lunch was one of the redhead’s duties. He’d just finished giving Abisara his bottle when the little guy’s expression changed and without warning, Szayel’s son decorated the front of Renji’s uniform with the meal he’d just eaten.

It was his last clean bit of clothing. Abisara had missed his hakama, but his kosode was a lost cause.

The cleanup of child, caregiver and nursery took longer than he would have liked and before he knew it, it was time. Mercifully, the twins had decided that a nap was in order after the fun of watching their caregiver mop the floor. Nemu met him at the door, telling him that she’d drawn the Kido circle and that she’d handle things in the children’s room while he was gone. He gave her a quick, thankful grin, warned her that Abisara might need another feeding, strapped on a grouchy Zabimaru and fled the scene.

Renji’s hair was still damp from the brief shower he’d all but dashed through in the children’s suite and he clumsily tied his black headband around the red mess as he ran in an attempt to keep the unruly length away from his face. He’d also left his sandals and tabi in the bathroom. As he dashed by the open door of Laboratory 8, a flash of white caught his eye. Three lab coats hung on a row of hooks on the far wall. Taking a flash-step towards them, he grabbed what he thought looked like the largest of them and quickly put it on. It hung a little loosely on his frame, having been cut for someone much bigger in the belly, but at least he wouldn’t show up half-naked.

Turning to go, he took another flash-step to get back to the hallway. There, he promptly collided with at least one Division member and a long, low cart full of labeled vegetation and soil samples he’d been pushing.

“Hey!!” the staff member yelped as the redhead plowed into him and sent several tightly-wrapped bundles of field grasses and plants flying as he tipped over the cart. A few of the sealed containers of dirt broke open and the contents spilled over the gray tiles. Renji recognized him as the little man landed on his hind end, bouncing with the impact. Another Division member, whose name he didn’t know, whirled around just in time to take a bundle of vegetation to the face.

“Sorry, Tsubokura-san! I didn’t see you!”

Renji watched as the 12th’s former 7th Seat picked himself up off the floor and rubbed his hind end, wincing a little. Then he looked at the upset cart and made another face, no doubt thinking about having to pick things up.

“What were you doing in there, Abarai-san?” Rin asked irritably.

Renji was about to apologize again when the smell of the bundles hit him and he sneezed. The herbal, lemony fragrance was very strong, but easy to pick out from the other wildflowers in the bundles. The plants were intact, from the purple and white blooms to the roots and Renji picked up one of the smaller bundles. The white tag attached to the binding ties read ‘Sample 14b, Melissa officialis, lavendula augustfolia, sesleria caerulea’... It included what he presumed was a set of coordinates. None of it meant anything to him.

“What are these?”

Rin brushed himself off, bent down, and lacking a broom or a dustpan, started scooping the dirt back into their respective containers with his hands, scowling as he spoke.

“They’re plant and mineral samples from about ten kilometers past the southern Gates. Nemu-s… er, Grantz-sama discovered that during the last few years, the number of insect carcasses was lowest in the meadows in the southern portion of the Seireitei, and that the Swarm preferred the forested areas for battles. Szayel-sama wanted to see if there was something about the area’s mineral makeup or the plants there that might repel… HEY!”

An idea popped into Renji’s head halfway through Rin’s explanation. Tucking the bundle under his arm, Renji took off down the hallway, his hair flying behind him like a red banner. He would have helped Rin, but he was almost out of time. If he didn’t hurry, he’d miss that small window in which the portal would work and then he’d really be in trouble.

“I need this one. I’ll make it up to you though!” he called over his shoulder. He thought he could hear a few words that he’d hesitate to use around Abisara and Vindula when they got older follow him as he sprinted away.

Renji made it to the shielded room a scarce two minutes before the appointed time, rushing through the door at a dead run. He wasn’t surprised to see Szayel standing near the console, as he’d done before, with a sour look on his face. Karin’s presence, however, wasn’t something he expected. She sat in what appeared to be one of the staff chairs from the main conference room, with a book in her lap and several more in a pile next to her. One small, black box sat atop it. A quick scan of the room showed him that Nemu had set the place up, much like last time, with the old metal bed in the center and the Kido diagram inked out on the tiles around it. Thankfully, it looked as if someone had changed the bedding. He’d been so busy with the twins that taking care of something like that for someone who wasn’t less than a year old had completely slipped his mind.

“Good of you to grace us with your presence, Abarai.”

Szayel’s sarcasm was thick enough to slice with a knife and spread on toast. Karin, for her part, looked up from her book and frowned a little at him, taking in his bare feet, his disheveled and tired appearance and the unbuttoned lab coat. He could see a little concern on her face as well.

“Cutting it pretty close, aren’t we, Renji? Geez, you look terrible!”

If the clock on the wall was any indication, he figured that he didn’t have the time to give either of them a real answer. Karin closed her book, reached down and picked up the box next to her. Opening it, she revealed the small Kido cube from last time. He grabbed the whole box and raced towards the center of the circle, accidentally dropping the bundle of wildflowers just outside the edge of the thing. Renji pulled a face as Szayel’s indignant voice reached him.

‘Who gave you permission to wear a researcher’s coat? You aren’t qualified!”

“Szayel…”

“And is that what I think that is?”

“Looks like a bouquet to me.”

“Damn it all! That’s one of the plant samples I that I ordered… Where did you get that?!?”

“Szayel, we don’t have time…”

Nerves on edge, Renji drew a blank at first as to what he was supposed to do with the cube, ignoring the budding argument behind him. Then he remembered lining up the cardinal points in the ink drawing from last time with the markings on the cube and as carefully as his energy-numbed hand would allow, he positioned the thing. Then he realized that his other hand was empty and frantically looked around for his impulsively acquired, last minute 'gift'. He reached over the ornate inscriptions at the circle’s edge, careful not to smudge the ink and snatched it up just before the cube began to grow.

“I want that back! It’s an important specimen for at least three pending experiments!”

“I think it’s about to be important for other reasons, Szayel.”

“Absolutely not! I will not surrender a specimen I need in order to add some romantic white-washing to a common booty-call!”

At that, the redhead thought he heard a book slamming shut.

“That ‘booty-call’ will help keep Aizen off our backs. Let him have the damned flowers, Szayel!”

Renji turned back to look at the two people bickering at the console and told himself to ignore what Szayel had just called his meeting with Nel. His agreement and a lack of time prevented him from strangling the pink freak.

“Maybe you should go lock the door, eh?” he called out to them, as he felt the wall of the Kido cube touch his calf.

That brought the argument to a quick halt. They blinked at one another, then at him, and then Karin smirked a little at the Espada, who made a face and stomped off towards the door to finish securing the room. Karin lifted one eyebrow at Renji and then shrugged and sat back down. Before the Kido barrier swallowed him, he recognized the book in her hand. It was one of the first-year texts issued to those attending the Shinoreijutsuin, but he didn’t have time to ponder her choice in reading material before he found himself enclosed.

Just as he had the first time, Renji felt his very hair vibrate with the energy of the wall when it went through him. This time, however, it seemed to achieve its final size more quickly than before, and grew opaque much faster. For a second, he thought something might be wrong with it, but the subsequent pressure change in the thing’s interior as it merged with the room’s shielding and his ears’ response told him it was working.

He had to force himself to stay still. The anxiousness that had been building in him for two weeks had him wanting to climb the walls. Instead, he tried to figure out which wall she was going to walk through, as well as sort out some of his uncertainty about the whole situation before she got there. He pulled the small bundle of wildflowers behind him while he tried to think of something witty or charming or flattering to say to her. Then he shook his head. He’d be lucky if he didn’t fall on his face.

“Renji-kun…”

Her voice came from behind and a little to the left and he instinctively pivoted and moved into a defensive stance. The hand with the flowers arched in a quick blocking maneuver and a small shower of dirt from the still-attached roots sprinkled over the floor. Worse, the loose knot at the back of his headband gave way when he turned his head sharply, causing the cloth to fall and the mess of his hair to obscure his vision.

“Renji-kun, are you alight?” he heard her ask.

Again, he hadn’t heard her come through the barrier. As he tried to pull strands of hair out of his face with his free hand, he did catch a quick glimpse of the portal sliding shut, but the sudden surge of adrenaline and the nervous, Hell-bred moths in his stomach weren’t quite done with him yet.

“Here! These are for you!!” he practically shouted, holding the flowers out in what he hoped was the right direction, only to feel the remnants of Nel’s Claim tighten enough to stop his hand from moving.

He heard a feminine “EEP!” a few feet in front of him and clawed his hair back until he could actually see what was going on. Once he had, he immediately wished he hadn’t.

Nel stood there, leaning back with a very startled expression on her pretty face and looking cross-eyed at a handful of dried, shriveled weeds thrust inches from her nose. A small, pink handbag dangled from her sword belt, the gold chain on it wrapped around the twin moons of its guard. Renji was a little horrified to realize that if she hadn’t reflexively stopped him with the Claim, he would have hit her with…

Dried, shriveled weeds?

His eyes went wide as he pulled his hand back and stared at it, as if seeing it for the first time. A few minutes ago the thing was fresh, a few hours out of the ground at most. Now it looked like it had been left in the sun for a few weeks. It still smelled of lemons and had a strong herbal perfume, but the stems rattled, the crispy leaves rustled in the slack twine around it and a few mummified flower heads broke loose to join the dirt at Nel’s feet.

“Ah, I… uh… they weren’t like this when…” he began, and then noticed she was looking at him strangely, one eyebrow a little higher than the other.

He glanced down to see more soil from the ‘bouquet’ smeared across the front of the lab coat he’d tossed over his hakama, which was also covered in dirt. It didn’t help that Zabimaru was muttering sullenly in the back of his mind about his impending Claim and berating him about ‘rolling over’ and not fighting a second time.

“Uhm… I can explain… I think…”

She remained silent while she took him in and Renji, mortified, put some serious thought into how quickly he could hide under the bed. He realized how he must look right now: dirty despite his best efforts, half-dressed, barefoot and disheveled, bearing a gift of dried weeds whose best use would be soup seasoning. Two weeks of anxiety and restlessness had finally culminated in exactly the situation he’d hoped to avoid: looking like a complete idiot. The only thing that could make this worse was…

Nel put her fingers to her mouth and giggled at him, trying to choke it back and failing.

That was it. Renji’s shoulder’s sagged and he hung his head. The dried-out, slap-dash bouquet made a whispering sound as his arm fell to his side, crumbling a little around the edges with the movement. He closed his eyes and groaned inwardly, tiredly, not sure if he was mad at himself, the mess around him or both.

This was not what he’d wanted, not what he’d planned. Well, ‘planned’ might not be the right word, but he’d expected to at least meet Nel looking more like the competent, powerful Fukutaichou he’d once been, rather than the disaster he appeared to be now.

Suddenly, nimble fingers combed through his long red hair, brushing it out of the way and the perfume he still sometimes swore he caught whiffs of in his dreams filled his nose as she closed the distance between them. He felt the bony teeth and nose ridge of her mask brush his chin as she tucked her head beneath it and let out a sigh.

“Do you have any idea how relieved I am to see you standing here in one piece?” she chided him gently. Then a pair of arms twined around his shoulders. “What in the world have you been doing? You’re about to drop!”

Opening his eyes, he stared down at her, uncomprehending, and then tried to cobble together an explanation that didn’t sound crazy.

“I, ah… Abisara threw up on my kosode after I fed the twins their lunch and I’m out of clean clothing so I ran into one of the labs to grab a coat and then literally ran into Tsubokura-san while trying to get here and he had flowers so I thought…”

Nel cut him off with a kiss. His explanation died with it, a muffled ‘ermph’ escaping him briefly before he figured out what was happening and returned it. The tip of her tongue ran along his lower lip and he opened his mouth for her, hesitantly at first and then with growing enthusiasm. Renji felt like a man, on the verge of dying from thirst, who had just been handed a glass of cold water.

A few minutes later, she broke it off and squared his face and his dazed expression between her two palms. She gave him a searching look, then one of her hands reached down for the dried plants and he relinquished them without protest.

“Twins?” she asked and he blinked at her, trying to regain control of his thoughts.

She bent down and placed the desiccated thing on the ground. Then he realized what she was asking and hesitated for a second, wondering whether or not it would be wise to say anything about his charges to her. She must have sensed his trepidation, because she reached up and captured a length of his hair, tucking it over his shoulder. Nel smiled up at him apologetically and removed the short, pink jacket she wore over what he thought was the same white sun dress as she’d worn the first time they’d met, draping it over the rail at the foot of the bed.

“That’s okay, Renji-kun. You can tell me later. I think I should take care of you first.”

By the time he registered what she was saying, she’d pushed the lab coat from his shoulders, letting it land in a pile behind him. Then she carefully undid his obi, taking Zabimaru gently by the scabbard and placing it on the coat. He jumped a little when her fingertips brushed his abdomen, trying to get at the ties on either side of his hakama. Renji made a grab for her hands, stopping her before she could get the second tie undone.

“Wait, please,” he whispered. Her fingers stilled.

Groping behind him with his right hand, he found the edge of the bed and dragged himself onto it, sitting down before his lower garments joined the lab coat and he topped off his less-than-stellar performance by tripping over them. Since she was wearing the same dress as last time, Renji prayed that what was underneath it, or rather, what wasn’t, was the same as well. In doing so, he pulled her with him and ended up with an armful of warm girl. With her knees on either side of his lap and her hands braced on his shoulders, Nel peered down at him curiously, but didn’t stop him. He made quick work of the last of his clothing, worming out of it and kicking the thing away. If he had to, he’d walk back to his private quarters buck naked, but he’d be damned if he was going to screw this up any more than he already had by having her walk through the grime on the floor or the loam clinging to his pants.

“Ren…ji…” she whispered in his ear, drawing his name out.

He felt her shift in his lap as his hands moved to her waist, seeking out the buckle on her sword belt. Then he made a sound in the back of his throat; with that one little movement, she’d confirmed to both he and a particularly disobedient body part that indeed, there was nothing beneath her dress. His fingers fumbled a little, but he managed to undo the buckle without having to resort to breaking it. She pulled it between them, handbag, scabbard and all and tucked the whole lot at the end of the bed. She had to move again to do it and by the time she’d straightened, Renji’s hands were already moving up her thighs, smoothing over the skin beneath her dress to cup her bare bottom. Then, on impulse, he pulled her hips forward and felt her wet warmth against him. If he hadn’t already been aroused, the slick heat up against sensitive flesh would have made him hard as concrete.

“Shit…,” he whispered through gritted teeth.

Renji had dreamed about this for ten months, often waking up in the middle of the night with an erection that he could have used to row a boat and no relief for it, since taking care of it while sleeping in the same room as the children struck him as reprehensible. He swore that if he were to slide into her now he would shame himself utterly. Her body would undo his in a heartbeat and he’d already made himself look like a fool today. So he abandoned her hips and forced his fingers upwards, to her waist, gathering fabric in an attempt to buy himself some time. He pushed her dress higher and higher, until his hands discovered both the undersides of her breasts and the fact that touching them could make her moan.

Nel’s lips on the side of his neck, however, weren’t exactly helping. Neither was the tip of her tongue, which simultaneously traced the shell of his ear and wiped his mind of all coherent thought. His hands now seemed to have a mind of their own, one thumbing the nipple on her left breast and the other trying to get as much of her dress out of the way as possible without tearing it off of her. Gently, she grabbed the hand at her breast and removed it, placing it on her belly. Then she shrugged the straps off her shoulders and tugged the whole thing off without unbuttoning it, as she’d done before. Renji caught it with his other hand before she dropped it and deposited it on the bed in the same general vicinity of her sword.

Now she was perfectly nude, spread-legged over his lap and wreaking havoc on his self-governance. She kissed her way along his jawline, while her hands stroked his shoulders and arms, leaving gooseflesh in their wake. Renji knew he had to try to take some small bit of control back for himself, or it would be all over too quickly. He tilted his head to the side at the same time the hand he was using to trace circles over the muscles of her abdomen drifted lower and he caught her lips with his just in time to swallow her cry of surprise when his fingers found her soft folds.

She didn’t stop him as he explored a territory as foreign to him as the surface of the moon. His fingertips sliding through her core, brushing across the sensitive bundle of nerves at the top of her sex that made her shudder when he touched it. His fingers moved lower and tentatively, he slid one into her tight channel, marveling at how she could be both drenched and scorchingly hot at the same time. Another finger joined the first and her hips began to move in a circular rhythm as he slid them almost all of the way out, then pushed them back deeper. Her juices coated his digits and the more he moved them within her, the wetter she became. It was more of an experiment on his part, but when he added a third finger and sought out that little pearl with the pad of his thumb, she broke off the kiss and arched her back, gray eyes going wide. Her mouth opened in a wordless, soundless cry as she tried to get as much of his hand into her as possible.

A small part of him still hated that the body he was flush against wasn’t small and lithe, with dark hair and eyes the indigo of a late night sky. His more primal, animalistic half told that part to shut the hell up and then informed him that if he didn’t bury himself in the woman that was in his arms right here and right now, while she was warm and very willing, he was a fucking idiot.

The sight before him made it hard to catch his breath. Her long, turquoise-colored hair, swept back from the side of her face, allowed him to see the heavy blush that crept across her face, her neck, to the tops of her breasts and her rosy nipples. In fact, she was blushing so hard that he could barely see the magenta mark, shaped like the twin halves of a maple seed, which covered both cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Everything, save for her ivory mask, her heavy-lidded gray eyes and her glorious fall of hair was flushed some shade of pink, especially the slippery folds and the tight channel his hand explored.

Her breath was coming in hard pants now. Renji added a little more pressure to the thumb circling her clitoris, only to have her freeze. For a second, he thought he’d screwed up yet again, until she gasped his name in a way that told him he hadn’t. Her nails dug into his shoulders, almost painfully and her passage clamped down on his digits like a vice. A slippery rush coated his hand as her inner muscles tried to draw his fingers deeper, one spasm at a time.

“Are you okay?” he asked raggedly as she shook in his grasp.

He waited until her shivering subsided, and then slowly withdrew his hand from her, making a wet sound as he pulled his fingers free. Wrapping that hand around her waist, he pulled her forward again so that her hips pressed against his. Any closer and he’d already be in her, somewhere he was increasingly desperate to be.

“Oh, yes Renji-kun! That was… wonderful!” she breathed softly, and then giggled. “I didn’t know you knew how to do that…”

“I didn’t either” he answered truthfully.

Then she smiled at him, her storm-colored eyes lust-darkened and lips flushed. Renji decided that, at that moment, whatever she wanted to do next, he was game. Loosening her grip on his shoulders, she reached down between them and stroked the palm of her hand over the head of his cock. If he’d had less self-control, he would have lost it right then and there. He clamped down on his body’s reaction with what little discipline he had left and took a couple of deep breaths to ground himself.

“I’m going to refresh your Claim now, Renji-kun. It’s almost gone,” he heard her say.

While he’d been trying to get himself in hand, Nel had reared up on her knees. The result for Renji was a pair of truly spectacular breasts suddenly at eye level. The hand that wasn’t gripping him tilted his chin up before his eyes could glaze over, forcing him to look at her.

“If it’s alright with…”

She got halfway through the question before he rose on his own knees and sealed his mouth over hers in answer. The issue of permission settled, he kicked the guilt that nagged at him into the darkest, most remote corner of his mind. Then he grabbed her hips and made a best guess as to exactly where he needed to aim to relieve the overwhelming need that kept raking at his nerves and his self-restraint.

A few seconds later he found himself enclosed and felt her wrap those long legs of hers around his waist. Her slick tongue and lips absorbed the actual sob he couldn’t suppress. For ten months, he’d dreamed of this warm, perfect, deliciously wet sensation and now that he’d sheathed himself in her, the damp curls above her sex tickling the skin of his lower belly, all he really wanted was for time to stand still.

Unfortunately, the clock hadn’t stopped. Neither, for that matter, had gravity and he found this out the moment he also realized that his balance was off, thanks to the extra weight clinging to him.

One of her hands grabbed a length of his unbound hair and the other his bicep; he tumbled backwards, taking her with him in a tangle of his arms and her legs. It took a minute to sort out their limbs and like the last time, Renji found himself flat on his back beneath her. She peered down at him, long dark lashes blinking.

“Are you hurt, Reni-kun?”

He gave her a shallow nod of his head and she smiled in response. He then gasped as she sat upright, placing her palms on his chest and moving her knees to either side of his hips. He was still buried within her body, but this position forced his cock deep within her and left him at her mercy as far as the pace she set. It would allow him no power over how fast or how slow she went and for a few minutes, she tormented him by taking her time, her entrance alternately releasing and then gobbling him back up.

He didn’t realize her reiatsu had started to pool around them and invade his body with each downward slide of her hips until he felt Zabimaru send an angry growl his way. His Zanpakuto tried to push back against her and for a second, the snake-tailed, fanged Baboon King caused her to stop completely. She frowned down at him, not understanding, as his eyes flew open.

“I… you wish me to stop, Renji?”

“NO!!” he almost yelled and reached up for her. Then he turned his attention inward and mentally yelled at his blade for doing something so stupid, even if it would mean he’d be free. He’d also be dead if caught without a Claim on his person. Drawing her down to rest against his chest, Renji ran a hand down her spine while the other one traced the curve of her lower lip.

“Why did…?”

“That was the act of someone who, if he doesn’t knock it off, if going to continue hanging out on the floor for a while,” Renji replied, then his tone softened as he took in her sudden uncertainty. “I need this Claim, Nelliel… and you’re the only one who can do it, remember? Well,” he amended quickly “…you’re the only one I want to do it.”

Nel was still for a moment. Then he felt the scrape of one of the horns of her mask rub his chest as she nodded in acknowledgement. When she began to move again, her pace was faster and it was as if she’d undone all of the restraints on her power. It poured into him and his own pitiful reserves, depleted by the fatigue of the last four months, had no chance against it. Renji actually wondered where Zabimaru scraped together the energy to put up any resistance in the first place. Then he just didn’t give a damn as mind-blowing pleasure followed her reiatsu to set up housekeeping in every corner of his soul.

His hands roamed wherever they could find warm flesh to touch and when she kissed him again, he opened his mouth eagerly for her tongue. That, however, was where his passivity ended. Planting his heels on the edge of the mattress, he pushed his hips up sharply to meet hers, and swallowed her cry as he struck something within her that she liked very, very much, from the brief convulsion he felt around him. He dug his fingers into her hips now and proceeded to pound into her from below. The first time he’d ever willingly cum during sex had been more Nel’s doing than his; he’d been so overwhelmed by what happened that he’d let her control the proceedings. She’d wrung him out and cast her Claim on him and while it had been voluntary on both their parts, Renji’s inner alpha male had kicked him around a little afterwards for remaining so submissive. This time things were going to be different.

At least, he told himself this until she deepened the kiss and he felt part of his very being torn from its moorings as the flood of her reiatsu bore it away. In return, it deposited something else behind, something just as powerful as what it had taken. The feeling of her renewed Claim settling over him tipped him over the edge. His hands slammed Nel’s hips down over his cock one final time as he shuddered and erupted into her. He’d have shouted out as he did but his mouth was otherwise occupied. The woman above him grabbed large fistfuls of his hair and that beautifully tight passage surrounding him clamped down hard enough on his throbbing member that he thought she might tear it off if she moved the wrong way. Her tongue lashed at his each time her channel squeezed him, as if it were lapping up the reiatsu she’d deluged him with, drinking in his own to finish the Claim. Tearing his mouth away from hers, he took a great gulp of air, filling his lungs nearly to bursting with the need for oxygen…

…and came to an unknown amount of time later with a startled gasp. Sitting up quickly, he was relieved to find that he was still inside the Kido barrier and that he wasn’t alone. Nel’s naked form was stretched out next to him and she looked at him through half-lidded, satiated eyes, though the satisfied expression didn’t last. Reaching up, she brushed a lock of long red hair out of his face with a troubled expression on hers.

“Renji-kun, you’re exhausted! What has Szayel set you to doing that’s keeping you from sleeping?”

Renji collected his thoughts, which took a little longer than he would have liked and briefly wondered if he should tell her about the children. Then he reminded himself that she was one of Kurosaki Ichigo’s friends and that the last thing Ichigo would ever do was hurt a child, or suffer the company of someone who would. The whole idea was preposterous. Therefore, he took another deep breath and explained his new role as nanny to Szayel and Nemu’s children. He was gratified to see her eyes go wide as saucers; it wasn’t the news she was expecting to get and at least he’d surprised her.

“You say Nemu-san had a full, human-length pregnancy? Karin never mentioned it to Yoruichi-sama.”

Probably, he thought, because Ichigo’s sister plays her cards much closer to her chest when it comes to anything related to Szayel. Then he scratched the back of his head and replied, “Yeah, I guess she did. She was already pregnant with them when Orihime ‘restored’ me, so I think Nemu might have gone a little longer than that.”

Nel took that in and then looked at him crossly, suddenly poking him in the chest with a finger.

“You didn’t say anything about it last time I was here!” she accused. “No fair!”

“Ouch! Hey, don’t blame me! I had other things to think about last time! I forgot!”

He rubbed the spot she’d jabbed and scowled back at her and then one eyebrow went up in confusion as she did another about-face and dissolved into giggles.

“I suppose you’re right.”

Her fingers traced a line following the tattoos that started on his shoulder, working her way down to where the two halves met across his sternum. “I’m glad of that.”

“That I forgot?”

“That you were concentrating on other ‘things’,” she answered, one corner of her mouth quirking up in a smile. He responded by pulling her closer and resting his hand on her bottom, which made her squirm against him in the most delightful way possible.

“How much time do we have left?” he whispered in her ear. He hoped that there would be enough for an encore, since she hadn’t had to spend precious minutes trying to convince him to let her Claim him on this occasion.

“Enough for you to tell me anything you can think of that can help us,” she replied and he nodded reluctantly, though he didn’t move his hand and she didn’t seem to object to him leaving it there.

He hadn’t forgotten the other reason he’d agreed to meet with her. He’d kept careful mental notes up until the time his role had switched from beast of burden around the Science and Research Division to full-time babysitter. After that, circumstances curtailed his access to both sleep and valuable information. He told her what he could, trying to condense it down to the essentials. This, he discovered, was the reason she’d brought the handbag.

Pulling a pen and a small, lined notebook from it, Nel wrote down what he told her. When he finished with his short report, she nodded and tucked it away back in the handbag, clicking the two halves shut. Then she asked about the welfare of those who being kept as ‘pets’. That was harder to do; his knowledge was limited to the very small exposure he had to many of them. He had an especially hard time trying to figure out what to say about Yumichika and Soi Fon. He hadn’t seen them since the last Claim meeting and while they were alive, he didn’t think Soi Fon was doing particularly well under the Second Espada’s thumb. Nel stopped writing, reached out and stroked Renji’s hand.

“It’s Yoruichi-sama who wants to know. She doesn’t say anything, but sometimes, when she doesn’t think anyone’s looking, she cries. I know she wants to storm in and rescue her subordinate… well, rescue everyone really, but…” and here Nel stopped herself, a sharp tooth biting down on her lip. “But we can’t. Not yet.”

“How are Rukia, Ichigo-kun and Kenpachi-Taichou?” he asked, changing the subject to something less depressing, or at least, less depressing to him. “Are they okay? Nothing’s happened to them, right?”

Nel gave him a reassuring smile, one tinged with a little melancholy. “They’re fine. They’re just doing what they can to keep the Realms from collapsing. It’s not… something I can really help with. Instead, I assist Hachi, to pay him back for healing me. Um…wow…Szayel really is a father now. That’s… not like him. I didn’t think he cared about anything but his experiments.”

She seemed to be mentally chewing on the image of Szayel as ‘Daddy’ and Renji understood her disbelief. Even he had a hard time swallowing the idea at first, but at least he’d come to terms with the fact that the Espada that had enslaved him wasn’t entirely the same person that welcomed his two offspring into his arms each evening with the words ‘perfect’ and ‘magnificent’ on his lips. Her words, however, brought back the memory of an afternoon, eight months ago and he felt his stomach sink.

“Renji-kun?”

Of course, she’d feel his change of mood via the newly refreshed Claim, but he didn’t know if telling her what he’d discovered wouldn’t just hurt her more, even if it were the truth. His eyes widened when she closed the space between them and wrapped her arms around him.

“Tell me, before I have to go, what’s wrong. What’s upset you?”

Now he felt a small pull on the Claim that surrounded him. She apparently wouldn’t be deterred, so he sighed and tried to find the best way to break the news about her fraccion. No doubt, she’d already known of their deaths. He still held Szayel partially responsible, for starting the fight in the first place, but the then-Eighth hadn’t been the one to end their lives, just as he hadn’t been responsible for killing Ishida Uryuu either. Moreover, she needed to know a few other things about that afternoon.

“Remember when we met you, while you were still little, and you declared we were the evil ones?” he asked her.

When she nodded, he let his chin fall to her shoulder and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of her hair. It helped ground him a little.

“You were right. In the case of Kurotsuchi-Taichou, you were right…”

Renji tried to keep it simple, tried to keep it a clean retelling of what he’d seen on the disc. She listened while he let her know who had truly killed her ‘brothers’. He knew what he had to say would hurt. Her expression never changed, but she gripped his hand a little harder as he related the tale. While he wasn’t sure what she’d thought of the Quincy all those years ago, she could at least let Ichigo and Rukia know the truth of their shared friend’s fate and of the bargain Uryuu made with Szayel to save himself and Nemu, even if he couldn’t save his own life. Then he let her know about his own deal with Szayel, in exchange for a proper burial for Uryuu. He even reassured her that the terms of the deal were probably close to the orders she’d given him during their last encounter. Now she looked up at him and he didn’t like what he saw. Tears had formed at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill down her cheeks.

“Kami, I’m sorry, Nel… I shouldn’t have said anything” he began, but she put two fingers on his lips to silence him.

“We… already know about the burial. Ichigo-kun used to go to the Ishida family stone with offerings. Half a year ago, he noticed someone had changed things and that Uryuu’s name was on it. Someone made the inscription with reishi, not a chisel. No one knew who’d done it. Yoruichi hasn’t let Ichigo or Rukia go back, because she thought it was a trap to lure us out in the open. Now…” she explained, and then wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, “now we know why.”

She sniffed against his shoulder and he felt like a complete heel, even though he was glad to have some confirmation that Szayel had kept up his end. All he could do was rub circles into her bare back, across the number tattooed there and wish he’d kept his stupid mouth shut.

“Thank you, Renji. Thank you so much. I felt them die, but I didn’t understand why the only body we found belonged to Sado-kun. When one Arrancar kills another, there is a corpse left behind. But when a Shinigami kills an Arrancar…”

“…that Arrancar and all of the souls within it are ‘purified’” he finished her sentence and groaned, now feeling like a heel and an unbelievable moron. It had been so long since he’d performed a konso, maybe he could be forgiven for overlooking the primary function of the warrior he’d once been.

“Don’t blame yourself, Renji. They died honorably, as servants of one who was once the Espada of Sacrifice. They died trying to protect you and Uryuu-kun. They were trying to protect me as well. I’m… proud of my brothers.”

She slowly disentangled herself from him, drawing back a little. Then she placed her hands on his biceps and promptly shook him, with more strength than he expected... and subsequently yelled at him.

“And don’t make any more deals with Szayel! I don’t want you to end up in a…a…a glass bottle with those funny tubes on top! He hasn’t touched you, has he?”

“No! He… Ow!!”

When he could see straight again, he found her on the opposite side of the bed, hunting for her dress and he realized just how little time they had left. He would have said something but his fatigue finally decided that he’d been given enough rope. It promptly decided to hang him with it. A few earsplitting yawns later and he became conscious of how his adrenaline had only postponed the after-effects of his re-Claiming. Renji watched her shimmy into her clothing and fluff out her hair. She strapped her sword belt around her waist, tucking her weapon into it. He figured he’d help her by retrieving her sandals, but when he leaned over the edge of the bed, his head began to spin. Nel was suddenly sitting next to him, helping him lay back and giving him a stern look.

“Silly Renji! I’m not afraid of a little dirt. I spent years walking barefoot in the sands of Hueco Mundo, after all.”

The former Third put her sandals on and moved to the head of the bed, where she reached down and retrieved the dried bundle of flowers. He propped himself up on his elbows to watch and pulled a face at their condition.

“I don’t know what happened to them. They were fresh when I grabbed them.”

Renji saw her look at them this way and that. Then she brightened a little, as if she’d figured out the mystery.

“Were you holding them when you placed the cube in the center and aligned it?”

Another huge yawn worked its way out of him and Renji shook his head, his hair blocking his view of her. He was going to have to chop it short soon.

“Ah, no. I accidentally dropped them and brought them into the circle after I put that Kido thing down.”

She ran one hand through her hair, working out a few tangles from the green stands. Then she drew the bouquet to her nose and breathed in its still-strong scent.

“It’s wonderful, by the way. Where did you get it?”

“Um, it, ah… it… came from a meadow on in the Southern District.”

He might have just said it was made of pure gold, from the look she gave him. She hugged it to her chest, getting dried leaves and grass and other detritus all over her pink top. The thing made a crunching noise, but it didn’t seem like she cared, from the happy expression and the smile on her lips.

“A real meadow! I’ve never seen a real meadow before! Thank you Renji!”

With that, she leaned over and planted a very warm, very grateful and very open-mouthed kiss on him. He had just enough time to reach up and cup her face with his hand in return when the walls around them turned an angry red. He couldn’t help it… he cursed under his breath as she broke it off and reluctantly moved away.

“You have to be careful with that cube. If something living gets brought into the circle and it doesn’t touch the cube or you aren’t touching it when you place it to enact the spell to tell the Kido what to protect, the energy in the walls will kill it.”

She then grabbed the handbag from its spot on the bed and dangled it from her wrist.

“Non-living things are safe, though.”

Nel quickly bent over and before he could try to get out of bed, picked up the large, white lab coat, shaking the dirt from it and covering him with it. He would have protested, but her next words put a stop to everything. She quickly pulled a small tube of something out of the handbag and twisted it, bringing up what looked like a pink stick of some kind. She used it to scrawl something on the lab coat she’d used to blanket him.

“You need to sleep, so I’m giving you an order. There’s a note on that white coat you wore. Go to sleep now. I’ll let everyone know you’re safe. I’ll tell them what you told me. And… thank you for the flowers! No one’s ever given me a meadow before!”

She pressed another, softer, quicker kiss to his forehead. Nel then turned on her heel and dashed to one of the walls, pressing her palm to one spot. His eyes remained open long enough to see her disappear through the portal, scattering leaves and debris behind her. Try as he might, Renji didn’t have a chance. Then the Claim-enhanced order took full effect and he knew nothing else until the next day.

He woke with a start, then realized where he was and relaxed a little. Some kind soul had taken him to his quarters, tossed a blanket over him and if the clock on the wall was any indication, he’d been dead to the world for a full, twenty-four hours. Zabimaru grumpily greeted him from his place on the wooden stand near the door. A folded note on the small table next to his bed informed him that Karin had ‘suggested’ that Szayel give him some time off to catch up on some needed sleep and do some laundry.

He knew the pink freak’s handwriting; it must have galled him to have to write it in the first place. Now that was a lecture he would have loved to sit in on, but the only thing he really cared about was the promise of actually having a supply of clean underwear. It went on to tell him Nemu would take over his duties to the twins while he recovered. That made some of the stress he’d felt upon waking up dissipate. Nemu getting to spend some quality time with her children instead of a computer console would be an unexpected benefit of his Claim-enforced nap and as much as he cared for Abisara and Vindula, he needed some time to himself. He checked beneath the covers and promptly wondered who had found his sleeping kimono and dressed him in it, and then decided he didn’t really care.

Instead, he stared at the ceiling, placing his hands behind his head and getting a good backstretch in. He hadn’t felt this relaxed in months and the mother of all shit-eating grins spread across his face like warm honey.

The toxic butterflies that had taken up residence in Renji’s gut prior to his meeting with Nel had been a complete waste of energy. He’d been worried for nothing. He’d looked like a disreputable hack upon seeing her again and yet the only thing that she’d cared about was that he was all right. He’d given her what any other woman would consider an insult, a bunch of weeds he’d stolen from a specimen cart, and she’d been thrilled with it. No, he couldn’t say that he knew Nelliel all that well, not the way he knew Rukia’s favorite color, or her favorite song, or her favorite stolen candy as a child. He knew what Rukia was thinking by her body language alone, a benefit of their long association. He knew when she was pissed, ecstatic, hurting and trying not to show it from the set of her shoulders.

He had no such understanding with the woman whose Claim surrounded him. ‘Relationship’ was probably too strong a word as well. However, he did know a little more than he had yesterday: she was worried about him, she liked bouquets of flowers, even crappy ones, she was literate, and she’d cared deeply for her fraccion. She’d also unknowingly given him some important information.

Her explanation for the dried-out flowers made sense. Renji had wondered about the instructions that came with the cube for months now, especially since the twins had hatched and he’d become their protector. Did that mean that more than one person could enter the circle if they touched the cube beforehand? Alternatively, did he have to touch them and the cube as he placed it in the circle? Occasionally, his limited Kido knowledge came back to kick him in the ass. Now was one of those times. He’d have to bring her more flowers, maybe a living plant in a halfway decent pot with a ribbon next time and see if what he suspected was true. If it was, then a brand new possibility for ensuring the twins’ safety had just opened up. Renji simply needed more information. The portal was a separate hurdle, but if he could find a way around one challenge created by a Kido master, there was no reason why he couldn’t do it twice.

Fortunately, Renji thought that he had a little time to figure it out before he had to do anything drastic. Aizen had shown no interest in Szayel’s children, other than that first day, but Renji knew that Nemu and Szayel were terrified of that changing. It was something to ponder, at least until next time.

The idea of ‘next time’ made his grin wider. In addition to what he’d learned about her, he now knew a couple of spots that drove the curvy, green-haired creature wild when he touched them. He felt his chest puff up a little in pride, also something he hadn’t felt much of late. The memory stirred his flesh and he almost told his body to knock it off, that he had things to do today. Then he decided that if he was on a ‘vacation’ of sorts, he might as well enjoy it fully. Stretching again, he let the fingers of one hand ghost lower on his abdomen, until he found what he was looking for. It was a poor substitute, but it would have to serve for the next ten months. Until then, he could let his imagination provide him with enough distraction, and maybe enough inspiration, to make the ‘next time’ she stepped through the portal even better.

To be continued...
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Consolation Prize (of Victory)