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A Shadow of What Was	By : katami Category: Bleach > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 49594 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 91
- 92
- 93
Author�s Notes: I did not fall off the planet! Although it sometimes feels like it between work, family, friends, and other commitments. Just to reassure everyone, I have not forgotten about Shadow and intend to finish it. This story is my baby - my massive, slightly maddening and more than a little frightening baby.
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"Yuzu made you something to eat," murmured Hitsugaya, settling a streaming tureen on the table. Udon. Simple and soothing, comfort food.. Renji sighed, taking a bite even as his stomach rebelled at the idea of food. He wasn't hungry and didn't want to eat, but it had been hours since his last meal and the Rukongai was not so far from his memory that he didn't instinctively eat when food was available. He sighed as his body took over once it tasted the soup, wolfing down the much needed nourishment.

He wanted so much to find some way to make things right for Uryuu. The only problem was that he didn't know how to make things right. Uryuu was spitting mad and more inclined to rip his balls off than try and talk reasonably about the situation. He couldn't quite blame the Quincy for that, family had always been a touchy subject for the archer and Uryuu was always keen on matters of honor and loyalty. In Uryuu's mind Renji hadn't stop him from killing his father, he had sided with Ryuuken against Uryuu. He had betrayed his lover. He might have done it for the best of reasons, but Renji knew his lover wouldn't see it that way. Uryuu would see only that fact that Renji had sided against him...

And he would hate him for it.

"I got most of the story from Kuchiki. Anything you want to add to it?" announced the white haired captain, his voice relaxed even as a cautious tension hummed through his frame. Hitsugaya expected him to erupt to Uryuu's defense, expected him to side with his lover, realized Renji - because for twenty years they had been a united front against the world. They might have snarled at each other, but they went after anyone else twice as hard.

"She's sleeping with his father, he has a right to be annoyed.," whispered Renji. He didn't much like Ishida Ryuuken, but even he wasn't going to pass judgment on the man finding a little happiness. Not when Rukia would be lurking in the wings to rip him a new one and then rip that new one a new one if he stuck his nose in her personal life. He might have settled into the role of elder brother and friend easily enough but Rukia was not just going to go letting him direct her life.

Renji pushed back the empty tureen, Hitsugaya shaking his head in disgust. "One of these days I'm getting the lot of you fixed," he muttered darkly, his gaze frosty.

"Karin," coughed Ichigo from where he was leaning in the doorway smirking at the white haired captain. Mostly because his own relationship with Ichigo's sister had been just as tempestuous in the beginning. Toushiro snarled at the redhead before shaking his head in disgust. "Handle this. And you better return Yuzu's fucking dish or else," growled the captain of the Tenth, storming past Ichigo and muttering darkly. The two redhead's shared a smile before Renji's mouth fell and his eyes dropped to his meal.

"He'll get over it," soothed Ichigo coming to join him, a strong hand falling to Renji's shoulder and giving it an affectionate squeeze. "You know how he is, all hot explosions of temper and then cold silence, but he'll get over it. He always does," said Ichigo, Renji wishing he could believe the other man.

"This is his family and loyalty, you know how he is about all that shit," mumbled Renji.

"Yeah, I know. But this isn't about his family - we're his family. This is about his son of a bitch father," replied Ichigo, picking up the empty tureen and putting it in the sink to wash later. "Eventually Uryuu is going to figure that out and get his head out of his ass. He'll come around, Renji. He isn't going to just forget about twenty years," promised the redhead, brown eyes meeting red, sure and confident and trying to impress that certainty onto him.

"So here's what we're going to do," announced the younger man, "We'll have a soak in the springs while Kira talks Uryuu around. Then I'll have dinner with Kisuke while you two bitch each other out and screw like minks."

Renji laughed despite himself, giving Ichigo a grateful smile. "You're just jealous that you never got to have make-up sex."

"This from the moron who can't even get along with the love of his life for more than two weeks," retorted Ichigo. "Give me quiet nights with Kisuke any day."

"I might be more concerned if this wasn't coming from someone wrapped around the finger of a teenager," Renji shot back, seeing Ichigo laugh and smile ruefully.

"I'm only in my thirties. What was your excuse? Or am I just imagining a certain high school dance where a certain Shinigami vice captain begged a certain Quincy to take him back?" taunted Ichigo, his eyes sparkling with wicked delight as Renji grumbled good naturedly. "How the hell did he get the idea that you were sleeping with Shuuhei anyway?"

A blush stole over Renji's cheeks. "I once told him that I had thought Shuuhei hot when I was a cadet. Anyway, being the bastard that he is he remembered that when he found Shuuhei and I passed out drunk at Urahara's place," muttered Renji, not bothering to mention that they had both been wearing little more than towels. Or that Shuuhei had tried to talk him into a tumble. Some things Uryuu was better off not knowing; especially those things that would piss him off for no good reason.

Ichigo shook his head with a grin and Renji just chuckled. "Come on, Kira's good but Uryuu could give lessons in stubborn to a mule."

Renji laughed, the sound fading into a weary sigh. His lover was a stubborn ass, but the redhead wouldn't have had him any other way, because Uryuu was his stubborn ass. "So how long does Yoruichi have him holding out?" asked the tattooed man with resigned amusement for the betting pool the noblewoman no doubt had going.

Ichigo snorted as they headed towards the training room, easily navigating the base and watching the junior officers scurry past them. "You two? Please. You'll be fucking like rabbits before the end of the day. Even without everyone else getting involved no one put you two holding out past 5 o'clock tomorrow. The real money is on Byakuya, Jyuushiro and Shunsui, and Rukia."

"What kinda odds is that damned feline giving?" asked Renji with a rueful shake of his head. Yoruichi's betting pools were notorious in the Gotei, mostly because the damned woman would bet on anything and there were always eager young Shinigami willing to accommodate her.

"Byakuya and Ulquiorra are getting about even odds. The doubters seem to think that a good swift kick from his family will put an end to it. Anyone over about 500 is laying money on Byakuya telling his family to go to hell and naming the Arrancar as his consort before the year is out."

"Which way are you betting?" asked Renji as they left his quarters and headed towards the training grounds.

"Byakuya's in love. He's not giving up Ulquiorra for anything and that green-eyed bastard is just as determined to keep him," grumbled Ichigo and Renji could understand his feelings. Pawn or not, accident or not, the Arrancar had killed Ichigo's lover. Renji knew he would never be able to work with a man who done something like that to Uryuu, the rage for the hurt done to his mate would simply be too much.

Renji reached out and brushed a hand against the redhead's arm, feeling the other man's reiatsu calm as startled brown eyes sought his face. "Sorry," muttered Ichigo, quickly glancing away

"It will be okay. He'll come around," murmured Renji, knowing that Ichigo could use the reassurance just as much as he could. Grateful brown eyes met his glaze and Ichigo gave him a tired but grateful smile.

"Yeah, according to Yoruichi we're like you two, inevitable. The only debate is how long it takes us to get it right," muttered the redhead, making Renji smile.

"The course of true love and all that," he joked, Ichigo punching him in the arm and giving him a playful glare that faded into an amused little smile.

"Rukia and Ryuuken are getting twenty to one odds. The general consensus seems to be that the Kuchikis will object to it and that Byakuya will come down on Rukia like a ton of bricks for her behavior with Ulquiorra. Combine that with Uryuu's feelings and no one sees them lasting." Renji was fairly sure the crowd was right in this case. Byukuya was not someone to have mad at you and Rukia might hate to admit it, but there was still a part of her desperate to please her adopted family. Not that she ever would. Aside from Byakuya the Kuchiki family pretty much embodied what was wrong with the nobility - over breed, under brained, and just vicious enough to be dangerous.

They stepped from the soft light of the corridors into the bright glare of the training room, both of them taking a moment to let their eyes adjust. Renji sent his reiatsu coursing forward, grateful when he didn't sense anyone else using the room. The last thing he wanted was the whispers and stares that would come with news of his and Ishida's latest blow up. In a few days it would all be forgotten, because they really were inevitable, but until then everyone would be watching with bated breath to see how the latest row resolved itself. It was like living in a fishbowl.

"Just us," he told Ichigo, earning a soft sigh as they both untensed slightly. It wouldn't have been unheard of for junior officers to be practicing. They were alone however, meaning no prying eyes and no soft whispers.

"So what's the word on Ukitake, Kyouraku and that damned furball?" asked Renji as he and Ichigo undressed and slid into the spring.

"Who knows with those two," muttered Ichigo with a rueful shake of his head. "General thinking seems to be that they're just having a bit of fun. It isn't the first time they've taken a third and it won't be the last." Renji nodded. People wandered in and out of their bed from time to time, never too many and never too often, but every couple hundred years someone would briefly take up with the pair.

"Maybe they'll actually be able to civilize that damned cat," chuckled Renji.

"I doubt it. Yoruichi has been around them for nearly eight hundred years and it hasn't done a damned thing," replied Ichigo.

"Yeah, but they weren't..." began Renji before staring at his friend. "Ukitake, Kyouraku and the Demon Cat?!"

"No, even Jyuushiro and Shunsui aren't that crazy," laughed Ichigo, leaning back into the wall of the pool and letting the tension slip from his shoulders. "Well, nothing beyond a few drunken gropings, according to Kisuke," the redhead added.

"So what kinda odds is Yoruichi taking on the ménage a trois from hell?" demanded Renji with a chuckle.

"Well, the crowd seems to be guessing about a year, that's how long most of their little flings last, isn't it?" asked Ichigo.

"Wouldn't know. The last person they took to bed was slightly before my time, although rumors had it that Ukitake was talking Kaien up to Kyouraku before he married. Why? What do you know?"

Ichigo frowned and scratched absently at the back of his head, looking more like a teenager than a Shinigami captain. "'M not really sure. But hollows mate for life," mumbled the redhead as Renji blinked owlishly at him.

"Think Arrancar are hollow enough to do the same?"

"Well, Ulquiorra is from the looks of things, and Grimmjow is more feral than him, so it's likely," murmured Ichigo, thinking it out aloud.

Renji opened his mouth to ask Ichigo another question, like how the hell he knew hollows mated for life when they both felt the alien flutter of another's reiatsu enter the training grounds. Arrancar reiatsu. Renji reached out and sure enough it was the Arrancar of their discussion, his power wild and slightly agitated. If he'd had to guess the redhead would have said the furball was ruffled over something.

Grimmjow came into sight with a jug of what looked to be Kyouraku's good stuff; and while he was lacking a tail, Renji was sure that if the Arrancar had had one it would be lashing. Grimmjow caught sight of them and stopped, staring at them, a frown tugging at his mouth. Renji wasn�t sure what sort of internal argument the Arrancar had with himself but the glare he gave them said quite clearly that talking to them was not his favorite option. It was the one Grimmjow selected however because a moment later the feline-like man was prowling closer, closing on them by slow degrees.

"What the fuck do you want?" demanded Ichigo as Grimmjow finally settled on a rock near the pool but well back from the water. The blue haired man glared at the redhead for a moment before flipping him off and knocking back a belt of sake.

It was easy to tell when Ichigo's hollow slipped out, his posture changed, the easy, relaxed competent bearing fell away and in its place something sensual and dangerous slid over the redhead. Ichigo rolled his shoulders, as if settling into a new suit, a grin stretching his lips and brown eyes shifting to molten gold. Shirosaki settling into their physical body.

"Come for a rematch...kitty-cat?" taunted the redhead, a shit-eating grin appearing on his lips.

Grimmjow growled, a low rumble rising from his chest as his claws flexed. "Any time ya want, asshole."

Renji glanced between the two Hollows, suddenly wishing he could be just about anywhere else. Being stuck in-between those cutting smiles called to mind darkness and sharp claws, a time before mankind had tamed fire, when they had huddled together in fear of the night. A time when predators had been more than an abstract but a real and tangible threat. Because the two creatures flanking him were predators, creatures capable of reminding humanity that while they might like to pretend they were at the top of the food chain, their grasp on the position was tenuous at best.

"I've been waiting years to take you apart, pussy cat," taunted Shirosaki in a low hiss.

Renji saw the rage snap to life in Grimmjow's eyes and his mouth opened, knowing that the Arrancar's next words would push the baiting from mere posturing into something far more dangerous. "Kisuke. Kisuke, Ichigo. Kisuke wouldn't like it if ya fought," he blurted out, throwing out the only thing he thought could still the Hollow's hand. Shirosaki wasn't exactly Ichigo but even he knew there was no profit in going up against his other half where the blonde was involved. Urahara was Ichigo's line in the sand and always would be.

"Spoiled sport," hissed Shirosaki, turning golden eyes onto him and flicking his tongue out.

Grimmjow growled at the other hollow but decided on examining his claws, like stooping to Shirosaki's level was beneath him. "The kitten would get bitchy if I took you apart," he grumbled.

"Shouldn't you be bothering Ukitake or Kyouraku-taichou?" demanded Renji. While it was all well and good to welcome the Arrancar and offer them sanctuary in the abstract, the reality of their pasts was not so easy to forget. Not for the people who had faced them day after day for twenty years. They had fought and bled, lost friends to them. Things like that were not so easy to brush aside.

"Some broad with a stick up the stick in her butt grabbed Shunsui and Jyuushiro wanted a nap," grumbled Grimmjow. "It was either sleep, hang out with emo boy and watch him and Kuchiki make eyes at each other, or find you bastards." The blue haired man shifted and muttered darkly under his breath, almost looking uncomfortable. Granted, irritated and uncomfortable looked remarkably similar where the Arrancar was concerned, but there was something about the way the feline-like man avoided their gaze that spoke to his nervousness. Grimmjow didn't want to be talking to them; something had brought the Arrancar to them, some need had driven him into their presence.

"Bullshit! You need us for something," blurted out Renji..

Grimmjow's head shot up, glacial eyes filled with hate pinning him. "Fuck off! I don't need anything from you bastards," snarled the Arrancar defensively, a deep low growl rising from his throat.

"Then get lost, you fucking furball," retorted Shirosaki.

A clawed fist slammed into the packed earth of the training ground, rock flying and a muted roar erupting from the blue haired man. Hard gold eyes watched the display and Renji wondered for a moment how two such alien souls could both come to care so much about the same man. The only thing Ichigo and Grimmjow seemed to share was hatred, and yet they both clung to Urahara Kisuke. And maybe, just maybe, that might be enough -

"What the hell do you want, Grimmjow?" demanded the redhead wearily, suddenly tired of the fighting. All he wanted was to curl up with Uryuu, to hold his lover and know that Quincy still wanted him. "You came here, to us, for something, so just spill it."

Grimmjow growled for a moment before hunching in on himself. "You're both mated? The way Shinigami mate," he grumbled, not looking at them, almost as if the Arrancar were embarrassed.

Renji shared a long look with the hollow, golden eyes fading to brown and a tiny shrug moving Ichigo's shoulders before Shirosaki stepped forward again. "He is. And the king was...sorta," tossed out the albino. Golden eyes bored into blue and a feral smile tugged that the hollow's lips, a smile full of sharp edges and cruel mirth. "Me? I'm mated our way," purred the hollow, making Renji wonder how the hell that worked. And doubly afraid to ask.

"I ...what is mating like?" growled the blue haired man in a rush, tensing and growling at them. Ruby eyes met with brown, both remembering the whispered rumors that had been circulating.

"That fucking bastard," hiss Ichigo, rising for just a moment before he blinked and his eyes went gold. "Remember what it was like the first time you released?" demanded Shirosaki, his voice a soft, seductive hiss. Shadows and sin lurked in his voice, a promise of pleasures beyond the obscene. Renji startled and blushed, opening his mouth to protest as the hollow pressed on. "Remember the twisting of muscles and snapping of tendons? Remember the bite of pain and how you never thought it would end? Then the slide into something new, a feeling like you finally fit in your skin, a wash of pleasure that steals away the agony and leaves a tired, hard used, good feeling in its place. Mating is like that," purred the red headed hollow. "If you do it right you should feel it, like a good fight.

"Whatever Aizen twisted it to is nothing like what it should be with our kind. Rough? Sometimes, but not hurtful. We don't kill what is ours; we hold it tight from the world and guard it with all we are," explained Shirosaki. Blue eyes met gold and understanding passed silently between them.

"More sake?" offered Renji, not at all sure he wanted to understand what the two hollows were sharing in that weighted silence. Grimmjow gave a silent, almost solemn nod and Shirosaki mirrored it.

"Aizen Sosuke fucked up everything he ever touched," growled the redheaded hollow, grabbing the sake and tossing it back. "Just remember that, pussy cat. And remember that Jyuushiro and Shunsui are not him."

Grimmjow cocked his head, seeming to weigh the other hollow's words before giving him a single terse nod. He stood and made to leave before stopping, turning to stare at Shirosaki. "You're a fucking prick...but the kitten loves you so that makes you pack," he grumbled, stomping off before Renji or Shirosaki could say a word.

"Just what I need, Grimmjow Jeagerjaques for an in-law," muttered Ichigo, Renji bursting out laughing.
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A Shadow of What Was