Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Bleach Fiction: Magic ❯ Chapter 1

Title: Magic (62)

Author/Artist: theablackthorn

Pairing: Byakuya/Renji/Byakuya

Rating: 15

Summary: Ink can be a magic all its own.

Warnings: Bl kissing

AN: Inspired by Ri No Ame's fic Indeliable.

Calloused fingertips stroked across the dark ink that scrolled in loops and whirls over smooth parchment, the minute changes in texture from ink to soft calfskin a pleasant contrast. He couldn't read the words, a language that was intricate in its design and far beyond his understanding, but the way they flowed drew his gaze and he couldn't resist pressing skin to paper, to feel them under his hand. When his fingertips came to rest at on the bottom lip of the slightly curling parchment he caught the faintest flicker of movement at the top of the page.

His dark crimson eyes lifted, brow furrowing as slowly, achingly slowly, the word's that he almost lovingly caressed pealed from the surface of the scroll. He watched with slowly widening eyes as the word's seemed to hover over the page in their designated places before slowly running in a stream, like a trickle of water over rock, heading down the page in neat rows as though hooked together in a chain before dripping off the edge.

Renji's eyes followed the smooth flow of words as they ran over the edge of the solid oak table to pool in a thick black puddle at his feet. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and he half turned, feet still facing the table, bare torso twisting so he could look behind him, pulling muscles into taut relief, highlighting stark tribal tattoos in the warm glow of the candlelight.

“Magician.” The word was said in an breathy tone as candlelight caressed pale skin painting it with a soft honey glow, inky black hair was confined by finely wrought silver ornament's at temple and crown, eyes as dark as storm cloud's in this light looked on with cool indifference, familiar white and black robe's hiding the lithely muscled figure beneath.

Renji admired for a moment or two more, admiring the warmth that the candlelight created in the normally chilly expression of the Magician, before he felt something tickle over the bare web of skin between his toes.

It drew his gaze away from the admittedly stunning man stood in the doorway and down to the pool of words at his feet. The black edge of the puddle had seeped closer whilst he had been distracted and the word's now curled over his toes and seeped between them like cold mud. Renji's gaze flickered to the silent man at the door once more, seeing that his dark gaze was focused not on the floor at the writing trying to climb onto his foot but elsewhere, farther north.

Renji glared at the man with heat, desire and a little irritation, as the script tickled over the upper slope of his foot, appearing as though on paper as they streamed across skin. His voice was harsh and accusatory when he spoke, eyes blazing a bright crimson in the heavily shadowed room, the glow casting an eerie light around his face as his own meagre magic flared as incomprehensible sigils progressed across flesh. “This is one of your spells isn't it?”

“Yes and at the same time, No.” The Magician's voice carried into the room, cool and indifferent and on the edge of pissing Renji off despite the heat that curled through his blood stream like smoke.

“What does that mean Magician? Either it is or it ain't!” Renji glared all the harder now, a little fear mixing in with his irritation and desire, muddling the feeling's together until they fed off each other. If the Magician didn't know what was happening with one of his own spell's what was he supposed to think whether he was attracted to him or not!

“Whatever, would you just make it stop doing, whatever the hell its doing?” Renji glared, sighed in obvious discontent and motioned with open palms at the slowly dwindling puddle at his feet as he spoke. He could feel the word's rippling up and shifting to curve around his left thigh, before shifting higher, drawing closer to more - sensitive - places and he hoped to hell it wasn't going there.

He almost sighed in relief when it bypassed his groin and flowed over sharply defined hipbones. It was the strangest sensation as the script made its journey across flesh it felt cool like liquid and at the same time seemed to leave a trail of static in their wake which made the fine hairs on his body stand on end.

Renji's gaze returned to the silent Magician and watched with interest momentarily distracted him from his own trepidation, as the Magician's gaze drifted over his body. That accessing gaze was sharp and focused and it caused an undeniable tingle of lust to course up his spine, heat pooling heavy and low in his abdomen. Renji wasn't sure whether the Magician realised how hot his normally cool gaze had gotten but he certainly did, icy glacier's had shifted to the colour of dark heavy cloud's before a summer storm and it made his own body heat with a fierce, piercing lust.

He couldn't deny he liked the magician - hell, he'd been around the stuck-up, tight-lipped male for a few years and this could possibly be the first time he'd seen his reserve fracture even slightly.

Renji waited for his demand to be answered or even acknowledged, the silence filling the room for a few minute's whilst eyes searched, considered and devoured.

“No.” So Renji was shocked and heading at a rapid clip into outraged at the monosyllabic answer he received from the man.

Renji cursed and made a move to turn and stalk forward towards the Magician but found his body held in place, what felt like hand's gripped his bicep's and kept him frozen in place. He struggled in vain to move, twisting his body, hair falling all around his face as he almost violently tried to pull himself free of invisible hands. “Fuck!” Renji bit out, teeth clenched with effort, his normally formidable strength no match for the magical hand's that held him in a grip like iron. He lowered his head, teeth clenched now in anger before glaring darkly at the magician still stood calmly in the doorway, “What the fuck da ya mean, no?”

“You should not have touched what was not yours.”

Renji growled and it echoed around the room, his sharp gaze never leaving the apparently unfeeling Magician still stood calmly in the doorway. “S'cuse me.”

“It will not harm you.”

Renji's fist clenched at his side's as he felt those persistent word's slithering up his chest, briefly touching over his nipple and making him shiver in response before they moved onwards. He cursed luridly before yelling at the man stood so nonchalantly across the room, “That ain't the fuckin' point!”

“Then what is your point, Abarai Renji?” Renji couldn't help but notice that the magician's gaze hadn't left his chest as those strange marking's curled up and over bronzed skin already laden with deep slashes of black ink of an entirely different kind. Renji paused before yelling again, thinking as he glared dagger's at the man who wasn't really paying anything but his exposed upper body any attention, wondering if the magician had really know how his word's would behave, the small frown wrinkling his brow suggested otherwise.

Renji's anger ebbed a little at the stray thought's filling his head and as the molten heat of it flowed away he could feel his concern rising. If the magician didn't know what his own work was doing then what was going to happen to him? He couldn't help the slight stumble in his tone as he tried to fire the anger up again, he was fairly irritated with the stoic man, but he couldn't get the heat of anger to stir, “You... you can't just leave active spell's lying around like this!”

“May I point out that you are in my office? And that this is not `just lying around' as you phrase it.”

Now that, that got Renji's fire going and in a way this familiar banter helped to keep the edge off of encroaching fear. He growled angrily into the silence, the magician's name more a curse than anything else when flavoured with outright fury. “Kuchiki!”

But before he made another pointless attempt at getting at the man something changed. He looked down at his chest, noticed how intricate word's now hovered over skin drawing the fine hair's covering his body to stand on end. Then they settled and a sharp needling feeling struck and he gritted his teeth and clenched his fist's. It was like having tattoo's done all over his body all at once. He could feel the biting prick of the word's as they bedded into flesh and he had the distinct impression they weren't going to be letting go anytime soon.

The pain eased, the word's now a steady hum of warmth against his skin, around his left thigh, from the underside of his right wrist to elbow and over his heart. Renji regarded the new addition's to his body with interest, the dip's and curl's still didn't mean anything to him as he eyed them but as his gaze lingered he felt something stir. He couldn't really make it out a first and then as he concentrated, feelings started to coalesce and shift inside him, making his chest feel tight, his heartbeat quicken, his skin break out in goose pimples.

So many raw emotions's flowed through him and when the feeling's seemed to make themselves known and settled once more he had a distinct impression of long elegant finger's clasping a dainty brush that flowed over pages. He knew those fingers' only too well, had studied them with a ferocious tenacity and imagined feeling them stroking over his skin on more than one occasion.

“Byakuya?” His voice was quiet, reverent as fingertip's caressed the curlicue's and strokes of the ink in the vulnerable crook of his elbow and down the underside of his forearm to his wrist were the pulse beat under the sigils'.

“What is it Renji?” Renji heard the curiosity in Byakuya's tone, he'd been around the man long enough to gauge the lilt of his word's and the tiniest expression's that never remained more than moment's on his face.

He looked up, eyes locking with stormy grey and he noticed for the first time that Byakuya's lip's looked pinched the skin of his forehead tight. His own brow furrowed with concern and a dawning wonder at Byakuya's behaviour in association with the word's that now curled across his kin. “These feel...I don't understand - they feel like - you?” The word's sound have curious and half wondering even to his own ears.

“Yes.” A definitive nod, but that same almost expression was still there and something about it drew Renji in.

Renji turned fully, the invisible iron grip gone as he took a step closer to the Magician, heading canting to the side slightly, dark skeins of crimson falling across his vision briefly before he brushed them away. Renji watched with burgeoning amusement as Byakuya's body stilled, tensed in readiness. You would not recognise it unless you had paid enough attention to every nuance of the man's behaviour to get any inkling of thoughts and feelings that were so carefully guarded. Byakuya looked like he was preparing to leave.

But Byakuya remained steadfast and Renji recognised the Kuchiki's iron will in the line of his brow and the firm stance. So Renji moved slowly closer to the forbidding man, finger's lingering on the skin over his heart, his sword callused finger's drawing little frisson's of sensation from taut flesh as warmth seeped into tan skin. Something inside him was singing at each brush of fingertip's that pulled feeling's from him that were and weren't his own, all overlain with this sense of Byakuya.

When Renji drew close enough, he spoke the tone of his voice still curious but warming to something husky and inviting. “What does this mean…?” Renji knew that the candlelight behind him would cast sheltering shadow's over his feature's hiding the fact that his eyes lip's were parted slightly, breath shallow and thin, nerve's rioting inside his belly even as he approached the man he had been interested in for many years. The hope that dangled before him would burn him to ash if it was pulled away, but he hoped - a last desperate hope that was all hard edges and need.

Renji felt his magic settle and tingle under his skin as he took each step closer to the Magician, the strange word's seeming less inclined to dig sharp little teeth into flesh the closer he got to the Byakuya. He had no doubt his eyes were a deep shining red looking out from his shadowed features and he watched Byakuya's face with rapt attention.

“I... am not certain.” That was the first time Renji had ever heard Byakuya falter and it brought a small smile to his lip's as he moved so he was only one step away from entering into Byakuya's personal space.

“I think I get it.” Renji reached out, no hesitation, no pause for thought, pure confidence and desperate need a potent cocktail. The word's that had been scrolling across parchment, that were now curling across his skin and practically purring like a contented housecat were Byakuya's words. Or more precisely his feeling's put to paper, feeling's that Renji had never quite managed to grasp and understand. That rogue bit of magic had given Renji the opportunity to understand, to comprehend Byakuya's restrained interest. That coupled with the stare that had never really lifted from his exposed upper body gave Renji that little extra bit of confidence he'd needed to speak out. Renji had always thought he was confusing the signal's but in truth he wasn't the one confused at all.

He reached out slowly as though approaching a disgruntled feline and carefully cupped Byakuya's cheek in one hand, chuckling softly as slender finger's grasped around his wrist as though to pull him away, to reject his touch, but they remained immobile as Renji dipped his head down to the silent Magician, eyes searching for something...

There. It was right there wasn't it, buried under high-born, straight-laced and prideful Magician - was a man in need of something more.

Renji's lips ghosted across Byakuya's and when the Magician's lips parted on a gasp of shared breath he slipped inside, tongue's gently stretching beyond their confines' to touch, stroke and curl around each other drawing breath past pliant lip's in a rush of heat and need.

Renji withdrew slowly, eyes heavy lidded as he looked down into Byakuya's eyes; taking in the stormy shade that seemed to roil like clouds and the pupil's blown wide. He could feel Byakuya's clothes' brushing lightly across his skin and the teasing sensation made his groin feel heavy, even as the sigils over his heart pulsed with the same staccato beat of his heat. “Damn…”

Renji watched as Byakuya straightened slightly, withdrawing to from more distance, but Renji didn't want distance, he wanted - needed - to be closer. He shifted forward, arm's slipping under Byakuya's white outer robe to loop around his waist, pinning him against Renji quite effectively.

“Renji...” Renji could hear the first hint of annoyance in that single word and he chose to ignore it, pulling Byakuya closer and shivering when those pale hand's he had dreamed of so often came to press against his pectoral muscle's in attempt to get free.

Renji crooned softly, head dipping down so he could look into Byakuya's face once more, “Shhh... I ain't letting ya escape again.”

“That is not your decision to make, demon.” Byakuya's tone sounded almost adamant, but there was the faintest note of wistfulness to it that Renji clung to like a life line.

Renji paused for a moment but dismissed the obvious attempt Byakuya was making to push him away, that note of pause in the Magician's voice and the way those long finger's had curled against his chest spoke fair more truthfully than words spoken allowed by a man who had always put his clan and his pride first. “Only half - the other half's human. Ya forget that?”

Renji could see the consternation blooming on Byakuya's face even as warmth filtered into pale cheeks and he could only find amusement in the Magician's attempt's to push him away.

“It matters not, you are still a demon!”

Renji sighed, though his grip didn't loosen as he shook his head in disagreement, red strands of hair tickling across his skin. His brow furrowed and he wondered if, though Byakuya truly did have an interest, was he willing to let himself suffer for an eternity because what he wanted wasn't right in the eyes of everyone else?

But doubt wasn't really Renji's style and when the word's Byakuya had written etched into his flesh he could not deny that there was true desire there.“Demon or not, these word's,” Renji risked releasing one arm from where it pinned Byakuya against him to stroke over the intricate curves and sweep's of brush mark's over his heart, “they don't lie.”

Byakuya fell silent and still, face turning slightly away from him and Renji sighed softly, before speaking with an earnest seriousness he rarely showed anyone, “I have wanted ya since I first came here, since you invited me into yer home you stubborn Magician.” Renji cupped a pale cheek once more, thumb stroking over skin as soft as a silk as he murmured softly, “Your pride will leave ya with no one and I don't want that.”

Byakuya stood stiff and silent in Renji's embrace for the longest time and Renji's trepidation was slowly returning when dark eyes peeked at him from under lowered soot black lashes, “Renji...” Renji felt warmth bloom in his chest when Byakuya said his name like that. There was so much said in just that one word, can I trust you, I need you, I don't know how this is going to work - so many question's and feeling's that had no answers and many. There was vulnerability in Byakuya's voice that Renji had never heard from the man before.

Renji stroked his thumb across slightly parted lips, feeling the heat on the pad of his thumb and the slightly parched skin brushing against his own. His words were nothing more than a breath of sound against hair as black as ink. “Byakuya, let me?”

Byakuya didn't speak, but turned slowly to face Renji again and Renji's lip's twitched upwards in a small smile at the acceptance in stormy grey eyes before he leant in to kiss Byakuya reverently. Renji accepted all Byakuya's questions and feeling's and let his own sweep through him and fill Byakuya as he had been filled.

Byakuya's feelings were written in every curl and brush of ink that was now embedded in Renji's skin. Renji promised himself that he would show Byakuya everything he felt for the man and more as long as he could keep him for his own.