Work Text:
“Is this seat occupied?”
Renji’s heart leapt into his throat as he turned to face the speaker.
Grey streaked from the temples of his hair to the back where it was pulled up in a bun. The crease between his brows was more defined, as were the faint crow’s feet by his eyes. He looked just as beautiful as the last time they’d seen each other, albeit a bit older.
The glasses were new though.
“Oh, uh, Byakuya, hey,” he replied, shifting slightly to make more space on the pew. “Go ahead.”
Dropping his hands into his lap and out of sight, he slipped the ring off his left hand and put it in his pocket. It’d been six years since their divorce but he couldn’t find it in himself to stop wearing it.
“You look well. How have you been?” Byakuya asked coolly as he took a seat.
Renji studied the man’s face before responding. His eyes held a certain warmth he wasn’t expecting, given the circumstances.
“I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”
Byakuya held his gaze for a moment before looking towards the front of the chapel. The mask of cool indifference slid back in place, shadowing his features in a way probably only Renji could pick up on.
Fuck .
This could be the only chance he’d ever get to make things right and he’d already gone and fucked it up. Sixty seconds had to be a new personal record for getting his foot firmly lodged in his own mouth.
“I, uh, didn’t think you knew Mr. Itō well enough to fly all the way back to Kyoto just for his funeral,” Renji said.
“I wouldn’t have,” Byakuya replied without looking at him. “His wife invited me when I ran into her at the grocery store in Osaka last week.”
Osaka? Did that mean…
“Didn’t like Seattle?”
Renji didn’t think he hallucinated the minute drop in his shoulders.
“It was never going to be a permanent position. I returned to Osaka in 2019.”
“Oh,” was all Renji could think to respond.
Luckily, he was spared when the funeral director took the podium and began the ceremony. Renji was thankful for the interruption but the words being said about their former colleague were far from his mind.
He felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Byakuya had been living thirty minutes away for four years and never once called or even attempted to reach out.
When the ceremony ended, Renji lingered in his seat. Byakuya glanced over at him, a questioning look in his eyes.
“Are, uh, are you going to the reception?” Renji asked, scratching the back of his head.
“No.”
Renji rubbed the toe of his shoe into the ground. “Yeah, me neither.”
Byakuya stood and smoothed down the front of his felt peacoat before turning to Renji. “Would you care to accompany me to dinner? I haven’t eaten all day and am feeling rather peckish.”
Renji widened his eyes. “Yeah, sure.”
The drive to the restaurant was spent in quiet contemplation. Renji hadn’t expected Byakuya to extend him the courtesy of a private conversation, but it looked like that was exactly what the evening had in store. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, or push Byakuya further than he was willing to go, but there were so many questions that’d burnt under his skin for the past six years and he needed some kind of explanation.
He saw Byakuya standing out front waiting for him; his hands were shoved deep in his pockets and he was staring intently at the ground with a look of pensive apprehension on his face. He hadn’t noticed Renji yet, that’s why his expression was so readable. When Renji stepped closer, the mask fell back into place.
They kept up small talk that Renji knew bothered Byakuya just as much as it bothered him until the waitress took their order. Once she left, silence fell between them.
This was his opportunity. If he didn’t ask now, he’d have to spend the rest of his life wondering.
“What happened to us, Bee? Why did you leave?” Renji heard himself ask in an unsteady voice.
Byakuya’s eyes widened and met his for a moment before he clenched his jaw and stared at something past Renji’s shoulder. His hands were folded and resting on the table.
“I needed a change of scenery. Kyoto started to suffocate me and I needed to get away.”
Renji’s brow furrowed. “So you applied for a teaching position overseas without mentioning a goddamn thing to me?”
“You were busy with work. I didn’t want to disrupt you.”
“Bullshit,” Renji scoffed. “That’s bullshit and you know it, Byakuya. I always made time for you.”
Byakuya’s head fell, eyes closed. He nodded before whispering, “I know.”
“So why then? We were married, happily I might add, for fifteen years and you just left.” Renji curled his toes in his almost too tight dress shoes. “I think I honestly would’ve preferred a messy fight.”
Byakuya took a deep breath and nodded again. “My therapist called it a midlife crisis, but it was as if turning forty flipped a switch in me and suddenly anxiety and depression filled every waking moment. I started fearing leaving the house if you weren’t with me. You left for work earlier and got home later than I did, so you were unable to see how frequently I stayed in bed for the entire day. I lost my job at the university because leaving the house and facing the world became too herculean a task.”
Renji was gonna be sick. “When did they let you go?”
“March,” Byakuya answered quietly.
“March?!” Renji exclaimed. “You were unemployed for six months before you left?”
“I’m not proud of it, but that’s what happened.”
Renji stared at Byakuya’s face for a moment in silence. “Why didn’t you say anything? I know those were some pretty busy months for me but I would’ve dropped everything for you.”
“ That’s why. You were about to make partner at the firm and I didn’t want to interfere. You had a lot of potential. There was no sense in both of us being miserable for my sake,” he explained. “And yes, I am well aware that was an excuse I told myself, but Renji, I was afraid. I felt so weak and useless.”
Renji watched as Byakuya scratched at his own thumbnail, still looking anywhere but towards Renji.
“I would’ve thrown everything to the wind and gone with you, y’know,” Renji said softly, looking down at his own hands. “I’m sorry I was so preoccupied with work that I didn’t notice how you were suffering.”
“There’s no need for an apology. I suppressed it so you wouldn’t know.”
“So why come forward now?”
Byakuya sighed and folded his hands. “The pandemic forced me to deal with everything. I was alone in my apartment for five months before working from home became an option for me. I desperately needed the break but I’d thrown myself into work so I didn’t have to confront myself. I—,” he paused and cleared his throat, brows pinching. “I realized I’d broken the most selfless, loving person I’d ever met and that you were probably blaming yourself for everything because I said nothing. I realized leaving you was the biggest regret of my life.” He ended in a whisper.
Renji's heart squeezed and his throat tightened. He ground his teeth together to hold back the burning crawling up to his eyes.
The waitress interrupted any response he could’ve had by setting down their entrees. Both of them thanked her awkwardly and began to eat. When he could hardly bear the silence between them, Renji set his fork down and looked at Byakuya directly.
“Do you still love me?”
Byakuya paused, mid-bite, and looked him in the eyes for the first time since they’d sat down. They were glossy in a way he’d only seen a handful of times and red around the edges.
“I do,” he said quietly before looking back down at his meal.
Renji fished in his pocket for the ring he’d taken off earlier. He reached out and grabbed Byakuya’s hand, pressing the platinum band into his palm.
“I took it off when you sat down next to me at the funeral, but I’ve worn it every day for the past six years.”
Grey eyes widened and studied him, asking if he could dare to dream.
“Come home, Bee,” Renji said softly. “I don’t know what I’m doing without you.”
Byakuya wiped his mouth with the napkin in his lap before setting it on the table. “Do you really mean that?”
Renji set his fork down and slid out of his side of the booth before crowding into Byakuya’s. He reached out and tentatively touched the side of his face, feeling the softness of his skin beneath his fingers.
“Every word of it. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
Byakuya pressed into his touch and reached for his left hand. He slipped the ring he was still holding back on Renji’s finger and looked up at him with glassy eyes.
Renji leaned forward to kiss his cheek. “Why didn’t you come find me once the quarantine lifted?”
“I feared you had moved on, or that you would be disinterested in hearing anything I had to say,” Byakuya said.
Renji lifted his hand and kissed the center of his palm. “So then why approach me today?”
“My therapist encouraged it,” he confessed. “I had no plan to attend the funeral, or at least that’s the lie I told myself, but he pointed out that I continued to mention it unprompted. When we unpacked that, it became clear that I was not allowing myself to let go of an opportunity to potentially cross your path. You were correct; I did not know him well enough to justify making an appearance at his funeral, no matter how persuasive his wife was.”
Renji chuckled into Byakuya’s hand before nipping at the skin. “You’re gonna need to pay penance for that disrespect.”
“So be it,” he huffed. “He always referred to us as the star-crossed lovers, so truly, I was honoring his memory in the only way I knew how.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night, Mr. Kuchiki-Abarai,” Renji teased.
As Byakuya’s face screwed up in a scowl, Renji fished his wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out two $100 bills and set them on the table. Then, he moved to his feet and pulled Byakuya after him.
“Let’s go home,” he said. “Our son will be happy to see you.”
Byakuya’s brows furrowed. “Our son?”
Renji grinned then started walking to his car. “He’ll scratch your eyes out for forgetting him.”
“ Belvedere? You kept him?” Byakuya gasped. “I thought you hated each other.”
Renji shrugged as he opened his passenger door, gesturing for him to take a seat. “Eh, losing the one person that kept us together actually helped us resolve our differences. He’s smart enough not to bite the hand that feeds him too hard. ”
Byakuya glanced at the seat. “What about my car?”
“We can come back and get it tomorrow,” Renji said. “I want my passenger princess back.”
Byakuya scowled again. “You seem to have forgotten how severely I loathe when you call me that.”
“Nah,” Renji smirked, grabbing him by the hips and pulling him closer. “The way I see it, I should be able to call you whatever I want for like... Six years maybe?”
“I suppose I deserve that,” Byakuya replied morosely.
Renji kissed the top of his head and chuckled into his hair. “I promise not to be too mean.”
He lifted Byakuya’s chin and kissed him hard, keeping their bodies pressed firmly together. After a moment, Byakuya sighed into his mouth, melting against him as their tongues became reacquainted.
They did eventually get into the car and drive to the house they’d purchased together when they first got married. Renji never had the heart to sell it; parting with it seemed far more painful than continuing to live there with the ghost of their relationship. But now it seemed it was his intuition that kept him from selling. Something deep down inside him knew they would find their way back together, perhaps.
When they parked out front, Renji rushed to Byakuya’s door and picked him up.
“What are you doing?” he asked with a small chuckle.
“The same thing I did when we moved in,” Renji replied. “Carrying you across the threshold.”
They barely made it in the door before being run up on by a very vocal cloud of white floof. Wincing as the cat used his body like a ladder, Renji laughed when he perched on his shoulder and tentatively sniffed at Byakuya.
“Hello, my handsome boy,” Byakuya said softly, raising his hand for Belvedere to smell.
Belvedere hissed and batted at his hand before turning to rub his face against Renji’s chin. Byakuya looked utterly downtrodden.
“He’ll warm up to you. He’s just sassy at first,” Renji said, parroting what Byakuya told him the first time he’d been introduced to the cat. He gave his head a little scratch after setting Byakuya down.
Byakuya scowled. “I can’t even consider this betrayal without being a hypocrite.”
Renji stepped behind him and kissed his neck, sliding his arms around his waist and pulling him back against his chest. “Actions have consequences, sweetheart. I won’t make you suffer more than you already have, but Belveeta is kind of a dick. Takes after his father like that,” he said, giving his neck a teasing bite.
Byakuya huffed and walked further into their home, turning to look at Renji when he reached the couch in the living room. “You left everything the way it was?”
The house had been Byakuya and Renji’s passion project and they poured copious amounts of time and energy into renovations and interior decoration.
“Just about,” Renji said. He took off his jacket and laid it across the back of the couch. “Invested in a bigger bed though.”
Byakuya’s eyes widened and his face grew pale. “I suppose I should’ve assumed that—“
Renji cut him off with a kiss. “Nope. We’d had that bed longer than we’d been married, sweetheart. There was a divet the size and shape of your ass that I kept falling into. That bed was impossible to sleep in as a single person.”
He looked up at him with fear coloring his grey eyes. “So you… no one but you has slept in that bed in six years?”
“And I haven’t slept in anyone else’s either,” Renji replied, pressing a lingering kiss to his forehead.
Byakuya didn’t look like he believed him.
“What was I supposed to love with when my heart was overseas with you?”
Nostrils flared and black brows furrowed, eyes dropping to the floor. A shaky breath was taken. Without a word, Byakuya knelt to the ground in seiza and took Renji’s hand, holding it against his lips in a long kiss before whispering something against his skin.
“What did you say?” he asked, placing his free hand on the top of his head.
“I don’t deserve your love,” came his shaky response.
Renji knelt down in front of him and pulled him into his chest, cradling the back of his head as sobbing shook his body. So maybe he had every right to be angry; he could’ve told him to sit elsewhere and refused dinner with him. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Love like they used to share didn’t happen all that often.
“Renji, I am so sorry,” Byakuya said between heaving breaths. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you and I’m sorry that I left. I was selfish and somehow I have the audacity to continue to be selfish because all I want is you for the rest of my life, if you will have me.”
“How do you feel about taking an impromptu trip to Taiwan? Or the states?” Renji asked, wiping the tears from Byakuya’s cheeks.
“Tonight?”
“Or tomorrow. Or next week. Basically just as soon as possible.”
“I’m struggling to see your point.”
Renji moved to press kisses to his temple and tear-stained cheeks. “We could get legally married there.”
“In Taiwan? Really?” Byakuya asked.
“Yep,” Renji said with a pop at the end. “I think they legalized it in 2019.”
The tip of Byakuya’s ears turned red. He leaned back to look at Renji, holding both of his hands against his cheeks.
“What if we got married in Seattle?” Byakuya suggested. “There were so many places I wanted to show you.”
Renji swallowed hard to keep his lip from quivering. “You were still thinking of me?”
Byakuya threw his arms around Renji’s neck. “I longed for you,” he whispered. “I experienced depths of loneliness I never thought possible.”
Byakuya’s eyes fluttered shut as he closed the space between them, pressing his lips to Renji’s. Renji kissed him with all of the love he’d stored up over the years, drowning him in a deluge of affection. When neither could stand the lack of oxygen, Renji held Byakuya’s face in his hands and brushed their noses together.
“Byakuya Kuchiki,” he started, his throat getting tight, “Will you do me the honor of marrying me, again? For real this time?”
Tears started spilling from grey eyes again as Byakuya nodded.
“That settles it,” Renji said, moving to his feet and pulling Byakuya up with him. “We’re going to Seattle and getting married. Tomorrow.”
Byakuya laughed tearfully and wiped his eyes. “You can’t say that so certainly. We don’t even have plane tickets yet.”
“That’s why I’m going to buy them while smoking a cigarette. Come on.” He grabbed Byakuya’s hand and led him out to the back porch.
“I see you’ve yet to kick the habit,” he teased.
Renji sat heavily on the large swing and gestured for Byakuya to sit beside him. He pulled a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and held it between his lips, flicking open his lighter. Byakuya laid on the swing, resting his head in Renji’s lap.
“I’m still young. I’ll get around to it eventually,” he chuckled.
As soon as he’d inhaled his first hit, Byakuya pulled him down into a kiss and sucked the smoke from his mouth, exhaling through his nose between them.
“I’m glad you haven’t.”
Renji’s brows rose. “Oh? After a decade of persistent encouragement to quit, you’ve thrown in the towel?”
The wrinkles by Byakuya’s eyes crinkled as grey glistened with mischief. “I may have developed my own habit over the pandemic. There wasn’t much else to do and it felt sort of romantic to smoke a cigarette while writing in the morning with a cup of coffee.”
“Well color me surprised,” Renji grinned. He pulled a cigarette from the box, put it in Byakuya’s mouth and lit it. “What were you writing?”
“Historical fiction,” Byakuya replied, closing his eyes and blowing out a plume of blue smoke.
“For work or is it a passion project?”
“Passion project,” Byakuya answered.
Renji smiled down at him. “I want to know all about it.”
Raising up on his elbows, Byakuya met Renji’s lips in a kiss. “I will tell you about it as you purchase plane tickets.”
“Oh! Right,” Renji said, fishing his phone out of his pocket.
Four cigarettes later, tickets to Seattle departing the next day at noon had been purchased as well as tickets to Paris for a few weeks and a booking to a beautiful villa on the shore of the Mediterranean. This was happening and it was happening right.
They watched the late summer sun set before retiring inside. Renji grabbed Byakuya’s hand and led him down the hall to their room. Once inside, Renji took him in his arms and started kissing down the side of his face while working his shirt buttons out of their confines.
Byakuya practically melted against him, hands gripping at biceps that were bigger than he remembered. Renji’s fingers worked quickly and soon Byakuya stood shirtless before him.
“Oh? What is this ?” Renji asked with a chuckle, turning him to get a better look at his back.
Dark lines cut up his back from his tailbone and bloomed into delicate pink petals. The juxtaposition was striking and utterly fitting for the man; his husband .
“I suppose there are still many things we have yet to relearn about one another,” Byakuya said coyly.
Renji bent down and kissed between his shoulder blades. “I suppose there are.”
Byakuya continued removing his clothing while Renji got to work on his own. He turned to his closet to grab Byakuya a t-shirt to sleep in, but when he looked back, he was already under the covers, resting his head on his knees while watching him with a curious expression.
“I’ve relaxed my exercise and diet regimen, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Renji said, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious of the change in his physique since they’d parted.
“You look even better than you did when we first met,” he breathed in admiration, hungry eyes lingering on the thickness of his thighs and the swell of his ass.
Renji felt his cheeks warm and he scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah? You haven’t aged so bad yourself, y’know,” he said, sliding between the covers next to his lover. “Like fine wine, or maybe a dry-aged steak.”
“Sounds like you want to eat me,” Byakuya teased as Renji’s hands smoothed across his skin and pulled him closer under the blankets.
“Don’t tempt me,” Renji replied, leaning in to nibble at his bottom lip.
“Mm, one moment,” Byakuya said, leaning back and removing his glasses. “Could you set these on the nightstand, my love?”
“How blind are you anyway?” Renji asked, putting the glasses on himself.
His vision was horribly distorted, akin to swimming in a fishbowl that was made out of a magnifying glass.
“Holy shit! You’re really blind!” he laughed, taking them off and setting them on the nightstand. “That bad in six years?”
Byakuya looked a bit sheepish. “I only went in once it was impossible to see without them.”
Renji couldn’t help but laugh. “So how long have you realistically needed glasses?”
“Ten to twelve years?”
“Bee!” Renji exclaimed. “You were just out here chillin’, not able to see a damn thing?”
“I’ve come to find my stubbornness is a hindrance more often than not,” he said.
“Glad you finally figured that one out for yourself,” Renji chuckled. “You were a lost cause.”
Renji pulled him closer, reveling in the feeling of their bodies pressed together with nothing between them. He ran his hands across the smooth expanse of skin from his shoulders down to his ass, savoring the softness. Byakuya’s hand came to rest on his chest, fingers splayed across the tribal patterns decorating his skin.
“Mm, sweetheart ,” Renji groaned, grip tightening on his ass as lips pressed into the skin of his throat.
“What is it, lover?” Byakuya practically purred into his neck.
“I missed you,” he said, nuzzling his cheek into the top of his head. “C’mere.”
Byakuya lifted his head and looked at him. Renji ducked his head to kiss his lips before wrapping his arms around his legs and hoisting him up so he could sit on his stomach.
“Your strength is still remarkable,” he said, placing his hands on his upper abdomen.
Renji hardly heard him. Burning desire clouded his head and gnawed in his gut and it was all he could think of; how could he be expected to focus on anything but the love of his life finally back where he was meant to be?
“Sit on me, lover,” Renji rasped, sliding his hands up slender hips and waist. “I need you, baby. Sit on my face. Please. I’ve missed you so much.”
A blush started at the tips of Byakuya’s ears and worked itself all the way down to his shoulders. Renji couldn’t see it, but he felt his cock twitch at his words.
“Are you sure?”
Renji nearly growled as he pulled Byakuya higher to bite at his thighs. “I’ve had to swear off peaches because they reminded me too much of you. Don’t deprive me any longer.”
Byakuya chuckled softly. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And you’re taking too goddamn long,” he groaned, manhandling Byakuya like a man gone feral until he hovered above his face. “Don’t play with me. I know you’ve missed this. I know no one ate your ass like I do.”
“No one ate my ass, period. I’ve been alone since you,” he said softly, lowering himself slightly. “I suppose it bears mentioning that my hips aren’t what they used to be. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay like this.”
Renji was dizzy with lust as he hooked his arms around Byakuya’s thighs, holding him in place.
“That’s why you just sit down ,” he huffed, pulling him down to sit squarely on his face.
Heaven.
He had died and gone to heaven.
Byakuya’s ass was perfect and he couldn’t get enough. He rubbed a stubbled cheek against the sensitive skin of his upper thighs. His mouth watered as he kissed closer in towards his goal.
He wanted this sloppy.
The tiny clench when he gave a long lick across Byakuya’s entrance threatened to make him grin. Pooling spit in his mouth, he pressed it up against him with his tongue, spreading the saliva across the area. After a few teasing brushes with his tongue, Renji pulled back to blow cool air. Byakuya’s knees tightened around his shoulders.
As his mouth continued to tease, Byakuya started to gasp and sigh and press back into his mouth. He lapped at the puckered skin and prodded with the tip of his tongue, slobbering all over himself in the process.
“ Fuck , Renji. Fuck,” he whimpered. “Don’t stop.”
The space within Renji’s chest bloomed with an aching warmth. Byakuya was back. For good. He’d dreamt of this for a long time but hardly thought it possible. Now here he was, being smothered by him.
He savored every part of this moment; the way he tasted, the way he smelled. The fearful part of him wanted to pay extra attention in case he were to leave again, but he knew deep in his soul that he was here to stay. Regardless, he feasted like a man starved.
The thighs under his forearms started to shake as the noises coming from Byakuya turned more pornographic. As he groaned and squirmed, he fell forward to brace his hands on Renji’s tattooed stomach.
“Lover, lover please ,” he whimpered again, canting his hips up. “I want to feel you inside of me.”
Renji shifted his hand so he could dive in with his fingers, taking in a gulp of air at the same time. “How am I supposed to deny you anything when you sound like that?”
Byakuya moaned wantonly as Renji pressed a finger in beside his tongue. When he no longer clenched around the first finger, he added a second and curled the two into his inner walls. Six years might’ve spanned between encounters, but Renji still knew the inner workings of his body like the back of his own hand. Another curl of his fingers and Byakuya was nearly doubled over.
“Please lover,” he choked out. “Let me feel you.”
Renji moved his arms to help Byakuya raise up on his knees and turn around. After wiping his face, he wrapped one arm tightly around his waist, rolling them so he was above Byakuya. He situated himself between his legs and pulled the covers up to his shoulders.
The face looking up at him was different from how he remembered; older, and yet somehow softer and more youthful. There was so much yet to learn about the man his husband was now.
Lowering himself down, he pressed a kiss against his mouth. He slipped an arm underneath his neck and dropped the other between them to line himself up. Byakuya’s mouth opened in a sigh as the head of his cock pushed in and he took that opportunity to claim the other end of his body, licking up against the roof of his mouth and tickling his tongue.
Byakuya’s arms wrapped around his neck and held him close as they moved together; fluid, sensual, safe. Whimpers ghosted past his ear as he rocked his hips back and forth, pressing into him unhurriedly. He’d forgotten how addictive Byakuya was to be inside. The way his body pulled and sucked at Renji, desperation blatant from the inside out. It was a feeling he’d never get used to and he never wanted to. The intensity was otherworldly.
Nails dug into his shoulder blades as their pace quickened. Byakuya’s ankles locked behind his back, spurring on the shove of his hips. Their lips brushed together, breathless, as they rediscovered their definition of home .
Sweat dripped from the sides of his face and rolled until it could press its own affection into Byakuya’s skin. Flush covered his shoulders and face as he gasped for each next breath. The sounds leaving his throat were ragged and needy; Byakuya was destitute and Renji had the solution for his every want and desire.
Renji shifted so his knees lifted Byakuya’s hips from the mattress and supported them. He slid a hand down a pale thigh and squeezed as he leaned in to claim his lips.
This was the love of his life. The only man he’d ever wanted. The only man he ever needed.
His husband .
His forehead fell to rest against Byakuya’s, his brows pulling together as his pleasure consumed him.
“ Lover ,” Byakuya panted, his voice rough from so much anguish. “Lover, please don’t stop .”
Renji kissed him again as he continued the rocking of his hips despite the shaking coursing through his muscles. “Slip under, my love,” he whispered, pressing a kiss below his ear. “I will always be here to catch you.”
With a choked out whine, Byakuya’s body tightened like every string had been pulled before the tension snapped, their stomachs being painted with his release. The way he squeezed and pulsed around Renji pulled him closer to his own end and soon he was stumbling off the edge after him.
He lifted his head and brushed tendrils of hair away from Byakuya’s sweat-slicked face. His cheeks were flushed darkly and his eyes could hardly focus on the face in front of him. His lips glistened with his own saliva.
Renji licked slowly across his bottom lip before kissing him. Byakuya’s arms tightened around his neck as the kiss deepened, both of them desperately trying to savor every inch of the other’s mouth. When the couldn’t breathe, Renji rested his head on the pillow beside Byakuya, holding his hips steady so he could slide out, but his lithe legs kept him ensnared.
“Not yet,” Byakuya whispered. “I’d like to remain like this for a while.”
Renji nodded, shifting slightly to get more comfortable and pull him further into himself. He stroked down the back of silky black hair, letting his eyes close as they basked in the intimacy of one another.
The universe had found its perfect balance.
When his eyes opened again, sunlight streamed down from the blinds and streaked across the room. Byakuya was still tucked tightly under his chin. The only difference was the pile of fur curled in the small space between them.
He chuckled and quietly moved his hand to pet Belvedere’s head.
“I knew you missed him just as much as I did,” he whispered to the cat, who meowed in response.
Byakuya stirred at the sound of him. When awareness fell upon him, he lifted his head to look around before wrapping an arm around Belvedere’s fluffy body and pulling him closer.
“Are you finished throwing a tantrum like an insolent child?” Byakuya chastised the cat, his voice thick with sleep. “You will always be my precious boy, Belvedere. I’m sorry I left you.” He pressed a kiss to his head.
Belvedere stretched his paws out in front of him, beginning to purr as he started to knead his paws into Renji’s chest. Byakuya’s sleepy chuckle preceded the kiss he pressed to Renji’s sternum.
“It seems I’m not the only one to appreciate the way your body’s changed,” he said. He nuzzled his face into his neck. “Good morning, my love.”
Their family was reunited at last and they had several weeks of time together exploring the world to look forward to. Despite his hesitance, Renji knew Byakuya would find some way to convince him to bring Belvedere with them on their honeymoon, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to refuse.
His love had returned to him. It was all he could’ve ever asked for. It was all he asked for when the days grew difficult and he struggled to find a way forward. But the universe in its own frustrating timing finally answered his prayers. This wasn’t just a dream.
It was a good morning.