Chapter Text
Wanted damage
so I damaged me
some.
All I want
from you
is for you.
I’ll estimate
a forest,
scream fire there.
There,
there is nothing
to outrun.
— Graham Foust, “There. There, There”
At a thousand flash steps away from another soul, and another few hundred from any soul who might care, the outer reaches of the Rukongai serve as sanctuary for beasts. There, two prowl the plain with only dust and wind as witnesses. When his ribs crack against the steel beam of his pursuer’s forearm, Byakuya is thankful that no one can hear him scream.
Flung into the dirt, ecstatic with pain, Byakuya shoves a hand under the collar of his shihakusho. He presses bands of a modified restrictive kido onto tender skin to prevent bone from piercing his lung. Rolling to his side, he chokes on a breathful of dust for the effort. With a flash step to the opposite side of the field, Byakuya narrowly avoids being snatched by the collar. He doesn’t like to run, but this is training, not combat, and he needs a moment to think.
The great red beast that is Zaraki Kenpachi in bankai stalks across the field with the ragged cleaver of Nozarashi’s awakened form dragging furrows through the dirt. Bright eyes never stray from Byakuya’s hunched and panting form—a predator locked on his kill. This prowling, patient creature is not quite the berserker Byakuya had watched, at a distance, slice in half an opponent the size of a mountain. He is something else, plucked straight from the pages of myth. He is not what Byakuya expected.
Since Byakuya woke this morning, feverish in the predawn and unable to capture even a precious few hours of sleep, nothing of this day has met his expectations.
Byakuya had thrown off sweat-soaked sheets as the sky pinkened over the gardens, had washed his face with shaking hands that did not feel to be his own, and had ignored the simple breakfast set out for him for the roiling of his stomach. He was not fearful of training with Kenpachi, but the thought of leaving the cool darkness of the manor hall had set his molars grinding. With greater effort than he would ever admit to, Byakuya left the Kuchiki manor, a pale blur above the Seireitei rooftops as he pushed his leaden body to move faster than sound.
When he arrived at the designated training site, a dry and grassy expanse awash in morning light, Byakuya was momentarily stunned by the figure waiting for him at the distant treeline. Zaraki Kenpachi had stepped into the sunlight with his zanpakuto resting on his shoulder, its edge as sharp and bright as his smile. The typical greeting—something overly familiar and mildly insulting—had moved Kenpachi’s lips but failed to penetrate the fog of what Byakuya decided was an inconvenient seasonal fever.
Kenpachi—the long lines of his limbs, his mane of ink strokes around his broad shoulders—stunned him. Byakuya’s fever had peaked, washing him in a sensation of vertigo, and only the familiar thrum of Kenpachi’s reiatsu grounded him. Kenpachi’s expression had shifted, his smile slipping off his face, but Byakuya didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of admitting to training while in anything less than peak condition. Unsheathing Senbonzakura signaled the point of no return.
Despite the many days they had spent out here in the past several months, where harming others with the force of their collective reiatsu was not a consideration, and the many more years spent antagonizing each other—at the manor, at the Sixth and the Eleventh, on the sands of Hueco Mundo—Byakuya had not been faced with Kenpachi’s bankai. No matter how many times Byakuya slammed him to the dirt under the weight of Senbonzakura’s petals, the red demon he had seen during the war did not appear. They did not speak of it. Kenpachi never expressed frustration, only a quiet withdrawal that was wholly uncharacteristic of the warrior Byakuya had come to know. Byakuya resolved to continue the only way he could: to join battle with Kenpachi frequently and enthusiastically, as he always had, and never to soften his blows. The beast would awaken when it was ready. Kenpachi would have as much time as he needed to grieve.
It came as a shock that morning when Senbonzakura’s protective shell of blades, having drawn back on instinct at Kenpachi’s sudden movement forward, was cleaved in two. From the new gash in Byakuya’s defense had come—sword first—a demon twice his height, snorting streams of smoke as if hellfire were smoldering in his chest.
Now, pulling himself up and gathering Senbonzakura’s petals around his feet with a mental tug, Byakuya has a moment of respite to appreciate Kenpachi’s bankai—a blade stripped down to its essential, murderous intent and its wielder washed blood-red in premonition of carnage. He sees something like perfection in the approaching demon.
Flirtation with death and training in the Zero Division brought Senbonzakura’s power closer to the surface of his soul than ever before, but in this form, Kenpachi is Nozarashi. At the thought, Byakuya feels Senbonzakura’s gloved hand gripping the back of his neck.
My lord. Senbonzakura’s voice rattles in the back of Byakuya’s skull—the clash of a hundred swords on a distant battlefield. Let me give you what you want.
The sky is painfully blue when it consumes Byakuya’s field of vision. Senbonzakura’s petals float overhead, directionless in his daze. He gasps ineffectually where he’s flattened in the dirt, having been knocked back with a kick to the stomach that wouldn’t have caught him off guard had it not blown through a barrier of razor petals to reach him. He watched blades shred the leg of Kenpachi’s hakama, knick his skin, and spray blood, in the seconds before shin met abdominals and Byakuya went flying back through his own blades, the landing too swift, the impact too hard for him to even register the burn of a thousand little cuts on his shoulders and arms.
When he’s finally able to pull a lungful of air, he immediately chokes on blood. Something must have ruptured. He realizes that Kenpachi could have come at him with Nozarashi’s edge if he truly intended to kill him. The captain of the Eleventh is still lucid beneath the monster’s mask and is choosing mercy. Byakuya feels pride and astonishment at Kenpachi’s rapid progress when he knows he should be afraid.
Shadow encroaches on sky—Kenpachi looms over Byakuya with narrowed eyes glinting. He smiles, flashing sharp teeth. When Kenpachi crouches over him, his hair spills over broad shoulders and tickles Byakuya’s face, blocking more sunlight. With a thunk and a puff of dust, Kenpachi notches his blade into the ground. Nozarashi stands off to their side, light laughing along her edge.
Kenpachi draws nearer, hot breath fanning over Byakuya’s cheek. He dips lower—toward Byakuya’s throbbing pulse point—and nuzzles at the soft flesh beneath his jaw. Byakuya lies frozen. His breaths are shallow, sharp, and a tingling sensation collects around his teeth, in his hands, between his legs. Panic. Arousal. He can’t differentiate. He remembers the armband, the emergency flare, then disregards it because he isn’t interested in the kind of surrender it offers. Kenpachi crawls on top of him, knee knocking Byakuya’s legs apart and arms caging his head.
“I cannot—” Byakuya begins, voice strange to his own ear. He isn’t even sure how he meant to complete the sentence when he’s cut off by a throatful of blood.
I cannot move.
Not true. He could pull Senbonzakura’s blades around himself to urge his opponent off and rise once more to his feet. He doesn’t do this, doesn’t move an inch as Kenpachi sniffs at his throat, drops his jaw, licks at the tendon there.
I cannot fight you.
Closer to the truth. He can’t fight the way Kenpachi wants to fight at all times regardless of if they’re training or facing a lethal enemy. He can’t fight the way Senbonzakura wants him to—the way he cries out for in the depths of his soul. He can’t fight the way he might have before his heart got in the way.
I cannot make love to you.
Closer still. Here, in the dirt, in the open, in their uniforms, he shouldn’t allow Kenpachi to take further liberties with his body. Whatever presence of mind kept Kenpachi from hacking off Byakuya’s limbs does not extend to asking for permission as he sinks claws into the collar of his shihakusho and yanks it wide.
Byakuya registers the heaving of his own sweat-glossed chest and the size of his reddening nipples, swollen and erect, in a moment of detached, analytical calm: he has not looked like this since his body began to change in late adolescence. After decades of hard training and treatment, his breasts became hardly recognizable as such. Now, freed from his robes and bared to the wind, they have enough weight to fill a demon’s palm.
Unease melts into disgust in the back of Byakuya’s throat. The heat of Kenpachi’s touch—touch, the reminder that the body which hosts him is his own—curdles sour in Byakuya’s gut. He knows what this is. His body requires something, as the bodies of all the men in his family have required it. Byakuya struggles against instinct.
Kenpachi tears his hakama loose. His kosode falls open, exposing his stomach and hips to the air. A woodblock print—was it from a collection of poetry he’d pilfered from his father’s library?—flashes in Byakuya’s mind: a woman sprawled across a bed of technicolor silks, her legs open, a samurai snarling atop her. He had seen this illustration as a child and thought, This must be what lovers do. When Kenpachi’s knee shoves against the cloth pooled between his legs, against his c*nt, Byakuya groans, eyelashes fluttering.
I cannot resist you.
But he tries. He gathers his wits and his strength and shoves at Kenpachi’s shoulders, whips his head away to put distance between his throat and those fangs, pushes his heels into the dirt to leverage his pelvis in an effort to roll his opponent off. Kenpachi doesn’t budge and doesn’t take kindly to the resistance. With a low growl, he grabs Byakuya’s wrists and pins them over his head. The position forces Byakuya’s spine to arch, offering more of the vulnerable expanse of his stomach. A swipe of a red hand, and Byakuya’s hakama are thrown askew, exposing his thighs and groin. He tries to close his legs despite the immovable pillar of Kenpachi’s own thigh between them and earns another growl and the threat of claws in the meat of his ass.
Kenpachi leans in close, until their noses nearly brush, and his voice tumbles out like gravel: “Mine.”
Byakuya’s eyes widen. His head swims, a flush overtaking his cheeks and neck. He fights to keep his head clear. This is foreign territory. Kenpachi is not the possessive type, has never claimed him, never expressed the desire to. If anything, Byakuya is the one who has sought hierarchy. But here is Kenpachi—or a form of him—offering what Byakuya has not allowed himself to want from a lover.
Byakuya belongs to the Kuchiki clan. He belongs to the Gotei 13. He belongs to the Seireitei. Only in his own heart had he ever belonged to Hisana. He is unsure what it means to belong to this man. He is unsure if the man is claiming him or if the demon is speaking.
A sudden hot shame shocks Byakuya into stillness: wetness trickling down the cleft of his ass. All thought departs. Fever weighs him down, heavy as the seething humidity before a summer storm. The sharp edges of Byakuya’s awareness narrow down to the ache between his hips, the pulsing of his c*nt. With the depths of his own madness as collateral—as protection—Byakuya’s body gives his mind leave to imagine it: the demon inside him. The demon’s child inside him.
This is against everything in your nature. This must be your nature.
Senbonzakura offers nothing, but Byakuya can feel him poised on the edge of his consciousness, observing. The spirit’s lack of concern should comfort Byakuya as claws scrape against tender skin, threatening disembowelment, but instead he feels doubly ensnared—by Kenpachi’s strength, by Senbonzakura’s complicity.
With Byakuya’s wrists in one massive hand, tattered silks in the other, the demon laps sweat from his sternum with a long, rough tongue. Byakuya shivers despite the oppressive heat of Kenpachi’s body.
Licking and nipping at Byakuya’s chest and neck, the demon settles between his legs. Kenpachi grabs a bare knee and hikes it up to his waist. Half twisted, destabilized, rearranged like ikebana, Byakuya begins to accept that his only recourse to stop this is to call for help. He could bring Senbonzakura down on them both, but the languid swirl of petals around their struggling bodies leaves him abashed at the thought, as if using his weapon would mean acquiescing to defeat.
This is what lovers do. This is what you will do.
The head of Kenpachi’s co*ck presses against his entrance without preparation. Byakuya’s c*nt, even weeping and desperate as it is, strains against Kenpachi’s punishing size. His face twists into a grimace from the searing stretch. Kenpachi is regularly larger than someone of Byakuya’s stature can comfortably handle; as a demon, penetration should not be possible. But Byakuya’s body has become something else, something ancient and sacrosanct, given over to urges he has been so careful to forestall since his youth. Now: only the pleasure of being a vessel, with pain as his sole companion.
Byakuya heaves hissing breaths through his nose. Everything is fire. His broken skin, his eyes, his c*nt. When he turns his head to cough out mucus and blood, it comes with a sob. Hot tears spill over his cheeks.
You are not crying. You are not. There is nothing you cannot endure.
Silently, Kenpachi noses at his temple before licking the saline trails. The heat between their bodies is sweltering. Dirt streaks his sweating arms. Beneath the layers of his shihakusho, stone shards dig into his back as Kenpachi thrusts into him. A sound that would mortify him if anyone were around to hear it leaps from his throat. Deep, deeper, Kenpachi sinks into him, hitching his leg higher for a better angle, until Byakuya wonders how he had ever taken him all before. He might split apart before Kenpachi is done, but instead of fear, pleasure shivers through him.
His mouth is dry from the panting and the dust, and he hears himself say Kenpachi Kenpachi please Kenpachi over and over until he’s hoarse and Kenpachi is fully seated inside him, bared thighs pressed to Byakuya’s own. Byakuya is so full he’s dizzy from it. He wants Kenpachi to get off of him. He wants Kenpachi impossibly deeper, inside the dark places no one else can reach. He wants Kenpachi to move.
Byakuya’s body reacts without his consent. A raw and primal pleasure, for a glorious half-second, rushes through him. He feels himself spasm around the intrusion, his whole body a pulsing mass of muscle. The tension spurs Kenpachi into action. Byakuya has no time to register the movement until he feels the ridged flesh of the demon’s co*ck slip out of him with an obscene series of pop s, and then—not moments later—the brutal plunge back in, those huge red hands gripping Byakuya’s thighs just beneath the backs of his knees, folding him in half. There is no one to turn to, nowhere to run. The demon has him by the back of the head—almost cradling him, a layer of protection between his neck and the dirt—and split down the middle.
Kenpachi f*cks him with relentless accuracy, as he has always done. Byakuya’s body finds comfort in the familiarity even though his mind cannot; he feels his core unwind under the weight of Kenpachi’s hips, and lets himself be used. Above the screaming torrent of the blood in his veins, Byakuya hears the rhythm of each wet strike of flesh against flesh every time Kenpachi bottoms out. Under his knuckles, flung out to the side and pressed into the dirt, Byakuya feels the low groaning from the demon’s chest rumble the earth.
Byakuya does not look down his body to see whether or not the slick sheen on Kenpachi’s co*ck is blood. He doubts he would be able to tell. Kenpachi’s body obstructs the relentless late morning sun. Between them there is only shadow, hot and close. Byakuya has never felt nearer to Kenpachi, even though his horned head and his pale sclerae sway up out of reach, his coarse hair fanned out above Byakuya’s face like an overstory.
Something more ugly and far more powerful than org*sm begins to build between Byakuya’s hips and in the tips of his fingers. His body pulls impossibly tight, and Kenpachi struggles against the pressure, strokes suddenly jagged. Each rumble becomes more like a roar, and then—Kenpachi falls to one knee and buries himself to the hilt in a rush. A sudden nausea accompanies the inhuman heat of seed spreading inside Byakuya. He cannot tell if the marrow-deep satisfaction which follows is his own.
His traitor body shudders, lost to pure pleasure. More, it demands. More.
Kenpachi hisses smoke. A new and immediate pain, white-hot, blisters out from where Kenpachi has pushed into Byakuya’s body. No, beyond Byakuya’s entrance, tearing him open—Kenpachi is growing inside him, Byakuya realizes. His body struggles to accommodate the stretch. Darkness threatens his vision.
Kenpachi’s hips have stilled, but his chest heaves. Fingernails stronger and sharper than talons close tight enough to draw blood at Byakuya’s neck. In the empty expanse of the plain there is nothing for Byakuya to focus on but the wind and the steady pulse of expanding flesh at the base of Kenpachi’s co*ck. Even the demon seems to know better than to move. One pull outward would tear Byakuya open all the way down his taint.
Without warning, the aching tension in Byakuya’s core snaps. He cannot see—all is a blur of light. His eyes roll back, sweat pouring from every crevice of his body and mingling with the dirt and the blood. He shakes in the demon’s grip until his consciousness, already hazy, becomes diffuse. Each wave of feeling as it comes over him is more pure than the next: unadulterated fear. Rapture. Loss.
A beeping to his right creeps into his awareness. He remembers, with the casual attention of someone looking down on a scene from a great height, the armband. The tugging in his gut tells him to tear it away, but his strength is gone.
When he reaches, weakly, for the shape of Senbonzakura in his mind, Byakuya finds him sleeping. Calm and unreachable, as he has never been during battle. This is nothing like any battle Byakuya has ever fought, but battle is the only context he has.
He has lost, he is lost.
You are not—
As the world disappears around him, Byakuya feels Kenpachi’s reiatsu envelop his own like the clasp of a hand. Palm to palm. Fingers intertwined.
