Fresh Ink, Part 5 (Renji/Byakuya AU)
Title: Fresh Ink (Part 5)
Characters: Tattoo artist!Renji x grad student!Byakuya
Genre: University!AU, Romance, multi-chapter
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2,140
Disclaimer: Bleach is not mine. The university is, though.
A/N: Yes, I'm alive! It’s been too long. Joy's brain was completely hijacked by midterms and a certain other fandom. ^_^; In return, I give you the longest chapter yet. PLUS, I'm almost done with Part 6, which continues Part 5 and contains smut. Originally I was going to include it here but wanted to give more time to the smex. So be eager! And if the ending doesn't seem right, it will in the next segment.
Another minor note: I decided to switch the order of the names since this is an American university and it just makes more sense that way, even though I hate the way it sounds.
________________
Some students of English 220 had signed up for the Monday afternoon discussion section because of who the TA was. Others had deliberately avoided that section for the very same reason. Byakuya had a reputation and he knew it. It was no coincidence that the fifteen students seated around the table were especially smart, highly disciplined, and mostly female.
“Remember that your papers are due Wednesday in my box by 5 pm,” Byakuya said over the rustle of notebooks and zippers. “Papers submitted at 5:01 are late.”
As the students filtered out, he looked over his schedule for the rest of the afternoon. In ten minutes, he had to meet with his advisor to discuss the dissertation he was falling behind on in spite of himself. He had spent the weekend tolerating his family in Boston and had barely opened a book since Thursday. A small uncertain voice broke his train of thought.
“Um, excuse me, Byakuya…”
He didn’t need to look up to know that the girl addressing him was Orihime Inoue. A friend of his younger sister’s, Orihime was the only one in the course who knew him personally. He had thought that this would make her the least likely to have signed up his class, except that Orihime was the sort who made friends with everyone, whether they themselves consented or not.
“I’m still not very confident about my paper topic,” she was saying. “Could we meet to talk about it sometime tonight?”
He frowned. “This is extremely short notice, Orihime.”
“Yes, but I - ”
“You realize you were given an entire month to plan this paper?”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Byakuya sighed. He supposed he should have seen this coming. “Well, it will have to be tonight, then. What time works for you?”
“Um, tonight I have cooking class at six, and a capella rehearsal at seven…will you still be here at eight?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Well, tomorrow I have cheer practice - ”
“Let’s meet tonight at eight, in my office.”
“Thank you so much! I promise I’ll be on time!” She smiled with apologetic cheerfulness. As she disappeared out the door, his eyes drifted down to his notebook and then lept back with a start to the unexpected yet familiar figure leaning against the doorframe.
“Hey,” Renji said.
“Renji! What are you doing here?”
“I got off work early today, so I thought I’d come meet you.”
Byakuya looked around anxiously as he went over to join him. He hadn’t planned for this. He had a meeting in five minutes, and he didn’t want to spend the entirety of it distracted by naughty thoughts of the redhead. Renji simply did not belong here - not inside this building, not inside his ten-minute break.
“Why didn’t you just call me?” he asked, perhaps a little too sharply.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
Byakuya thought surprises were highly overrated. He was about to say so, but Renji surprised him again by pulling him into a kiss. Alarmed, Byakuya yanked Renji back into the classroom and away from the hallway, where passing students were eyeing the pair with curious glances. He closed the door behind them with a sigh.
"Honestly, does privacy mean nothing to you?"
"Jeez, it does now," came the sarcastic reply. "Can I kiss you now, your highness?”
Byakuya nodded his assent. And from the minute Renji’s lips touched his own, he felt himself beginning to melt. A little warm current spread through his body as the other man’s tongue teased his own, drawing him in closer and deeper.
“I missed you, ya know,” Renji said, sliding his hands down Byakuya’s back and over his ass. “I missed this.”
Byakuya had missed it too. Something about Renji’s kisses, Renji’s hands on his body -- frankly, just looking at Renji -- made him lose control of himself in a way he had never known. He wanted this. But he couldn’t afford it, not now. “Renji,” he said, breaking away from the kiss, “I hate to end this so soon, but I have a meeting at five, which gives me precisely two minutes - ”
“It’s alright, take your time,” came the pleasant voice from behind them. They froze. In the open doorway - the other doorway, which Byakuya had unfortunately forgotten about - stood Jyuushirou Ukitake.
“Oh dear, I’m interrupting something - ”
“No, no, you’re not,” Byakuya said quickly, disengaging himself from Renji and attempting to straighten his shirt. “I was just about to head over to your office.”
“Perfect. I’m on my way there myself.” He smiled at Renji. “Hi there. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Of course,” Byakuya said, feeling stupid for getting so flustered as to forget something so basic as introductions. “Renji, this is Jyuushirou Ukitake, our Department Chair. And this is Renji Abarai...” He wanted to say my boyfriend, but he wasn't even sure that was what they were.
The handshake and accompanying pleased-to-meet-yous seemed slightly awkward to Byakuya, but neither of them looked half as uncomfortable as Byakuya felt.
“So, Renji, Professor Ukitake and I need to meet now, so…”
The redhead shrugged. “Alright, I’ll just hang out here ‘til you’re done.”
“Don’t wait. It will probably be an hour. I’ll call you and then we can plan something.”
“Wanna get dinner at Tandoor or somewhere?”
“Just…wait. I’ll call you.”
“Alright then, see ya,” Renji said, quickly leaving with a casual wave. Byakuya immediately regretted everything about that exchange. He should have just said yes to dinner, but what did Renji expect , showing up uninvited in the middle of his workday? No, he had nothing to regret. Except, perhaps, embarrassing himself in front of his advisor and a good handful of undergraduate passersby.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said to Ukitake as they headed downstairs towards the professor’s office.
“Don’t be sorry,” Ukitake smiled. “He’s very charming.”
Ukitake liked everyone. Consequently, everyone liked Ukitake. There was a lesson in that somewhere, Byakuya supposed.
“He’s not a student here, is he?”
“No. We met in town.”
“That’s good. It’s healthy for you to get outside the bubble a bit. Sometimes we tend forget there’s a whole world out there when we take out noses out of our books.”
***
After the meeting, Byakuya met Renji at Tandoor. The heady aroma of Indian spices overwhelmed him as he opened the restaurant door. It both comforted and reinvigorated him, which he needed after his meeting. Despite his advisor’s easygoing attitude, it was hard to feel comfortable discussing his progress on his dissertation when in fact he had made almost no progress the entire week. He didn’t go so far as to blame Renji for this, but it was certainly no coincidence.
The redhead was seated at a small table in the back, already sipping a beer. His face and posture suggested the mixture of annoyance and hopefulness that had come through in his tone over the phone.
"How was your meeting?" Renji asked as he sat down.
"Fine. Uneventful."
“You’re sure nobody you know will see us here, right?”
Byakuya sighed. “It’s not - ”
“Look, if you’re ashamed of me, you didn’t have to go out with me.”
“I’m not ashamed of you.”
“Then you might want to quit acting like it. And while you’re at it, you might want to treat your students better.”
“What?”
“That Orihime chick? You were totally short with her today.”
“I offered to help her, against my better inclinations given her complete lack of time management skills.”
“I wouldn’t call it offered,” Renji snorted.
“Orihime is a friend of my sister’s and a personal acquaintance of mine. I’m certain she wasn’t offended. And frankly, it’s none of your business.”
"Not my business?"
“What I'm trying to say is, my life at school is organized a certain way, and everything outside of school belongs in a separate sphere. I prefer to maintain some distance between the two.”
“So you’re just embarrassed to be seen with a dirty townie?”
“No,” Byakuya insisted. “It has nothing to do with that. In fact it has very little to do with you. I just wasn’t expecting - ”
“You know what it is?” Renji cut him off, the bitter edge of his tone suddenly dulled. There was a hint of satisfaction in his voice, as if he had solved a puzzle. “You really can’t deal with stuff you didn’t plan for. That’s why you didn’t want me there, isn’t it? I get it now. You don’t like surprises, you don’t like change, you don’t like...what’s that word?”
“Spontaneity.”
“Right. And you don’t wanna change how everyone here sees you.”
Byakuya didn’t answer.
“You think if your students see you running around with a guy like me, they won’t be a able to see you anymore as this super-serious academic hardass control freak.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Yeah, it is hard to believe they might actually see you as a normal person, who can do normal-person things, like dating, but..." his tone softened slightly, "...have you thought about how that might actually be a good thing?”
“I just have a lot on my mind when I’m at school, Renji. It’s school, and it’s a job at the same time. I’m…busy.” He almost used the word stressed, but that would have implied some weakness or inadequacy on his part.
“Exactly. And I thought maybe by showing up I could relieve some tension. Guess I thought wrong.” He laughed. “Thinking never was my strong suit. Do you want a drink?”
Byakuya hesitated.
“I know you do.” Renji said. “That’ll get you relaxed. You never would have slept with me if you weren’t drunk.”
“I was not - ”
“Waiter, can we have a glass of wine? You like wine, right?”
Byakuya nodded. “Yes, I’ll have your Shiraz please.”
“All right,” the waiter said, making a note. “And are you ready to order?”
Renji was about to say something, but Byakuya lifted a finger to silence him.
“I think we would like chicken tikka masala, and saag paneer, and kheema matar, all spicy. And garlic naan - no, I’m sorry, make that plain naan.” It had been a while since Byakuya had sacrificed his love of garlic for anything, but in this case he felt he had a good reason.
“Oh, nice!” Renji looked impressed. “You remembered my favorite ones.”
Byakuya smiled. “They’re the same as mine.”
The waiter left, and soon Byakuya’s wine arrived. The restaurant was filling up with loud groups of undergrads and a few local-looking families. Renji was leaning forward in his chair. The air felt lighter.
“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Renji said, and once again Byakuya was surprised by the random details the redhead had picked up on in conversation.
“I do. Rukia. She’s a sophomore here.” It struck him that she was, in fact, barely younger than Renji, which he didn’t particularly want to think about.
“You never mentioned her when you were talking about your folks.”
“I suppose I think of her separately from them. My whole family regards Rukia as something of a disappointment. They say the only reason she got into this school was because of me.”
“Damn," Renji shook his head. "Is that true?”
“I don’t believe it. She’s a bit rebellious, and chose to associate with what my mother calls ‘the wrong crowd.’ In particular, they are not fond of her boyfriend.” He twirled his wine glass thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, he reminds me a bit of you.”
“So this ‘wrong crowd’ thing runs in the family, then?” Renji smirked.
“It seems to be the plague of my generation. Rukia is a talented dancer, however.”
“What kind of dance?”
“She’s trained in both ballet and modern dance. She’s in one of the college groups here, and they’re quite good. Very eclectic.”
“Do you dance?”
“No.”
“Me neither. My friends sometimes go out dancing on Saturday nights, but what it really comes down to is Ikkaku dancing with his boyfriend and the rest of us getting trashed and scoping out random guys.”
“I didn’t know Ikkaku had a boyfriend.”
“Yeah, you didn’t meet ‘im. He’s been on tour with his theater troupe. You might like him. He’s even femmier than you.”
“I am not that femme.”
“Well let me tell you, next to Yumichika, you’re Clint fucking Eastwood.”
“Yumichika? And he’s a professional actor?”
“Yeah. A not half bad one. A real primadonna, though. You’d get along great.” He paused in reconsideration. “Well, maybe not so great. He’d talk the whole time. Anyway, he’s back in town this weekend, so you can see for yourself.”
“I was serious when I said I didn’t dance.”
Renji looked at him knowingly. “Is it ever about the dancing?”
Byakuya smirked. “I suppose not.”
Their food arrived, warm and smelling like heaven, and both of them realized how hungry they were.
_____________________
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Characters: Tattoo artist!Renji x grad student!Byakuya
Genre: University!AU, Romance, multi-chapter
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2,140
Disclaimer: Bleach is not mine. The university is, though.
A/N: Yes, I'm alive! It’s been too long. Joy's brain was completely hijacked by midterms and a certain other fandom. ^_^; In return, I give you the longest chapter yet. PLUS, I'm almost done with Part 6, which continues Part 5 and contains smut. Originally I was going to include it here but wanted to give more time to the smex. So be eager! And if the ending doesn't seem right, it will in the next segment.
Another minor note: I decided to switch the order of the names since this is an American university and it just makes more sense that way, even though I hate the way it sounds.
________________
Some students of English 220 had signed up for the Monday afternoon discussion section because of who the TA was. Others had deliberately avoided that section for the very same reason. Byakuya had a reputation and he knew it. It was no coincidence that the fifteen students seated around the table were especially smart, highly disciplined, and mostly female.
“Remember that your papers are due Wednesday in my box by 5 pm,” Byakuya said over the rustle of notebooks and zippers. “Papers submitted at 5:01 are late.”
As the students filtered out, he looked over his schedule for the rest of the afternoon. In ten minutes, he had to meet with his advisor to discuss the dissertation he was falling behind on in spite of himself. He had spent the weekend tolerating his family in Boston and had barely opened a book since Thursday. A small uncertain voice broke his train of thought.
“Um, excuse me, Byakuya…”
He didn’t need to look up to know that the girl addressing him was Orihime Inoue. A friend of his younger sister’s, Orihime was the only one in the course who knew him personally. He had thought that this would make her the least likely to have signed up his class, except that Orihime was the sort who made friends with everyone, whether they themselves consented or not.
“I’m still not very confident about my paper topic,” she was saying. “Could we meet to talk about it sometime tonight?”
He frowned. “This is extremely short notice, Orihime.”
“Yes, but I - ”
“You realize you were given an entire month to plan this paper?”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Byakuya sighed. He supposed he should have seen this coming. “Well, it will have to be tonight, then. What time works for you?”
“Um, tonight I have cooking class at six, and a capella rehearsal at seven…will you still be here at eight?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
“Well, tomorrow I have cheer practice - ”
“Let’s meet tonight at eight, in my office.”
“Thank you so much! I promise I’ll be on time!” She smiled with apologetic cheerfulness. As she disappeared out the door, his eyes drifted down to his notebook and then lept back with a start to the unexpected yet familiar figure leaning against the doorframe.
“Hey,” Renji said.
“Renji! What are you doing here?”
“I got off work early today, so I thought I’d come meet you.”
Byakuya looked around anxiously as he went over to join him. He hadn’t planned for this. He had a meeting in five minutes, and he didn’t want to spend the entirety of it distracted by naughty thoughts of the redhead. Renji simply did not belong here - not inside this building, not inside his ten-minute break.
“Why didn’t you just call me?” he asked, perhaps a little too sharply.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
Byakuya thought surprises were highly overrated. He was about to say so, but Renji surprised him again by pulling him into a kiss. Alarmed, Byakuya yanked Renji back into the classroom and away from the hallway, where passing students were eyeing the pair with curious glances. He closed the door behind them with a sigh.
"Honestly, does privacy mean nothing to you?"
"Jeez, it does now," came the sarcastic reply. "Can I kiss you now, your highness?”
Byakuya nodded his assent. And from the minute Renji’s lips touched his own, he felt himself beginning to melt. A little warm current spread through his body as the other man’s tongue teased his own, drawing him in closer and deeper.
“I missed you, ya know,” Renji said, sliding his hands down Byakuya’s back and over his ass. “I missed this.”
Byakuya had missed it too. Something about Renji’s kisses, Renji’s hands on his body -- frankly, just looking at Renji -- made him lose control of himself in a way he had never known. He wanted this. But he couldn’t afford it, not now. “Renji,” he said, breaking away from the kiss, “I hate to end this so soon, but I have a meeting at five, which gives me precisely two minutes - ”
“It’s alright, take your time,” came the pleasant voice from behind them. They froze. In the open doorway - the other doorway, which Byakuya had unfortunately forgotten about - stood Jyuushirou Ukitake.
“Oh dear, I’m interrupting something - ”
“No, no, you’re not,” Byakuya said quickly, disengaging himself from Renji and attempting to straighten his shirt. “I was just about to head over to your office.”
“Perfect. I’m on my way there myself.” He smiled at Renji. “Hi there. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Of course,” Byakuya said, feeling stupid for getting so flustered as to forget something so basic as introductions. “Renji, this is Jyuushirou Ukitake, our Department Chair. And this is Renji Abarai...” He wanted to say my boyfriend, but he wasn't even sure that was what they were.
The handshake and accompanying pleased-to-meet-yous seemed slightly awkward to Byakuya, but neither of them looked half as uncomfortable as Byakuya felt.
“So, Renji, Professor Ukitake and I need to meet now, so…”
The redhead shrugged. “Alright, I’ll just hang out here ‘til you’re done.”
“Don’t wait. It will probably be an hour. I’ll call you and then we can plan something.”
“Wanna get dinner at Tandoor or somewhere?”
“Just…wait. I’ll call you.”
“Alright then, see ya,” Renji said, quickly leaving with a casual wave. Byakuya immediately regretted everything about that exchange. He should have just said yes to dinner, but what did Renji expect , showing up uninvited in the middle of his workday? No, he had nothing to regret. Except, perhaps, embarrassing himself in front of his advisor and a good handful of undergraduate passersby.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said to Ukitake as they headed downstairs towards the professor’s office.
“Don’t be sorry,” Ukitake smiled. “He’s very charming.”
Ukitake liked everyone. Consequently, everyone liked Ukitake. There was a lesson in that somewhere, Byakuya supposed.
“He’s not a student here, is he?”
“No. We met in town.”
“That’s good. It’s healthy for you to get outside the bubble a bit. Sometimes we tend forget there’s a whole world out there when we take out noses out of our books.”
***
After the meeting, Byakuya met Renji at Tandoor. The heady aroma of Indian spices overwhelmed him as he opened the restaurant door. It both comforted and reinvigorated him, which he needed after his meeting. Despite his advisor’s easygoing attitude, it was hard to feel comfortable discussing his progress on his dissertation when in fact he had made almost no progress the entire week. He didn’t go so far as to blame Renji for this, but it was certainly no coincidence.
The redhead was seated at a small table in the back, already sipping a beer. His face and posture suggested the mixture of annoyance and hopefulness that had come through in his tone over the phone.
"How was your meeting?" Renji asked as he sat down.
"Fine. Uneventful."
“You’re sure nobody you know will see us here, right?”
Byakuya sighed. “It’s not - ”
“Look, if you’re ashamed of me, you didn’t have to go out with me.”
“I’m not ashamed of you.”
“Then you might want to quit acting like it. And while you’re at it, you might want to treat your students better.”
“What?”
“That Orihime chick? You were totally short with her today.”
“I offered to help her, against my better inclinations given her complete lack of time management skills.”
“I wouldn’t call it offered,” Renji snorted.
“Orihime is a friend of my sister’s and a personal acquaintance of mine. I’m certain she wasn’t offended. And frankly, it’s none of your business.”
"Not my business?"
“What I'm trying to say is, my life at school is organized a certain way, and everything outside of school belongs in a separate sphere. I prefer to maintain some distance between the two.”
“So you’re just embarrassed to be seen with a dirty townie?”
“No,” Byakuya insisted. “It has nothing to do with that. In fact it has very little to do with you. I just wasn’t expecting - ”
“You know what it is?” Renji cut him off, the bitter edge of his tone suddenly dulled. There was a hint of satisfaction in his voice, as if he had solved a puzzle. “You really can’t deal with stuff you didn’t plan for. That’s why you didn’t want me there, isn’t it? I get it now. You don’t like surprises, you don’t like change, you don’t like...what’s that word?”
“Spontaneity.”
“Right. And you don’t wanna change how everyone here sees you.”
Byakuya didn’t answer.
“You think if your students see you running around with a guy like me, they won’t be a able to see you anymore as this super-serious academic hardass control freak.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Yeah, it is hard to believe they might actually see you as a normal person, who can do normal-person things, like dating, but..." his tone softened slightly, "...have you thought about how that might actually be a good thing?”
“I just have a lot on my mind when I’m at school, Renji. It’s school, and it’s a job at the same time. I’m…busy.” He almost used the word stressed, but that would have implied some weakness or inadequacy on his part.
“Exactly. And I thought maybe by showing up I could relieve some tension. Guess I thought wrong.” He laughed. “Thinking never was my strong suit. Do you want a drink?”
Byakuya hesitated.
“I know you do.” Renji said. “That’ll get you relaxed. You never would have slept with me if you weren’t drunk.”
“I was not - ”
“Waiter, can we have a glass of wine? You like wine, right?”
Byakuya nodded. “Yes, I’ll have your Shiraz please.”
“All right,” the waiter said, making a note. “And are you ready to order?”
Renji was about to say something, but Byakuya lifted a finger to silence him.
“I think we would like chicken tikka masala, and saag paneer, and kheema matar, all spicy. And garlic naan - no, I’m sorry, make that plain naan.” It had been a while since Byakuya had sacrificed his love of garlic for anything, but in this case he felt he had a good reason.
“Oh, nice!” Renji looked impressed. “You remembered my favorite ones.”
Byakuya smiled. “They’re the same as mine.”
The waiter left, and soon Byakuya’s wine arrived. The restaurant was filling up with loud groups of undergrads and a few local-looking families. Renji was leaning forward in his chair. The air felt lighter.
“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Renji said, and once again Byakuya was surprised by the random details the redhead had picked up on in conversation.
“I do. Rukia. She’s a sophomore here.” It struck him that she was, in fact, barely younger than Renji, which he didn’t particularly want to think about.
“You never mentioned her when you were talking about your folks.”
“I suppose I think of her separately from them. My whole family regards Rukia as something of a disappointment. They say the only reason she got into this school was because of me.”
“Damn," Renji shook his head. "Is that true?”
“I don’t believe it. She’s a bit rebellious, and chose to associate with what my mother calls ‘the wrong crowd.’ In particular, they are not fond of her boyfriend.” He twirled his wine glass thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, he reminds me a bit of you.”
“So this ‘wrong crowd’ thing runs in the family, then?” Renji smirked.
“It seems to be the plague of my generation. Rukia is a talented dancer, however.”
“What kind of dance?”
“She’s trained in both ballet and modern dance. She’s in one of the college groups here, and they’re quite good. Very eclectic.”
“Do you dance?”
“No.”
“Me neither. My friends sometimes go out dancing on Saturday nights, but what it really comes down to is Ikkaku dancing with his boyfriend and the rest of us getting trashed and scoping out random guys.”
“I didn’t know Ikkaku had a boyfriend.”
“Yeah, you didn’t meet ‘im. He’s been on tour with his theater troupe. You might like him. He’s even femmier than you.”
“I am not that femme.”
“Well let me tell you, next to Yumichika, you’re Clint fucking Eastwood.”
“Yumichika? And he’s a professional actor?”
“Yeah. A not half bad one. A real primadonna, though. You’d get along great.” He paused in reconsideration. “Well, maybe not so great. He’d talk the whole time. Anyway, he’s back in town this weekend, so you can see for yourself.”
“I was serious when I said I didn’t dance.”
Renji looked at him knowingly. “Is it ever about the dancing?”
Byakuya smirked. “I suppose not.”
Their food arrived, warm and smelling like heaven, and both of them realized how hungry they were.
_____________________
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4