Just a little drabble about nothing much, really. Just fluff. Reviews are appreciated, but by no means solicited.

Byakuya supposed that everyone had their own quirks regarding how they treated their lovers after sex. Personally, he was content to sleep with Renji's hair between his fingers and splayed across his chest until he fell asleep.

However, his lover seemed to have more eclectic fascinations. After they had sex, or made love, or whatever it could be classified as, Renji sometimes would stare, half-dreamily, at Byakuya's chest. At first Byakuya had not understood his lover's gazes, but eventually they transformed in to touches, tender rather than arousing, tracing patterns across his skin. They started on his palm and lower arms and he barely noticed them as he fell asleep. Eventually Renji's touches found their way up to his shoulders, his chest, his neck. Byakuya could close his eyes and even out his breathing, pretending to be asleep while mentally following Renji's fingers as they moved across his skin. He finally figured out the pattern, only because it was something he had experience with as well: Renji's markings.

The thick black lines which extended onto all parts of his body were both exotic and erotic for Byakuya, and he had practically memorized their pattern. Apparently, so had Renji, because he liked to trace the same designs onto Byakuya's chest as they both fell asleep. His silence and subtle smiles had been consent enough for Renji. Byakuya was not an expressive man, nor a demonstrative one, and his lover had learned to read the language of his body, because it often spoke truer than his words. He grew bolder, tracing the designs with not only his finger, but with his mouth as well. When they bathed, Renji drew them on in soap and washed them off with water.

One night, Byakuya left his ink and brush in his bedroom and woke up with slightly smudged black lines all over his body. He was surprised to see that although they resembled Renji's markings, they were slightly modified-softer and more elegant than the bold tribal designs that Renji wore with pride. The lines on his body were thinner and smoother, but still easily recognizable as coming from the same pattern. As he looked in the mirror, he realized that the act was an act of possession, but also one of affection. And for once, despite his proud, reserved, and sometimes cold nature, he felt completely content to be this meticulously and lovingly possessed. Even as he watched the ink run off his arms as he bathed, he could feel the ghosts of the strokes that had made them.