Title: Weeds and Flowers

Rating: T

Summary: Byakuya is hospitalized and it's all Renji's fault. What will he do when the bedridden man asks him a favour? RenBya. R&R PLZ!

Chapter 1: Letters and lies

A/N: I've been wanting to do a RenBya ficcy for a long time but I haven't really had any inspiration until now so here it is! Hope you enjoy!

Renji stalked through the confusing maze that was the sereitei, trying to find his way back the way he came. His taicho had sent him on a job to find captain Ukitake and give him a message. Finding him had been easy enough, but finding his way back proved the difficult task.

'Damn, haven't I already been down this path?'

It was hard to tell. All the paths looked the same. Renji looked up into the sky. One of the perks of being a street rat was that you learned certain things; like being able to tell the time from he position of the sun.

The redhead furrowed his tattooed eyebrows. He was supposed to be back at the 6th squad office more than an hour ago.

"Taicho's gonna be pissed…" Renji said to himself, continuing on his directionless trek.

"Just who are you referring to?"

Renji spun around to see Hitsugaya standing behind him, arms crossed, looking as bitter as usual. The redhead saluted casually.

"Oh, hello Hitsugaya." The silver haired boy scowled.

"Hitsugaya taicho." He said poisonously. Renji just sniffed. The little pipsqueak didn't intimidate him.

"Yeah, whatever. Do you know how to get back to the office section? I'm kinda lost." Hitsugaya smirked.

"You? Lost? Never!" He said sarcastically. Renji scoffed.

"Yeah, it even happens to the greatest of us. Now about those directions?"

The young boy rolled his eyes but gave the redhead directions on how to get back to the office. With a quick thanks Renji broke off in a sprint, not to keen on keeping his uptight taicho waiting…longer.

Renji burst into his taicho's office, breathing heavily, causing the stoic man to look up calmly, giving the redhead a cold gaze.

"In the time it took you to deliver that letter, I can safely assume that it got to Ukitake Taicho safely?"

Renji knew what that meant. It meant 'you took so long you could have delivered it to all 13 taicho's and their assistants!' or at least that's what Renji heard. His hand twitched angrily. Why was it that this man could always piss him off with just a few words? But no matter how irritated he was he couldn't show it.

"Um, sorry Taicho…I got lost." The redhead forced out, grinning sheepishly.

"Should I take it upon myself to draw you a map?"

Another twitch. Renji was starting to wonder if the dark haired man realized he was pissing him off. He was just having a ton of fun with this apparently.

"No, uh, I think I've got it now."

"Really?" The stoic man replied, "That seems to contradict what I heard." He waved a pale hand towards a chair in the corner. Renji turned to look and jumped as he saw Hitsugaya sitting there.

"Oi! I gave you directions and I still got here long before you did!" The silver haired boy said, grinning.

The redhead turned away from both of them, face slightly flushed from annoyance. So he was directionally challenged? So what?

As Renji was stewing over this, he didn't notice that Byakuya had gotten up until he was walking past him. The redhead instantly straightened up, a shiver running down his spine. Byakuya could do that to most people anyway but Renji had gotten so used to that that it only happened when the raven haired man was in an extremely negative mood. Which was never good.

He watched as Byakuya strode over to Hitsugaya and handed him a few papers. All of which looked exactly like the letter he had delivered to Ukitake.

"Unohana taicho requested these be delivered to all the captains. She also said to tell them that there will be a meeting concerning what to do about the situation in an hour."

Hitsugaya looked confusedly down at one of the papers. As his eyes scanned the page, his eyebrows furrowed and he looked up at Byakuya with a worried expression.

"What is this?"

"I believe you know what needs to be done. And by what means to do it." With that The stoic man turned and walked back to his desk as the silver haired boy left the office walking briskly. Which Renji found strange because usually when a captain wanted to get somewhere fast, they usually shun-poed.

This confused him and now that Renji had thought about it, he could sense that Hitsugaya, Ukitake and Byakuya had lowered their spiritual pressures dramatically.

"Why would they do that?' Renji pondered. He didn't think his taicho would tell him but he decided to ask anyway.

"Taicho," Renji began. This didn't even stir a response from the dark haired man and he just continued doing the paperwork that was spread in front of him. But the redhead could still tell his taicho was on edge so he opened his mouth to continue. But before he could make a sound, Byakuya cut in.

"At this point, it doesn't concern you Abarai-fukutaicho."

Renji snapped his mouth shut. He should have expected that. His taicho wasn't exactly an open-book kind of person so the chance of the redhead getting any information from him was less than zero.

Byakuya scribbled down a signature on a piece of paper and stood up, causing Renji to snap to attention again.

"Abarai, it has been requested that you return to the human world for a while to assess Kurosaki's training."

"Again?!" Renji blurted out without thinking, "I went a month ago! He's doing fine!" The redhead would have continued this way if Byakuya didn't give him a look that was as close to a glare as he had ever gotten from him, shutting him up instantly.

"It was requested by Zaraki-taicho. He wants to know if he has to send Madarame and Ayasegawa again." Renji knew it was no use arguing so he just saluted and left to get ready. Byakuya watched him go and, when he was sure he was gone, left the office himself.

"I don't remember saying anything like that."

Byakuya turned his head a fraction to see Kenpachi leaning against the wall beside the door, arms crossed. He waved crumpled piece of paper in his hand.

"I got the message. You worried about him?" The big man said, grinning. Byakuya sent him a blank look.

"Of course not. I really do need that report and the threat of you is the only way I could get him to go." He replied coolly. Kenpachi chuckled darkly.

"Yeah, yeah right. So you're saying that you haven't considered the possibility of this problem effecting others besides captains? If you ask me, he's a perfect target."

For once in his life, Byakuya had nothing to say to that, so he just turned on his heel and started down the hall to the meeting area, Kenpachi following close behind.

A/N: First chapter! I was surprised at how easy it was to write but there you have it ;)

Anyway, please review!