Chapter 10: Little Mistake

Tetsuya shifted in Byakuya's arms, moaning softly as his nightmare began to return.

"I told you to run," Renji hissed, his powerful golden eyes freezing Tetsuya's heart in his chest, "but you wouldn't listen to me. I told you to go and never to come back. But, here you are. I'm sorry. I'm not the person you remember…and now, I am going to kill you."

Tetsuya sat up, screaming in terror. Instantly, Byakuya's arms wrapped around him and his husband's deep, calm voice rumbled in his ear.

"It is all right. I am here. Everything is all right, Tetsuya."

Tetsuya's stomach lurched and he broke free, flash stepping to the bathroom, where he crashed to his knees, vomiting violently. Stars danced before his eyes and his vision went dim. He thought he could hear Byakuya calling his name, then a vicious burning erupted in his chest and he screamed louder. Byakuya caught him as he started to slide to the floor, and he watched in horror as slender wisps of hollow reiatsu hissed around Tetsuya's unconscious body.

"What is this?" Byakuya whispered, his eyes raptly fixated on the beginnings of his cousin's hollow transformation.

"Byakuya-sama!" Koji's voice gasped from the bathroom door.

Byakuya surged to his feet, holding Tetsuya tightly against him. He ran past Koji as though not seeing him and fled into the gardens, unaware that he was still in his nightclothes. He flew onto Arashi's back in a blazing flash step.

"To Karakura Town, quickly!" he instructed the stallion.

Arashi charged ahead into the precipice world, his hooves leaving a fiery trail behind him. Byakuya held Tetsuya possessively as the wisps of hollow reiatsu began to cling to Tetsuya's face, forming the edges of a hauntingly lovely blue mask.

"No!" Byakuya pleaded softly, "Anata, you must fight! We will stop this!"

He brushed the bits of bone away, gritting his teeth as more of the thick reiatsu swirled around his fingers and continued to try to stick to Tetsuya's pale face. Byakuya breathed a sigh of relief as they reached their exit and flash stepped down into Urahara Kisuke's underground training space. Byakuya climbed down, still holding Tetsuya, then he flash stepped up the long ladder and emerged into Urahara's shop.

"Byakuya," Kisuke greeted him.

He noticed Tetsuya, then and nodded in understanding.

"Bring him in here."

Byakuya carried his stricken cousin into Kisuke's lab, angling past the odds and ends of strange looking measurement apparatus and laid Tetsuya down on an examination table. Kisuke laid his hands on Tetsuya's chest, and Byakuya watched in surprise as a freezing field swirled around his cousin, enclosing him.

"What are you doing?" Byakuya asked worriedly, "He stopped moving!"

"It's okay," Kisuke assured him, "It's just that I need time to understand why Tetsuya is beginning to hollowfy. He's either reacting to a change in his own system, or something is affecting him to make this happen. Until I know, I can't do anything to help him."

"But using suspension is risky," Byakuya objected.

"Would you rather I did the wrong thing and killed him?" the shopkeeper asked tersely, "Didn't think so."

He scanned Tetsuya's body carefully, reading the instruments around the examination table at short intervals. Slowly, he turned his focus to Tetsuya's abdomen, a light sweat breaking out on his forehead and his lips tightening as he worked. Byakuya noticed his reaction and tensed.

"What is it?" he asked cautiously, "You've found something, haven't you?"

"You want the answer that's going to mean your cousin can live or do you want the one that will require you, as an officer of the Gotei, to kill him yourself?" Kisuke asked anxiously.

"What are you saying?" Byakuya demanded, his face going a shade lighter, "What is happening to Tetsuya?"

"He's pregnant," Kisuke announced.

"But…Tetsuya just had a child only a month ago!" Byakuya objected, "Although, he also did get pregnant very quickly after having his Naoki."

"This isn't a normal pregnancy. It's not even one that Tetsuya can carry to term. He's been impregnated by a hollow royal. Just that would kill most shinigamis, because of the shock to their systems from the intensity of the king's reiatsu. I have to evacuate the spirit chamber and end this before it destroys him."

Byakuya's jaw clenched and he watched in horrified fascination as the shopkeeper leaned over Tetsuya's body, attaching several tubes to his bared abdomen, then turning the dials on a nearby machine. He laid his hands near the tubes connected to Tetsuya, watching as the machine whirred and beeped. After several minutes, Kisuke sighed in relief and turned the machine off, then removed the tubes that had been attached to the unconscious shinigami. On the table, Tetsuya began to stir. He moaned discomfitedly and Kisuke patted his face gently and smiled at him.

"You're gonna be okay now," he assured Tetsuya, "We stopped you from hollowfying."

Tetsuya took and released several shaky breaths before slowly starting to sit up. Byakuya pushed him back down gently.

"You should rest," he advised his cousin.

Kisuke crossed his arms and gave Tetsuya a stern look.

"And while you're resting, I'd like you to tell us how you got impregnated by the hollow king."

"The hollow king?" Byakuya repeated in an agitated tone, "Tetsuya was…?"

"I was pregnant?" Tetsuya whispered, "But…?"

"I don't think that the king knew that one of the times he raped you, he also impregnated you. He probably figured that since you were already pregnant with Renji's child, he couldn't. That explains why the reiatsu around the babies that were born was tampered with, but the one that you were in the early stages of carrying was not. My finding was clear. No one but the hollow king could have fathered that baby."

"No, none of us knew that I was with child," Tetsuya revealed, "I mean, besides Renji's child."

"I think I already know what you're gonna tell me, so you don't have to feel like you're betraying anyone if you say it out loud," the shopkeeper said cryptically, "You've been through a lot. You've been trying to protect him, haven't you? We want to protect Renji too, Tetsuya. It's time you came clean with us and told us everything."

Tetsuya sat up and buried his face in Byakuya's shoulder.

"I n-never wanted to keep it from you," he answered shakily, "but I w-was afraid that you would kill Renji if you knew!"

"If we knew what, anata?" Byakuya pleaded, "Tetsuya, you must tell us where Renji is and what has happened to him. Only then can we know if we will be able to help him."

Tetsuya fought himself for several moments longer, silent sobs wracking his chest, before giving a shudder of resignation and leaning heavily against Byakuya's shoulder again.

"Renji is…at the hollow king's palace," he confessed.

"Renji is alive?" Byakuya asked worriedly, "Or is the reason that you are so reluctant to tell us anything, that he is dead and has become a full hollow?"

"Renji did not die in the warehouse, as you thought," Tetsuya explained, "He was cornered by the hollow king, who knew something about Renji that he did not know, himself. The whole scene in that place was a lie! It was a setup to get Renji to come."

"What?" Byakuya mused, frowning, "What did the hollow king want with Renji?"

"R-renji is…descended of a royal line of hollows," Tetsuya went on, "His bloodline has provided consorts for the hollow kings and allows them to have their heirs. Long ago, enemies of the hollow royals…"

"Plotted to kill the hollow king," Kisuke added, taking over, "They would have ended the consort's line, so it was hidden. But we have nothing, no information about where."

"The hollow consort's line was secreted in the low Rukongai," Tetsuya revealed, "Renji's body carried a seal that could only be removed by the hollow king, himself. He captured Renji and forced him to transform, then…"

Tetsuya broke off, shivering uncomfortably as Byakuya's eyes flickered in realization.

"It was Renji who attacked you in the warehouse and almost killed you," the Kuchiki leader concluded, "That is why you wouldn't tell me anything. You feared I would order Renji's death."

"It's a logical conclusion," Kisuke offered, "You would have been put in a really awkward situation."

"I know, but…"

"Byakuya," Tetsuya whispered, "Renji was unable to remember me at first. That is why he attacked me. I knew you would be under pressure to order his termination, and you and I were drifting apart, so I went into the desert alone and tracked Renji to the hollow king's palace. I was able to connect with him, and he started to regain his memory of you and me. But I was captured. The hollow king wanted to kill me, but Renji intervened. He reminded the king that I am one of the fathers of Renji's child, and that Renji needed me for the required infusions to keep the baby alive."

Byakuya's eyes rounded.

"The baby boy?" he mused, "He is…ours?"

"Yours, mine and Renji's," Tetsuya confirmed, "The unidentifiable contributor was the hollow king. He added his reiatsu and watched as the baby grew, because he wanted to impregnate Renji, himself, but wasn't sure if he could, because of Renji's bond with us."

"So, he kept you at the palace to keep Renji's baby alive so he could learn about the process and foster the best chances of seeding his own heir later," Byakuya surmised.

"And he probably planned to kill you and the baby at the end of it, didn't he?" Kisuke inquired.

"Yes," Tetsuya confessed softly.

"Tetsuya, did you also have relations with the hollow king?" Byakuya asked.

"Not by choice," Tetsuya admitted, "In addition to ordering me to give Renji the infusions he needed, he made me their sexual servant. He enjoyed raping Renji and me, as well as ordering Renji to abuse me. I could tell that even though Renji obeyed him, he was only doing so to protect me. If he had disobeyed the king, Yutaka would have killed me, himself. He was very angry that you and I had dared to touch his consort…that we had bonded with Renji and threw his plans into chaos."

"Yeah," Kisuke sighed, "I can see the problem he had. See, you and Byakuya are spirit bonded with Renji, and so even though Renji also carries this royal hollow bloodline, he is connected to you. Even if the hollow king does try, he can't impregnate Renji without him also being seeded by one of you. This is true for as long as the three of you live. And that brings us to an uncomfortable fact. To impregnate Renji, the hollow king either needs to capture and use one of you two…or he needs to kill both of you to shatter the bond. Now, if he knew that killing you would do the trick, he would have killed Tetsuya."

"He did order Renji to kill me," Tetsuya reminded him, "both in the warehouse and when the baby was born and I was trying to help Renji escape."

"I think that something like that just indicates he doesn't know exactly what he's doing," Kisuke concluded, "He knows that you and Byakuya can impregnate Renji, and by now, I'll bet he knows he can't. Now, whether he chooses to kill you both or he concludes that he needs you for the impregnation and wants to capture one or both of you, the fact is that the two of you are in real danger. You saw the effectiveness of the trap he set to catch Renji."

"Yes," Byakuya agreed, "But the trap that snared Renji was completely unexpected. We know he is coming this time and we can anticipate him."

Kisuke nodded.

"I think we can guess that he'll probably be cautious enough to keep you alive to seed a couple of heirs before killing you to see if that will end the bond you have with Renji," the shopkeeper posited, "That way, if the bond ends with your deaths, he gets Renji and if it doesn't, you'll still be dead and he will have a couple of blood heirs, even if he had to use you to get them."

"But the common denominator seems to be that he needs to think he is in control of the situation," Byakuya decided.

"Yes," Kisuke agreed, "and that gives us a little window of potential. The question is, what are we gonna do with that?"

XXXXXXXXXX

Renji woke to a feeling of intense nausea and crawled out of the king's bed to stagger to the bathroom. He only managed a few stumbling steps before collapsing onto the floor and vomiting. The sound drew the attention of the guards, who helped the ailing consort back into bed and summoned the king's healer.

"It's like the other times," the solemn faced guard reported grimly.

The healer shook his head grimly.

"I had hoped that the treatments using Tetsuya's reiatsu traces that were left here would make the process work, but it appears that having the reiatsu alone is not enough."

The guards came to attention as the king entered the room, wearing an agitated look.

"The process has failed again?" he asked in an annoyed tone.

"Your majesty," the healer said quietly, "I think that it's clear that what I suspected is true. The process will not work unless we include at least one of the two shinigamis who are bonded with Renji."

"I t-told you, I killed Tetsuya!" Renji panted weakly, "I cornered him and cut him up, just like you ordered me to do."

The king gave him a scathing look.

"I don't know if I believe you," he said mockingly, "You enjoyed that little shinigami toy too much. I think you let him go, didn't you?"

"N-no, I…!"

Renji grunted in agony as the king struck him across the face.

"Liar!" he snarled, "I saw your eyes when I hurt him."

"Your majesty, please!" the healer pleaded, "The consort is in no condition for punishment. He has been badly weakened by your repeated attempts to impregnate him. If you do not stop, he will be damaged beyond repair."

"He is of no use to me if he can't even bear me an heir!" the enraged king roared.

"He might yet be able to give you an heir, but you must be careful not to damage him while we confirm how that might be done."

"You've said how it must be done," the king said shortly, "We will first discover whether or not Tetsuya was killed and if he was not, we will capture him."

"And if he was killed?" the healer asked warily.

"Then, you and my elite guard staff had better be prepared to capture and effectively hold Kuchiki Byakuya while we use him for the impregnation.

The healer and guards' faces paled.

"You can't be serious, your majesty!" the healer said breathlessly, "Kuchiki Byakuya is a taichou and a clan leader. There is no way we can imprison someone like that for any length of time."

"We only need time to force him to copulate with my consort, and after that, you are free to kill him. One way or another, I will have my heir!"

XXXXXXXXXX

Tetsuya knelt on a guest bed within Kisuke's shop, his dark blue eyes intently focused on the black clouds and steady rain outside the window. He breathed slowly, thinking back to the last time he had felt Renji's arms holding him, and tears flooded the corners of his eyes as he wondered if he would ever be touched by those rough, warm, loving hands again. He barely heard as the bedroom door opened and slow footsteps approached him from behind. He knew before the person's arms slid around him that it was Byakuya and he ached at the little sting of truth that stabbed his heart.

We both want more than anything for Renji to come home.

A little surprised gasp escaped him as Byakuya's fingers brushed teasingly over his erect nipples and he nudged the misbehaving strands of wavy hair from Tetsuya's shoulder to expose the vulnerable, pale flesh of this throat.

"Byakuya," Tetsuya whispered fervently, "you do not have to…"

"Shh," Byakuya breathed in his ear, "I want you, Tetsuya. I was not sure that I would ever see you again. And when you did return, you were unconscious and I did not know if you were going to wake. I sat at your side, watching you sleep endlessly, and all I wanted was to hold you and make love to you. I wanted to start over with you and tell you from the first day how much I love you. I love you, Tetsuya. I really do love you."

Tetsuya turned and smiled into his cousin's shoulder, rubbing his awakening genitalia against his husband's and meeting Byakuya for a flurry of hot, open-mouthed kisses. Byakuya's pearly fingernails slid down Tetsuya's slender back, exciting goosebumps on the slighter man's blushing skin and make him moan hungrily and writhe against his husband's alert nether region. Byakuya's hands curved around his soft bottom, his fingers invading Tetsuya's entrance and beginning a slow and sensual preparation. Tetsuya panted against his shoulder, meeting him for another bout of biting kisses, before rearing back and falling onto the bed as his body was lovingly invaded.

Byakuya's affections have never felt so passionate, Tetsuya mused inwardly, I always felt he was more passionate with Renji. Sometimes, I thought he was just being gentler with me, and sometimes I cried after, because it did seem like he loved me less. But right now, I feel like he very much wants me.

He raised his hips, eagerly meeting every hard, powerful thrust and his fingertips caressed Byakuya's beautiful face and white throat. He groaned wantonly as Byakuya withdrew for a moment and turned him onto his belly, then attacked from behind, his wild thrusts making Tetsuya tear at the bedding with clenching fingertips. Firm hands grabbed his bottom and held on as Byakuya's movements slowed and became rougher and more urgent. Byakuya loosed a shuddering breath, digging in with his fingernails as he released into his husband's still undulating body. Tetsuya howled, arching his back as he expelled his own release, then collapsing onto the bed, panting harshly in recovery. Byakuya fell down on his back and kissed the side of his sweating neck affectionately.

"You are beautiful, Tetsuya," he whispered, "You are irresistible with all of your barriers down like this. You did not used to be this way with me."

A little tear surprised the corner of Tetsuya's eye and escaped onto his cheek.

"I think we both were holding back in our own way," he confessed, "But losing Renji as we have has opened our eyes. I only hope that we are able to finally bring him home."

"We will bring him home, Tetsuya," Byakuya promised, taking his husband's hand in his and caressing his fingers gently, "Whatever it takes, we will rescue him as Renji has rescued each of us!"