unslashable

[branchandroot]

Well, they're not, really, it's just that I can't bring myself to do what would be neccessary.

See, I finally figured out why I can't write Byakuya and Renji in bed under any circumstances, despite the buckets of chemistry between them and the fact that, scenically, it would be really, really hot.

It's because I don't believe that Byakuya is capable of participating in any such relationship unless he's the one in control. And that wouldn't happen with Renji unless Renji gave up on the idea of ever matching or surpassing Byakuya. And if that happened it would break Renji's spirit completely.

And then... he just wouldn't be him, you know? And all the fun would go out of it.

Comments

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

That, and for Renji to be with Byakuya would require, in some ways, that he lock away the parts of him that Byakuya might see as weakness: any revealing of the fact that Renji is really one big squishy puddle o' mooshiness when it comes to the people he cares about. Oh, he makes a lot of noise, but there's no doubt he's all mooshy about, say, Rukia. I can't see Byakuya being willing to taint himself with such lack/loss of control, and I can't see Renji being willing to see that care/affection as anything negative.

They work well as a tension-filled, homoerotic-subtext, but the actual carrying-through seems highly, highly unlikely. In fact, I can see RoyxEd in canon ten times faster than Byakuya and Renji, and that's saying something.

Now, Byakuya and the guy who's in charge of Rukia's team (which is that, 11th? can't recall) -- the two of them? Hmmmm. Mostly because I think Utikake (and damn it, I remembered it a second ago but my brain is shot right now from ofic sputterings) is secure enough in his own skills that he's not really that intimidated by much, with rare exceptions. He, like the flower-guy captain, are both men who wouldn't lose sleep over whether Byakuya was "in control" and they weren't; they might even relish such an event but not see it as a statement on them, over all, as people. Renji isn't quite that secure in his skills, not yet. (In other words, it takes a damn secure person to let Byakuya be in control, and a truly secure person could top-from-the-bottom leaving Byakuya certain he was running the show, and unaware he'd been manipulated just fine, thank you.)

Heh.

[branchandroot]

I've been rereading the manga, and, on reflection, I think Byakuya is actually a good deal more easygoing under normal circumstances than we see him. That very first intro, when they come to get Rukia, he's aloof and arrogant and cool, but he's not the ice-cold, razor sharp guy we see after Rukia is condemned. (And, of course, until the end of the Rescue arc; he also seems a bit... well, softer, when he and Renji are talking in his hospital room, too.) So I kind of wonder whether he wouldn't be accepting, and maybe amused by Renji's basic squooshiness.

...though I think what would draw him to Renji would have to be Renji's edginess, his strength and ambition. Both would have to be present. So it couldn't be an all-squoosh relationship, that's for sure. But Byakuya is /all/ about the self-control, yeah, so I don't think it would be very lasting. Renji really does need more intimacy--more relaxed intimacy--than Byakuya could probably give him.

*grins* Thirteenth. I actually have inklings of smutbunnies from the past, when Byakuya was younger, and just learning, and Ukitake would have been very much the nice senpai. Ukitake and Kyouraku are so much older than the rest of the captains and vices, I could see Byakyua being a slightly uncertain and possibly even rather sweet young man, and Ukitake taking him to bed.