IMPORTANT. PLEASE READ:
I am writing this as a trigger warning and as a forewarning to the readers in general. This fic will NOT be depicting a healthy relationship/romance between our lovely two protagonists at all, and should never be taken as such. Anyone experiencing abuse or the after-effects of abuse, I urge you to seek help, and hope from the bottom of my heart that you will find it.
I do not own Bleach or any other copyrighted material.
That having been said, here it begins..
Her hands gripped at the cold stone floor, fingernails scraping against the surface unpleasantly, having not been cut for weeks. Orihime Inoue stared blankly into the darkness, an unbearably heavy feeling weighing down on her chest. Sometimes she would fade out of consciousness, only to snap awake, weariness immediately settling back into her flesh.
She waited. She had waited for so, so long already.
Where was everyone?
Why was no-one coming?
How much longer would she be here, alone, aching all over with despair?
Inoue did not know how much more she could take.
The almost permanent darkness of the room had already begun to cloud the rust-haired girls' vulnerable mind. It would seep straight into her thoughts when it knew she wasn't strong enough to keep it out, and take hold, twisted black roots burrowing deeper into her brain, ripping apart every memory she held dear slowly, analytically. More often than not, she would remember things she hadn't thought about in years, that usually resided in only the darkest depths and recesses of her soul.
"You are worth nothing," her father spat. "Don't you ever forget that." He gripped her brother, Sora's, arm harshly and ripped him away from in front of a terrified three year old Orihime. Her fear seemed to only fuel his anger. "Get that pitiful expression off your face, scum," he hissed. "You don't deserve to be cared for."
That was the last birthday she had spent with her parents, together as a family. Sora had escaped with her shortly thereafter.
In Orihime's mind, things soon began getting jumbled. The confusion and disorientation she felt in her physical prison translated into both nightmares when she was asleep, and mental chaos when she was not.
"You are worth nothing," Kurosaki Ichigo drawled out. Orihime flinched, only to be chastised harshly by her friend, Uryuu Ishida.
"You're such a bother, scum. You can't do anything right. It would be better if you had never been born," the Quincy grit out with a glare.
And then there was Tatsuki. Her face was twisted in an obvious display of disgust. "I can't believe I ever even gave you the time of day. You're just a waste of space, like your mother."
Orihime's silver orbs filled with tears. Couldn't they see, they were hurting her? Was it their fault she was trapped here? How could they say they cared about her and loved her, and then turn around and be so cruel and cold?
They never cared or loved you, the darkness whispered. They want you to stay here, like this. That's why they haven't come for you. If they really cared, they would have taken you away long ago. They're strong enough to have done it, if they had really desired it. The truth is, they're glad you're gone.
Orihime felt the weight of her body multiply a hundred fold with the magnitude of what she felt was an epiphany. 'They're not coming for me..'
You're right. They're not.
Hot tears ran down her cheeks, her sorrowful eyes shining like quicksilver in the blackness, reflecting only the light of the moon seeping in through a crack in the wall.
It was like this that He found her.
He was the first person she saw after three months' imprisonment. When Orihime heard footsteps, she waited for the tell-tale clatter of the food tray being slid under the door, which happened - she thought - twice a day or so (she could not really tell).
But instead, she heard the doorknob being twisted and the creak of the door.
Orihime froze.
Her blood ran cold and she was paralysed, unable to speak, unable to even breathe. All she could feel was the most primal of fears, washing over her, her heart rate going wild and whole body breaking out in a cold sweat. What was happening? Did they decide it was finally time to kill her? She struggled to gasp for air, simultaneously squeezing her eyes shut as hard as she could. Please God, she prayed, please don't let them see me...Oh please, please...
"Woman."
Time stopped. Orihime's eyes flew open and she turned her head towards the door in what seemed to her to be slow motion. Dread was written plainly all over her face.
There, He stood.
The woman, He thought, looked ill. Her skin was ghastly pallid; auburn locks sticking to her forehead with sweat. He frowned, irritated at the prospect of their poached healer being possibly out of commission. He studied her body in a detached manner, scanning over for any other signs of physical malaise. Finding none, he moved his gaze upwards to her face, and found it to be skewed in distress.
But it was her eyes that caught Ulquiorra, the great fourth Espada, off-guard.
He had seen the expression of fear on many, many faces in his lifetime, and was the cause of almost all of them. The wide eyed, horror-struck look was one he encountered on a daily basis throughout his abnormally long lifespan.
Never, not even once before, had he seen that look mixed with the rest of what he saw in her stormy grey irises.
It was written there, plain and clear, behind the terror. It seemed that she truly believed, consciously or no, that after three months of darkness and solitude, He was all she had. Her soul was bared to him in the most vulnerable way through those eyes, like the exposed and arched neck of a lover.
And He knew then: whatever he did next, she would give it the utmost attention and regard.
She was giving herself away to him and she hadn't even realised.
"Woman," He repeated at length, "Breathe."
Orihime took a sharp inhale and it was like the spell of paralysis was broken. She promptly began to pant, making up for lost oxygen. Ulquiorra watched the colour slowly return to her skin and then nodded, satisfied, before advancing on her. At this, she began to panic again, and inched her way backwards, before colliding with a wall. There truly was very little space in her cell.
She could see His lithe silhouette against the white light streaming through the open door. She felt the pang of a headache at the sharp brightness, although she imagined that before - in the times before she was here, and she had trouble remembering what that had been like really, any more - the light was much brighter, and she had been able to look at that with ease. He finally stopped, mere inches from her. Green eyes bore into her silver.
"You are being moved to a new room." Orihime let out a strangled gasp, before clamping her mouth shut as his gaze intensified.
"I will escort you there, and you will listen to me. Do you understand, woman?"
Orihime didn't quite understand yet - her mind was still reeling at the sudden sensory input, and she was finding it hard to make heads or tails of anything.
He seemed to sense this, and curled his fingers around her upper arm. "Follow," he instructed shortly and began to lead her out.
In the days to come, Orihime would not remember anything from the walk to her new room except the sensation of His hand, steady and controlled, gripping her arm uncomfortably tight. She held onto this sensation like a lifeline.
When they arrived, He dumped her there and left, locking the door behind Him.
She crumpled onto the floor, unable to stay standing any longer. It was too much. Orihime felt faint, like she was about to pass out; shutting her eyes and covering her face with her palms seemed to help - the familiar darkness was a welcome respite from the shock of the recently transpired events.
"Breathe," His voice echoed in her head. She did so obediently; slowly, the shaken girl relaxed. Adrenaline draining away, she felt bruises in the shape of His long, spidery fingers forming on her biceps, throbbing painfully at random intervals. The pain focused her thoughts and brought some clarity to her troubled mind.
Two hours later, Orihime Inoue was able to finally open her eyes and take in her surroundings.
This room was better.
It was big. She had space to exercise, if she so desired. She knew her muscles had atrophied significantly during her time in the cramped cell: She could feel it.
And it had a sofa.
Orihime could hardly believe her eyes when she saw it. Surely, this couldn't be real?
A dive onto the cushions a minute later proved that yes, it was. She lay there, arm over her face, covering her eyes tiredly. That one movement had already exhausted her. Orihime Inoue proceeded to drift off into what seemed like utmost bliss, sleep which overtook her so quickly she had barely any time to appreciate the softness of the mattress.
In her dreams, she was surrounded by slabs of rock in the shapes of her family and friends, only with entirely demonic facial expressions. They slowly closed in on her, making her bones creak under their pressure, and bursting arteries under her skin.
Then, just as she had given up hope, half-crushed and resigned to her fate, bright green eyes appeared, and the stone slabs were miraculously gone.
She liked those eyes.
They had made the pain stop.