Logic. Logic was predictable. Logic was cold. Logic could be figured out and understood. It was something that could be grasped and because of those things, controlled. It never surprised. It never hurt. And so Ulquiorra built his world around it and the focus it gave his mind. He lived for that focus...it drowned out all else. If he had been told that something bright and unpredictable was going to prick that grey wall of logic he would have begged for it not to be so. He hated brightness and the hope and then the inevitable pain that it always brought. He wanted no such thing in his life anymore, but wanting (or not wanting as the case may be) is not enough to change the events that unfold and make up life and death.
"I'm having your breakfast brought in." Ulquiorra told the figure in front of the window. He often found her there...always straining at the bars of her prison, mentally if not physically. She didn't look at him and he had time to look at her and wonder how something could look so bright against the blinding white that made up the palace and all in it. It didn't seem that anything could shine so when set against such brightness itself, and yet she did. "I hope you are hungry, since you are going to have to eat whether you are or not."
"I am...a little." Orihime answered him finally turning her back on the window and the freedom it teased her with.
"Why do you still look out everyday as though you could ever have hope to escape? There is no hope. The sooner you learn that the better off you'll be." Ulquiorra saw her eyes widen a little at that, but she didn't answer him...not yet at least. He turned to look out into the hall at the sound of approaching footsteps. "Here is your food." Ulquiorra took the tray and put it on her table and she sat down to it.
"You know...I didn't expect the food here to be any good, but it is." she informed him as she started eating.
"You eat what Aizen-sama eats, you shouldn't expect anything but the best." Ulquiorra told the servant to leave them and then he stood and watched her eat. Just to make sure she does, he told himself. As he watched her he felt a twitch of regret at not being able to eat anymore, but he quickly squashed it down to the place inside he stored anything resembling a feeling.
As if she could read his thoughts Orihime piped up, "Can you eat anymore, Ulquiorra?"
"You shouldn't ask me such rude questions." Ulquiorra spat back. "And if you think about it you already know the answer."
"Oh..." Orihime answered softly stirring the remains of her breakfast with a fork. Ulquiorra hoped her mind was too innocent to take her to the right answer to what he did consume, but he knew that her recent experience with lower hollows would give her the truth of it. He noticed after that she wouldn't meet his eyes and his anger began its slow burn against her.
"Um...I'm not hungry any more. Have I eaten enough to please Aizen-sama?" she asked her plate hopefully.
Ulquiorra's hands trembled to place themselves around her neck...he longed to grab her and scream in her face, "Don't think of me like that! DON'T!" Instead he curtly nodded and when she stood up he was seized by an uncontrollable desire to trap her in some way...if just for a moment...to prove to her (and himself though that thought was so faint as to not exist to him...consciously at least) the truth of what he was. He quickly went to her and backed her against the wall and placed his hands on either side of her small frame. He wasn't even sure exactly what she was stirring up in him...but it felt like some form of seething arousal. He hated the out of control feeling it (no, SHE) gave him. It dimly reminded him of being a hollow and being a slave to his appetites...it was the antithesis of logic. It was bright, but not in a beautiful way like she was. "Do you want to know how we arrancar do it...how we "eat"? It's different than lower hollows. In fact it is a lot like kissing." He could feel her trembling next to him though he wasn't touching her at all. Her fear upped her spirit energy and he trembled a little at it's sweetness. He longed to put his lips to hers, but whether it would be to kiss her or to suck out her soul he wasn't even sure anymore. Both his anger at her and his desire for her threatened to overwhelm him.
"Please..." she whispered to the floor. He noticed tears starting to form in her eyes. He silently prayed that they wouldn't fall down her face because then the need to touch her and wipe them away would be too great. "I don't want you to hurt me...not you."
He kept her there a moment more just so she wouldn't forget that he was as dangerous if not more so than everyone else she was exposed to here. Then he slowly stepped away from the wall and placed his hands back in his pockets to let her go. She looked up at him and met his eyes with only a touch of her fear left. "Thank you. And that is why I hope." she said and that somehow made him the angriest of all. He spun on his heel and quickly strode from her room, his mind a tumultuous sea of emotion that needed to be buried and quick. As he practically ran back to his rooms he tried to calm himself by logically thinking through the newest assignment Aizen had given him just this morning. The usually calming effects of logic did nothing for him this time though. As he entered his front room he slammed his fist through the wall feeling nothing...though he dimly hoped that he would feel the pain from it this time. Pain though remained a distant memory of life like it always did. He leaned his back against the cool stone and muttered to himself, "I have to get myself under control. I have to get myself under control." over and over again like a soothing mantra.
As he slowly regained calmness he noticed that his arousal had never left him. He cursed and hated himself and what he was about to do. He hated pleasure even more than pain...it hurt worse somehow. And he knew what images would come unbidden at his climax...the same ones that haunted his dreams of her. The way she had looked at that boy she had went to say goodbye to. The one that she wanted to see one last time more than any other person she knew. The one that made her entire being light up so much that it hurt his eyes and the place where his heart use to be. The one that dared to come here now to this very place where nightmares walked to free her and take her away. He was right and when he came he held back the tears that threatened to form. "I will not cry any more! I cried too much in life! I will not do it in death!" he yelled into the emptiness. "But...but what have you done to me woman? I hate it and I want to hate you, but I can't somehow. I wish I could. It would be easier if I could hate you too." He turned his eyes towards his own window and though not barred it seemed to keep him here as much as Orihime's did her. He knew there was no escape for him, but he hoped (so deeply he was barely aware of it) that there was for her.