A one-shot based on an idea that came to me at 3am XD
Special thanks to aria0ft3hs0u1 who suggested the name.
Beta Cerice Belle.
ONE NIGHT HEARTBEAT
It poured as if the heavens had torn asunder. The night was dark, like it had a million secrets to hide. He was soaked to the skin but he didn't care. After all he was going to be dead pretty soon, who cared if he was feeling cold now? No one; and therein lay the problem. No one cared. Soon he would be reduced to nothing – ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Before long, he would join the millions of faceless dead and would be completely erased from living memory. He harbored no illusions of grandeur for it was a myth. Much like he'd stopped believing in dragons, unicorns and Santa-Claus by the age of eight, he'd stopped believing that men lived on in memory by the time he was fourteen.
Pragmatism told him that death was an eventuality. It happened to one and all. If you were born, you would die. It was a foregone conclusion. But he wasn't ready! He had always thought that when he died, he'd be in the ripe old age of seventy-something, having lived a full life. But now, at the age of twenty-nine he was standing face-to-face with his mortality and he wasn't sure what he felt, if he felt anything at all. He wasn't even going to live to see himself turn thirty. His best friend Grimmjow had been so angry at the news that he had slapped him and had called him a liar. Later he had accepted the inevitable and had resorted to snarky gallows humor.
Pushing his jet black hair out of his eyes, he made his way to the only shelter that he could see; a dilapidated bus-stand. He would have loved to find a spot that was better than this but beggars couldn't be choosers. Once inside, he wiped his face with his icy cold hands and fished out his cell phone from inside his jacket pocket, hoping against hope that he could at least call Grimmjow to come and pick him up. But as luck would have it, his phone had died. Of course, what else could he expect? Life was screwing him up pretty bad as it is, so why would it not dump him here in the middle of nowhere, when it was raining with a vengeance? As an added measure, his car had a flat and his spare tire was out of commission. So he was stuck; in a godforsaken place, under a dilapidated bus-stop, a sole lamp-post for company, with an unmovable car and an unusable phone. Well that wasn't surprising. Life had a pretty sick sense of humor.
Slowly with shaking hands, Ulquiorra pulled out his cigarette case. He took one; grateful that at least they were dry, thanks to the metal case. He placed it on his lips and searched his pockets for the lighter. Fishing it out of his pant pocket, he tried to light it up. It took him several tries but he finally managed to light his cigarette, his shaking hands and the wind making it very difficult for him to complete this simple task.
Hey, you gotta stop it! Grimmjow would have said That stuff kills.
Oddly, Ulquiorra found his sick jokes easier to deal with than the pity-laced glances he got every time someone came to know about his Leukemia. Worse was when people started to talk to him in whispers, as if he were already dead. It made him want to scream.
He inhaled deeply, breathing in the cigarette smoke, letting its warmth spread through his body. Though people loved to point out to him that tobacco was a carcinogen, his Cancer wasn't a result of his occasional cigarette. His Leukemia had first been detected at the age of twenty-four. It had been in the second stage and with several rounds of chemo and extensive medication he had managed to beat the disease. But then it had returned again at the age of twenty-eight and this time, he knew he was a goner. His body had stopped responding to the treatment so now he was simply waiting. His body was like a ticking time-bomb. Exhaling the smoke, he hugged his jacket closer and wondered what exactly had he done with his life? Nothing!
A bright light distracted him and he turned to see a car approaching. He took a couple of hopeful steps towards the car. Maybe he could hitch-hike a ride to civilization. The car stopped in front of the bus-stop with a loud screech and Ulquiorra's lips twitched into a rare smirk. He took a couple more steps when the passenger door opened and someone stepped out. The said someone kicked the passenger door vehemently as the car sped off.
"You jerk!" the woman screamed on top of her lungs.
Sighing Ulquiorra resumed his position, reclining against the wall of the bus-stop. Muttering angrily, the woman stomped over to the bus-stop. It was a testament to how heavily it was raining that by when the woman sat down on the bench, her extremely short shorts made a squelching noise. With nothing better to do, Ulquiorra started taking in the woman's appearance. Her hair, slightly mussed, was a violent shade of orange that reminded him of his former classmate Ichigo Kurosaki. Although he could only see her profile, he thought she was very beautiful. Her white top was a little too tight and a little too low, so it showed off her generous bosom. It did not help that she was drenched so he could see her dark bra. Then there were her really short shorts, the ones that showed more than they hid. She carried a small handbag that looked overstuffed. Added to the equation were the trashy heels, the cheap and strong perfume and those nails colored in that hideous pink. There was no doubt in his mind what this woman was.
"What the fuck are you staring at?" she asked irately.
Ulquiorra had never been known for tact, but the prospect of dying had taken off whatever semblance of politeness he had possessed. Therefore he replied bluntly, "You."
"If you have the money, you can do more than stare," she replied with equal bluntness.
"No thank you. I have never desired cheap thrills," he retorted.
"Just my fucking luck," she said with a huff, "Nothing's going my way today. First this storm, then that jerk and now you."
Normally Ulquiorra would have ignored her rambling but he strangely found himself asking, "What have I done?"
"Nothing," she said shortly, "And that's the problem. I am not freezing my fucking skin off in this rain just so that some perv can get-off staring at my wet body. I gotta work."
The preposterous statement irked Ulquiorra off, "Well I wasn't 'getting off' staring at you. I was staring at you because there is nothing else to do," however, Ulquiorra shrugged his jacket off and laid it on the bench, "Wear that, you'll catch a cold."
The woman blinked at him a couple of times and said, "I hate chauvinists. You are as likely to catch a cold as I am, or do you think I am some weak woman who can't fight off a common cold?"
Despite himself, Ulquiorra smirked, "On the contrary, I am giving you that jacket because you can fight the cold," he didn't say that he himself stood no chance against common cold. The Cancer and the medications he had had to take over these years had ruined his immune system and now he caught every bug, every infection.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" the woman finally turned to look at him. Uquiorra realized he was right in his assumption; she was indeed a beautiful woman.
He sighed, "Nothing. Just take the jacket already! There should be a scarf in one of the pockets, if it is not sopping wet, use it to dry yourself."
The expression on her face was an odd mix of disbelief, suspicion, vulnerability and gratitude. How a person could show so many emotions in one look was beyond him. She took the jacket and rummaged its pockets for the scarf. She found it, along with the cigarette case. She quickly used the scarf to do a rudimentary job of drying herself and wrapped the jacket around herself. Holding up the cigarette case she asked,
"May I?"
He nodded. As she took one out of the case, he pulled out the lighter and walked up to her, offering the light. She gave him a half smile and accepted the offer. She pulled deeply and closed her eyes savoring the warmth spreading through her. Ulquiorra sat down on the other side of the bench staring at the rain.
"Why are you waiting out in this dump?" she asked.
He nodded towards his car and said, "I have a flat and my spare is useless."
"That sucks," he noticed that her voice no longer carried the previous hostility, "That too in this weather."
On principle, Ulquiorra never spoke about the weather. He considered it the worst sort of ice-breakers. So he nodded and remained silent. After a brief silence she spoke again,
"I am Orihime Inoue."
"And you are telling me your name because?" He asked.
Grinning she said, "It looks like we both are stuck here till the storm lets up. And since you are not one for 'cheap thrills'," she said making quotes with her fingers, "I figured we'd pass the time talking. And when I was young, my mum told me not to talk to strangers."
"Right! Because clearly you have followed every other advice your mum gave you."
Uquiorra fully expected her to get angry and start shouting or hitting him. Indeed the woman did stare at him with narrowed eyes but then, unexpectedly she burst out laughing.
"Oh my!" she wiped her tears of mirth, "you really are something. You don't mince words, do you?"
"No," came the short reply.
The two of them lapsed into silence. Ulquiorra had long since finished his cigarette and was now beginning to feel hungry. In an effort to distract himself from his hunger, he spoke up, "I am Ulquiorra Schiffer."
The woman smiled, took a last puff from her cigarette and snubbed the butt under her foot, "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"You talk surprisingly well, considering," he was sure that this time she would snap but she just shrugged.
"I may not have any formal degrees but I know how to read and write," she replied thoughtfully, "I would say I am pretty well-read, given my circumstances."
He nodded. Suddenly the woman leaned in closer.
"You are looking really pale," she said with a frown, "you must be freezing. You have a car, why don't you sit in that?"
"I always look pale," he moved slightly, as though avoiding her scrutiny, "I don't really care if I am freezing or not and the car will get very suffocating."
"You don't care if you are freezing?" she raised her eyebrows, "That's a first. How can you not care?"
"None of your business," he replied shortly.
"O.K. then," she intoned exaggeratedly, "touchy, touchy!"
For the next few minutes the rain continued to pour without showing any signs of letting up any time soon. Unable to contain his hunger any longer he asked,
"Do you know if there are any eateries around?"
"There is really nothing much around," she said crossing her legs, "There's Karakura town about twenty miles that way and Hueco Mundo about thirty five miles on that side. In between there's a lot of nothingness.
He shook his head. Typical! Life really hated him. The woman was digging into her purse as he was busy cursing his life afresh. She brought out a sandwich, a half-eaten packet of chips and a couple of energy bars.
"Here," when he looked skeptical she said, "Don't worry I don't have any diseases."
He couldn't stop the derisive snort that escaped his lips, "That doesn't bother me the least. I was wondering why the charity?"
"You gave me the jacket. Something about one good gesture deserving another," she said with a smile.
As he reached for the pack of chips he realized that she had stopped dropping the f-bombs. He was secretly glad for it. He was beginning to realize that behind the crude exterior, she was probably a nice person, someone who he would have liked to know more about had the circumstances been different.
A particularly cold gust of wind made him shiver. Almost instantly his jacket was in front of him. He shook his head and pushed her hand away, "Your need is greater than mine."
"You really don't care about your health," it had been more of a statement.
He looked at her sharply, "What do you mean?"
"You are refusing the jacket when it's clear you need it. You said you don't care if you are freezing or not. You barely ate anything, despite being hungry. And you said something about not being bothered about diseases. It's almost as though you think of yourself as Superman from planet Kriston."
"Krypton," he corrected automatically, "And no I don't think of myself as Superman."
"Then why the fuck won't you take the jacket?" she sounded annoyed.
"You know I liked you better when you swore less," he said coolly, brushing the hair out of his eyes. He was glad his hair had grown back; he had hated the hairless look post-chemo. It led to a lot of uncomfortable questions. Now, almost as an act of defiance, he had let it grow long, to the point that it fell below his collar.
"I am a hooker," she snapped, "swearing comes with the profession."
He leaned back, using his hands as support, "Perhaps, but it doesn't come naturally to you. You force it. Life is too short to wear masks just to fit in."
Her eyes narrowed and he could feel anger radiating from her, "Who the fuck do you think you are to lecture me about my choices. You say whatever shit crosses your mind, what the fuck do you know about the need for masks?"
He shrugged, "You're right, I don't, because I have never felt the need to blend in. However, I do know a thing or two about life."
"You?" she screeched, dumping the jacket on the bench, "You who gives away costly leather jackets to perfect strangers, you who wears designer watches and shoes, smokes expensive cigarettes, drives a luxury car, what do you know about life? You have fucking had everything handed to you on a silver platter! What the fuck do you know about life?"
Ulquiorra's own eyes narrowed as he replied icily, "Is money everything? Is there nothing else in life that you value?"
"For someone like me who lives a hand-to-mouth existence, money IS everything."
"Alright, let's say you get all the money you desire, then what?" For the first time in a long while, he felt his temper flaring. He knew that he was projecting; he knew that he wasn't angry at her, not really. It was his anger at feeling unwell all the time. It was his anger at his deteriorating health. It was his anger at watching his life slip away. Ultimately, it was his anger at the cards he had been dealt with. Up until now, he had kept it all bottled up within him but now, the volcano had come precariously close to erupting.
"I cannot even imagine a state like that!" she screamed back, "What do you know what it is like to live without money! It is very easy to preach philosophy when you have a full stomach, try doing it when you are fighting for your survival."
"What makes you think I don't know what it is to fight survival?" he shouted back, well aware that his fragile body would not be able to take the excitement for long. However, he needed it. The dam had broken and the pent up frustrations were gushing out all at once. "Do not go making presumptions based on appearances woman! Appearances can be deceptive."
"Presumptions?" they were feeding off each other's anger. Ulquiorra suspected that she too was venting. "Presumptions are what keep me alive. Do you think there aren't enough lunatics out there who'd pick up a hooker, tie her up, rape her and then hack her to pieces, possibly eat her? How do you think I have avoided being turned into shish kebab? Pre-fucking-sumptions! So don't you go telling me what's what sitting on that high horse of yours!"
"Do you think you are the only one here to whom life has been unfair? You think I am lying on a bed of roses?" his body was telling him to calm down, he'd pushed it enough for one day, but he wasn't willing to listen to it. The tightness in his chest needed to be dislodged.
"So you didn't get your favorite toy when you were four, boo-fucking-hoo!"
Stormy gray eyes met smoldering green ones in a fierce staring contest, each unwilling to back down. Then it happened. Ulquiorra shuddered and he was overtaken by a spasm of violent coughs that wracked his entire body. He had slid down from the bench and was on the ground on his fours.
"What the hell!" the woman's voice sounded on the edge, "You're bleeding!"
She picked up the scarf, ran to the edge of the bus-stop to wet it and ran back to him. He held up a hand, asking her to stay while he waited for the hacking coughs to subside. Once he was done, he accepted the scarf from her to wipe off the blood from his face. He looked down on his pale green shirt and realized that it was ruined. Belatedly he realized the woman was stammering.
"Quit your spluttering, woman," he said in a hoarse voice, "it's annoying."
Shakily he got to his feet and felt the world sway in front of his eyes. He must have been unsteady on his feet for he felt a pair of hands grasp his arm and lead him to the bench.
"Do you have water in your car?"
He nodded weakly, keeping his eyes closed, "The keys are in the jacket," he mentioned wearily.
He heard her search the keys frantically. She must have got them for he then heard her dump the jacket on the bench, the click-click of her heels and then the familiar beep from his car as it responded to the remote. Soon enough, he felt her sit next to him and hold the bottle to his lips. He drank greedily and sighed.
"Shit!" she said, capping the bottle, "you gave me a nasty scare."
"Sorry about that," his voice was still hoarse.
"What the hell was all that about?" she asked putting the jacket on his shoulders.
"I'll tell you if you stop swearing in my company. Its grating on my nerves."
"Alright, I'll try," she was probably too eager to protest.
"I overdid things today," his voice was steadily getting stronger, "Been driving all day, have hardly had anything to eat and then the argument … I guess my body couldn't take it."
"Why would your body …" her whispered sentence trailed off, almost as if she was scared of the answer.
With a mirthless smile he replied, "Because it's giving up. I am dying."
"Shut up!" she said incredulously.
"Leukemia," he whispered, only marginally surprised that he was sharing it with a complete stranger. Something about her was bringing out things that he didn't like to admit to even himself, "my body has stopped responding to treatment."
She sat gaping at him wordlessly.
"I don't even know why I am telling you this but," he paused to take a shuddering breath, "I am scared."
It was the first time he had admitted to being scared. Even in the darkest of nights, he had managed to delude himself into believing that he didn't care but out here, stranded in the middle of nowhere, he found himself sharing his deepest secret with a hooker. It gave him a strange sense of exhilaration.
"Perhaps," Ulquiorra had the impression that while she was looking at the rain, that wasn't what she was seeing, "It is because I am a complete stranger. When the storm lets up, you'll go on your way and I'll go on mine and we'll never meet again. The anonymity is liberating, isn't it?"
He had nothing to say to that.
"It is ok to be scared," she continued, almost as if she was talking to herself, "Only fools know no fear. I don't know how you are so calm though. If I were in your shoes, I would probably be screaming my lungs out."
"What makes you think I haven't done that already?"
She looked at him with a ghost of a smile, "If you had, you would have never told me all you just did."
He raised his eyebrows in a question.
"If you had done that, it would have meant that you had already vented out. You wouldn't have goaded me into argument."
He smirked slightly, "You knew I was goading you?"
"Of course," she said lightly, "I specialize in reading subtle signs that people send out. Helps me in my 'customer service'" she made quotations with her fingers.
He shook his head in amusement, "So you let me goad you? Why?"
"I guess I too needed venting," it sounded more like a question.
"Go ahead," he said as he stretched on the bench, pushing the jacket towards her "it's not like I am going anywhere. Oh and don't mind me, I cannot sit for much longer."
She had scooted down to accommodate him, "Don't worry about it, I was about to suggest that you lie down anyway."
"Thanks."
She sat staring at the rain with the same glazed look. Just when he was wondering if she had spaced out she spoke in a voice barely audible above the splatter of the rain, "When I was ten years old my mother and brother died. My father was a drunkard and said that the two funerals had drained him off of his money. He wanted his money back so he sold me."
Ulquiorra shut his eyes tightly to quell the sudden urge he had to seriously maim the man.
"I won't regale you with the details but as you can probably imagine, life wasn't fun. When I was about thirteen, someone introduced me to books. I did know how to read haltingly but soon I was hooked. It is about the only thing that I enjoy doing. I am a member in the local public library."
"Really? Who," he paused to cough slightly, "sorry, who's your favorite author?"
Without the slightest hesitation she replied, "Emily Bronte."
He scoffed, "Doesn't count. She wrote only one novel."
"Are you kidding me?" her voice was back to being lively, "'Wuthering heights' is a masterpiece!"
"I won't argue that but she still wrote only one novel. If there had been more and all of them of the same standard, or higher, then it would have made sense."
"You are just too prissy," she said airily.
He shrugged as if to say 'whatever.'
"Who's your favorite author?" she asked.
After a brief pause he replied, "Tolstoy."
"Oh God!" she exclaimed, "War and Peace! I couldn't get past page 20. I fell asleep."
"Why am I not surprised?" he asked dryly.
She stuck out her tongue at him and he felt his lips twitch to a small smile. After a brief period of comfortable silence she asked, "Why is your body not responding to the treatment?"
"I seem to have developed some sort of freak immunity to the medications. Whatever worked on my last time did not work this time." He was no longer surprised at how comfortable he was with her.
"Last time? You mean you relapsed?" He was glad that there wasn't a hint of pity in her voice.
"Yes."
"There must be something, some other treatment perhaps?"
"I am getting blood transfusions every once in a while which is keeping me alive for now, but it won't work for too long," he stated dispassionately.
"There must be something! You can't just give up like this!" she sounded desperate.
"Why are you so desperate?" he asked tilting his head and looking at her upside down.
"Because you are one of the very few decent men that I have come across and I don't like the fact that you … ," she trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished.
Before he realized the exact import of his words he said, "You can't have met many good men if you think I am decent."
The brief pain that flashed across her face made him realize how deep his words had hurt. He pulled himself up into a sitting position.
"I'm sorry," he was genuinely sorry for what he'd said, "I am usually very blunt and almost never hold back what comes to my mind, but this one time, I should have held back."
She smiled, "It's OK. What you said is the truth. I haven't met many decent men. In fact I have mostly met the worst kind. The kind that cheats on his wife with me. The kind that sells a child to get money for his alcohol. So yeah, my definition of decent is a little skewed."
"It is clear that you are not in this out of choice, then why don't you leave?" He was really curious.
She smiled a rueful smile and said, "Easier said than done. I am not brave enough."
"I beg to disagree," he said as he took out his cigarette case, "I would say you are one of the bravest people I have ever met."
He took one out for himself and offered one to her. She took it from him gingerly.
"Doesn't smoking harm you?" she asked as she placed the cigarette on her lips.
"Yes," he replied nonchalantly as he pulled out his lighter, "It can cause lung-cancer. Fortunately for me, I'll be dead before that."
"Not funny," she scowled and accepted the light from him.
"Humor helps me deal with the situation. I would freak-out big time otherwise," he lit his own cigarette and inhaled. Instantly he was taken by a bout of coughs, although not as violent as the previous one.
"Why are you doing this to yourself?" she asked.
"And why are you doing this to yourself?" he countered.
"You have given up, haven't you?"
"And you haven't?" he questioned.
When she didn't respond continued, "You are alive, Orihime; seize your chance while you still have it. Who knows what's in store for tomorrow. Don't spend your life doing something you don't want to do. Do it before your time runs out."
"And what about you Ulquiorra?" she whispered, "Are you dead already? Maybe your time here is limited, maybe you don't have any treatments that can make you better but that doesn't mean that you die before you are actually dead! Live the life that you have left so that when you die, you don't die regretting that you never lived."
The two of them stared at each other unblinking. On an impulse Ulquiorra said, "What if I buy you off?"
"What?" she was flabbergasted.
"Look, I have a decent amount of money and no one to give it to after I am gone. I was thinking of donating it all to some charity. Now instead of some faceless stranger getting the benefit from whatever is left after the bureaucrats have lined their pockets, it's you who gets the benefit. I think I would like that."
"No! How on Earth will I pay you back?" she asked wide eyed.
"That's the beauty of it. I am pretty sure dead men don't ask for money," the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea.
"Stop calling yourself that!" she said passionately, "You are not dead! Not yet! Stop calling yourself that!"
"Let me do this for you and then you can teach me to stop," he said in a low voice.
"Please don't," a lone tear had escaped from her eyes, "don't give me hopes. I won't be able to live when they are dashed."
He leaned forward and bushed the tear from her cheek. He let his hand linger on her face as he said, "I don't lie."
Later, neither of them would know what made them do it but before either was aware they were locked in an embrace.
"Please," he whispered, his words slightly muffled in her hair, "Come with me. Take this leap of faith."
Slowly she nodded, her head resting on his chest, "On one condition, you will let me be your nurse."
"I would like that," he replied.
Several hours later, after the storm let up, a morning bicyclist would notice two people sitting huddled on the floor of the bus-stop, with their backs against the wall. The woman had her head on the man's shoulder and the man had his cheek on her head, both deep in sleep. A lone leather jacket covered the two. The cyclist would not notice the two hands that lay between them, fingers intertwined.