Err...no excuse for this. I just like to mess with 'Hime. And I got tired of people pretending her time in Hueco Mundo didn't leave its mark on her.
Disclaimer: Bleach and all its characters, settings, and wonderful little plot twists that just make it what it is, do not belong to me. And never will they. :(
Epiales
-the nightmare demon-
Aizen-sama is humming. The happy notes slither through her ears like rotten worms, making her shiver, shudder, squeak inside her hollow heart. Fingers in her hair. His fingers.
"Orihime," he purrs, and her name is a sordid prayer on his lips, except…Aizen-sama would never ask someone for help.
"Yes, Aizen-sama?"
The sacred name burns her tongue. She can feel her taste buds cracking, popping, like children left out in the heat too long.
Pop. Pop.
She has always wanted children.
"No one is coming for you."
Orihime curls in on herself and pretends the world away. Pretends that she hasn't been here, closed within white, white walls, for hundreds of years.
"Your friends are gone."
His fingers in her hair ground her, keep her sane and alive in this world of demons and monsters. No…not demons. Not monsters. Her friends. Her family.
"This is your new home."
It has always been her home, hasn't it? Hasn't…?
She can feel his lips curling into a pleased smile against her hair, but she isn't quite sure why. Curious, she tilts her head up to look at him.
"You love it here," he tells her.
Orihime blinks. This is her home. This is her Aizen-sama.
"Hai," she says, and pretends her life away.
"A girl like you should smile more often."
Ishida-kun comes to visit her every day. Kurosaki-kun used to come, and before him, Kuchiki-san and Chad, and even Urahara-san, once in a while. But they all left. Just as Aizen-sama said they would.
Don't know why. Oh well.
This is a strange world, with its living people. Its living people who pronounce her rescued-but-broken. Like Ishida-kun. He never says it, but she can see the grief in his eyes, and sometimes it frightens her, reminding her of a time before Aizen-sama, before—no—there was never a "before Aizen-sama," never—makeitstop—
Sometimes Ishida-kun smiles. More often than not, his beloved face is smeared with a frown.
"Smile, Ishida-kun," she says. He tries for her, and fails.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'll make it all better." And then she reaches over and runs her thumb along the sharp edge of a kitchen knife. She barely notices the sudden pain or Ishida-kun's horrified protests. Up comes her thumb and presses against the corner of his open, shocked mouth, like a mother about to wipe away a thread of drool or the mess from a meal.
Orihime always wanted a child.
"Smile," she tells him, and runs her bloody thumb over his cheeks and lips.
He grins from ear to ear.
"That's a good boy."
"Orihime, come down."
The world sharpens in like a telescope coming into focus. Orihime blinks, feeling her hair shifting around her head like a wild living thing, her cheeks and lips cold and bloodless from the wind. She looks down. The sands of Hueco Mundo stretch endlessly around her, covering the ground as far as she can see.
She is standing on the top of one of Las Noches's towers.
How did I…how did I get up here?
"Orihime."
Aizen-sama is calling her. She turns, arms spread far out, as if she is a bird about to take flight. He stands there, still wearing that smile that she loves—hates—no, no, no, she could never hate, she always loves him, loves Aizen-sama…
"Come down, Orihime."
Fury seizes her in its clutches, filling her freezing body with heat. Her feet turn her back toward the edge against her will.
Never, she thinks. So much hatred…
I will never be yours—
Wait.
What is she thinking?
"Come down."
She is happy again. Happy, happy, happy. Happy to be with Aizen-sama and happy to belong to him.
Orihime skips down from the edge and lands in front of him. He smiles, and she thinks she sees relief in his worried brown eyes. His hands come up to cup her cheeks. When his lips come down and kiss her own to chase away the cold there, she feels happy enough to float up into the night sky.
"Never do that again," he commands her. Her ears hear only weary relief and anxiety, missing the deadly, silent threat behind his concerned warning.
"No, Aizen-sama," she murmurs against his lips. "I won't. I promise."
"Overcast skies blot out the sun, and that always brings people's spirits down."
"Ishida-kun," she says to him one day, when he comes to visit her in her little empty home, "when can I go back?"
"Inoue-san…" His eyes are so beautiful. Sometimes she wishes she could reach out and pluck them from their sockets. Szayel-kun would love to have them for his collection. "You can't go back there."
"But…but I have to get back to Aizen-sama. He'll miss me."
Ishida-kun doesn't say anything. He doesn't understand. He's not listening to her.
"I have to go back," she tells him. "I've been with Aizen-sama forever. How do you think he would feel if I just up and left without telling him where I'm going?"
He lifts his head at that, midnight-eyes serious with an emotion she can't exactly name. "Inoue-san, you weren't there forever. You weren't even there for weeks."
Orihime shakes her head. No, no, no. Silly boy. She has always been with Aizen-sama.
"It was all a dream, Inoue-san. Everything was a lie."
He's still talking, talking so, so much—did he always talk this much before?
"It was all one of his cruel tricks."
Not listening. Not listening.
"Inoue-san…Aizen is dead."
Sometimes, Aizen-sama terrifies her.
She doesn't know why. It happens at the oddest of times. Sometimes, when he is kissing her neck, or stroking her hair, or gathering her into his lap…sometimes even when he does nothing but smile at her, she feels her heart stop in dread.
In those moments, Aizen-sama doesn't seem caring or loving anymore. Orihime catches glints of cruelty and malice in his cold brown eyes, and the hand that lifts to stroke her cheek is no longer pure and adoring, but perverse, wrong, like the caress of a too-gentle father.
But as quickly as those moments come, they pass, and everything in the world is right again. And Orihime loves Aizen-sama, and Aizen-sama loves her.
Yes. Aizen-sama loves her.
"So why not let the sun shine…"
Aizen-sama is dead.
Orihime rolls her face into her pillow, trying to smother the dying sounds that push past the folds of her lips like slick, screaming newborns. They stick together like sweat-soaked bodies, growing and growing until they squeeze through her clenched teeth in a final, frightened scream of terror, such agonizing terror—
Aizen-sama is dead.
The door clicks open. She is dimly aware of gentle hands on her shoulders, shaking her, and she opens her eyes and stares into Ishida-kun. His purity and concern blind, penetrate, burn. Burn—
"Inoue-san," he breathes. "It's just a nightmare."
He can't understand. He didn't love Aizen-sama like she did.
"She's broken, Ishida-san."
Urahara-san? What is he doing here? Why won't anyone leave her alone?
"I can save her." Ishida-kun's hands tighten on her shoulders. "She's not beyond help."
"She was beyond our help the instant he claimed her," Urahara-san replies. "Just let her sleep, Ishida-san. She's lost to you."
"No—"
"Ishida-san, Orihime Inoue is gone."
Ishida-kun hesitates. And then, like the betrayal she's always wanted, his hands fall away.
She is alone again, and wants nothing more than to dream her life away. Dream herself away from the world.
Let me sleep…
"For just a while longer?"
"Aizen-sama?"
"Yes, Orihime?"
"Never leave me?"
And he smiles.
"Never."
End.