A/N: For frotu, who won third place in my summer fanart contest. the request was ulquihime, and something light-hearted. well, we've got the former, not so sure about the latter xD this is perhaps a little forboding and also maybe a little weird, but this is me we're talking about, so it sort of comes with the territory.
(forgive the rambling that is about to ensue in this story - this is the first time i've written in well over a month, and it shows.)
anyway, i hope she likes it!
The heavy curtains of Orihime's hair are fiery red beneath the glow of the rising sun, its first rays flitting in between the curtains of her prison, her home. Red, like the color of apples, lipstick, fire engines – human concepts he has become all too familiar with these past several weeks spent in her company, having been thoroughly educated on the matter. Trivial things, these facets of the human world that he has never deemed worthy of his attention before now; things that she as insisted upon bothering him with, despite his silent protest.
Ulquiorra doesn't really mind, though. Not really.
(Red, but not the same red as her kiss-swollen lips – those are more purpled, like that of a bruise. Bruises and pale flesh and fiery hair against an otherwise perfectly white backdrop, he thinks, and suddenly it occurs to him. She looks like a corpse, he decides, and despite the morbidity of the thought, he feels comforted. Things like blood and war and death are familiar to him, normal.)
She sleeps like the dead, too. She's strewn out so haphazardly, arms thrown out dramatically on either side, one knee cocked at an angle. Despite the awkwardness of the pose, she has not moved for hours, and if not for the rise and fall of her ample chest, Ulquiorra might have checked for a pulse. As it stands, the sight of her unnerves him; he wants to gather her up in his arms, rearrange those long limbs in a way that he sees fit, in a way that resembles order. But he does not.
Instead he busies himself by stroking her hair. Ulquiorra is an idle creature by nature, a watcher in a lot of ways, rather than a doer; and yet when Orihime lies still, he finds that he can not. Orihime invites this sort of behavior – the whimsical air that surrounds her has a certain aura of mystique that encourages others to do strange things. Even Ulquiorra, usually so reserved, is operating outside of his boundaries here, thinking thoughts he never would have thought before, doings things he had never done before.
This woman has a dangerous effect on me, he thinks, and the realization does not bring the world crashing around his ears as it might have had with another Espada. It is merely a bland, yeastless statement of fact. Just information brought to the front to be analyzed, and then neatly stored away again for future reference. It does not make him feel vulnerable, because Ulquiorra is strong. And it does not make him feel afraid, because that is a human emotion Ulquiorra has yet to find himself in tune with.
He could easily do away with her, or have someone else reassigned as her bodyguard. It is an easy enough task; even one of the peons on the lower end of the Los Noches hierarchy could be entrusted with it. Ulquiorra is a favorite, and he knows it; Aizen would be likely to grant him this favor. And yet he does not request an audience.
Because the girl is interesting. Her dependency on him – the dependency for food, for companionship, for intimacy – strikes a chord with him. He's complacent. And when she's lying there sleeping, when she can't complain about him staring, he likes to look at her, really look at her, take in the every facet of her being. He likes to watch her exist and breathe and be pretty. He finds solace in that, finds satisfaction in being apart of her life. She needs him, and the thought is gratifying.
His fingers catch a tangle of her hair, and it knots. The break in the rhythm of his long, piano-player fingers causes Orihime to stir. She shifts onto one side and Ulquiorra stills as she looks up, sleepy-eyed, staring him full on in the face. It is when shaking off the last vestiges of sleep that Orihime is the most brazen of all, and it invokes something within him, something akin to longing.
"What're you doing?" Orihime asks in a quiet, tired voice. Ulquiorra does not reply; the hand in her hair is answer enough, he thinks. He combs his fingers through the heavy, tangled mass beneath his fingers, and Orihime makes a cooing, appreciative sound as his nails graze her scalp.
"Feels good," she approves in a whispery voice. She issues a heavy sigh before rolling on her back again, and Ulquiorra can't help but admire the hollow of her throat, the delicate flesh of her collarbone.
His hands continue to massage her scalp, absently. He can feel the thrumming of her heartbeat beneath the pads of his thumbs, as feeble and as elegant as a tiny bird's.
"Ulquiorra?"
Again Ulquiorra does not feel the need to respond, but it doesn't matter; Orihime knows he's listening.
"I love you."
The pang within him seems different now. It might be considered more wholesome, but Ulquiorra has yet to identify the sensation. Human emotions are still new to him.
"I know," and he does, and although he is not yet aware of it, love is both a beautiful and a terrible thing.