(A small scene. Whatever, it's Nnoi Nel and I'm ever so slowly getting back into the darkness and angst that is them. B| Grammar errors. Whatever. It's strangely difficult to write Nnoitra these days...And this NnoiNel fixation just will. Not. Leave. My. Head.

Also. Nelliel DOES NOT pity Nnoitra. At least, not in my world. She wants to understand, and I can't write a story good enough to portray that any time soon.)

One violet eye met two hazel eyes. He blinked, he exhaled.

"I don't need your pity."

She turned from him. She sighed deeply.

"What pity?" She asked, nearly inaudibly. She heard the sharp intake of breath, the wheeze, the sound of a fist clenching in bone dust sand.

Nelliel felt Nnoitra's eye burning into her. She resisted a shudder.

He didn't respond.

She counted to ten, listened to the wind howl over the dunes, listened to his raspy breathing.

And he didn't respond.

"You have misunderstood me, Nnoitra." She spoke calmly, her voice washing over him, warm, calming.

And he was ever anything but calm.

"Fuck you."

His words rushed forth violently on a gust of breath. His voice assaulted her ears, made her cringe inwardly, and yet still she could not move.

"Such vulgarity." Her voice was small, distant, a pinprick on a vast blackened sky.

"Fuck off." He reiterated, shoving himself to his feet, too fast. She turned in a whirlwind of mossy green hair, hazel eyes watching him sway and stagger toward her.

"You contradict yourself."

The irony of her words was lost on the Octava Espada. He only stared blankly, propelled skyward by the single crescent blade, propelled away from her.

And yet he still was not on her level.

"Like I fucking said. Don't pity me."

"I don't." The words rushed out before she could control herself, abstain from saying things she knew were better left unsaid.

And yet, there it was, hanging before them. The truth.

He scoffed, spitting blood into the sand as he turned from her, distraught and not wishing to show it.

"It's fuckin' hopeless, Nelliel." His words weren't what she expected, his words were never what she expected. Only his violence, only his will to defeat her was predictable and never the things he said.

"Maybe so." Her words were carried on a sigh. She turned again, only to feel a bony hand clutching at her wrist, drawing her back against a too-thin body.

"You're fucking hopeless, Nelliel." His words were acid, burning into her brain, destroying everything. She turned her head to look over her shoulder, at him.

"You shouldn't." She told him simply. He didn't care.

His lips rushed toward hers. Her eyes fell shut. And she tasted blood.

A few breathless moments later found her pulling away from him, his lax grip allowing her to glide away.

"You shouldn't have." She stated firmly, umber eyes darkened and considerably colder.

A defense mechanism, really, for just beneath her breastplate a heart that shouldn't exist was beating and beating and beating and she was going absolutely mad.

Perhaps he saw the terror in her eyes, perhaps he saw anything other than what she chose to convey, for his hand was clasped around her head, bringing her lips back to his, growling into her mouth.

"Shut the fuck up."

And for the first time, she did.