Author's Note: I love this pairing. One of the finest examples of Foe Yay I've seen in fiction.
English is not my first language, if you find any grammar errors, please let me know in your comment! Thank you in advance!
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Hate is a powerful impulse. It's a blow-off valve for all of your energies. It makes you tend with all your might toward that one target, it makes you keep going at that specific object of your hostility that makes your blood boil till you're seeing red, and on which you wish you could spit all your poison. And if you're the kind of person who clings desperately to adrenalin rushes, once a passion like this is in your life, it's hard to let it go. Even if you have to clutch at that person's shins like a rabid dog, you can't let go, because giving up the hate brings only emptiness and questions. And pondering, looking inside your soul, no, no, no, it's not a place you'd want to go, that one. Not a place you'd want to go back. And surely not when your renewed rationality would allow you to wonder why have you come this far.
It was so much easier to be a senseless beast, driven only by hunger.
It was easier, why shouldn't one choose the easier way? What is easy, now, is whirling your weapon above your head, until you feel all your strength concentrating inside you and exploding the moment you attack. Whirling Santa Teresa during the battle, attack and defence, victory or defeat, rage, excitement, blood, life or death, you, or your enemy. It's comforting to know that everything comes down to this, to the bases. This way, there's no need to question yourself. There's nothing complicated. Then why doesn't she understand?
"Why?"
She's looking down on him, again. Irritated and bewildered at his persistence and "irrationality". He stares at her, grinding his blood-stained teeth, and doesn't answer.
"Why, Nnoitra?"
"Why do you ask me every single time? The answer is always the same, Nelliel. I fight you because I want to. The only meaning of the battle is the battle itself. But you have to ruin everything as you always do, don'tcha? You have to ruin everything looking for a reason that doesn't exist. Why don'tcha make up your mind and use that sword against me as ya should, Nelliel?"
"I have no reason to kill you. I have no order to do so".
Nnoitra feels the frustration assaulting him, while his mind fills with "no, no, no, no, Nelliel, why do you act like you don't understand? You shield yourself with your reason and act like you have no idea what I'm talking about. Don't you see how many problems your rationality gave us?". But he doesn't say it out loud, because that would mean he thought about it too much, that he wants to explain her, that he's desperate to make her understand. And it ain't true, he thinks, he doesn't fucking care.
What he does, is to harangue:
"That's bullshit, Nelliel. You do have a reason. You'd get free of a nuisance, wouldn't you? Dead, I couldn't attack you constantly anymore. Then why don'tcha just do it, instead of sparing me every fucking time? Your pity is disgusting!"
"You're disgusted by every kind of pity, not just mine. It's a concept you're unable to understand, therefore you see it as despicable. But just because you see pity as a weakness, it doesn't mean that everyone else regards it in the same way".
She looks at him, but he doesn't answer anymore. He stares at her, looking like he wishes he could pierce right through her skull with his gaze, but she sees he wants to say something more. But he doesn't, he doesn't question her anymore. And she's grateful, because she wouldn't be able to keep on answering without asking herself why her pity towards him is so resistant, and why, deep down, she's still hoping that someday he won't attack her anymore. She covers everything with one mental word: "Beast".
She grants him one last glance, and leaves.
And there she is. Nelliel sparing you, Nelliel pitying you, Nelliel saving your life. Too many layers. Nelliel has too many layers, and after the first one Nelliel is already too complicated. She goes beyond the bases. She goes beyond everything an Hollow should know and she makes you wonder why, she makes you question yourself and try to remember something you're sure you knew, once, but you feel it's now buried under all the despair that is where once you had your heart, and just trying to put your fingertips in it makes you want to scream your lungs out. Withdrawing unconsciously, Nnoitra feels that it's easier to hate, to attack, the blood, the death, the bases. It's so much easier.