Characters: Orihime, Ulquiorra
Summary: Counting racing heartbeats.
Pairings: Ulquiorra x Orihime
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc
Timeline: Hueco Mundo arc
Author's Note: This references an event in Kage no Tsuki, my first UlquiHime piece. I wouldn't mind if you were to read that to clarify, along with my other UlquiHime pieces, since they (with the exception of metamorphosis) sort of tie into this too.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
She's still struggling to pull the high, starched stiff white collar shut when Ulquiorra lets himself in, unceremonious and not bothering to knock this time, mindless of the sort of condition he might find her in. He sweeps a blankly appraising look over her, from toe upwards to head, while Orihime, hasty and flustered, finally gets the collar shut.
There is nothing said instantly. Ulquiorra measures each and every word with care, never speaking too quickly, and the white walls press on Orihime and prevent her from speaking up. The still air smells of copper, makes Orihime wonder who inhabited this cell last. Now, her struggle at hand is to maintain steady eye contact with him, to keep her throat from swelling shut.
Ulquiorra's quiet voice does nothing to banish the buzz or the oppressive silence from the vaulted chamber; if anything, its influence is the opposite. "You have learned obedience?" he asks softly, eyes narrowing.
Orihime fights down the urge to draw her tongue across her lips and give back some moisture to her lips. "I don't see that it makes any difference what clothes I wear." And her school clothes have disappeared, everything, down to her shoes and socks, taken most likely by the same person who refills the water pitcher in the bathroom when she's sleeping.
The look that comes over Ulquiorra's face makes Orihime's stomach tie itself into knots and out again, to let the butterflies fly loose. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end.
"You will," Ulquiorra murmurs, before turning on his heel to leave, just as quick and muted as before.
Orihime would almost swear that he's fleeing from this place, and envies him that privilege.
.
Darkness comes and goes at unsteady intervals here, in a way that Orihime is sure doesn't align with the day and night cycles of Earth—and it doesn't matter, she tells herself, since this place is neither Earth nor home, but Soul Society had normal cycles, so why shouldn't the interior of Las Noches?
When the chamber, the small bathroom out to the side and the antechamber beyond are all veiled in shadow and darkness, Orihime feels blindly along the unnaturally smooth walls, helpless as an infant, for a light switch, and in unsurprised when she finds none; there are no light fixtures of any kind on the ceiling. When light comes, it seems to melt, fluid and dancing and thick, from the walls themselves.
The food here is palatable but bland, nearly tasteless and devoid of all seasonings except when it tastes like iron and copper—and Orihime shudders to see the slight red cast of the food—and very, very dense. Orihime takes no interest in what she's eating, chews and swallows without tasting—fearful of that tang of iron taste—and is full and satiated for hours afterwards within minutes.
The darkness is complete, to the extent that Orihime can't see her fingers, as she lies, flat on her back on the couch with her long hair spilling over the sides like a coppery waterfall and her right hand held at a position that she thinks is over her head. Where it actually finds itself is anyone's guess.
A soft sight echoes around all the nooks and crannies of her cell, and Orihime brings her tight sleeve cuff to her nose and breathes in, deep and shallow at once, and her hand falls listless to tell the pulsations of her stomach. These clothes have no smell to them, except for an undertone of a musty odor, that to Orihime is bizarrely reminiscent of baking soda.
Everything's so white and sterile in full light, not antiseptic but still so much like a hospital. A skeleton of life, mockery of life, no nature or organic existence at all.
Darkness, with its creeping little legs, crawls over her slight frame like a sentient blanket, and Orihime's hand travels to her breast to count her heartbeats. One calm, one racing, one steady, one hitched… She could swear that she is the only living being left in existence, but there's the prickling of eyes, still. Orihime knows that if she lifts her head and peers into the shroud-laden antechamber she'll see a flash of green and a fluid shadow that's not a shadow, before it's gone.
She wonders how Ulquiorra is able to pry open the heavy leaden door without making a sound.
.
Orihime runs faces through her mind, not bringing up names but remembering hair and skins and eyes, willing herself not to forget.
Ulquiorra's tone is infuriatingly mild as he surveys her with the sort of eyes Orihime would expect a scientist to have for some exotic specimen; the searing of his gaze makes her skin prickle. She is sitting down while he stands against the wall as if accosted; Orihime's fingers twist as she twines auburn hair in her hands, compulsion taking over and claiming dominance.
"You do not accept this role?"
Fearing what the blank whiteness and the closing walls will compel her to say, Orihime bites down upon her tongue. Her spine goes erect, perching like a bird poised to fly on the edge of the couch.
And her jailer is eager to emphasize that her wings are clipped and broken. Caged, she can not fly.
"It is futile to resist what will come." He can't even inject so much as a shade of cruelty in his monotonous speech; Orihime wishes he would, so she could protest, shout, do something, anything. "You are already one of Hueco Mundo, regardless of your inclination. Your battle is lost."
Her eyes shoot up, sharp and straining with tiredness, to scan his face. Orihime could hear, plain as day, something in his words that she can't recognize. Her heartbeat goes wild, blood racing through her veins so hard that they threaten to burst through the skin.
Still, she says nothing, not trusting herself to speak.
Ulquiorra observes this change with a sort of detached satisfaction, his eyes narrowing and growing even more piercing, as though he's trying to peel away the layers of clothes with his eyes to view what lies beneath.
"Do you fear me?"
Orihime has heard this question before. He speaks it with a different inflection this time.
Finally, there is something she can say that won't tear from her lips like a wild beast, hungry for blood. She breathes in deep, sucks in copper air.
"I am not afraid."
This is, to Ulquiorra, seemingly a groundbreaking discovery.
"…Interesting."
Orihime looks away, and tells herself to remember the faces.
Short-haired girl. Tough, strong, valued friend.
Grabby girl, but still a good friend.
White-haired boy and tall, blonde woman with a mole on her face. Opposite personalities but somehow so very close.
Boy with glasses. Quiet and insecure. Troubled, tries to hide it and doesn't do a very good job.
Towering boy, likes music, always kind, always gentle.
Tiny girl, violent, rock to stand against; Orihime's envious of her.
Her oblivious love, stubborn and stalwart, who always accomplishes what he aspires to.
Orihime runs all the faces through her minds, recycles, and repeats.
It's all she can do to remember their names, when she's starting to forget her own, and over time, if she's not particularly careful, she starts to forget the finer features of their faces. Eventually, if she's not vigilant, they are nothing more than blurs, and she can't remember the cadence of her name on their tongues.
Orihime squeezes her eyes shut and remembers harder.
.
He is very curious, incisively inquisitive, and when he wants answers, he wants them now. At least, this is what Orihime has discovered.
"What do you know of this?"
Orihime is nothing if not a compassionate person. She can not pick and choose where her compassion falls, and she finds, that when she sees Ulquiorra's ignorance and his frustration with it, that her compassion is unwilling but a strong current running through her.
There is no point in trying to deny what is first and second nature to her.
Standing this time—they both stand, Orihime braced against the wall and Ulquiorra standing barely a foot away, a little close for her liking—Orihime reflects that she hasn't heard her name spoken aloud in what seems like an eternity. She doesn't know why this completely random bit of information comes to her mind, but she fears that if she goes long enough without it she may forget altogether. That wouldn't be good.
"A heart is…" Orihime hesitates, looks at his clinical face and decides a purely scientific explanation would be best "…the heart is a vital muscle that pumps blood throughout the body." She taps her chest for example. "If my heart were to stop pumping blood for any reason, I would die unless it were to be started again."
The shuttered look Ulquiorra throws unforgivingly at her suggests that this is not quite the answer he was looking for; Oh, so he wanted abstractions? Orihime feels a small spark of something she realizes is irritation fly through her before escaping.
But Ulquiorra doesn't clarify. Instead, all he does is stare at her more closely and ask, in a softer voice still thick with frustration, "And what is love, as you see it?"
Orihime stares at him.
He asked her the last time he was here.
Suddenly, Orihime resents the way his eyes burn into her flesh, discerning and seeing far more than she wants him or anyone else to see, resents the way his eyes follow her possessively around the room, and she resents even more the way his gaze makes the skin on her cheekbones flush red as blood or a rose in bloom.
"Please leave," she murmurs in a brittle voice, colder than she has ever been accustomed to being, as she turns abruptly on her heel and starts to walk away.
Orihime can only imagine the look on Ulquiorra's face when he sees how her behavior starts to mirror his.
.
Orihime goes back to rubbing a white rag drenched in icy water over her bloody hands and chipped, in places split and broken fingernails, the red liquid undulating and contorting like a serpent with a life of its own in the water. The copper-and-iron smell in the air is only more intensely prominent now.
Her limbs still shake from harsh breathing and energy that has expended itself in a wild burst of life, before dying like a star in nova.
Blood, muted crimson, rides up her sleeve cuffs like designs woven in by a tailor. It sort of looks like what would happen if Ishida happened to like the color red and got his hands on her clothes with a needle and thread.
Before she knows what's happening, a chalk-white hand with fingernails painted black has grabbed one of her skinned, aching hands by the wrist, and Ulquiorra is staring at it intensely. His grip is tight and iron enough that Orihime doesn't bother trying to tear her hand away, knowing the effort would probably break her wrist.
"Yes?" Her voice shakes too, but not with fear but with barely concealed anger. It hasn't quite died out of her yet.
God, her hands ache.
Ulquiorra eyes the blood trails on the white-washed door and looks at her hands, washed of blood, though the only effect this has is to make the cuts and areas of ripped skin all the more visible and noticeable.
"Such frail vessels…" the Espada murmurs, eyes roaming with the sort of intensity she doesn't like over her broken skin, tracing blue veins with the tip of his finger.
Then, the look he casts on her is so burning that Orihime flinches back, despite herself, even though she's not afraid in herself. She falls back on the couch, gasping slightly at the jerk of her arm—Ulquiorra doesn't let go of her wrist when she falls back—and relieved when he finally relinquishes his grip. Orihime rubs her wrist and knows she'll see dark bruises there later.
Ulquiorra stands over her, silhouetted by the light. "Are you afraid?"
"No." Orihime grits her teeth. "No."
.
The violent rage that comes over her when she files forward, hand outstretched, is sudden and powerful and frightening because Orihime's never felt the likes of this before. Never has she experienced anger on a level comparable to this in her life.
Ulquiorra seems surprised by it too.
This dark chamber of pillars and shadows is mercifully quite different from her cell, but it still has, despite its high ceiling, the claustrophobic feeling that makes her want to collapse to the floor, compress herself, hold up her arms and scream. Orihime never knew she was even slightly claustrophobic until she came to Hueco Mundo.
Violent pulses of pain, angry and searing like lightning, travel with unbearable speed up the length of her arm, but Orihime doesn't acknowledge the pain as she, breathing hard and gasping, meets Ulquiorra's dully dumbfounded gaze. The urge to grit her teeth and hiss, cradle her hand to her chest is strong but she knows better for the moment.
The reality of what she's just done hits her—stupid, foolish, angry, idiotic—, and Orihime grows wary, waiting for the blow to fall and an attack to come from Ulquiorra's end. She's already been beaten half to death today by those two Arrancar girls; she expects just about anything now. And she's ready to defend herself, fight back; she smells blood lingering in the air and—
When did I start thinking like this?
Ulquiorra's reaction is typical of him but somehow manages to throw Orihime off balance.
He does not, predictably, seem to have been at all hurt by Orihime's stinging slap, though the look of muted surprise on his face more than makes up for that. And he does not act in anger or reproach, much to Orihime's relief—What is his skin made of? Iron? Orihime wonders, eyes starting to water at the corners.
Instead, all Ulquiorra does is survey her with a skin-piercing stare and murmur something that doesn't carry to Orihime's ears.
He takes his immediate attention off of her.
And Orihime breathes again.
Finally, she allows herself to cringe, face contorting in pain as she rubs her screaming hand.
With the absence of moisture, Orihime registers with dull surprise that her skin hasn't burst and bled.
.
There's a copper tang to the cool night air of Hueco Mundo not enclosed in the dome of Las Noches too, but it's softened by the brisk wind and doesn't grate on Orihime's waxen-grown skin as harshly. The desert doesn't smell as blood-saturated as the fortress.
A speck of ash hits her face, and the two conflicting emotions Orihime feels at Ulquiorra's impending passing gnaw at each other like two serpents in her belly, devouring each other in a ring. There is sadness, some hollow regret, but stranger than all of that is the release, of the intangible bird cage that's been lifted away.
The residue of their parasitic relationship will always be with her; Orihime will never forget Ulquiorra. But she can stretch her broken, blood-crusted wings towards the sun again, and dream of flight.
To the last, Ulquiorra's eyes are on her, scrutinizing and piercing and weirdly possessive, drinking her in hungrily, glittering dimly in the moonlight.
His lips frame the familiar question.
And Orihime starts, and stares at him.
It would give her so much satisfaction, to be able to turn away and break this parasitic bond they share. The threads binding them are so tenuous now; it wouldn't be hard. The leech is dying and shouldn't be permitted to suckle off of her for sustenance anymore.
But within a second, this cruel impulse, born of Hueco Mundo, and its iron air, is cast away, and the effect is like opening a window in the attic to let the fresh air in.
Orihime is still a compassionate person—Hueco Mundo hasn't managed to destroy that—even with her nostrils full of copper and her heart pounding wildly beneath her flesh—or is it even beating at all?
And she can find the impulse for kindness within herself, at the last.
"No, you don't."