Green-Eyed Monster

It started out like any other post–Winter War day. Hanatarou was cleaning out the surviving arrancars' cells at Squad Twelve headquarters, sweeping and dusting and making idle conversation with the captives. Or at least trying. Grimmjow spent most of his time demanding to see Ichigo so they could finish their fight, while Yammy raged and threatened and Ulquiorra didn't say much of anything at all.

It was Yammy's feeding day. See, Kurotsuchi-taichou had figured out early in the process that the arrancar grew increasingly aggressive (and eventually strong enough to break their restraints) if not allowed a little exercise and violence now and then. So, to kill two birds with one stone, once a week they loosened the bonds and allowed the captives to kill and eat a few minor hollows that were set free in the cell.

Grimmjow loved it; he spent the whole time pouncing and playing like a great big cat, while Ulquiorra treated the whole thing as below him and killed the hollows in one fell swoop. Yammy, however, was the worst. He'd slowly torture the hollows, taking them apart limb by limb in the most painful way possible, all the while promising Hana that he'd do the same thing to him when—not if—he got free. The horrible part was that Hana couldn't walk away. He had to watch the whole scene until the hollows were consumed and the drugs hidden inside them took effect, sedating the Espada so that Hana could creep back in and secure him to his chair in a new straitjacket.

That was the point in the process that was the most dangerous. The drugs were strong enough to knock out the arrancar for 30 minutes. Securing the bonds took 15 minutes. And the drugs could take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes to take effect—it was a good thing Hana was good at math. So, he had to go in exactly 15 minutes after the drugs were consumed, and he had about a 5 minute error margin. He'd never needed it. Yet.

But that day he was distracted by the particularly brutal way Yammy had massacred the hollows—he knew it was bad when he was feeling bad for the bad guys—and he didn't note the exact time Yammy finished eating. When he realized the arrancar was already passed out, he rushed into the cell and began to secure him. Sweat burned his eyes and his fingers trembled as he fastened the various hooks and straps that would hold the straitjacket into place. He was buckling the last restraint when the arrancar's eyes flew open.

Frozen in horror, Hana watched those eyes go from disoriented to perplexed to triumphant. Yammy looked up at him with an awful grin. Hana trembled. And Yammy threw his full weight against the bonds just as Hana slid the last buckle through the safety latch. The chair rumbled, but the restraints held, and Hana ran like hell.

He ran out of the cell, down the hall, and directly into another set of bars, Yammy's sadistic laughter ringing in his ears.

Holding his head, he sank to his knees and tried to stop shaking. He'd thought it was all over. He'd seen his life flash before his eyes, felt the icy grip of death bearing down on him, and all he could think was—this was it? This was his life?

He'd never asked to be the Gotei 13's favorite whipping boy. And yet here he was, caring for the arrancar prisoners, sweeping their cells and cleaning their garbage and bringing their food and taking their abuse. So now he didn't just have to worry about getting beaten up and mocked and harassed by Squad Eleven, all the other Squads, and the senior members of his own Squad—now he had to take it from Grimmjow and Yammy and Ulquiorra, too.

At the same time, he knew he had no one but himself to blame. If he would just stand up for himself, defend himself, say no just once, life would get just a little more bearable. But he couldn't.

"I wish I wasn't such a coward," he whispered, banging his head into the bars behind him.

"What good does wishing do?"

Hana jerked, realizing for the first time that he'd chosen the front of Ulquiorra's cell as his safe haven. He had a sudden urge to slam his head into the bars a few more times until he passed out or lost a few brain cells. Instead, he closed his eyes, opened them again, and pasted on his biggest smile. It never paid to let his tormenters know how much they got to him.

"Haven't you ever wished for anything, Ulquiorra-sama?" he asked lightly, grabbing his broom and walking into the cell.

The former Espada eyed him with scorn. "Humanlike creatures and their useless emotions. No, I have never wished for anything. I have what I need, and when I need more, I take more."

Hana smiled, wondering what life would be like if it were that simple. Peaceful, he supposed. But boring, devoid of the highs that made the lows worth living.

He glanced at the Espada's chest. Hana couldn't see it, but under the straitjacket, the uniform, and the reiatsu-suppressing collar, the number four was imprinted on his skin just the same. They were no different in that. Hana had no tattoo, but Fourth was written all over his short stature, his delicate features, and his wimpy, useless body like a giant Kick Me sign affixed with superglue. How he hated the number four.

"Take your rank," he continued. "You were number four, right? Didn't you ever want to be number three? Or even number one?"

"I was the fourth strongest."

He really didn't understand, did he? Hana tried again. "But didn't you think about what life would be like if you were the first? Even though you knew the others were stronger than you, didn't you wish for a life where that wasn't true?"

Ulquiorra cocked an eyebrow. "I am what I am, and that is fourth strongest. If being a higher rank would serve me better, I would simply attain that rank." He paused. "Acting is more efficient than this wishing thing you Shinigami seem to prefer."

"If only it were that easy," Hana groaned. "But you said it before; we are what we are. I can't be an arrancar, and you can't be a Shinigami."

"So you make yourself sick over what you cannot change rather than changing what you can."

Hana wasn't strong enough to change anything—wasn't that the point? "I can't help how I feel."

"Then these feelings are even more useless than I believed."

He couldn't accept that. "But there must be something you desire, something you can't just take!"

"Like what?"

"Like . . ." he trailed off, then blurted out the first thing that came to mind, the thing that'd been on his mind all too often as of late. "Like love!"

Ulquiorra's eyes flickered, and the first whisper of interest entered his voice. "What is this love?"

Hana gaped at him. How did he explain love? It just was. "It's . . . it's just love. It's caring about someone, and wanting them to care back. Wanting to be near them, wanting them to be happy, wanting to—" he broke off, blushing. "Wanting to touch them."

"You care and yet you want to harm them?"

He laughed, slightly amazed that he was able to relax this much in the enemy's presence. "Not harm them, touch them. Gently."

The interest grew, pure cold, unadulterated curiosity. "Show me this touch."

The broom clattered as it fell to the floor. "I—I can't," Hana stuttered, backing away. Somehow he was still too close. The bars were closing in and it was getting hard to breathe.

"Ah, you made it up then," Ulquiorra said, nodding to himself as if that was the only plausible explanation.

"No!" Hana didn't know why he was so desperate to prove to the Espada that love existed, but he was.

So he walked up to the bound arrancar, cupped a pale cheek in his palm, and touched their lips together. Warmth, softness, breaths mingling, eyes closing.

It was just a demonstration. An example.

It wasn't supposed to feel this good.

Hana molded his lips to the arrancar's, memorizing their every dip and curve, tracing their outline with his tongue, sliding that same tongue along their crease until the lips parted and—

And Hana broke away with a gasp, shooting back across the room and crouching, hunched over, shame fighting with passion to see which could turn his cheeks a brighter pink. "I'm sorry," he whispered when he could breathe again and the thought of slipping through the floor was only a wish and not a possibility.

"Why?"

Hana shuddered, unable to respond, and for the first time he saw a calculating gleam rise up in those gorgeous emerald depths.

"You enjoyed this touch?"

Not even the misery would keep him from nodding. Hana may be a weakling, but he wasn't a liar. How could he enjoy kissing a hollow? Was he really so desperate, so pathetic?

Calculation became determination. "This gentle touch is interesting. You may repeat it whenever you—" Ulquiorra paused, staring right through him, "—wish."

For the second time that day, Hana bolted from a cell. He had two sets of dreams that night, both featuring Espada. One made him fear for his life; the other, his soul.

Hana knew it was wrong. Immoral, illegal, and ridiculously stupid. Not to mention dangerous. But he just wanted to feel something, and this man who couldn't feel was the only one who noticed. He just wanted to escape for a while, from all the things he wished he could be and the reality of what he was—the seventh seat of Squad Four.

It wasn't that Hanatarou didn't like his job. Ok, so it was. But it wasn't as if he didn't like the idea of his job. Helping people, healing them, supporting the warriors out there risking their existence to save souls. He'd never wanted to be anywhere but the Fourth, to tell the truth. But twenty years later, it wasn't what he'd thought it'd be.

He was a laughingstock, the most bullied member of the most bullied squad in the entire Gotei 13. That was when people remembered his existence to begin with. Mostly, he was just invisible. The forgotten one.

He could list more examples than he had fingers and toes to tick them off on—His squad had forgotten to tell him about the ryoka incident. Ichigo and Ganju had forgotten his existence and carried him off when they'd first met, Kuchiki-taichou had forgotten Hana was following him into Hueco Mundo, and Hana had nearly been left behind in that wasteland too. Even when they remembered his presence, they didn't notice him, not really. A healer, a cleaner, a servant, a wimp, someone to mock and tease, but never Yamada Hanatarou.

Was it any wonder he was so desperate to be touched?

So he let himself become involved with one of the captives. He knew Ulquiorra didn't care, but at least when they kissed, the arrancar was there with him. He'd rather have a lie than a fantasy. Maybe he was a liar after all.

At first, Hana was so careful. He never untied the man's bonds while they were kissing, despite the arrancar's insisting and cajoling. Then one day he was curled up on the other man's lap, playing with his hair, explaining for the umpteenth time the other things couples did, and Ulquiorra murmured something offhand about holding him. Hana had the first buckle on the straitjacket undone before he came to his senses.

It might have been enough for Yammy to get free. Hell, it was probably enough for Ulquiorra, too. If the arrancar didn't try anything, it was only because he didn't want to show his cards too soon. Hana redid the buckle and slid off his lap, heading for the door.

"Changed your mind?" Ulquiorra asked idly.

Hana closed his eyes. "We both know you don't want to hold me," he whispered, voice as empty as he felt inside.

Traipsing the tightrope wasn't easy, but even after that near-miss, Hana didn't stop. It just felt too good. Ulquiorra didn't ask to be untied again, and Hana gave the restraints a wide berth. He even arranged for another Shinigami to supervise Ulquiorra's feedings—he just didn't trust himself not to linger in the cell in the hopes the arrancar would touch him with something sweeter than murderous intent. As reckless and foolhardy as that was.

A few months went by, and eventually Hana realized that after feedings Ulquiorra was a little bit drowsy and a lot cuddlier than usual.

Hana went to him at that time one day, hoping to take advantage of his disoriented state. It had been Ulquiorra's third feeding under new supervision, and it was obvious the arrancar wasn't happy about it.

"You should not have switched," he murmured as Hana crawled into his lap and kissed his cheek.

Hana sighed. He'd hoped to have at least a moment where he could forget Ulquiorra's ulterior motives, but it was not to be. "Why's that?" he asked dully, sliding to his feet. "Harder to manipulate someone else?"

Ulquiorra paused, and something foreign flickered in his eyes. Then a ripping sound made Hana tense, and a long-fingered hand wrapped around his neck.

"Easier."

Claws ripped through Hana's shihakusho, but they didn't puncture the skin. The Espada still didn't have the use of his reiatsu, but his brute strength alone could take down a weakling like Hana.

"Release the collar," Ulquiorra demanded, gripping him harder.

Hana tamped down the betrayal rising up in him. He'd always known Ulquiorra would kill him if he had the chance. The shock faded, only to be replaced by a huge, hungry darkness.

"Release it!" Ulquiorra growled, squeezing him tight enough to cut off circulation.

And for a moment, Hana wanted to. Not to live—never to live. He didn't have a chance at life anyway; the moment Ulquiorra got free, and he would eventually, Hana was done for. But part of him, the part deep inside that had fallen for this man-shaped demon, just wanted to set Ulquiorra free. Just wanted to see him thrive beyond collars and chains and restraints and bars. To see the beast unfurl its wings in all their frightening glory.

But he couldn't. Because more than life, more than love, more than empathy and sympathy and the darkest desires of his heart, there was loyalty. Hanatarou would never betray Soul Society. The Gotei 13 could treat him as they did because he was their bitch.

"No," he blurted out, closing his eyes and waiting for the end. When the seconds ticked by and nothing happened, his eyes popped open again, falling into a sea of haunting green.

Ulquiorra sighed, the movement so slight Hana might have imagined it. And then the claws biting into his neck disappeared and he slid to the ground, panting.

"I thought so," the arrancar said quietly, "but I had to know for sure." Still staring at Hana, he grasped the collar on both sides and pulled. The metal fell to the ground, useless, and he was free.

"How?" Hana gaped as the Espada came to his feet. Full strength or not, he shouldn't have been able to remove the reiatsu suppressor.

"I disabled it days ago. Rather crude, really, for beings with your technology."

This was it, then. Hana didn't want to die a coward. So he shook himself, leaned against the wall, and pulled himself up on limbs like jelly. He crossed his arms and glared, an ineffectual, weak challenge, but a challenge nonetheless. And the Espada took it, stalking forward until their noses were only inches apart. Hana refused to close his eyes, wanting to see the death blow coming. Lips descended on his own instead, a cold, spidery hand cupped his cheek, and then Ulquiorra was on the other side of the bars.

As the unforgiving metal slid into place with a clang, understanding passed from green to blue. And something else.

Something a little too close to regret.

Then Ulquiorra turned around, and he didn't look back. Hana didn't expect him to. Their paths were fixed, predetermined, and they diverged here. The world didn't move backwards, but ever forward, no pause, no rewind, and no fast forward.

He never saw the Espada again.

The next day, Hana put in for a transfer to Squad Ten. Hitsugaya-taichou was proof enough that small and delicate didn't have to mean weak. The time for wishing was over—Yamada Hanatarou would change what he could and leave what he couldn't alone.

It had nothing to do with Hitsugaya's green eyes.

A/N:

Thanks for reading! This is my final entry for the second round Bleach Romances Fanfiction Contest. Please check it out and vote for the entry you think is best!

Also, the pun in the title is entirely intended. If you didn't get it, PM me and I'll explain. Please review!