Yes, I'm an Ulquihime fan. Yes, it's my favourite pairing in the Bleach world as of now. Yes, you've caught me.
Anyway, I whipped this up virtually out of nowhere and rather liked it, so here we are.
Don't own Bleach, Ulquiorra (sob), Orihime, none of that.
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There is little that Orihime Inoue knows about this man.
For one, he frightens her terribly when he meanders in, soundless and cold and reverberating with a sort of energy that is not like Ichigo's, not like anyone's she has experienced before. It has the undeniable potential to render her open-mouthed and wide-eyed, even when her back is to him, because something about it is both threatening and fascinating all at once.
Another is that he isn't quite like the other Arrancar she has seen of late. His words are kept at a minimum, even to his subordinates, and are chilling and cryptic no matter what the subject. Orihime cannot remember ever having heard him raise his voice, and whether this is relieving or unnerving, she lingers in between, trying to find an answer but falling flat every time. He doesn't engage in mindless battle with his own type like she has seen when taking short, privileged walks around the fortress grounds (Aizen-sama says she deserves something nice every now and then, since she's been such a good girl). In fact, it is a rarity that he even serves anyone a passing glance.
Orihime seems to be an exception to this. That's another thing she knows about him, because at times, it seems he won't stop looking at her, as if she will crumble into dust and he absolutely must be the first one to witness it. Does he expect her to? Is he waiting for her to suddenly fall apart like an ashen thumbelina, pick her pieces up and lay them down at Aizen-sama's feet?
I'd be pretty worthless then, wouldn't I…
She also knows that it's not exactly right to keep paying so much attention to his stares, since she has been made well aware of the fact that she has better, more crucial things to be thinking about (even though being locked up in this cold magnolia room gives her more than enough time for her mind to wander). It's unavoidable in the end, because she has also come about learning something else about him, something unsettling and illicit and that she wishes had never crossed her mind.
No…no, that needs to stop…
Orihime knows that Ulquiorra is beautiful. He is painfully, disturbingly, horribly beautiful, like a marionette given motion, pale and cold and just striking. He is no Ichigo, nothing human or even anything safe, but Orihime knows, and there is nothing she can do about it. Upon her first look at him, before she came to this barren place but after her fate was locked, the realization had been dormant, hidden away so as to be exposed when she would be the most helpless against it.
But Ichigo…I still-
Something inside her twists and breaks when she feels that raw pressure again from the doorway. That stare that she hasn't taught herself to ignore.
Perhaps Orihime Inoue doesn't know all that much about herself either.
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I'm a sucker for the PrisonerxCaretaker fics. I don't know why. Is that creepy of me?
Well, creepy or not, feedback is always love in my book.
