A/N: This is the second collaborative story between u/9915520/EspadaFour and u/8377967/JK-Robertson which was originally posted on Ao3. In these stories, generally, the characters who are canonically Espada, Sternritter, Aizen and his minions are written by EspadaFour and the shinigami and humans are written by JK-Robertson. It is not always the case. But always EspadaFour writes Ulquiorra and JKRobertson writes Orihime, and in this story, Uryu.

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE. We do not own Bleach nor the characters used. They belong to their respective owners. Please feel free to send a PM or leave a review. We reply! Thank you for reading!

CHAPTER 1: The Bat Has Left the Belfry

He'd gone to the World of the Living. He'd stolen the supplies he needed. He would watch her for days and days as they passed by. It had been a blink of an eye for him, but Ulquiorra remembered the madness overtaking him.

The brushes. The canvases. The paint. The sharp smell of brush cleaner. The mess he'd made. He was rather good at hiding things. He was able to hide his curiosity about the woman. He was able to mask the desire he felt for her. He masked it all with anger.

Once the painting was done, he stashed it away in the World of the Living. Somewhere that no one would find it. He had signed the corner of it C. Murcielago. It wasn't much. It just showed a sparsely furnished room in the palace of Las Noches. It had a redhead girl who stared up at a crescent moon behind a caged window. He wanted something to remember her by. He needed something to remember her.

He hadn't anticipated on leaving this world so soon. On top of that dome, he faded away, reaching out for her. He didn't know how she felt. He didn't know what she thought, but Ulquiorra realized one thing. This woman had awakened his heart.

That was his only saving grace as he felt light come into his soul. He'd been redeemed from an eternity of agony in hell.

The music and drink made everything seem hazy. She was surrounded by taller, sweatier bodies undulating to the same rhythm. She closed her eyes and got lost in it as well.

The beat changed. The mood shifted. A darker tone overtook the atmosphere, and for a brief moment, the crowd parted. Her eyes opened and time stopped.

Finally, a desperate urge from her body to breathe overpowered her shock.

"Uryu, did you see-"

"Speak up, bitch! I can't hear you."

She scoffed. "URYU, DID YOU SEE WHAT I JUST SAW?"

"What do you think you see?" he asked, grinding into her backside to the music.

She rolled her eyes. "Over there," she said, turning to make eye contact and darting her eyes toward the area in question. She did not want to be obvious in pointing out the man seated in the booth facing the dancefloor.

Uryu looked. He displayed a flash of recognition and shuddered a bit. "Whoa, spooky. Don't worry about it, Boo, he's fuckin' dead. Anyway did you see that twink by the door..."

Orihime wasn't listening anymore and took no comfort in his words. She watched the pale, long-haired man in the booth until he left the area a few minutes later. It was uncanny. He had died. That was true. Why then did it feel like the earth had turned on its axis and dropped her into Bizarroland?

It had to be Bizarroland, she thought, because that was, without a doubt, Ulquiorra Cifer.

It was 7:24 am in Tokyo, Japan. A man stood in front of a huge canvas that sat against one wall of his loft apartment. He'd woken out of a dead sleep from a dream that left him clawing for breath and panting. It was always the same thing.

Darkness and then too-loud noises; too-bright light. He'd been in so much pain and then nothing. That was when he usually woke up, panicking. That's how he returned to the world of the living again. He found himself lying in a puddle of vomit with various objects surrounding him. Something that looked like Szayel's experimental drug containers and small baggies littered the floor.

What the hell had happened?

He had died.

Hadn't he?

Ulquiorra sat up groaning, feeling the bile rise in his throat. What the hell happened? Why was he here? This place was dirty. It smelled horrible. He moved his arm and pain lanced through it. He looked down to see a needle sticking out of it; the plunger depressed all the way down.

Pain and panic washed over him, like an endless ebbing at his nerves and senses. What was going on?

A thought occurred to him that made him start to panic even more. Was it possible for souls to overtake a body? Could they inhabit another body? This wasn't supposed to happen. He was supposed to go to hell. He was an Espada. There was a special place reserved for him.

Looking down at his hands, he watched himself yank the thing out of his skin. How had something like that pierced his Hierro? He brought it up to his face then upon examination; he threw it to the side.

Unless… Was he human?

Eyes crept back down to see red blood trickle from the wound.

Ulquiorra swallowed, once more sour bile and dread crawled up his throat. Hollow blood was dark red. When he was in his different release forms, his blood was black.

The blood that was on his arm was bright fucking red. It was the color of a Yammy's Cero.

He remembered stumbling out of that bathroom, confused as to where he was but not who he was. He was Ulquiorra Cifer; former Hollow, Arrancar, and the fourth Espada. He was now human. He was human.

He felt strange as he navigated his way through the rundown building. He found out in short order that he was in the crappy part of the red light district of Tokyo. It was December first. He had just exited from a known drug haven.

How was this possible?

He didn't know the answers. He couldn't ask the questions that were swirling around in his mind. Ulquiorra did the only thing he could think of, which meant taking the train to Karakura. He walked and asked where he could find the Urahara Shoten. Most people shook their heads and waved him off. Others pointed him in the right direction.

Those who pointed him in the correct direction probably had a blip of spiritual pressure. He couldn't detect anything out of the ordinary.

Tessai had taken one look at him and shook his head. "You're a human, and you found this place?"

Ulquiorra had nodded. "Is Urahara Kisuke present? Is he here?"

The tall man had held his chin like he was thinking. It didn't take long for Ulquiorra to detect the sounds of someone walking with a cane down a hallway. A striped hat appeared in the doorway followed by the green outfit the man wore, but he did not have geta on his feet, just socks.

When the blond came into the shop, the man looked horrified. "What are you-"

"I need help. I need answers." He was not a threat. If he could not use Cero, Sonido, or Pesquisa then how the hell was he to have an advantage over anyone?

And he'd gotten his answers, but Urahara didn't offer much help. He'd mumbled and printed off a bunch of information for Ulquiorra. The man was blind in one eye with thick scars running down his face and limbs. He hobbled to and fro. There wasn't much he could do.

He had tried asking Urahara about her and the substitute shinigami. The shopkeeper had shaken his head and refused to entertain those questions. He waved them off, saying it didn't matter. This behavior had worried Ulquiorra, but he said nothing else.

It had been four years since that day when he woke up inside of a nasty bathroom, and he had taken that train trip. Ulquiorra had done well for himself in that time. He found the canvas he had painted. It was still where he put it.

He went back to that drug den and up to the room that everyone said was his. He cleared the space out; cleaned up it. He bought himself paints, pencils, stretched canvases, and brushes. He began to create. It was disjointed. It was rushed. His art conveyed his panic of those first few weeks. It wasn't fun trying to become human when all he knew was the life of a regretful spirit.

In the first spurt of creativity, he'd made eight different paintings. Two of the canvases showed a redheaded girl, the one that he remembered. The one that he had given his heart to. He submitted them to local art galleries and finally snagged himself a spot in an art show. The ones of the redhead sold quickly, and by the time the show had run its course, Ulquiorra had sold each painting.

He moved out of the drug house. He got himself an apartment on the top floor above a pub. The place was in Koenji, but it was clean. There were no other drug addicts that lived in the building. There were no bugs. He could lock his door and knew that there would be no one trying to break into the place.

The first year was his hardest. Inspiration came in waves and flurries of activity; then there were lulls which he hated because all he did was stare at a blank slate that was begging for color and images.

The second year he was starting to become recognizable, at least his paintings were. The Woman and the Moon was always shown with his other work but never sold. He could not bear to give up the best image he had of Inoue Orihime. It was the one Ulquiorra he had taken most pride in. It was the one he coveted the most.

The third year he was in demand. He got an agent to represent him. He painted non-stop, it seemed like. He moved into a different apartment. This one had a loft and skylights. It was the perfect place for him. It took up an entire floor in a narrow building. He hadn't minded the walk up twelve flights of stairs. He was used to being up high.

The neighbors that lived below him were other artistic folks; writer, dancer, novelist, cartoonist, a vlogger, manga artist and so forth. Some were Japanese. Others were from different countries which made him ponder other things. If he could, would he leave Japan?

Probably not.

This was the last known location of Inoue.

The fourth-year had been the best so far. He had made money. He had everything he could want and still lived comfortably. He could go out with the few friends he had and have a goodnice time. They went clubbing. They had dinners. They talked over coffee. He watched everyone.

One such Friday night they were out, and he thought he saw someone he recognized, but it was impossible. Plenty of women had that same reddish-brown hair. He knew he could use the computer in his apartment or his phone and pull up the search results.

Her hair wasn't as unique as he once thought. Inoue was not unique. She wasn't some unicorn that he once thought she was standing in that room. She was a woman, and he had plenty of those at his beck and call. As he looked across the club and over the sea of drunken bodies, he stared at that woman and the guy who was currently groping her ass.

It wasn't anyone.

It was just some anonymous woman who looked like her. When he couldn't take watching the lookalike anymore, Ulquiorra decided to find a different fake redhead to take home that night. The drunken sex was the same mundane thing as always. Their cries meant nothing to him. They were just bodies.

The encounters he had with the women that briefly flirted with his life were all the same. It was fucking them and then showing them to the door. He did not need anyone permanent. He didn't care that he got scalding texts detailing how he was a "fuck boy" or a douchebag because he would not return calls or respond to texts, leaving the women's messages unread.

But those dreams he constantly had haunted him. They tormented him with nightmares that he couldn't shake at times. This morning was one of those times.

Panting, he climbed down the ladder and went to the bathroom, taking a shower to wash the sweat from his body. It still felt strange. This body. The human he inhabited looked like him with pale skin, black hair, and flat green eyes with reptilian pupils. The voice sounded like his with a mono, almost bored tone. The brain worked in the same calculating and detail-oriented manner. He was a perfectionist, and it showed in his work. He could feel emotion. He was irrational at times. The painting frenzies could attest to this. His introverted moods spoke loudly at times.

After the shower, he stepped out of the bathroom and looked at the painting that hung above his desk.

The Woman and the Moon.

Every time he woke up, he greeted the painting as if it were his lover. "Good morning, Woman. You're looking lovely as usual." or "Good evening, Woman. Did you do anything today? No? You just stood there looking forever up at that static sky?"

Sometimes he thought he was going insane.

That could be the case because he would stand there for a moment before going to the galley kitchen to grab something to eat or drink. It was like he almost expected her to reply to him.

At that moment, which was now 7:26 am, Ulquiorra had his back to his most famous piece and was staring at a large blank canvas. He had an art showcase to get ready for in a little over two months. He would display the woman's painting along with whatever else he managed to come up with.

With a sigh, Ulquiorra picked up his paint pallet and a brush and dipped it into the white. The dream he had during the previous hours had been of Hueco Mundo; its desolate landscape with his helmet buried in the sand. He had never had it ripped off. The mask fragment of his days as an Espada could never be removed. It was fused to his skull. But there, on the canvas, it laid on a white sand dune under a black sky and a white moon. Sometimes he had boggled at the power within him while he lived as a hollow. Had he just strived towards greatness, he wouldn't have stuck around Las Noches. He would have gone and fought in the Winter War.

Most art critics said his art was melancholy. It was morose. It was sad. Ulquiorra didn't think it was any of that but what did these people know? They were merely judging who he was as a person by that with which they were presented.

Often times if he went to his shows, he wore dark clothing or a suit. He applied eyeliner and lined his upper lip with black lipstick. He felt more like himself when he did this. People would comment on his brightly colored eyes and the strange slit-like pupils. His reply was always the same when people asked about his eyes.

"Contacts."

They would nod, and then the reviews would pour in about the freakish artist who looked like he had come from someone's nightmare.

Why should he be the only one who dealt with the dreams?

He painted many renditions of his crystal tree. This time a bat hung from the branches. It was almost like the bat that he had tattooed on his left forearm, near his wrist. He'd celebrated his first sold painting with a tattoo and continued the tradition with every other one that left his possession. He had quite the collection of disjointed ink to mar his body.

It was better than shoving drugs into his mouth and veins as the previous occupant of this body had done.

Hours went by and finally, Ulquiorra collapsed into his computer chair, exhausted. He'd gotten three out of the ten paintings done. Ulquiorra needed to recharge; he needed more inspiration. He'd eat and get some coffee. Perhaps go for a walk along the streets of his neighborhood. Maybe he would visit one of the other areas of Tokyo. Sometimes it was good to get out of his comfort zone, and it had been a while since he'd gone on an adventure.

He found himself walking the streets of Shinjuku. He went into Book Off, a popular second-hand media place, but didn't see anything of interest in there. He found himself in a camera store, talking to the salespeople about camera lenses. Ever since he became an artist, photography had always interested him. He liked using a camera to watch people out and about engaging in their daily lives.

It kept the monotony bearable some days.

He left that store and continued to walk around watching people as they moved. He had to wonder as he navigated the sidewalk if his nightmare had been triggered by the redhead he had seen recently. He couldn't remember certain details of her; he could barely tell what color eyes she had or how her lips looked when he had made her cry. He couldn't even conjure the sound of her voice pleading with him to let her out of that room.

There was very little that he did know about her. Ulquiorra knew she had huge tits, a tiny waist, and rounded hips. He knew she had those hairpins. He knew her name and where she lived. He knew her birthday, and that part of her name meant princess. To him, she had always been more than a princess. Princess was still a lowly title for Orihime.

It was funny how when he thought about her his dick would pulse. Stupid humans and their ways. He still harbored feelings for the woman.

He would never tell anyone that. He would never say anything to anyone about his feelings. He wasn't a "sit around the campfire to join in with friends to sing songs" type of person. He was a "leave me the fuck alone and mind your damn business" type of guy. He didn't like when devices were shoved into his face so that people could get a sound byte. He didn't like it when people wrote down his words or quoted him.

"Murcielago-san! Murcielago-san!" they would say trying to get his attention so that he could give a statement or answer a question. He never let the press know his real name. He'd always signed his work "C. Murcielago," that way no one would be able to recognize him.

No one knew who he was. No one knew the great C. Murcielago was the former Espada, Ulquiorra Cifer. No one who had heard his name would know it was him.

He was so lost in thought that he bumped into someone and didn't apologize. He continued on his way past the fashion college and its museum. He had heard from one of the tenants in the building that there was a decent udon place around this area.

Ulquiorra didn't look back. He didn't care who he ran into; if he had given a shit about who he had run into he would have seen the person had stopped and turned around to stare at him. He would have seen messy ginger hair and a disbelieving stare. He would have seen a pair of dark amber eyes twitching and fists curling.

But the dark-haired man didn't. He minded his own damn business.

Ichigo had been in town only for a weekend, telling Orihime that he was bored and wanted to have a reunion with his old friends from Karakura. Orihime was long over her infatuation with the shinigami. He couldn't let go of his ego. He kept bringing up Soul Society. He kept finding excuses to go back. He had one foot in this world and the other in the next. It was exhausting. It was also unnecessary.

There had been relative peace and stability after the war. Yes, there were konsos to perform and minor hollows to slay, but it was nothing that any standard unseated shinigami couldn't handle. Ichigo had just refused to give up control. He didn't make plans for his future. And when he did, it was always to stay close to Karakura and keep up the shinigami act. It had soon become clear, to both Orihime and Uryu, that he was not keeping either of them in mind when he talked about his role in defending Karakura. His was a one-man show. Nevermind the fact that it had been Orihime who revived him from the dead and saved his skin on multiple occasions. Nevermind the fact that it had been Uryu who defeated Yhwach.

They had both become disillusioned with their friend, who seemed dead set on living in the past, as far as they were concerned. Orihime had come to realize that even if the substitute shinigami ever came to recognize her fading feelings for him, they would never have the kind of loving, stable relationship she wanted and needed. It would always be Soul Society first. She didn't want to live like that.

So she had made other plans. The Karakura gang's group dynamic had changed when she announced that she wasn't going to stay in town after high school. Ichigo had gotten bitchy with her.

On the other hand, Uryu was totally excited. He and Orihime had conspired against his father, and both of them got accepted into Bunka Fashion College and left for Shibuya to study fashion design. It was a dream come true for Uryu. It was just something fun to do for Orihime. She found that she enjoyed it immensely she and could see herself doing it long-term, but it hadn't been a lifelong passion for her like it had been for Uryu.

She fell into the social scene gradually. Although she steered clear of many of the typical college vices, she often drank to excess and would go party all night on weekends. It was part of the expected lifestyle though; she had to be seen. She had to have her look admired. She was already developing a brand. So was Uryu.

In addition to school and socializing Orihime worked part time doing tailoring from home and modeling gigs as a side job. These jobs helped her further her connections, and Uryu often found a way to weasel himself into any connection she made, often to Orihime's detriment.

They competed against one another to see who would be the most attractive. Given their industry and social set, it was often Uryu who was more attractive to many people, especially in his newfound gay community. Orihime usually stayed close to him, afraid to fall into the arms of another man who didn't appreciate her. She was happy to go along and dance at gay clubs and get felt up by the cute half-naked guys there. When she went to clubs outside of Shinjuku 2-chome she still often found herself orbiting around the edges of any grouping of gay men that included Uryu. They made her feel safe and semi-welcome. For someone trying to keep her feelings drawn, that was a good deal for Orihime. She didn't want to open herself up only to have her dreams crushed again.

It hadn't just been what happened with Ichigo that made her so closed-off. Ever since her captivity in Hueco Mundo, there had been another being who had taken up residence in her heart. One who had died, but still lived in her dreams and nightmares. Sometimes it would just be reliving dull memories of him bringing food to her and threatening her to eat. Sometimes it would be his death. Sometimes his battle with Ichigo. She dreamt less often of Ulquiorra Cifer these days, but whenever she saw people holding hands, the old question, "what if?" resurfaced in her mind.

It didn't make her any less guarded, in fact, she had gained a reputation for being kind of a bitchy fag hag. That was no problem in her social circle, but it kept straight men away. Just as she preferred.

Things were not perfect in her new life, though. Orihime and Uryu had developed a uniquely fucked up relationship. They were roommates from the start and quickly became codependent to a large degree. They often slept together in the same bed, and sometimes, especially after excessive alcohol consumption, they would snuggle and sometimes kiss and touch inappropriately. It was never romantic though, and they never took it any further than that.

At the end of the day, the pair of fashion students were just two broken people who were fucking lonely and using each other for creature comfort and courage. Uryu was often overprotective and controlling of Orihime, afraid that one day she might find someone and leave him alone. That did nothing to stop him from being a big manwhore. He had lots of hookups but no long relationships, and he almost always came home at night regardless of his dalliances, sometimes just to make sure she hadn't left him. That's all he cared about, really.

Their friendship had long been suffering under the weight of their deep, parallel despair. Recently, both had recognized that their relationship was becoming toxic. They both knew that they desperately need to branch out. They didn't talk about it though.

Ichigo coming for an uninvited visit wasn't exactly helping things. He had told Uryu he was in town for a seminar. Uryu seemed surprised to learn he was still going along with his father's insistence on attending medical school. Ichigo asked if he could crash with them. Uryu reluctantly agreed. He didn't tell Orihime. He knew she would refuse.

Uryu was curious to see how Ichigo had changed. It had been nearly two years since he had seen him. Now that he was secure in his sexuality, Uryu was curious about Ichigo's. This is the same man who didn't bat an eyelash at Orihime's boob window dress during the last war. There was a decent chance Uryu would be getting laid, he thought.

He had been disappointed when Ichigo showed up with a duffel bag and more or less ignored him, walking up behind Orihime and asking, "Hey, lookin' good, fly girl. How'bout it?"

Orihime grabbed a coat. She grabbed her bag. "I'm going out," is all she said. She didn't come back until morning.