Her Brothers

Intro:

Hi. I appreciate everyone who takes time to check this out.

And by first glance I realize that this story appears to be a UlquiXHime story, please understand that only the First Prologue will be in Orihime's point of view, and her experiences prior to the main plot are important to the overall GrimmXIchi story.

Summary: Orihime has always attempted to 'fix' those around her ever since she was little. But Grimmjow thinks there no way she will ever be able to pick up his pieces, at least not without a little help from her 'brother'.

This is a GrimmXIchi, which means boy love- which means if you don't like it don't read it. XP

And… now then.


Her Brothers.

Orihime:
My brothers, have not always been my brothers. I was in elementary school with them. Ichigo and Shiro were the two outcasts of our pre-school class. Ichigo, because of his hair and wild temper. Shiro, simply because he looked different- an albino. I can still remember when my brother picked me up one day after class and pointed this out to me. I remember telling him that they were twins and talking for a half an hour at least just about some of the things they did.

Sora laughed, I can remember that it was the most peaceful sound in the world to me. "Why don't you try talking to them Orihime? Sounds like you have common interests." I can remember how he smiled at me- that smile drown out all other noise around us. But I didn't talk to the Kurosaki brothers. The two boys who would be picked up every day after school, by their mother. I resented them a bit I think. Because even though I had Sora, I knew even then that my mother would never come to pick me up. No, that was my job- I would be the one that picked my mother up off the floor and lay her on the couch after she passed out. My father was too heavy- Sora took care of him.

I distanced myself all though preschool and first grade from people. The first friend I had was a boy was sat next to me the first day of school, and every day there after. We were the ones who didn't talk. My mother taught me that talking was a bad thing and that I should just shut up; he just didn't- not even when the teacher would call on him. But regardless, when the girls picked on me at recess, I didn't say anything about it- not to anyone, even Sora. Then one afternoon, when their usual choruses of the parentless girl, he stopped them.

Ulquiorra Cifer's silence scared the other children for some reason. I seemed to be the only one unaffected- even the Kurosaki brothers kept their distance then. But when he stepped up to the circle of taunting girls and looked at me through a gap in their lines, my breath stopped. The small smirk on his mouth seemed to foul to his usually stonic appearance, his large green eyes taunt me for different reasons than the girls around me. Taunt me to stand up, push them away, and be stronger than them. And I did. I stopped putting up with their bullying for a long time.

I found out by piecing things together though the next year or so that we were tentative friends, why it was that Ulquiorra was always so quiet. Sora would invite him to come with us to the park in the afternoons, where I would play on the swings and Sora would sit on the picnic table and do his homework for his honors class- but he would always tell us that he had to get home. We usually just relented- but every time my heart would fall a little when he would smile so sad and his lips would try to reassure us with a smile about something so innocent as needing to straight home after school.

Eventually, still toward the beginning of the school term in my second year, Sora set up a meeting with our teacher and as I sat in the chair next to the door just outside as they talked about my only friend. I listened, and even though my teacher obviously thought I wouldn't understand, I did. She told Sora that Ulquiorra's mother was sick- really sick- and most likely would be gone by Christmas.

I never asked him directly, but I knew that Ulquiorra understood- just like I did- the meaning of death. I learned it when my mother shot dog, when I five. I helped Sora bury it in the backyard as he explained what it meant. He cried as he told me. But I got the general gist. Sora loved that dog and now that dog was gone. He wouldn't ever be there to keep him company when our parents were fighting- to growl at father and snip at him when he tired to hit us. Mother shot him so that he couldn't keep us from them- so he couldn't protect us.

In my eight year old head, I understood that Ulquiorra's mother- who loved him- wouldn't be there to hold him at night anymore, like real mothers did.

But I stayed closer to him- I tried to protect him. When other people tried to harass him, I diverted his- or their- attention and tired to make it easier on him. I worried about him, a lot. I know it's a strange thing to think about- but I've loved him since we were in the third grade. His mother died shortly after Thanksgiving, and he moved inside himself for a while.

I let him grieve- like Sora told me to- but I couldn't stand it long. He came to school on Monday after she had died Saturday afternoon, and he was so quiet it was strange even to me. I walked next to him all day, at recess- when he sat on the edge of the playground on the small rocks, I sat next to him. Not too close- I didn't hover- but I sat just close enough that I knew he could feel me there. So that he knew he didn't have to be alone in this. And on Wednesday -when we did the same thing as the two days prior, as we sat in the pebbles of the playground and he ran his small little boy hands though those small stones- he asked me to come to his mother's funeral with him.

"You're my friend," he told in a quiet voice, "And I was you there."

I had smiled a little and replied in a voice just as small 'of course- I want to be there.' And those words seemed to make him understand. He looked up at me, his eyes so open and vulnerable, and I think that was the moment I feel in love with him.

But Ichigo and Shiro came into the picture a long while later.

Ulquiorra and I had been, loosely defined, friends with the Kurosaki twins. But even then- in our fifth grade year- I saw something in them that I wanted to help. I knew that their mother had died a few years before- during the summer. I'd probably been trying to 'fix' them since then. Because when we all came back to school, they were different people. Shiro struck out more, and Ichigo would always be standing and observing, wait for an opening to strike at those who struck at either of them.

Ulquiorra saw it in my eyes even before I could say it out loud.

He sighs, "You can't fix everyone, Hime."

He told me this so simply that it made me want to try. But he was right- the twins pushed me back. But before long they began to spring board back onto me, allowing me slowly into their small bubble that then consisted of just them- gave no reason, just one day started to pull me back in slightly before they would realize they really might not want me there and push me back out. But I made an impression, at least.

They quickly acclimated to good-natured teasing Ulquiorra and I- separately or together, they could do it well either way. In no time at all they four of us were a trap of possibly unwanted comfort. Shiro would always tell me, in his own teasing way, how I did make them feel better. They didn't feel like I would ever judge them. Then they would laugh that and if I did, Ulqui would be able to level me out.

In the schoolyard then, everyone understood that we were a package deal- the Kurosaki twins and the silent couple.

Because we still didn't really talk- between the two of us, words didn't matter. Everything we wanted the other to know, as far as feelings or fears, we were able to understand without words. The other students knew that as we entered Junior High and we hit puberty- I grew curves and his body slimmed and toned- we were untouchable.

It wasn't really necessary for us to say it to each other- we knew who we belonged to. We never disputed that I was his girlfriend and he was my boyfriend, we didn't use the words but we knew the feelings just the same. And anyone who tried to meddle with us, got our, self-dubbed, socially-awkward bodyguards in their face. And anyone who say anything about the twins had to deal with the silent statue of Ulquiorra Cifer.

I found my boy had a rather red streak when provoked- I didn't mind. And everyone knew that you were crazy to even look at Orihime Inoue wrong for fear of two punks and her possibly-boyfriend.

But-

In Junior High- I had just turned twelve, and one night, my life was ripped out from under me.

I physically don't remember the event- I just have the massive distaste of blood now. I can't look at it without blacking out- puking, convulsing, gut wrenching screams- if there's enough. Paper cut make me woozy, but I don't freak out just for them.

Ichigo remembers that night perfectly. When Sora carried me to their house and dropped me in his arms and then turned around and walked back home. Ichigo was the last person of consequence who saw my brother alive. Isshin took me into his clinic and looked me over- other than the purple bruises on my neck I was fine- but the white sundress I had worn to the park with the boys a few hours before was completely red with blood, which none of was mine.

Isshin called the police- Shiro called Ulquiorra.

I woke up three hours later and remembered nothing. Just the lingering feeling of loss in the back of my mind. I woke up with Ulquiorra curled up on the bed next to me. The twin were sleeping on the wall on the other side of the bed- which I found out was Shiro's.

When I woke up, I immediately began to cry. Silently at first and then hoarse- body racking sobs. They were all up quickly, Shiro ran to get Isshin while Ichigo got me a glass of water and Ulquiorra just held me to his shirt and let me cry. Isshin made the twins stand by the door and tried to get Ulqui to as well, but he wouldn't move- I was so happy. Isshin looked me over and tried to get me to talk about what had happened, what I remembered.

I knew nothing.

I remembered coming home from the park, where the four of us had been hanging out, while Sora and Isshin sat on a bench and talked a distance away. Sora and I walking in the door and I remember the lingering smell of a nameless drug in the house that I was used to.

Ulqui held me tighter as I tried to remember over the broken gaps in my brain.

I remembered the room going dark as my dad knocked the lamp off the side table next to the couch. I remembered the beginnings of another of their fights as Sora nudged me toward my room and I remembered standing just inside the door and listening to the wordless shouts. And lastly I remembered the pounding of feet down the hall with quick steps and my door opening just behind me, falling to the floor and my mother looming over me.

Ichigo looked like he was going to be sick- Shiro somehow got paler. Isshin just watched me talk about the things I was saying so easily. Ulqui just rubbed my back. I barely realized I was crying.

I told them that all I remembered after that was a sick, coppery smell that lingered in my mouth and pain… Lots of pain- gaping chest ripping, stinging pain.

Isshin, along with Ulquiorra took, me to the police station. Ulqui's father met us there. He was a tall pale man who looked a lot like his son, only with deep brown, nearly black, eyes- I'd met him a few times before. He smiled so sadly at me that it shook my gut. Ulquiorra held my hand tighter. I walked up to him and smiled up at him- his face twisted in shock.

"Don't be sad," I told him. Because in my head, if I couldn't be sad about finding out that mother and father will hacked into little pieces with a kitchen knife held by my brother- who then carried me to my friend's house left me there, then walked back home and stabbed himself multiple times just so he didn't have to see me cry- no one should be sad.

I pulled myself together over the following week. Isshin asked on four days later- since I had no extended family that was in a position to take me in- if I would want to come live with them. Ulquiorra, when I asked him, said it would be best. His father was a single parent and while he and Isshin both were, Ulquiorra's father was a business owner- a small convenience store they owned and lived above- Isshin was a retired surgeon with a lot better of a educational background and financial background to support another child along with the twins and the six year old twin girls that were in love with me anyway.

He persuaded me that he'd still be there whenever I needed him- just like I had been for him over the years.

"Let me, this one time, help you pick up your pieces," he asked me as we let the conversation end.

I told Isshin the morning, as humbly as Sora had always taught me to be, that I would be grateful if he would allow me to stay with them. The two sets of twins were instantly beaming.

I joined the Kurosaki home within weeks, Isshin and I had to appear in court- I has to say that it was what I wanted and Isshin had to state on record that he would take care of me to the best of his ability- provide a home where I would be welcomed and happy. I never doubted he could- never.

Our life, the four of us was even more exciting over the years that followed. Our roles followed up through High School. People expected my bright smiles and Ulquiorra's void expression to everyone but me- along with the twins late blossomed beauty, which was only matched by the ease with which they distracted people from it with their scowls.

But, when we got to out Sophomore year- things changed a little. Ichigo and Shiro's voice caught the attention of the music teacher- they began private lessons with him after the sneaky man spoke directly to Isshin about this son's wasted talent. This same teacher found out that they both had amazing innate ability with pitch and, after speaking with Isshin again, began to teach them guitar along with their lessons. I would often tease them about it- but I knew probably better than anyone else how talented they really were. On one of the rare occasions that were allowed to sit in and listen/watch, this teacher also learned on another valued 'wasted talent' that only I had known about. And a few days later, Ulqui started lessons too- guitar and piano.

This same crazy teacher was how we all meet Renji. Renji was said crazy teacher's nephew that he had raised- who he was also giving rhythm lessons to. The red head wormed him way… aggressively into our little group. His personality clashed just right with the twins that there was no way he wouldn't be sticking around. And as such, Renji got closer to Ulquiorra and I, too.

And along that path, the schoolyard learned that there was probably something wrong with me- because every friend I made was male and ungodly protective of me. The nickname that Ulqui had given me in fourth grade after we'd gotten close, spread like wild fire- I was the school's Hime. But of course, no one said it to my face.

By Junior year of High School, it was well known that even if the guys were around me- could knock someone out just as easily for hurting any of my friends. Because when Ichigo came out that he gay around school people relearned to pick on him. He and Shiro got into a fight that was never really talked about- it was just between them- and they were separated for a while. Ichi got jumped and managed to walk away from the three unconscious guy with only a busted lip.

The next morning a group of girls asked me some lewd questions about the twins being together and I set them straight- with bruises all over them. Ulqui and Renji watched and the former pulled me off when they were all under. Renji recorded it on his phone and Youtube showed everyone that I wasn't weak- and also got me suspended for three weeks, only because he also recorded the end of their taunts. The girls were reprimanded after they got out of the hospital.

Oddly the girl's fathers apologized to Isshin, Ichigo and I- we were all kind of surprised by that one. Those fathers petitioned that I not be suspended, but I stopped him, saying I shouldn't have given into their jeers and could have avoided it myself. Isshin beamed with pride. Ichigo thanked me. And Shiro made sure to not let the whole school he wasn't that straight as well.

And then, at the beginning of our last summer of high school- a proposition was put in front of Ichigo, Shiro, Ulquiorra, and Renji. A proposition that would leave them with their last year of school on the road. Their crazy music teacher- Kisuke Urahara- had a few friends in the music business. He had let a few of them listen to some tapes that the boys had made. And three of the four and expressed interest in listening to them, and then possibly signing them.

Renji didn't seem to care one way or the other- thinking the twins wouldn't want to go.

Ichigo surprised us all with saying he would do it, just needed to think about it.

Shiro wanted to, but wouldn't without Ichi.

And Ulquiorra- didn't know what to say.

We talked about it that night- the heavy silence that he was making driving me crazy. He told me, as we lay on my bed that night, my back against his chest as he played with my fingers, he didn't want to leave me. And though he really wanted to take this chance he wanted me to come with him. But he talked it out, and I didn't interrupt him.

He assessed what he knew I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be a interior designer- and he pointed out that I would need to go to college, regardless of my natural eye, to ever make that possible.

And then there was the fact that he'd be away for so long at a time- if they did go this. I laughed- being the first to admit that I knew when people sucked and I would never discount that they would do this if let these businessmen even listen to them. I didn't just tell them they were amazing for flattery- they were my best friends, and most precious people, but I couldn't lie about their abilities at a point like this.

That was the first time Ulquiorra actually told me, in word, that he loved me. I knew he did- but I also knew how hard it was sometimes for him to express his feelings. And hearing him tell me he loved me, I knew he was going to do it. He- they- were going to play for these people and they were going go become everyone's.

Ichigo would go back in the closet, because he was too hot to not be a sex icon. Shiro would be able to play the guitar for the world and shake it with his sound, as he had always said he wanted to. Renji would be able to go crazy with his money and not have to work at the dinner Kisuke's wife ran, like he always wanted to. And Ulquiorra, he told me that night, right after he told me he loved me- he would get famous, buy a big house and I could coordinate every room in it, if I wanted.

And the following week, I sat in a room with Isshin and Kisuke right next to me and watched as a bunch of suits swayed with their sheer talent. They loved Ichi and Shiro's voices and how they meshed- they loved the cryptic lyrics that Ulqui pulled out of his ass- and they loved how Renji pushed the beat faster and faster. And I watched as all three of the companies present began to vie for their companies right to mold my most precious people.

And I watched as Ulquiorra smiles at me so sad, right after he signed that paper. But I knew it wouldn't last, because even if he was leaving for a while- I'd be here, and after all was said and done this was what he wanted.

My senior year I made friends with a guy that the twins had been slight friends with- but who I had never talked to. Shinji Hirako was a year below me, but he was one of the few who didn't ask where my boys went. He just smiled, even though his eyes were so sad… and I wanted to fix him too.