Characters: Nnoitra, Neliel, Tesla (briefly mentioned)
Summary: She's still there long after she's gone.
Pairings: NnoiNel
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc
Timeline: pre-Hueco Mundo arc
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
He starts to think that maybe he might regret it in perhaps the darkest hours of the night of Las Noches.
It's only darkness now, with not but Tesla's heavy breathing in the bed across the room to break the silence. Nnoitra is, as he is quite often, tempted to lob a pillow or something considerably heavier at Tesla's head to shut him up, but having discovered after the first time that it does nothing to stop his Fracción's heavy breathing, he's since stopped.
Why commit to a course of action again if he's discovered it to fail once?
The utter darkness that cloaks Las Noches half the time (Nnoitra has always found it unnatural, for any place to have a great deal of light in it; he's not sure how these Shinigami stand having a sun shine down on them) is unforgiving, and baldly honest.
God only knows how long it's been since he's seen the flash of white bone to form a crown. Since he's seen long waves of green hair. Since he's seen the glimmer of hazel eyes.
Nnoitra never thought he'd actually miss Neliel. There are a lot of things that Nnoitra never thought would happen; missing Neliel is forefront among them.
He's not sure, not entirely sure, of what this reality is. There's an emptiness that's starting to yawn in him, a hollowness that gnaws in him. That hunger begins to grow, and Nnoitra wants even more to see his own blood on the ground.
That was what he wanted from her. Nnoitra wanted control over her, to make her angry, to make her vulnerable. And in the end, that was what he got. She didn't spill his blood, but he still had domination over her, in the moments before she was ripped apart and then stitched back together again in the form of a young child.
Still…
The absence of Neliel is shocking to Nnoitra in how much it fills his limbs with that empty feeling. He can't feel the moon shining on him, not now that she's gone.
Maybe… Maybe, he does regret it after all.
No! That thought is cut off and killed, then buried where it can never be found again. Nnoitra's mouth twists in an ugly sneer, as he stares on the ceiling.
Neliel was weak enough to be caught, to be transformed. She's not worth regretting, he tells himself.
When memory of her dances in his vision when he shuts his eyes, Nnoitra tries his best to deny that she's still there.
And finds he can't.
Neliel's still there. She always will be.
And that, Nnoitra finds, is something he just can't regret.