PRIMARY DISCLAIMER: I do not own Bleach. Tite Kubo owns Bleach in this world, where it is no more than fiction, and he's a pretty darn good mangaka... he even got our names right. And before I forget, also Viz Media owns Bleach. Sad, ne?

OTHER DISCLAIMER: This pairing is fiction. Really. Seriously. It has nothing to do with my pen name whatsoever. With that out of the way...

Thanks to the person who suggested the story's pairing and kindly worked out kinks in the plot: Rayna Lissesul, a close friend and fellow fangirl. Please take a look at her profile and read her stories; I promise you'll like them.

It was not Nnoitra's day. Not at all.

He'd never felt so bad in his life. This was worse than any wound he'd ever had, because eventually a wound would go away. A wound would go away courtesy of Inoue, leaving him whole, hale and hearty. This… whatever-it-was would not be going away anytime soon. That was for sure.

To top all that off, he didn't even know what it was!

All he could remember doing differently was going to the human world. It had been below freezing, raining like all heck and, though he'd felt a little bit cold, like he was going to admit that. So he'd even taken his shirt off to fight this time. He'd show that weather who was boss.

…Bad idea. Somehow, he'd never quite warmed up once he got back to Hueco Mundo—though something told him he should actually not be cold, he'd chalked it up to stupid human weather and left the issue alone for roughly a week, hoping it would go away on its own. All in all, things hadn't been too terrible.

Until today.

Last week, he had woken up with a horrible taste in his mouth. He'd figured it was due to something he'd eaten and shrugged it off, heading to the meeting scheduled for that day. It had been a worse and worse day from there. He'd slowly noticed that his nose didn't feel quite right, and it was starting to affect his breathing... or was it the other way 'round? He'd been cold all over, ice-cold in fact, and his joints were beginning to ache. His throat felt funny. Something wasn't right, but he was the tough, macho fifth Espada. So he'd kept it to himself. For a good week and a half, if you counted the chilled feeling he'd had since he'd gotten back. But now…

He couldn't take it any longer. Nnoitra was starting to feel very strange, not anything able to be identified yet but just… strange. Like he was slowly being tugged out of the control-seat of his own mind. His ability to think slowed down, and just when it was starting to become irksome, said ability ground to a dead halt.

When Aizen-sama told the group to write something down, he found that his fingers could hold the pencil, and that was all. They could not write. He couldn't even scratch in the most basic kanji; his hands were weak and shaky and he wondered how long it had taken him to notice. Flustered, Nnoitra raised one hand to be excused, when suddenly he'd grown a little weaker. He tried to speak, but something wasn't right.

He couldn't breathe. His lungs felt like they were half-full of lead. He was all of a sudden dizzy, and the ache around his joints intensified. Something is wrong, he thought desperately, but an Espada never asks for help. He forced himself up, hoping he could escape before that became a possibility. Aizen glanced over at him.

"Yes, Nnoitra?"

Cold sweat dripped from his forehead. His dizziness got worse. His mind was yelling that he was an idiot for ignoring that taste in his mouth. "Aizen-sama… I-I need… to be excus—" Eyes slipping shut, Nnoitra crumpled to the floor.