A/N: I'm sooooooooorrrrryyyyyy! I know its been forever since my last post! I can only blame my lack of internet and the fact that I'm in the middle of moving right now. So here we go, get your tissues out fan girls and boys this is going to be a little bit of a tear jerker…I hope. Enjoy!
Luna: My Apologies folks this is a repost.
DHiwitari: I'm sorry the computer uploaded the uncorrected version of this FIC please enjoy the reposted version
Luna: Sorry for the Fuck Up! Please enjoy!
Encounter in the night
Ulqiorra sighed again for what felt like the hundredth time in the last two hours. He hadn't been able to go to the fabric outlet yesterday because his idiot manager has left him to close the store all by himself. He still didn't understand that mans attraction to that dangerous feline female. But he was going to ditch Grimmgow and Stark right after school and head straight to the outlet. The last time he had went to the fabric store with the two of them he had had to leave because they had gotten bored and had started to harass the other costumers…well Grimmjow had. Stark had just stood to the side too lazy to stop him.
At the moment he was still in his French class, bored as hell once again. Well that wasn't quite true. He was trying like hell to ignore the feeling of two honey brown eyes drilling into the back of his head. Ichigo had transferred into his French class today and had been staring at him since he had entered the room. It was annoying and slightly satisfying to have the orange head so interested in him. The burning sensation of his intense stare was starting to make Ulqiorra want to twitch in his chair. But he refused to acknowledge the strawberries existence.
Suddenly the bell rang. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ichigo shoot up out of his seat. Ulqiorra quickly grabbed his bag and made a speedy get away out the door. His escape was only possible because a large group of girls always flocked around Ichigo during break. Rounding the corner and ducking behind a group of gossiping girls he breathed a sigh of relief. He had managed to avoid the persistent carrot top for other class period. Without thinking his feet carried him toward the roof. Half way up the stairs he met up with Grimmgow and the a few others out of their group.
They sat on the roof in a loose semi circle, Grimm sat next to him against the wall, Gratz was on his other side writing something in his note book and Stark was lying down off to the side. Ulqiorra had his earphones in and was oblivious to the world around him. Here, surrounded by his friends he felt safe. Only here did he let himself truly slip away in to la la land. He was in the middle of a great day dream about shopping in a clothing store in upper Paris, when he was rudely brought back to earth by Grimmgow's elbow being shoved into his side. He looked at Grimm in annoyance and then seeing the suspicious look on his friend's face he turned in the direction it was pointed.
Walking toward them, bold as brass, was Ichigo. He had his hands in his pockets and a serious look on his face like he had something important to do. Ulqiorra sat up straighter and strangling another sigh, faced the inevitable. He pulled out one earphone and looked up at the intruding strawberry. He had stopped a safe distance away, well out of arms length.
"What do you want, strawberry?" Grimm asked nun too nicely. Ichigo just raised one eyebrow at him in response to the hostility in his voice. "Although I don't see what you have to do with it, I'm here to speak with Ulqiorra, blueberry." was his tart reply.
Gratz snorted at the blueberry part and smiled at the orange head, "Oh I like you, you have a nice set of ball, ne? Not many people stand up to the blueberry." With that he started to giggle. Grimmjow bristled at this and clenched his fists. Ulqiorra could feel the angry heat radiation off his friend. Obviously this new guy didn't know who he was pissing off. Filling a little worried for Ichigo he decided to interject.
"What do you want with me?" he asked in a quiet calm voice. Grimm looked at him in surprised disgust.
"I've been trying to talk to you all morning but you are a surprisingly talented escape artist" the orange heads lips twitched at this statement and Ulqiorra couldn't help but wonder what inside joke he had just missed. "So when you got away from me again last hour I decided to come looking for you."
"What the fuck do you want with him? Are you looking for an ass kicking!" Grimmgow snapped at him, and all of his friends focused on Ichigo with the same expression, suspicion and calculation. They all were thinking of the fasted and cleanest way to take him down at the slightest signal from either Ulqiorra or Grimmgow.
"What are you his mother or something? What the fuck do you care? It's none of your business why I want to talk to him!" Ichigo hissed at Grimm. The strawberry was either very brave or very stupid. Ulqiorra suspected a mass mixture of both. Grimm's eyes were dark with burning anger.
"Ask what you want of me and leave. You are pissing my friends off and annoying me." Ulqiorra said coolly, the last thing he wanted to do right now was scrape this stubborn idiot's bloody and broken pile of goo off the roof. And by the time Grimm was done with him that was about all there would be left of the strawberry.
Looking a bit taken aback Ichigo turned his smoldering gaze toward Ulqiorra. The pale teen felt his stomach do a little flip at the heat in this hot idiots eyes, and it was the good kind of flip. He tried to swallow the nonexistent spit in his now dry mouth. His face never showed any of the feelings he was experiencing inside at the moment.
"Well….I" Ichigo looked away then abruptly looked back and yanked a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket and tossed it at Ulqiorra. Grimmjow grabbed it out of the air and unfolded it, expecting it for any type of threat before handing it to a confused Ulqiorra. "Is that your drawing?"
Ulqiorra looked down at the piece of paper and was startled to see it was the picture of Nell that he had drawn the day before. Looking up at the teen with slightly narrowed eyes he asked "How, may I ask, did you get this?" his tone was not too friendly now. But Ichigo broke out into a huge smile.
"I knew it! She wouldn't tell me from whom or where she had gotten it so I had to "borrow" it to make a conformation." He looked like he had just hit the jackpot. But Ulqiorra's eye just continued to narrow and his friends tensed around him. "You "borrowed" this?" his voice was downright hostile now.
The berry took a step back, eyes going wide. "Yes it belongs to one of my roommates, Nell. She came home all hyper and flaunting her new outfit in our faces and when I asked where she had gotten it she showed me that picture. But she refused to tell me who had done it, saying that the artist was her great find and that I couldn't take them from her. But I thought I recognized that amazing drawing style and just had to know if I was right. And I was! You really do have an amazing talent. And I'm not lying or exaggerating at all." By the end of his speech Ulqiorra could feel a slight heating in his cheeks and sucked in a shaky breath of air after realizing he hadn't breathed through the entire speech.
"Well...thank you." Came his quiet reply. His eyes had never left Ichigo's during his explanation and he could tell he was telling the truth. Even now their eyes were locked.
Then the bell rang and made every one jump. Ulqiorra yanked his eyes away from those honey pools and stood up. Without a word to anyone he picked up his things and left the roof.
~time skip~
Once last bell rang it wasn't hard for Ulqiorra to ditch Grimm and Stark. He simply told them to meet him at the main gate then while they waited run back to get home work that he had "Forgot". Running back through the school he cut through buildings and over the back wall with ease.
Walking through the town alone was both relaxing and unnerving. Hands shoved deep into his pockets he walked with determination. Head bent down and eyes focused on the side walk he got to the fabric outlet without incident.
It was all he could do not to just fall into a pile of fabric and roll in it. But he contained his happiness behind his normal cool/blank face. But he did take a deep breath and relished the smell of fabric to be purchased. Ten minutes later he already had most of what he needed for Grimm's outfit and was comparing two shades of blue against each other, he frowned slightly and finally decided on the darker of the two shades. Walking towards the front of the store with his arms loaded down with his soon to be purchases. Toward the front was a "New" rack that caught his attention. On it was a roll of real leather, black in color and soft to the touch. He had a sudden image of Ichigo in a pair of tight leather pants hugging low on his hips and so tight that it would be impossible to get them on with under wear on.
He felt a slight heat rise to his face and a small smile slip onto his lips. He grabbed the roll too. Even if he never got to see him in them he could still use them in designs later. Filling a little giddy with the extra project in mind he paid for his fabric with his plat-num credit card.
Somehow time had passed by very quickly while he had been shopping. It was very dark outside. Smirking inwardly he remembered the stupid cliché of "Time flies when you're having fun."
On a whim Ulqiorra decided that he would cut through to an alley or two to get home a little faster. Normally he wouldn't have been so reckless but for some reason he was feeling brave and his brain wasn't truly in on the plan. His mind bobbed in and out of la la land as his feet carried him toward home as sugared images of a certain carrot top in clothes of his design flowed in and out of his head taking all of his concentration.
So he didn't see the group of thugs until they had him surrounded and one stepped into his path stopping him dead. He took a deep but shallow breath and shifted his stance. No one had spoken but he could already tell he wasn't coming out of this un-blooded.
"Aww look we caught us a little emo fag!" a voice came from his left. "He doesn't look like much to me." Said a wheasly voice to his left. "Oh but look closer boys he's quite the catch." "His clothes are all expensive name brand and he's carrying bags from a high end outlet store. I bet he's loaded." Came a deep chilling voice from behind him.
Before he could turn to look at the leader behind him the boy blocking his path suddenly lurched at him. Not even ruffling his clothes he swiftly knocked the boy out. Cursing heavily the guy to his left lunged at him and was dispatched in the same manner. He swung around to challenge the one on his right when he felt like he stuck his finger in a light socket. All his nerves convulsed and ceased at once when it suddenly stopped he dropped limply on to the ground smacking asphalt hard.
Head foggy and eyes half lidded he could hardly put two thoughts together let alone get his body to co-operate on the subject of getting off the ground.
Dimly his mind put together the side effects and he came up with the thought of 'a tazer Dumb ass, they used a tazzer on you'. Seconds later more figures crowded around him and he used all his remaining strength to move his arms to cover his head for protection. He bit his lip and tried hard not to cry out as the first hard kick landed in his ribs and then another and another. Within minutes he was a battered bloody mess. The leader picked him up by his hair and using his fistful of silky black tresses as a handle smashed his fist into Ulquiorra's stomach and then proceeded to repeatedly back hand his limp and broken captive.
The world was starting to dim around the edges and all he could think of over and over was.
"I'm sorry Grimmgow. I'm sorry Ichigo. How stupid to finally find someone worth caring about and then die a bloody and stupid death."
His vision narrowed down to the fist forming in front of his face and the single hope that with this hit he would lose consciousness until he was rescued or died.
But before the blow was landed he felt another pair of hands start to rip at his clothes, tearing off his shirt and starting in on his pants. Suddenly his back was slammed into the wall. The last time this happened to him flashed across his mind. Using a burst of renewed strength he began to struggle against his captors. He'd be damned if he'd be raped without killing one of them or making one of them kill him by accident first.
He somehow kicked the person pulling at his pants. He hissed as he felt a sharp pain of a blade being ran across his chest and slashed down his stomach.
"Stop struggling if you don't want me to stick you." Someone growled into his ear.
The pain of the knife made his already dimming vision quiver, and turn red.
Against his will his mouth opened and a pitiful moan crawled out of his throat. Unwanted tears moved down his face as blood dripped down him and onto the asphalt.
Wishing for death wasn't far off as all hope of survival faded.
"Ichigo….." The name tumbled weakly from his lips. He lay still on the ground with his blackening blood…
A/N" CLIFF HANGGER! Review or else! I won't update until I get at least 10 reviews! I've looked and there are a crap load of people reading but not reviewing. Loves and kissed. And cyber cookies! 0.0 think of poor Ulqiorra you want him to be saved right! Then please review! Thanks to all the people who reviewed to previous chapters!
