Apologies for being late. Blame Legend of Korra and the Makorra goodness that I have been salivating over. Not much to say for this chapter except please read & review. (Its that nice new shiny button).
Oh and do check out my new Ulquihime one shot One Night Heartbeat if you already haven't.
Beta Cerice Belle
Chapter 10
Sometimes life threw curveballs. When Orihime had planned for a visit to her parents on the Saturday, she hadn't counted on the curveball life was about to throw at her. Three days later, on Friday evening, Orihime was at the grocery store with her roommate when she heard a familiar voice call out.
"Orihime!"
She whirled around to find Uryuu walking towards her with a bright smile and confident strides along with … What the hell?
She and Ulquiorra exchanged a look of utter mortification. Walking towards them, with Uryuu, was a tall, muscular man with electric blue hair. Dressed in a deep blue shirt with the first couple of buttons left open, a pair of tight black pants, a black biker jacket and sneakers, the man exuded an aura of danger. Only Ulquiorra and Orihime knew, he wasn't exactly a man.
"Hi Uryuu," she said weakly.
"Fancy running into you both here," he said brightly, "I was just telling my friend here about you. Orihime, meet my friend Grimmjow Jagerjaquez. Grimmjow, this is Orihime and this is …"
"Holy shit! Ulquiorra! Small world dude!" Grimmjow said with a wide smile.
Ulquiorra could only stare.
"You guys know each other?" Uryuu asked baffled.
"Oh yes, from way back, isn't it?" Grimmjow said with a wink.
Ulquiorra had recovered from the shock, "I certainly did not expect you here."
Grimmjow shrugged, "Well what can I say; I have always had the flair for doing the unthinkable."
"You mean the flair for dramatics," Ulquiorra said with barely concealed disdain.
"Tch, always the condescending one!" Grimmjow could hardly contain his glee.
Before Ulquiorra could respond, Orihime turned to Uryuu and posed a question hastily, "How do you know him?"
Uryuu's eyes softened as he looked at her and replied, "It was quite an accident actually. I hit him with my car. It was dark and I hadn't seen him till the very last second. It was almost as if he appeared out of nowhere," Uryuu grinned sheepishly, "I stepped out to apologize, and somehow, we ended up as friends."
"Quite the story," Ulquiorra said, his emerald eyes fixed on Grimmjow's cool blue ones.
Uryuu narrowed his eyes looking at the two. Orihime knew it wouldn't be long before Uryuu caught the hostile undercurrent between the two Hollows; she had to distract him somehow. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind,
"Come on, let's have dinner together."
Orihime did a mental facepalm, in an effort to get Uryuu's attention off of the two Hollows, she had come up with an idea where all of them would spend more time in each other's company – great, just great! The three males had very interesting expressions on their faces.
Ulquiorra's told her that she had lost her mind; Uryuu was surprised and Grimmjow was beside himself with joy.
"Ummm yeah, sure," Uryuu agreed, "Grimmjow?"
"Fuck yeah, I'd love to catch up with Ulquiorra here," he was grinning like the Cheshire cat.
"It's settled then," Uryuu said with a smile, "Let's go to The Hearth. It's close and the food is great."
"Deal," Grimmjow said enthusiastically.
Orihime had to salvage a situation that was quickly getting out of hand and from the 'hands-stuffed-in-the-pockets-head-turned-away' pose that Ulquiorra had, she knew that no help would be coming from that front. It was his way of saying 'you dug your own grave'.
"Ummm, we … we still have some shopping to do," she cast her eyes at her obviously full grocery cart and cringed inside, "How about we meet you there directly soon?"
"Nonsense!" Grimmjow said waving his hand in front of his face, "Uryuu here has his car, and we'll go together."
Uryuu came to her aid unintentionally, "I have some shopping to do myself, so let's meet here in say, twenty minutes?"
"That works," Orihime agreed a little too quickly. Before Grimmjow could come up with something, she grabbed Ulquiorra's hand and marched away, leaving behind a very confused Uryuu.
Once Orihime was out of earshot, she turned to Ulquiorra, "How come you didn't sense his reiatsu? What is he doing here? Where are Ichigo and Rukia? What …"
"Why do you ask so many questions in one go?" Ulquiorra cut her tirade.
Orihime smiled weakly, "Bit of a bad habit I guess. But ..."
Before she could continue, Ulquiorra started answering, "His reiatsu has been hanging around for a while now. I think he has been tracking you. I have been keeping an eye out, but it looked like he was content with merely following you. He didn't give a clue of what he had been up to. As for the Shinigami, I have no idea where they are. I haven't sensed them even once since Grimmjow came to Karakura the second time."
"Why? What's going on?" Orihime asked nervously, "You don't suppose Grimmjow's done something to them, do you?"
"Grimmjow isn't as stupid as he appears to be. I believed he's done something to keep them off his trail, but I don't think he has harmed them. There is a method to his madness," Ulquiorra replied thoughtfully.
"I am worried for Uryuu," she said biting the nail of her thumb, she failed to notice the brief sharp look Ulquiorra gave her, "I just hope he's not I any kind of danger."
He stuffed his hands into the beige and brown jacket, "What exactly were you thinking when you proposed the dinner?"
Orihime had been wondering when he would ask her that, "That's the thing," she said with a sheepish grin, "I wasn't thinking. I just saw that Uryuu was picking up the icy vibes between the two of you so I had to distract him. I blurted out the first thing that came to me without really thinking about it and now …"
"Now we are stuck, forced to spend the next hour or so in the company of the very Hollow we want to avoid. Brilliantly done," Anyone else wouldn't have noticed it, but Orihime figured out that he was extremely annoyed.
"Yeah," she said ruefully, "Sorry about that."
Ulquiorra nodded and looked away. He was trying his best to contain his intense anger at Grimmjow for showing up like this, the indescribable feelings that he felt for the woman and the unpleasant emotion that surged within him towards Uryuu Ishida. This woman lay at the bottom of it all. She was making him behave in strange ways. Normally, sensing Grimmjow's reiatsu hovering so close, he would have gone to investigate. But ever since that Menos incident, he wasn't willing to leave the woman alone even for a minute. He had told her as much and had made it clear that till he was assured that she was completely safe, he would be around her, sometimes visible and sometimes not.
The seven days that he had spent away from her had done nothing to clear his head. He had lived for centuries and yet, never had he faced a situation like the one he was facing now. He was inexplicably drawn to this human. He had originally intended to leave the mortal plane and go to Hueco Mundo, but he had not been able to leave. Instead he had lingered around her, watching her, but never coming in front of her, not till the Menos had attacked.
When Kurosaki had abandoned her in the streets, he had resisted the burning urge to cero him into oblivion. The only desire that was greater than the instant decimation of the Shinigami was the wellbeing of the woman. He had scooped her up and flown her home. Kurosaki's reiatsu had done a significant amount of damage. She was unconscious and had been muttering some strange words. He knew she would figure out sooner or later that it was he who'd brought her but he didn't care. As long as she was safe, that's all that mattered to him.
Although he had scoffed at Grimmjow for suggesting it, the idea had taken root. Had he, perhaps, chosen this frail human as his mate? His mind told him the very thought was preposterous, but his body seemed to have developed a mind of its own. When it came to her safety, it seemed to act on its own. Pleasing warmth had engulfed him when she had welcomed him back. When he factored in his unwillingness to leave, the peace he felt around her and the unpleasant sensations coursing through him when she had worried about Ishida, he had to grudgingly admit that maybe, just maybe, for once, the trash was right.
Ulquiorra had never been more at odds. His two most dominant desires were in direct conflict with each other and it was driving him to the edge. He desperately desired the woman but he wanted to protect her from all harm and that included himself. If he gave in to his desires, the resultant harm would be much more than the combined harm inflicted by Kurosaki, the Menos and her brother's soul. Therefore Ulquiorra was stuck in a limbo and it wasn't a very comfortable place to be in.
Half an hour later, the four of them were in Uryuu's car. Ulquiorra and Grimmjow were in the back-seat, much to Ulquiorra's chagrin Orihime supposed. The car ride was dominated by an uncomfortable silence. Uryuu tried unsuccessfully to break the ice a couple of times but then gave it up.
They reached The Hearth shortly afterward. Once out of the car, Uryuu grabbed Orihime's hand and led her inside. She did not miss the covert sideways glance he shot at Ulquiorra, who, she noticed, had understood the implied challenge. His viridian eyes had narrowed imperceptibly. Orihime's taut nerves couldn't handle a session of clashing male egos, so she let Uryuu drag her. What is the point in pining after Ulquiorra anyway? She reasoned wisely.
Ulquiorra watched the human drag the woman away. The demon inside him roared, demanding obliteration of the human but he reined in his bloodlust. He wasn't some trash like Grimmjow who would take the bait from a mere human.
"So you ain't gonna do jack shit?" Grimmjow asked, mimicking his hand in pocket pose.
"I am not going to play your childish games Jagerjaquez," Ulquiorra retorted.
"Childish?" Grimmjow's ice-blue eyes widened in mock offence, "Here I was thinking that move was bloody genius and you call it childish?"
"You are an Espada, all this should be beneath you," Ulquiorra started to walk into the restaurant.
"And coochie-cooing with a human isn't beneath an Espada at all? Fuck you and your bloody double-standards," Grimmjow spat.
The very next instant, Ulquiorra's hand was locked around Grimmjow's neck in a vice-like grip, "If you weren't an Espada, you would have been lying in a pile of dust at my feet for that insolence."
Grimmjow let a feral grin adorn his face as he swung his fist into Ulquiorra's stomach. The only sign that showed that the punch had hurt the green eyed Espada was his briefly closed eyes. He then flung Grimmjow to the side like a rag-doll. The blue-haired hollow growled and sprung to his feet. He aimed a punch at Ulquiorra's face, which was easily blocked. The punch was, however, a decoy. The real attack was the kick aimed at the shorter Espada's groin. With a grunt Ulquiorra doubled over, Grimmjow moved in to attack. But he couldn't follow through with the plan because of a stern voice that interrupted them.
"Excuse me," the speaker was a tall man dressed smartly in black shirt and pant, "You are creating nuisance in a public-property. You are both under arrest for disrupting peace."
Neither of the Hollow quite understood what the person meant, but from Orihime's expression, Ulquiorra knew it was bad.
Two hours later Ulquiorra found himself sitting in a cage-like room, with Grimmjow sitting next to him. The room was so small that had Ulquiorra changed his form, he wouldn't have fit. The woman's ashen expression had told him that he had perhaps crossed an invisible line, but what was it that had troubled her thus, he had no idea. Beside him, Grimmjow looked as clueless as he felt. There were a few other men in the room, all sitting or standing with sombre expressions on their faces. Have they crossed that invisible line as well? He wondered.
Another man, dressed in similar black uniform opened the cage and pointed at the two of them, "You have been released, your fines paid."
The two Hollows exchanged a look and collectively left the cage. Outside, along with the woman stood Uryuu Ishida, Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki. Barring the orange-haired Shinigami, everyone looked very serious. Ichigo looked beside himself with joy.
"Ulquiorra, Grimmjow," Ichigo's pretended concern couldn't have fooled a three-year- old, "how did you guys land here?"
"Let's just go home shall we?" Orihime butted in irritably, "We've all had a long day. Ichigo, Rukia, thanks for helping us out. Uryuu, we'll get together some other day, drive safe."
Without waiting for any response from anyone, Orihime whirled on her heels and marched out of the Police station.
As Ulquiorra made to follow, Ichigo grabbed his arm, "A word with you," he said seriously.
The two of them walked out together. Once out of everyone's earshot, Ichigo raised his reiatsu slightly and said, "Why are you back, Hollow?"
"None of your business Shinigami," Ulquiorra responded evenly.
"Tell your buddy there to get lost," Ichigo said aggressively.
"You want him gone, then why don't you tell him yourself? Or are you scared?"
Ichigo took the bait, "Scared my foot! I am not scared of anyone! I am warning you Hollow …"
"Keep your empty threats to yourself Shinigami," Ulquiorra cut in, showing slight annoyance, "If you could, you would have done something by now. It's obvious that you are forbidden from laying a hand on either of us. So wipe that smug look of your face and get back to your duties as a watch dog."
Ichigo's reiatsu flared instantly. He let it rise even more than he had done when he had hurt Orihime. In response Ulquiorra's reiatsu flared. The two of them tried to intimidate each other without raising their hands. Suddenly a loud thud sounded behind Ulquiorra. He turned around to find Orihime collapsed on the street.
A/N: And you thought they would be visiting her parents? Troll'd ya! ;)
