Ulquiorra wasn't happy with the explanation about Orihime's new attire addition that afternoon, but it was a better justification than the first one that had leapt to his mind. He gave Grimmjow a calculating stare as they followed Orihime into the apartment.
"Too much blue," was the first thing Ulquiorra could think of to say. "It smells foul."
"The paint smell will fade away, and it's a pretty blue," she said, smiling at the walls, her hands on her hips, Grimmjow's shirt opening wide over her chest until she realized the exposure. She dropped her arms, making both Ulquiorra and Grimmjow look from her back to the walls.
Ulquiorra shook his head at Grimmjow. "Pretty?"
Grimmjow grumbled something neither Ulquiorra nor Orihime heard. "Feeling better?" he asked her.
She nodded a little. "Some."
Ulquiorra stepped closer to her, green eyes intent on her face. Grimmjow noticed she didn't move away.
"Are you ill?" Ulquiorra asked her.
She pushed a few strands of hair away from her face, carefully, with the back of her hand to avoid her blue fingertips. "The smell of the paint made me sort of dizzy, but it's getting better now."
"You shouldn't be in here," he said, his hand reaching for her wrist. "Outside would be better. You're done painting anyway, so --"
Grimmjow's hand braced against Ulquiorra's shoulder, effectively breaking contact of the fingers grasping her wrist. "She said she's feeling better, so leave her alone."
Ulquiorra's hand closed around her wrist, this time as he leveled a pointed look at the taller Espada. "She's done painting, Grimmjow, so we should go home."
Orihime pulled her wrist free as Grimmjow's narrow glare sharpened on Ulquiorra, his hand grabbing the dark haired man's shirt in a bunch at the shoulder until the collar was askew.
"Uh, one coat might be enough, Grimmjow," she said, not liking the looks exchanged between the two as she placed one hand on Grimmjow's chest, pushing gently, trying to get him to unhand Ulquiorra. "What do you think? One coat of paint?"
He wasn't looking at the walls, instead his eyes on her fingers on his chest as she turned her gaze to the new paint job. Ulquiorra frowned at him. He threw off Grimmjow's hand, bringing Orihime's attention back to them.
"One's enough, Orihime," he said as a low growl came from Grimmjow.
She withdrew her hand and looked to each of them. "I suppose so." She tried to smile more.
"What are you so eager for?" Grimmjow bit out, leaning closer to Ulquiorra. "Keep your hands off her. She's capable of --"
"Is anyone hungry?" she asked quickly.
They both turned dour faces to her, Grimmjow's hands in fists at his sides.
"You should talk to him about finding his own place, Orihime," he stated more than suggested. "Start now, before he gets too comfortable at your place."
She looked to Ulquiorra, who was holding Grimmjow's stare with a frown of his own. "How did it go at the market?"
He nodded slightly. "I see another man about work tomorrow morning. I start then."
"Good." Grimmjow chuckled as the other Espada's scowl grew. "You can start looking for your own place, too."
Orihime frowned at each of them. "Do you want another coat of paint on the walls or not, Grimmjow?"
"He can do it himself," Ulquiorra said in a low tone as Grimmjow began to answer. "He knows the basics now."
She pushed her way between them and went into the kitchen. "Then I'll unpack this stuff." She took a moment to open the box with the toaster oven combo. "Oh, we didn't get you a bento box. You'll have to buy your dinner tonight, Grimmjow, and get groceries tomorrow."
He glanced away from Ulquiorra to her, watching her struggle with the box. He gave Ulquiorra a final growl and went to the counter and took the box from her. "Sit down. Are you sure you're not still dizzy?"
"No, not much. Oh, and a curtain, too," she said, nodding at the window over the sink as she leaned one hip to the counter and watched as he pulled the oven combo somewhat carefully from the box. She glanced to Ulquiorra as he came up to them, his curiosity on the appliance. "Do you know your hours yet? Oh, and what will you do there?"
He avoided looking at Grimmjow. "The man in charge of the area wasn't certain, but it appears I'll be assisting in the floral shops."
Grimmjow laughed outright at this, shaking his head at the frown Orihime gave him. "Told you he'd fit right in with the rest of the flowers."
"You never said anything like that," she chanced to say.
"I didn't?" He set the oven on the counter and rummaged through the accompanying paperwork and plastic wrap. "I meant to." He found the end of the cord to the oven and looked at the outlet in the wall that was only slightly edged with blue paint.
"You should read the directions first," she said, catching the end of the cord behind his hand as he prepared to jam it into the outlet. She forced a smile at his exasperated look to her. "Just a precaution."
"Let him plug it in," Ulquiorra suggested, eyes on Grimmjow's suddenly leery expression. "He knows what he's doing."
Grimmjow set the cord on the counter, ignoring Ulquiorra and his remark as he looked around at the other appliances. "Just show me how they work, Orihime. I'll read about all this shit later."
"She needs to get out of this place," Ulquiorra said, his hand closing around her elbow, this time more tightly than before. "If you'd think beyond your own selfish needs for once, Grimmjow, you'd see she's still not feeling well."
Grimmjow glanced from Ulquiorra's hand to Orihime, and then shoved the oven to the wall. "Tomorrow you're still coming to the grocery store with me."
She nodded, stepping back as Ulquiorra pulled at her arm. "We'll get everything else you need." She looked down at the hand on her elbow, then to Ulquiorra. "I'm not that dizzy anymore. Most of it's passed."
"Let her go," Grimmjow said to him, teeth beginning to clench.
Ulquiorra's hand loosened and slid to hers in a slight hold. Grimmjow bristled.
Orihime followed his lead to the open door, pausing there to look back to Grimmjow still simmering at the counter. "If the fumes are too bad tonight," she said, nodding to him, "come by."
He nodded, and then followed them to the open doorway, noting her hand slip from Ulquiorra's as she put both hands on the staircase railways.
A little better.
The conversation on the way home was devoted to what Ulquiorra had learned of his new job. The hours weren't as haphazard as lumping, but neither were they as steady, and from what he was told, involved delivering flowers and plants to shops and vendors in several business neighborhoods.
The gnawing feeling of leaving something undone, that maybe her kindergartener wasn't quite ready for his first day of school alone type of feeling, made Orihime less than ready to embrace the rest of the day with her new sole houseguest. It was an odd and unnecessary feeling, and she tried to shrug it off and focus on her new housemate.
It was the hottest part of the day, nearing onto four o'clock, as she and Ulquiorra returned to her apartment, the late afternoon sun having drenched the modest set of rooms for the past ten-plus hours since they'd been gone.
She immediately opened the windows wider to the outside wall, sighing. "He doesn't have a fan," she murmured, turning to see Ulquiorra's increasing frown as she moved to the refrigerator. "We didn't get a fan when he was getting household appliances."
His brow furrowed deeper as she found two bottles of Orange Crush in the refrigerator and then opened a cupboard over the counter for glasses. "Why are you so concerned about him, Orihime? He's able to take care of himself."
She nodded, setting two glasses on the counter and opening the sodas. "I know. But everything is so new yet. To him. There's a lot to learn about living in the, well, the Living World. It'll be new to you, too."
She handed him a glass of soda, frowning slightly at how odd his fingers looked minus the black nails.
He turned the glass in his hand, watching the bubbles fizz to the top. "I thought you wanted to be rid of him."
She nodded, sipping her drink.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded again, the movement making her take a larger drink of the soda than she planned. She swallowed quickly.
"You know he'll be back tonight." His gaze fastened on her large brown eyes, gauging her guarded expression. "He probably won't even go back to his own place after he finishes working at the market. He'll come straight here."
"It wouldn't be good for him to sleep in the paint fumes." Her eyes dropped to his throat, the collar still slightly rumpled from Grimmjow's clutch. "It might not have bothered him, or you, as an Espada, but humans are frailer." She shook her head quickly as she realized the impact of her words. "Oh, I'm not saying either of you are frail now, Ulquiorra, but it's, well... it's not the same."
He nodded slightly.
She set the glass on the counter and reached behind her head to perk up her ponytail. "We kind of missed lunch, so I'll make dinner early."
She glanced down as his fingers lifted the edge of her ponytail hanging over her shoulder, carefully avoiding touching the overlarge shirt, she noticed.
His eyes shot to hers. "Blue?"
"Oh!" She giggled, smiling at the paint-tipped edges of the hair. "It kind of fell into the paint earlier." She pulled the strands of hair from his fingers. "I'll go take a quick shower and then we'll eat."
He nodded.
She left him in the kitchen contemplating his soda and went into her bedroom and then the bathroom, closing the door as the sounds of the shower running began.
Ulquiorra set the glass of soda on the counter and went to the small juncture where her bedroom met the living room area and bathroom. He listened to her humming from inside the small room, a bit of flush coming to his normally pale complexion as he realized the sounds of her undressing were just that, of the shower curtain being pulled a few times.
His attention went to her bedroom. It was quite unlike her room at Las Noches, the twin size bed decorated almost festively when contrasted to her sparse room where she'd been his captive.
Not his captive, he thought again. Aizen's captive.
There was a time he liked to think of her as his captive, but that was a time when she had to be someone's possession, and he chose to think of her as his.
But that time was passed, and to think like that was far too like an Espada, something he was reluctant to relinquish, but also becoming ready to give up in light of other possibilities.
Those possibilities weren't without difficulties, the largest obstacle being a former contemporary. One, Ulquiorra had to admit, that had changed under the brief time he'd been in Orihime's company.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there, eyes roving about her room from the doorway, frowning at the posters of pop idol music groups on the walls, an absurd collage of photos of her friends -- his ex-enemies -- on a corkboard near her dresser, a few ribbons of academic excellence hanging from the mirror over the piece of furniture.
His attention went back to the photos on the collage. Her and Tatsuki. Not too bad, he figured. She'd spoken of the girl to him at Las Noches.
Her and a very friendly-looking girl with glasses and hell-bent smile. He didn't recall her mentioning that one by name.
Her and who he knew to be Uryuu Ishida. He frowned at the dark-haired youth's evident happiness at being in the photo with Orihime as they stood outside an ice cream parlor. Ulquiorra wondered who took the picture. All he could see was a part of a thumb at an upper corner.
His frown grew steadily irritated at one of the smaller photos of her and most of her friends, including Ichigo Kurosaki, at a picnic on the beach. Everyone had smiles, Orihime's the largest, and happiest-looking, in Ulquiorra's opinion. He scowled at Ichigo's hand on her shoulder, a grin -- a grin? -- on the substitute shinigami's face.
Ulquiorra fought off the urge to pluck the photo from the collage. He was already a foot into the room. Another few feet wouldn't matter. But she'd notice, he thought. He stepped out of the room as the bathroom door opened, and he realized he hadn't even noticed when the shower water had stopped.
Orihime emerged from the bathroom, her hair tousled and still wet as she dried it with a towel, now wearing a clean mint green tank top and white shorts, minus Grimmjow's shirt. She looked from him to her bedroom, the surprise unmasked on her face.
"You don't have pictures of all of your friends on that," he said, pointing to the collage, the words out of his mouth before he'd thought them through. "There aren't any full shinigamis on it. I thought they were your friends, too."
"They are. Many of them are. These aren't all of my friends, Ulquiorra." She leaned closer into the doorway beside him to see the collage, and then sighed and nodded, waving him in as she went to the corkboard. "These are just some of my favorite photos. Shinigamis don't photograph without their gigais."
He stood beside her as she pointed to her and Uryuu. "That was when Ishida-kun won the strawberry ice-cream eating competition at a new ice cream shop that opened earlier this summer. He had a headache for two days." She pointed to her and Tatsuki. "Me and Tatsuki. No real reason; just a picture." Her finger moved to another. "My friend from school, Chizuru." She smiled as she indicated the group photo. "Our picnic last summer at the beach." She looked up to see his eyes going to each of the people in the photo. "Uh, you know some of them."
He nodded, his gaze searching each face intently. "You keep pictures of people you see every day? Why? You don't forget them so soon."
She shrugged, drying the side of her head with the towel, bringing the peachy smell of shampoo to the room. "Just for fun. Just ... to have them near me, I guess."
He nodded, watching her draw the pink towel down her hair, attention drifting from the photos to her small smile. "I see."
Dinner had been early, and welcome, as Ulquiorra's stomach began protesting the skipped meal, and Orihime was near on to famished. She spent the early evening making phone calls to hotels in the vicinity, still receiving the same answer to each as to vacancies as when she'd made the calls for Grimmjow. She had to admit she didn't call each and every hotel.
She told herself it was because the answer would be the same. Anime convention. What was the point of calling when she knew everything was booked solid?
They settled at the couch, the TV on low as she waited for one of her favorite non-Johnny Depp movies to start, realizing she found no real need to sit on the center cushion, except out of habit from the night before. Ulquiorra saw it differently.
The lamplight was turned to low, a bowl of frosted animal crackers on the couch between them as he looked to the space beyond Orihime, what he deemed to be Grimmjow's spot. He liked that the pillow was gone, back safely in her room, on her bed, where it should be.
In his opinion.
The pillow she'd lent him was on the couch arm near the lamp table. He liked that she was more comfortable -- also in his opinion -- without the Sexta around, in her pajamas with him, he in his sweat pants and a shirt.
But he could see the watchfulness in her, too. He couldn't exactly call it expectancy, but it was more than just passing the time as the clock neared on ten p.m. Besides, he knew she'd left the outside hall light on by her apartment door.
"You're waiting on him," he said after arguing with himself over saying it.
Orihime glanced to him as she was getting ready to bite the head off a frosted cracker shaped like an elephant. "Waiting?"
"Grimmjow."
She blinked, eyes going to the door before sheepishly returning to the TV where a commercial was playing for The Wizard of Oz. "He might be by."
"He will be." He picked a tiger cracker out of the bowl. He frowned, and promptly snapped it in half before eating the head part.
"It's only one more night."
"He'll paint again tomorrow, and then you'll invite him back, Orihime."
She hadn't thought of that. It was likely true, on both counts. She smiled, hoping to steer the conversation elsewhere. "This is a classic American movie. About a girl who runs away from home and gets caught up in a storm, and then tries to get home with the help of a great and powerful wizard, and along the way she meets others who need help finding their own courage, heart, and brain, and how all along everything each of them needed was right inside themselves. It was all only a dream," she added as he gave her a doubtful look. "But it seemed real to her."
"She sounds like she doesn't know what she wants," he said, sorting through a few of the animal crackers to find a lion. He broke it in half and ate the head.
"I guess she didn't." She nodded.
For a while they watched in silence, Ulquiorra moderately surprised when the first color scene broke onto the screen, which Orihime explained to him was a big event way back when the movie had been first shown at a theater.
He nodded, his attention divided between the movie plot and the other thoughts turmoiling in his mind. He watched her put a hand over her mouth as she yawned, and then tied her robe tighter as it loosened with the movement.
"You don't have to wait up for him," he said.
She looked to him, shaking her head. "I'm not. Not really. But just in case ... in case. That's all."
He sighed shallowly, one hand pausing in the bowl between them as her fingers hovered at a frosted hippopotamus. "I'll let him in, if he comes by."
This time her look was knowing. "You would?" she asked, smiling slowly in the dim light. "Really?"
He shrugged, his attention going back to where her fingers toyed with the cracker, his own edging closer to the hippo. "If that's what you wanted."
She looked back to the movie, her hand taking the hippo as his fingers brushed it. She popped it into her mouth, munching. "I'll stay up."
They spent the first half of the movie finishing most of the crackers, except for the ones Ulquiorra considered wounded, hence broken, and were on to the second half of the trek through Oz when there was a knock at the door.
Ulquiorra frowned as Orihime nearly leaped off the couch. "I can answer that, if you want --"
"I've got it," she said, smoothing her robe and snugging the tie to her waist. She went to the door and put one hand on the knob, leaning closer. "Who is it?"
"It's me," Grimmjow's voice came, bringing a groan from Ulquiorra as he met Orihime there.
She opened the door a few inches to see him standing in the hall under the stark bright light, a package wrapped in white wax paper under one arm, his pillow bulging with something rolled in the case in the other hand.
"You left the light on," he said, grinning. She smiled back, surprising them both.
"Come in."
Ulquiorra's gaze sharpened on Grimmjow as he entered the apartment, his frown growing when Orihime shut the door and locked it. "You know he didn't even try to go to his own place."
"The hell I didn't," Grimmjow snapped, pushing the white paper bundle to Orihime. "It smells like paint there."
She held the large paper package in both arms, sniffing at the smell coming from it, or him. "You did go back?"
For a moment Grimmjow looked between her and Ulquiorra, and then shrugged. "I painted the second coat after you left, so I know it smells like paint."
"Oh, well, that makes sense," she said, heaving the package higher. "What is this?"
"Fish. Yellow fin tuna," he said, nodding. "For you."
"Oh..." Her eyes opened wider as she looked at it with new interest.
Ulquiorra frowned at him. "You gave her a bundle of fish? What kind of a gift is that?"
Orihime was smiling at the package as she took it to the kitchen counter, setting it precariously close to Ulquiorra's mask. "How do you want it cooked?"
Grimmjow looked to her before sending Ulquiorra a belittling glare. "However you want it, Orihime. It's for you." He addressed Ulquiorra. "What's wrong with that? Its prime cut, highest grade, and fresher than anything she'd get in a shop."
In the kitchen Orihime was unwrapping the large chunk of tuna, smiling glibly. "Ooh, it's huge, Grimmjow. Are you hungry? I'll make tuna saté. Hmm, I only have chunky peanut butter, but I guess that's okay ..."
He grinned smugly at the Fourth Espada.
Who gave him a steady glare in return. "You smell bad."
"Shut the hell up." Grimmjow was already pulling off his black t-shirt that was still speckled with blue paint. "I'm taking a shower, if that's okay with you," he added as an afterthought to Orihime.
She nodded, still smiling at the fish. "Go ahead."
He nodded, pulling his pajama bottoms out of the pillow's case. "Be sure to make enough for Scissorhands here, too."
Ulquiorra frowned at the pajamas. "You came prepared." He looked to Orihime who was excitedly slipping the fifteen pound slab of tuna into the sink. His eyes shifted back to Grimmjow, determined to wipe the grin of superiority off his face.
"If you thought about it, Grimmjow," he said in a low tone so Orihime couldn't hear, "you should have waited to paint the second coat until tomorrow. Then the fumes would be too strong, again, and you'd have gotten another night here out of your paint job." One corner of his mouth twitched into something of a grin. "Too late now."
Grimmjow wadded his t-shirt into a ball, thinking it over, his attention settling on the girl at the sink who was standing on tiptoe to reach the cupboard overhead for a bowl, his focus on the tight calves of her legs. His grin turned to something more lethal as he considered his mistake, looking back to Ulquiorra. "Yeah? Maybe I'll paint a third coat, bat."
Ulquiorra shook his head, tempted to roll his eyes. "Scarecrow. You're a toss-up between that and the Tin Man."
Grimmjow frowned more, pointing a finger at him. "I'm going to find out what that means."
Ulquiorra made a low growl as Grimmjow stormed off to the shower, smiling, of all things.
He shook his head, watching Orihime at the sink as she relished in her new gift for a few moments before he joined her there.
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