***Marriage Counseling for Beauty and the Brute***
Byakuya was following the Quinta to their temporarily shared bedroom. He frowned and looked out at the expansive desert. There was nothing to do in this palace. There were only fighting, eating, and experimental facilities. He had been here four days since his….incident with the Sexta and had run into the brute several times, each ending in tears or awkward stares from the arrancars in the room.
Byakuya missed his loudmouth lieutenant and his rambunctious sister. He missed squad six and the Kuchiki clan. The colorful gardens of his home and his faithful servants. His power and his prestige. The fear that crept into the eyes of the unfortunate souls that surrounded him. Well, it wasn't exactly missed. He just wasn't used to this feeling of mediocrity and being a princess. Byakuya sighed and then grunted.
He had run into Nnoitra's back.
"That's like the fifth time you've sighed in three minutes." The irritation was apparent in his voice. Byakuya backtracked a few steps on the lofty and long balcony, more of an outdoor hallway.
"Sorry." …Did he just apologize for sighing? Byakuya shook his head at his own foolishness before crossing the threshold to yet another long hallway.
"Whatever." Nnoitra had taken a long pause before speaking.
In silence, the duo passed through several more long halls before encountering a trio of young men, they were arrancars, of course, not very strong though. The tallest one gandered at the nobleman once he was out of Nnoitra's view. The second smiled lecherously and the third flicked his tongue suggestively at Byakuya. He didn't know what the gesture meant but he had seen Renji do it once or twice to Rangiku. It made him uncomfortable and made his cheeks turn pink.
Nnoitra turned the corner to the crevice of his chambers and reached for the handle, sighing and dropping his shoulders as he passed the pillars at the entrance. Still, he left the dark in its place and began to undress.
"Get some sleep." He moved toward the bed and sat, removing his pointed boots and black socks. Byakuya walked the steps leading to the mattress as the lanky man stood and tore his shirt from his body, exposing inches of pale skin and bones. As he walked to his powder room, he said something Byakuya didn't catch, it was drown out by the smack of his feet on the stone floor.
***
The nobleman awoke moving.
"What the hell?"
He opened his eyes and looked down.
The floor. It was moving.
Pain in the gut.
Oh, he was on someone's shoulder, Nnoitra's based on the distance from his hands to the ground.
"Where are we going?" The words were slurred and had the rhythm of the skeleton's wide stride.
"Marriage counseling."
"…What?" The nobleman tried to sit up and failed at the lack of actual flesh to grab.
The tall man ripped the shorter one from his shoulder and placed him on the ground, did a move similar to flash stepping and closed a sliding door that automatically became part of the wall.
"What?" Byakuya was suddenly alarmed. The room was a cylinder, sixty feet tall and sixty feet in diameter. "Hey! NNOITRA, HEY!"
The door opened and a shouting pair appeared on the threshold. The taller figure pushed the shorter into the white cage and closed the door.
"Damnit, STARRK!" It was Grimmjow. He huffed and threw something on the floor. Byakuya looked at it, once it stopped skidding. It was a toothbrush. He looked at back at the Sexta, who had turned on him. He was a wearing a towel.
"What the FUCK are we doing in HERE?!" The nobleman jumped at the shouting and tried to think of some type of explanation to satisfy the man.
"I-I-I don't--"
"Shut up." His nostrils were flared and his fists were clenched. "I wasn't asking you."
Byakuya felt a small pull of fear on his heartstrings. He looked behind him. Empty.
"…who were you talking to?"
"Starrk," Grimmjow looked around at the ceiling, squinting at the harsh lights. "I know you can hear me!"
"No need to shout, pussycat." The voice was Nnoitra's and it sounded extra serpent-like ringing about the room. The grin in his voice was apparent. "We can hear and see everything you do."
"Why did you put us in here?!" Grimmjow looked at the ceiling. There was no response.
Byakuya shifted his weight back and forth. His breathing was unsteady and he felt light headed.
"You're gonna die in here and there's nothing you can do about it."
The nobleman looked at the Sexta, who returned his gaze.
"Did you put them up to this?"
"No!" He had let more fear slip in that sentence that he wanted.
"Did you tell 'em 'We can just talk it out like civilized people'?" He began walking toward Byakuya. "You know, they left you in here to die, don't you?"
The captain began to take a step for each of the taller man's.
"This is a show for them. They enjoy watching weaklings like you being torn to bits!" Grimmjow's teeth were bared and he tilted his head as a wild animal first becoming interested in its prey would. Byakuya stumbled into the wall behind him, and squeaked in a most undignified manner. The Sexta continued stepping towards him.
He wanted his feet to move left, he prayed his feet would move left but they were nailed in place by terror. His heart was in his throat and he was suffocating even though the air was passing his lips harshly. Grimmjow closed the distance between them with inaudible footsteps, stopping half an arm's length from the wall to look down into purple orbs.
They were ripe with tears. The nobleman began to sink to the floor and shrieked again as brawny hands shot out and cracked the wall on either side of him. He looked at the broad chest trapping him to the stone slab.
Grimmjow pushed his head against the wall and gently closed his eyes. The nobleman shivered at the sound of his breathing. The air from the man's lungs tickled the shell of his ear and the skin in the indent of his clavicle. The Sexta grunted and pushed away from the wall.
"Damnit." He turned from the shorter man and tilted his head toward the ceiling. "Let me out of here, you, bastards!"
Byakuya opened his eyes. He felt as he was going to faint, his head and his heart were overwhelmed with the disturbance and his body was suddenly feeling weak. He watched the arrancar intently, studying the brute's stillness. He was tall and statuesque in the bright lighting of the room. The raven-haired man could see every fold of muscle and every protrusion of bone on the man and the water droplets that rested on them. His sky blue hair was already styled, and the white bath towel had slid down his waist a little. He could see the number six tattoo on one of his tensed back muscles and three quarters of the hole in his stomach. His legs were long and lean without the drowning fabric of his hakama and his feet were toned so that there wasn't a single feminine feature to them. Grimmjow turned toward Byakuya and the nobleman's eyes started to move up the protruding bone of his tibia, taking in the blue hairs on his shin. Past his slender knees and strong thighs and over the white terrycloth of the towel to his slim abdomen, his eyes explored every crease of the man's six pack and pectorals of his broad and hairless chest. His eyes leapt from his left nipple to clavicle to his developed Adam's apple and rosy full lips, over the bridge of a sharp nose to deep blue eyes.
"Remarkable."
A single water drop slid down the length of his nose and fell.
Suddenly all the previous perturbation and fear in his body turned to excitement and lust. He immediately dropped to the ground and sat. Grimmjow looked at him annoyed.
"What, did you black out?"
Byakuya's cheeks burned. What a convenient time for a boner.