Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo, meaning it does not belong to me. I am in no way, shape, and/or form claiming to be the owner/creator of these concepts, though I do claim any characters not apart of the original Bleach storyline (such as Aporro[in character, not name]) mine. As such, I would appreciate fellow authors and readers to give credit where credit is due and not steal any of my characters and/or concepts. Thank you, and have a pleasant day.
"Aporro, you really need calm down. I assure you, this is completely normal."
Only Szayel Aporro Grantz can say this with a perfectly straight face while wearing not only rubber gloves that go up to his shoulders, but almost two pints of blood that stain him in a straight streak from the chest down and fleck him everywhere else.
"Okay, Szayel, I have never been pregnant before, nor have I ever seen someone during a doctor's appointment for pregnancy, BUT I HIGHLY DOUBT THAT BLEEDING HEAVILY LIKE THIS IS NORMAL AT ANY LEVEL!!"
Szayel sighed calmly, "For a human pregnancy, perhaps not. For an Arrancar pregnancy, it is. Unfortunately, it is a mixed pregnancy, and because Arrancar is part of the equation I am willing to say with some level of certainty that this is normal."
"…And I suppose the fact that I'm also twice as large as before is also normal?"
"Quite." Szayel nodded, "Arrancar offspring are unique in that they have three significant growth spurts while developing in the womb."
"…And would it have killed you to tell me this before one of these damned growth spurts?!"
Szayel narrowed his eyes, "Had you not ran, I would have been able to."
I winced, looking away. Okay… I deserved that…
We were both silent as he started to move around the room, cleaning up and pulling off his thoroughly bloodied gloves and scrubs.
"What were you thinking? Running off… Did I do something to anger you? Have I done anything to you recently that led to you running away?" As he said this, Szayel gradually got louder and louder, movements becoming jerky as he cleaned. "Tell me what I did wrong, Aporro. Tell me so I can learn from it and not do it again!" He was angry…
By this point I was sitting up, legs pulled as close to my chest as I could get them, my head lowered as I studied the bloodstains on my medical gown as closely as possible. It was hard, though, with my eyes watering and tears pouring down my face…
"I was scared…" When I heard Szayel jerk to a stop, his clothes rustling, I clamped my eyes shut and went on, "I was scared, damn it… I'm scared of having a baby… I feel so alone, Szayel…"
There was silence, followed by shuffling and muttered curses and then a presence settled by me. I reached out and wrapped my arms around his waist, sobbing.
Szayel tensed slightly, made a few jerky movements, then set a hand on my back.
"Szayel… I don't want to die…"
"You won't." He said immediately. Firmly. "You won't die before your time, Aporro. This pregnancy won't be the end of you." He sounded so convinced…
"…Do you promise…?" It was stupid of me to ask, I know. Szayel didn't make pro—
"I do, Aporro. I promise this won't kill you."
…Holy shit…
"Say it again…"
Szayel paused. "This won't kill you?"
"No… the other thing…"
"…I promise…"
I turned and lunged, pinning him back down against the table. "Say it again."
Szayel rolled his eyes, smirking, "I promise."
I leaned down, "One more time…"
"…I pro—"
I cut him off, kissing him.
"It's been… what, a week?" I placed a hand on his shoulder, "Szayel, we need to accept it… Las Noches is theirs. Lord Aizen lost."
"Without even acknowledging that…" Szayel muttered, clasping his hands in front of his face and leaning his forehead against them, "The shinigami will be searching the surrounding area soon enough… They will sense our presence, and we will be sought out. We have to get as far away from Las Noches as quickly as possible…"
"…Where to, then?"
Szayel paused, then leaned back and typed something in on the keyboard, the monitor in front of him flickering to life. A topographic map appeared on the screen, Las Noches sitting dead center with several lights flickering around it.
"Those dots represent the twenty-eight emergency labs located around Las Noches… Well-hidden labs." We stared at the map for a moment, then Szayel glanced at me. "What do you notice about this map?"
"…Uhhhh…" I stared at it, blinking. "Err…"
Szayel stared at me flatly, "There are only twenty-seven visible dots on this zoomed in screen."
"Oh…" I rubbed the back of my head, sheepish, "Well, where's the twenty-eighth?"
A few clicks as keys were pressed, and then the screen was zooming out. Las Noches got smaller and smaller, and when it was the size of a silver dollar I saw it. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to the west of Las Noches, in the middle of a deep depression was a lone dot.
"That was the last of the hidden laboratories…" Szayel began, typing a few more things in and making the focus shift to the far-off dot. "And it took the longest to construct. It is roughly the same size as my main laboratory in Las Noches was, and it holds the data of all of my experiments, dating back to when I first became an Arrancar. Completely equipped and fully capable of existing on its own, without support from Las Noches…" He leaned back, sighing, "I suppose you could say it is my safe house…"
I glanced at him, frowning, "And here you got all on my case when I'd suggested we flee…"
"That was when I still had doubts that we had lost." Szayel sighed again, "Now there is no doubt… No." He turned, looking me up and down, "The question now is should we risk being found and wait for you to deliver, or head out now and risk the infant coming while we are traveling…"
I shrugged, "Whatever you decide, Szayel. I'll follow you." I'm not good at making decisions. You make them for me. Theeeere's a good Szayel.
"…We'll head out immediately." Szayel sighed, standing. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we get there." He then paused, frowning, "Then again… Carting a pregnant female through a desert infested with Hollows and shinigami, with only myself and a few incompetent Fraccion for protection…" He sighed heavily, rubbing his forehead.
"…Szayel, just how short are you expecting this pregnancy to be?"
He glanced at me, "How much weight have you gained in the last three days?"
"…" I shrugged, "Nine or ten pounds."
"One week, three or so days."
He sounded so sure I had to stop and blink.
Seeing my hesitance, Szayel sighed, "All infants born of humanoid parents of average size generally cause the same amount of weight gain in the mother; that is from twenty-five to thirty-five pounds, on average. If you've gained ten pounds in three days, that's roughly three point three pounds per day. Factoring in roughly thirty pounds pregnancy weight gain, that's about nine days before delivery."
I stared at him, suddenly cold, "So… In about a week or so… I'll…"
"Be delivering? Yes."
Damn Szayel and his bluntness.
I passed out.
"You really need to quit passing out like that…"
I growled, reaching out and jabbing Szayel in the gut, "Then you really need to work on your bedside manner."
Szayel grunted and shifted, then sighed, making my head rise and fall, "We'll leave as soon as possible… So, as soon as you can walk."
"Szayel…" I started, shifting, "I don't want the baby to be born in the desert…"
"Neither do I. I also don't want the child to be born before that; traveling with an infant through such harsh conditions isn't a good idea."
I saw his point and agreed, but still…
"…How long will it take us to get to the lab?"
"…Seven to eight days."
Fuck.
"That's cutting it close, Szayel."
"I am aware of that, Aporro. Which is why we need to leave as soon as possible. Tell me when you're fee—"
"I'm better." I sat up, glancing down at him, "Let's get out of here before it comes."
We were packed and ready to go in ten minutes thanks to Szayel's almost obsessive-compulsive cleaning problems… And it helped that all we had to pack were a few pairs of clothes, files that Szayel hadn't committed to permanent computer memory, and two weeks worth of food packets…
"Why two?" I blinked, tilting my head as he loaded Ceillia and Amien's backpacks.
Szayel glanced at me, quirking a brow, "You have to ask? You're pregnant. You'll be eating for two and you'll be absolutely ravenous."
…I wasn't sure whether to thank him for being thoughtful or smacking the shit out of him for making it seem like I was a pig.
"Alright." Szayel nodded to his Fraccion, "Both of you set off. You know the coordinates; make sure everything is ready when we get there."
I blinked, watching as Amiens and Ceillia took off, one of the backpacks with them. "They're going ahead?"
Szayel nodded, picking up the other pack, "They are. We have to stay behind to initiate the destruct sequence of the remaining hidden laboratories…" He smirked slightly, "Something to send the shinigami reeling…"
I blinked, then smirked slightly, "So, you do have a fucked up joker side…"
He rolled his eyes in response, then wrapped an arm around my waist and lifted me up, jumping backwards.
Yelping, I clamped my eyes shut and kept them shut as the tug and pull of sonido vertigo slammed me in the gut. Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the vertigo was gone, and my feet slid back slightly in the sand as we came to a halt. Fuuuuuuck, I hate sonido…
"Look up or you'll miss it…" Szayel muttered, and I caught his smirk out of the corner of my eye.
I looked up just in time to watch the lab go up in flames and sand, several loud explosions echoing all across Hueco Mundo.
"I set them to go off in a random." Szayel said above the echoing roar, picking me up and turning to sonido off towards our destination. "Not even that Kurotsuchi will be able to determine the origin to trace it to that lab."
Clamping my eyes shut again, I hissed through gritted teeth, "That's nice. We aren't gonna use sonido to get all the fuckin' way out there, are we?"
"Quit swearing." Szayel muttered, though more out of habit than as an actual order, "And no. We'll only be doing this until I'm confident that we are beyond the point of them being able to locate us."
I moaned, clamping my eyes shut and clenching my stomach. The baby did not appreciate vertigo…
"Here we go." Szayel stopped abruptly, setting me down on my feet and then starting to walk.
I swayed, then fell to my knees.
"…" Szayel sighed heavily, "Aporro…"
When he was kneeling in front of me, reaching out, I looked up and punched him in the throat, "Next time, offer the mother of your child some support after using nausea-inducing sonido, jackass." I then stood and stormed off in the direction he had been headed.
"You know," Szayel hissed, storming after me a moment later, "You'll only be getting away with pulling stunts like that until after the delivery. I realize that you're a hormonal mess, but sometimes…" He trailed off, grumbling.
I scoffed, then slowed down a bit and waited until he was walking beside me before falling in step with him, "…You know what I hate about this more than the weight gain and the hormones?"
Szayel glanced at me, "The fact that your heightened sense of smell makes the 'grotesque' food I make taste even more disgusting?"
I glared at him, "Have you been reading my journal?"
"You need to lean not to title things 'Szayel, Keep Out' if you don't want me to read them. Besides, it's my RAM."
I glared at him harder, twitching, then sighed and looked ahead, "No, it's not that… It's the fact that my breasts are getting massive."
Szayel blinked. "…Beg pardon?"
"My boobs are huge!!" I looked down at my chest, grabbing my breasts and wincing, "And sore! Dear god, they're gargantuan!! I have to be at least a D by now!"
"Double D, bordering on triple…"
I paused, staring at the back of Szayel's head as he kept walking. "…Have you been staring at my chest when I wasn't looking?!"
He simply crossed his arms behind his back and kept walking, "What ever gives you that idea?"
"You have!" I ran after him, unable to hold back a grin, "You pervert."
Szayel scoffed, rolling his eyes, "Oh, now I'm the pervert, am I? Says the one who hunted me down, seduced me, and then had me stripped and in bed in under seventy seconds."
I quirked a brow, smirking, "Oh, what, so we're keeping time now? And, come on, you know you liked me riding you cowgirl style…"
He sighed heavily in response, pressing his hand to his forehead, "I really do wish I didn't know what that meant, but when you use it in that context I can't help but know…" He glanced at me, frowning, "You humans actually name the positions in which you pose for intercourse?"
"Oh, yeaaaaaah." I nodded, looking up at the moon and thinking, "There's all sorts of names for them, and some of them even have about four or five synonyms. Lesse, there's missionary, do—"
"As thrilling as all of that sounds," Szayel cut me off, speaking loudly and looking away, "I really don't care to hear about it, let alone talk about it…"
"Fine." I shrugged, glancing at him and smirking, "Then I'll just have to show you later, won't I?"
Szayel twitched slightly, still looking away and muttering, "How did we get on this topic…" Of course, even with him looking away I could still see the pink tinge on his cheekbones…
I snickered, then looked back at the moon. Then, a thought struck me… "You know… we're bonding right now… I mean, we're actually bonding…" When he didn't answer or even acknowledge me, I glanced over at him, shifting a bit away when I did.
Szayel was staring at me oddly, the blush gone and his face a mix of genuine shock, curiosity, and something I couldn't quite pin. "Bonding, Aporro?"
"Well… Yeah." I shrugged, "We're talking, we aren't arguing, we're both enjoying each other's company to some extent, and we're both learning a bit about one another… And even if the topic is a bit… unorthodox, that is what bonding encompasses…"
"Hmm…" Szayel blinked, "Aporro, what do you feel for me?"
…Just where in the hell had that come from?!
I paused, then shrugged, "You know how I feel. You're hot and I like being close to you."
"Don't make me ask again, Aporro…"
Okay, so here's the conclusion I have reached during my time in Las Noches; telling an Arrancar you love them is the stupidest mistake you can make. They're dangerous, they have little experience dealing with 'lovey-dovey' emotions, and if one as typically honest as Szayel says they don't feel love, then chances are very high they don't.
And as much as I love Szayel, why bother setting myself up for that kind of disappointment? I already knew he didn't love me, so I didn't need to hear it.
"Why would you need to ask again? I told; you're hot and I like your body. It's not like I love you or anything…"
Szayel just stared at me for a moment, then looked ahead and kept walking.
I walked behind him slightly, something in my chest twisting tight… tighter… tighter…
