Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters.
Muse
By: Princess Kitty1
I Won't Go Home Without You
…Day One…
It was sometime in the evening when the front door unlocked and Grimmjow, dressed for the snowy weather outside, walked in with Nel on his arm and ice skates in hand. Caught in mid-conversation, they had expected to find Ulquiorra and Orihime ready to head out to the Karakura Town rink. Instead, their talk tapered off, their smiles fading as they saw Ulquiorra seated at the piano, keys covered, drawing out measure after measure of music in his notebook at such a speed that they couldn't keep up with the composition. In the corner of the living room, the Christmas tree remained unlit, the topper on the floor underneath the coffee table.
Grimmjow blinked, dropping his ice skates onto the carpet. "Dude, we were supposed to leave at seven. Is Orihime in the shower or something?" he asked him, checking the time on his cell phone. Figures that the mastermind of Ulquiorra's spontaneously scheduled birthday celebration would be running late.
Ulquiorra's left hand paused in its writing for a moment. "No," he said at length, not even looking up at them, "she isn't."
Nel surveyed the area. Everything was so… unorganized. It wasn't like Ulquiorra to leave things unfinished, or stuff lying on the floor. The television was on, channel set to the local news station, where a weather report was cheerfully forecasting slightly warmer temperatures the next day. There were two mugs on the kitchen counter, unwashed. But he didn't seem to notice this as he continued to write, green eyes fixed on the lined page that was quickly filling with notes and rests and accents.
Grimmjow began to feel uneasy. "Well then, where is she?"
Ulquiorra got to the bottom of the page, reaching out with his right hand to turn it so that he could continue. But he hesitated, if only for a second, before he flipped to another sheet covered in bars waiting to be marked. "She's gone," he told them, then lifted his pencil and began to write again.
…Day Two…
Grimmjow grabbed the knob that controlled his truck's heater and twisted it all the way to the red, cursing the ancient automobile and rubbing his hands together as he waited at a stop light. He'd taken the day off from work, not wanting to waste any time in beginning his search. He could have complained, but he tried to imagine Nel sitting beside him and scolding him. Unfortunately, all that he could see was the wide-eyed, worried look she'd had on her face when he had dropped her off at class a few hours earlier. The light turned green, and he pulled forward, following the Hueco Mundo traffic as it led him throughout the district's densely populated blocks.
Nothing. It must have been his fourth drive around the area, and he'd had a few close calls with other redheads, but so far there was no sign of Orihime anywhere. It was like she'd dropped off the face of the earth, ceased to exist the moment she'd walked out the door. He liked to think that Ulquiorra had a built-in sensor that could pinpoint the woman's location, but when he'd asked the pianist that morning – after making sure that he ate something, as he had apparently skipped lunch and dinner on his birthday – he had been answered with a casual shrug.
"Ulquiorra," Grimmjow had said, watching his best friend's hands fly over the piano keys, producing what sounded like a new composition, "some help would be appreciated."
"It's none of my concern," Ulquiorra had replied, stringing together a beautiful series of notes that almost distracted Grimmjow from the task at hand.
It had taken a bit of prodding, but as he'd pulled pieces off of the cereal bar that had comprised his entire breakfast, Ulquiorra had finally told Grimmjow that he and Orihime had experienced a conflict of interest. It had been a short argument, and in the end, they had both agreed to disagree and she had walked out of her own volition. There was no reason to freak out, no reason to look for her. She was fine. A strong and independent woman like her wouldn't sit around sulking over a petty dispute.
But the toneless and detached manner in which he'd spoken had made Grimmjow's anxiety shoot through the roof. If that were indeed the case, then why hadn't she answered her phone when Nel had called her? Had she not wanted to talk to them, she could have turned it off, let it go straight to voicemail. But even now, as he sat in the truck cab with his cell pressed against his ear, her phone rang and rang, and no one picked up.
The streets were full of people going about their business, Christmas shopping and enjoying their lunch breaks, stepping carefully around patches of ice and piles of slush leftover from the snowfall. Grimmjow pulled the phone away from his face and ended the call, staring out of the windshield. He was half-tempted to file a missing persons report with the police. No, he couldn't do that. Not yet. There was still an entire city left to search. And besides, Ulquiorra would probably kill him – as would Orihime, if indeed nothing was wrong with her.
At noon, he received a call from Nel, desperate to know if he had made any progress. "I would have sent you a text message if I had," he said in French, flooring the brakes when he almost rear-ended the car in front of him. Note to self: No talking while driving.
Downtown, on the university campus, Nel sat outside of one of the residence halls gazing at the bare branches of the tree above her head, lunch sitting untouched in her lap. "Did you try the diner yet?" she asked him, to which he replied no, and she winced when his horn's honk reached her through the speakers. "Maybe Rangiku will know where to look."
"Maybe," Grimmjow muttered with a sigh. She could practically see him running a hand through his hair, as he often did when he was stressed. And though she didn't want to worry him, she couldn't stop the question that snuck out of her mind, one she was sure he'd been considering all day.
"Love," she whispered fearfully, "where do you think Orihime could have gone?"
Another loud curse at whoever was in front of him. "I don't know, but I'll call you as soon as I find out."
Nel nodded, wishing she could fight down the wave of panic churning in her stomach. This wasn't like Orihime. She wouldn't have taken off without telling anybody. But Ulquiorra wasn't helping at all, and a one-man search party wouldn't be able to cover the entire city. "Eep!" she squealed when someone tapped her on the shoulder. Grimmjow, who was still on the other line, began asking her what had happened, but Nel ignored him as she whirled around, heart racing, hoping that it would be…
Oh, it was just a guy. With dark hair cropped short and rectangular glasses, he seemed startled as he drew back his hand, apologizing for scaring her. "You… I'm sorry, I overheard as I was walking by. You wouldn't be talking about Orihime Inoue, would you?"
Nel blinked, eyes widening. "Yes!" she answered breathlessly as Grimmjow continued to bark into the phone.
"I-Is she alright?" the young man asked, his brows drawing together in concern.
Nel's hopes fell faster than a deflated balloon. "We don't know where she is," she confessed, lowering her head to stare at the dead grass between them. "She disappeared yesterday, without a single word to anyone." Grimmjow had fallen silent now, listening to whatever conversation his girlfriend was carrying. The glasses-wearing boy half-turned, waving at a carrot-topped guy who, after a few seconds of scrutiny, Nel recognized as one of the university's football players.
"Kurosaki, come here for a sec," he addressed him informally.
Nel held a hand to her warming cheeks. Wow, Ichigo Kurosaki was coming to talk to her! She had only seen him on the television, or from the bleachers during football games, so she couldn't help feeling a little star struck as he ambled up beside the other boy. "What's up, Ishida?" he asked, looking down at Nel. "Who's this?"
"A friend of Orihime's," Ishida responded, and Ichigo blinked in surprise, "apparently she's gone missing."
Ichigo's expression immediately changed to one of shock. "What?" He lifted a hand to his forehead. "No way. The last time we saw her was with that smart-mouthed asshole and his blue-haired, douchebag friend."
Nel's cheeks flushed further with embarrassment. "Blue-haired douchebag is my fiancé," she filled in quietly, ignoring the Hey! from the other end of the phone. The two boys grinned at the mere irony of the situation, but then the one named Ishida became serious again.
"If you need help looking, we could lend you a few hands," he said to her kindly, and Nel nodded eagerly, a little excited that she would be able to brag to her friends that she'd talked to a star football player. Then she remembered the phone and turned back to her doubtlessly pouting boyfriend.
"Love, come here right away!"
…
Needless to say, Grimmjow was not happy about the fact that he would have to be working with Orihime's high school friends, the ones who had gotten Ulquiorra pissed off enough to break his gentlemanly demeanor in public. However, Nel reminded him that this wasn't about whatever had happened in September; they all had a common goal now, though they had to reassure Ichigo that Ulquiorra would not be taking part in the search. He was still smarting from the insult, too.
With the added eyes of Rukia and her fiancé Renji, Ishida and the behemoth Chad, and Ichigo with his girlfriend – and Orihime's former best friend – Tatsuki, who Nel took an immediate liking to, the band of eight set out after their classes had ended to scour the city. Unfortunately, after hours of covering the entire Hueco Mundo district by foot, they were still unable to locate the missing girl.
Grimmjow had stopped in at Las Noches to check on Ulquiorra halfway through their adventure and had found him lying on the living room floor, three pints of different flavored ice cream open around his head, which he periodically dug into, though they appeared to have melted a solid hour ago. "Ulquiorra, what the fuck?" He reached down and pulled the cartons away. "This isn't dinner."
"My stomach hurts," the black-haired male informed him.
"Probably because you've been eating melted ice cream." Grimmjow sighed, rolling his eyes as he carried the warm, soupy remnants into the kitchen. "By the way, if you find your balls anytime soon, we're out looking for Orihime," he said as he dumped the flavored liquid into the sink and ran the tap. "Feel free to join us." There was no reply, so he threw out the cartons and picked up his keys, heading for the door. "Coward," he grumbled irritably as he slammed it shut behind him.
The search party congregated at the café next to Tia's store for dinner, all of them looking equally morose. But after some time, Grimmjow noticed that Rukia had been somewhat fidgety throughout the meeting, in which they planned where they would search the next day. "Got something to say, shrimp?" he asked, startling her. Renji jumped in to defend her height, but she put a hand on his arm to stop him.
"No, it's…" She paused, staring down at the tabletop. "I don't want to assume the worst, but you know, before she left school, we found out that Orihime was…" Her sentence trailed off, and the five friends shifted uncomfortably, looking guilty. Grimmjow remembered Orihime telling him about her past as a prostitute, so casually that she may as well have been discussing the weather, and cursed under his breath. Nel had taken his hand, and he noticed that her fingers were shaking. So she knew as well.
"Alright," he said with a resigned sigh. "Tomorrow, we're going out into the red light districts."
…Day Three…
It was Thursday, and so Ulquiorra should have been expecting Starrk and Tia when they showed up at the door with Lilynette, dressed in all of her Girl Scout gear, but their intrusion into his quiet afternoon annoyed him nonetheless. "Hey, where's Orihime?" the girl asked with a distinctly false note of cheer, looking past him into the apartment. Nothing, save for three composition notebooks stacked on the dining table with a fourth one open next to it.
Ulquiorra blinked slowly. "She's not here," he said. Really, he had thought that his gossipy neighbors would all have heard by now. Perhaps the holidays were serving as a decent distraction.
"Oh," Lilynette's face fell. "We were hoping she would have come back by now."
He stared at her. "Why on Earth would she do that?" Both Starrk and Tia bristled protectively, and the former steered his little sister away from the door, suggesting that she go down to the elevator to wait for them. Lilynette complied reluctantly. Once she was a safe distance from the door, the basketball-playing couple turned on Ulquiorra with scowls.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Starrk demanded, "Why would you say something like that to her?"
"The fact that she is a child does not grant us permission to tell her lies," Ulquiorra replied tonelessly, his eyes narrowing at them. "And now that your curiosity has been satisfied, you can leave."
Starrk grunted irritably and walked off, following Lilynette. Tia, however, stayed put for a moment, her scarred face twisting into a look of animosity. "If anything happens to Orihime because of your utter stupidity," she growled, "I will never forgive you."
Ulquiorra didn't flinch. He waited until she had gotten a few feet down the hall before closing the door, returning to the dining table. His green eyes focused on the stack of notebooks, all of which had been filled since Tuesday evening. It was funny, but since Ms. Inoue had walked out, he hadn't been able to stop the music going through his head. Composition after composition had flown from his mind to his hand to the paper, and they were all beautiful, further proof that he didn't need the redheaded woman anymore. She had served her purpose a long time ago.
But it was almost troublesome, how the music kept coming, no breaks in between. He'd been glued to piano and pencil for the last two days, attempting to relieve the burden on his creativity, but the instant one idea was expressed he would get another. It was as if in the six years of silence, his subconscious had been putting these things together, and they were just now bursting out of him like the shattered fragments of some inner explosion.
Really, he didn't know why everyone was acting like the world was ending. Wherever she was, Ms. Inoue was alright, he was sure of it. All those months of improvement had to account for something. Maybe she had lost her cell phone, thus the reason she wasn't answering anybody's calls. Either way, it was none of his business.
Meanwhile, the search for Orihime continued throughout the entire city. Nnoitra, Szayel and Gin volunteered to help look as well, especially in the red light districts to avoid having to send the women into them. Nel and Tia ventured to Orihime's apartment building, which they got directions to from an increasingly agitated Rangiku, and spent a decent amount of time knocking on the paint-chipped door. No one answered; either she was out and about, or she'd flown the coop. They found the manager's apartment and tried to get into contact with Chizuru, but her girlfriend told them that she was going to be gone all day. "You haven't seen that cutie, Ms. Inoue? Hmm, can't say that I have either. Is something wrong with her?" she'd asked worriedly, to which they could only respond that they didn't know.
At the end of the day, the group once again turned up empty-handed, without so much as a hint to go off of. Perhaps she really had left the city. But where would she go? Did she have enough money to leave, or was she currently hitch-hiking across the country by offering her sexual services to grizzly trucker types? Or – the more realistic possibility that was driving everyone insane – was she hurt somewhere, dead in a ditch or kidnapped by a man like Aizen who would have his way with her, then put a bullet between her eyes?
She could have been anywhere in the city of millions, and considering her nature, that was a terrifying thought.
…Day Four…
"Where is she?"
Ulquiorra had been in the middle of a piece when Rangiku Matsumoto burst into his apartment. Really, didn't anyone knock anymore? He had so far spent the entire day reviewing his compositions, wondering which one he could play for the audience at Saturday's concert; Christmas songs would have been boring, and besides, he wasn't feeling altogether festive. With Gin and Grimmjow and Nel in tow, the three of them shouting variations of 'calm down' and 'you don't want to do this', the busty restaurant owner all but broke down the door. She probably shouldn't have, but Rangiku's mind was made up; disregarding the warnings of the others, she crossed the room and grabbed Ulquiorra by the shirt collar, yanking him away from the piano. "Answer me!"
He stared at her evenly, occasionally eyeing the hand that was currently wrinkling the fabric of his attire. "What are you talking about?"
Rangiku's eyes widened in fury. Wasn't he aware of the situation? Didn't he care? She shook him hard, hoping it would knock the sense back into him. "What the fuck do you think I'm talking about? Orihime Inoue! You know, twenty-one years old, red hair and generous bust, supposedly lived here with you for the last few months?" she snapped. "Where did she go?"
Grimmjow was already preparing his excuses, waving his arms frantically. "I'm sorry, she took the key from me – "
"I tried to stop her," Nel offered, hovering by the front door.
"Ran, let him go. Please calm down," Gin tried, his arms lifted in self defense as he tried to get closer to his enraged girlfriend.
"No!" Rangiku yelled, turning back to Ulquiorra. "She hasn't come in to work all week! I tried to call her, but she didn't pick up! I even went by her old apartment and knocked on the door for a solid hour but nobody answered! And they," she pointed at Grimmjow and Nel, "and Gin and your neighbors and even Hime's old friends who never gave a damn about her have been searching for days, and here you are sitting like everything is fine and dandy! Isn't that just a little suspicious?" Ulquiorra said nothing, staring at her with the same even expression that he had given everyone else. "This has to be your fault! You're the last one who saw her!" The blond woman's blue eyes were full of tears that soon spilled over her cheeks as she let out a frustrated sob at Ulquiorra's silence. "Damn it, tell me where she is!" she screamed.
Whether it was the sight of her crying, the fact that he'd been so rudely ripped away from his piano-playing, or just all of the unnecessary trouble that he had endured since his birthday, something in Ulquiorra twisted as his patience broke like a bone. "I don't know where she is!" he snapped, grabbing Rangiku's wrists and easily prying her off of him, sending her staggering back into Gin. Grimmjow quickly got between them, but that did nothing to lessen Ulquiorra's rage as he glared over his friend's shoulder as if he weren't there. "Listen, woman, and actually use your brain to process what I'm telling you. Ms. Inoue is not the idiot protagonist of some melodramatic daytime soap opera. If she is truly angry with me, if she is that upset, then why the fuck would she tell me where she was going? She's smart! She doesn't want me to find her, or any of you either, for that matter!"
"Ulquiorra – !"
"I'm not done!" he yelled at Grimmjow, pushing him out of his way and advancing on Rangiku and Gin. "If you want to keep looking for her, then fine! But you leave me out of this. My business with Ms. Inoue is finished. She and I had an arrangement, an agreement. She wasn't going to stay here forever. You can pin the blame on me all you want; I'll gladly accept it, but the fact of the matter is that she would have gone eventually, and there's nothing that you or me or anyone else could have done about it! Now I refuse take anymore of this shit in my own apartment." He pointed to the door. "Get out. All of you. If you step foot in here again, I will call the police." Grimmjow opened his mouth to protest, but Ulquiorra turned on him. "All of you," he repeated.
There was a moment of tense silence in which the two stood glaring at each other, but finally the Frenchman turned, motioning for Nel to back out of the door. Gin and the tearful Rangiku stared at Ulquiorra in shock, wondering if they had truly just witnessed him lose his temper like that, and then they had no choice but to follow Nel, with Grimmjow bringing up the rear. He looked back at Ulquiorra over his shoulder, but the pianist was patiently waiting for them to exit, the anger gone from his face, replaced by the same imperceptible mask he had worn in the days when they had first met, when he had been asked about his sudden inability to compose.
It was suffice to say that they now knew by Ulquiorra's explosion that he had been affected by Orihime's departure; perhaps more than any of them had initially thought. And as the apartment door slammed shut in their wake, they wondered what exactly had happened between the pianist and the missing girl to make him act like this. Neither of the four could deny that they had heard the pain in his voice, lacing his blood, the drug that kept him within those silent walls while the rest of them killed themselves looking for Orihime. "We have to find her," Gin whispered, patting Rangiku's shoulder comfortingly as they made their way to the elevator, "and fast."
Inside, Ulquiorra went to the couch, settling there and lying on his back. He hadn't slept in his bed since Tuesday – like so many other things, he felt that he didn't deserve to. His hands shook with the need to be busy. He could rearrange the furniture, but somehow, he knew that he could turn his living room into his bedroom and it wouldn't make any difference. Lifting his arm to cover his eyes, he took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. Why couldn't he just sleep for the next two months, or three, or however long it would take for him to forget Orihime and how nice it was to see her smile, how much fun it was to retaliate in their prank war, how good it felt to hold her…
Ah, at least the furniture was helping: as he turned onto his side, facing away from the television and hoping that a nap would finish relaxing him, he noticed that her scent no longer lingered on the sofa, as it had the night that she had left. His apartment had forgotten her already. Why was it so hard for him to do the same?
…Day Five…
It was Saturday afternoon. Outside, the winter sun was shining as brightly as ever, doing its best to warm the cheeks of the people presently walking the streets of the city. Ulquiorra stood at his window, watching everybody pass by below. Their lives were in full swing, and he knew that he would soon be joining them, moving on and blending in before ascending above them again. He'd gotten a phone call earlier; somehow the record company executives had gotten wind of the fact that he would be performing tonight and had, in short, invited themselves to come. But Ulquiorra didn't mind. He had been planning on contacting them soon enough, to let them know that he would play professionally again, and they could send him wherever they wanted so long as he spent as little time in this horribly empty apartment as possible.
He had never noticed just how quiet it was. Too high up to hear the sounds of the street, surrounded by peaceful neighbors, and without the television or radio or something going, he could hear his own ears ringing, it was so eerily silent. It had been nicer, he thought, when he could at least pick up on movement if he listened hard enough. Breathing, shifting, the occasional giggle, life. It had been so much better than this stale atmosphere, than this pristine slice of upper-middle-class with its white walls and neutral rug and meticulously arranged furniture.
But he had no right to complain. He let the blinds fall back into place, turning and staring down at the composition notebooks sitting on the table. Pages filled with pieces of his very soul, songs sprung from the wells of his inspiration, something he had tried so hard to revive. So much so that he had lost sight of the one thing that his life as an orphan had made him crave so desperately:
Companionship. It didn't matter what kind, so long as someone was there. Someone to talk to, someone to spend time with, to perhaps argue and even be annoyed with.
Those white walls, those notebooks, that piano… they couldn't give him any of that. Perhaps that was why music had become so very important to him; He'd always considered the piano to be his best friend, a talent that he had been born with to provide him with some kind of joy when he was alone, but it couldn't talk to him. It could parrot whatever he made it say, but it could not speak for itself. As a kid he had tried to make it say something, anything, but all he heard was himself – a miserable child contemplating his loneliness, crying out with the desire to be acknowledged. His compositions had been his way of conveying the words and feelings that he could not.
He lifted one of the notebooks and opened to a random page, and as his eyes scanned the written notes, the music reproduced itself in his mind. What would somebody sitting in the audience think of this piece? Would they pick up on the remorse in the cadence, the apology in the decrescendo, the pain in the fermata, the guilt in the motif? Or would they snatch it away from him and make it theirs, twist it into whatever they wanted or needed to hear?
He supposed it wouldn't matter anyway; the one person who had inspired the songs was gone, vanished like some sort of apparition. Hell, if it weren't for the fact that everyone was searching for her, he would have already begun to wonder if she even existed – wasn't there the possibility that she could have been a product of his mind; an illusion created to get him playing the piano again? The notion wasn't all that farfetched. Apparently he would do anything for the sake of his music, whether that was manipulating perfectly decent human beings, or making himself crazy.
How to be released from this painful delusion, then? His fingers slid up the page, smudging the pencil markings as they went by, then grasped the top edge of the paper. What would happen if…? He pulled the sheet down until it met with the resistance of the plastic spiral spine. Yes, what if… The muscle in his arm tightened, and he began to pull again, slowly ripping the page from the notebook. It came free easily, hanging from his right hand as his left held onto the rest. He stared at it a moment before letting it fall to the floor, a large part of him screaming to pick it up and put it back in its place as he watched it flutter to the carpet. But he ignored this part of himself – the monster that he had willingly become to serve his own interests – and grabbed another page, not hesitating before he freed it from the notebook with one sharp tug and carelessly threw it over his shoulder.
Perhaps if he kept doing this, he could atone for his sins somehow. It didn't matter if she was real or just a figment of his imagination; the universe would understand and, hopefully, relay the message. Page after page, Ulquiorra filled the apartment's stale and empty air with the savage sound of paper tearing from its binding, hoping that when it was over he could turn his head and find Orihime sitting on the couch, watching one of her ridiculous court shows and insulting either defendant or plaintiff or both. It didn't matter that he was being unreasonable; he didn't care if he was crazy, as long as he wasn't alone.
The sound of running footsteps broke his concentration, and he looked up towards the door in time to see it fly open, Grimmjow nearly tumbling over the threshold as he entered the apartment, completely out of breath. Ulquiorra turned himself to face the entrance with a page still in his hand. "What did I say yesterday?" he asked, his tone that of a parent scolding their child for eating anothercookie before dinner.
Grimmjow eyed the sheet music littering the floor, then held up his hand, doubled over and panting for breath. After a few seconds he straightened, wiping the sweat from the back of his neck, though he made no move to take off his scarf. "Just… hear me out… you can call the police later."
Ulquiorra sat on the surface of the dining table, sighing. He was way too lenient with this guy. "What is it?" he asked, watching the expression on his friend's face become grim.
"We found her."
…
Orihime once again felt like Wonder Woman, an amused smile stretching across her face as she stared at her hands in amazement. How was she moving her arms, let alone walking when her limbs felt like they weighed ten thousand pounds? Superpowers: it was the only rational explanation for this, she decided as she leaned back against the warm man upon whose lap she was seated and felt around behind her for the bottle she'd left on the bar. She had transcended humanity and become an all-powerful being. Yes, she thought, nearly falling off of the man's legs. An all-powerful, sentient being who couldn't feel a damn thing if she didn't want to.
It had taken a few days, but she'd finally done it: she had conquered that wretched pain. And how? She was finding it hard to remember, and all of the sudden she was really sleepy and wanted to curl up and take a nap, but she had a job to do. The nap could wait. What had she been thinking about? Ah, yes, the pain. She'd conquered the pain, but not really. She could still feel it, so she supposed she had actually failed, but she didn't have to be aware of it. That was the good thing. She could tune it out, ignore it if she wanted to. But how had she done it?
She took two gulps of beer, emptying her bottle. Hadn't been this. No, this hadn't done shit, she thought, and threw it to the ground in a sudden burst of anger, smiling when it exploded into a mass of uncountable shards. That was all she had done on Wednesday, and she might have cried, too, but she couldn't remember that very well either. Chizuru had been there, and they had been talking about stuff, and Orihime had been drinking and drinking until she'd practically thrown up her intestines. That hadn't been fun. Neither had the crying, because she told herself that she wasn't going to, but she ended up doing so anyway. Yes, she remembered. She'd cried alright. She'd cried harder than she ever had in her entire life. Haha, she was a liar, just like Ulquiorra. They were perfect for each other.
Oh, but he didn't want her. She'd broken all of his rules; even the cigarette one – she'd broken that one first – but that hadn't helped her either. God, nothing had helped. Not even physical pain. She looked at her hand again, at the makeshift bandage wrapped tightly around her left palm. What had happened there? Huh… she'd been cutting something, but she had been hung-over and shaky and had accidentally hurt herself. And she was so mad and frustrated – she remembered the screaming match she'd had with the walls right afterward – that she grasped the blade of the knife, squeezing and squeezing until she'd had to pry it out of her skin. But even the pain and the blood did nothing to make her feel better, and then the stupid thing had gotten infected so she'd poured alcohol all over the cut. That was supposed to heal things, right? She filled herself with alcohol too, trying to get at the wound that was festering in her heart, but it hadn't helped. Stupid beer.
And smoking had just made her smell bad, and her lungs burn. She didn't want to smoke anymore. It was disgusting. That was probably why she'd refused to smoke that one thing the medicine guy had offered her this morning… right, yeah, that was it! That's what had finally made the pain go away, but she hadn't wanted to smoke it, she told him. So he gave her a needle. She didn't like needles, either, but this needle didn't look so bad. It was tiny. Like getting a shot. She was giving herself medicine to feel better, and low and behold, she was better! It was miraculous. Such good medicine. Why hadn't she thought of that sooner? She had hardly stopped smiling ever since, something that she hadn't done in days. It felt good to smile. It felt good just to exist.
What else would feel good? This guy, she thought, who was holding onto her waist and laughing as she bumped against his shoulder. If Ulquiorra could make her feel good just by kissing her, then this guy could make her feel good too, right? Maybe she had been 'unlocked' somehow, and when she did have sex again it would be the wildest and craziest and most amazing pleasure that she could ever feel. This would be her first job since she had left Las Noches, and for only a lousy two hundred bucks at that, but she didn't care. She wanted to feel good. She would have taken fifty cents if it meant suppressing that God awful pain in her chest.
Man, it had been a weird day. Its surreal nature seemed to take hold of her, lifting the weight from her limbs, and she suddenly felt like she was floating. Maybe she'd bump right into the ceiling and be shred apart by the rotating fans, like in that Willy Wonka movie. Oh, right, she'd seen Grimmjow earlier, right after she had taken her medicine. What a nice surprise! She'd asked him what he was doing there, and he'd asked her what was wrong. Nothing, she'd told him. She was finally a-ok. And to prove it, she asked him how Ulquiorra was doing, to which Grimmjow had replied that he was a mess and she needed to go back to Las Noches. She didn't believe him, so she told him no and walked away. He didn't go after her either. Just like a man.
Ah, anyway, she wouldn't think about them. She had to concentrate on staying awake, because she had work to do, whenever this guy stopped talking to his friends. He'd paid for the entire day, so she really ought to have been listening to him, picking up cues on his personality to format her performance to suit him better. Her eyes closed, breathing slowing as she concentrated, trying to pay attention to what he was saying.
"None of your business, kid," he growled to someone across the room.
"Oh really?" Orihime tuned this out, hating conflict, and felt around for her other beer bottle; she'd had two. Where did the first one go? "Add a zero to whatever you paid for her, and I'll give you that much if you leave her to me." Whoa, wait. Her awareness snapped back into place. Were they talking about her?
The man grinned and chuckled. "That's two thousand dollars, pal," he taunted the second speaker.
A short silence, and then, "Alright, fine." Orihime lifted herself up and looked at her client. He was staring over her shoulder, the smile slipping off of his face, eyes widening and shimmering with a greedy gleam. She turned, too, wanting to see what he was so interested in, and nearly face-planted onto the floor.
Ulquiorra stood a few feet away, withdrawing several bills from his wallet with such a nonchalant expression that one would think he were paying for a stick of gum, and what had happened to his face? The entire side of it was bruised, his lip cut, the blood just barely dried. His green eyes met hers briefly, and there was something in them that made her entire body begin to shake with terror. No… what was he doing here? He wasn't supposed to be. No! She'd tried so hard to be better without him, to push Las Noches and everything that had happened in the last few months into the back of her mind to occupy the hole left behind by the realization of her feelings. But obviously, she hadn't tried hard enough. He lifted the small stack of bills and held them up for her client to see. "Two thousand dollars. No strings attached," he said flatly. "Now hand her over."
"No," she said, shaking her head, and stared up at the slightly overweight man – who was probably a grunt-and-curser, judging by his appearance – as pleadingly as she could manage. "No, he can't do that."
The man gave her a disinterested look. "Sorry, babe," he said before unceremoniously dumping her off of his lap. Orihime's feet hit the floor unevenly and she staggered, wobbling on her heels as she began to fall backwards, but a familiar arm caught her by the shoulders and steadied her. There was the scent of comfort and clean laundry again, so out of place amidst the stench of cigarettes and alcohol and cinnamon air fresheners. It made her heart lurch, the effects of her self-proclaimed medicine unable to stop her from hurting this time. And she thought back to the day that she had returned to his apartment for her anklet, how she'd felt like she hadn't belonged there. Was he experiencing the same thing right now, she wondered? She watched as Ulquiorra handed the money over to her ex-client, then turned without another word and began leading her to the bar's exit with less than gentle persuasion.
"No," Orihime said again, wishing the weight would come back into her limbs so that he couldn't move her. "No, I don't want to. Let me go!" she cried, sounding like a whining child. Ulquiorra didn't respond, forcing her to keep walking as he pushed the door open, a blast of cold air striking Orihime's face and startling her as everything became sharper, so bright and vivid that she had to force her eyes shut. Outside, Grimmjow's truck was parked on the curb, and the Frenchman himself stood on the passenger side, already opening the door to the row of backseats. "No!" She planted her heels into the cement sidewalk, but Ulquiorra easily yanked her forward and handed her off to Grimmjow, who apologized before throwing her into the cab. Were they seriously kidnapping her in broad daylight? Was nobody going to lift a hand to stop them? Oh, well, she was a prostitute, so it wasn't like she was all that important. The people around them must have figured that she'd asked for this. "I don't want to!" she yelled as they both climbed back into the truck. "Let me go! You can't do this!"
They were ignoring her. She might as well have been talking to a pair of boulders. She had half a mind to throw a tantrum and start shrieking, or even gesture to passing cars and pedestrians so that someone would try to stop them. But she felt so tired all of a sudden as her awareness slipped away from her again that she abruptly dozed off as they made their way back to Las Noches. When she became fully lucid, she was standing outside of Ulquiorra's door as he unlocked it and, with Grimmjow in tow, pulled her into the dark apartment. "No!" she cried, kicking up the papers littering the floor in her struggle.
Ulquiorra looked at his partner in crime. "Stay here," he said, "in case I decide to kill her." And then he began dragging her down the hallway, where it was even darker, saying nothing to relax Orihime, who was whimpering and feebly trying to pull her wrist out of his grip.
It had taken some convincing – in the form of a heated argument that ended with a punch to the face – for Ulquiorra to leave the apartment. He had been firm in his belief that he didn't deserve to go after Orihime, and even now he was certain that pulling her away from some beer-gutted, middle-aged man didn't make him anymore worthy of her, but he was so completely disgusted with the woman's behavior that it was temporarily overriding his common sense. He had been in denial; so convinced that she was strong enough to walk out of his life and make it on her own that he hadn't given any thought to the fact that she might blame herself for his mistake.
And then Grimmjow had told him where he'd found Orihime, and everything began to click in Ulquiorra's mind. The blue-haired man went on to make a perfectly valid argument after socking him: he didn't deserve Nel, but Orihime had forced him to go after her anyway, because Nel loved him and didn't give a damn about if he believed he had any merit. Whether or not that applied here had yet to be determined; Ulquiorra didn't know what sort of feelings – other than hatred – Orihime had for him, but he was a thousand percent sure of his own.
The bedroom door hit its frame with a bang, causing Orihime to jolt as she cowered away from her former roommate. The curtains were drawn, letting in absolutely no sunlight save for two slivers on the sides that hit the walls with a faint glow. Ulquiorra came towards her. Considering her behavior, she was drunk out of her mind, which would either work in his favor or dramatically backfire. "What did you think you were doing?" he asked quietly.
Orihime didn't reply. Her back met the wall next to the bed, and she stood there, breathing unevenly, staring at him in horror. In the darkness, his anger seemed that much more frightening, all-encompassing, an explosion waiting to happen. "Well?" She shook her head, unable to think, her entire body heavy and light at the same time. She wanted to go to sleep. Her mouth was so dry, she couldn't even lick her lips; her tongue felt like sandpaper, glued to the space between her teeth. But somehow, she still managed to speak, working up enough defiance to glare at him through her moistening eyes.
"What do you care?"
His palms slammed into the wall on either side of her, causing her to cry out in alarm and raise her arms to shield herself, doing her best to shrink away from him, but there was nowhere to run. "You are trying my patience, Ms. Inoue. I asked you a question." He leaned closer to her, so close that if she lifted her head, they would have been nose-to-nose, and it hurt to remember how badly she had wanted to be with him like this just a few days ago. "Is that what you were after?" he asked her, and she could feel the fury coming off of him like heat. "Money and sex? Because I can give you both," he growled, "I can give you plenty of both. Is that what you want?"
"N-No," she whimpered, wishing she could shrink until she disappeared into nothing.
"What is it, then?" And he suddenly sounded so desperate that she wanted to look at him, but she was so scared, and the tears were pouring down her cheeks… "What can I give you that will make you stay?"
It wasn't fair. Orihime had tried so hard to make the pain go away, to forget him, and here she was, once again crying in his presence like some heartbroken high school girl. It just wasn't fair! Why did she have to fall in love with someone like him; someone so utterly poisonous, so unhealthy for her? Why? "Why are you doing this?" she sobbed, because she was so unsure, and she needed to know. This man had lied to her, had used her and had let her walk away. What were his motives now, then? If he didn't need her anymore, why was he so interested in bringing her back, in keeping her with him? Wasn't he fine on his own? It was getting so hard to breathe, and she just barely managed to look into his eyes, that green that had taken on such an uncharacteristically soft quality that –
"I thought that would be obvious by now, woman."
The anger was gone. Orihime's breathing stopped altogether, her lungs forgetting how to work. His voice had been so strange when he'd said that, so gentle. How very unlike him, she thought. It was actually rather soothing. Such a relief, though her heart was still hurting and she was feeling slightly numb. So by saying that, did he mean…? Oh, it would be nice, but she'd have to ask him, because she didn't want to be misled again. She had to breathe first, though. She couldn't speak without air, and it was getting harder to think, too, which was a little distressing but he had a habit of shutting off her brain anyway.
Ulquiorra turned away from her, figuring that he'd scared her enough; she was already crying, but at least he'd managed to get his point across. Maybe now she would be willing to stick around, which gave them plenty of time to talk about…
A soft thud drew his attention, and he looked back over his shoulder. She'd collapsed. He frowned, facing her again. What was she doing? Oh, wait, she was drunk. Whatever amount of alcohol that she'd consumed prior to his arrival at the bar had finally floored her. "Ms. Inoue," he crouched down and reached out his hand to touch her, then stopped. Something was wrong. She wasn't sobbing, wasn't moving; and it was hard to see, but he was almost positive that –
She wasn't breathing.
"Ms. Inoue," he grabbed her and flipped her over onto her back, holding a hand in front of her face. No air came forth. A very cold feeling seeped into Ulquiorra as he moved his fingers to the pulse point at her neck and felt… nothing. His eyes widened. No. He felt again. This had to be some sort of mistake. She'd been awake and talking a second ago, how in the world did… no, this wasn't possible. "Orihime?" Perhaps the sound of her name would rouse her from what was sure to be a drunken stupor, a temporaryunconscious state. But she didn't move. There was no rise and fall of her chest, no flutter of her eyelids. There was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And he was pretty sure that his entire world was beginning to unravel, to come apart at the seams. He wanted to close his eyes and wake up and find that it was still morning, that he'd done nothing and gone nowhere and this whole thing had never, ever happened. He remembered telling himself that it would be stupid to waste any more time with her when she could have been taken away at a moment's notice. He'd told himself, and yet he had still waited so long to go after her.
And now… now she was gone for good.
To Be Continued
A/N: Did you know that mixing heroin with alcohol can cause both heart and lung failure?
One chapter left… I feel so sad, in a happy way. Those of you who were waiting to kill me, feel free to make your attempts now, but do leave a review first!
