Author's Note: Hi guys/ It's been like 12 days lol. Got my midterm grades and yikes I gotta step it up in few classes. I'm gonna try to update every week but if I can't, I'll aim for every other week. Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach
Chapter Four
Uryu was thrown unceremoniously across the room as the pale man turned to her.
"Where am I? Who are you?" he asked in a cold, detached voice. It was alluring and deep and it made Orihime unusually dizzy when she tried to focus on him. Shaking her head once, she brazenly reached out and grabbed one of the man's hands. It was an insane move, but she had to do something to restrain, or rather distract him.
His pale skin was terribly cold.
"You're safe now. We were in the Howling Forest. You saved me from the Wandenreich before passing out. This is my home," Orihime explained and even though her heart was racing and every instinct in her body screamed at her to get away from the dangerous man, the red head forced herself to remain, her hand holding his. Indeed her words seemed to calm him as the stranger relaxed his stanced and casually dropped his hand and began to study his surroundings curiously.
When he turned his green eyes thoughtfully back to her, Orihime wondered if she had simply imagined the gold and black.
"You brought me here?" the man asked after a moment, taking note of the other man in the room that was groaning and slowly climbing to his feet. The stranger watched Uryu like a predator would watch his meal.
"Yes - that is Tatsuki and I carried you back," Orihime explained nervously as her eyes tried to catch her friend's.
"Tatsuki?" the stranger murmured and turned back to the other man. Orihime quickly corrected him.
"No that's Uryu. He's a doctor - a healer. Tatsuki is my best friend. She doesn't live here," she explained when it seemed the stranger would attack Uryu again. After studying him a moment longer before dismissing him, the man turned back to her and stepped closer. Despite the violent happenings, Orihime couldn't help but blush at his lack of a shirt. She'd never been in such a situation before.
The stranger, however, seemed oblivious.
"Who are you?" he demanded in his soft, velvet, empty voice. Deadly.
"I'm Orihime," she explained, shakily. He was so close!
"And who am I?" he demanded absently stepping back for more room to reach up and rub at his head. His movements were fluid and graceful. His green eyes were vivid and bright. His black hair almost seemed to melt into the shadows and was in stark contrast to his pale skin. The two identical scars on either side of his cheeks should have made him ugly or unattractive in some manner, but the narrow, almost beautiful structure to his face negated any such thoughts. Orihime couldn't help but stare, though she did do her best to keep her eyes on his face, as the stranger still had no shirt.
Everything about him seemed to be strange - almost in-human. Maybe the priest Urahara had been on to something.
"You don't know who you are?" Uryu asked as he cautiously came closer to the stranger. Orihime winced in sympathy as she heard the now painful rasp to his voice. If she hadn't intervened Uryu probably would have died.
"No, I can't remember," the pale man murmured, eying Uryu with renewed distrust as the doctor slowly came closer to him.
"Perhaps your memory loss has something to do with your head being injured. After all, the Wandenreich soldier - err Quincy - stabbed you in the back of your head with a small blade," Orihime explained brightly, proud of herself for remembering Uryu's explanation to Urahara of the proper terms to use. She subconsciously stepped closer to the man once more when he tensed at Uryu's proximity.
"A head wound, you say?" Uryu asked, pushing up his glasses in intrigue.
"May I?" he asked the pale man and gestured to the bandage wrapped around his head. To his relief, the stranger nodded and Uryu very carefully moved in to unwrap the man's bandages.
"I tried to dress the wound back there too, but it was so swollen. We cleaned it as best as we could but there was a lot of blood," Orihime explained, watching as Uryu studied the wound with tight eyes. The injury looked very bad.
"I'm sure you did the best you could, but unlike his chest wound, the head wound did not heal. It looks infected. I would even go so far as to say that it's a spiritual wound," the doctor explained as his hands moved to probe at the back of the man's skull. The skin beneath the hair was engorged and an unusual shade of purple. Uryu instinctively felt the need to cut it open and drain it of infection. The contact of touching it however, had the stranger hissing and pulling away.
"No more," he growled in a low voice.
Uryu instantly backed away.
"A spiritual wound?" Orihime asked.
"Yes. I think the Quincy that attacked him used some sort of special weapon. Orihime, can you remember anything else about the fight?" Uryu asked and tried to catch one more glimpse of the man's head wound.
"Hmmm, come to think of it, I think the blade was cross shaped. Does that help?" Orihime asked, caught in her own musings.
"Yes. It might. If it was cross shaped, than the blade was definitely spelled. I could probably reverse the damage if I had the weapon," Uryu explained, enjoying how happy and excited Orihime was as she looked at him.
Though as his words registered, the red head's spirit dimmed considerably.
"Oh, I tried to find that small blade but there was no trace of it. Tatsuki and I both looked for it but we couldn't find it," she complained. Uryu frowned and tried to touch the stranger's head again, but the pale man was having none of it.
Turning around he bared his teeth and growled in clear warning. Uryu has no choice but to back away. His instincts were insisting that something was wrong, but despite it all he tried to maintain an air of professionalism. If nothing else, he was doing this for Orihime, whom he missed.
"Very well, although I'd advise you to clean the wound out sooner rather than later. In the meantime, take it easy and allow yourself to heal with no excitement or physical excursion. As far as memory loss goes, it is common with head injuries. Hopefully in time, your memories will return," Uryu explained warily, but the stranger no longer seemed to be listening as he probed his own injury with his hands. The action was so forceful and rough that the wound was immediately disturbed and in his own exploration, the stranger's hands made terrible wet, squishing sounds as he felt around in exploration.
Orihime and Uryu both watched with increasingly disturbed expressions as the man pulled away his hands only to find them covered in a black ichor like substance that was assumed to be a mixture of fresh and dried blood.
"Oh no! Let me get you some new bandages!" Orihime exclaimed, coming to life at the grotesque scene as she ran across the room to a chest where fresh linens were kept.
"That won't be necessary," the pale man murmured as he sniffed his hands.
Uryu watched with growing alarm as the man brought one of his hands to his mouth and swiped his tongue across the okkor. Orihime, thankfully, was oblivious.
"Well if you're sure, I'll just set these on the bed-"
"Orihime can I have a word with you?" Uryu asked in a tight voice, before grabbing the red head's arm and reeling her quickly out of the room.
"Uryu what are you doing?" Orihime demanded as she watched with wide eyes as the doctor slid the curtain between the sleeping room shut before guiding her over to the far side of the house near where the front door was.
"Orihime, I don't like this. There's something wrong with that man in there," Uryu began in a very hushed whisper.
"Yes, I know. He's injured and he can't remember anything," Orihime answered in an equally quiet, though somewhat exasperated voice. Huffing at her sarcasm, Uryu sliced a hand through the air almost as if he could slice through the pale man himself.
"I'm not talking about his injuries. He was eating his own blood. He's dangerous," the doctor argued. Orihime frowned at him before glancing back at the curtain. Uryu hated how anxious she looked, it was almost wistful.
"You told the priest that he was harmless," Orihime argued. Uryu couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was she actually trying to defend the stranger?
"That was before he strangled me and then threw me across the room!" his whispers continued, nearly frantic now. Uryu's heart started to pound painfully as the red head barely looked at him, her gaze still drawn to the sleeping room. What was wrong with her?
"Don't you understand how dangerous this is? He could have killed me," the doctor added, hoping to get through to her.
"He wouldn't hurt me, Uryu. He rescued me. Now I need to protect him," she murmured and placed a hand on her chest. Orihime was so distracted that she hadn't realized that her whispers had turned into a soft but clearly vocal murmur. Though she was gentle in her response, Uryu only felt the pain in his chest increase. Why wouldn't she listen to him? Was she under some kind of spell? Or maybe it was him.
"Is - is this because of me?" Uryu asked. His voice was laced with pain and he no longer tried to whisper as he looked sadly at the first woman he had ever come to love.
At his question, Orihime turned startled grey eyes to him. She realized that he wasn't talking about the pale man anymore. Had it ever been about him?
"What?" she asked, her undivided attention now on the doctor.
"Are you pushing me away because I asked you to marry me? Is that why you won't listen? Did you even want me here?" he continued in a strained voice.
"What? No!" Orihime rebuked somewhat sharply as she moved blindly towards her first friend. Uryu instinctively took a step back, forcing Orihime to pause.
"Or is it because my father and I used to belong to the Quincy?" the doctor continued, hurt, and every word was a new wound on Orihime's own heart. Everyone knew that Orihime and Sora had been attacked by the Wandenreich when she had been young.
"Uryu no, it isn't like that, I'm happy that you came tonight, I just don't need you as a doctor," Orihime tried to explain through choked pain as she reached out once again to her childhood friend, but Uryu merely brushed off her hand as he went towards the door.
"Then what do you need? What is it going to take change this between us?" Uryu demanded thinking of their strained friendship. He watched as the curtain behind Orihime that was separating the sleeping room faintly moved.
Unfortunately his words were misunderstood.
"You are my friend and you always will be, but Ichigo has my heart, nothing can change that," the red head sadly confessed, unable to stop the scene from unfolding before her. As if hearing her thoughts, Uryu opened the door before turning back to study Orihime sadly.
It was the truth. Almost everyone knew it, including Uryu. He had just hoped, secretly, that he would have been enough to help Orihime find her own happiness. An impossible task now more than ever when it was quickly becoming apparent that she didn't need Uryu at all. Not as a companion, not as a friend, and not even as a doctor. Especially if that thing in the sleeping room has anything to go by.
"I shouldn't have ever come here," he told her at last before stepping outside.
"Uryu wait!" Orihime called from her front door. It was so quiet. The sun had long since set and its place an endless black sky engulfed them. For a moment it was just her and Uryu and to her immense relief, he turned around once more and waited silently.
"You - you won't tell anybody about what happened in there will you?" she asked somewhat awkwardly. Her thoughts were scattered and her heart was a wreck. She may not have loved Uryu but at one time he had been a very dear friend. After their fallout, a piece of Orihime has shriveled and died.
No more lunches together, or sewing tutorials or laughter as they watched Keigo wrestle with spring pigs. It wasn't just Orihime and Uryu that had suffered. Being as they had nearly grown up together, all of their mutual friends had felt and suffered from the distance as well.
No longer could they all sit together and converse pleasantly. Now words and actions had to be guarded, less the other person be offended. It was a terrible wound that had hurt everyone. Yes Orihime had rejected every man that had proposed to her; but no one had been as close as Uryu who had actually known Orihime, through and through.
Seeing him tonight had rekindled the hope that they could move passed his proposal and her rejection. Now, however, there was only exhaustion and blithering disappointment. The only thing left was the urge to protect and even amidst the situation, Orihime couldn't help but glance fleetingly back to the sleeping room where her rescuer was residing.
Breathing shakily, Orihime turned once more to Uryu.
"Please don't tell anyone," she asked much more quietly.
His blue eyes were flat when he finally responded.
"There was no heartbeat... I'm not sure who or what your 'Ulquiorra' is," the doctor explained, emphasizing the nickname with some sarcasm as he continued.
"but I highly doubt he's human."
With those parting words, Uryu turned and walked off into the soundless night.