Keigo awoke to discover that he had fallen, rather inelegantly, out of the narrow bed. He attempted to sit up and then immediately regretted it. He must have been in this awkward position for quite sometime and every movement he tried to make made his muscles scream in pain.
Meanwhile, Ulquiorra sleepily watched Keigo's attempts at movement in mild amusement.
"Having trouble?" He asked
Keigo froze, then glared at him.
"Shut up."
Ulquiorra chuckled slightly and stood and stretched. He wandered over to the cell door and discovered Keigo's breakfast. He picked it up and carried over to Keigo.
"Smells good, doesn't it?" He teased as he held the plate over Keigo's head.
Keigo gazed at the bottom of the plate longingly, then he decided to make one last effort to sit upright. He winced in pain, but managed. Ulquiorra then carried the plate over to a table.
"Hey! That's mean!" Keigo whined.
Ulquiorra shrugged.
"Teaches you not to fall out of bed." He replied.
For the rest of the morning, Keigo made it his mission not to speak to the horribly rude arrancar. Instead he began to devise an escape plan. Ulquiorra had been very grateful of Keigo's vow of silence, but eventually the frantic muttering and scribbling drew his curiosity.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
Keigo ignored him.
"Esacpe paln…" Ulquiorra was shocked. To think that this human would even consider an escape plan, let alone title it and spell it wrong!
"Shut up!" Keigo kicked out at Ulquiorra's shin. "It's not my fault I can't spell!"
In embarrassment he rubbed the letters out and tried again.
"Ecsape palm?" Ulquiorra was beginning to enjoy himself.
Keigo, on the other hand, was going very red.
"Epscae lamp."
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!!!" Keigo furiously rubbed out the chalk marks and started again, but before he wrote anything, a hand closed over his and guided him in writing the letters. They contrasted greatly to the rest of the writing on the floor, mostly because they were neat and spelt right.
"There." Ulquiorra said as he stood up. "Escape Plan."
Keigo looked up at the emo thing.
"Well, will you help me escape then?"
Ulquiorra stared at him blankly.
"No. I will correct your spelling, but I will not aid you in blatant disobedience."
"Pussy, you scared?"
Ulquiorra rolled his eyes at the boy's severe immaturity
"No, I am not scared."
Keigo sighed.
"Fine, I'll escape on my own…"
"You'll get caught."
"Not if you keep it quiet."
"You've got your plan written out on the floor! Even if I don't say anything they'll still find out."
Keigo scowled.
"I'll rub it out then."
"Won't you forget your plan if you do that."
Keigo had hit a dead end.
"Shut up." He said.
"You shut up." Ulquiorra retorted.
Three hours later and Ulquiorra had dozed off to the sound of Keigo's frantic scribbling. When he woke up he realised that the room was completely silent. Wearily he took a quick look around the room and discovered that the lack of noise was due to a total loss of Keigo. He rolled lazily off the bed and immediately fell head first into a massive pit in the floor.
'What the -!?'
He rubbed his head and peered down the tunnel that led off to the side of the main shaft.
"Wow" he murmured "That idiot actually managed to escape!"
With great agility non-befitting of his clothing, Ulquiorra climbed swiftly back up the wall of the pit. It wasn't long until Nnoitra came and stuck his nose through the grating.
"Hey," He said, "It seemed real quiet in here so I thought- HEY!! Where the hell's that kid gone?!"
Ulquiorra felt no need to reply since the answer was quite obvious.
"Oi, Ulquiorra, I'm talking to you. Where'd he go?"
Ulquiorra pointed at the hole in the floor.
"How'd he do that?" Nnoitra asked.
Ulquiorra shrugged.
"Beats me," he replied. "I was asleep when he did it."
Nnoitra stared at the hole. He went to unlock the door to investigate further when Szayel appeared.
"Looking for this?" He asked holding up a filthy Keigo.
Ulquiorra grinned at the boy's short –lived freedom. Keigo found himself flying into the cell and would have hit the wall had Ulquiorra not caught him.
"Thanks." He said, completely unaware of the awkward position he was in.
Ulquiorra, for the first time, was also seemingly unaware of any awkwardness.
"You are quite welcome."
Keigo looked at him quizzically.
"Quite welcome?? Who says quite anymore?"
Ulquiorra dropped unceremoniously on the floor.
"If you're going to insult me, I won't be nice to you anymore!"
"You make it sound like a threat; maybe I don't want you to be nice to me!! Ever consider that, Mr quite stupid."
So, for the next hour or so Nnoitra was soothed by the loud yelling and insults coming from within the cell. He amused himself by interjecting every now and then with comments like "You fight like a married couple!" Which the inmates would then frantically deny.
"As if I would even consider being married to something like him!" Keigo wailed on one such occasion.
"What's that supposed to mean!" Ulquiorra yelled.
"What, you're not even human!"
And that was all it took to start them fighting again. Eventually Nnoitra fell asleep to the constant noise, and was not noticed again until several hours later.
Aizen slipped silently down the stairs towards the cells under Hueco Mundo. He rounded the corner to discover complete silence, except for a sleeping Nnoitra. He came and stood in front of the useless guard and stared at him angrily. It did not take long before Nnoitra woke up.
"Huh?- Oh! Aizen-sama… Nice to see you." He mumbled sleepily.
"You were sleeping." Aizen said tersely. "The prisoners could have escaped again…"
Nnoitra gulped. "You know, I'm sure their just sleeping, you know, um… tired out from all their arguing…"
Aizen's frown deepened. "You had better hope so. Open the door."
Nnoitra jumped up and got out his keys. He fumbled at the lock for a bit and tried to get a glance through the grating to make sure the prisoners were there. He gulped as the door swung open and frantically scanned the room for his prisoners.
"Huh." Said Aizen.
Nnoitra was also surprised, but in a more pleasant way then Aizen. On the far side of the room Ulquiorra looked like he had been pushed over onto the bed and hadn't bothered getting up. This wasn't that surprising to Nnoitra, who had known for a while that Ulquiorra was really quite lazy, it was Keigo, however, that had surprised them all. He was lying curled up in a ball on the end of the bed using Ulquiorra's foot as a pillow.
"That had got to be uncomfortable." Nnoitra commented. "Ulquiorra's got no meat on 'im, he's all sticky and-"
"Shut up," said Aizen as he shut the door. "You're lucky they didn't escape again. Do not let me catch you sleeping again."
Nnoitra nodded and waited until he could no longer hear Aizen's footsteps, then he blew a raspberry and started calling Aizen terrible-things-that-shall-not-be-repeated-here.
Meanwhile… Grimmjow was stalking the halls of Hueco Mundo in boredom. Since Ulquiorra had been jailed he had had no-one to annoy, which was really pissing him off. He had tried to convince Aizen to give Nnoitra a break and let him take over guard duty, but Aizen had been in a bad mood and bashed him over the head. Night was technically falling sometime soon, so he decided to sneak down into the dungeon and annoy Ulquiorra through the bars in the door. When he rounded the corner, he saw Nnoitra sleeping on the floor.
"Perfect!" he chuckled and tiptoed up to the cell door.
"Ulqui~!" He called softly.
Inside the cell, Ulquiorra woke up from his nap, and would have punched Grimmjow in the face had there not been bars on the door and a boy on his foot. So instead he remained silent.
"Ulqui~!" Grimmjow called again.
"Come on Ulqui~," He tapped on the bars. "Are you sleepy? Gonna go nighty-nights? Or are you too busy crying in you're emo corner?" He waited for a reply, and was quite annoyed when Ulquiorra still didn't say anything.
"Oi, Ulqui! I'm talking to you!"
"Go away Grimmjow."
"No!"
Keigo looked up sleepily. "Hmmn… What's going on?"
Grimmjow seized his chance.
"Hey Ulqui~! What's that I hear, are you sleeping with a boy!?"
This comment caused such a loud response from both prisoners that Nnoitra woke up. He grabbed Grimmjow by the collar and heaved him off the ground.
"Thought you weren't allowed down here?" He snarled
Grimmjow's legs kicked pathetically at the air.
"I was bored he whined.
"Well, well, what's this we got 'ere, ay?" The Espada outside the cell turned and looked into the smiling face of Ichimaru Gin. At least, Nnoitra turned, Grimmjow sort of swung aimlessly through the air.
"Nnoitra… tsk, tsk… Sleep'n on duty again, and Grimm… Torturing prisoners, hardly sporting is it?"
Faced with the two worried faces of his underlings, Gin's smile widened.
"I rekon I should lock you two in there as well, teach y'all a lesson."
Grimmjow was shocked.
"It's supposed to be solitary confinement in there!"
Gin nodded. "Yar, but y'all hate each other; it'll be more punishing for ya if you're all together."
Gin reasoning was flawless, even if his grammar wasn't. It wasn't long before Aizen had approved Gin's plan and Ulquiorra and Keigo found themselves with two new roommates.
The four occupants stared at each other in hostility.
Suddenly Keigo broke eye contact.
"Dibs the bed!!" He yelled.