Title: Tangled Bindings - Chapter 2

Fandom: Bleach

Pairings/Characters: Apache x Grimmjow (main) Ulquiorra x Orihime, Szayel x Apache (Don't ask. Just read.) Sun Sun, Mira Rose, and Halibel also appear.

Rating: R

Notes: Here's the next part. Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc. This chapter also starts my own explanation of a hollow phenomena, though it will be completely revealed in a future chapter. Bare with me. Feedback on my Szayel characterization would be appreciated (I know I made him not quite as gay, lol) as would feedback on how I handled UlquiHime in Chapter 1.

Special Thanks: To my beta, kasenshiki. 3!!!

Tangled Bindings - Chapter 2

Szayel Apollo Grantz stared down at Apache, as she struggled to get herself up again as hastily as possible. The pink haired man's expression was fairly neutral considering that she had just stumbled straight into him. In one hand he held something that resembled a brown paper bag, although two others like it were on the ground beside her. She must have knocked them out of his arms.

"Fraccions should watch their steps more carefully. Pick those up." He demanded, as he adjusted his spectacle like mask. Apache wasn't about to argue, as she picked them up and placed them back in his arms. Grantz was lower than Halibel, and even lower than Grimmjow...but she found him more than slightly disturbing. Sun Sun often spoke of a time she had been in his labs, and saw terrible things, creatures with more than one head, mini hollows in a jar, and just this sense of misery floating about the whole place. It was not something that Apache ever cared to see in person.

Unfortunately, today she might not have a choice.

"Come with me." He demanded in a soft but firm tone.

"With all due respect, sir, Halibel-sama is the one I take orders from, and-"

"Halibel-sama, eh? What about Grimmjow ? I know for a fact that you take orders from him...and most likely not the type of orders Halibel would want you to take." An evil grin spread across his face, and Apache stared at him with shock.

"How do you-" A finger was pressed to her lips, silencing her.

"I have my ways, little one. I have my ways. I'm not about to give out your dirty little secret, but you need to come with me." Still, Apache narrowed her eyes at him.

"...I could make Grimmjow make you sorry." And he laughed, the most maniacal laugh she had ever heard.

"You?! Command the sexta?! You think much too highly of yourself, little one. The sexta doesn't give a shit about you. If he wanted, he could find a million other girls better looking than you are...with bigger tits and a cuter face." His fingers began to trace under her chin. She shivered at his touch, but other wise held her ground.

She knew he was right. That is what hurt the most. And what pissed her off even more was that he knew that it hurt her. It shouldn't. Caring for someone was such a weakness, and she detested being weak.

"Poor child, you thought perhaps he could love you. Arrancar love is very rare, you're not going to find it with him. However, if you put your feelings into other...efforts...you might find them beneficial." He smirked down at her, still thumbing her cheek. Apache pushed his hand away, but looked up at him intently.

"I'm not saying that I agree with ya, but.what do you mean by that?"

"I need help with an experiment I'm conducting. You won't need to work too hard, and it may later on help you in battle. It may help you impress your sexta."

"And if I say no...?"

"...Well, I simply inform Halibel of your little fling with Grimmjow...not only that, but I have a little secret, Apache. I suspect something about you. I won't tell you what it is until I am sure, but if it is true...it can mean great things for you." She narrowed her eyes at him, taking in his words carefully. It was black mail, pure and simple. But he was also trying to bribe her. Just what the fuck would a mad scientist be able to bribe her with?

"...Why should I trust you?"

"My dear..." his fingers teased under her chin as he looked down at her. "...It is not as if you have a choice."

---

She stood nude behind the white curtain. Never in her life had she felt so afraid, not even in battle against her strongest opponents.

Szayel stepped behind the curtain and examined her closely. He was pulling on a latex glove, and he had a tray set up to the side with several nasty looking instruments set out across it.

"To start, I need you to stand straight and try not to flinch. This is going to feel extremely strange, but it will only hurt a pinch." Apache took this to mean she had better brace her self. Apache's hollow hole was just below her breasts, in the center of her chest. Szayel first swabbed the inside of the hole with a strange, cold solution. He then scraped against the area with something that resembled a dull knife. It didn't outright hurt, but it took all her effort not to punch him in the face.

"Why are you doing all this?" she asked, as he moved on to examining the back of the hole, doing a similar procedure through the other side.

"...One like you isn't going to understand the technicalities behind all of this...but I will try to put this as simply as I can. Arrancar are hollows, even if we may be shaped like the humans and Shinigami. We are not created from a single being, we are made up from many suffering souls put together." His hands did their work as he moved on to examining the bone of her horn. "Before we were arrancar, we had to devour each other to survive. But sometimes we devoured too much..."

"Wouldn't that be a good thing?" She asked, trying to ignore the way he examined her, as if she were something under a microscope. "I mean, if we didn't devour enough, we would just devolve backwards and never make it up again."

"...True, but there is such a thing as too much. It's not the most common of occurrence, of course. One would have to eat hundreds of hollows successfully and come out on top...but not be quite ready to evolve to Vastrolord. When this happens, a split occurs."

"And what does this split do?" she asked, as he started to scrape away at her horn. She cringed, and clenched a fist. He smirked at her, seeming to take pleasure in her discomfort.

"It creates a new arrancar..." The fragments of bone were put in a petri dish, and he turned back towards her. "That's enough, for today..." Apache sighed with relief. She stepped over to the pile of clothes in the corner, picking up her jacket. However, before she could pull it on, she felt a still gloved hand on her ass.

"You're too nice a pet for him to keep exclusively." he said with a smirk, a finger running over her ass crack. She spun around instantly.

"Don't you fucking dare..." She growled under her breath.

"Oh, I'll dare if I choose..." There was a silence between them that was only broken by the sound of shuffling, as several of Szayel's fraccion brought in some equipment. Apache took the distraction as a chance to pull on her clothes and make a break for it.

"...You'll be back..." Szayel sneered at her as she left.

–-

That night was a wild one. Apache straddled Grimmjow in the dim light of his quarters, thrusting herself down on his cock violently and hard. Her body was covered in sweat, her eyes having a tint of anger in them. Grimmjow lay back lazily with one hand on her hip, the other hand feeling her rounded breasts. His nails dug into her skin as he moaned and shuddered against her.

"...Whoa, girl. You rode me pretty fuckin' hard..." He grinned broadly up at her, sitting up as she crawled off of him.

"...Yeah, guess I did." She said. A hand ran through her hair, and she got up to splash some water on her face. Grimmjow lay nude on his side, watching her.

"You're pissed about something. I could feel it."

"Yeah, and?" Apache's face was buried in a towel.

"And I was wondering why."

"What's it matter to you?" Grimmjow smirked and chuckled slightly at her response, which only seemed to make Apache even more angry. She threw the towel down on the table, and spun around.

"How long have we been fucking now?"

"Dunno. A couple of months, I guess."

"...Three, to be exact. And we've been in hiding for a good half of it."

"Well, if you feel like strolling up to your mistress and tellin' her how good my cock is, I'm sure it'd be just what she'd wanna hear this time of night."

"I'm sick of the hiding, Grimmjow. And I'm sick of feeling like all I am is a piece of meat. I'm done being just a fuck toy." Grimmjow groaned and shook his head.

"You know what? Fuck you Apache. If I was going to have a fuck toy, you wouldn't be it." The glint in his eyes had turned from amused to annoyed, and was rapidly developing in anger.

"Than why the fuck have we been doing this all these months?!" She exclaimed, motioning wildly with her arms. Her bare breasts bounced with her movement.

"If you don't get it by now, you never will."

This was going to explode into a shouting match, and she knew it. Her clothes were gathered up from the floor and thrown back on for the second time that day, and she stormed out of Grimmjow's room. The anger she had tried to burn off in sex was now even worse, and on top of it all, she had this ache in her chest like she had just lost something very important. She didn't want to go back to the fraccion quarters, not yet.

So Apache pocketed her hands, and made way to the only place she could go and be guaranteed a little bit of peace at this time of night - the baths.