Chapter 3

Mmm… so warm… Ulquiorra hummed to himself in his half-awake daze. He could hear some rhythmic sound, putting his mind at ease. Nyan-chan must have come on the bed sometime last night. The last Ulquiorra had seen of her, she was silently perched on top of a dresser. Ulquiorra reached out a hand to pet her without opening his eyes. When his fingers touched something that was most definitely not fur, he cracked open an eye and pulled back. He was met by the peaceful face of a sleeping Grimmjow, much too close for comfort. Ulquiorra's eyes widened, panicking, Ulquiorra scooted to the very edge of the bed. Calm down, Ulqui… He probably didn't come up here on his own. He probably got cold and climbed up. Stupid Sexta, I told him-! Ulquiorra stopped all train of thought when he realized something. Nyan-chan was still on top of the dresser, sleeping peacefully. This sound was coming from Grimmjow. He was purring. Ulquiorra smiled softly to himself. It was oddly endearing, but ultimately it was something he could throw back at the man. The Sexta was so fun to tease sometimes.

Ulquiorra carefully got out of bed, not disturbing the other man. He decided to take a shower and then inform Grimmjow of his current predicament. A wonderfully warm and relaxing twenty minutes later, Ulquiorra was clean and changed. He smiled before replacing his stoic mask. "Grimmjow," he said loudly, to wake the sleeping man, "what do you think you're doing?" Grimmjow opened his eyes and realized where he was. He tried to get up so fast that he fell to the ground, his legs tangled in the sheets. While suppressing both a wince for the poor sheets that he would have to reset, and also a laugh at the comical nature of Grimmjow's awakening. He was only half successful, as he let out a low chuckle which earned him a glare from a very awake and in pain Grimmjow.

Grimmjow detangled himself and stood up, readjusting his boxers. Ulquiorra had forgotten that the man had slept like that. Wait. HE WAS ALMOST NAKED AND IN MY BED? I need to wash my sheets. Badly. Suddenly quite angry at the prospect of cleaning something that he had just cleaned the day before, he decided to bring up the little subconscious habit that Grimmjow had. "May I ask why you were in my bed?"

"Tch. I don't know. I just woke up when you yelled at me."

"Grimmjow, you probably found yourself cold and on the floor at some point last night and subconsciously climbed into my bed. I do not like to wake up that way, Grimmjow. It was quite unsettling."

"Unsettling? Getting yelled at and falling off the bed is way more unsettling than wakin' up to my face." Grimmjow smiled slightly, lips twitching in anger.

"The unsettling part was your purring, Grimmjow."

"What?" The smile was gone. The anger was gone. Grimmjow's face was blank except for shock and embarrassment.

"You purr in your sleep, Grimmjow."

"You sure it wasn't Nyan-chan?"

"She was still lying on the dresser where she is now. I'm sure it was you, Grimmjow. Do you want proof? My eye can prove it."

"No. But if you ever tell anyone about it, I will beat you until you're a bloody pulp, then let you regenerate and beat your face in over and over and over again."

"Noted." Ulquiorra walked to the door and opened it. "By the way, Grimmjow, you might want to get dressed. The meeting starts in five minutes."

"SHIT" Grimmjow hurriedly pulled on his hakama, jacket, and shoes. He ran to the door, strapping Pantera to his belt as he made it out the door and caught up to Ulquiorra. Halfway through the meeting he realized that he hadn't shut Ulquiorra's door. Nyan-chan, PLEASE be there when I get back…

Grimmjow had rushed into Ulquiorra's room, looking about frantically for Nyan-chan. She had better not have run away again…

"Grimmjow."

"What?" Grimmjow kept looking around—under the bed, behind the curtains, in the bathroom.

"She's the same place she's been all morning." Grimmjow looked where Ulquiorra had indicated. Sure enough, Nyan-chan was sitting at the top of the dresser, cleaning her paws. The twinkle in her eye indicated an amused smirk at Grimmjow's worrying.

"Tch. Stupid cat." Grimmjow muttered under his breath, voice full of relief.

"Next time just close the door properly, and you won't have to worry."

"Whatever." Grimmjow nudged Nyan-chan into his arms and scratched her under her chin. "How come you run away from my room, but you stay in here even though the door is wide open?" Nyan-chan opened an eye and tilted her head to the side. Grimmjow sighed. "Please don't scratch me again this time, but I'm taking you back to my room." Nyan-chan looked up at him and then rested her chin on his arm. Without another word or even a backwards glance towards Ulquiorra, Grimmjow strode cautiously out of the room, watching Nyan-chan warily. With the door closed behind him, Grimmjow made his way down the halls towards his own quarters.

Ulquiorra looked at the closed door and sighed. He was alone again. Before he had always liked being alone, it was calm, peaceful. There was nobody there to betray you or hurt you. But now the silence that had once comforted him seemed altogether lonely. Ulquiorra's lips tilted slightly with sadness. Just a little quirk at the corners, but it was enough. All the memories of the pain and loneliness from before came back and the marks on his face suddenly burned. A single wet drop made a dark spot on the floor. He wiped his eyes; enough of that. He rounded up all his emotions, carefully making sure that none escaped, and locked them in his ages-old Pandora's Box. The nihilistic mask in place once again, Ulquiorra set about the task of cleaning his room. Once there wasn't even a tiny fragment of proof that any other living thing had been in that room, he flopped on his bed. Staring at the ceiling, he slowly drifted into a dreamless sleep of nothingness.

Grimmjow sat on his bed and watched Nyan-chan. Nyan-chan sat by the door and watched Grimmjow. They were in a perpetual battle of patience, and Nyan-chan was winning. She seemed to be taunting him. Grimmjow could almost hear her in his head saying "Come on, I know you want to go back there. And I'm going to win this anyways. You never were one to be patient." Grimmjow scoffed and replied out loud to the imaginary voice. "Fine. You win. We can go back and hang out with Ulquiorra for a bit. But I am not sleeping there again." Nyan-chan twitched her tail happily, as if in victory. Grimmjow grabbed a bit of food and opened the door. Nyan-chan trotted halfway down the hall and looked back at Grimmjow, twitching her tail, as if saying "Are you coming or not?" Grimmjow sighed and started after her.

Nyan-chan made it to Ulquiorra's room first, pawing at the door and meowing. When nothing happened she looked towards Grimmjow, almost commanding him to get the door to open. Grimmjow sauntered up and knocked on the door. When there was no answer he tried the knob. It was unlocked, so he pushed it open slowly, calling out for Ulquiorra; still no answer. He walked in and blinked a couple times for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room. It smelled extremely clean, which made Grimmjow's nose twitch, he was much more used to some sign of inhabitance. He noticed the lump on the bed that must have been Ulquiorra, but he was still fully dressed, and his legs were hanging off the edge of the bed. For goodness sakes, the man's shoes were still on! Grimmjow sighed and shook his head. What had happened in the brief two hour span that Grimmjow was gone? Grimmjow knew that Ulquiorra thought he was 'trash' but this amount of cleaning couldn't be because of that. If it were that bad, Ulquiorra never would have let him into his room, let alone stay the night. Grimmjow closed the door and Nyan-chan padded over to the bed, eyes glowing in the dark. Grimmjow whispered "Hey, Nyan-chan, don't wake him up okay?" She looked back and him and blinked in agreement, walking instead to her favorite spot: on top of the dresser.

Ulquiorra woke up to an odd sound. Is that… the shower? He didn't remember taking one before he lied down, so he couldn't have left it running. He looked around and noticed a pair of green-gold eyes staring at him from on top of the dresser. Nyan-chan? Does that mean that Grimmjow is in the shower? I thought they left earlier…. While he was still lying there wondering, the tap turned off. There was a little bit of noise in the bathroom, and then the door opened. Ulquiorra closed his eyes at the sudden light, but opened them a moment later, only to watch a very wet Grimmjow walk into the room with only a towel wrapped around his waist. Grimmjow turned when he heard the gasp that Ulquiorra didn't even know he had let out. "Grimmjow! What are you doing?" He couldn't mask the surprise in his voice.

Grimmjow just grinned, "Well Nyan-chan made me come back here, and then you were asleep, and since the rest of your room was clean I gave her a bath, and she decided to completely soak my clothes. They're drying in the bathroom right now, and I didn't bring a spare." He shrugged, palms towards the ceiling; the towel at his waist threatened to fall off before he regained his hold on the edge of it.

Ulquiorra was shocked, but by no means angry. Somehow, he felt worse not having this uncouth man in his room, even though part of him didn't want anything to do with Grimmjow. He shook his head to get rid of the unnecessary thoughts. Grimmjow was here, in a towel, and he couldn't do anything about it, so he had better make the best of it. Ulquiorra sat up and noticed the sad state that his clothes were in. They were quite wrinkled and covered with the dust and grime that he had been cleaning. When he tried to rub it off, the grime only clung to his hands, and the dust clouded a bit before settling on his face and in his hair. Ulquiorra stood up. His feet screamed with discomfort. Why had he slept with his shoes on? He vaguely remembered the emotional breakdown that he had had and sighed. He needed this grime off and a great way to do that and calm his mind, while slowly re-opening his mind to the ideas of emotions, without sadness and betrayal, would have to be a nice, long, hot shower. He walked to the bathroom, turning to Grimmjow, "I hope you left me some hot water."

Grimmjow looked over at him and smiled, replying jokingly, "I don't think so; Nyan-chan uses a whole hell of a lot of hot water." Nyan-chan, displeased, took a swipe at Grimmjow, just being able to reach enough to tease his hair a little. Grimmjow chuckled and grinned at Nyan-chan, eyeing her playfully. "Nice try."

A/N Grimmjow was hoping that he had called her something else. Nyan-chan had run away again, and this time not to Ulquiorra's room. So there he was, walking around Las Noches and calling "Nyan-chan!" over and over. But then again, calling out "Stephanie!" wouldn't have been much better. (Random stuff I think about while I'm writing… please don't kill me :D )

ANYWAYS! Please tell me if there's anything wrong with this. And please kick my ass into gear by reviewing! Seriously! And sorry about that one part where it got all dark, I seriously didn't know that that was going to happen…