As usual, I don't own any of these people, places, or ... well, I do actually own some of the things in here, but you know what I mean. This is a site devoted to fan fiction, so obviously, please don't get all lawsuit happy.

Mini-summary: On returning from the human world laden with the "human products" Orihime requested, what is left for the Espada to do but divide the plunder? And how exactly can Szayel Aporro's life get any worse?

The sun was setting by the time Szayel and Grimmjow staggered into the park grounds, the former loaded down with more plastic shopping bags than any one person should be physically able to carry and the latter clutching at his chest as he struggled to simultaneously cough and gasp for air.

"Park bench," Szayel grunted, practically shoving his patient onto the wood as he brushed past him to sit on the far side of the bench. He let the bags balanced in his arms topple to the grass and then held his arms out straight so the handles of over a dozen more bags could slide down to follow. Curse that clerk who wouldn't let them take the cart with them.

His arm muscles pinging from the released weight, Szayel turned to inspect the gigai-wearing arrancar next to him. Grimmjow's breathing was, if possible, worse than before, and the flush on his cheeks indicated that the fever wasn't dying down at all. Szayel wondered briefly if it wouldn't have been better to leave Grimmjow in the park to rest instead of dragging him to the market to get that prescription filled. The short rest in the toiletry aisle had clearly not prepared him for the walk through town and the uphill push to their rendezvous point.

"I trust your day was well spent?"

Szayel turned to watch Ulquiorra approach their bench, his hands deep in his hakama and an expression on his face that actually bordered on impatience. The display was somewhat eerie, but not enough to distract him from the coiled rope the Cuarta Espada wore over a shoulder.

"I'm tired," Grimmjow muttered irritably, sucking in what air he could to fuel the rest of his sentence, which was nevertheless heavily punctuated by indrawn breaths. "And I hurt all over, and I can't breathe, and it's so fucking hot, that I'm freezing my ass off and I, just want to die. How was your day?" he spat.

Though Szayel was impressed that Grimmjow was still capable of stringing so many words together with his lungs this messed up, Ulquiorra didn't seem to care. Grimmjow's stuttering response was met with the normal gloomy stare and a cool "You are nearly an hour late."

Grimmjow flipped his middle finger in the air and twirled it around in a circle to indicate his empathy. "Oh poor baby had sit in the park and wait for us." His lung capacity apparently exhausted by the talking, he hunched over a set of coughs that nearly pitched him forward off the bench. "Spare me the sob story," he gasped, hugging his ribs as if they were trying to escape.

Szayel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. The day these two learned to get along would be the day the sky over Hueco Mundo cracked open and the sands were flooded in a deluge of fresh, clean water. Until then, he tried to recall a sense of calm he hadn't felt for weeks. "I'm sorry, Ulquiorra. I misjudged the waiting time, both in the clinic and at the market. Thank you for staying here."

Wordlessly, Ulquiorra unslung the rope and ran one end through the handles of each shopping bag, binding them into a single, bristling bundle which he then tossed over his shoulder. He turned his back on them and snapped open the garganta. "I assume there is no need to remain here any longer?"

Szayel shook his head, too tired to smile at the sight of the slight Ulquiorra engulfed by bag upon bag of what had turned out to be mostly beauty products. He got up, motioned for Grimmjow to follow, and then grabbed the Espada by an arm and pulled him from the bench when there was no response.

"I'm coming already," Grimmjow complained. "You don't need to get grabby."

The garganta slammed shut behind them, and Ulquiorra led the way back to Las Noches, trailed by Grimmjow, who was exhausted enough not to object to Szayel's supporting arm. Approximately halfway there, Ulquiorra looked around the bags and commented that Szayel might be better off simply carrying his patient, at which point Grimmjow predictably told him to fuck off.

Szayel held his tongue instead of mentioning that there was no way he'd be able to carry Grimmjow in the gigai. Already he was feeling that empty gnawing sensation in his gut, and walking with those bags had been about the limit of his gigai's strength. He looked over at Grimmjow, who was devoting his whole concentration to putting one foot in front of another and stubbornly holding in what would almost certainly be a spectacular coughing fit once it finally won out. Considering his own healthy gigai's growing hunger and exhaustion, Szayel had no idea how Grimmjow was still going in a gigai every bit as sick as he was.

He made a mental note to work on the ongoing gigai project when they got back and things were more settled. What they currently had worked, but there had to be a simpler way in and out of the things, a way that would allow them to quickly exit when the need arose instead of relying on a highly detectable shot of concentrated hollow reiatsu to eject them.

They'd just barely arrived in Las Noches before one of Aizen's hollow dragonflies flitted in to announce the meeting that had been in progress for the last fifteen minutes and at which their attendance was expected.

"Shit," Szayel muttered, watching the hollow insect fly off down the pristine corridors.

Ulquiorra simply reached into the pockets of his hakama and withdrew two of the egg-sized capsules Szayel had designed to release arrancar from their gigais. He handed one to Szayel, then glanced at Grimmjow, who had finally lost the battle against his cough. The second capsule joined the first in Szayel's hand. "I'll relate to Aizen-sama that you are on your way."

Szayel watched the shorter Espada's retreating figure for a moment before sitting down against the wall by Grimmjow. He unscrewed the top of both capsules and handed one to Grimmjow as soon as the coughs turned to desperate gasps for air. "Bottoms up."

They downed the liquid in unison, identical grimaces twisting their mouths at the taste. Yes, Szayel thought again, there simply had to be a better way than this. He levered himself up, leaving the gigai to crumble into dusty fragments in his wake, and reached down to help Grimmjow up.

"Feel better out of the gigai?" he asked.

Grimmjow shook dust from his jacket and glared. "How would I know? Crap is crap, Pink."

Shrugging at the logic of the statement, Szayel made his way toward the meeting room, setting a pace slow enough for his patient to keep up without rest stops.

"Welcome to the meeting, Szayel, Grimmjow."

Szayel let the door shut behind him and tried to determine whether there was a note of censure in Aizen's voice. As he sat down, he decided with a touch of surprise that Ulquiorra had covered for their delay, and that Aizen was indeed simply welcoming them to the meeting. After this last week, it was an odd feeling to not be in some sort of trouble.

Spread along the table amid the ten steaming tea mugs were the items he'd purchased at the market, many of them in little piles. Looking at piles scattered about, he was amazed he'd been able to carry them all through Karakura to the park, and more amazed that they'd fit in the bags in the first place.

"I still say it's a shame Luppi isn't here to go through all this," Nnoitra muttered as he inspected a neon pink loofa. "Girly bastard would have loved this shit."

"You have no idea," Grimmjow muttered as he sank into his seat.

Nnoitra looked up at him. "What was that?"

Grimmjow glowered at him. "Nothing."

Ignoring Grimmjow's glare, he exchanged the loofa for a package containing a pink, T-shaped stick and several bars of ridged metal. "Ha!" Nnoitra tossed the package over Stark's head at Ulquiorra. "Quattro for the Cuarta, huh?" He laughed, showing the majority of his teeth. "Think she's trying to say something?"

Stark snatched the pink package up off the table and read the back before placing it back in front of Nnoitra. "A razor made especially for women? You should have passed this to your left, Nnoitra."

"Or kept it for himself." Having said her piece, Halibel continued to sort the items in front of her into two piles, while Nnoitra's grin turned into an outraged glare.

At a loss, Szayel looked down the table for direction. There was plenty of bickering at the table before meetings started, but Aizen typically kept a much more controlled environment once the meetings actually began. His bewildered gaze met Ulquiorra's long suffering one, and he realized that Aizen was ignoring them while he read the map-sized information sheet that accompanied the medicine Grimmjow would be taking, keeping the creased paper tilted away from the curious Sexta Espada.

"Szayel," their leader murmured without looking up. "We'll need to talk about this once the others have reported."

"Yes, Aizen-sama," he replied. "There are some parts near the end that concern me."

Aizen finally looked up, and carefully pushed the information sheet to his left, where Ulquiorra set his tea down and began to painstakingly refold it. He turned his eyes toward the piles Halibel had made. "Your conclusions?"

She placed one last item in a pile before speaking. "It would be difficult to hurt oneself with any of these items, Aizen-sama, so I do not believe self-harm is something we should be worried with where the woman prisoner is concerned. However, I see no necessity in many of these items."

Szayel wondered at the increasingly odd dynamics of this meeting, where Aizen allowed verbal sniping and Halibel spoke in strings of more than a dozen words. Grimmjow, he knew, was sick. But that alone should not have prompted so great a change.

"My opinion is that she should have access to the cleansers she desires and a lotion of some sort." Seeing that more was expected of her, she pushed one pile toward the middle of the table, where Stark's rejects, a deck of cards and a bag of purple gumballs, were stationed. "That is all."

"Very well. Thank you for your report, Halibel." Aizen passed over to Yammy, who looked distrustfully at the boxes in front of him. "Yammy?"

The largest Espada shared a look with the oldest, and turned to address Aizen and the rest. "I've heard that humans do a lot of odd things, Aizen-sama, but--"

"Give me that," Szayel interrupted, rolling his eyes as he reached across his neighbor to snatch a box of tampons from Yammy. Honestly, between the two of them they should have done better than that. "Aizen-sama, this is absolutely necessary, as is," he scanned the table for the plastic-wrapped cube of absorbent sheets, but didn't see it. "Well, there's another item like this, only wrapped in plastic and not cardboard. They go together."

Aizen nodded, motioning for him to add the box to the pile of necessities forming in front of Ulquiorra. "Thank you, Szayel." His eyes swept the remaining Espada and settled on Grimmjow, who was absently rolling a glass perfume bottle back and forth across his forehead. "Grimmjow."

Szayel craned his neck to see around Zommari when there wasn't a response. The strained, shallow breathing was unchanged, so he knew his patient wasn't dead, but that might change if he didn't perk up and answer Aizen. There was no Nyquil to blame this time around.

"Grimmjow," Aizen repeated, a touch more loudly.

"What'd I do this time?" he snapped, dropping the bottle with a dull thunk and sitting back in his chair as if caught red handed. At Aizen's continued attention, he corrected himself. "I mean," he thought for a moment, "um, yes, Aizen-sama?" It was clearly a guess.

After reaching out to stand the perfume bottle right side up, Aizen pressed the back of his hand to Grimmjow's forehead, allowing a faint smile to flicker across his face at his Espada's obvious unease. "Still feverish, are we?"

Grimmjow visibly tensed at the question. "Wow you really are some kind of genius, aren't you?"

As Grimmjow's outburst was followed by yet more of the ever-present coughing, Szayel eyed the others around the table, seeing a few winces and Ulquiorra taking a larger than usual gulp of tea. Sick or not, Grimmjow really had to start thinking things through before speaking, or it wouldn't be long before there was a new replacement in his chair. He looked up from Grimmjow to see if he could salvage the situation, but a look at the widening smile on Aizen's face kept him from talking. A little voice in the back of his mind commented that it was unkind of Aizen to bait the Espada least able to keep his opinions to himself.

Grimmjow remained down, even after the coughing had shifted to tiny, ineffective gasps for air. Szayel let out a breath and shook his head. It had been a long day for both of them, probably longer for Grimmjow. It was about time the Sexta Espada collapsed. Watching him struggle through the day, Szayel wouldn't wish this sort of illness on his enemies, except maybe the painted captain of the twelfth squad. That freak could suffer like this every day of eternity and Szayel wouldn't be satisfied.

His smile steadily fading to concern, Aizen waited the several minutes for Grimmjow's breathing to slowly even out, becoming a weak and shallow parody of normal breathing patterns. "Clearly, I underestimated your illness. You are dismissed, Grimmjow. Go to your rooms and rest."

"You... want me to leave the meeting early," Grimmjow questioned, not bothering to waste the energy to lift his head from the table.

"Yes, Grimmjow."

There was a confused pause, and Szayel had to strain his ears to hear the reply, even though the rest of the Espada were shocked into silence. No one left an official meeting early. Ever. They all remembered quite clearly what had happened the only time it had been attempted.

Apparently, Grimmjow remembered even better than they did, because he didn't move to obey the command. "I'm going to leave early... and not get in trouble for it." Though phrased as a statement, it was something he was obviously having trouble believing.

"Grimmjow," Aizen began, his voice lowering from patronizing concern to a warning.

"You're not going to blast me with reiatsu three feet from the door?"

Grimmjow didn't seem to realize he'd interrupted Aizen, which was probably what saved his life, as far as Szayel was concerned. He made a mental inventory of the human drugs now safely harbored in his lab and settled on the large pink bottle of liquid meant to settle stomachs. Yes. He'd have a dose or three of that when this meeting was over. As a preventative against the stress ulcers he could feel forming.

Aizen shifted his gaze from Grimmjow, looking a bit less paternal and a touch more annoyed, though still generally aloof. "Halibel, make sure he arrives. Gin's been playing with the hallways and I doubt Grimmjow can handle any shifts in the layout in his current state."

With a silent nod, Halibel rose and walked to Grimmjow's side, knelt, snaked an arm around his shoulders and stood, bringing Grimmjow up with her. "He's very warm, Aizen-sama," she commented.

He nodded. "I'll send Szayel to check on him soon."

"So that's all it takes, huh?" Nnoitra muttered as Halibel and Grimmjow made their way out into the hall. "A little coughing and she drapes herself all over you. What is it he's got, Pink?"

"Pneumonia," Szayel spat. "If you're interested, I could help you contract it."

Ulquiorra let out a frustrated sigh. "Yes, it is obviously quite enjoyable, Nnoitra."

"Well yeah, when you've got Halibel putting you to bed. Bet that uniform shifts a bit with all the--"

"Szayel," Aizen interrupted. "Your thoughts on this medicine?"

He cleared his throat, searching his mind for a way to say this that wouldn't land him back on Aizen's shit list. "Aizen-sama, this last week and a half has been--"

"Hellish," Stark interjected.

Szayel looked across the table at Stark and couldn't help but nod. "We couldn't sleep, then we couldn't even find Grimmjow except when he attacked us, and now there's this medicine that, to be honest, I'm afraid to give him. I don't know that we can handle it if this medicine makes things worse." He eyed the Espada who shared the east wing with him, noting the heads bobbing in agreement.

Stark sat up in his seat suddenly. "Wait. Why would medicine make it worse? It'll stop the coughing, right?"

"We hope," Szayel muttered.

"And it won't make him," Yammy paused, "what was your word for it?"

Szayel sighed. "Excitable. And no, it won't. It'll make him dizzy, nauseous, and anxious, and it'll give him nightmares, hallucinations, and headaches like he's never experienced."

Stark whistled. "I think I'd prefer the coughing, if it were me."

"I'm sure he'll think so, too. Therein lies one of the problems," Szayel said, drumming his fingers on the table. "If I can get him to take the medicine, we've still got to deal with side effects. I've never heard of anyone who reacted as strongly to meds as Grimmjow."

The room was silent for a moment, before Zommari spoke up. "How long should he take this medicine?"

"Twice daily for two weeks," Aizen said, tapping the newly folded information sheet. "With food."

"Aizen-sama," Stark began, "I request that I be permitted to spend the next two weeks in the north wing with my Fraccion. They need my guidance."

Szayel slapped his palm against table and leaned forward. "You can't just abandon me like that! I need someone strong to hold him down."

"Talk to Ulquiorra. He'd enjoy it."

Szayel gaped across the table, shocked at the blatant insult from the usually laid back Stark. That was the sort of comment he'd have expected from Nnoitra, but from Stark ...

"Actually," Ulquiorra said as he set down his tea, "if the medicine requires food, then perhaps Grimmjow should take over the feeding of Inoue Orihime. Temporarily, of course."

Aizen's expression shifted near the realm of surprise as he considered his most loyal Espada. "Are you unhappy with the job, Ulquiorra?"

"Of course not, Aizen-sama. I am happy to do anything you bid me do, no matter how tiring the task."

"It is logical for meals to be delivered to only one place," Aizen conceded, obviously satisfied with the answer. "Szayel will accompany you tonight to observe the procedure, and then he and Grimmjow will be adequately prepared to perform the task."

Szayel blocked out Nnoitra's predictable objection, focusing instead on the increasingly 'hellish' situation he found himself in. Grimmjow's keeper was a bad enough job, but add to that dealing with their prisoner on a one-to-one basis... with Grimmjow tagging along... if he'd thought he could get away with it, Szayel would have joined Nnoitra in protest.

The door to the meeting room opened, and Halibel's voice interrupted the bickering over meal delivery. "Aizen-sama, I don't think it is wise to leave Grimmjow on his own for long."

"He is resting, though?"

Halibel nodded as she took her seat. "It's about all he's capable of."

Nnoitra snorted and crossed his arms behind his head. "I volunteer to watch him. Bet there'll be some seriously fucked up and entirely entertaining nightmares with this medicine, eh?"

Stark swatted him in the side and jabbed a finger at his chipped mask. "Let me remind you what he's like when he's hopped up on medicine, fool. Hallucinations and nightmares? I can see it now. He wakes up from a dream about murderous silverware and there you are with your ridiculous spoon of a hood, and--"

"Stark."

He turned around to face Aizen with a petulant expression. "All I'm saying is--"

"I take it you're interested in the job?"

"No!" Stark shrank back into his seat, rubbing furiously at his mask. "I mean, no thank you, Aizen-sama. I don't feel it's in anyone's best interest that I spend too much time with Grimmjow until he's better."

Aizen nodded calmly. "Then it is decided. Szayel will continue to take excellent care of our ill comrade for the next two weeks."

"Yes, Aizen-sama," Szayel muttered, resigned to his fate. There must be some disobedience he hadn't realized he'd committed that he was being punished for. It was the only explanation. That, or Aizen was playing with his mind. However unpleasant the last week and half had been, he imagined he had even worse to look forward to.

Omake:

As Aizen and his two advisors left the meeting room, Gin shook his head, his smile revealing confused amazement. "Well, they were cert'nly more animated than usual, eh?"

"We ran out of herbal tea," Aizen commented.

"Oh," Gin said, as if that explained everything. "Then they were drinkin'..."

Tousen made a noise of understanding in the back of his throat. "I had wondered why my coffee was missing."

Note: You know, I started this thing planning for each chapter to be a different take on Grimmjow, and it's turned into an ongoing story. Yikes. This only goes to show that I'm incapable of leaving well enough alone and just moving on to the next one-shot chapter. Sigh. In order to get some of the little one-shot things in here, I'll need to occasionally break this narrative. It seems easier than launching another collection of one-shots and having it morph into a chaptered story. Hope no one minds.