Disclaimer: Clearly, I don't own these persons, places, or things. You're reading this on a site devoted to fan fiction, remember?

Note: I like to think of Grimmjow as having some definite big cat tendencies, in addition to being an impulsive, obsessive, loud-mouthed, short-tempered bastard (whom I find endearing anyway). Kudos if you can spot all the big cat evidence throughout this story. I usually keep it somewhat subtle, except for obvious ones like sense of smell.

Yeah. I know. I'm skipping around a bunch lately. I have some dialogue all plotted out for a chapter, but I can't get Nnoitra's internal voice. At all. I've scrapped so many drafts it's not even funny. I was flipping through manga volumes to get the Nnoitra thing, and ended up reading the last of Luppi. So here's something else in the meantime, about as prequel-y as I'd care to write. Sorry it's not Nnoitra and Sick!Grimmjow. Their dialogue is nice, but...

Mini-Summary: When Grimmjow got demoted, Luppi took his job, his rank, his room. Now that Grimmjow's back in action, he wants things the way they were. Should be easy, right? Well, yes, if you discount Grimmjow's sense of smell and Luppi's love of all things scented. Somewhat obviously, this takes place right after Inoue heals Grimmjow's arm, way before all the other stuff.

Grimmjow studied the woman as they escorted her from the throne room, tallying up his findings as the door closed behind her. Long hair the same color as that loud-mouthed Shinigami's, and a faint smell like chilled sunflowers and honey, with the sharp tinge of fear underneath it all. She was trying to hide it, but the wide eyes had given it away to anyone who hadn't already picked up the scent. She was tall for a girl, he decided, but shapely enough to make up for it.

And an impossibly skilled healer. That was most important. That was what would keep her alive until Aizen decided the war was won, and--coupled with that delicious fear--it was what would make her useful to him if he ever found himself in need of another miracle.

The voices of the other arrancar who'd gone to Karakura Town washed over him along with a wave of palpable displeasure from Tousen's direction. Grimmjow tried to force the smirk from his face and concentrate on the information being presented, but Tousen's reprimanding glower only made him want to cackle a bit more. The sharp heat from his cero blast had faded the moment it hit that eight-armed bastard usurper, but as he continued to stretch his fingers, he could still feel the far gentler warmth from the woman's shield.

The six on his back was prickly again, like it had just been inked. It was his again. There was something sleek about the number 6, about the way the tail curved upward like his own in resurrección form. The hiss of a properly pronounced six, the spitting snarl of its ending in the throat, everything about six made it his. Luppi had been undeserving from the beginning, and the only thing better than enlightening the freak to that fact would be smashing that Shinigami's masked face into the ground the next time they met. Maybe the third time he wouldn't be interrupted.

"And you, Grimmjow?"

He blinked teal-lined eyes once and followed the voice up the ridiculously high throne to Aizen's expectant, patronizing expression. "What?" he snapped.

Aizen smiled down at him with too-patient understanding and drummed his fingers on the arm of the throne before repeating himself. "I appreciate your desire to bask in the glow of your restored rank, Grimmjow. We are waiting, however, for your report. What of the Vaizard?"

There was danger in that question. Aside from the patronizing and hidden impatience, Aizen's demand for a report on the yellow-haired stranger was designed to gather information Grimmjow wasn't ready to part with. News that the Shinigami had a new trick up his sleeve could prove disastrous for his plans to get revenge for that first injury. If Aizen decided the kid was worth their attention, he sure wouldn't let Grimmjow near him. Nnoitra or Halibel would probably get that honor, or Ulquiorra if Aizen felt like rubbing it in his face.

Even so, he still had to answer. "That blond guy with the mask? Yeah, he was strong," he said dismissively. "Captain level, maybe. I would have destroyed him if I hadn't been detained." Grimmjow shot a glare in Ulquiorra's direction which the shorter arrancar ignored. "Not sure what the mask was about, but he shot a cero at me." Could the punk Shinigami fire a cero if his mask lasted long enough? Grimmjow hoped he'd have a chance to find out.

Aizen nodded to acknowledge his statement. "And he did not seem to be working with the Shinigami?"

Grimmjow shook his head, wondering briefly at the undercurrent in Aizen's voice. "Just keepin' his territory clear." Must have taught the kid how to wear a mask, Grimmjow realized. If they kept training, he might get a good fight when he saw the kid next. But only if Aizen didn't sniff around. "No one wearing a hollow mask wants to work with Shinigami. We won't see him again."

As he'd expected, Aizen let the jibe slide by without any warning beyond an uncannily knowing look, while Gin smiled his sly fox grin and Tousen's scowl of disapproval deepened. A wave and a "very well" signaled their dismissal, and he joined the dispersing Espada, grimacing slightly at the notion of being waved off by someone who had no right even being in Hueco Mundo, let alone ruling it.

He continued down the pristine hallways, following the twists and turns, and almost walking towards Tres Sciflas out of fresh habit. Grimmjow's footsteps halted abruptly in front of the door with the bold, black 6 centered on it, and he shifted to face the door, tracing his finger along the curved back of the number in a light caress. How he had missed it. A bit of pressure applied to the number swung the door open, and a wall of oppressively melon-scented air rushed out over him.

Gagging, Grimmjow wheeled away from the doorway, covering his nose and mouth with his newly-restored hand as he dry-retched. He felt able to approach the door again after several minutes of adjusting to the onslaught, breathing through his mouth to avoid the worst of the smell.

A few steps brought him through the door and into the middle of a pastel paradise. Fluffy white satin pillows spilled frothy pink lace onto the bed. Lamps with rose-colored shades tossed soft light into the room from every corner. Several delicately carved wooden tables housed pale candles of various colors, heights, shapes, and sizes. There was a rug in pink and green paisley spread on the floor leading to the bathroom where glittering tubes of iridescent jewel-tone liquids and creams littered the countertops. It took Grimmjow all of five minutes to take in the full effect and explode.

"What the hell did you do to my room, you bastard!" he roared, stalking forward and swiping candles to the floor. "You were only in it a month!" Candles were kicked out into the hallway hard enough to smear the walls with waxy color where they struck. The tables followed them, splintering in the corridor. A crystal bowl of brightly colored stones was next. "Shit! Everything's fucking pink!"

Grimmjow's head had never hurt so bad in all his memory, but he'd nearly purged the room of the girly, eight-armed freak's influence by the time one of the Números came to retrieve him for a meeting discussing the new prisoner's housing. Though he longed to finish ridding himself of Luppi, the thought of leaving the area and getting fresher air was greatly appealing. He'd tried--on the premise of knowing one's enemy--but he couldn't understand the need for hand lotion, especially hand lotion that smelled like rotten bananas and overripe mangoes. There'd been three tubes of the stuff on the sink in three different appalling combinations of smells that weren't even pleasant individually.

This was to say nothing of the creams meant, apparently, to be rubbed into one's hair, the tube of paint the same color as those three diamonds he'd always thought were real markings on Luppi's forehead, or the tiny brushes in a case to one side. He'd inadvertently knocked over a random lacquered box at one point and sent up a cloud of powdery dust that had him sneezing and gasping and running to the hall for air that didn't burn his lungs and smell like singed talc.

His temporary replacement had had a good reason for rubbing something like that on his face, and Grimmjow knew that reason well. The idiot had been full out, bat shit crazy and entirely without a sense of self preservation. And admittedly, Grimmjow had had his own reasons for opening every single one of those concoctions: a curiosity that occasionally obliterated his sense of self-preservation.

Grimmjow followed the Número out into the hallway, but paused outside to press the weaker arrancar up against the wall. "Do us all a favor and get this shit gone," he muttered with a nod toward the wreckage of candle wax, splinters, shredded carpet, and twisted plastic tubes. Satisfied with the subordinate arrancar's fearful head jerk, he moved onward toward the meeting hall.

When this meeting--as completely unnecessary as all the others, he was sure--was over, either the pile outside his door would be gone, or Aizen would find himself short another arrancar. Grimmjow had a strong suspicion the former would be the case, and maybe the smears from open tubes and mashed up candles would be cleared as well. The important bit was that the hallway wouldn't reek any more.

He sank into his seat with a grunt and glared at the cup of tea steaming on the table. If the self-proclaimed ruler of Hueco Mundo couldn't let go of the traditions of his past, he couldn't very well expect them to, and Grimmjow's traditions included not sitting around a table listening to people say stupid things for the sake of hearing their own voices. Grimmjow rubbed his nose and looked down the table at the other gathered Espada. It seemed he was one of the earlier arrivals, which was galling in its own way.

It had been a while, but he'd heard no mention of a new, odorless, flavor of tea being introduced over the last month. Since no one was paying any attention to him, Grimmjow peered over the rim at the liquid. Pale green. The tea was identical to the norm, but had somehow lost its mown hay smell. In some ways, that was for the better, since the green tea always made his nose itch, but the notion that the past several hours had stripped him of his sense of smell was disconcerting nevertheless. If Luppi weren't dead and gone, Grimmjow would have loved to kill him again.

Since Zommari hadn't arrived yet, Grimmjow had a clear view of Szayel as the pink-haired Espada delicately lowered himself into the seat two positions to the right. Szayel made an excellent hall mate for all his irritating self importance. Now that he thought on it, the rest of them on the East wing weren't half bad, either.

With all the time he spent in his lab, Pink was hardly around. Stark slept most of the morning, took a mid afternoon nap, and was in bed just after dusk. Halibel was the quietest of them all, and Yammy was too busy following Ulquiorra around to be a bother. Hands down, they were better than irritating Dordonii and his insistence that they all dance instead of walk.

"I couldn't help but notice your artwork on the walls, Grimmjow," Szayel murmured, flashing him that creepy, I'm-thinking-about-dissecting-you smile. "I thought for a moment it must be Wonderweiss, but--"

"Shut it, Pink."

"Just a bit of house keeping?"

Grimmjow rolled his eyes. "I've seen the inside of your lab. You've got room to talk about colorful walls. It's like a fucking vampire exploded after a big meal."

"Those are chemical stains, Grimmjow. I'm a much neater diner than my lab walls would indicate."

He barely suppressed a shudder. "I'm not sure I believe you," he muttered. Privaron didn't actually do laundry, he'd learned in the last month. But they did have to supervise while lesser arrancar did the chore, and Szayel's dirty uniforms disturbed even him.

"Is this really necessary?" Yammy whined from the end of the table. "I just ate, and I can do without the visual."

"Aizen-sama prefers that we keep our quarters neat," Ulquiorra murmured from across the table. "I believe this would include your laboratory, Szayel. You should look into it."

Grimmjow let a smirk crawl across his face as Szayel's shoulders drooped. It was not often the Cuarta Espada issued reprimands, and it was less often that the reprimand was delivered to anyone except Yammy or himself. The change was nice, but not long-lived.

"And Grimmjow," he continued as Zommari and Nnoitra sat to complete the Espada, "you should clean the wall if you've smeared it with Luppi's trash." Ulquiorra finished by calmly taking a sip of tea and settling back in his seat with his eyes closed.

Grimmjow ground his teeth. "Last I checked, your name wasn't Aizen, you gloomy little ass clown," he muttered under his breath.

Ulquiorra's eyes shot open at the statement, but the door opened as if Grimmjow's comment about Aizen had summoned the man himself. Grimmjow set his face in as respectful a scowl as he could manage and prepared to block out the next two hours. Ostensibly, this was a meeting to determine where in Las Noches they would be keeping the woman long term. The likelihood that Aizen didn't already know exactly where he'd be keeping her was somewhere on the far side of none on the slim/none spectrum, which made this whole gathering meaningless.

"Greetings, my Espada," the man began smoothly.

Grimmjow managed to avoid meeting Aizen's eyes as they swept over the room's occupants before the ex-shinigami continued with the meeting. As long as the woman didn't end up in the East wing, he'd be fine with whatever decision was handed down. It was unlikely anyone but Nnoitra would have an opinion anyway, since the woman was to the taller Espada's tastes. For his part, the meeting would be best spent planning the remainder of the Great Purge. High on his list was shredding those satin bedsheets and the lace-trimmed pillows. Lace. Grimmjow bit back a scoff. Only a loser like Luppi would sleep with lace. In addition to being a complete rat bastard, that fool had no sense of smell and even less taste.

Within minutes, he was lost in his throbbing headache and the wash of unnatural, too-polite voices around him. He wondered whether his leaving the door open would help dissipate the residual fruity stink hanging about the room, and whether he'd be able to tolerate the smell when this long-ass meeting was over. If not, he'd be ripping his number off the door and relocating, and screw Aizen's carefully considered room assignments and the "balance of Espada between two wings." There was no officially posted rule locking Grimmjow into the East wing of Las Noches. There were plenty of other rooms scattered about the place, and most of them would mean fewer neighbors.

He was deciding which lamp to smash first on his return, when the sound of his name caught his attention. It took him a second to register the full sentence, and he glared at Ulquiorra across the table. "What do you mean, 'we should have her room near Grimmjow?' I don't want her any closer than she has to be."

"I'm simply referring to the fact that you owe her a favor, Grimmjow." Ulquiorra sipped his tea. "Surely you would feel a need to look after her?"

Grimmjow forced his jaw to relax enough to answer. "Not really, no."

Nnoitra leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "I'd look at her."

"He said 'look after.'"

"Hell, I'd do that, too. Afterwards." He winked and licked his teeth. "You know?"

Grimmjow shook his head in disgust, but caught himself before saying anything. The middle of a meeting was not the best time or place to get into it with the others. And to be honest, what Nnoitra did to the woman didn't concern him one bit, as long as she was intact enough to be of use. It might even keep her fearful enough to be docile. Docile was good in a prisoner, even if it was boring.

"I see." Aizen motioned for the projector, and the West wing's layout sprang up from the center of the table with all the occupied rooms numbered according to Espada ranking. "At the moment, Inoue Orihime is being kept in something of a closet in Tres Sciflas. I'll have her moved here later this evening." The room nearest where the wing met the main building lit up momentarily, and then faded back to an outline.

"But, Aizen-sama," Nnoitra began, "there's an empty room right by mine at the end of the hall. If she stayed there... um, well, if she tried to escape she'd have to get by all of us first. Doesn't it make sense to put her in the very end of the hall so she can't sneak off?"

Aizen smiled and waved a hand. The projector shifted off. "She'll be placed at the junction of the West wing and the central tower, just as I displayed. Nnoitra, you are not to approach her or loiter near her door. You are all dismissed."

Grimmjow joined the flow of Espada out of the meeting room, mildly amused by Nnoitra's grumbling. He'd known all along that Aizen had already made the decision. The meeting was just another way to waste time and get them jumping through hoops. He watched Ulquiorra and Nnoitra walk off toward the West wing, Nnoitra arguing that he was just looking out for the betterment of the whole and not at all interested in anything inappropriate. Grimmjow looked forward to the much quieter East wing.

"Will you be further decorating tonight, Grimmjow?"

"Oh, fuck off, Pink. I told you, I'm just clearing out the trash that bastard left."

Szayel quirked an eyebrow up at him and grinned. "I thought you'd love what he did with the place. The lamps and everything."

"Maybe you would. I happen to like it when things don't reek of rotten fruit, myself. And the pink?" Grimmjow shook his head. "That little shit should have died a harder death."

Szayel chuckled and split off to go work in his lab down an adjoining corridor, leaving Grimmjow to approach his room alone. The smell was greatly diminished--still there, but nothing more than an undercurrent that probably most people wouldn't pick up on. Notably missing from the scene was the pile of broken tables and candles outside and the smears on the wall. Grimmjow made a mental note to get the name of the Número who did it. It paid to know which ones were the good servants.

A quick glance inside revealed that the Número had gone further than expected. A set of regulation cotton sheets were folded neatly at the foot of the bed, and the lamp he'd had in there originally was back, as was the large table he'd had. The girly, jewel-studded lamps Luppi'd brought in to put on his stupid, tiny wooden tables were nowhere to be found. As much as he was going to miss breaking the lamps and adding the pieces to the shattered tables, he was highly pleased that the carpets were gone and his furniture was back. What was more, the counters were cleaned in the bathroom, and the little bowl he'd kept in the corner was both back in the corner and filled with water. Definitely, he'd be getting the Número's name. He might even go to the effort to make sure the lesser arrancar was promoted somehow.

All of Luppi that was left, in fact, were the white satin sheets and lacy pillows. Even those looked somehow crisp, like they'd been changed out for a clean set. He wasn't sure why the Número had gone to the trouble of changing sheets only to put on a matching satin set. It would have made more sense to just get rid of all of Luppi, instead of leaving a vestigial amount. Grimmjow shut the door and stared at the bed, his arms--both of them, he congratulated himself--folded over his chest. He still had a headache, but the room was bearable now and at least wouldn't make things worse overnight. He guessed it would probably take two days at the most before the strays figured out there was water to be had here and came back. Then everything would be normal again except those sheets.

There was no way in hell he was sleeping on lace, but the effort of removing one set of sheets and putting on another was starting to seem unreasonable after a day filled with fighting, healing, the Great Purge, and a long, boring meeting. He tossed the pillows onto the floor, ridding himself of the lace dilemma. Now there was just the increasingly daunting task of clambering around with armfuls of bedding. He sighed. Fuck it. A night on the satin sheets wouldn't kill him. The lace was gone. That'd be enough for now. He kicked off his boots and let himself fall back onto his bed. The room was his. His arm was his. His rank was his.

And damn if he didn't owe that woman a favor.

He turned over and stretched. Okay, he thought. Actually, these are pretty nice. They were slick, they held heat but not too much, they didn't cling, and for some reason, they smelled clean enough to cancel out the lingering scent from the rest of the room. It was just too bad the pillows had that lace problem. Grimmjow buried his face in the sheets and swallowed the purr that tried to slip out. It was decided. He'd keep these. And that Número was getting a promotion.

Omake:

Grimmjow rolled his head back and forth, trying to work the soreness out of his shoulders. It was bad enough this stupid fever wouldn't go away, but now he had to supervise the construction outside where the fighting had ruined several buildings. He wasn't sure, but he had a feeling Aizen was giving the task to him to get back at him for being the cause of a lot of that destruction. It wasn't his fault. The damn kid had wanted to take it elsewhere. And Ulquiorra had broken his fair share of buildings, too. That didn't get him out in the heat watching a bunch of Números look at a blueprint upside down.

"No, you fuckers!" he shouted. "You had it right the first time. Turn it around. The squiggle goes up at the top!" He sighed in irritation, and then burst out coughing. Damn that contagious shinigami. Damn this heat. Damn these losers who couldn't figure out a blueprint.

"Look!" one of them called, pointing. "It's a bird."

"Kill it!"

"I got it, I got it! Watch me!"

"Hey, no fair! I'll get it!"

"Watch where you're aiming, bastard!"

Grimmjow looked where they were firing off balas, and saw a bedraggled nest amidst the barrage of red light. Fuck. It was just his luck that they'd notice the damn thing. "Hey, knock it off! Get your asses building or Aizen-sama will be short a few arrancar."

"Yes, sir, Grimmjow-sama!" they chirped in unison.

He watched them long enough to be sure they were working again, and then snuck a glance at the nest out of the corner of an eye. There were a few charred twigs up there, and a pile of singed feathers on the ground below, but no sign of a surviving bird. At least one bala had connected, possibly more. Either way, the nest was gone, and the birds with it. This did not bode well for the next meeting, and he hadn't even gotten to blast them himself.

Okay. Next time, I'll either have conquered the Nnoitra voice or I'll just find some other way to add it while I move on. I tried it out at the end of this chapter, and it seemed not as bad as it had been, but I'm still not happy with it. And at some point, I need to write a new chapter for Revolution. It's been about a year on that piece, and I can't neglect it any further. Also, I will hopefully be able to keep everything clear with the flashbacks, omakes, and regularly timelined chapters... if not, tell me so I can fix.