Disclaimer: I don't own the people, places, or situations. I don't own the back story. I don't own the Bleach universe. Go sue someone who has money, okay?

Mini-Summary: Yes, Grimmjow's sick. Yes, Szayel is having a hard time in his pseudo-job as healer. But the others are affected, too, right? What about the other Espada? What about, say, Nnoitra?

Notes: I don't feel all that confident with his voice in this, but here's Nnoitra. I ended up changing nearly half of the dialogue in this first section. I still find him to be a touch out of character, but... whatever. I've sat on this chapter long enough.

Nnoitra paused beside the door and cast a quick glance down the hallway. Empty. No Halibel to silently scold him for being a pest. More importantly, no Stark with his oh-so-humorous spoon comments. If that sleepy-ass bastard weren't too lazy to meet a challenge... He sneered. All the strong ones were cowards around here, except him.

Szayel--more freak than coward in his book, though certainly a coward as well--was still rubbing elbows with Shorty over the stovetop back in the kitchen. Something about honey, nausea, and plain food. Nnoitra hadn't been interested, and would have kept walking, but then he'd caught sight of Zomari's note explaining that Jacques was a common French name, and that it made sense that Grimmjow would know some French from when he was alive. Grimmjow, of all people.

Nnoitra made no claim to be an expert on languages, but French, he knew, was "the language of love"--whatever that was--and love had something to do with sex. Or so he'd overheard in the park on his last assignment to the land of buxom young women in short, pleated skirts. Sex was something he did consider himself an expert in.

That Grimmjow would be dreaming in French was interesting in and of itself. But the potential for mockery was downright irresistible. Fish pies? Really, and in the language of sex. How could he pass it up? The short answer: he couldn't. And never mind the warnings to stay away from the area or risk becoming ill. He was stronger than Grimmjow or any other Espada, and therefore was immune to whatever it was Szayel had been warning them against. The door opened with a bit of pressure, and Nnoitra slipped in softly, shutting it behind himself.

"What the fuck do you want, Nnoitra?"

"Huh. Din't think y'd be awake, Jacques." Nnoitra strolled further into the room as languidly as he could manage, and was rewarded for his efforts when Grimmjow's scowl deepened.

"Don't get too comfortable. You're not staying long." Grimmjow tried unsuccessfully to swallow a cough, and ended up choking on it, much to Nnoitra's amusement. "And who the hell's Jacques?"

Nnoitra licked his teeth and sat down beside his victim. This would be more fun than he'd anticipated. "That'd be you, lover boy." He was both surprised and pleased when Grimmjow's response was more confusion and less irritation. The medicine must really be screwing with him if he didn't immediately take offense at the jibe.

"So how're the ladies in yer dreams, Frenchie? All nude 'n sandy?" That was another thing he'd learned from the real world. There were vast stretches of sand on which women basked without clothing. And there was free admission to these shows, if you could find one.

Grimmjow glared, the expression nearly lost amidst his fevered flush. He pushed himself up to lean against the wall, and growled hoarsely. "I don't speak French. And I don't care what Pink has to say about it."

"Oh, come on. Say something sexy. Oo la la. Pretend I'm Nel." This was pushing it, he knew. Of the current Espada, only Grimmjow and Stark had been even a little bit close to the green-haired bitch, but this was the East wing, home to both of them.

"Get out," Grimmjow hissed, the murder in his eyes eclipsing the fever momentarily.

Nnoitra blinked. Rumors had it that either Grimmjow or Stark had taken 'close to Neliel' to a new level, but he'd never been able to figure out which one it was. Perhaps this was an indication. A little further prodding seemed in order. "That's not whatcha used ta tell her."

"I'm serious," Grimmjow muttered, batting something away from his face with the back of his hand. "You shouldn't be here."

"Oh, 'cause yer sick?" Nnoitra widened his eye in fake concern before narrowing it again as he went for the kill. "Or 'cause I struck a nerve there?"

The Sexta Espada looked up at him and folded his arms across his chest. "Do you know what bacteria are?"

Nnoitra blinked again, his smile slipping for a moment. If he'd hit that nerve, the volatile Grimmjow wouldn't have been able to let it go, admit defeat, or change the subject. He'd have taken the bait and run with it. Nnoitra hated being wrong. He hated losing even more, and to keep this encounter from being a loss, he had to up the antagonism.

"They're--"

"If that's what's making ya sick an all, then I don't really care," he interrupted. "Just 'cause something can take a weakling like you down doesn't mean it's got a chance against me."

"They're microscopic," Grimmjow continued, his voice getting even raspier. "So small you can't even see 'em."

Nnoitra snorted and rolled his eye. "So?"

Grimmjow smirked weakly. "Your hierro won't protect you if they get in some other way. Like breathing them in or getting them in your eyes." He paused for effect. "Bacteria can get around your skin without having to go through it. Your strength doesn't matter."

Nnoitra felt a brief chill run down his spine. It sounded like these bacteria cheated in what should be a straightforward fight. Those were his tactics, and he didn't appreciate them being copied by some little bugs from the real world. He was beginning to feel a touch uncomfortable in the Sexta Espada's room. Like he should be planning an escape route or something.

Of course, this was all assuming Grimmjow wasn't lying to him to get him to leave. The Sexta Espada was known to be ruthless in protecting his alone time. Nnoitra remembered when Ilforte had been the most clingy of anyone's fraccion, before Grimmjow had cut his hair off at the mask. While the hair had grown back eventually, the fifteenth arrancar had given Grimmjow a lot more space afterward.

"And if they did get in," Grimmjow said, resuming his description, "they'd eat away at your strength and your hierro would crumble from the inside."

"There's no way yer that contagious, Jacques." Nnoitra didn't often use logic, but this seemed like a good time for it. In the face of what was surely a bluff, a bit of logic could give him victory. "I can see how the pink freak would be immune, but Aizen wouldn't've let you sit at the meeting if the rest of us could get sick just breathing around ya."

Grimmjow grinned up at him. "Guess you're too cowardly to test that out, then, huh?" he challenged.

Nnoitra's patience all but evaporated at the taunt. "I'll show you 'testing it out,' you little fucker!" Nnoitra growled. He leaned over right into Grimmjow's face, trying to ignore the inner voice telling him that something was wrong, that there was in fact the possibility that he could get sick, could be reduced to a wheezing lump at the meeting table. No one called him a coward and got away with it. He was the strongest of all the arrancar, and these numo-whatevers were nothing to him. There was simply no way this sickness could be that easy to catch, no matter how devastating it was once caught.

"Aizen'd never send Halibel to put you to bed if just breathing close to you could get her sick," he sneered, pushing that scared little voice further into the background. He was stronger than that. Practically invincible. "What kind of fool do you take me for?"

"I know you're always focusing a bit further down on her uniform," Grimmjow began, closing the distance between them until Nnoitra could feel the breath on his face. "But even you must have realized that her collar effectively covers her nose and mouth." He spat without warning, sending a gob of thick saliva flying the short distance into Nnoitra's eye.

"Gyah!" He recoiled, clapping a hand to his eye. "What the fuck!" Nnoitra smeared mucus and spittle across his face in his attempts to clean his eye out. "I oughta--"

"Eyes aren't protected by hierro, Nnoitra." Grimmjow wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and doubled over with a brief coughing fit. "The pneumonia bacteria are in there now, and they're going to eat your brain!"

The outrage boiling within him slowly turned into horrified realization. Close proximity. Getting bacteria inside him. Skipping the hierro armor and moving straight for the kill. His heart picked up its tempo and his breathing caught up. The bastard had set him up. Damn it. Damn it!

Nnoitra turned and left the room without a word, maintaining a calm façade in front of his enemy, but moving as quickly as he could nevertheless. He had to find some water. He had to wash this out, get rid of the numo-bacteria before they had a chance to start growing. He'd worked too hard to get this far up the chain, damn it, and his efforts weren't going to waste if he could help it.

Fucking Grimmjow could be dealt with later, when Nnoitra was sure he was safe from tiny, crippling bugs from the real world. Damn it all, Aizen would be hearing about this.

Szayel suspected trouble when he caught Nnoitra skulking near the kitchen door, but he had no choice but to remain by Ulquiorra's side as the shorter arrancar prepared a pot of rice--as plain a pot of rice as possible because Grimmjow had been spot on about the egg dish and every creation Ulquiorra had attempted since. This was the second pot of rice. When Szayel had last turned his back on the process, Ulquiorra had added shredded parsnip and horseradish to the rice. That batch had ended up on the prisoner's tray.

The theme for the day seemed to be white, and the prisoner's meal was to consist of the botched rice, skinless potato halves, milk, and something in a covered dish that emitted onion-scented steam. Szayel debated telling Grimmjow he'd been right about Ulquiorra's cooking strategy, but then decided the Sexta Espada was already smug enough. A motion to his side brought his mind back to the present task, and he put a hand out in time to stop a cutting board of minced garlic from being dumped into the rice pot.

"Whoa. Plain, Ulquiorra." Szayel snatched the cutting board away and put it to the side. "Anything else and he won't keep it down."

Ulquiorra stared at him, the eyes somehow dangerous, despite being even more expressionless than usual. "It is plain. Every meal I cook is plain."

Szayel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's white, yes. But plain is more than solid colors. Just... just the rice in the water, okay?"

"Very well." Ulquiorra handed the spoon to him and began setting dishes on the cart. "Make your plain rice, then."

Szayel watched him wheel the cart out of the kitchen and blinked. He'd never cooked before. For that matter, he'd never eaten rice. How did one know when rice was done? The pot bubbled away, oblivious to his quandary. Well, he thought, as long as it isn't crunchy, it must be done. Just to be safe, he left it on the stove another half hour before ladling the resulting mush into a bowl.

Bowl in hand, he rounded the corner to the East wing, and was promptly slammed against the wall by a lanky, jingling shape clutching at its face and screaming about water and something inside its head eating its brain. Szayel recovered himself and stared at Nnoitra's retreating figure as the taller Espada narrowly missed hitting a door jamb in his rush to the kitchen.

"What's with the noise?" Stark complained, poking his head out into the hallway. "Was that Nnoitra?" He yawned. "I told that dumb fuck to stay away."

Szayel got to his feet, relieved to find his rice miraculously clinging to the sides of the bowl. "I believe you insulted his uniform with a silverware comment. That doesn't exactly constitute a warning to stay out of this wing."

"Huh. Oh well. I'm sleeping in here, so try to keep the screaming to a minimum today, okay?" The door shut, leaving Szayel alone in the hallway with his rice.

Sleeping. Szayel could remember what that was like, vaguely. He recalled it was nice, but hadn't experienced it since the cough syrup disaster. Sighing, he opened Grimmjow's door and mentally prepared for the seventh day of hell.

"We're not done with this yet?" Grimmjow groaned, his eyes glassy and bright.

Szayel sat down and looked over at his patient. Feverish, yes, but also lucid, which was a plus and an increasing rarity. "No." He decided not to tell Grimmjow just how far from done they were. Instead, he motioned toward the door. "What did you say to him?"

"Nnoitra?" He shrugged. "Nothing much. Just some shit to get him out of here."

"Hmm." Szayel wondered whether he was better off not knowing what the two had talked about, but discarded that train of thought when Grimmjow made a pass at the air in front of him. "See something?"

Grimmjow grunted, rubbing at his eyes.

"Here," Szayel said, pushing the bowl across the nightstand. He'd discovered it was better not to acknowledge the hallucinations unless Grimmjow was upset by them, in which case calming measures were in order. "I made you some rice to go with your medicine."

The Sexta Espada peered blearily at the rice, and blinked. "That's not rice."

"Sure it is."

Grimmjow shook his head. "I know I'm not at one hundred percent, but I know rice when I see it. That would be called glue."

The insult to his cooking actually stung harder than he'd anticipated. Ulquiorra's reaction to his earlier critique made more sense now. "It's not crunchy," he replied, cringing inside at the pathetically defensive tone that had slipped out.

Grimmjow merely looked at him. The expression, despite the slight hint of delirium, managed to contain every bit as much contempt as the painted twelfth squad captain had shown him. Szayel found himself suddenly quite glad that his fellow Espada was ill.

And then Grimmjow's attention shifted to the left and followed an invisible speck as it traced some pattern in the air, and Szayel had to bite back a smirk as his patient swiped a hand at it. At their worst, the hallucinations had Grimmjow clutching for purchase as the room spun or beating off angry, armored seafood that came through the wall for him. But the milder episodes were sometimes quite amusing.

Szayel found himself on the floor seeing his own bright specks of light before he even registered the impact of an open-handed bitch slap against the side of his head. He looked up at Grimmjow and gingerly rubbed his hollow mask. "What was that for?!"

"You had a bug on you," Grimmjow rasped angrily. "Big pink butterfly. Probably a relative."

Szayel narrowed his eyes, but didn't have time to reply.

"Seriously?" Grimmjow continued. "Stop laughing at me. I'm not having fun here."

"Neither am I." Szayel picked himself up off the floor and settled back into the chair, still feeling at his hollow mask for hairline fractures. No wonder Stark had been so upset about the chipped tooth. That hurt so bad he had to blink tears away. "Just take the medicine, eat this shitty glue I made for you, and go back to sleep!" he snapped. "I'll wake you up when you start speaking French."

"For the last time," Grimmjow growled. "I do not speak French!"

"Right," Szayel snarked over his patient's coughing. "You don't speak French the way you didn't lose to that fifteen year old shinigami substitute." He didn't know why he was going down this road, but it seemed like something Grimmjow deserved after snubbing his food.

Grimmjow cleared the last of the coughing from his throat and glowered back at him. "I won two out of three, and I would have won the..." he trailed off with a glare as he noticed Szayel's quirked eyebrow.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Grimmjow began again with a sneer. "Who got his ass handed to him by the captain with the bloated, baby-headed, golden caterpillar for a bankai? Was that you?"

That stung worse than the blow to his hollow mask. Szayel folded his arms defensively across his chest and fought back a pout. "Point taken. Shut up."

"Just making sure," Grimmjow gasped, "because the way you're going on, you must have come out on top of that one." Insult delivered, Grimmjow slumped back against the wall, clearly running out of steam.

"At the very least," Szayel ground out, "I didn't get hacked down from behind by an ally."

Grimmjow blinked weakly at him from a nest of pillows. "You stood there," he murmured hoarsely, "watching your enemy attack you... in slow motion."

Szayel stood, scowling down at his patient. Sick or not, the bastard was downright mean. He decided to use his only trump card. "I don't have to keep giving you this medicine, you know. I could let you get worse, and then it would take an even nastier medicine to get you well again." He paused to let that sink in. "Or, you could shut the hell up."

The blue eyes shut as Grimmjow let his head droop tiredly to the side. "I'll drop it if you do, Pink."

"...Fine." His anger deflated, Szayel sat back down, unsure which of them had won that battle. "We're agreed to just nurse our respective grudges in private?"

"Give me the damn pill," Grimmjow said, holding his hand out. "When we see those bastards again we'll tag team 'em."

Szayel shook out a pill and carefully wrapped Grimmjow's fingers around it, then watched as the Sexta Espada choked it down without water. "You want the rice? Something to drink?"

At his patient's whispered 'whatever,' Szayel nodded, and reached for the glass of water. It was time to play nursemaid. The lucid spell was probably drawing to a close, but he had a lot to think about in the next seven or so hours as Grimmjow tossed and turned and attempted to strangle himself with the sheets.

Aizen's orders were not to engage in fighting unless provoked, and while it wasn't specifically included, plotting seemed to be highly discouraged as well. Grimmjow possessed more critical thinking skills than most would give him credit for, but it wasn't a match for the captain from hell. That gold-chinned face floated in his vision for a moment. For plotting, Grimmjow had nothing to offer him. But he did have an incredible illness that might be re-engineered as a weapon against shinigami.

It would take perhaps an hour for the newest dose to take its full effect, at which point Szayel would have to be fully alert to watch for worsening symptoms. Until then, Szayel could either curl up in the chair to catch what sleep he could manage or make a quick trip to his lab for some supplies so he could begin designing the chemical structures for his ultimate revenge.

He smiled. It wasn't much of a choice, really.

Longest Omake Ever: "Blackmail is a Two-Way Street"

Orihime rolled her head to the right, imagining the weight of a jawbone mask on her cheek. She rolled it left, envisioning the much heavier horned mask her usual visitor wore. And forward, pretending to be weighed down by a toothy crown of antlers like the teeny-tiny little arrancar she'd seen birthed the other day. So sweet, almost like Nel.

The hollow masks she had no trouble accepting, but the innocence of that baby arrancar, whispering his name so shyly she couldn't make it out... that was giving her loads of trouble. Were they all like that at first? She just couldn't picture grinning Nnoitra without the leer, or stoic Ulquiorra with his eyes full of wonder, or hotheaded Grimmjow meekly letting Aizen stroke his hair.

Whether that was the norm or not, she was glad she'd seen it. It gave her a little bit of hope, after all. No one had acted as though this was at all odd, so there was a chance that each of them had started out this way, and that they could maybe get a little of that back.

If she was invited to see another birth, she thought she might bring a towel with her, though. Something for the little arrancar's modesty. To begin life in Las Noches naked, on one's knees, and in front of a crowd of hardened peers was just not right. Orihime felt her cheeks grow hot at the vision of little baby Ulquiorra and little baby Grimmjow sitting there in their birthday suits. Maybe playing with little baby birds. Ducklings, perhaps. In a bathtub... with bubbles.

"Awwww, how cute!" she cooed. Her eyes widened suddenly. "Oh no!" she yelped, slapping her hands over her eyes and shaking her head. "No, no, no, no, no!" That was an image and a reaction that could only get her in trouble if anyone found out, and she tried desperately to unsee it.

A scuffle by the door helped immensely with this effort, and she sat up straight and schooled her expression into something she hoped came across as neutral. It seemed a bit early for dinner, but time was hard to judge here.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Grimmjow asked, shutting the door behind him.

The blush returned ten-fold, and Orihime waved her arms in front of her. "N-nothing!" She couldn't keep back a set of nervous giggles. "I'm not seeing anything." She tucked her head down and tried to avoid looking up at him.

"...What?"

"Never mind!" she chirped. He could not know. She would die if he did. Either of embarrassment, or of some action on his part. Maybe a hand through her torso. He seemed fond of that technique.

Grimmjow stood there silently for a moment, then took several steps forward until he stood squarely in front of her. "Whatever. Look, your birds are dead, and I didn't do it."

She looked up at that, but stopped short of his face. He was holding something white and furry that squirmed so desperately in his arms she had trouble making out what it was exactly. "Dead?"

He grunted. "Here's a cat." He dropped the struggling lump of fur and cleared his throat.

It looked painful, but she knew better than to say anything. She'd mentioned his coughing on the way back last time, and he had looked as though he wanted to push her through a wall. "A cat?"

"Hollow cat, yeah. Got a mask and everything." He took a few steps to the side and settled stiffly onto the far side of her couch.

Despite wanting very much to know what was wrong with him, Orihime focused on the cat. It was all fur and bones, it looked like. She'd never seen a cat look so starved. Its mask, a bony frill extending over the top of its head from nose past neck, was almost like a triceratops, without the horns. The scrawny animal cowered just on the other side of Grimmjow's legs, looking up at her with fearful yellow eyes.

"He's... cute," she volunteered, not sure what her reaction was supposed to be. At the very least, she was sure the cat was more afraid of her than she could be of it. "Does he have a name?"

Grimmjow scoffed. "Fuck no. It's just some stupid, four-legged thing I found." He reached down and scooped the cat up, plopping it down on the couch between them and holding it there with a hand on its neck while it shivered. "What's it need a name for, anyway?"

She shrugged, then reached over slowly to stroke the cat's head. The hollow mask was warm, and smoother than it looked. "He's scared, Grimmjow."

"Of course it is. It's in Las Noches. We hunt these things for sport when they get in the buildings."

"You don't!" Orihime exclaimed, horrified. "That's so mean!"

He cleared his throat again and looked over at her, his eyes bright with what she could only assume was a fever. "It's encouraged by Aizen. You were all worried about those birds being pests? Well these are pests. They eat Aizen's stupid messenger bugs."

Orihime looked down at the cat again, then reached out and brought it onto her lap. "Well you're not killing this one."

"No shit. That one's for the birds." He got to his feet, and she pretended not to notice that he held onto the couch's arm briefly for support. "Thing needs water. Keep a bowl out for it. Put it in the corner somewhere out of sight. Anyone asks, the cat climbed in through the window."

She watched as he opened the door and looked down the hallway before turning back to her. "I did not give you that cat. Understand?"

"He climbed in through the window," she said. The cat was a pest. Grimmjow would be well within his rights to come back and exterminate it if she told anyone where she'd gotten it. Or about the birds. He'd be following orders. "He's small enough to get through the bars," she elaborated.

"Good."

Orihime stroked the cat gently, willing it to calm down a little. She had a long way to go before the cat was friendly, but at least she had something to do for a while. Maybe if she could help the cat be gentle and nice... It was safer not to have that thought. She looked down at her new pet, and sighed. Grimmjow was wrong about it not needing a name. She'd have to think of something.