Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or places, etc. You're reading this on a site devoted to fanfiction. This should be a clear indication that I'm not pretending ownership and therefore should really, really not be sued. Many thanks.

Mini-Summary: Szayel's designed a spot test and color-coded illness chart to help him diagnose the various illnesses floating around Las Noches. So what's the diagnosis for Grimmjow? More sickness, or just the misery of taking care of Ulquiorra? And will Nnoitra survive without Tesla to see to his every whim?

Chapter 16: Szayel's Spot Test of Doom

Szayel put a gloved hand on the door to his lab and pushed. No Lumina bounding toward him with a tale to tell. No Verona pulling hair and calling names. None of the others, either, since he'd sent them all into hiding with the rest during the quarantine. If he hadn't been so stressed by all the other things on his plate, he'd have paused to appreciate the rare silence in his lab. The peacefulness here might be an illusion, but it was a beautiful one.

A clink off to his right drew his attention to Aaroniero, his temporary lab assistant and apprentice in forcing medicine down people's throats. Szayel paused long enough to be sure that Aaroniero was sorting through the correct set of vials for the evening rounds and then took his own samples to the long table he's cleared off for testing purposes.

Contrary to what Grimmjow might have thought, Szayel had been busy all day, and not just holding hair and cleaning up vomited pie. Szayel tried to clear his mind of the residual irritation over that, and opened the large notebook on the table to the section devoted to the Espada. This was the fruit of an entire day's labor, and he was proud of it. Each arrancar in Las Noches had a sample in storage, and all of those samples had corresponding slides in this notebook. The spot test had proven to be a success, and he had most of the illnesses color coded for ease of identification.

He paused on Grimmjow's old sample. Yellow spots mixed in with the pink indicated the flu, as they did for several other arrancar, most recently Harribel, Yammy, Apache, and Lilynette. There were green spots in the next slide as the yellow faded away, and that was the pneumonia. So far only Cirucci and Gantenbainne had developed pneumonia on top of the flu, and theirs was a pleasant walk through a sunny meadow compared to Grimmjow's earlier desperate trek through a blizzard.

Szayel frowned at the two slides, and then moved his frown to the sample he'd just taken. It would be a simple matter to calibrate his new machine to generate a new color for this strep and mononucleosis combination Ulquiorra apparently had, and once that test was finished, he'd send Grimmjow's sample through. He would count it no small blessing if the resultant slide was clear. After reading the pamphlets the doctor had left with Grimmjow, Szayel didn't want to think about the possibility of Grimmjow being ill again. And with something that sounded worse than the pneumonia, no less.

Crossing his fingers, Szayel loaded Ulquiorra's sample into the machine and recalibrated. Now there was nothing but waiting. Waiting, and praying that Ulquiorra had not managed to infect his temporary roommate. He had expected more common sense from Ulquiorra, if not from Grimmjow. A training session on germs was looking more necessary every time he thought about the two of them and that stupid water bottle.

"So how are they?" Aaroniero rolled the cart he'd been working on over for inspection.

Szayel rubbed his eyes and sighed. "The medicine or the idiots?"

Aaroniero shrugged. "Both, really."

"Well, aside from being absolutely terrified of a teeny little syringe, I'm sure they'll be fine," he lied. Szayel shook his head and then gave the cart a once-over, his mind still focused on the East wing. Really. They'd each sustained worse damage during the ryouka "rescue" mission. It wasn't like being pricked with a needle could somehow trump being sliced nearly in half or locked in a Caja Negación for hours on end. Even their rank insignia involved more pain, what with the reiatsu-laced needle gun and all that.

What almost worried him more, though, was the conversation he'd walked in on. Ulquiorra had been in the middle of describing some sort of giant scaffolding, a wooden frame intended to be perched over hot coals. That in itself was only interesting, but the Cuarta had immediately clammed up once he'd realized the door was open. The portion of Szayel's brain that still had time for idle curiosity wondered what Ulquiorra could possibly have been talking about that he'd be willing share with Grimmjow of all people but not with anyone else.

"Looks fine," Szayel said with a nod of approval at the cart's contents. "It's orderly enough that you won't kill anyone, anyway."

Aaroniero sighed. "At this point, killing someone with a dose of the wrong medicine might be the merciful option." He left the cart by the door and started on a second one. "Actually," he said, pausing to read an ingredient label, "given the sorts of things you're calling medicine, I take that back." He put the beaker on the cart with a disbelieving look. "I'm so glad I can't get sick."

Szayel tuned his assistant's dual-toned muttering out as he flipped through the notebook. Yellow. Red. Purple. Green. Indigo. Brown. Three different shades of orange. There was a veritable rainbow of disease in Las Noches. He wondered what color Ulquiorra's illness would be on the slides, and then his mind drifted back to that overheard conversation. After pondering it for another few minutes and getting nowhere, he shrugged off the scaffold as a plan to hang him over a fire in revenge for the disappearance of his bedside manner last night. The only other idea he could supply was that Ulquiorra was planning repairs to one of the many ruined towers of Las Noches, and revenge seemed more likely at the moment.

A *ping* from the machine informed him that Ulquiorra's sample had calibrated successfully, and he took a deep breath before removing the slide: the regular background field of pink, but with blue and grey spots. The accompanying readout indicated that blue was mononucleosis and grey was strep. Szayel carefully inserted the slide into Ulquiorra's section of the notebook and then placed Grimmjow's sample in the machine. He would like to think his week couldn't get worse, but the logical part of him knew that these results could easily crush any hope he had of sleeping in the next month.

There was a positive, though, however hard it was to believe. Somehow, for some reason, Grimmjow had already started Ulquiorra on the antibiotics, and correctly no less. Szayel couldn't fathom the motive behind it, but when he placed that beside the blasted water bottle incident and this new secret-sharing, he came to one conclusion: He and Stark would easily wipe out the competition in the Las Noches betting pool. At the moment, it was the only thing he could look forward to and not shudder. He'd even win over Ichimaru unless the shinigami had changed his bet recently. Maybe he would stop by Findor's room to check.

A new set of beeps snapped his mind back to the machine and the spot test it had just completed. Szayel closed his eyes, sucked in a breath, and pulled the slide out. He opened his eyes. "Fuck." There was blue everywhere. This wasn't just a recent infection that would come to full power in a month. This was as current an infection as Ulquiorra's. Grimmjow couldn't be more than a week behind.

Aaroniero stopped in the middle of rearranging his second cart and looked over at him. "Let's not say 'fuck,'" the low voice pleaded. "Let's say something else, like, 'Oh, good. The test is clear and there's nothing to worry about,'" he finished in the high voice.

Szayel shot him a withering glare and flashed the slide at him. "Oh, I assure you, 'fuck' is the appropriate response, Aaroniero."

"Damn it!" The Novena set a bottle down with a sharp clack. "Is it too much to ask that the bastard only get deathly ill once this year? He's supposed to be taking care of Ulquiorra. Now I have to!" his high voice whined.

Try as he might, Szayel couldn't muster up any sympathy for Aaroniero's newly increased workload. He had his own workload to consider, after all. Like the next step, which involved telling Grimmjow that he was due for a month of exhausted misery. Or the step after that, where he had to report that he'd messed things up and gotten Grimmjow--Aizen's favorite Espada for reasons that still escaped him--sick again by leaving him unattended with Ulquiorra. The betting pool was still firmly in his grasp, but he doubted he'd live to see his winnings.

Szayel paused by the door to Ulquiorra's room. When this nightmare had started, he'd felt similar dread at the thought of entering Grimmjow's room. He almost laughed at his earlier notion that Ulquiorra would be a better patient. The Cuarta may be obedient, but that obedience was entirely Aizen's to command. Szayel didn't hold much hope that Ulquiorra would believe him or take his direction after the disaster last night with the gargling. The best he could hope for here was that Ulquiorra was so deeply asleep that he only had to deal with Grimmjow.

Shrugging his shoulder bag to a more comfortable position, Szayel pushed open the door and peeked in. They were still on the couch, but not sulking at opposite ends as he'd left them after taking samples. Now, they were... well, he was glad he'd brought the camera for recording the symptoms Nnoitra was likely hiding.

Ulquiorra was sprawled on one side of the couch with one foot stretched down the length of the couch and the other one on the floor. His head was tipped back over the arm of the couch in what would have been quite painful if he'd been any less exhausted. Very faint snoring indicated that his airway would need adjusting before Szayel would feel safe leaving him there.

Grimmjow was perhaps in an even more compromising position, tangled up in the blanket with his head resting on Ulquiorra's leg. Szayel bit back a laugh when he noticed the Sexta's fingers curled in the fabric of Ulquiorra's hakama. This was the second time he'd seen Grimmjow practically cuddling someone he hated, and Szayel had to admit it was easier to stomach the second time around. Also more useful.

He quietly shut the door behind him and dug out the camera. If he gained nothing else from this, he'd at least have blackmail material to last a year. He flicked the recorder on and slowly panned the length of the couch, pausing to zoom in on Ulquiorra's open, snoring mouth and Grimmjow's loosely clenched fingers. He'd be hard pressed to find two Espada who disliked each other more than these two, on the surface at least. Clearly there was something else going on here. That, or they were both so tired and miserable that even their mutual antagonism could be put aside for a moment.

Satisfied with his footage, Szayel turned the camera off and stashed it out of sight at the bottom of his bag of supplies. Being sure to keep his back to the two slumbering Espada on the couch, he deliberately clinked two medicine bottles together as he dug out his collection of slides. When he heard fabric shifting on the couch behind him, he turned around and hefted the slides onto the table.

"Glad to see you awake," he murmured as Grimmjow rubbed at his eyes and sat back against the couch.

"Uh-huh." Grimmjow blinked up at him, and then at the bag. "What all you got in there?"

Szayel followed his worried gaze and smiled. "For you? Just a slide show. No meds. You're safe enough."

"Who's the unlucky bastard, then?"

"No one." Szayel rolled his eyes. "Ulquiorra's got a few books in here, and Nnoitra's got some samples in his future. That's all." He steeled himself for the conversation ahead. "Now we have to talk."

Szayel put a hand on the stack of slides and held up the first one so Grimmjow could see the colors. "See the pink spots?"

Grimmjow nodded, looking disgruntled about the whole thing.

"Those are the background," Szayel explained. "Someone who is healthy will only have pink spots." He paused. "See the blue spots? The grey?"

"Yeah," Grimmjow said, "but do we really need to do this whole bedtime story thing, complete with pictures?"

Szayel glared at him. "Shut up. This'll be important, so pay attention. This slide is a copy of Ulquiorra's test results. The blue is mono. The grey is strep.

Grimmjow nodded. "Fine. They're everywhere. He's sick as a dog. I know this without seeing rainbow polka dots."

Szayel put the card face down in a separate stack, and held up a new one, ignoring the attitude he was getting. "My results. Note that it's all pink." He set that aside and picked up a third. "Stark's," he said, holding it for a moment and setting it in the viewed pile. He continued through the stack, announcing Harribel's, Tesla's, Ggio's, Lilynette's, Barrigan's, Menoly's Sun-sun's, Wonderweiss's, and Dordonii's in turn. There was only one card left in the first pile. "Do you see a trend?"

Grimmjow looked at the pile of slides and frowned. "So blue is mono, grey is strep, and pink is healthy?"

"Yes."

"And all those other colors are some other kind of sick."

Szayel nodded. "Correct. The trend?" he prompted.

Grimmjow tilted his head to one side. "Only Ulquiorra has mono and strep?"

"Close." Szayel held up the last card on the table and paused. "This is yours."

"No it's not." The response was immediate.

Szayel sighed. Denial was not what he wanted to put up with at the moment. "Yes, in fact, it is. I ran it twice." He waited while Grimmjow squinted at the card.

"You're sure that's not Ulquiorra's again?"

"Do you see any grey spots?"

Grimmjow reached out and took the card from him, staring at it intensely. "No, but I'm not looking hard enough. They're in there. Give me time and I'll pick 'em out."

Szayel retrieved the first card and pushed it toward Grimmjow. "That's Ulquiorra's if you'd like to compare. You've got mono, Grimmjow. If you're not miserable now, you will be in a few days, tops. By my estimates, you're not a full week behind him."

"That's not even possible!" Grimmjow flung his card back onto the table and folded his arms over his chest.

And now it was time for gentle explanation, despite the fact that Szayel felt more like telling Grimmjow to suck it up and deal. "What little immune system you started out with was fried by the influenza and pneumonia. In fact, given the incubation period mentioned in the materials the doctor gave you, you've likely had this in your system for weeks without knowing it. And--"

"But I was already sick!" Grimmjow interrupted. "It's not my turn any more. This isn't fair!"

Szayel stared at him. "Not fair? I'll tell you what isn't fair, Grimmjow. Mono is spread via saliva, and my guess is Nnoitra will come down with this in about two week's time because you spat at him. And after you? He's the last person I want to deal with as a doctor. That's what's not fair."

Grimmjow was quiet for a moment, turning the idea around in his mind. "I didn't mean to get him sick. I just wanted him out of my room."

"I doubt the germs care much what your intentions were, Grimmjow," Szayel said, feeling the ever-present headache ratchet up a notch. "The point is--"

"But--"

"Look, I don't have time to convince you of this. You both have mono." Szayel jabbed his finger at sleeping Ulquiorra. "He has strep, too. You're both going to be flat on your backs for a month or more, and I can only hope you manage to keep energetic enough to take care of him until you can trade places again as he recovers."

He watched Grimmjow's face run through several different emotions in turn, alternating between fury, exhaustion, confusion, disbelief, denial, and more. When he was sure there wouldn't be an outburst, he got up and pulled the two books out of his bag. "The encyclopedia is from Aizen. The other is from Zommari. He said Ulquiorra had asked for it a couple of weeks ago."

Szayel closed up the bag and headed for the door, pausing to think of the other instruction he'd wanted to give them, but coming up blank. Grimmjow seemed slightly distracted by the second book. That was good. Maybe it would keep him occupied during the few days of energy he had remaining. Ah, energy, he thought. That was it.

"Aaroniero is going to be bringing you meals while you're sick. One in the morning, one in the evening. Same schedule as the prisoner. You are both going to eat those meals." He watched Grimmjow read the back cover of the book, and snapped his fingers with a scowl. Once he had the Sexta's attention, he continued. "Pay attention. You need to make Ulquiorra eat. You need to eat, yourself, also. It'll help you retain as much strength as possible, and you may heal faster. Aaroniero will be keeping an eye on you two to monitor for complications. Questions?"

Grimmjow shrugged. "As long as I don't have to eat your cooking or his," he said with a gesture toward Ulquiorra. "After all, no one's food could be much worse than yours, right? The two of you together could poison a whole nation."

Szayel tried not to be angry about the jab at his rice-making skills, and was only marginally successful. Thankfully, he didn't have to stick around and listen since he wasn't the one staying over. He was halfway through the door when Grimmjow caught his attention again.

"Hey, Pink! Hang on a sec. If I've had this junk in me for weeks, then sharing the water today didn't do jack shit." Grimmjow pointed a finger at him. "You owe me an apology."

Szayel shrugged. "Fine. I'm terribly sorry for lecturing you on germs. To make it up to you, I'll let you nurse Nnoitra back to health when he gets sick with this. Sound good?"

Grimmjow flipped him off. "You know what? Keep your fucking apology. I don't want it that bad." He swung his feet up to rest on Ulquiorra's torso with enough force to bruise the smaller Espada, and opened Zommari's book.

Szayel blinked as Ulquiorra shifted slightly but didn't wake up from the rough treatment. Perhaps the pamphlet described a milder, human form of mononucleosis than an arrancar was able to contract. Given how much worse all the other sicknesses were when he compared them to the research he'd done around Karakura, it wouldn't surprise him. "Keep an eye on him, okay, Grimmjow?"

"Sure thing," Grimmjow muttered, not looking up from the page. "The little twerp stops breathing, I'll kick him 'till he wakes up."

Szayel paused in the doorway for a moment before letting it close behind him as he slipped down the hall toward Nnoitra's room. He made a mental note to send Aaroniero in to check on them more frequently than they'd planned, and to cart in a second couch for Ulquiorra's safety. As he walked to the dead end that was Nnoitra's room in the hallway, he wondered whether Ulquiorra would be more appreciative of his bedside manner after experiencing Grimmjow's. Given the kicking, there was a chance.

Szayel stared at the crooked five on Nnoitra's door and resisted the urge to straighten it out. Aaroniero had mentioned that Nnoitra had stopped talking entirely, and the silence seemed to be a bad sign given the previous yelling that he was fine. He pushed the number and wasn't surprised when the door didn't budge. For all his bluster about being the strongest, Nnoitra was the only one of them who actually kept his door locked to any reiatsu but Tesla's and his own. Szayel had ragged on him about it from time to time in the past, but it didn't seem prudent to do so now.

"Nnoitra!" he called. "I need to take a few samples, so open up."

There was a thump from inside the room, probably Nnoitra dropping something, or hurling something at the door. Szayel waited for over a minute while the rustling got louder and then stopped. He knocked on the door. There was no response.

"Are you sick?" he asked through the door.

After a moment, he could hear Nnoitra cough and then the shuffling of fabric on the floor that got louder as the fabric got closer. Szayel put his ear to the door in case Nnoitra's voice was gone.

"No," came a faint rasp from the other side. "So go away, already." This was followed by more coughing and a low moan.

Szayel rolled his eyes at the door. "You aren't going to get better if you don't admit you need help in the first place." He rubbed his temples and planned his strategy for getting into the room. "Without any medicine, you might die, Nnoitra," he called. "Do you want to die?"

"I'd love to die," Nnoitra said. "Then it'd be over." He coughed. "Now go away."

Szayel stared at the door for longer than was strictly necessary. The entire East wing was composed of crazy people. What was more, Nnoitra, Grimmjow, and Ulquiorra were more alike in illness than any one of the three would have acknowledged. Szayel recalled the details on the mononucleosis pamphlet and counted days since Grimmjow had spat at Nnoitra. There was plenty of time to collect a sample later, and Szayel decided to leave well enough alone for the time being. At least there was one arrancar in Las Noches who knew how to avoid contaminating others.

OMAKE: "Ice Cream, Anyone?"

Nodding a hello to Jinta and Ururu in the yard, Ishida slid open the shoji to the Urahara Shoten and walked inside, ice cream bucket in hand. It was really a shame the bucket hadn't fit inside his Sunflower Tailor bag, but he'd hauled the thing all the way across Karakura without getting ice cream on his clothes, so he really couldn't complain. As an added plus, the headache he'd been nursing since encountering his pink-haired nemesis had subsided at the thought of using this bucket against him somehow.

The entire shop shuddered suddenly, and a stack of candied Chappies fell off one of the shelves. They'd have to find another place to train soon, or else find someone to manage the shop while Tessai maintained a barrier. Already, Abarai and Sado together were responsible for damaging hundreds of dollars of merchandise, and Ishida didn't imagine Urahara would stand for much more of this. At least Kurosaki trained elsewhere.

He opened the trap door and clambered down the ladder the best he could with one hand clutching the empty bucket. Despite the inconvenience of it, this underground area was the meeting place of choice lately, and also the most likely bet for finding the one man he knew who could turn this ice cream bucket into a weapon.

"Good, good," Urahara said, clapping like an excited child. "Now try it the other way again."

Ishida sighed, wondering how someone who had so much to lose could be so cheerful when training others. He and Yoruichi both were remarkably light-hearted since the truce, as though keeping a happy heart would delay the inevitable war looming in their future.

"Urahara-san," he said, holding out the bucket. "Another sighting."

Much to his chagrin, Urahara wasn't the only one to turn around and give him full attention. Ishida found his cheeks burning when Yoruichi looked up from her curled position in Urahara's lap. She'd been almost exclusively in cat form since getting the flu earlier, but certain images were just too soul-scarring to be waved away by fur and a tail. He almost wished he wasn't immune to the Shinigami memory device, because that little rendezvous in the park was something he'd prefer to forget.

"Oh?" Urahara snapped his fan closed, the carefree manner gone in an instant. "Details."

Ishida avoided looking at Yoruichi's perked ears and focused instead on what he'd seen at Hojo's. "It was a pair of them," he said. "Eating ice cream." He let Urahara take the bucket from him before continuing. "From the descriptions, I think it was Grimmjow and Ulquiorra. Szayel Aporro came later in a garganta to collect them."

"And how is Grimmjow these days?" Yoruichi asked, the tip of her tail flicking from one side to the other.

A shout from the side saved him from having to answer the question, and he looked over to see Abarai's Hikotsu Taiho spitting out an amplified La Muerte. Abarai let out a whoop as the energy blast took out a large portion of the wall, and high-fived Sado. For his part, Sado smiled, letting his armor revert to normal as the two made their way over. Their combo seemed to be coming together nicely.

"All right! Ice cream!" Abarai swooped an arm in and grabbed at the bucket. His face fell when he looked inside. "The hell? There isn't any left, you selfish bastard!"

Ishida pushed his glasses up his nose. "It's just the bucket. I was thinking there might be something useful there. Like trace DNA or saliva or something. Maybe you can use it to make those untraceable gigais traceable."

Urahara held his hand out for the bucket, a slow smile spreading over his face. "I'll see what I can do."

Notes: Poor Chad. Shafted for speaking parts in the manga, and now here, too. At least he's getting to work on some seriously neat combat techniques to keep the manga outcome from taking place.