IV

A Box, A Burnt Finger & Tea

"Aw crap," I mumbled as I cataloged the damage to the borrowed body. I really didn't think a cat could bite like a shark. I marched through the white halls of the one and only Las Noches. My final destination? Szayel Aporro Granz's doom and gloom lab.

I forced myself to stop and bandage the hand on the way. I had to make it stop leaking as before I stashed the body. Nobody could know that I had a little joy ride in the World of the Living; those sorts of things never set well with Lord Aizen. I came to the door, the lab would be empty. This late at "night" the place would be hopefully drained of life. Astonishingly, even Szayel needed sleep.

I thumbed in the code with my good hand. The back door hummed open. He didn't even bother change the password. He probably thought that I was an idiot and forgot the code or, maybe, he assumed that I was smart enough never to come back again. Highly doubted the latter, I was doing it.

Green "nightlights" illuminated tubes of…stuff, I learned not to look in those glass tanks a long time ago. I walked through the various rooms stuffed to the brim. I had cleaned them just a month ago. Gee…times flies when you're having fun. The sooner I got out of here the better, I didn't want to end up floating in jelly.

The very, very, very back room was the place where the psycho scientist kept an emergency supply of food, a huge amount of unfiled paperwork and his "unproductive" AKA failed projects. The door cracked open to find an even more problematic scene then just a bleeding hand.

"Why in the world are you here, Nnoitra?" Among the boxes and piles of paper sat the Espada with a yawning box in front of him. Of course, his big behind was planted right on the reject gigai box. He did it out of spite, I was sure of it.

He ripped another bite out of a protein bar, ignoring my question, he asked his own, "Look who's in a gigai, a lover in the World of the Living, eh?"

I shook my head and mimicked him. He was eating the worm eaten, five hundred year old food. There was a proper kitchen just down the hall.

"Why are you eating that stuff?"

"Kitchen's locked up," he smacked, crumbles fell away on to the floor, "I'm hungry."

Oh yeah, that answered everything. I peeled off the gigai off and it became a crumbled mess at my feet. Pain danced around from my head to my hand. Another glitch, damage went straight to my real body. I hoped that wouldn't happen.

"You didn't answer the question, what about the World of the Living?" His voice sharpened as another bar migrated to his mouth. Didn't he have taste buds?

"I went shopping for Ulquiorra," I waggling the brown paper bag in his face. Might as well keep to the truth. Nnoitra chewed it over, how could I get him off of that crate.

"You should just admit that you have a boyfriend. That would make it easier…" I rolled my eyes, did I look like the type of Arrancar that would go for that?

"…to explain to Aizen." He finished.

He hated me. He still wanted to get me killed. For a second there, I thought he had finally forgotten about his little mishap. Why couldn't he just get over it?

Keeping my cool, I tried to keep the dread of facing Aizen from leaking out, "Come on, don't tell me that you don't go there without permission. I've see your collection of CDs, where do you think those come from?"

Another bar was gone, he reached in the box for something else, "My fraccións go and get them for me, I sign a fancy sheet of paper and off they go."

"That's what Ulquiorra did for me, perfectly legal."

The Espada gave a short laugh, "We both know Mr. Don't-Interfere-With-Me would send you, of all his fan base, to do his shopping. He would just go himself, end of story."

"True, but I could point out that you are eating our emergency food which is prohibited."

Now he laughed hard and long, "You just crack me up, as an Espada you don't have to deal with all those dinky little rules. I can do whatever I want. Even if it did matter, who would listen to you?"

I mentally agreed with him. Nobody would ever listen to me. At the same time, who would listen to him? He was the one that was sitting on a crate, in an area that he wasn't supposed to be in, eating illegal food, breaking about twenty different rules at once and laughing about it. I shoved the tea into my pocket. Things were about to turn to action.

"Fine, I'll meet you at my execution," Leaving the gigai on the floor, I shrugged and turned to leave. The figure behind me blurred as he used sonído to bar the door, just as I hoped.

He breathed energy bar crumbles right in my face, lovely, "Why don't we just push that execution up to today?"

"Nah, rather not," I commented and copied his move. I couldn't use the Soul Reaper's equivalent to a flash step well as Nnoitra, but I had surprise on my side. As Nnoitra realized that he was talking to air, I shoved the body in the now unoccupied box.

"Tch, fine, do it that way," He growled as the box clicked close. His sword nipped into my back the second later, he was fast. I fell forward, just beyond the half moon's range and attempted sonído. Wrapping his free hand around my arm, he threw me at a wall instead.

I got lucky. Way beyond lucky, my sonído took effect just as the wall rammed into me. Alternatively, Nnoitra unknowingly flung me down a hall. I banged up against the ground and blanked out for a second. Rolling like a bottle, I acrossed the ground until a wall kindly stopped me.

"Yep, he still wants to kill me," I comforted myself as I came to, just another person to add to the list. I rolled onto my back to check for any lasting damage: broken limbs, missing parts, smashed cartilage, or anything of that sort. Besides the tear in the back of my jacket, I was spotless.

I must have drunk a "create-your-own-luck" potion because everything had almost gone right. That would a first in my career. Lucky me. I summoned my limbs under me and continued to go on my merry little way. Hopefully, Nnoitra would keep this under his hood for now. I had tea to boil or was that steep?

It took two hours, five broken tea pots, a cracked mug, one and a half minor fire explosions, a burnt finger and the rest of my energy to correctly steep the cup of tea. By the time this was completed, the rest of the "family" was up, drank their collative cups of coffee and onto the daily drag of various meetings.

My hands did the hula as I carried the tray of unusual tea to the Espada's room. The whole place seemed to sway back and forth, but I ignored that. I stumbled across my cleaning cart and ungracefully dropped the tray on it. Thankfully, the tea didn't spill, because I just about had it.

Sliding his door open, I shoved the cart into the room, as I had done yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before the day before that. I forced my fingers around the handles of the tray and took it to its final destination. It clattered to the desk and almost spilled out again. The pot sighed steam in relief.

Hopefully, he would like it. I did it because…actually, I was so tired that I couldn't even remember why. If he didn't like it, then we would just have to have a heart to heart about it. That's all.

"Why are you here?"

I happened to look up. Ulquiorra was sat as his desk, pen in hand. How did I not notice this tiny, little detail? I had no idea.

"Aren't you in a meeting right now?" I hoped this was an illusion of my tired mind. I didn't know if I could deal with an Espada right now. One angry Arrancar was enough to fill my daily queue.

"Half of Szayel Aporro Granz's lab was destroyed last night; the meeting was canceled due to his experiments. I sent my fraccións to help his sorry case, why are you not with them?" Yep, this was the real and truly annoying Ulquiorra Schiffer.

"Tea. I made you tea," My voice sounded like I banged it against a wall. Straightening up like a broken stick, I tried to look better than I felt.

"You were not ordered to make tea," He serenely commented and set the pen down.

"I know," I yawned, "Look, I really don't care. Drink it. Slip it. Enjoy it. Muse over it. Do whatever you do," I turned, stumbled to the cart and lead it out of the room. He could make his own bed for all I cared, sleep awaited me.

I swear, I slept better than day than ever before. That's before I was woken up by another Arrancar, who told me that Ulquiorra was demanding to see me. It didn't sound good.

That's right readers, Sola tries to do something nice and it backfires in her face. This is the sad life of a fraccion. I really sorta hate this chapter, probably because I can't seem to get the words to say what I want. I gave up and here is the result.

Reviews are epic and appreciated.

-Quin

Bleach, Ulquiorra and co. do not belong to me but to the awesome Tite Kubo. Sola is my own creation, therefore copyrighted to me (she disproves of this).