Run With Me

By: Michisaurr

Of Caterpillars and Midol

Deep green irises flew back and forth as they traced the objects flying across the room. His head remained locked in position as he stiffly traced the trajectory of the flying objects with only the uniform bouncing of his eyes.

At first, it seemed fairly harmless. A certain auburn beauty, Inoue Orihime, had been running around the house trying to locate a lost belonging. She was looking everywhere for the item in interest, and when ex-espada Ulquiorra Schiffer had crooked an eyebrow, his way of offering help, she blubbered some nonsense about not wanting to bother or burden others over trivial matters before flicking her hand and turning his attention back to whatever he had been doing. In which case, he had been sitting, perched on the couch watching yet another television program, this time about the proper way to prepare shrimp tempura. He had been watching the chef coat each of the slimy, gray and white specimens in bread crumbs with a look of detached attention when he was ambushed by a flying box of tissues. Sure that somehow Aizen was back to raise hell, he leapt from his seat and grabbed the closest item to him, a couch cushion, and poised for war. As if waiting, an unopened stack of post-its flew towards his face, which he deflected with said couch cushion. He was ready to fling the soft, square-like object with enough precision and power to thwart the enemy—well, as much precision and power one could get from launching a mound of feathers into the air. But a heartbeat before his fingers released the weapon—a heartbeat, because I have haplessly been deemed human, he thought scornfully out of the back of his mind—he realized that Aizen was not, in fact, back for revenge. On the contrary, the source of the onslaught had been an unsuspecting auburn, who, now desperate to find her misplaced item, had taken to flinging items across the room—her way of getting the useless objects out of the way.

Caterpillar eyebrows narrowed.

"Woman, what are you doing?" a monotonous voice demanded with enough conviction to send her flowing tresses whipping around. Her face, wearing an expression of distress and annoyance, cleared up as she grimaced, "Sorry, Ulquiorra! It's just… I've been looking for this one library book for the past hour and a half and I need to return it in an hour or it's a nickel late fee."

A single dark caterpillar inched its way up.

"Do you… require assistance?"

The furious shaking of orange flames and another speech about not wanting to bother people and needing to take responsibility of her own actions had her speaking a million miles an hour before she launched herself into other areas of the house to look for the missing book.

Another caterpillar crawled up until they mirrored each other.

More concerned than not, Ulquiorra hesitantly turned his attention back to the television, in which the chef was done preparing shrimp tempura and had gone on to explaining good wine choices.

Slowly, both caterpillars started the decent down the pale expanse of the ex-espada's forehead.

The program had ended but another cooking channel quickly took up again, and the pale figure found himself once again engrossed in the ways of culinary arts. This time, it was making the perfect flan, and while eating custard plain didn't seem very appealing, the chef had managed to make the dish seem holy. Maybe even worthy of being presented in the woman's kitchen, which had been claimed by Ulquiorra as his domain.

Just as he had about decided to gather the ingredients to make the dish next time he went grocery shopping, he was interrupted by the flinging of items across the living room.

A thick, dark caterpillar worked its way up.

And out of fear for his own safety, he grabbed the couch cushion, stood up, walked to the end of the couch that seemed out of danger, and sat on his feet, cushion held thoughtlessly at his chest. His green orbs shot back and forth as he watched books, stationary, and miscellaneous objects propel across the room.

Was this behavior… normal? He wondered.

He stood to perhaps help the woman, as he decided it would be safer for both him and the house, when a slipper came in contact with his face. Irritated, he picked up the offending item and twirled around to hurl it right back to where it had come from… only to barely miss being mauled by a dictionary flying past his head.

Caterpillars once again dipped down to meet.

"What is the meaning of this?" He spoke, angry, yet managing to still sound somehow bored.

Orihime turned around yet again to meet green orbs, and grimaced, "Sorry, sorry! Are you alright? Oh dear, I hope the dictionary didn't hit you… I just haven't found the book yet! The Perks of Being a Wallflower had been a wonderfully touching book, one of my favorite reads, in fact. But I'm not sure if it's worth this much trouble…" She trailed off, looking vexed.

"It didn't,"

"Eh?"

"The dictionary. It didn't hit me."

"Oh, well that's a relief," she breathed with a smile, "Say, Ulquiorra, have you seen the book anywhere? It's fairly thin and it's a lovely shade of light green, not quite chartreuse though… but it is similar to the color of my notebook for human biology!" she chirped.

Light green…

Dark caterpillars shot up.

Pale feet pivoted and sent the man down the hallway with purpose, turning a sharp left into his bedroom, and on floor as he fished under the bed until his fingers met something. A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he lifted a slightly dusty green book. Orihime, just arriving in the room, squealed in delight to see the object of her despair, and proceeded to launch herself onto the poor, unsuspecting individual on the floor. Caught off guard, they both toppled to the floor and cherry lips dispelled many thank you's.

Then, eyelids flew open.

Caterpillars flew high.

And an almost unnoticeable pinkish tinge settled on the ex-espada's pale face as said cherry lips connected with his cheek. The busty auburn, however, was too excited to make much of anything.

More squealing and thank you's commenced as Ulquiorra lifted an arm to pat her awkwardly on the back, and his face soon melted back to his usual emotionless face, albeit looking much softer somehow.

Caterpillars crawled back in place.

"Woman, I think it is best you hurry to the library," eyes darted to the clock on the night stand, "you have maybe fifteen minutes now," he quietly spoke.

Instantly, the auburn was bounding to her feet and thanked the being still splayed on the floor before grabbing her purse and shooting out the door.

Sighing at the drama that had interrupted his seemingly peaceful afternoon, Ulquiorra made his way back to the couch as yet another cooking show had already begun. This time, it was Fettuccine Alfredo – whatever that was. He was about ready to try making the delectably fat and creamy pasta for dinner when a loud and annoying ringtone blared. Turning to the black mobile device that the woman had insisted he buy upon his arrival in Karakura town, he picked it up and noticed the caller to be "Woman", and then answered.

"Ulquiorra!" A voice shrieked. On instinct, he yanked the piece of plastic away from his ear, before tentatively placing it back. What he came to was a blubbering mess of annoyance, hopelessness, and maybe anger.

Caterpillars inched up.

"What is wrong?" he asked, slightly alarmed, but sounding as worried as a cashier working a late shift in a 24-hour convenience store.

"The library is closed!" came another shriek, "I hurried as quickly as possible but, oh, the traffic was absolutely terrible. I was five minutes too late!"

More angry squabbling commenced.

Ulquiorra lifted his fingers to massage his temples.

"Perhaps you could place it in the drop off box."

"…"

"Is that… not a plausible solution?"

"…"

"Woman?"

"Ulquiorra you absolutely, positively, wonderful unicorn! How could I have not thought of that! I'll go and drop it off right now." And with another round of thank you's, the call disconnected.

Caterpillars relaxed.

A sigh echoed throughout the room.

And the pale ex-espada stood up to start preparing dinner.

Needless to say, dinner was not a nice and creamy Fettuccine Alfredo or crunchy shrimp tempura. No, it was an assortment of vegetables hacked into smaller pieces and served as chicken pot pie, without the chicken.

After all, the poor human only had so much patience when Orihime had arrived home wailing about forgetting the rest of the books and having to drive back. And while violently chopping innocent vegetables seemed like a questionable way of releasing stress, there were just some days of the month when both Orihime and Ulquiorra needed Midol. And lots of it.

/TBC/