There was a knock on Orihime's bedroom door. "Woman? It's nine a.m. Are you awake? I need to talk to you about something."
She wasn't awake, not really. She had been enjoying a really nice dream, replaying in her half-awake state. "You can come in. What is it?" she asked sleepily.
Ulquiorra opened the door and watched her stretch from the doorway. Soft light spilled into the room through sheer curtains and glimmered off her messy hair. He noticed the way her nightshirt pulled across her body and quickly returned his gaze to her face. Her body was becoming increasingly distracting to him as time went on, but now was not the time to address that problem.
Instead, he waited for her to stop her movements and then came to sit on the side of her bed near her knees. "I've been reading."
Orihime smiled, heavy eyelids still shut. "What about?"
"Ricky and Rachel fanfiction. You never told me about alternative universes." His voice sounded tired and slightly regretful.
"Oh, do you like them?" she asked, opening her eyes and rolling over to face him.
"I'm not sure. I'm having a problem with some of the ways Ricky is acting in this one," he admitted. "He's a zookeeper. Ricky would never be a zookeeper. But on top of that, whoever wrote this story has given Ricky a daughter!"
"Aww, what's her name?" Orihime asked.
"Zoe. But that's not important. What's important is that this premise means that Ricky has already had a family. How is that going to work when he meets Rachel? I do not know if I wish to continue reading this."
Orihime yawned. "Come here, Ulquiorra, and relax. This might take a while."
Ulquiorra readjusted his body so he could sit beside Orihime, leaning against her headboard. Since her cold a few weeks ago when she asked him to lie beside her, they had shared space like this more easily from time to time.
"So, what are you having a problem with, the idea of him having a daughter or the idea of him having been with another woman before Rachel?" Orihime asked once he was situated.
"Both. I don't know. It just all seems so difficult to overcome. They aren't even in the same place. This zoo is in Germany."
Orihime nodded. "Okay. But, when you read it, does it feel like Ricky is speaking?"
"...Yes."
"So it's fine. If the writing is good and they seem in character for their surroundings and circumstances, you'll probably enjoy it. Unless, of course, it's a premise or plot problem."
Ulquiorra wasn't sure what she meant. "Please elaborate. Better yet, give me an example."
Orihime yawned again, then scooted closer to Ulquiorra to rest her head against his thigh. "How about I do you one better? Let's imagine that we're writing a fanfic. You and I are the main characters. But, instead of being roommates in Karakura, let's say we're… bartenders. On a cruise ship."
Ulquiorra appeared uncertain. Orihime looked up, saw his furrowed brow, and said, "C'mon, trust me. Just go with it."
"Do you mean those cruises they advertise during television program breaks? The enormous sea vessels?"
"Yes."
"And we are… Bartenders, there?"
She nodded against his leg.
Ulquiorra sighed and shook his head but said, "Continue."
"Yeah, like, say you've been on the ship for a while and I am the new girl and we get assigned to work at a theme bar… Like, a Halloween theme bar. And it sells chicken wings. OOH! It's called 'Batwing'!"
"Batwing?"
"Yes. And you have to be dressed spooky and I would have to wear, like, a wenchy witch outfit, and there would be decorative bats hanging from the ceiling and drinks would be served with black glitter or dry ice," she said in a rush of ideas.
"What is a wenchy witch outfit?" Ulquiorra asked.
"Oh, hold on," Orihime replied, rolling up to reach her phone on her nightstand. It took her a few moments to find a picture of a woman in a black, off-shoulder peasant dress under a leather corset and a black pointed brimmed hat. "That. Part bar wench, part witch."
Ulquiorra's eyes narrowed. The woman in the photo had artificial breasts that protruded in a painful looking way above the neckline of the dress. "Why would you wear such a thing?"
"It fits the theme," she said, settling back down on his leg.
"It would fit you, though?" he asked skeptically.
"Yes. And you could wear something like this," she continued, showing a man in black slacks and a white shirt with puffy sleeves and a cravat with a black and silver cross pinned to the collar.
Ulquiorra frowned, but he was interested to know how this related to his earlier question. "Okay, so I'll go along with this premise. Why are we doing this, though?"
"Oh, um, I've got job burnout and you… You're trying to run away from a bad breakup."
"This is ridiculous, Woman. I've never broken up with anyone."
Orihime raised a pointed brow. "No? Aizen?"
Ulquiorra scoffed. "Not the same."
"Close enough!" she countered. "He betrayed all of you and then left you for dead. That had to hurt."
Ulquiorra shrugged. "Not really, I mean, I was not under any illusions that he had loyalty to us."
"Fine," she pouted.
That made his heart sink a little. "But, okay. Let's imagine that works. How do we stay us in this alternative universe and why are we there in the first place?"
"I just said-"
"Sorry, let me rephrase," he interrupted. "What is the interpersonal premise or goal of this story?" He didn't recognize the way his heart rate accelerated at this question, but he was incredibly interested in her response.
She was quiet for a minute and tapped her lips. "Well, it's not a Grimmjow/Ichigo story, so not enemies to lovers," she said with a nervous laugh.
Again, his heart sunk a little.
She sensed it, somehow. "No, I think this one would be more like a strangers to friends story, like us in real life." She saw his brows start to sink a little and clarified, "Skipping over that whole being part of opposing factions thing."
He nodded. "People would want to read such a story?"
"Um, I don't know. I think some people would. I think more people would like the strangers to friends to lovers trope, but that's where the creativity comes in. Oh!" she chirped, grateful for the idea that would save her from awkwardness, "Maybe you have a personal rule against dating other bartenders, so it becomes this workplace friendship that has other people asking 'will they or won't they', and it only gets worse when we call each other work-husband/wife."
Ulquiorra's eyes searched Orihime's for a piece of missing information. "Is that a thing?"
"Oh, yeah. Happens all the time."
"Do you have a work-husband/wife?"
She paused. "In real life?"
He nodded.
"No… Not that I know of. I mean, Mr. and Mrs. Endo are married already and I'm their only employee."
Ulquiorra breathed deeply and relaxed again.
She nodded, then, and continued. "So, after we were comfortable with each other, we hang out with some friends and you flirt with some woman there and suddenly I feel kind of jealous, like 'who is she and what does she think she's doing with my-' and then I have to confront my feelings."
"What feelings?" he asked quietly, afraid to sound too interested. He picked up a lock of her hair at the end and flicked it like the end of a paintbrush; a self-soothing habit he kept up since she was sick.
"Oh, you know, that she's falling for him," she said casually, despite the heat that rose to her cheeks.
"She is?"
"Well, um, uh, um… Isn't it a better story that way?"
He hummed, unwilling to give anything away.
She took that as tentative rejection and it hurt more than she thought it would. Her nostrils flared and she sat up, blurting out, "So she would probably date someone else so that she didn't have to think about it anymore."
His heavy brows dip low on his face, and his intense, controlled response sends chills down her spine. "Why would she do that? Does she discount her feelings so much? Or does his nature disgust her so much that she is compelled to run to the arms of another?"
"What?"
"Just say so, Orihime. You still think I'm a monster," he says more loudly.
Orihime gasped quietly and brought her fingers to her lower lip, which wobbled after a moment. "I don't…" she breathed before tears sprung to her eyes. "How could you think that, Ulquiorra?"
"You would date someone else to rid me from your mind?"
Orihime scoffed and walked around to the foot of the bed to face him, tears still spilling down her cheeks. "You were the one who was flirting with some party floozy!" Orihime cried. "What else was I supposed to do? Watch and pretend I was happy while you moved on to someone else?"
"What? Woman, you are the one dressed revealingly to attract any mate that walks by! I never-"
"You-" She froze as she realized that they had been conflating their hypothetical fanfiction with their reality. Taking a step back, she sniffed hard and wiped the tears off her cheeks, although fresh ones continued to fall slowly.
"I'm sorry, Ulquiorra. I got carried away."
He wasn't there yet, still in the throes of perceived betrayal. "Elaborate," he demanded, voice low and guarded.
"You did nothing wrong. I got jealous because of an imagined woman potentially taking you away from me," she admitted, again wiping her eyes, with the backs of her wet hands, this time.
That took him off guard. Tilting his head slightly, he considered this new information. "Why would you get jealous?" he finally asked.
"Because, Ulquiorra. You and me… We…" she exhaled hard as she struggled to put her feelings to words. "We're cinnamon and clove! We go together!" she finally whined, punctuated by a fresh round of tears.
He watched her quietly and made no move. He was too afraid of his own thoughts and feelings. He had all but accused her of being a tease, but now she admitted to feelings of jealousy. If he misunderstood the situation, it would be…
No. It wouldn't be dangerous or awkward. This was Orihime Inoue. She brought him back from death. She took him in and kept him close to her. She needed him; she said so many times.
And she was right, they went together. They were cinnamon and clove.
A pair of strong arms wrapped around her shoulders as he pulled her to his chest and set his chin atop her head. The closeness soothed them both, and she was able to regulate her breathing just in time to hear him whisper, "I'm sorry, Orihime. Please don't cry."
Her arms went around his ribs, pulling herself closer to him, still. They stood together like that for a couple of minutes until finally she said with a stuffy voice, "Do you think, maybe, we are enemies to lovers?"
That was it. She asked the question she had been terrified to ask but desperate to have answered for months. Her heart froze in her chest while she waited for his response.
He released her shoulders and took her face in his hands. "Is it possible?" he whispered, then rested his forehead to hers.
Again, they paused, this time sharing breath. After half a minute, he pulled back, still holding her tear-stained face, and asked, "Are you afraid?"
This time when he asked the question, she did not deny it. Instead, she asked him, "Are you afraid?"
Looking deeply into her eyes, he nodded.
"Me too," she admitted, gathering her courage anyway and bringing her hands to his shoulders. "But…"
Rising on tiptoe, she looked at his lips for just a moment before she went for it, placing a soft, lingering, chaste kiss upon them.
"...not anymore."
~The End~