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Nnoitra is in one of his rages, storming around your world in search of something to kill. He’s found Hollows, nowhere near enough to sate him, but enough that he’s covered in blood and gore and viscera.
It’s one of those days, those days where Nnoitra feels like he could claw his way right out of the horrible skin the Shinigami stuffed him into. Nnoitra lives and breathes and hates, but nothing he does makes a bit of difference. He can kill all he wants to. He’ll have to keep right on living until he finds something. Something. What, exactly?
Something.
When he’s like this, Nnoitra thinks about killing you. He should. He knows that he should. You’re a fragile little human who treats him like he’s something less than a monster. That’s a qualifier in itself.
He thinks about what it would feel like to taste your blood, to feel it coating his hands. He thinks about what kind of look would shine in your eyes when you realize that you really were wrong about him. That you trusted a monster and got your life snuffed out for the trouble.
Those kinds of thoughts make Nnoitra feel uneasy in ways that he doesn’t have any justification for.
Nnoitra Sonidos back to where he’s been staying-- your home, where you let him in without a second thought. The human world is a strange, bright place with too many lights and too many colors and nothing at all that Nnoitra understands. If it wasn’t for your efforts, a lot more people would be dead due to the sole fact that Nnoitra has never been very good at reining in his frustrations. The same sentiment for people and Hollows alike.
When he gets back, you’re waiting, sitting by your window with your knees pulled up to your chest. Nnoitra drops in, lets Santa Teresa fall to the floor with a clatter. He doesn’t have the presence of mind to care at the moment. All he’s thinking about is your blood and your meat and what it would sound like to make you beg for death.
What it would take for you to feel like him.
Nnoitra doesn’t know why he thinks these things. Even when he doesn’t want to, the ideas are things with crawling legs and sharp bits that lodge themselves somewhere around his Hollow hole and cling.
You look up at him, your eyes clear and focused and all too real. There’s not a trace of fear in your energy, and for everything he’s done--
Nnoitra can’t understand why.
“Welcome back,” you say, standing up. You’re downright puny next to him, even if you could probably wrap one hand around his wrist.
“Fuck off,” Nnoitra growls, looking away first.
It feels like surrender. That kind of thing should make Nnoitra’s blood boil, not make him feel just the tiniest bit less frayed around the edges.
“Did something happen?” You’re too innocent. You’re too soft. Just looking at you makes Nnoitra want to smash your fucking skull in. “You look... off. Is it one of those days again?”
“I said fuck off.” There’s more venom in his tone this time, a warning. Nnoitra turns to walk away, to go back to the room you’ve given him, the one with foil taped over the windows and an unused pile of blankets in the corner. The one that smells like you no matter how hard he tries to ignore it.
Nnoitra gets all of one step before your hand closes around his. Because he knows there’s nothing that will hurt him here, he’s dropped his Hierro almost unconsciously. Like that, your hand is almost unbearably soft. It’s tiny, because everyone is next to him, and your human heat seeps down into his skin almost instantly. Nnoitra thinks that he should rip his hand away and maybe cut yours off for touching him without warning. Instead, he stands there frozen, body not even daring to twitch.
“Nnoitra,” you start. Nnoitra feels his good eye twitch. “Please don’t leave.” Anyone, anyone else would be begging the vicious Hollow to stay as far away as possible. You ask for the exact opposite.
The moment drags on. You don’t let go. Nnoitra stands there, feeling your determination hang heavy in the air. You don’t have much, but what he does feel of your spiritual pressure is warm and light, settling over him like steam, sinking into his lungs with the barest hint of heat.
You just-- stay there. There’s no moving, no speaking. Just standing right where you are and holding onto Nnoitra’s massive, calloused hand like you think you could keep him beside you if you tried.
Nnoitra rips his hand away from you, dropping to the floor.
A second later, or less than, you’re right there beside him. Nnoitra can’t quite bring himself to look at you. He doesn’t quite know why.
With you still looking at him, Nnoitra feels a bit like shrinking back and ducking his head before you can look him in the eye. It’s a bizarre thought for the Fifth Espada to be cowering before a human. It’s one that should make Nnoitra angry down to his core. Instead, he just feels empty.
“Nnoitra,” you say again, your tone soft and pacifying. If it was anyone else, he’d slaughter them. When it’s you, he just keeps looking away.
There are still thoughts boiling, churning in Nnoitra’s head, but they’re quickly slipping away from violence and back into that ever-present despair. This is pathetic. He’s pathetic. He’s somehow managing to fail at everything a Hollow’s supposed to be-- which is particularly bad when considering that Nnoitra has already failed at everything but being a Hollow. A monster.
Gritting his teeth, Nnoitra clenches his fist until he smells blood. It doesn’t hurt, not even a little bit, but the smell is somehow grounding. That kind of thing says a lot about just what kind of creature he really is.
“I’m going to touch you. Say no if you need to.”
You give him warning, because you’d be pretty damn stupid if you didn’t. Nnoitra thinks about how he should tell you to never fucking touch him again. He thinks about how he should slam your head into a wall for even thinking about it. He’s not soft or sweet or anything that anyone should ever want to touch. You’ve perpetuated a particular brand of crazy that Nnoitra will never understand, but you’re still wrong.
Nnoitra stays right where he is, not even looking in your direction. His spiritual pressure has to be crushing by now, but you willingly scoot closer to him even so. You place your warm little hand over his once again.
But this time, you stroke your thumb over his knuckles-- the scarred surface that boasts of more violence than you can imagine. And you. You touch him so casually, like you don’t care a bit how many lives he’s taken. Your breathing is calm. There’s not a hint of fear on you.
It sends an involuntary little shiver through him, which Nnoitra curses furiously, but nothing else really happens. You sit there for a while, stroking his hand and just being. Sitting right there, closer than anyone’s ever dared. Holding the hand of one of the most bloodthirsty Hollows in existence. You’re either stupid or Nnoitra is, and he can’t quite figure out which.
Eventually, even with his head spinning with the worst sort of thoughts, something starts to slip. Nnoitra can feel himself go just the tiniest bit soft, relaxing into the contact like the touch-starved thing he probably is.
You’ve been proving that little by little, as much as Nnoitra hates it. You’ve been pointing out all kinds of things that he hates.
What’s the point of this? You’re sitting there trying to comfort a fucking monster, as if it matters at all if Nnoitra hurts or not. This isn’t self-preservation on your part, no, that would be getting as far away from him as possible. This is just some stupid, horrible sort of tenderness that’s making Nnoitra feel like he wants to claw his skin off just to get away. He’s starting to feel tense, uneasy, needing to escape the contact before he goes crazy just as much as he needs to never let it go.
He hasn’t bothered to put his Hierro up, Nnoitra notices. He could cut off the feeling of the contact as easily as clenching a muscle. But. He’s not doing that. He’s just sitting there, letting you pet him. Even when he thinks about it, Nnoitra can’t quite bring himself to force it up.
A few more minutes pass like that, only the sound of the breeze outside cushioning the blow of the silence that doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. At some point, you scoot a little bit closer, then closer, then closer again, until you’re close enough to Nnoitra’s side that he feels like he really should be hitting you for trying. There’s no reason why he should be allowing this, but somehow, Nnoitra can’t tear himself away.
You lean against his side. Nnoitra twitches. Honestly, it might be a flinch. Even though you’re small, unarmed, and downright useless in a fight, the contact alone makes Nnoitra’s instincts snap to attention.
His body thinks he’s going to have to fight. That kind of thing makes a lot of sense, considering that fighting is the one thing he’s ever done.
“I’m sorry,” you blurt out after a while. “I wish I could fix this for you. You’re upset and I don’t know why exactly, and I wish that I could help.” Sympathy. It should come off as pitying, patronizing. Instead, Nnoitra sits there and thinks that no one’s had much sympathy for him before.
“Tch, not like it matters,” Nnoitra mutters. He should be angry right now. Instead, all he feels is empty down to his core.
“It matters to me. You matter.”
The feeling that settles over Nnoitra is a strange one. It’s cold, sinking down to the core of him with something dark and unhappy. Mattering is a concept that means very little to a Hollow.
“Shut the fuck up...” It’s all Nnoitra can think to say, but the words lack their usual bite. Whatever will he had to argue is dying. Quick.
You lean against Nnoitra’s side. You’re warm. It makes sense, considering that Nnoitra is dead and you’re alive and real. It’s hard not to lean into it. Nnoitra thinks about exactly why he’s bothering. Pride, maybe. Whatever desire he has not to look weak in front of you. You’re not a threat, far from it, but the idea of letting his guard down still makes his skin crawl.
A hand goes to Nnoitra’s back a moment later, hesitant and soft. The touch makes him shudder, even over the fabric of his shirt. You rub a slow, even circle across his back, and Nnoitra is left with the sudden, crushing thought of what your hand would feel like on his skin. It sounds nice. Nice in a way that Hollows aren’t supposed to have. Debating the merits of hitting himself in the head to knock the stupid, soft thoughts out of him, Nnoitra sighs. This is getting ridiculous.
But you keep rubbing his back, and little by little, Nnoitra starts to feel a lot less like fighting it. He really should be doing something to stop this, but... it’s sort of nice to just sit there. Peaceful, sort of. Which is quite possibly the strangest thing Nnoitra’s ever felt.
For a while, Nnoitra gets lost in the feeling of it all. He closes his good eye, droops forward just enough that he should probably be ashamed of it, and pretends like he’s not ever-so-slightly arching into the touch.
. . .
He calms down eventually. It’s a struggle to force himself to stand up and tear himself away from you, but Nnoitra does it. Without so much as looking back at you, he grabs Santa Teresa and stalks back to ‘his’ room, slamming the door behind him hard enough that something crunches.
The room is small and relatively inoffensive. On his command, you cleared out everything but the bed and the heavy furniture. There’s thick foil over the windows, blocking out any irritating sunlight, and there’s a pile of blankets-- ripped off the bed and discarded-- in one corner. When Nnoitra does sleep, it’s sitting up, back pressed against one wall instead of daring to let himself lie down. The blankets were a temptation to be soft, so Nnoitra threw them aside where he couldn’t even think about it.
For the sake of his pride, mostly. And because he can’t imagine what you’d say if you knew he was actually using them.
Now, there’s that same empty feeling inside of him welling up, the one that’s usually a sign of his worst days, and Nnoitra doesn’t have the mental fortitude left to give a shit. He’s tired. It’s pathetic to admit it, even to himself, but there’s just not enough willpower left in him to bother.
Because he can’t bring himself to go too far, Nnoitra viciously snatches the thinnest, most coarse-looking of the blankets. He props Santa Teresa up against the far wall, sits down next to her, and tugs the too-small blanket over his shoulders. It’s a small comfort, the only kind Nnoitra can allow himself, but feeling the slightest bit buried will make it easier to sleep.
Hollows, when they’re new, sleep burrowed in the sand to hide, hidden behind pieces of rubble. It always feels better to be underneath something-- it always feels a little more safe to have somewhere to ‘hide’.
But that small comfort comes with consequences. The blanket smells like you. There’s no denying it, and now that it’s so close to his face, Nnoitra is having an even harder time ignoring it. Even though he feels calmer now, there’s still an edge of agitation under his skin. The crawling, clinging thoughts are still sticking to his insides and making their demands. Nnoitra needs to go out and kill, kill, kill until he feels a little more sane.
He’s tired.
Nnoitra sits there for longer than he knows, willing himself to sleep. He can’t rest for more than a couple hours at a time-- his body and instincts won’t let him-- but even those couple hours would be better than being awake to think. Sleep might be his only escape from this.
At some point, Nnoitra winds up dropping his head to the side. His face winds up dangerously close to the blanket, where the smell of you is far too strong to ignore. An unconscious shiver runs through him.
This is your territory, a weird little thought says. Even though you’re so, so much weaker than him, he’s still the one intruding. Everything here smells like you. He’s surrounded by it no matter where he goes. Like this, with his face all but pressed to something so soft and familiar, the sickening instinct to tip his head back hits Nnoitra with all the grace that one of Yammy’s fists would.
Nnoitra’s doing it before he can really think about it. His head angles back ever-so-slightly, baring his throat just enough that he can feel it. And he must be tired, too tired to fucking think, because this has to be the most pathetic thing he’s ever done. You’re a human, a fucking human. There’s not a single reason why Nnoitra’s instincts should want this.
But his exhausted, bloodlust-addled brain seems to have other ideas. Whatever’s gotten into him today has to be set to kill, because Nnoitra sits there for longer than he wants to admit, head back against the wall and thinking of the warmth of you. Close to him. Close to him sounds nice.
After a while, he dozes off. The sleep is short and fitful, Nnoitra dreaming of things he can never quite remember once he wakes.
It’s maybe three hours later than his good eye slits open. Nnoitra wakes up staring at the wall in front of him and feeling very, very off. Sleep always does come with the kinds of dreams that make even him feel uneasy, but this time, it’s weirder than usual. The blanket is still around his shoulders. His fucked-up instincts must have loved that this whole time.
There’s something wrong with him, Nnoitra thinks, hauling himself to his feet. Whatever’s doing this to him, it doesn’t make sense. Maybe his brain is rotting. Or maybe Szayel had a point; his Hollow hole does go through his head. Doubting himself makes rage simmer under Nnoitra’s skin. He’s going to have to go out and kill again. More, this time. Always more. Kill until there’s no one left to stand before him.
Or until he’s the one to go down.
You’re asleep now. Curled up in your bed looking disgustingly vulnerable. Nnoitra could chop your head off. He could kill you and you’d never even wake up to scream.
With Santa Teresa in his hand, Nnoitra almost wonders if he should. It might bring some end to whatever fucked-up thing you’re doing to his head.
But Nnoitra walks away. He slides through the open window with ease, more grace in his lanky body than anyone wants to admit. Outside, in the cool night air, Nnoitra almost feels normal. The moon overhead looks like the one he knows. The air comes close to having the same frigid bite.
Nnoitra closes his eye and quickly locates the nearest Hollow. It’s not a strong one, but it’ll do. Its blood will do something to quell the sickening crawling feeling still under Nnoitra’s skin. Hearing it scream might finally bring the thoughts to some kind of end. No taken life ever has, but for a moment, Nnoitra allows himself some tiny fragment of hope.
Then, he adjusts his grip on Santa Teresa, getting ready for whatever fight the pathetic thing will manage to put up.
Not thinking of your warmth at all.