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“Woman, why haven’t you eaten your supper? Is there something wrong with the food?”
Orihime almost jumped with surprise hearing the familiar voice of her keeper. She hadn’t noticed him coming in. She glanced at Ulquiorra quickly and then turned her eyes to her lap. “No, it’s good. I’m just not hungry.”
“Your hunger doesn’t matter. Human body needs sustenance. Now eat it.”
Orihime sighed. She reluctantly took her fork and forced down a bite. Ulquiorra leaned against the wall beside the door, hands in his pockets and patiently watched her eat, face as expressionless as always.
After a while Orihime looked up from her plate with a pleading face. “Can I please leave the rest? I think I’m gonna be sick if I have to eat any more.”
Ulquiorra looked at her half-eaten food for a moment and decided it was probably enough. “Fine.”
“Thank you,” Orihime said, relief in her voice.
“I’ll send someone to clean up the dishes.”
With that Ulquiorra was out of the door again. Orihime stared at it long after he was gone, a pained expression on her face.
Couple of hours later Orihime was standing in front of a mirror in the little bathroom of her cell. Her face was pale and there were shadows under her eyes. She thought that she felt even more awful than she looked.
She was worried about her friends and what would happen to herself, but most of all she was unbearably lonely. Ulquiorra was the only person she could talk with in here and conversations with the espada usually weren’t very long or pleasant.
Still she had started to look forward to her keepers visits, because even his company was way better than being alone in the white silence of her cell. Orihime found herself quite often thinking about what was going on behind Ulquiorra’s emerald green eyes. He was always so stoic and indifferent but his eyes seemed sad. The tear marks on his cheeks only strengthened the impression.
Orihime thought his eyes were beautiful though. Their color reminded her of a forest after the rain and it was refreshing in this place where almost everything was stark white. She really didn’t know how much longer she could manage being here alone without starting to lose her mind. She hoped her friends would come to rescue her soon but at the same time she was afraid of what would happen to them if they did.
What if they were all killed and she had to stay here for the rest of her life knowing they all died because of her. Or maybe they weren’t coming at all. Maybe they thought her as a traitor and she was left here for Aizen to do as he pleased. She might very well never see a friendly face again.
The thought was excruciating and Orihime felt nauseous. She leaned against the wall and slowly slumped down to the floor, tears burning in her eyes.
Ulquiorra stopped in front of the woman’s cell. She should be sleeping now but it was better to check. He had lately found her just staring out of the window when she should have been sleeping and that wouldn’t do. Humans were weak and needed to sleep to stay healthy.
He stepped into the room and instantly noticed soft noises coming from the bathroom. He went there to find the woman sitting on the floor, hugging her knees and sobbing.
“What’s wrong?”
The woman didn’t answer or react in any way.
“I asked what’s wrong? Did someone get in here and hurt you? Answer me, woman.”
“No, I’m f-fine. I’m just so lo-lonely,” She managed to say, sounding absolutely miserable, before continuing her sobbing.
Seeing the woman so distressed made Ulquiorra feel oddly uncomfortable. He thought about just leaving her be, but that felt somehow disturbing also. She had said that she was lonely. What did humans do to not feel lonely?
Not knowing exactly what he was about to do, Ulquiorra slowly walked to the woman. He eased himself down to the floor beside her and hesitantly placed his arm on her shoulders.
The woman turned to look at him, eyes wide with surprise and then she suddenly was a weeping heap in his lap, clutching him like her life depended on it. For the first time he could remember, Ulquiorra was shocked. He couldn’t say what kind of reaction he had waited, but certainly not this and now he had absolutely no idea what to do.
Finally, following some kind of a faint instinct, he cautiously wrapped his arms around the still crying woman and pulled her tighter against himself.
It seemed to work because after a little while the woman's sobs started to subdue and then ended altogether. She loosened her death grip around the espada and lifted her face to look at him with puffy, red eyes and a runny nose. Ulquiorra knew he should probably find her face very unattractive like that, but for some reason he didn’t.
He reached for the neat pile of small hand towels beside the sink and gave one to the woman. “Clean your face.”
The woman obediently dried her face and blew her nose. Then she looked at Ulquiorra curiously and lifted her hand to his cheek. “You are warm. I always thought you'd be cold to touch.”
Ulquiorra couldn’t think of anything to say. Woman’s touch made his whole face tingle. He took her hand in his own and lowered it back to her lap. “You should be sleeping. I’ll take you to your bed.”
He stood up, easily lifting the woman with him. She didn’t say anything or resist in any way. Just rested her head on his shoulder while he carried her to the large couch she used for sleeping. He helped her take off her shoes and jacket, knowing he was doing the work of a lowly servant but not caring. When the woman was comfortably tucked under the blanket he turned to leave but a small hand grabbed his jacket.
“Please, don’t go.”
It was only a little more than a whisper. Ulquiorra froze in his place. Then, without a word, he turned around and sat down on the couch.
There was a moment of silence and then the woman moved a bit closer to the espada and lifted her head above his lap.
“Can I…?” There was hesitation in her hazel eyes and her cheeks were tinted light pink.
“Do what you please.”
“Thank you, Ulquiorra-kun.” The woman gave him a little smile and laid her head on his lap. She was asleep in minutes.
Ulquiorra was utterly confused. He didn’t understand humans to begin with and this particular woman was even bigger mystery to him than the rest of those puny creatures. He had kidnapped her and threatened to kill all her loved ones, not to mention he was one of the deadliest creatures existing and yet, there she was. Fast asleep in his lap, like it was a safe place.
What was even more confusing was the way the woman made him ...feel things. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything except calm and empty. He was supposed to be the embodiment of emptiness. Yet watching the woman cry had made him feel uneasy. And watching her now, peacefully sleeping against him, made him feel something he didn’t have a name for. Like a warm spark inside him.
He didn’t like these new feelings. He was used to the comforting nothingness and inner peace of the void. He should probably just avoid the woman as much as he could to prevent her from having this effect on him, but he was also somehow enchanted by the strange warm feeling. He picked up a strand of auburn hair from his thigh and twirled it around his fingers thoughtfully. “What are you doing to me, woman?” He whispered to himself.
He soon caught himself thinking about how it had felt to hold the woman in his arms earlier and how he would like to do that again. He tried to think about something else, to concentrate on the void, but the persistent thoughts refused to go away.
Finally he decided to just give in for his urge. There shouldn’t be any harm in that anyway. Besides, the woman clearly liked being touched by him. Some part of his mind was asking, since when had he cared about what the woman liked or not, but he chose to ignore it. The situation was confusing enough as it was.
Ulquiorra maneuvered himself off from the couch, careful not to wake the woman. He pulled off his boots and eased his zanpakuto off his sash and placed them neatly beside the woman’s shoes and jacket. Then he climbed back to the couch as silently and nimbly as he had left, laid down beside the woman and carefully pulled her against himself. The woman stirred a bit and made a little, content-sounding noise but didn’t wake up.
She felt wonderful. All warmness and soft curves. Ulquiorra buried his nose in her hair and inhaled her scent. For a flickering moment he felt like almost remembering something happy, forgotten many lifetimes ago. He had a distant feeling that this whole thing would not end well, but right now he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Orihime woke up, feeling warm for the first time in ages. She was a bit startled to find a pair of arms around her but quickly relaxed when she remembered what had happened.
Ulquiorra...Was he asleep? She could feel his even breaths against the back of her neck, but She wasn’t sure if arrancars did really sleep at all. She lied very still and looked at the slender hand resting on her stomach. Black fingernails at the end of long fingers making sharp contrast with the milk-white skin. Ulquiorra had beautiful hands too. And his wrists were so thin.
Orihime wondered how someone so frail-looking and pretty could be so terrifyingly powerful and lethally dangerous. Then it dawned to her that Ulquiorra really was lethally dangerous and she had been sleeping in his arms like a baby.
How stupid could she be, getting all cuddly with a monster? And what if the espada decided he wanted to do more than just cuddle? She would be absolutely helpless. Orihime knew she should be scared, but she just couldn’t. There was something in the way Ulquiorra had touched her. So careful and gentle. Like he wasn’t sure how to do it.
She realised that might actually be the case. It was very possible that this was the first time the espada had touched anyone without a violent intent. Orihime felt her heart sink. What an awful existence that must be. Having no contact with others but to hurt or to be hurt. No wonder Ulquiorra had such sad eyes.
Orihime’s musings came to an abrupt stop when she gave herself a mental slap. What was she doing feeling sorry for her imprisoner? She should be ashamed of herself, lying contently here in the same bed with an enemy while her friends might be risking their lives trying to rescue her.
But she was so very tired and the warm embrace of the said enemy felt unbelievably nice. Maybe it wasn’t so bad if she just lied here for a little while longer. She could deal with her guilty conscience tomorrow, amongst all the other unpleasant things.
So she put her hand over Ulquiorra’s on her waist, laced their fingers together and let herself drift back to sleep. Her last conscious thought was that she was at least safe from anything else, sleeping side by side with a monster.