FIC: The Twisted Tales Of Two Strangers [UlquiHime] [2.2.]

[shortitude.livejournal.com]

Title: The Twisted Tales Of Two Strangers: 2.2
Author: Cella [stereotype_vamp]
Fandom:Bleach
Ship: Orihime x Ulquiorra
Rating: Teen
Summary: She’s the brightest light in Hueco Mundo. He’d rather be blind to her the rest of his life. ORIHIME. ULQUIORRA. A tale of love, and the unlucky bastards that try to ignore it.
Spoilers: Up to where Orihime gets kidnapped. Afterwards, consider it AU. This chapter holds hidden spoilers to 277. BEWARE!
Dedications: To angelshadows, my Orihime’s one and only Ulquiorra. Kun.
A/N: Writing this chapter has fried my brain for two reasons. First, the first part was fun to write, because I do so love mixing dark themes with Orihime’s kooky mind. And second, after writing the last part…I’m in need of new underwear. (I shouldn’t admit this over the internet.)
Also known as the chapter where Orihime gets new CLOTHES! Arrankar clothes, btw. That pretty, white, princess-y dress-coat Aizen probably designed in his genius time. Oh, if anyone wonders where Aizen is, don’t worry! They’ll all come into play. Trust me. For now, this is all about the love-doves.


{in need of a dictionary}
[ii. tiny holes in the system]


It’s the fourth day in the year of the moon-flower-on-top-of-the-white-hill.

Orihime has decided so, since during these last days—weeks? Months?—she’s been trying to figure out the exact amount of time she’s been trapped in Hueco Mundo. Ulquiorra doesn’t seem to be affected by time, and she reckons he probably doesn’t really care about time—what’s time, when you have to play spy, or to kill people, after all—so why bother ask him again? He’ll only stare at her impassively some more, his eyes will widen a bit, and then he’ll tail out of her room before she’ll do something to burn him. It’s not that she does it on purpose. Or that she can burn him.

(Some days, she looks at him and wonders how much it would take to get his face to crumble under some other type of expression.)

During her visits to Aizen’s rooms, she spends as much time as she can asking the god-aspirant insignificant questions about insignificant things, and avoiding to answer any questions of his. Aizen thinks—she hopes—that she acts like this because she’s mad. She was a bit nutty before being kidnapped, so now she’s even worse. The girl will pull through, Aizen will say.

On those days is when Orihime takes a secret pride in how good her acting skills are.

If they expect her to act insane, then why disappoint them? It’s just her repayment for their hospitality. Not that their hospitality isn’t good. She has a large bed, she’s given food, and aside from her stoic mannequin-esque guard, she’s hardly ever bothered by the rest of them. Then again, she could use some more heat in her room.

It’s the fourth day in the year of the moon-flower-on-top-of-the-white-hill, as Orihime has declared it, and her clothes—her school uniform—are starting to stink. Not to mention that her feet are cold.

So Orihime spends this particular day in her large bed, feet buried in the covers—which for some reasons are still cold, no matter how many she piles on top of them. She knows by the churning in her belly that it’s almost lunch-time, which means soon, Ulquiorra will come visit her. Or rather, stay and make sure she eats. Not that there’s any need for him anymore. Orihime learned how hunger takes its toll during the first three days when she threw all her food out the small window. And she also learned how being spoon-fed, forcefully, by any type of Arrankars isn’t fun. It’s like they’re fattening the pig for the future massacre. But then again, that was before Ulquiorra—

“Are you awake?” comes his voice, so familiar that she’s more used to hearing it than hearing Kurosaki-kun’s voice—how did Kurosaki-kun’s voice sound? She’s forgotten.

“Orihime.” The voice again. She shakes her head to clear her thoughts, and focuses her eyes on Ulquiorra.

“I’m up,” she answers, her gaze locked on the white bundles he carries.

A moment later, he throws the bundles at her face with a specific order to, “Follow me.”

She follows, amazed that she’s being let out of her cage, her room, her prison. On the hallway, on the road to wherever he’s taking her, she sees strange forms, tall and dark and spooky to her eye, but only at first. Because Ulquiorra reaches for her hand, to tug her forward with impatience, since she’s human and too damn slow, and suddenly the shadows all turn into humanoids, Arrankar, Hollows, shapes that she’s not scared of. Not anymore.

“Where are we going?” she asks, since she’s Orihime, curious by nature.

“Bath,” he answers, since he’s Ulquiorra, curt and cold by nature.

Orihime speaks no more until they reach their destination and he pushes her into a steamy room, his hand on her lower back, the shove isn’t forced although it isn’t gentle either. She doesn’t know, then, if she should make something new of all this touching Ulquiorra is doing. Before, he wouldn’t so much as poke her to wake up, and now he has at least one finger on her body all the time, as if she’s the puppet, he’s the puppeteer and she’s being guided with help of his strings. Then again, this must be the strangest thing, since it’s the puppet who pulls the strings on the puppeteer, with her smiles and her ankles.

Not that she knows of this.

An hour later, she emerges from the steamy room, clean and tucked inside the white bundles—which turned out to be clothes. Loose pants and some sort of top, that all together make her look like a princess. She’s not sure she likes the pun, or being a damsel in distress anymore, but the clothes are warm, so for now, they’ll do.

“You look better than I expected,” he says, so sudden it surprises both of them.

Orihime blinks, pushing away moist hair from her temples, tucks it behind her ear, and blushes slightly. “Thank you…?” she says, her voice unsure.

He doesn’t move for a moment, then grabs her hand and guides her back to her room. The air, once warm when they were back there, near the bathrooms, turns almost cold when they’re inside her room. The tension is too much for Orihime to deal with, so she looks for anything to distract herself with.

“Oh, look! They brought the food when I was away,” she quips, heading towards her table, where another bowl of unsalted rice awaits. “Do you think they’ll ever give me something else than rice?”

Before she can pick the bowl in her hands, he’s got them in his grip, and twirls her around. A second later, she’s pinned to the wall, her arms above her head, looking like a lost deer. And he looks like the predator who doesn’t know if he should kill her, or let her be free.

“Ulquiorra-san…” she starts, her voice but a mere whisper. “Did I say something wrong? What are you doi—“

“Quiet,” he orders, his voice too low. He’s not looking in her eyes, but at a spot below her chin, and it’s that detail that confuses her a lot. Then he’s leaning in until his nose brushes over the skin on her neck. He exhales, and the wisp of his breath against her warm skin makes her tremble slightly. He pulls away again, this time to lean in till his nose is touching her nose, green eyes searching for something. For an answer she doesn’t have. An answer she’s not ready—and maybe not willing—to give.

With almost a deadly condemn to her own health, Orihime licks her dry lips quickly. His eyes snap to her mouth, following every move. Her lips are parted, and she wonders will he kiss me? Ulquiorra tilts his head, moving closer, his mouth a hair’s breath away from hers. He exhales again, and she vaguely tastes something like mint and rain and copper on her tongue. His hold on her hands loosens just a bit, and Orihime thinks this is it. One of his hands trails down, not touching but creating a shift in the air, which makes it feel like a touch—too gentle for him, perhaps—on her skin. The hand rests on the buttons of her dress, unbuttoning one and causing her eyes to widen in panic. She’s definitely not ready for this.

Soon, the top is unbuttoned down to her collarbone, and his breathing is slightly more erratic against her lips—or maybe it’s hers. He spreads the lapels of the top wide, leaving her neck and collarbone bare. And then, with infinitely slow movements, Ulquiorra pulls his mouth away from the vicinity of her own, and leans down. She wants to make a question, but everything dies in the throat, because his lips are suddenly there. On her bare throat. On the exact spot where neck meets clavicles, there where her skin dips low just a bit. His mouth, strange enough, is warm.

No.

His mouth is like a volcano.

And his tongue is even worse, she decides, when he licks her skin just slightly. She’s tilting her head back now, thinking I need more of this. The hand that was holding her arms above her head is now near her waist, now on her hipbone, now pulling her closer, now pressing her against the wall, undecided. His lips are parted over her skin, and suddenly he’s suckling on that skin, teeth digging into her collarbone as he carries on.

Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God…

Perhaps, she isn’t sure yet, she moans. Perhaps she moans, or mewls, or whimpers slightly, or grips his shoulder and his hair. Perhaps she even whispers his name. Perhaps she doesn’t. Maybe she just stands still as a statue, while he continues to suckle her skin into his mouth.

But who can stay quiet under those lips?

So Orihime does moan, and whimper. And Ulquiorra spends a whole five minutes pulling, nibbling and delivering sweet torture to her neck. Then he releases the skin, lapping at it, to soothe it. That makes her let out an incoherent sound, and twist her fingers in his hair. Ulquiorra presses his lips against her neck, like a kiss, maybe, and pulls away. She’s flushed, dishevelled, her lips are parted, her cheeks are red, and on her neck lays his mark. Now, it’s red, like a volcano. Soon, it’ll be black, like something else. Something Orihime can’t comprehend, but something that holds a certain promise.

He doesn’t kiss her, like she might have expected.

It’s just as good, she doubts he’d have stopped at that kiss. She’s strangely content, though. She’s seen a side of Ulquiorra that isn’t like a cold statue. She knows of the raging fire he’s got underneath those crusts of marble. Her lips mime a shy smile, and the hand in his hair retires, trailing over the side of his neck, and stopping at the hole there. Her eyes widen, in a sudden realisation.

That’s the same spot where he marked me…

She brushes one finger over the lower edge of that circle, wanting to ask why. But his hand snakes around her wrist almost painfully, tugging it away.

“Don’t,” he orders. And with a talent only Ulquiorra possesses, he turns around and leaves the room, in the blink of an eye.

Orihime slides to the floor, her legs shaking, her hand trembling as she lets it hover over her neck. She lets one finger brush the sensitive skin he’s marked, and the whimper she lets out is even stronger now. She’s seen his fire. She’s moaned under it. But is she ready?

What is this turning into?

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A/N: As per chapter 277, Grimmjaw states that Ulquiorra marks everything he finds interesting by blowing a hole in their neck, exactly where his own is. In this chapter he’s done the same, only without killing Orihime first. If you look deep, you’ll realise that it means he cares. Love is in the aiiiir~. ETA: IMPORTANT. Due to the BOLD'07 permanent suspensions of accounts on this site, I'm taking precautions, because I don't wish to lose my account. So the next chapter, and all chapters rated mature of this fic starting now, shall be Friends Only. Adding the community on your watchlist should be enough, BUT DO NOT DO IT IF YOU'RE MINOR-AGED, OR I SHALL FREAKIN' SMITE YOU ALL. ♥ , sorry.