The Symptoms
Tite: The Symptoms
Pairing: UlquiHime
Rating: K+
Notes: Because UlquiHime is an addiction. If not completely canon. xD I've had this written for a while, so hopefully all that time cooling will have helped it to refine itself more than a piece like Chivalry that was spur-of-the-moment. This one is also more from Orihime's point of view, which gives it a fuzzy, uncertain flavor of friendship more than anything. Tell me what you think? <3
I. the circumstances
A normal girl. A crush who soon became a forever-love. A magical ability, and the desire to follow her love to the afterlife and beyond. To risk her own (formerly normal) life for him.
And an arrancar. Little better than the hollow he used to be. Dead in body and heart.
Circumstances unfold, one thing leads to another, and twelve hours of grace later she is weeping in a bare room.
2. the symptoms
She didn’t eat, hardly slept, and was getting pale as the dead she lived amongst.
It was the oddest thing, Orihime noticed, but she must be sicker than she thought. Not just heartsick, but there seemed to be something wrong with her. Seriously, seriously wrong.
(Her first sign of insanity, so to speak.)
She occasionally got very, very dizzy.
It was whenever Ulquiorra-san entered her room with the food cart. He kind of scared her. That first time, in the dark pathway between the soul society and earth, he made her blood go cold.
He wasn’t so bad though, she reasoned, because he was always at least civil to her.
He said some really, really callous things sometimes, but Ulquiorra-san wasn’t that bad. Sometimes she even wanted to touch him, to see if he had a pulse or if his teardrop markings would come off if she rubbed them frantically enough. She wanted to see a smile or an expression, and he was fine but sometimes Orihime - patient, thoughtless Orihime - found herself getting frustrated with his melancholy, distant tone.
He was the only one, she realized, with tinges of both mental panic and wistfulness, who stood between her and those demons outside, ready to…to claw out her eyes or to put their dirty, long fingers places that… might not be her mouth next time.
He was very nice and gentle to her. Grimmjow-san, for example reminded her a bit of Kurasaki-kun but was so much rougher, his voice so loud in the empty room that it hurther ears. So violent.
So violent.
And he was compassionate, compared to some of them. Even his emotion could not make up for his lack of restraint.
She preferred Ulquiorra-san to all others.
At any rate, she first thought it was the food that made her so dizzy. The very sight of it. It was always pretty enough, but tasteless. Orihime had always been very big on having lots of flavor in everything she ate. She had no appetite anymore. She had always loved food, and it killed her to think they could take away even that.
But, no, that wasn’t it.
It was simply seeing him. ‘Him’ being Ulquiorra-san. ‘Him’ being the only one who could protect her from the dangerous darkness outside her white fairycage. The only contact she ever had, the only time she didn’t feel crazy to talk, because there was actually someone to talk to.
He was a… captor, she supposed, but he would at least keep her from the demons.
She would be kind to him, in hopes that maybe, maybe, maybe…
… he could give her (even just a moment of) kindness in return.
(She learned that it was better in there than outside.)
III. the evidence
It was the first time since she’d come that she’d finally seen the sky.
She had a fancy for looking up and out her window, through the bars, at the moon, and she would entertain herself with thoughts like: is Kurosaki-kun looking at this moon, too? But it was a twisted thought that only sunk her to deeper depression. Her moon was backwards. A product of the everything-gone-wrong Hueco Mundo.
There was no moon out in the open, but only an open sky and a few could-be clouds.
And a bleeding Ichigo before her.
She’d started to break down; all her inhabitions corroding under her tears. Hate for Grimmjaw welled up in her and she wanted for a brief moment to punch him in his chest (though it wouldn’t hurt him any more than it had hurt Ulquiorra, he would probably take it far less quietly) and yell and scream at him, and ask to be brought back to her prison.
She could not. She could not revive Kurosaki-kun only to watch - to watch him smashed into a mess of blood and bones once again. He was in such a bad state already, bloodied and battered, with a hole in his chest.
She wanted to go back.
At least in her cage, with Ulquiorra guarding her, she had been safe. But, no, inexplicably, he had slipped for one moment and in that moment this had to happen. She wanted badly to be there and not here, to be ignorant and never to have to see Kurosaki-kun so heart wrenchingly beaten.
“Hole’s the same place as Ulquiorra’s,” Grimmjaw noted casually to the quaking Orihime, “Bastard probably doesn’t realize it, but he does it when he gets real invested in something.”
Orihime’s breaths grew shakier.
But she propped up Kurosaki-kun, mentally collected her feelings, those stray coherent thoughts, and attempted to call forth her Shun-Shun Rikka. A barrier washed over Ichigo, and she hoped he would be all right, hoped he would heal -
Only before that could happen, something else happened.
That something was him. ‘Him’, once more, being Ulquiorra.
He came in with a boom and with a shadow in his eyes that made her draw back.
Give her back, Ulquiorra demanded, and Grimmjaw, predictably, replied with an expletive.
The goosebumps on Orihime’s arms didn’t go away.
Why is he here, why is he here, why is he here - will he kill Kurosaki-kun?
Will… he kill me?
But, no, he wanted to take her back. She would beg, on her knees if she had too - but, thank God, she wanted him to take her back to rot in her prison and let Kurosaki-kun go safe and for all to be okay and the way she’d dimly hoped for when she’d agreed to this nightmare.
(Just take her back, take her where things would be okay.)
Suddenly, Orihime was torn in two, two forces pulling her in completely opposite directions.
The Orihime in black said no, she wanted Ulquiorra to go away. So she could be out of that little prison, if only for a few hours, so she could be useful to Kurosaki-kun in any way possible, so she could be by his side and in his presence. So that she could even chance at salvation.
But the Orihime in white said yes. She wanted to go back to where Ulquiorra was - where life was dull, dead, safe, constant, and where there wasn’t any violence and only the safety of ignorance.
This was terribly, terribly painful and terribly awkward.
Ulquiorra, then, turned his eyes - shifted them, really - to her.
She looked down out of shame.
Shame.
(The second crack in her mind, so much wider this time.)
She had betrayed Ulquiorra-san.
When he was swallowed up, there was horror in her eyes.
(She proved very disagreeable in complying with Grimmjaw after that.)
IV. the diagnosis:
When the time came, when Ulquiorra broke from Grimmjaw’s trap, Ichigo managed to depart (alive, thank goodness) with promises to return (oh, God, no), and Orihime tacitly agreed to return to her room. No longer her prison, or a room, but freakishly enough, her room.
V. Stockholm Syndrome
In the end, it was she who stood between his body and Ichigo’s sword, for reasons that made her color drain and her thoughts dizzy.
Pairing: UlquiHime
Rating: K+
Notes: Because UlquiHime is an addiction. If not completely canon. xD I've had this written for a while, so hopefully all that time cooling will have helped it to refine itself more than a piece like Chivalry that was spur-of-the-moment. This one is also more from Orihime's point of view, which gives it a fuzzy, uncertain flavor of friendship more than anything. Tell me what you think? <3
I. the circumstances
A normal girl. A crush who soon became a forever-love. A magical ability, and the desire to follow her love to the afterlife and beyond. To risk her own (formerly normal) life for him.
And an arrancar. Little better than the hollow he used to be. Dead in body and heart.
Circumstances unfold, one thing leads to another, and twelve hours of grace later she is weeping in a bare room.
2. the symptoms
She didn’t eat, hardly slept, and was getting pale as the dead she lived amongst.
It was the oddest thing, Orihime noticed, but she must be sicker than she thought. Not just heartsick, but there seemed to be something wrong with her. Seriously, seriously wrong.
(Her first sign of insanity, so to speak.)
She occasionally got very, very dizzy.
It was whenever Ulquiorra-san entered her room with the food cart. He kind of scared her. That first time, in the dark pathway between the soul society and earth, he made her blood go cold.
He wasn’t so bad though, she reasoned, because he was always at least civil to her.
He said some really, really callous things sometimes, but Ulquiorra-san wasn’t that bad. Sometimes she even wanted to touch him, to see if he had a pulse or if his teardrop markings would come off if she rubbed them frantically enough. She wanted to see a smile or an expression, and he was fine but sometimes Orihime - patient, thoughtless Orihime - found herself getting frustrated with his melancholy, distant tone.
He was the only one, she realized, with tinges of both mental panic and wistfulness, who stood between her and those demons outside, ready to…to claw out her eyes or to put their dirty, long fingers places that… might not be her mouth next time.
He was very nice and gentle to her. Grimmjow-san, for example reminded her a bit of Kurasaki-kun but was so much rougher, his voice so loud in the empty room that it hurther ears. So violent.
So violent.
And he was compassionate, compared to some of them. Even his emotion could not make up for his lack of restraint.
She preferred Ulquiorra-san to all others.
At any rate, she first thought it was the food that made her so dizzy. The very sight of it. It was always pretty enough, but tasteless. Orihime had always been very big on having lots of flavor in everything she ate. She had no appetite anymore. She had always loved food, and it killed her to think they could take away even that.
But, no, that wasn’t it.
It was simply seeing him. ‘Him’ being Ulquiorra-san. ‘Him’ being the only one who could protect her from the dangerous darkness outside her white fairycage. The only contact she ever had, the only time she didn’t feel crazy to talk, because there was actually someone to talk to.
He was a… captor, she supposed, but he would at least keep her from the demons.
She would be kind to him, in hopes that maybe, maybe, maybe…
… he could give her (even just a moment of) kindness in return.
(She learned that it was better in there than outside.)
III. the evidence
It was the first time since she’d come that she’d finally seen the sky.
She had a fancy for looking up and out her window, through the bars, at the moon, and she would entertain herself with thoughts like: is Kurosaki-kun looking at this moon, too? But it was a twisted thought that only sunk her to deeper depression. Her moon was backwards. A product of the everything-gone-wrong Hueco Mundo.
There was no moon out in the open, but only an open sky and a few could-be clouds.
And a bleeding Ichigo before her.
She’d started to break down; all her inhabitions corroding under her tears. Hate for Grimmjaw welled up in her and she wanted for a brief moment to punch him in his chest (though it wouldn’t hurt him any more than it had hurt Ulquiorra, he would probably take it far less quietly) and yell and scream at him, and ask to be brought back to her prison.
She could not. She could not revive Kurosaki-kun only to watch - to watch him smashed into a mess of blood and bones once again. He was in such a bad state already, bloodied and battered, with a hole in his chest.
She wanted to go back.
At least in her cage, with Ulquiorra guarding her, she had been safe. But, no, inexplicably, he had slipped for one moment and in that moment this had to happen. She wanted badly to be there and not here, to be ignorant and never to have to see Kurosaki-kun so heart wrenchingly beaten.
“Hole’s the same place as Ulquiorra’s,” Grimmjaw noted casually to the quaking Orihime, “Bastard probably doesn’t realize it, but he does it when he gets real invested in something.”
Orihime’s breaths grew shakier.
But she propped up Kurosaki-kun, mentally collected her feelings, those stray coherent thoughts, and attempted to call forth her Shun-Shun Rikka. A barrier washed over Ichigo, and she hoped he would be all right, hoped he would heal -
Only before that could happen, something else happened.
That something was him. ‘Him’, once more, being Ulquiorra.
He came in with a boom and with a shadow in his eyes that made her draw back.
Give her back, Ulquiorra demanded, and Grimmjaw, predictably, replied with an expletive.
The goosebumps on Orihime’s arms didn’t go away.
Why is he here, why is he here, why is he here - will he kill Kurosaki-kun?
Will… he kill me?
But, no, he wanted to take her back. She would beg, on her knees if she had too - but, thank God, she wanted him to take her back to rot in her prison and let Kurosaki-kun go safe and for all to be okay and the way she’d dimly hoped for when she’d agreed to this nightmare.
(Just take her back, take her where things would be okay.)
Suddenly, Orihime was torn in two, two forces pulling her in completely opposite directions.
The Orihime in black said no, she wanted Ulquiorra to go away. So she could be out of that little prison, if only for a few hours, so she could be useful to Kurosaki-kun in any way possible, so she could be by his side and in his presence. So that she could even chance at salvation.
But the Orihime in white said yes. She wanted to go back to where Ulquiorra was - where life was dull, dead, safe, constant, and where there wasn’t any violence and only the safety of ignorance.
This was terribly, terribly painful and terribly awkward.
Ulquiorra, then, turned his eyes - shifted them, really - to her.
She looked down out of shame.
Shame.
(The second crack in her mind, so much wider this time.)
She had betrayed Ulquiorra-san.
When he was swallowed up, there was horror in her eyes.
(She proved very disagreeable in complying with Grimmjaw after that.)
IV. the diagnosis:
When the time came, when Ulquiorra broke from Grimmjaw’s trap, Ichigo managed to depart (alive, thank goodness) with promises to return (oh, God, no), and Orihime tacitly agreed to return to her room. No longer her prison, or a room, but freakishly enough, her room.
V. Stockholm Syndrome
In the end, it was she who stood between his body and Ichigo’s sword, for reasons that made her color drain and her thoughts dizzy.