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tampered2007-06-04 06:14 am
anti-buttons.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2007-06-04 06:14 am
[Log] COMPLETE: the Quincy and the Privaron.
When; June 2nd, evening / night.
Rating; … PG-13 -- R. More likely the first but Cirucci’s a bit obsessed with violence. I mean, there's part of a fetus tongue on her mantel.
Characters; Ishida Uryuu [![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anti_buttons] & Cirucci Thunderwitch [thunderwitch]
Summary; In exchange for Kuchiki Rukia’s location, Cirucci requested that Ishida kiss her boots. Alas, she means to delay him, and so he makes a second bargain: allow him to tell Ichigo the location immediately, and he won’t leave until she allows it. The Thunderwitch wants to see the Quincy squirm. and the Quincy’s mun can’t stop making tl;dr posts. Feel free to wonder why he's got a bandaid on his neck.
Log;
Shiro-Megane-Kun was coming over.
Cirucci couldn’t contain herself, prancing about her apartment, straightening things, checking herself in the mirror unable to wipe the self-satisfied smirk from her face.
Shiro-Megane-Kun was coming over to kiss her feet.
A delightful little shiver ran up her spine and she rechecked things. There one the mantle were her little trophies. A piece cut from the hilt guards of the unseated’s zanpakutou and the Vaizard’s, a piece of the tongue the Octava had cut from the dissected child of Matsumoto Rangiku, a lank of hair and beadery from the medical vice… her little collection.
And she’s tried something again. Alfons had been so thrown off when she’d worn something other than her uniform, worn her hair down. Human, he’d said. She looked human. And what better to do besides killing her precious Quincythan messing with his mind?~ Not much~
So the Arrancar smoothed the fitted white dress, tossed her thick black hair behind her ears, and flopped down on the couch, bare legs kicking excitedly.
Shiro-Megane-Kun was coming over.
Ishida faced the coming encounter with considerably less enthusiasm.
He barely glanced in the mirror to examine his apparel, choosing a simple olive zip-up and dark slacks over his white Quincy uniform, as Ishida did not intend to fight. This was not his fight, this was not even his concern--but he shook that thought from his mind. There was no use circling through it in his mind. What was done was done, and what would be done would take no more than five minutes. Ishida had no intention to dally.
Straightening a shoulder bag he had picked up for three toothpicks, Ishida glanced down at the weight of the pentacle charm, dangling against his palm when his arm rested straight at his side. He had little to worry about, except that he would be swallowing his pride in such enormous bites that he was liable to choke on it.
The walk to the first building did not take long at his brisk pace, his eyes set firmly on the path ahead. The elevator ride was long, a slightly off-key melody playing in just a way that he half-expected the elevator doors to open on a slew of misshapen movie monsters. Ishida swallowed nerves and such ridiculous fantasies with another mouthful of pride, and walked in the direction of room 1000.
He did not hesitate. Ishida knocked, three times, his fist tight.
Cirucci shivered.
She stood a bit too abruptly, paused, and calmed herself. She took a few steady breaths, tried unsuccessfully to wipe the smirk from her painted lips, and settled for something torn between a smile and a sneer.
“Shiro-Megane-Kun~” She opened the door with a warm murmur, eyeing him up and down hungrily. The kind of gaze a hawk eyed a rabbit with before it swooped down. But her blade was nowhere to be seen, (actually placed under a pillow on her couch), so she seemed, in the physical, harmless. Not that she expected him to believe that, despite her more human appearance. She knew he was aware of all she could still do, blade or not.
“Come in~”
Her appearance surprised him. What the door opened onto raised his eyebrows and exposed the white around his blue irises. She had surprised him, though he would have preferred not to show it, and fought to regain the neutrality of his previous expression, fought to not be a boy and admire her. It was easy enough; he had practice in both areas. He knew better.
Ishida could not be sure of what Cirucci was planning, what she intended to work with her different dress and styled hair, with her weapon’s absence speaking volumes, but he could be sure of one thing: he would not be caught up in whatever web she was spinning. He looked at her with cold, uninterested eyes, ignoring the uncomfortable way she had looked at him.
“If you think it necessary,” he replied, looking past her at what he could see of her apartment interior. “This shouldn’t take long.”
“Hmm~” She gave a noncommittal answer, stepped aside to let him in and close the door behind him with an almost ominous click of the latch.
She stood, arms clasped behind her for a moment, watching him with that same hunger. She hid the twitching of her thin, pale, fingers behind her back. She wanted his throat between those fingers, wanted to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until his body grew stiff and cold and when she touched it… it would be dead.
“Can Cirucci get you anything, Shiro-Megane-Kun?~” The Privaron crooned through lying lips, bustling away and in to her kitchen.
Ishida only just resisted looking back at the closing door as he stepped inside. Her apartment was eerie in how, mostly, it looked like any other. The expression in her eyes helped Ishida to forget the way she looked otherwise, like not a bloodthirsty Arrancar but a human woman. Her eyes reminded him, however it looked now, what was once human is human no longer. He fingered the strap of his bag and determined to look always and only at her eyes.
“No,” he said, chewing on frustration as he watched her move away. Ishida narrowed his eyes and sucked thin breath in through his teeth. He glanced at the mantelpiece and immediately looked away, his stomach twisting at the probable sources. “Thanks,” he called in her direction, “But I’d rather get this over with quickly.”
A sinking feeling in his gut told him that it would not be so simple. I won’t sit, he told himself, no matter what I won’t sit down.
“Now whyever would you want to do that, Shiro-Megane-Kun?~” Cirucci called back, voice sweetened, honeyed, accompanied by the clinking of glasses, silverware, and plates.
Alfons had left the strawberry shortcake. She cut a slice, pursed her lips to stop a wicked smirk, and cut another, placed them on a plate with hands for once bare of her long white gloves, smiled and licked a dollop of whipped cream from her fingers. There~
She poured a glass before sauntering back into the living room, sitting gracefully down on her couch and feeling the reassuring presence of her blade against her back, sitting the glass and plate down with a small laugh.
“Cirucci won’t bite you, dear. Make yourself… comfortable.”
Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Ishida counted the ticking of a clock, not the clock but a clock, to the backdrop of the audible kitchen sounds. Dishes. She would insist on dragging this out. He stared at a wall until she returned with her glass and dish and sat, at which point he redirected his attention to her eyes.
Ishida chose to ignore her request. “How do you want to do this? I needn’t remind you that I didn’t come over to sit on your couch and admire the mess on your mantel.“
He wondered if he would need to tell her how pointless this was, her sweet, accommodating act. A glance to the bit of meat, whatever it was, on the mantel reminded him that he was not hungry for the terribly nice looking cake, not for anything but a quick resolution.
“Mess?” Cirucci looked absolutely affronted, pausing with glass halfway to her lips to glance over at her trophy collection.
“That’s not a mess, Shiro-Megane-Kun.” Her voice dipped low, dangerous, daring him to say otherwise, looking at the assembled objects with a touch of pride to her mouth and eyes. Each item helped her remember a triumph, a kill. Her gaze switched back to the Quincy. When she killed him… his glasses, perhaps. Or the shiny little bracelet on his wrist.
“But~” She smiled again, finally took a small sip from the water in the glass. Anything much heavier made her feel sick in her stomach, and hunger again for souls.
“Won’t Shiro-Megane-Kun make himself comfortable?~” It was not a request.
Ishida’s mouth pressed into a thin line as he observed her reaction. His mind was logical though not twisted, and so the truth of the mantel did not escape him. It was easier to face as a mess, as a disjointed heap of items and not the collection of trophies they were. Her pride made him nauseous in a way he hoped would prove useful. It set him on a necessary edge, one he recognized he needed to focus on as she fluttered in dulcet tones. Not too much of a focus—then, he would begin to try and place each object to its owner. Too grisly.
“I am comfortable standing,” he insisted, his words clipped and firm, but only just so. He could see that protesting it wouldn’t make much of a difference, in what would be (irritatingly) the long-run. But he would certainly try. “I would rather kiss your boot and leave, Cirucci. Nothing else was negotiated. I am not here to be your guest.”
“So eager, dear.” Cirucci spoke with another smile, dangerous as steel and just as sharp. “You want to kiss Cirucci’s boot so very badly?~”
She reached down to pick up the plate and fork, admiring Alfons’ cooking for the moment before spearing a strawberry and bringing it to her mouth.
“Or~” The Arrancar nibbled on the berry lightly before popping in in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Does this unseated girl just mean so much to you?~” She took a bite of the cake before getting another on the fork and proffering it.
“Cake?~”
Another string of words from her lips to ignore, this time with a frustrated furrow of his eyebrows. He gritted his teeth long enough to let it pass. “Want isn’t a factor.”
Ishida could think of little other reason for her to sit before him, slowly eating cake, except to toy with him. It had been stupid to come here. There were more reliable ways to find the missing. But, in the here and now, there was little option for him except to play along—or, at least, to let her have her cake and bore of his lack of response. It was easy to fix disinterest in his eyes, slack on his face, bored in his voice, to her question.
“Kuchiki Rukia doesn’t mean anything to me,” Ishida said, not sure if he was lying or honest. The latter was safer, was the truth he needed. He glanced at the bit of cake on her fork before eying the ceiling. “No, thank you.” The tension was terribly obvious in his shoulders, a betrayal, he thought, in a vague way.
“Then indulge a Privaron, hmm?” Cirucci shrugged at his refusal for food and ate the bite herself. Alfons’ cake was always delicious, even if she would never admit to human food being anything but decent.
“Why bother coming to kiss an Arrancar’s feet to save someone who means nothing to you?~” She laughed lightly, flouncing in her seat as she shifted to get more comfortable, to press the sheath of her blade farther against her back, a comfort. She wasn’t scared of the human boy, so much as… no. Not nervous, not antsy, not upset… she was… possessive. He was hers. He… there was no way. He couldn’t have killed her. And even though she denied it, denied it to her very core, the ache in the hole of her torso told her she knew it was true. He had killed her. She had died. … Which made his life hers for the taking. Hers and hers alone.
He forced his teeth apart, forced some degree of relaxation, so that he could answer calmly: “I doubt Kuchiki-san has time for me to indulge you.” All this would be very pointless if Kurosaki arrived to find her in pieces, dead, or both. Ishida lifted his hand, so to adjust his glasses, sliding them up the bridge of his nose as his bracelet shifted around his wrist.
“I’ll indulge you for as long as you like, if you find a means of alerting Kurosaki immediately regarding her location.” It wasn’t a hopeless request, but he did not think much would come of it. As if a step toward that particular deal, Ishida allowed himself to sink into one of the chairs facing the couch. He folded his hands in his lap, fingers lacing.
“There’s no need for me to answer that.” He wondered how often he had answered her with that very phrase; it felt like déjà vu. Tilting back his chin, Ishida regarded the wall above her head, catching the light moving in her black hair. An annoyingly pertinent question, and utterly against his previous behavior and words. When he asked it of himself, he remembered his grandfather’s eyes.
“Oh, but~” Cirucci took another bite of cake, eating delicately, small bites. Human food also made her feel a little sick, far too heavy. Souls were much better.
“If Cirucci gave him the location, then you’d just up and leave her here without anyone to talk to or keep her company?” The Arrancar affected a pout, a sympathetic facial expression.
“Besides, you needn’t worry she’ll be dead.” She smiled sweetly. “Knowing Di Roy, he’ll want to gloat a bit, have a little playtime, one on one. But don’t fret.” Cirucci almost giggled. “Di Roy knows fucking shinigami is nasty, nasty, she won’t be too damaged.”
She paused, and offered the plate again.
“Sure you don’t want any?~”
It was Ishida’s turn to smile; more of a smirk, a thin, mocking thing, a disregard for her put on pout.. He asked, nudging his glasses once more before his hand dipped back to push a strand of hair from his eyes, “Is pretending to look human affecting Cirucci’s hearing? I said, I would indulge you for as long as you like, should you give him the location. That means I stay here. Really,” all too easy, to sound bored with it, “You’d be doing me a favor.”
But the cool front fell rather easily, or a layer of it did, the onion peeling back, shriveling from the heat of disgust. It was too late to prevent it—his face had already blanched by the time he had completely realized her meaning, an appalled grimace at the very suggestion that such a thing could be done to Kuchiki-san.
Paler, his hands tightened into brief fists. It reminded him of Inoue-san, what he had been unable to pay the Sixth Espada back. He shook his head to refuse, first, before managing a “Positive.”
It was her turn to shirk her pout, to smirk, a wicked smile.
“Missing out~” She teased. “Cirucci’s human makes wonderful cake.” She said the possession without pause, because as selfish as she was, she did consider Alfons something that she did in part own. He… was something to be owned. That’s what humans were good for, that was it. … Of course.
“But, that would rely on Cirucci believing Ishida would stay with her. If she trusted every word that males told her, she would be a very sad female.” She shrugged, tossing her hair back at the comment on her appearance, almost preening in vanity.
“And besides~” Cirucci smiled again. “Ishida was very rude to Cirucci. He wanted to fight dear Grimmjow.”
Ishida was forced to remember Kurotsuchi-san’s notes, the relationship Cirucci had with one of the human’s. It had not been too extensive, but Ishida could draw the lines. He doubted there were many humans willing to bake Cirucci cake. His shoulder shifted in a minimal shrug, as if to agree with her estimate of the human’s ability, but maintaining his stance. Paranoid as it sounded, she might have poisoned it. Perhaps it was the dress.
“I had my reasons to fight Grimmjow. I have no reason to fight you,” Ishida retorted, and regaining face, leaned forward a little, looking her in the eye. “You may put no value in your word, but I take mine very seriously. On my pride as a Quincy, I will remain here when you give Kurosaki the specific location of Kuchiki Rukia.”
The promise did not worry him, as Ishida had little doubt that he could handle her, whatever she did. There was no risk of his death. If she was sincere in her strange, possessive hold on him, no other Arrancar or ally would come to threaten him. It would only be a matter of time.
Cirucci pondered for a moment, leaned back and crossed her legs, smoothing the white dress over her knees and putting down the cake. Honor. Hmmph.
“Fine~” She sighed, picked up a small folded paper from the coffee table and flicked it towards him, upon it Di Roy’s address written in a small, fine, print.
“Take a minute, tell him. But you didn’t hear it from Cirucci.” Because honestly, making the Quincy uncomfortable was worth far more than Di Roy’s worthless life. Not like he could do anything about it either. And if he hadn’t killed the bitch yet? Then he was stupider than she had thought.
Much practice at honing fine control over his fingers, hands, arms, whether through sewing or various Quincy training activities, did not prevent Ishida from fumbling slightly in his capture of the paper. He had not expected her to yield so easily, and he only just caught himself before he thanked her. There was no need for him to thank the one who had started it.
Unfolding the paper, Ishida scanned the address before gesturing wordlessly at her small computer, a silent request to confirm that he was permitted to use hers. He tugged it across the coffee table and, hunching, made quick work of it, fingers flying across the keyboard.
Glancing up as he tapped the last key, Ishida pressed a thin, skeptical smile through his fallen-forward hair, his slipping spectacles. “Not much point in asking whether or not I can trust you, is there?”
Finished, he set the machine back in its previous place, and braced himself for the possible humiliation of deceit. Of an inaccurate address, of agreeing to remain here for information that was invalid, of ‘please’ and boot kissing and whatever else that cut into his pride, all small beside the promise he violated once again. He found another justification, stringing a loose mantra through his head: I have yet to associate with a shinigami.
“Of course you can~” Cirucci assured in a flat-out lie and light bout of laughter, because they both knew the truth of that little matter.
“It’s the right address, alright~” She assured with a bit more sincerity, reminding herself to wipe the computer keys off before she touched them later. She wanted to touch his glasses. Break them. Sharp little glass pieces that couldn’t begin to pierce the hard iron coating of her skin.
Coyly, the Arrancar beckoned him closer with a finger, patting the seat beside her, recrossing her legs with a flash of bare thigh.
“Shiro-Megane-Kun is so far away~” She lamented.
For all that he admired cool behavior, cool entrances, Ishida had little practice in out and out acting. But he had promised to indulge her, and so he began first with allowing a smile for her lie. As there was no point in asking after how well he could trust her, it was equally futile to worry over it. Nothing could be done.
"So I am," he agreed. This would be a practice in restraint. Not of the kind that exposed her thigh, but of his ability to restrain his more severe distaste. He fought a pinched expression at her beckoning and instead, wordlessly, obliged. Ishida pressed his palms over his knees as he stood, pretended that they weren’t damp as he edged around the table and sank into the space she had indicated. He was careful to leave as much room as possible between them, having little interest in touching any part of her, his back straight and rigid.
Perhaps, Ishida mused, if he was boring enough, she would tire of him and let him go in less than an hour. The trick would to be both duly indulgent, and yet, utterly unentertaining.
It was that disinterest that excited her. She wanted… well, she certainly didn’t want to, ugh, don’t even think such nasty thoughts, but she did want to watch him squirm, wanted to see him uncomfortable, upset, something. Because, unfortunately… now was not the time to see him dead. She couldn’t explain why. It certainly wasn’t the nagging voice in her head that said she couldn’t do it.
“Cirucci almost thinks you don’t like her~” She crooned, leaning closer, not touching, no, but breathing close, smiling that dangerous smile.
“Do you hate her?~” She asked, brought up a finger to push briefly against his glasses, small straps of the white dress slipping down pale shoulders, wanting to see if she could push, see what he would do, see how uncomfortable she could make him before she grew bored.
Easier to think than do, indulge. Ishida found the motion reflexive, instinctive; his leaning back from her, into the couch, his side into the arm. It was something he couldn’t control, like the heat that wanted to rush into his cheeks. It wasn’t her-- Ishida couldn’t help but be male, sixteen, and terribly hopeless around girls. He could almost smell the strawberry on her breath, but it might have been his imagination. Certainly not the time to be overactive.
“I don’t think much of you,” he replied, honesty in that. “But hate,” swallowing, looking for her eyes, for a point over her left ear, only not her shoulders. “Hate is too strong.”
His fingers twitched, needing to push her touch away from his glasses. She would smudge the lenses. Resolve, found in the blunt truth. “I don’t care enough about you to hate you,” he said, easily enough.
It was precisely that he was male she counted on. Cirucci Thunderwitch had no faith in males, rather, no faith in their resolve. When presented with an opportunity, they took it. When offered temptation, they indulged. When offered her, they accepted. Such was the way of things. At least, it was the rare male that refused her. Il Forte had, sometimes, just to spite her. Szayel-Aporro did, also for the same reason. No one else really.
“That’s a shame.” Cirucci murmured, hair tumbling over her shoulders and leaning closer, enough that her breath was able to be felt against skin, but still not touching, not advancing too far.
“Because Cirucci cares an awful lot about…” She paused, smiled softly, almost warmly, though still tinted with icy chill. “Uryu~”
The trick about being confined to the couch, next to her, was that there was only so far to go, especially when he had set out with the greatest space in mind. Its arm and back made things difficult for him as she only inched closer. Teasing, he reminded himself. If this was what she wanted, him forced against an almost literal wall, testing his self-control, he would have to bear it. He’d sworn as a Quincy.
He stopped himself from admiring her hair, the obvious care that went into it. Arrancar. His eyes flickered to the mantel, a hoped distraction from the pressure of her breath and the scent of strawberries. Relating Kurosaki to strawberries helped an awful lot. …Gross. Ishida had a sudden compulsion to laugh, and his jaw worked as he swallowed, as he blinked with surprise at her use of his name.
His eyes narrowed at that smile; he returned it with one of his own. “I hope you don’t expect me to be flattered. No, your care I can do without. Our interests are incompatible.”
“That’s too bad~” Cirucci laughed lightly, finally moved to touch him, one neatly trimmed nail skimming across fabric at his shoulder.
“Because Uryu cared about her when she was human~” The Arrancar hated that memory, but she would dredge it up, for this special occasion. “He wanted to watch out for her, warned her. Cared enough then~” Her voice was whimsical, almost sing song, fingers retreating from him to tug at the front of her dress, exposing the hollow hole in her torso along with the tops and inner curves of her breasts, the hole itself scarred with red marks left by her own talons.
“Is it because of this, hmm?~” She whispered, watching through lidded eyes, testing reaction. “This little thing?~”
He shook his head. It wasn’t too bad. Only a nail, it wasn’t anything. Ishida felt a measure of pride that he had kept from flinching, his apprehensive eyes following her finger in its unchanging path to his shoulder, expectant. He could pretend, even if it was a lie, that tension did not flood from him as her finger retracted. It surged back as he realized what it was she was doing.
Watching her, the Arrancar with her simpering, playing, her strange obsession that he was now forced to humor, Ishida felt almost disembodied. It was that sort of feeling, it came of looking at a young woman who looked human, acted human, but what was beneath? And what did she, actually, want? Besides the obvious: his death. He feigned his disinterest even as the blush traveled up his neck and made his collar uncomfortable, stuffy, feigned it because of what he could not read in her voice when she referenced her time as a human.
His eyes narrowed again, now at the exposed hole, and he told himself it wasn’t concern for the bright, painful looking marks. The look caught the exposure of her breasts, and Ishida’s mouth went dry like cotton. He doubted relating strawberries to an irritating idiot would help him now.
“No,” he managed, leaning hopelessly away. “It’s what you do with it.”
“Oh?~” She was inwardly delighted at his reaction, wanted to shiver excitedly, but held it back, managing only a small wriggling of her hips, a movement that reminded her of Golondrina at her back… so easy, wouldn’t it be? Wouldn’t it be so easy, to just snap her hand back, draw the blade, and-
“Why does Uryu think she does what she does?~” Now, on that, she was actually curious. He was such an irritating male, so damned righteous, so amazingly restrained. Annoying. One finger dipped against her hollow hole, traced a healing cut along the rim and shuddered with a manic smirk.
“What makes Cirucci so bad, when she was able to be cared for that one day~?”
She’s insane, he thought, watching her grin, the movement of her finger. His following thought: Well, yes, you already knew that. He let out a sigh, despite himself, dragging his eyes up to the ceiling. “And why,” he began to ask, trying for a smirk that fell flat, “does Cirucci care what I think?”
His irritation began to bleed into his expression, bunching the skin on his forehead and thinning out his lips, which lost cruelty and went white and tired. His arms strained with the need to flinch back, to move, to capture her wrist and stop her from tracing that hole again and again. Instead pushing into the cushions. “I’m human. I can’t imagine why you would give any merit to my opinion.”
There it was, that expression she wanted, that irritated look that let her know she was getting under his skin, working her way past defenses and reserves.
“Because Uryu is one of only two humans Cirucci cares about~” She whispered huskily, voice all silk and veiled danger, steel and sharp. Her fingers finally left the sensitive skin of the hole in her chest, only because her small hand found a place on his leg as she inched even closer, enough that her breasts pressed against his arm and her lips against his ear as she spoke even lower.
“Tell her, hmm?~”
Liar, he might have begun to say, but then she touched him. Instinct: jump up, put a few feet between, and completely lose his cool. His struggle for control, for cool, failed spectacularly, though he remained on the couch (barely), rather than across the room with the coffee table (possibly) upended in the process, shins duly bruised.
“H-hey,” he gasped, too flustered to even be annoyed by his collapse. His hand jerked down to seize hers where palm met wrist and force it off his leg. Ishida had slid enough on the couch, now against the arm and toward the edge, that he was almost falling off, anything to get his arm away, his neck craned to put his ear out of her mouth’s reach. Quite the squirm; he might as well have saved himself the trouble and just jumped off.
“Don’t,” he said, trying to be firm, dropping her hand quickly, a quaver in his voice. Ishida really needed to learn when to mind his own business and forgo a promise.
She would have laughed, if it wouldn’t have ruined her act terribly.
“You’ll have to be more specific, Uryu~” She breathed, hand displaced reaching to push him back, firmly, Arrancar were strong and so was she, despite her thin, petite appearance, hand splayed across his chest and nails scraping lightly.
“Stop… this?~” She pressed against him again, all curve and pliable body.
“Or… this?~” Her lips brushed against his ear again, daring him to react to her, to get away, or maintain his reserve and resist what she offered but would never give. No, the only way she’d actually give him what she was offering would be if she knew she could shove Golondrina through his heart as he ground out her name. And that was something she knew she’d never get. This, on the other hand…
Her strength, at least, was a reminder of how inhuman she was. She pushed him back, and he really could have put up more of a fight. It was easy to think that he hesitated because even with the hole, she looked like a girl, and not because he wanted it.
He didn’t, didn’t, even if his mental protest choked before it escaped into the air. The pieces on the mantel, he remembered, tried to look with almost panicked eyes. Proof, Ishida Uryuu remembered his disgust and what her hands had done and would do. His lip curled even as his heart beat wildly, thundering in his ears and skipping through his veins. Breathing, Ishida forced himself to breathe and not gasp, not pant, forced himself to look steadily ahead and not be distracted by her body, by her mouth.
Ishida most certainly did not think that of course, of course the first attention of this kind he ever received was in this setting, from this woman, no, Arrancar, Hollow. “All of it,” he choked out, weakly, and tried again for something more decisive.
“Stop all of it.” He forced himself to look at her, leveling her with a glower that held no small amount of disgust. His hand jerked back to her wrist, and while Ishida had no illusions about his ability to overpower an Arrancar in brute strength, he wouldn’t simply let her.
“Do you want to know?” He ground out, tugging on her wrist, “What makes you so bad? What I think?”
“Yes~” Cirucci breathed, not moving her hand despite his tugs, his efforts to remove it, though her fingers settled, no longer scraping lightly, teasingly, pressing firmly, trying not to let the reiatsu creep into her palm, a bala, she could fire one off so quickly, or a cero even, if she could continue to distract him, inexperienced and flustered under her ministrations.
“Tell me~” She dropped her third-person manner of speaking, this was important enough to, nipping with a vicious giggle at his ear, not at all thrown off by hardened gaze, pressing her lips against his jaw.
“What makes me so bad?~”
He yielded, a temporary white flag, choosing to break the contact between her hand and his rather than fight it. Ishida was not unaware of the dangers held in an Arrancar’s hand, but he was more than a little distracted. It was dangerous.
For the second time he wanted to laugh. At this situation, where his body would react, would want her teeth on his ear even as it recoiled. Even as he reeled, sickened, unwilling, frustrated by a promise that surely could not extend this far. Wanted to laugh at the obvious answer, at the ridiculousness of the question when she did everything she could to be bad. But his mind groped for something, anything to distract her long enough for him to pull away, and frustration made his scowl loose with words. He remembered his discussion with Zaheela-san.
“What makes you so bad,” he fairly spat, believing that his skin was crawling rather than the alternative, “is that I don’t hate you at all. You’ve done things that I hate on principle, but you, you I don’t hate, because I don’t think you have a mind of your own, Cirucci.”
He was breathing hard, now, and found his eyes gravitating toward what marked her as a hollow, and they were hard, with something suspiciously like pity underneath. “I don’t hate you because you don’t want your own mind, and it’s pathetic.”
“Pathetic?~” She hissed, her hand tightening, nails digging into his chest as she grew angry, not able to quash it in a moment, hide it, her grip was still tightened, could bruise even, she didn’t care. His words rang far too close to murmurs from another male.
“Your… poor, poor, Privaron?” Her voice was far too dangerous, ringing not of veiled steel but of clashes and violence, repeating a phrase she hated from the mouth of the Octava Espada. Hated that sneer and that condescending tone, that superiority, the same from this human now, that innate feeling of being above someone, above her. And yet, she wasn’t swayed from her desire to unnerve him, make him crawl, shudder, pausing to nip harder this time at his throat, tongue lapping lightly.
“You’ve no idea.” Voice torn halfway between a violent snarl and a tempting whine, her other hand so very close to reaching for Golondrina behind her, to snap, just snap and let a bala fire from her palm. “No idea what this is like.” And this, of course, was that hole in her chest. Specifically the hole in her chest that ached when she was human, ached because the City had cursed her to know love and affection and all the emotions she had never wanted and now was forced to bear.
His words, rushed and desperate but not dishonest insofar as what he believed, had served their purpose. He flinched for a different reason, his breath hissing out involuntarily as her nails dug, sharp, not piercing but painful, through his shirt. Ishida was no masochist, but he preferred the pain to her previous game, and for a moment, he was foolish enough to believe that he’d ended it.
“You aren’t my poor, poor anything,” he gritted out, unable to match the violent boiling in her voice, but cold, determined, the strike of an arrow for its center, “and I’m not—“ He cut off as she bit his neck, his breath hissing out in lost words and his inability to shrink from her, to even effectively recoil under her hold. His skin tingled, and it spread in a way Ishida struggled to resist. He wasn’t powerless, he knew, and yet, with her hand so close, Ishida let himself doubt. He had not intended a fight, and he had promised—
“I don’t pretend to know,” he snapped, “and I don’t want to know.” Watching her hands, he moved his between them, reminding himself, Arrancar not woman, as he shifted, leaning back against the arm of the couch in his attempt to take hold of her shoulders and push her away. Distance, keep a distance, and better watch her should the violence in her voice become physical. To her face, seething with a plethora of frustrations, “The way you behave, you make it an excuse.”
Her entire body was taut, thrumming for a fight, wanting to rip until she saw blood, taste it, she wanted to taste it.
“Poor,” She ground out the words of the name she hated most, fingers spasming with each breath, hip bracing, refusing, refusing to be moved by this chit of a human boy, let reiatsu gather in her palm, longing to be released but held back just so, the fury clear as anything in her darkening eyes.
“Poor,” She did bite him, hard, hard enough on the side of his throat that she felt skin break, withdrew to grind out one last word of that despised phrase.
“Privaron.” Some said she was insane, Cirucci Thunderwitch. She couldn’t really tell you, could only tell of that hunger deep within her, how mortals always looked so delicious, their souls so filling, able to sate the hunger with either that food source or her trysts, able only to feel warmth in the wounding embraces of others of her species, that lust for blood and violence and death.
Her fingers finally moved from his chest, seized his chin in a vise-like grip and drew him close with a vicious yank, so close that her lips brushed against his, her gaze meeting his in ice and fire, a simmering fire and biting cold.
“Cirucci’s boots are in her bedroom.”
"Get--away--" Ishida pushed, desperation falling to the hesitation (promise, woman, promise) in his fingers that couldn't lend him enough force, couldn't encourage his arms and strain his muscles and push her off, accomplishing nothing but tired arms and the couch’s digging further into his lower back. Human strength couldn’t compare to an Arrancar’s, but, he was no mere human. Wild, defensive thoughts, he could move with a burst of spirit energy, could propel himself and have his own shot fired. But where did the promise end?
The hair on his neck, on his arms stood on end, and he could hardly hear for his own heartbeat. Ishida did not, would not permit himself the time to be alarmed by her, by the energy burning in her palm, he would meet her eyes and cling to his steely resolve, to the absence of fear which was a mark of his unfailing pride. It, quite possibly, made him half-insane himself.
She bit him and his fingers clutched in hard, spasmodic reflex over her shoulders, his eyes clenching shut as he bit back a cry, because it hurt, even knowing worse pain before didn’t change the sting as her teeth separated his skin. Knowing worse pain did not change the different nature of this; it wasn’t only pain, it was unfamiliar and he hadn’t the time to process it before her hand was on his chin.
His eyes jerked open as her fingers dug. Shock did not lose him his dignity; she had kissed him but he glared through it, his eyes becoming black slits. When she let him go, he dropped his hands and dragged the back of one over his mouth and resisted the urge, whether instinct or immature defiance, to spit.
Ishida, refusing to let himself fall into subsequent panic, took his time in standing. He pushed up from the couch and, in his ever-lasting struggle for composure, clenched his hands, feeling the pentacle dig into his palm. Blood trickled down his neck; he could feel it, warm from the pang, but even as it began to seep into his collar Ishida refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing him acknowledge the wound. Control. When he trusted his breathing, when he was certain that his shirt laid straight, Ishida nodded and walked further into her apartment, estimating by similarity of design which door would open onto her bedroom.
“I’ll bring them out,” he said, the blank tone a product of concentration and labor.
Cirucci herself had to calm herself, had to try and relax muscles and limbs poised for combat, for blood and cries, watching him levelly as he stood, regained his own composure. And she wanted to smirk, wanted to laugh at the blood on his neck because she had done that, it was her,
“…” She didn’t response to his well clipped sentence, merely watched him disappear into her bedroom. No male had lain in that bed in so very long, since Il Forte had left, and it was cold. Cold, empty, vacant, a reminder of the things she did fear, being alone. She had begun to slowly dread entering that room.
The Privaron let out a long breath, clenched her hand and felt the ache of unreleased reiatsu before pressing it to her breasts, filtering it back into her system, towards the wounds in the sensitive Hollow hole to soothe and cool, relax herself, take the steel edge from her voice and unwind.
Cirucci draped back across the couch, readjusted the dress slipped down, and closed her eyes, small hands tangling in her thick waves of hair. Poor, poor, Privaron. She couldn’t shake the phrase and all it meant. She hated it.
Halfway into her bedroom, stooping over to pick up her boots and let them hang over his arm, Ishida realized he was shaking. He watched the black of the boot quiver, first, and followed it to his hand, where the tremors continued along his arm. Bile boiled in his stomach and wanted to surge up his throat, and Ishida knew it was not entirely disgust with her, but disgust with himself, for what he would not admit.
His fists were white-knuckled and he moved his tongue in his mouth until he could bite down and taste copper, swallow bloody saliva down into his churning gut and temper the fury that had seized him into something cold and contained. It took a minute, and he left her room with taut but still arms, his back as rigid as it had been when he first took his seat on the couch. He could still feel it, on his back.
With the coffee table as a buffer, Ishida faced her, and without ceremony or comment, let one boot slide from his arm and to the ground as he got a better hold on the other. One hand cupping beneath the toe, one hand the heel, Ishida lifted it to his mouth and held the toe against his lips for a second’s passing. He dropped that boot as well.
It was difficult to keep the scathing out of his voice, the concentrated indifference broken by rage. “Are you satisfied? May I go?”
“No.” Cirucci finally opened her eyes, not even had she watched him until he spoke, her own fury and hate held back, just barely, once more, smoldering behind a darkness in her eyes, a darkness in herself.
She didn’t elaborate for a moment, watching him, the stiffness of muscle, the tautness of jawline, gaze, and that utter disgust for his action. His pride, that pride she hated so, at her mercy. But she didn’t let herself smirk, kept her tone light, without connotation, lifted her dress to extend a slender leg, bare foot dangling in reach.
“The boots should be on Cirucci’s feet.”
He would never regret his pride, even now, as it bound him to humiliation. The pride of his word over that of his ego. He met her eyes for a tense moment, when the muscles in his arms pulled against his skin, against the focus of his nails cutting into his palm. It would not be a disgrace, a humiliation, unless he let it.
Ishida bowed his head, as much a nod to accept this, hopefully, last task as it was assumed subservience. He bent again, gathered up her boots, and edged around the table. With movements that were so stiff they could only be called robotic, he lowered himself to one knee and focused on her leg in parts, as the bones beneath, rather than as an erotic whole. His fingers itched to be fierce, to shove on the footwear, but Ishida had a suspicion that such behavior would produce a request to do it properly.
They weren’t too long, and so it was easy enough. One after enough, should she lift her feet when time. He worked with his chin down and, he hoped, as impersonal as a shoe salesman. His hands avoided touching her feet when possible, only brief, mechanical pressures on an ankle or heel to help it move along.
When finished, he adjusted his glasses before lifting his face, propping his hand needlessly on the coffee to, he intended, assist in his standing. "Now?"
Cirucci watched with a critical eye, full lips in a slight pout at his composure, proffered her legs at his discretion, and watched him work.
Her eyes had closed again, a soft murmur of a noise in her throat, small feet twisting, popping one ankle with a swift rotation, before she cracked open one eye, one brow arching.
“Uryu.” She said his name softly, almost tenderly, a hint of warmth she was able to muster, tried to fasten it after the way her voice had sounded when she had spoken to Wonderwyce, half the lover’s croon and some of the mother’s maternal care, and that hint of falsehood that tainted it.
“Needs to kiss the boots while they’re on Cirucci’s feet.” She lifted her leg again, perhaps unnecessarily high that allowed for glimpses further up pale expanse of thigh, toe pointed, with an expectant look.
The Quincy froze, index and middle finger against the fragile frames of his glasses. Whatever emotion she meant to affect in her tone, whatever she wanted him to hear, it filtered through his ears as sour, the melody too sharp to ever be on key. A useful mantra, this one: it was not humiliating unless he allowed it to be. If this evening was a practice in defiance, it certainly followed that he could not allow her to think she had affected him, that it bothered him. That even the presumption that she could be so familiar with him as to call him by his first name set his blood boiling.
Almost expecting every movement of her leg to permit some flash of skin he had no desire (really, really, really) to see, Ishida raised his gaze, his eyes sliding from boot, diagonal to the couch, cross back to her face. A twisted, tight smile hurt his lips, and he forced from between them, “Of course.”
Boots, she had said, and Ishida would sooner have it done in excess then be forced to hear about it. Curling a hand beneath the heel of her lifted leg, he leaned forward so to plant a same, indifferent kiss to the black toe. Pulling back, he waited for the next, to apply the same treatment and earn his right to clear out through having kept his word.
She smiled, watched with a sort of smug approval, some twisted satisfaction. Once he’d completed the task she set out for him, she let her legs lay, smoothed down the edge of the dress and just looked at him.
She was surprised, no… yes… perhaps, that looking at him evoked such… feel. She wanted him dead, but she wasn’t sure if she’d rather have him dead at her hands, or under her heels, alive and servile. That would be satisfactory… how would one do that other than this temporary power she lorded thanks to Kuchiki Rukia. The thought crossed her mind and if Arrancar were the praying sort, she might have prayed Di Roy had already ended her pathetic life.
… Orihime. It was exceedingly difficult to not smile sadistically.
“One last thing.” She said, beckoning him closer once again, indicating she just wanted him to stand in front of her.
Ishida compiled a list in his mind as he waited, staring at the dishes on the coffee table, at the texture discernable in the crumbs on her plate. Once her legs had settled he stood, his hand again braced against the table’s edge, flattening his arms against his side. His list was repetitive and endless, reminders of behavior, of the satisfaction he would not give her. The look to clear from his eyes, the expression from settling into the lines of his young face, emphasized the fiercer the emotion. He would leave, soon, and forget everything but the lesson.
It would be over, he reminded himself, forbidding himself even joy, his mind wandered to the status of the blood on his neck as he turned to face her. However distant the look in his eyes, Ishida was at the ready, tense for the possibility of attack. His fingers flexed as he regarded her with a cool, removed stare.
She stood, shorter than he, frame so petite in comparison to even his thin build, having to crane her neck upwards to look him in the eyes. And despite the difference, her appearance almost fragile juxtaposed with his, she still had an innate sharpness, a natural danger to her that all Arrancar possessed, that stark white bone mask against dark black hair, the hole through her torso barely visible peeking over the dress’s top hems.
“Remember one thing, Uryu.” She spoke softly, so he would have to listen to hear her words, so close to him, facing him, but not quite touching, almost able to feel taut muscles and stressed limbs, wanted to reach out and make him shudder, stroke against him, but instead had her mouth against his, soft, warm, experienced lips for a moment of sensuality before she withdrew, flounced back onto her spot on the couch, tongue flicking over her lips with a self-satisfied coy smirk.
“You’re mine.”
Ishida had no illusions about her humanity; the dress had never fooled him, and he told himself with fierce vindication that even without the peeking hole, even without the harsh contrast of the skull over her hair, he would have known. It had happened once, and so he should have expected it. His ears strained despite himself, his neck bent down toward her, making it that much easier when she moved.
He wanted to feel nothing from her, know nothing of the danger in her curves and the thin veneer of femininity that covered it, like the cut of the dress she wore to play human. He tried to step back, edge back, when he realized too late what she intended, but his calves met the table through dark fabric. This time, he closed his eyes, the skin of his lids together like that of his closed lips. Ishida did not open them again, not immediately; he listened to her move, listen to the cushions take her weight, and wiped his mouth for the second time before opening them.
His upper lip curled. “Believe that all you like. It won’t make it true.”
Turning, Ishida walked to the door, careful to keep his pace even, unrushed, unable to achieve casual but close to it. He had won: he chose to believe that. He twisted the knob, let himself out, and reminded himself to use the mirrored wall in the elevator to make use of his first aid kit -- secure, in that bag, as Ishida loved his essentials, and would not walk down the street with a bloody neck. The next test would be to keep from retching.
Rating; … PG-13 -- R. More likely the first but Cirucci’s a bit obsessed with violence. I mean, there's part of a fetus tongue on her mantel.
Characters; Ishida Uryuu [
anti_buttons] & Cirucci Thunderwitch [thunderwitch]Summary; In exchange for Kuchiki Rukia’s location, Cirucci requested that Ishida kiss her boots. Alas, she means to delay him, and so he makes a second bargain: allow him to tell Ichigo the location immediately, and he won’t leave until she allows it. The Thunderwitch wants to see the Quincy squirm. and the Quincy’s mun can’t stop making tl;dr posts. Feel free to wonder why he's got a bandaid on his neck.
Log;
Shiro-Megane-Kun was coming over.
Cirucci couldn’t contain herself, prancing about her apartment, straightening things, checking herself in the mirror unable to wipe the self-satisfied smirk from her face.
Shiro-Megane-Kun was coming over to kiss her feet.
A delightful little shiver ran up her spine and she rechecked things. There one the mantle were her little trophies. A piece cut from the hilt guards of the unseated’s zanpakutou and the Vaizard’s, a piece of the tongue the Octava had cut from the dissected child of Matsumoto Rangiku, a lank of hair and beadery from the medical vice… her little collection.
And she’s tried something again. Alfons had been so thrown off when she’d worn something other than her uniform, worn her hair down. Human, he’d said. She looked human. And what better to do besides killing her precious Quincythan messing with his mind?~ Not much~
So the Arrancar smoothed the fitted white dress, tossed her thick black hair behind her ears, and flopped down on the couch, bare legs kicking excitedly.
Shiro-Megane-Kun was coming over.
Ishida faced the coming encounter with considerably less enthusiasm.
He barely glanced in the mirror to examine his apparel, choosing a simple olive zip-up and dark slacks over his white Quincy uniform, as Ishida did not intend to fight. This was not his fight, this was not even his concern--but he shook that thought from his mind. There was no use circling through it in his mind. What was done was done, and what would be done would take no more than five minutes. Ishida had no intention to dally.
Straightening a shoulder bag he had picked up for three toothpicks, Ishida glanced down at the weight of the pentacle charm, dangling against his palm when his arm rested straight at his side. He had little to worry about, except that he would be swallowing his pride in such enormous bites that he was liable to choke on it.
The walk to the first building did not take long at his brisk pace, his eyes set firmly on the path ahead. The elevator ride was long, a slightly off-key melody playing in just a way that he half-expected the elevator doors to open on a slew of misshapen movie monsters. Ishida swallowed nerves and such ridiculous fantasies with another mouthful of pride, and walked in the direction of room 1000.
He did not hesitate. Ishida knocked, three times, his fist tight.
Cirucci shivered.
She stood a bit too abruptly, paused, and calmed herself. She took a few steady breaths, tried unsuccessfully to wipe the smirk from her painted lips, and settled for something torn between a smile and a sneer.
“Shiro-Megane-Kun~” She opened the door with a warm murmur, eyeing him up and down hungrily. The kind of gaze a hawk eyed a rabbit with before it swooped down. But her blade was nowhere to be seen, (actually placed under a pillow on her couch), so she seemed, in the physical, harmless. Not that she expected him to believe that, despite her more human appearance. She knew he was aware of all she could still do, blade or not.
“Come in~”
Her appearance surprised him. What the door opened onto raised his eyebrows and exposed the white around his blue irises. She had surprised him, though he would have preferred not to show it, and fought to regain the neutrality of his previous expression, fought to not be a boy and admire her. It was easy enough; he had practice in both areas. He knew better.
Ishida could not be sure of what Cirucci was planning, what she intended to work with her different dress and styled hair, with her weapon’s absence speaking volumes, but he could be sure of one thing: he would not be caught up in whatever web she was spinning. He looked at her with cold, uninterested eyes, ignoring the uncomfortable way she had looked at him.
“If you think it necessary,” he replied, looking past her at what he could see of her apartment interior. “This shouldn’t take long.”
“Hmm~” She gave a noncommittal answer, stepped aside to let him in and close the door behind him with an almost ominous click of the latch.
She stood, arms clasped behind her for a moment, watching him with that same hunger. She hid the twitching of her thin, pale, fingers behind her back. She wanted his throat between those fingers, wanted to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until his body grew stiff and cold and when she touched it… it would be dead.
“Can Cirucci get you anything, Shiro-Megane-Kun?~” The Privaron crooned through lying lips, bustling away and in to her kitchen.
Ishida only just resisted looking back at the closing door as he stepped inside. Her apartment was eerie in how, mostly, it looked like any other. The expression in her eyes helped Ishida to forget the way she looked otherwise, like not a bloodthirsty Arrancar but a human woman. Her eyes reminded him, however it looked now, what was once human is human no longer. He fingered the strap of his bag and determined to look always and only at her eyes.
“No,” he said, chewing on frustration as he watched her move away. Ishida narrowed his eyes and sucked thin breath in through his teeth. He glanced at the mantelpiece and immediately looked away, his stomach twisting at the probable sources. “Thanks,” he called in her direction, “But I’d rather get this over with quickly.”
A sinking feeling in his gut told him that it would not be so simple. I won’t sit, he told himself, no matter what I won’t sit down.
“Now whyever would you want to do that, Shiro-Megane-Kun?~” Cirucci called back, voice sweetened, honeyed, accompanied by the clinking of glasses, silverware, and plates.
Alfons had left the strawberry shortcake. She cut a slice, pursed her lips to stop a wicked smirk, and cut another, placed them on a plate with hands for once bare of her long white gloves, smiled and licked a dollop of whipped cream from her fingers. There~
She poured a glass before sauntering back into the living room, sitting gracefully down on her couch and feeling the reassuring presence of her blade against her back, sitting the glass and plate down with a small laugh.
“Cirucci won’t bite you, dear. Make yourself… comfortable.”
Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Ishida counted the ticking of a clock, not the clock but a clock, to the backdrop of the audible kitchen sounds. Dishes. She would insist on dragging this out. He stared at a wall until she returned with her glass and dish and sat, at which point he redirected his attention to her eyes.
Ishida chose to ignore her request. “How do you want to do this? I needn’t remind you that I didn’t come over to sit on your couch and admire the mess on your mantel.“
He wondered if he would need to tell her how pointless this was, her sweet, accommodating act. A glance to the bit of meat, whatever it was, on the mantel reminded him that he was not hungry for the terribly nice looking cake, not for anything but a quick resolution.
“Mess?” Cirucci looked absolutely affronted, pausing with glass halfway to her lips to glance over at her trophy collection.
“That’s not a mess, Shiro-Megane-Kun.” Her voice dipped low, dangerous, daring him to say otherwise, looking at the assembled objects with a touch of pride to her mouth and eyes. Each item helped her remember a triumph, a kill. Her gaze switched back to the Quincy. When she killed him… his glasses, perhaps. Or the shiny little bracelet on his wrist.
“But~” She smiled again, finally took a small sip from the water in the glass. Anything much heavier made her feel sick in her stomach, and hunger again for souls.
“Won’t Shiro-Megane-Kun make himself comfortable?~” It was not a request.
Ishida’s mouth pressed into a thin line as he observed her reaction. His mind was logical though not twisted, and so the truth of the mantel did not escape him. It was easier to face as a mess, as a disjointed heap of items and not the collection of trophies they were. Her pride made him nauseous in a way he hoped would prove useful. It set him on a necessary edge, one he recognized he needed to focus on as she fluttered in dulcet tones. Not too much of a focus—then, he would begin to try and place each object to its owner. Too grisly.
“I am comfortable standing,” he insisted, his words clipped and firm, but only just so. He could see that protesting it wouldn’t make much of a difference, in what would be (irritatingly) the long-run. But he would certainly try. “I would rather kiss your boot and leave, Cirucci. Nothing else was negotiated. I am not here to be your guest.”
“So eager, dear.” Cirucci spoke with another smile, dangerous as steel and just as sharp. “You want to kiss Cirucci’s boot so very badly?~”
She reached down to pick up the plate and fork, admiring Alfons’ cooking for the moment before spearing a strawberry and bringing it to her mouth.
“Or~” The Arrancar nibbled on the berry lightly before popping in in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Does this unseated girl just mean so much to you?~” She took a bite of the cake before getting another on the fork and proffering it.
“Cake?~”
Another string of words from her lips to ignore, this time with a frustrated furrow of his eyebrows. He gritted his teeth long enough to let it pass. “Want isn’t a factor.”
Ishida could think of little other reason for her to sit before him, slowly eating cake, except to toy with him. It had been stupid to come here. There were more reliable ways to find the missing. But, in the here and now, there was little option for him except to play along—or, at least, to let her have her cake and bore of his lack of response. It was easy to fix disinterest in his eyes, slack on his face, bored in his voice, to her question.
“Kuchiki Rukia doesn’t mean anything to me,” Ishida said, not sure if he was lying or honest. The latter was safer, was the truth he needed. He glanced at the bit of cake on her fork before eying the ceiling. “No, thank you.” The tension was terribly obvious in his shoulders, a betrayal, he thought, in a vague way.
“Then indulge a Privaron, hmm?” Cirucci shrugged at his refusal for food and ate the bite herself. Alfons’ cake was always delicious, even if she would never admit to human food being anything but decent.
“Why bother coming to kiss an Arrancar’s feet to save someone who means nothing to you?~” She laughed lightly, flouncing in her seat as she shifted to get more comfortable, to press the sheath of her blade farther against her back, a comfort. She wasn’t scared of the human boy, so much as… no. Not nervous, not antsy, not upset… she was… possessive. He was hers. He… there was no way. He couldn’t have killed her. And even though she denied it, denied it to her very core, the ache in the hole of her torso told her she knew it was true. He had killed her. She had died. … Which made his life hers for the taking. Hers and hers alone.
He forced his teeth apart, forced some degree of relaxation, so that he could answer calmly: “I doubt Kuchiki-san has time for me to indulge you.” All this would be very pointless if Kurosaki arrived to find her in pieces, dead, or both. Ishida lifted his hand, so to adjust his glasses, sliding them up the bridge of his nose as his bracelet shifted around his wrist.
“I’ll indulge you for as long as you like, if you find a means of alerting Kurosaki immediately regarding her location.” It wasn’t a hopeless request, but he did not think much would come of it. As if a step toward that particular deal, Ishida allowed himself to sink into one of the chairs facing the couch. He folded his hands in his lap, fingers lacing.
“There’s no need for me to answer that.” He wondered how often he had answered her with that very phrase; it felt like déjà vu. Tilting back his chin, Ishida regarded the wall above her head, catching the light moving in her black hair. An annoyingly pertinent question, and utterly against his previous behavior and words. When he asked it of himself, he remembered his grandfather’s eyes.
“Oh, but~” Cirucci took another bite of cake, eating delicately, small bites. Human food also made her feel a little sick, far too heavy. Souls were much better.
“If Cirucci gave him the location, then you’d just up and leave her here without anyone to talk to or keep her company?” The Arrancar affected a pout, a sympathetic facial expression.
“Besides, you needn’t worry she’ll be dead.” She smiled sweetly. “Knowing Di Roy, he’ll want to gloat a bit, have a little playtime, one on one. But don’t fret.” Cirucci almost giggled. “Di Roy knows fucking shinigami is nasty, nasty, she won’t be too damaged.”
She paused, and offered the plate again.
“Sure you don’t want any?~”
It was Ishida’s turn to smile; more of a smirk, a thin, mocking thing, a disregard for her put on pout.. He asked, nudging his glasses once more before his hand dipped back to push a strand of hair from his eyes, “Is pretending to look human affecting Cirucci’s hearing? I said, I would indulge you for as long as you like, should you give him the location. That means I stay here. Really,” all too easy, to sound bored with it, “You’d be doing me a favor.”
But the cool front fell rather easily, or a layer of it did, the onion peeling back, shriveling from the heat of disgust. It was too late to prevent it—his face had already blanched by the time he had completely realized her meaning, an appalled grimace at the very suggestion that such a thing could be done to Kuchiki-san.
Paler, his hands tightened into brief fists. It reminded him of Inoue-san, what he had been unable to pay the Sixth Espada back. He shook his head to refuse, first, before managing a “Positive.”
It was her turn to shirk her pout, to smirk, a wicked smile.
“Missing out~” She teased. “Cirucci’s human makes wonderful cake.” She said the possession without pause, because as selfish as she was, she did consider Alfons something that she did in part own. He… was something to be owned. That’s what humans were good for, that was it. … Of course.
“But, that would rely on Cirucci believing Ishida would stay with her. If she trusted every word that males told her, she would be a very sad female.” She shrugged, tossing her hair back at the comment on her appearance, almost preening in vanity.
“And besides~” Cirucci smiled again. “Ishida was very rude to Cirucci. He wanted to fight dear Grimmjow.”
Ishida was forced to remember Kurotsuchi-san’s notes, the relationship Cirucci had with one of the human’s. It had not been too extensive, but Ishida could draw the lines. He doubted there were many humans willing to bake Cirucci cake. His shoulder shifted in a minimal shrug, as if to agree with her estimate of the human’s ability, but maintaining his stance. Paranoid as it sounded, she might have poisoned it. Perhaps it was the dress.
“I had my reasons to fight Grimmjow. I have no reason to fight you,” Ishida retorted, and regaining face, leaned forward a little, looking her in the eye. “You may put no value in your word, but I take mine very seriously. On my pride as a Quincy, I will remain here when you give Kurosaki the specific location of Kuchiki Rukia.”
The promise did not worry him, as Ishida had little doubt that he could handle her, whatever she did. There was no risk of his death. If she was sincere in her strange, possessive hold on him, no other Arrancar or ally would come to threaten him. It would only be a matter of time.
Cirucci pondered for a moment, leaned back and crossed her legs, smoothing the white dress over her knees and putting down the cake. Honor. Hmmph.
“Fine~” She sighed, picked up a small folded paper from the coffee table and flicked it towards him, upon it Di Roy’s address written in a small, fine, print.
“Take a minute, tell him. But you didn’t hear it from Cirucci.” Because honestly, making the Quincy uncomfortable was worth far more than Di Roy’s worthless life. Not like he could do anything about it either. And if he hadn’t killed the bitch yet? Then he was stupider than she had thought.
Much practice at honing fine control over his fingers, hands, arms, whether through sewing or various Quincy training activities, did not prevent Ishida from fumbling slightly in his capture of the paper. He had not expected her to yield so easily, and he only just caught himself before he thanked her. There was no need for him to thank the one who had started it.
Unfolding the paper, Ishida scanned the address before gesturing wordlessly at her small computer, a silent request to confirm that he was permitted to use hers. He tugged it across the coffee table and, hunching, made quick work of it, fingers flying across the keyboard.
Glancing up as he tapped the last key, Ishida pressed a thin, skeptical smile through his fallen-forward hair, his slipping spectacles. “Not much point in asking whether or not I can trust you, is there?”
Finished, he set the machine back in its previous place, and braced himself for the possible humiliation of deceit. Of an inaccurate address, of agreeing to remain here for information that was invalid, of ‘please’ and boot kissing and whatever else that cut into his pride, all small beside the promise he violated once again. He found another justification, stringing a loose mantra through his head: I have yet to associate with a shinigami.
“Of course you can~” Cirucci assured in a flat-out lie and light bout of laughter, because they both knew the truth of that little matter.
“It’s the right address, alright~” She assured with a bit more sincerity, reminding herself to wipe the computer keys off before she touched them later. She wanted to touch his glasses. Break them. Sharp little glass pieces that couldn’t begin to pierce the hard iron coating of her skin.
Coyly, the Arrancar beckoned him closer with a finger, patting the seat beside her, recrossing her legs with a flash of bare thigh.
“Shiro-Megane-Kun is so far away~” She lamented.
For all that he admired cool behavior, cool entrances, Ishida had little practice in out and out acting. But he had promised to indulge her, and so he began first with allowing a smile for her lie. As there was no point in asking after how well he could trust her, it was equally futile to worry over it. Nothing could be done.
"So I am," he agreed. This would be a practice in restraint. Not of the kind that exposed her thigh, but of his ability to restrain his more severe distaste. He fought a pinched expression at her beckoning and instead, wordlessly, obliged. Ishida pressed his palms over his knees as he stood, pretended that they weren’t damp as he edged around the table and sank into the space she had indicated. He was careful to leave as much room as possible between them, having little interest in touching any part of her, his back straight and rigid.
Perhaps, Ishida mused, if he was boring enough, she would tire of him and let him go in less than an hour. The trick would to be both duly indulgent, and yet, utterly unentertaining.
It was that disinterest that excited her. She wanted… well, she certainly didn’t want to, ugh, don’t even think such nasty thoughts, but she did want to watch him squirm, wanted to see him uncomfortable, upset, something. Because, unfortunately… now was not the time to see him dead. She couldn’t explain why. It certainly wasn’t the nagging voice in her head that said she couldn’t do it.
“Cirucci almost thinks you don’t like her~” She crooned, leaning closer, not touching, no, but breathing close, smiling that dangerous smile.
“Do you hate her?~” She asked, brought up a finger to push briefly against his glasses, small straps of the white dress slipping down pale shoulders, wanting to see if she could push, see what he would do, see how uncomfortable she could make him before she grew bored.
Easier to think than do, indulge. Ishida found the motion reflexive, instinctive; his leaning back from her, into the couch, his side into the arm. It was something he couldn’t control, like the heat that wanted to rush into his cheeks. It wasn’t her-- Ishida couldn’t help but be male, sixteen, and terribly hopeless around girls. He could almost smell the strawberry on her breath, but it might have been his imagination. Certainly not the time to be overactive.
“I don’t think much of you,” he replied, honesty in that. “But hate,” swallowing, looking for her eyes, for a point over her left ear, only not her shoulders. “Hate is too strong.”
His fingers twitched, needing to push her touch away from his glasses. She would smudge the lenses. Resolve, found in the blunt truth. “I don’t care enough about you to hate you,” he said, easily enough.
It was precisely that he was male she counted on. Cirucci Thunderwitch had no faith in males, rather, no faith in their resolve. When presented with an opportunity, they took it. When offered temptation, they indulged. When offered her, they accepted. Such was the way of things. At least, it was the rare male that refused her. Il Forte had, sometimes, just to spite her. Szayel-Aporro did, also for the same reason. No one else really.
“That’s a shame.” Cirucci murmured, hair tumbling over her shoulders and leaning closer, enough that her breath was able to be felt against skin, but still not touching, not advancing too far.
“Because Cirucci cares an awful lot about…” She paused, smiled softly, almost warmly, though still tinted with icy chill. “Uryu~”
The trick about being confined to the couch, next to her, was that there was only so far to go, especially when he had set out with the greatest space in mind. Its arm and back made things difficult for him as she only inched closer. Teasing, he reminded himself. If this was what she wanted, him forced against an almost literal wall, testing his self-control, he would have to bear it. He’d sworn as a Quincy.
He stopped himself from admiring her hair, the obvious care that went into it. Arrancar. His eyes flickered to the mantel, a hoped distraction from the pressure of her breath and the scent of strawberries. Relating Kurosaki to strawberries helped an awful lot. …Gross. Ishida had a sudden compulsion to laugh, and his jaw worked as he swallowed, as he blinked with surprise at her use of his name.
His eyes narrowed at that smile; he returned it with one of his own. “I hope you don’t expect me to be flattered. No, your care I can do without. Our interests are incompatible.”
“That’s too bad~” Cirucci laughed lightly, finally moved to touch him, one neatly trimmed nail skimming across fabric at his shoulder.
“Because Uryu cared about her when she was human~” The Arrancar hated that memory, but she would dredge it up, for this special occasion. “He wanted to watch out for her, warned her. Cared enough then~” Her voice was whimsical, almost sing song, fingers retreating from him to tug at the front of her dress, exposing the hollow hole in her torso along with the tops and inner curves of her breasts, the hole itself scarred with red marks left by her own talons.
“Is it because of this, hmm?~” She whispered, watching through lidded eyes, testing reaction. “This little thing?~”
He shook his head. It wasn’t too bad. Only a nail, it wasn’t anything. Ishida felt a measure of pride that he had kept from flinching, his apprehensive eyes following her finger in its unchanging path to his shoulder, expectant. He could pretend, even if it was a lie, that tension did not flood from him as her finger retracted. It surged back as he realized what it was she was doing.
Watching her, the Arrancar with her simpering, playing, her strange obsession that he was now forced to humor, Ishida felt almost disembodied. It was that sort of feeling, it came of looking at a young woman who looked human, acted human, but what was beneath? And what did she, actually, want? Besides the obvious: his death. He feigned his disinterest even as the blush traveled up his neck and made his collar uncomfortable, stuffy, feigned it because of what he could not read in her voice when she referenced her time as a human.
His eyes narrowed again, now at the exposed hole, and he told himself it wasn’t concern for the bright, painful looking marks. The look caught the exposure of her breasts, and Ishida’s mouth went dry like cotton. He doubted relating strawberries to an irritating idiot would help him now.
“No,” he managed, leaning hopelessly away. “It’s what you do with it.”
“Oh?~” She was inwardly delighted at his reaction, wanted to shiver excitedly, but held it back, managing only a small wriggling of her hips, a movement that reminded her of Golondrina at her back… so easy, wouldn’t it be? Wouldn’t it be so easy, to just snap her hand back, draw the blade, and-
“Why does Uryu think she does what she does?~” Now, on that, she was actually curious. He was such an irritating male, so damned righteous, so amazingly restrained. Annoying. One finger dipped against her hollow hole, traced a healing cut along the rim and shuddered with a manic smirk.
“What makes Cirucci so bad, when she was able to be cared for that one day~?”
She’s insane, he thought, watching her grin, the movement of her finger. His following thought: Well, yes, you already knew that. He let out a sigh, despite himself, dragging his eyes up to the ceiling. “And why,” he began to ask, trying for a smirk that fell flat, “does Cirucci care what I think?”
His irritation began to bleed into his expression, bunching the skin on his forehead and thinning out his lips, which lost cruelty and went white and tired. His arms strained with the need to flinch back, to move, to capture her wrist and stop her from tracing that hole again and again. Instead pushing into the cushions. “I’m human. I can’t imagine why you would give any merit to my opinion.”
There it was, that expression she wanted, that irritated look that let her know she was getting under his skin, working her way past defenses and reserves.
“Because Uryu is one of only two humans Cirucci cares about~” She whispered huskily, voice all silk and veiled danger, steel and sharp. Her fingers finally left the sensitive skin of the hole in her chest, only because her small hand found a place on his leg as she inched even closer, enough that her breasts pressed against his arm and her lips against his ear as she spoke even lower.
“Tell her, hmm?~”
Liar, he might have begun to say, but then she touched him. Instinct: jump up, put a few feet between, and completely lose his cool. His struggle for control, for cool, failed spectacularly, though he remained on the couch (barely), rather than across the room with the coffee table (possibly) upended in the process, shins duly bruised.
“H-hey,” he gasped, too flustered to even be annoyed by his collapse. His hand jerked down to seize hers where palm met wrist and force it off his leg. Ishida had slid enough on the couch, now against the arm and toward the edge, that he was almost falling off, anything to get his arm away, his neck craned to put his ear out of her mouth’s reach. Quite the squirm; he might as well have saved himself the trouble and just jumped off.
“Don’t,” he said, trying to be firm, dropping her hand quickly, a quaver in his voice. Ishida really needed to learn when to mind his own business and forgo a promise.
She would have laughed, if it wouldn’t have ruined her act terribly.
“You’ll have to be more specific, Uryu~” She breathed, hand displaced reaching to push him back, firmly, Arrancar were strong and so was she, despite her thin, petite appearance, hand splayed across his chest and nails scraping lightly.
“Stop… this?~” She pressed against him again, all curve and pliable body.
“Or… this?~” Her lips brushed against his ear again, daring him to react to her, to get away, or maintain his reserve and resist what she offered but would never give. No, the only way she’d actually give him what she was offering would be if she knew she could shove Golondrina through his heart as he ground out her name. And that was something she knew she’d never get. This, on the other hand…
Her strength, at least, was a reminder of how inhuman she was. She pushed him back, and he really could have put up more of a fight. It was easy to think that he hesitated because even with the hole, she looked like a girl, and not because he wanted it.
He didn’t, didn’t, even if his mental protest choked before it escaped into the air. The pieces on the mantel, he remembered, tried to look with almost panicked eyes. Proof, Ishida Uryuu remembered his disgust and what her hands had done and would do. His lip curled even as his heart beat wildly, thundering in his ears and skipping through his veins. Breathing, Ishida forced himself to breathe and not gasp, not pant, forced himself to look steadily ahead and not be distracted by her body, by her mouth.
Ishida most certainly did not think that of course, of course the first attention of this kind he ever received was in this setting, from this woman, no, Arrancar, Hollow. “All of it,” he choked out, weakly, and tried again for something more decisive.
“Stop all of it.” He forced himself to look at her, leveling her with a glower that held no small amount of disgust. His hand jerked back to her wrist, and while Ishida had no illusions about his ability to overpower an Arrancar in brute strength, he wouldn’t simply let her.
“Do you want to know?” He ground out, tugging on her wrist, “What makes you so bad? What I think?”
“Yes~” Cirucci breathed, not moving her hand despite his tugs, his efforts to remove it, though her fingers settled, no longer scraping lightly, teasingly, pressing firmly, trying not to let the reiatsu creep into her palm, a bala, she could fire one off so quickly, or a cero even, if she could continue to distract him, inexperienced and flustered under her ministrations.
“Tell me~” She dropped her third-person manner of speaking, this was important enough to, nipping with a vicious giggle at his ear, not at all thrown off by hardened gaze, pressing her lips against his jaw.
“What makes me so bad?~”
He yielded, a temporary white flag, choosing to break the contact between her hand and his rather than fight it. Ishida was not unaware of the dangers held in an Arrancar’s hand, but he was more than a little distracted. It was dangerous.
For the second time he wanted to laugh. At this situation, where his body would react, would want her teeth on his ear even as it recoiled. Even as he reeled, sickened, unwilling, frustrated by a promise that surely could not extend this far. Wanted to laugh at the obvious answer, at the ridiculousness of the question when she did everything she could to be bad. But his mind groped for something, anything to distract her long enough for him to pull away, and frustration made his scowl loose with words. He remembered his discussion with Zaheela-san.
“What makes you so bad,” he fairly spat, believing that his skin was crawling rather than the alternative, “is that I don’t hate you at all. You’ve done things that I hate on principle, but you, you I don’t hate, because I don’t think you have a mind of your own, Cirucci.”
He was breathing hard, now, and found his eyes gravitating toward what marked her as a hollow, and they were hard, with something suspiciously like pity underneath. “I don’t hate you because you don’t want your own mind, and it’s pathetic.”
“Pathetic?~” She hissed, her hand tightening, nails digging into his chest as she grew angry, not able to quash it in a moment, hide it, her grip was still tightened, could bruise even, she didn’t care. His words rang far too close to murmurs from another male.
“Your… poor, poor, Privaron?” Her voice was far too dangerous, ringing not of veiled steel but of clashes and violence, repeating a phrase she hated from the mouth of the Octava Espada. Hated that sneer and that condescending tone, that superiority, the same from this human now, that innate feeling of being above someone, above her. And yet, she wasn’t swayed from her desire to unnerve him, make him crawl, shudder, pausing to nip harder this time at his throat, tongue lapping lightly.
“You’ve no idea.” Voice torn halfway between a violent snarl and a tempting whine, her other hand so very close to reaching for Golondrina behind her, to snap, just snap and let a bala fire from her palm. “No idea what this is like.” And this, of course, was that hole in her chest. Specifically the hole in her chest that ached when she was human, ached because the City had cursed her to know love and affection and all the emotions she had never wanted and now was forced to bear.
His words, rushed and desperate but not dishonest insofar as what he believed, had served their purpose. He flinched for a different reason, his breath hissing out involuntarily as her nails dug, sharp, not piercing but painful, through his shirt. Ishida was no masochist, but he preferred the pain to her previous game, and for a moment, he was foolish enough to believe that he’d ended it.
“You aren’t my poor, poor anything,” he gritted out, unable to match the violent boiling in her voice, but cold, determined, the strike of an arrow for its center, “and I’m not—“ He cut off as she bit his neck, his breath hissing out in lost words and his inability to shrink from her, to even effectively recoil under her hold. His skin tingled, and it spread in a way Ishida struggled to resist. He wasn’t powerless, he knew, and yet, with her hand so close, Ishida let himself doubt. He had not intended a fight, and he had promised—
“I don’t pretend to know,” he snapped, “and I don’t want to know.” Watching her hands, he moved his between them, reminding himself, Arrancar not woman, as he shifted, leaning back against the arm of the couch in his attempt to take hold of her shoulders and push her away. Distance, keep a distance, and better watch her should the violence in her voice become physical. To her face, seething with a plethora of frustrations, “The way you behave, you make it an excuse.”
Her entire body was taut, thrumming for a fight, wanting to rip until she saw blood, taste it, she wanted to taste it.
“Poor,” She ground out the words of the name she hated most, fingers spasming with each breath, hip bracing, refusing, refusing to be moved by this chit of a human boy, let reiatsu gather in her palm, longing to be released but held back just so, the fury clear as anything in her darkening eyes.
“Poor,” She did bite him, hard, hard enough on the side of his throat that she felt skin break, withdrew to grind out one last word of that despised phrase.
“Privaron.” Some said she was insane, Cirucci Thunderwitch. She couldn’t really tell you, could only tell of that hunger deep within her, how mortals always looked so delicious, their souls so filling, able to sate the hunger with either that food source or her trysts, able only to feel warmth in the wounding embraces of others of her species, that lust for blood and violence and death.
Her fingers finally moved from his chest, seized his chin in a vise-like grip and drew him close with a vicious yank, so close that her lips brushed against his, her gaze meeting his in ice and fire, a simmering fire and biting cold.
“Cirucci’s boots are in her bedroom.”
"Get--away--" Ishida pushed, desperation falling to the hesitation (promise, woman, promise) in his fingers that couldn't lend him enough force, couldn't encourage his arms and strain his muscles and push her off, accomplishing nothing but tired arms and the couch’s digging further into his lower back. Human strength couldn’t compare to an Arrancar’s, but, he was no mere human. Wild, defensive thoughts, he could move with a burst of spirit energy, could propel himself and have his own shot fired. But where did the promise end?
The hair on his neck, on his arms stood on end, and he could hardly hear for his own heartbeat. Ishida did not, would not permit himself the time to be alarmed by her, by the energy burning in her palm, he would meet her eyes and cling to his steely resolve, to the absence of fear which was a mark of his unfailing pride. It, quite possibly, made him half-insane himself.
She bit him and his fingers clutched in hard, spasmodic reflex over her shoulders, his eyes clenching shut as he bit back a cry, because it hurt, even knowing worse pain before didn’t change the sting as her teeth separated his skin. Knowing worse pain did not change the different nature of this; it wasn’t only pain, it was unfamiliar and he hadn’t the time to process it before her hand was on his chin.
His eyes jerked open as her fingers dug. Shock did not lose him his dignity; she had kissed him but he glared through it, his eyes becoming black slits. When she let him go, he dropped his hands and dragged the back of one over his mouth and resisted the urge, whether instinct or immature defiance, to spit.
Ishida, refusing to let himself fall into subsequent panic, took his time in standing. He pushed up from the couch and, in his ever-lasting struggle for composure, clenched his hands, feeling the pentacle dig into his palm. Blood trickled down his neck; he could feel it, warm from the pang, but even as it began to seep into his collar Ishida refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing him acknowledge the wound. Control. When he trusted his breathing, when he was certain that his shirt laid straight, Ishida nodded and walked further into her apartment, estimating by similarity of design which door would open onto her bedroom.
“I’ll bring them out,” he said, the blank tone a product of concentration and labor.
Cirucci herself had to calm herself, had to try and relax muscles and limbs poised for combat, for blood and cries, watching him levelly as he stood, regained his own composure. And she wanted to smirk, wanted to laugh at the blood on his neck because she had done that, it was her,
“…” She didn’t response to his well clipped sentence, merely watched him disappear into her bedroom. No male had lain in that bed in so very long, since Il Forte had left, and it was cold. Cold, empty, vacant, a reminder of the things she did fear, being alone. She had begun to slowly dread entering that room.
The Privaron let out a long breath, clenched her hand and felt the ache of unreleased reiatsu before pressing it to her breasts, filtering it back into her system, towards the wounds in the sensitive Hollow hole to soothe and cool, relax herself, take the steel edge from her voice and unwind.
Cirucci draped back across the couch, readjusted the dress slipped down, and closed her eyes, small hands tangling in her thick waves of hair. Poor, poor, Privaron. She couldn’t shake the phrase and all it meant. She hated it.
Halfway into her bedroom, stooping over to pick up her boots and let them hang over his arm, Ishida realized he was shaking. He watched the black of the boot quiver, first, and followed it to his hand, where the tremors continued along his arm. Bile boiled in his stomach and wanted to surge up his throat, and Ishida knew it was not entirely disgust with her, but disgust with himself, for what he would not admit.
His fists were white-knuckled and he moved his tongue in his mouth until he could bite down and taste copper, swallow bloody saliva down into his churning gut and temper the fury that had seized him into something cold and contained. It took a minute, and he left her room with taut but still arms, his back as rigid as it had been when he first took his seat on the couch. He could still feel it, on his back.
With the coffee table as a buffer, Ishida faced her, and without ceremony or comment, let one boot slide from his arm and to the ground as he got a better hold on the other. One hand cupping beneath the toe, one hand the heel, Ishida lifted it to his mouth and held the toe against his lips for a second’s passing. He dropped that boot as well.
It was difficult to keep the scathing out of his voice, the concentrated indifference broken by rage. “Are you satisfied? May I go?”
“No.” Cirucci finally opened her eyes, not even had she watched him until he spoke, her own fury and hate held back, just barely, once more, smoldering behind a darkness in her eyes, a darkness in herself.
She didn’t elaborate for a moment, watching him, the stiffness of muscle, the tautness of jawline, gaze, and that utter disgust for his action. His pride, that pride she hated so, at her mercy. But she didn’t let herself smirk, kept her tone light, without connotation, lifted her dress to extend a slender leg, bare foot dangling in reach.
“The boots should be on Cirucci’s feet.”
He would never regret his pride, even now, as it bound him to humiliation. The pride of his word over that of his ego. He met her eyes for a tense moment, when the muscles in his arms pulled against his skin, against the focus of his nails cutting into his palm. It would not be a disgrace, a humiliation, unless he let it.
Ishida bowed his head, as much a nod to accept this, hopefully, last task as it was assumed subservience. He bent again, gathered up her boots, and edged around the table. With movements that were so stiff they could only be called robotic, he lowered himself to one knee and focused on her leg in parts, as the bones beneath, rather than as an erotic whole. His fingers itched to be fierce, to shove on the footwear, but Ishida had a suspicion that such behavior would produce a request to do it properly.
They weren’t too long, and so it was easy enough. One after enough, should she lift her feet when time. He worked with his chin down and, he hoped, as impersonal as a shoe salesman. His hands avoided touching her feet when possible, only brief, mechanical pressures on an ankle or heel to help it move along.
When finished, he adjusted his glasses before lifting his face, propping his hand needlessly on the coffee to, he intended, assist in his standing. "Now?"
Cirucci watched with a critical eye, full lips in a slight pout at his composure, proffered her legs at his discretion, and watched him work.
Her eyes had closed again, a soft murmur of a noise in her throat, small feet twisting, popping one ankle with a swift rotation, before she cracked open one eye, one brow arching.
“Uryu.” She said his name softly, almost tenderly, a hint of warmth she was able to muster, tried to fasten it after the way her voice had sounded when she had spoken to Wonderwyce, half the lover’s croon and some of the mother’s maternal care, and that hint of falsehood that tainted it.
“Needs to kiss the boots while they’re on Cirucci’s feet.” She lifted her leg again, perhaps unnecessarily high that allowed for glimpses further up pale expanse of thigh, toe pointed, with an expectant look.
The Quincy froze, index and middle finger against the fragile frames of his glasses. Whatever emotion she meant to affect in her tone, whatever she wanted him to hear, it filtered through his ears as sour, the melody too sharp to ever be on key. A useful mantra, this one: it was not humiliating unless he allowed it to be. If this evening was a practice in defiance, it certainly followed that he could not allow her to think she had affected him, that it bothered him. That even the presumption that she could be so familiar with him as to call him by his first name set his blood boiling.
Almost expecting every movement of her leg to permit some flash of skin he had no desire (really, really, really) to see, Ishida raised his gaze, his eyes sliding from boot, diagonal to the couch, cross back to her face. A twisted, tight smile hurt his lips, and he forced from between them, “Of course.”
Boots, she had said, and Ishida would sooner have it done in excess then be forced to hear about it. Curling a hand beneath the heel of her lifted leg, he leaned forward so to plant a same, indifferent kiss to the black toe. Pulling back, he waited for the next, to apply the same treatment and earn his right to clear out through having kept his word.
She smiled, watched with a sort of smug approval, some twisted satisfaction. Once he’d completed the task she set out for him, she let her legs lay, smoothed down the edge of the dress and just looked at him.
She was surprised, no… yes… perhaps, that looking at him evoked such… feel. She wanted him dead, but she wasn’t sure if she’d rather have him dead at her hands, or under her heels, alive and servile. That would be satisfactory… how would one do that other than this temporary power she lorded thanks to Kuchiki Rukia. The thought crossed her mind and if Arrancar were the praying sort, she might have prayed Di Roy had already ended her pathetic life.
… Orihime. It was exceedingly difficult to not smile sadistically.
“One last thing.” She said, beckoning him closer once again, indicating she just wanted him to stand in front of her.
Ishida compiled a list in his mind as he waited, staring at the dishes on the coffee table, at the texture discernable in the crumbs on her plate. Once her legs had settled he stood, his hand again braced against the table’s edge, flattening his arms against his side. His list was repetitive and endless, reminders of behavior, of the satisfaction he would not give her. The look to clear from his eyes, the expression from settling into the lines of his young face, emphasized the fiercer the emotion. He would leave, soon, and forget everything but the lesson.
It would be over, he reminded himself, forbidding himself even joy, his mind wandered to the status of the blood on his neck as he turned to face her. However distant the look in his eyes, Ishida was at the ready, tense for the possibility of attack. His fingers flexed as he regarded her with a cool, removed stare.
She stood, shorter than he, frame so petite in comparison to even his thin build, having to crane her neck upwards to look him in the eyes. And despite the difference, her appearance almost fragile juxtaposed with his, she still had an innate sharpness, a natural danger to her that all Arrancar possessed, that stark white bone mask against dark black hair, the hole through her torso barely visible peeking over the dress’s top hems.
“Remember one thing, Uryu.” She spoke softly, so he would have to listen to hear her words, so close to him, facing him, but not quite touching, almost able to feel taut muscles and stressed limbs, wanted to reach out and make him shudder, stroke against him, but instead had her mouth against his, soft, warm, experienced lips for a moment of sensuality before she withdrew, flounced back onto her spot on the couch, tongue flicking over her lips with a self-satisfied coy smirk.
“You’re mine.”
Ishida had no illusions about her humanity; the dress had never fooled him, and he told himself with fierce vindication that even without the peeking hole, even without the harsh contrast of the skull over her hair, he would have known. It had happened once, and so he should have expected it. His ears strained despite himself, his neck bent down toward her, making it that much easier when she moved.
He wanted to feel nothing from her, know nothing of the danger in her curves and the thin veneer of femininity that covered it, like the cut of the dress she wore to play human. He tried to step back, edge back, when he realized too late what she intended, but his calves met the table through dark fabric. This time, he closed his eyes, the skin of his lids together like that of his closed lips. Ishida did not open them again, not immediately; he listened to her move, listen to the cushions take her weight, and wiped his mouth for the second time before opening them.
His upper lip curled. “Believe that all you like. It won’t make it true.”
Turning, Ishida walked to the door, careful to keep his pace even, unrushed, unable to achieve casual but close to it. He had won: he chose to believe that. He twisted the knob, let himself out, and reminded himself to use the mirrored wall in the elevator to make use of his first aid kit -- secure, in that bag, as Ishida loved his essentials, and would not walk down the street with a bloody neck. The next test would be to keep from retching.