It's AU Hour!

[mistkitt]

Originally posted 9/9/2014

Today’s feature is the Muse High School AU! In other words, AU-ception!!! Because I feel like writing about the Muse brats, but the story timeline is sealed and I need all the crossover stuff for the actual fic. Eeeeyy.

~

Ulquiorra sat in his usual practice room, his fingers sliding over the upright piano’s weathered keys, pressing them at random. It was a broken, discordant tune. Not much of a song. He couldn’t tell whether it was coming or going, beginning or ending; thus, he knew he would not be composing anything that morning. He’d have gone to the band director’s office and told her he was leaving, had the snatches of gossip he’d heard before first period not alerted him to the fact that Orihime was back after a week-long absence. And if she was at school, it was only a matter of time before…

He felt more than heard the muted thud of the door at the end of the hall that connected the band hall to the choir room. Every practice room was somewhat soundproofed, so he didn’t hear Orihime’s footsteps until her face appeared in the little window. She pulled the door open without knocking, one hand tightly clutching the strap of her backpack, and let it slam shut against its frame. Luckily there were no classes in the building that period.

“You haven’t called me.” Straight to the point. She was definitely pissed off if she hadn’t bothered to build up to the declaration. “I’m gone for five days and not even a ‘Hey, how ya doin’ dragon girl? Suck any dicks this weekend?’ text message.”

Ulquiorra let his hand fall away from the piano keys, staring hard at the girl looming threateningly above him. “Did you?”

“Fuck you!” she cried, ripping off her backpack and throwing it against the wall. “I thought we were friends! But I guess being used for inspiration o-or whatever it is you want me for doesn’t automatically make me worth your time, does it?”

He averted his eyes. “I didn’t know what to say.”

“Really?!” she said, her voice shrill. “Nothing at all? No welcome package to the wonderful world of orphanhood? You couldn’t even take two minutes to come up to me at the funeral and give your condolences? Your father did, by the way, and according to you he’s the shittiest human being on the planet!”

“Orihime.”

“What?!”

“I don’t think it was cruel of you not to cry at the funeral,” he said, covering the piano keys. “Your brother is too dead to care, one way or another. The only person in that church who would have to live with the shame of being weak in front of people who don’t care about them, is you.”

Orihime looked at him for a long time. Her breathing gradually became unsteady, and in the light from the hallway he could see that her eyes had become like glass, and her jaw quivered every few seconds. “What do I do?” she whispered. “He was my whole world, Ulquiorra. What am I going to do now?” She collapsed onto the piano bench beside him, wrapped her arms around his torso, pressed her face into his shirt, and began to sob. Loud, uninhibited sobs. Tears that she had hidden deep within her heart until she could find a place to let them out.

Ulquiorra held her tightly, wishing he knew of something, anything that would make this easier for her. But he’d been too young when he’d lost his mother. He didn’t know how to mourn for family. He hardly knew what family was.

And it was frightening, because he’d never had a thought for anyone other than himself before he’d seen her staring blankly at her brother’s casket - still in shock, not registering what was happening because he’d been alive just a few days ago.

In that moment, standing in the midst of his adoptive parents and siblings like a black chess piece on the white side of the board, Ulquiorra had been overwhelmed by the desire to become Orihime’s family. Someone who would keep her safe, happy. Someone who would care for her no matter what she did.

But he had no right, because if there was one thing he could say he knew for sure, it was that family wasn’t supposed to use you.