Geek Fashionista

~

His fingerprints reminded her of tree rings. She liked that about him, thought it significant somehow. When they were together she would grab his hand and examine the lines - the faint and the many, not the dark creases - as if she was trying to decode him. As if she was constructing some hypothesis on their fundamental differences, or deciding that they had none.

She could decide whatever she wanted, he supposed, but it wouldn’t change the facts. There was magic inside of her. Magic in the very way she moved. Standing beside her, the air smelled cleaner, and he wasn’t sure if that was because she was magic, or because he loved her.

And he did love her. He loved her like he’d never known love in his life, and who knows, maybe he hadn’t. Nothing like this. He’d breathe her in if he could. He’d inject her magic straight into his veins. She was everything he wasn’t, everything he’d been missing. The kind of carefree he’d aspire to be but never grasp. She took his worn out life and repurposed it into something useful, something beautiful. He woke up earlier every morning because he couldn’t stand the excitement of existing - a way he hadn’t felt since he’d arrived there a decade before - and he had her to blame for that. No, he had her tothank for that. He’d stopped blaming her for his happiness a long time ago.

He let her have her way with him. If she wanted him to chase her through the forest, he’d chase her, no matter how much faster she was. If she wanted him to be her prince, her knight in shining armor, he’d shelter her from storms and talk her down from nightmares. If she wanted to touch him, he allowed her to touch him, and tried not to think of her small hands on his chest, turning every breath of clean air into an effort.

There was nothing he wouldn’t give her. He was weak, he was in misery, he was in raptures, he wanted to cry when he held her in his arms. The sunny smile that broke across her face when she spied him would drive him to madness sooner or later. He’d never wanted anything as badly as he wanted her.

“How do I feel about you?” she echoed his question one quiet afternoon, and her flushed cheeks, her downcast eyes, told him everything he wanted to hear. “It’s… a big feeling.” Her small hands, gesturing. “It inhabits my entire being. Warm, and… it frightens me.” Her silver eyes, seeking. “It’s like I have to remind myself how to breathe.” His hands, in her hair, drawing her close enough to know how mutual the feeling was. “Oh God, Ulquiorra…” his name, whispered in agony against his temple, “I can’t breathe.”

And neither could he.

~

There was nothing left. Hard to believe - impossible, really - but everything from the swirling ashes to the tendrils of smoke forced him to. Of the house, the forest, the picturesque mountain view, his happiness; there was nothing left. Only the photographer’s instinct to capture the ruin for posterity remained.

The glow of still burning embers in the ground, for example, looked a bit like runes. And the charred archway that marked the entrance to what used to be his home - still miraculously standing - made a solemn, almost noble figure. It had endured, and it deserved the admiration, the praise.

Beyond the doorway, little landmarks reminded him of what he was looking at. There was the kitchen island. Some broken glass from blown out windows. The ceiling fan, on the floor, mangled. Here was the hallway, open to the gray sky above. And finally, the bedroom, with the bed a steaming, sunken ruin.

There he found the ring. A plain, thin gold band, sitting on the mattress. Perfectly formed. Unmarred by the fire, and cool to the touch. Exactly the way it had looked when he’d slipped it on her finger. And he thought, of course it would be here. She always hid in the bedroom when she was scared.

The ring became a blur. Something was building, building in his chest, rising up like a tidal wave.

She’d been scared.

He stumbled out of the house, into a scorched, blackened, and unfriendly world that he no longer recognized. His refuge. His place of safety. A realm beyond the false glamour of Hollywood where magic - real magic - had once existed.

She was gone. He cried, he rebelled, he got sick, and he cried more. But the scene remained unchanged. He couldn’t bring it back with filters and proper lighting. He couldn’t manipulate her into his life again.

There was no magic in him. There never had been.

~

“Yoo-hoo!”

What descended on the woods that afternoon was more mist than rain; a shroud of gray that crept silently from mountain to mountain, cool and refreshing to the touch. Its scent filled every room of Ulquiorra Cifer’s spacious home, wafting in through an open window.

At that very window, a lump of auburn hair appeared, followed by the top half of a face, peering in with wide brown eyes. “Ulquiorra, are you there?”

Standing on the tips of her bare toes, Orihime frowned when no reply came from within. He never would have left the window open if he was going to step out of the house. “Hmm…” She lowered herself from the screen and bounded lightly over to the back deck, nearly slipping on her own muddy feet with a yelp of surprise. When she tried the door, it came open with neither creak nor resistance. He must have been home, then.

Just inside the door, a towel hung from a recently installed hook. Above it was a handwritten note: Dryads, Please Wipe Your Feet. Orihime rolled her eyes, but took the towel and removed the mud from between her toes before leaving the welcome mat.

From what she could hear, the television was on, but nothing else. “Ulquiorra?” She received no answer. Walking past the laundry room she entered into the living area, with its high ceiling and walls of windows, framing a picturesque view of the yard and the mountains beyond. A black and white movie was playing on the flat screen TV, beautiful human actors in long coats talking to each other in crackling, accented voices. Across from it was a modern white sofa, and there Orihime found Ulquiorra at last, sprawled on his back, a hand on his stomach, fast asleep.

Orihime crept to his side and crouched down. She’d never seen Ulquiorra sleep before. He looked younger that way; a little less cranky. A few strands of black hair had fallen into his face, and just as she was about to sweep them away, his eyes opened, and she recoiled. “Ah! You scared me!” she cried.

Ulquiorra blinked, his gaze unfocused. “Clearly I did no such thing, as you have managed to maintain a corporeal form.”

Orihime stuck out her bottom lip at the jab to her flighty nature, but she was quick to recover her smile. “I was surprised. You’re always awake when I come by, so I kind of started to think you never slept.”

“That isn’t far from the truth,” he murmured, searching the cable box on the console to see how long he’d slept. “There was a wrap party last night for cast and crew. Couldn’t get out of it. Had to call cabs for a few less-than-sober people.” Orihime blinked at him. Right. He might as well have been speaking Greek for all that she understood of the human world. “Nighttime gathering. Merry-making got out of hand.”

“Ah,” she said, drawing out the sound to show comprehension. Her smile softened, and Ulquiorra noticed that her hair was damp, curling slightly. “You must be tired.”

He stared at her for a long moment. She was close - close enough for him to pick up the rich, earthy scent that seemed to cling to her. Only now it was mixed with the rain, leaving him with the impression that he was out wandering the forest, rather than dozing on his couch. He reached out and laid a hand on her cheek, marveling at the smoothness of her skin, the way her lips parted. But the confusion that spilled into her eyes made him remember himself, and he retracted his hand, ignoring the painful twist in his chest. “You don’t know the half of it,” he said.