She was beautiful, with her long mane of curling green hair the color of peridot. Only she could carry it off so well, that shade that would look so cheap and artificial on everyone else. Not even Starrk's little brat looked good, even if hers was natural. Then again, Lilynette also dressed like an underage hooker, so she really wasn't the best comparison.

Perhaps then, when Nnoitra had come to him seeking his help to rid himself of the Tercera Espada, that was why he'd agreed. The lure of ensnaring such a divine creature, of watching her break and fall from grace… it was haunting. She was so compassionate, so unlike the rest of them. Aloof, but not arrogant. Powerful, but with a childish naïveté and belief in the inherent good in every creature. And it fascinated him; an obsession to understand the way she thought, the things that motivated her. She, who seemed to have regained some of that lost humanity they'd all originally stemmed from. More sociable than the other Arrancar, but to him, a distant goddess.

She was a warrior. She never once looked his way, her eyes always fixed on Nnoitra. To her, he was nothing. Dust beneath her feet. Just another power hungry Número in Hueco Mundo who'd happened to gain and lose the rank of Espada. And even when he'd destroyed her, watched her body thrown from the ramparts of Las Noches, her eyes were still fixed on the other. Her own, star-crossed obsession. Standing there, a rose-haired specter in a white lab coat, he felt not satisfaction in his triumph but disappointment. That even now, he remained obscure.

Nnoitra's callous dismissal of their partnership smarted, though he didn't let his neutral smile fade for an instant. It didn't matter in the end. He'd expected as much from the treacherous former Octava, brutish man that he was. He hadn't even had the grace to pretend he'd tolerated accepting his assistance. The whole time he'd grit his teeth so hard, it was a wonder his jaw didn't crack from the strain. He half hoped it would; anything to wipe the undeservingly smug smile off his lips. He hadn't felled the Tercera; he'd only delivered the finishing blow. And yet he called this a victory while Szayel, the true arbitrator, settled for the hollow dregs of a job not perfectly concluded. In the end, it was this bitter taste of imperfection that lingered with him, long after the memory of her face, bloody and beaten, left his mind.

-.-.-.-.-.-

He shuffled his papers, pulling the documents with their precious diagrams into a neat pile. Aizen had been pleased with the prototype he'd designed. A few more adjustments in the bracelet's ability to mask spiritual energy, and it would be ready. It had been a project Aizen had commissioned specifically several months back for some nefarious purpose of his own. What he intended for the delicate, silver piece of jewelry, Szayel did not know. Nor did he particularly care; once he'd worked out the final issues with the design, it would be just another project- successfully completed. No longer of interest.

"Hey Hallibaby. What'cha doin' tonight?" sounded Nnoitra's voice, slick with ulterior motives and unspoken innuendos. He didn't have to voice them all the time; just looking at his face with its perpetual, sinister grin, you got the impression that he had plans to chloroform you in some dark corridor and ravage your unconscious body. And that tongue… that vile, slimy appendage with its 5 tattoo was in constant motion, almost serpentine. Everything about him was oily and faintly nauseating, and Szayel made a point to only interact with the Quinta when absolutely necessary.

A pity then that he sat across from him at meetings. Though Nnoitra generally ignored him in favor of pestering the new Tercera Tia Hallibel, there were occasions when he'd grow bored with Hallibel's rejections and the Quinta would turn to him for amusement.

"Nothing that involves you, Jiruga," the typically tacit female replied, and left the table without a backward glance, arms crossed in their usual position just under her chest. Nnoitra watched her leave and whistled to her back, knowing it would bait no reaction out of her.

"Bitch," he said, but he didn't seem too angry. More… excited. Deprived of his favorite target, he turned on the pink haired scientist, who was readying himself to leave as well and leaned in towards him with an unpleasant leer.

"What about you, Granz? You busy? You hardly ever leave yer lab. We oughta go… drinkin' sometime. See what a lightweight you are. Get wasted."

Szayel offered him a prim look as he rose, sliding his documents under one arm.

"I find alcohol distasteful as it both impairs judgment and destroys brain cells. Of which I have plenty to spare, but I'd rather not stoop to your level, Quinta-san."

Nnoitra scowled, eyes narrowing.

"Go fuck yourself, Octava. Come off your high horse already and realize you're only the eighth just in case ya hadn't noticed. Some one of these days, someone's gonna drag you off your fuckin' pedestal, and I'm gonna laugh my ass off when that finally happens."

Szayel offered him a sweet smile, biting back hostile words in favor of a condescending barb he knew would incense him more.

"That's only if they can reach me. Good day, Jiruga."

Sweeping out of the room, he left him stewing at the table; a dark brooding cess of resentment.

He probably shouldn't have provoked the Quinta the way he did, dropping his wry, mocking commentary in reply to the other man's occasional suggestive offers, but he really had no patience to word petty trivialities he didn't really feel to spare his ego of all things. No, he would not end up the same way Nel had, and they both knew this. He knew how Nnoitra worked, and would not be entrapped so easily; Szayel did not form weak, foolish attachments to anyone. His Fraccion were all expendable, he made sure of that. Nnoitra could not back him into a corner; he was indeed untouchable.

Nel… He paused, indulging nostalgia that had washed over him briefly. A name he hadn't thought about in ages. But just the one word was enough to draw old disappointments to the surface. They oozed up from the depths of his mind, black as tar and heavy as sin. He rolled the name around his tongue, savoring its ashen taste. Like lye; acrid. The flavor of expectations torched by failure, and these were ashes he'd risen from reluctantly. A part of his past he'd managed to shed, but with difficulty. It was never easy to accept a shortcoming.

Somewhere outside the white walls of Las Noches, she roamed the stark deserts of Hueco Mundo with her two disgraced Fraccion. A child, running free through the moonlit dunes and stunted, crystalline trees. Was she happy, free from the politics of Aizen's hostile domain? Did he resent what cards they'd dealt her the day they'd stripped her of her pinions and cast her out to die?

Nostalgia morphed into a curious longing. A desire that had not afflicted the clinical Arrancar in decades. The chill night air of Hueco Mundo called to him, with its bare, arid beauty. Nnoitra, though abrasive and crude, was right. He hardly ever left his lab, and suddenly the idea of spending another evening hunched over one of his many experiments- metallic table lit by industrial halogen lights -seemed unbearably oppressive. Quickening his stride, he made it to his wing and entered, pausing inside only long enough to deposit his stack of papers before exiting again. The hallways now seemed claustrophobic; their white, marble corridors bleaker than ever, and when he finally ascended a stair case from the underbelly of the palace that opened out onto the endless expanse of desert that surrounded them, it was a relief.

Szayel inhaled the crisp night air- it was always night here, though they could fool themselves temporarily with barriers and spells to mimic daylight –bitter with cold. In a sunless world, the temperatures were always frigid, but as Arrancar, their bodies could tolerate the chill. They did not truly live, so warmth was an inconsequential thing. Though curiously, it was never below freezing. Something else warmed the shadowy world that he was not aware of.

Not for the first time in his conscious existence, he wondered at the dead, dark sky that loomed over them unchanging. No stars lit up the sable mantle, only a crescent moon, wan and distant. As if life itself had forsaken their isolated purgatory. Hueco Mundo; hole world. A place just as hollow as its inhabitants.

Szayel swept a hand through his bangs, fingers brushing the rosy strands out of his bespectacled face. His skin appeared even more drawn out here, leached of the faint blush that colored his skin under the sunlight dome. His feet skimmed over the sand, raising a fine, powdery cloud behind him as he blurred, an insubstantial ghost using his Sonido. And yet, in this landscape, he hardly appeared to be moving. His sense of perspective was completely skewed out here where, without the order Las Noches imposed, time and distance was rendered obsolete. There was only a sense of nothingness. A vast and humbling nothingness.

The scientist slowed, then shivered to a halt as he considered this revelation. Out here, with nothing to measure himself against, his existence suddenly seemed very tenuous. The apathy, the sheer uncaring void that engulfed him, was incomprehensible. It was immense. One lost their soul in this desert. They were consumed by the madness that inevitably afflicted them in this unchanging eternity, their identities gradually eroded over time and morals stripped from them, all without ever realizing the nature of the downward spiral they were caught up in until long after they'd been spat out. Becoming a Hollow did not kill one's humanity; the eons of silence did.

He took a step forward, but then paused again, suddenly inexplicably tired. What was there out here? The black and white triad of moon, sky, and earth? Hollows somewhere, ranging aimlessly across this remote canvas? His experiments were all he had in this place. All that was worth having, confined to his lab with its clinical, harsh lighting and sanitized décor. An emotionless aesthetic, as distant as the rest of Las Noches itself. It may have even rivaled Ulquiorra for dispassion, and if his only passion was so removed, so insular… then what did that make him?

Szayel stood, ankles surrounded by the shifting, powdery sand, gazing out blankly over the stark landscape, then slowly turned around and began to march back in the direction of the distant silhouette of Las Noches. The empty stretch that yawned at his back made his skin prickle slightly, but he didn't speed up. There was nothing to hurry towards and nothing to run from; only the fears and uncertainties that coiled and writhed in his mind as Hueco Mundo threatened the fragile identity he'd built for himself from faded memories of a past life and the relentless hunger of the present.

And that, perhaps, was why he caught the laughter when he hadn't before, flying through the dunes as a naught more than a flickering figure propelled by Sonido. It was a clear, joyous trill that broke the monotony of the endless night. It was difficult to pinpoint from where the sound had originated due to the odd acoustics of his surroundings. But after a few seconds of sweeping the terrain, his golden eyes fixed upon a small moving figure in a pea green, ragged gown, streaking across the desert.

Short, peridot curls bobbed in the slipstream of her running…

"Haha! Pesche! Dondochakka! You guyths'll never cathch me!" she shouted, a peculiar lisp garbling her words.

Szayel stared, hardly believing his eyes. Nel, in the flesh. With the whole of Hueco Mundo to traverse, he'd found her here. And it wasn't long until the child, with her gaptoothed grin, noticed him as well. How could she not when he stood like a slender statue, watching her? The little girl- it was hard to fathom she and the statuesque beauty that was Neliel Tu were the same –slowed, pausing for a moment before she cautiously approached him.

"Hey Mishter. Why're ya thtaring at me? It'th kinda creepy."

The Octava blinked, completely taken aback by her forwardness. This was certainly no completely naïve creature; she knew a bit about the world, enough to be rightfully wary of him. Yet she still drew up to him, curious. She had that openness of childhood, where she couldn't really comprehend that bad things could befall her. The world was still a romp; she hadn't been soiled yet.

He realized with a jolt that she didn't recognize him. Or perhaps, she didn't remember? Had she lost more than just her powers when Nnoitra had broken her mask? Crouching so that he appeared to be less of an intimidating figure, he addressed her.

"Because I wasn't expecting to run into anyone out here."

She crinkled her nose, staring up at him with clear, gray eyes.

"Me'n my brothers live out here," she declared proudly, sweeping her small arms around to indicate the vast expanse around them, "We playth eternal tag all over. Theresh no spashe to run out of."

An eternity of tag, chasing after each other like mindless idiots. He didn't exactly see the appeal. The scientist guessed she meant her Fraccion when she said brothers, unless she truly believed them to be her siblings? The old curiosities flared. How much did she know, or not know? What had her Fraccion told her or kept from her? She seemed… so happy. Free from the melancholy that had haunted her as an Espada. She'd hid it well, but he'd still picked it out during his surreptitious observations of her. No, not a hint of resentment in her body now. She was truly at bliss.

And he found this intriguing; her happiness. How was it, why was it that she was content here? Because she didn't know any better? Because she was a simple person? Or was it something he lacked? Normal emotion, he was told, was something that escaped him. He didn't think or feel like the others. As if he was autistic in that regard.

"Well I live in Las Noches, the big white palace back a ways," he replied in an innocuous, conversational tone. Her eyes widened a little, and she started babbling.

"Me'n my brothersh aren't doing anythin' wrongth, Mishter! Pleash don't kill and eat ush, since we're not very good eatsh 'cuz we're not very shtrong and-"

"I intend to do nothing of the sort. I'm not a barbarian like Yammy or Nnoitra," he interjected, and would have continued his mildly comforting reassurance if not for the appearance of two figures shouting for their ward.

"Nelilel!"

"Ani-chan!" she cried happily, tackling a skinny male Arrancar with violet skin and a- he noticed with distaste –loincloth. A larger, bulkier Arrancar with a totemic mask reminiscent of the Easter Island heads on Earth, lumbered after him at a pace he would have believed impossible for his size if he hadn't seen it himself. Szayel straightened with a smirk as they looked at him fearfully. They recognized him even if she didn't.

"Theeth are my brotherth, Pesche-"

"Gautiche and Dondochakka Bilstin. Yes. I remember you two, even if you changed your masks. I never forget a face," he interrupted smoothly. She goggled at him while her two Fraccion shifted nervously.

"How do you knowth my brotherth nameth?" she asked, wide eyed. He smiled.

"Because I know you, Neliel Tu Oderschvank. You used to live in Las Noches."

"Wha-?" she started, confusing, "But I've alwayth lived here with my brotherth."

"I am afraid that isn't the truth," he informed her with a perverse sense of satisfaction, "And as a matter of fact, you used to be-"

"Nel, don't listen to this guy. He's not a good person," Pesche interrupted tersely.

"I have a name and a title, Fraccion," the scientist remarked with irritation, "Szayel Aporro Granz, Octava Espada. Remember it, and do not interrupt me again."

"Espada?" Gautiche echoed nervously, "You're an Espada again?"

"So it would appear."

"Pesche," Nel said anxiously, "Wath goin' on?"

"Nothing!" he replied, panicking when Szayel laughed at her question.

"So you two have been lying to her all these years? She lost her memories, and so you created a fantasy world for her to live in instead?"

"We did it to protect her! Nel-sama was so unhappy. It was a chance…"

His voice broke as he saw Neliel's expression, hurt and bewildered. Pesche's fragile composure shattered completely when she lisped in that high, youthful voice, her sentiments of betrayal.

"Nel-thama? You… called me thama? Aren't we family?"

"Nel, of course we are. I…"

Tears welled in her smoky eyes.

"You guyth lied to me? To protect me? From what? Who am I? And who are you?"

"Would you like to find out?" Szayel offered casually, casting her a dubious lifeline. A deal with the devil.

"Neliel, don't trust him," Dondochakka said, speaking up. He waved his massive paws of hands in a vaguely flighty fashion, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with them.

"Like you two did?" Szayel pointed out cruelly, amber eyes glittering with amusement at this game behind his cold, scholarly spectacles. Looking at Nel, he spoke to her in his most dulcet, charismatic tone. "I promise you one thing, and that is that I will not lie to you. If you come with me, you will learn the truth."

"Neliel… don't," Pesche pleaded, tense, and Nel did exactly what he'd hoped she would. Feeling alienated from what she'd considered her family, a maelstrom of doubt filling her with questions, and a deal from a stranger with answers she couldn't pass up… she shook her head. Refusing. Accepting.

"No," she said seriously, and somehow she managed to pull the expression off as well, "I wanna know. I'm goin' wif Szshayel to find out the truth… and I'll come back when I have."

She'd come back. How sweet. How marvelously innocent of her. He looked to her Fraccion and saw they knew as she placed her small hand in his larger one that this was not a pact she would walk out of so easily, but they couldn't do a thing. She lay under the piper's sway now, helpless to his fickle whims while he played his tune.

And how fickle the Octava was; the whimsy of the mad moved him. His narrow fingers closed around hers triumphantly; his failure, come back as possibility. The ultimate karmic compensation. Laughing, he picked her up playfully, and she looked startled by his strange exuberance before frowning again suspiciously.

"Mithter, you're really creepy," she informed him, her deadpan tone coming across as more comical than stern due to her speech impediment.

"I know," he replied flippantly, "I've been told as much before."

Then the world blurred around them as he fell into Sonido once more; only the feel of her secure in his arms, at long last, was solid.

A/N:

No I am not mad. It is not the apocalypse; I am writing a pairing other than NnoitraxSzayel, as I promised I would. You have Xylexia to blame for this; she gave me the idea one evening while I was bemoaning the fact I wanted to write some oneshots. I asked her to give me a list of pairings to write; this one struck my fancy, because it had the capability of becoming something very twisted and melancholy, which I wanted to write. And then I read the most amazing characterization of Szayel that isn't even a fic... and I had to write this more than ever.

Though I wanted to write a oneshot, this won't be one. But it will not be a long fic; no more than a handful of chapters, and none of them will be more than 7k. So here goes a SzayxNel shortfic... in which I get to explore Szayel's dominant, obsessive, controlling nature more, free of mushy romance. (Har har... I call FP mushy romance... just tells you how far gone I am)

I call her hair color peridot because it was a lighter shade of green in the manga I think... more yellow green than blue green. And I feel peridot sounds prettier than blue green. I guess I could have said teal, but that implies more blue... *Fusses pointlessly* Yes, I use the "incorrect" romanizations. I like how they sound better. Read and review if you like it so far; I'll have another chapter up at some point this month.

(By the by, if you ever want me to write a oneshot/short fic for a pairing you are interested to see more of, feel free to drop me a friendly PM and I will consider it and get back to you on whether or not I'd be willing to do it. :3)