I do not own Bleach. This story is dedicated to Japan and Christchurch, enjoy.

He can tell she is different, you define your life in the way you end it, and she is dying ever so sweetly.

It's in the way Ulquiorra starts to question, he has never been a creature of curiosity, but she has a way about her which makes you wonder. Such dull hope is unwise, but there is nothing wise about her. She carries that old wasted ideology of nobility and fair game, incised into her mind by Ichigo chasing her across the desert.

Aizen remembers many things, but the rusted words, "It is better to be feared then loved", choked from the mouth of a man who lost everything, leave a ringing in his ears. He disagrees, to those who need fear you let it be, but to those who need love relish in it.

He wonders if he could make Orihime love him.

Always the gentleman he waits patiently outside her door, allowing her a knock before he enters, Orihime, Orihime, let me come in, and he wonders if she will allow herself to be devoured by the wolf. Of course she greets him with frightened wide eyes, cheeks stained with tears and he feels something of arousal bundle in his chest, crawling like a spider up his leg. She is a pretty little picture all wrapped in white and he grins to show her what big teeth he has.

"A-Aizen-sama" she chokes, her little writhe fingers wrap around her dress and he almost shivers, "What- "

Fluently bringing the tip of his finger to his lips to interrupt her, she stands stiff, like a doe in the headlights, she is so obedient waiting.

"Orihime" He begins, his voice quiet and calm. She involuntary shakes as he brings himself closer and grazes his thumb across the dip of her chin. "I hear you have not been eating" his voice at a near whisper against her ear and he allows himself to inhale against her, memorizing her scent. He understands the physiological impact of invading ones space, she feels vulnerable and naked without her own air to breath. He steps back and gently lifts her head to face him. "I am inviting you to join me for dinner this evening", her lips pout subtly in confusion and he takes his turn to leave. "I would feel most pained if you rejected my offer."

Ulquiorra stands quietly on the other end of the door, his features are expressionless yet shadows dance along his visage quietly but rushed trying to make sense of themselves. It takes him a second longer to kneel to the lord. It could be surprise, Aizen is certain Ulquiorra had no knowledge of him visiting their guest, but the woman's muted weeps reach them in the corridor and Ulquiorra's fingers flicker. He smirks at the situation; his little dragon falling for the princess, how disgusting, and Aizen licks his lips. He kneels down to Ulquiorra's level and cradles his head, two gentle fingers tapping down rhythmically, a pressure point which would render him paralysed head-down, "Won't you heal dear Orihime of her hysteria, Ulquiorra" Aizen's long fingers follow his collarbone to the edge of his shoulder. A threat within a smile, and Ulquiorra remains kneeling still until Aizen's footsteps fade away into the white.

He welcomes Orihime with a feast and a smile, amusement drifting in his lidded eyes as she exhales in delight. Gluttony is her least suited sin in his eyes, but her resistance breaks like the shallow shield it is and he can feel the layers melting, he could almost reach out and peel off her skin. "Thank you Aizen-sama" she swallows, her pride in rubble at her feet, and he has won for the night. "You are welcome Orihime, it would be my pleasure to dine with you again" He walks her to her room with his hand guiding from the dip in her back.

The desert is cold, she thought, in the night the desert is cold. Orihime stood soundlessly staring out into the sky. The light from the moon was small but heavy, as if she were lifting all the heavens on her shoulders, Aizen visits often now and she has grown afraid to sleep. The air was electric with all that had not happened, that could happen, but he did not come tonight. Nothing says hell has to be fire, she thought. Hell could be this bitter chill, this waiting, cold enough to sear the skin from your bones.

Aizen enjoys the beginning of things as much as he enjoys the end. He is a man who needs to know the end as soon as he knows the beginning, and he always knew. He has no need for surprises, but they are a beautiful thing, like Momo's bones against his blade, she had never looked sweeter then that moment of pure burning agony and shock, his betrayal stinging over all other pain, eyes wide ready for the crows to pluck. But Orihime, sweet little Orihime, with her hopes and her dreams and her pins in her hair, he has not quite seen her end and it fascinates him. She is dying, he looks up and she is gazing into the depths of her mug, but what human isn't? Tonight he had arranged for a more intimate dinner, without the grandeur and vastness, but in a pocket of his castle and a seat away from each other. The change unnerves her and she spends most of the evening staring at her knees, her dress tucked beneath her, shoulders leaning forward. He wants to undress her, unbutton her modest white dress and pull it back from her neck until he can see her white shoulders. Slip it down, let it pool around her ankles and see how she changes then. The thought almost makes him laugh, as he stares at her childish face, she is different making him lust like that.

As he leads her to her door he bends down to her again, and she does not shudder, she remains indifferent, desensitised, she is learning to accept what she can't control. So he takes her lips in his, consumes them, in fright she attempts to move her head but his hand embraces the crook in her neck and she is trapped, with no choice to allow him this delicacy. Her lips are pink cushions and his tongue slips though them rubbing against her hard teeth, asking her kindly for an entry which she reluctantly allows. She makes no move to kiss him back, as his tongue massaged hers, but when he withdraws from her mouth, her eyes are pleasantly lidded. So he leaves quickly to keep that delectable image in his mind before she inevitably turns to her room to cry.

Light footsteps, she shifts across the floor carefully as if walking across the edge of the earth, one wrong step and she will fall off the edge. He takes her small hand to his mouth and looks to her eyes. She has walked into her room and returned a different person, a cunning trait he didn't expect her to have. "You are beautiful Orihime" he tries and she makes no reaction but to bite the skin on her lips, tearing them in hope he wouldn't want them anymore. Ulquiorra comes to pick her up tonight and he stares Aizen in the eye for nothing but an eighth of a second but he feels it, something of spite gurgling around in his creations stomach. She shuffles over to Ulquiorra as if he had already dropped her at her door. He can see it, he thinks, he is beginning to see her end, she is dying.

Kurosaki has surprised him, who knew the boy would be capable of defeating him, Aizen Sosuke, Lord of Las Noches. But he has, for now, and he is stuck in this god forsaken cell at the bottom of the world, with nothing better to do but think. So he thinks of his battles, how he underestimated Kurosaki, his useless Espada, Ulquiorra's green eyes and Orihime, sweet Orihime all wrapped in white, out there somewhere dying so sweetly. "Orihime" he whispers to the dark, his only company in this rotting hell "I wonder" he pictures, like pornographic etchings, the hidden parts of her body, "where you are now?"

And in his mind, the dark replies, "I am living."

AN: Thank you for reading, I would love to hear your thoughts.