Uryu's eyes flew open as he rolled over onto his side and felt his face collide with a piece of fabric.

Of course, he thought, it's the sheet I hung between my half of the room and Orihime's half.

Hearing the sound of his unlikely room-mate sighing softly in her sleep, Uryu sat up and hesitatingly held out an arm towards the fabric. When had he migrated so close to the divide, anyway?

No, a voice said in his head. You hung the fabric up in the first place because it would be unseemly to see a girl sleeping. The divide turns the one room into two, you would essentially be walking straight into her bedroom if you were to move it.

Uryu lowered his hand, reaching instead for his glasses and the small patch of semi-embroidered fabric he had brought along in case he had any spare time. Threading the needle through the square of cotton in time to his companion's breathing, Uryu found his hand giving an involuntary jolt, resulting in the embroidered flower growing a mutant petal, when he heard the sound of Orihime's voice.

"No, don't hurt him."

Uryu immediately set aside his fabric, bolting upright and drawing the sheet aside, expecting to see an enemy standing in the doorway. Instead, he was confronted by the sight of Orihime sleeping peacefully about a foot away from the divide, lying on her side so Uryu could clearly see her face. However, before Uryu could become too disturbed by the thought that he had been sleeping so close to the girl, Orihime's mouth opened again.

"No, Ichigo, you shouldn't snap twigs you find on the floor. Trees are living creatures too."

Obviously, Uryu thought. Hadn't Orihime been sleep-talking when they had landed in the Seireitei?

"I think it's all right, Orihime," Uryu's voice said before he could stop it. "If the twigs have fallen, they are already dead. They don't care."

"Ungh, that's not the point," Orihime's voice drawled as she rolled over onto her back, her hair clinging to her face. Uryu had to fight the urge to brush it aside so he could see her bizarre cheerful-yet-indignant expression more clearly. "If the twigs are dead, snapping them would be like breaking people's corpses in half. Would you do that?"

Uryu held back a laugh, amused by the way the girl could look so at peace and yet chat so casually about such morbid subjects. "You're correct, of course," he replied, smiling slightly as Orihime's frown disappeared, the crease between her eyebrows smoothing itself out until her face took on a neutral expression, her eyes still closed.

"Of course I'm right!" Orihime declared sleepily. "The talking tree said so, Ichigo."

"I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Orihime," Uryu began, watching her eyelids twitch as her eyes darted about rapidly beneath them. "I'm not Ichigo. It's me, Uryu Ishida."

Orihime emitted a soft noise which sounded something like a laugh. "Silly Ichigo," she muttered. "Of course you're Uryu!"

Uryu raised an eyebrow. "What did you just say, Orihime?"

"Well, duh!" Orihime elaborated. "Ichigo and Uryu are the same person. I know because the talking tree's friend, the flying crayon, told me so."

"The flying crayon. Right," Uryu replied.

"Yeah!" Orihime's voice said, dully. "Well, it was either that or that you both had a lot in common. Or something. I don't know."

"I don't know either, Orihime," Uryu frowned. "It doesn't really matter either way. I'm Uryu."

"What difference does it make?" Orihime garbled. "You're both nice to me, you both protect me, and you both deserve a nice slice of cake. Possibly with some sweetcorn ice-cream on the side."

Uryu blinked, attempting to suffocate any sense of hopefulness in him which was fighting to make itself known. "We'll worry about cake when we return to our world," he said, frowning. "And as for protecting you, I'd say that Ichigo and I have very different reasons for doing so."

Orihime was silent for a moment, before her left arm lifted and draped itself across her torso, palm resting on the floor. "Whatever you say, Uryu," her voice said softly, as Orihime rolled back onto her side so she was facing him again, although her eyes were still firmly shut.

Orihime fell silent then, her chest slowly rising and falling in time with her deep breaths. Just as Uryu was about to replace the sheet hanging between them, she spoke again.

"Uryu?" Orihime said, her voice becoming less coherent with every word.

"Yes, Orihime," Uryu replied, watching as the girl's mouth turned up in a slight smile.

"Would you please put your foot under the sheet?"

Uryu's eyebrows knitted together as he tried to fathom her thought process. "Why do you want me to do that?"

Orihime smiled in her sleep as she opened her mouth again. "Because I'd like to take a picture of it."

Uryu quietly allowed the laughter he had been holding in escape, chuckling softly as he moved to find his makeshift-pillow to stifle the giggles. Drawing back from the divide Uryu watched out of the corner of his eye in alarm as Orihime stirred, coming to just before he could duck behind the fabric draped from the ceiling.

"Wussgoinon?" Orihime slurred drowsily, propping herself up on her elbows. "Why're you laughing, Uryu?"

Knowing the time-frame he had to adopt a neutral expression had already passed, Uryu smiled broadly instead, knowing full well that she wouldn't remember this when she awoke in the morning.

"Nothing. You're just adorable. Now, go back to sleep."

Orihime blinked groggily. "Oh, okay then."

And with that, she lowered herself back onto her own makeshift-pillow by the divide and fell back into a deep sleep, her breathing returning to its slow cycle.

Cursing himself for being so uncouth as to disturb Orihime's sleep, Uryu watched as the girl drifted back into slumber. When he was certain she was dead to the world, Uryu leaned over and gently kissed her forehead, before returning to his own side of the sheet.

"Good night, Orihime," he whispered.

Author's notes: I wrote this because I am a bad person who attempts to distract herself from long projects I should really be completing (read as: all of my long stories I tend to leave dangling for long periods of time) by writing one-shots. If you're here to yell at me for not updating A Study in Crimson, Corruptio Lumini, I Spy, The Seireitei Communication Official Recipe Pullout or To Restore a Clan to its Former Glory, I sincerely apologise. Please don't yell at me. I'm yelling at myself enough for it as it is. :S

I'm not even really all that big on non-canon (or canon, actually) shipping in general, I'm more of a starboarder, but these two, honestly... I don't know, I just can't stop writing them. It's funny, usually if one character in something likes another character (or is hinted to like another, but nothing will convince me that Uryu doesn't canonically fancy Orihime) I just think "awww, sweet" but I don't ship them, whereas here there is nothing I want more than for these two to be endgame. They're such a Moe Couplet. Eeeeee.

And now I'm wittering. Therefore, I am going to shut up. And possibly write something which doesn't taste like diabetes. :)