With the Captains suffering casualties and heavy injuries on their side, all hope seemed to be lost... until Shinji Hirako appeared, along with the rest of the former Shinigami. Though the aid of the Vizards certainly helped to draw the battle in their favor, it seemed Aizen's power alone proved too much for them.
Alexei simply stood there and watched the little back and forth between Xuan and Szayel. It was kind of fun to watch them talk to each other. He was perfectly fine with just bleeding into the background. That was both metaphorically and literally. The young Vizard was actually bleeding onto the ground. Szayel shot him a small smirk. Was that for bleeding? Would he have to clean this up later? Better to do it now if it could be helped.
"Szayel-sama, do you need to me to clean up this mess? If you point me in the direction of a mop I can get right to it."
However, Szayel dismissed Xuan. Xuan simply walked toward the hallway and didn't bother to say goodbye. Alexei, however, wouldn't stand for that. With a small smile he waved at Xuan as he passed through the doorway?
This was perhaps the second time that Szayel had ordered Alexei to do something and instead he offered to clean the floor. Rather than allowing the boy to clean up his mess, which was preferable to leaving blood on the floor, Szayel looked back to the table. Why wasn't the boy on it? He twitched.
"Sit down," he murmured, his giddiness disrupted. His brow furrowed, and he pointed at the table in his irritation. "I said sit down you idiot! How many times must I say it?!"
The man took a deep breath, huffing, and then regained his composure. The boy was stupid. That was all. He would sit down, now, and Szayel could go on making his stay uncomfortable. He already had a devious little plot hatching in his brain, and he would look forward to seeing the boy squirm as it was carried out.
Character List "Let's eat, Grandma!" "Let's eat Grandma!" Commas save lives.
Alexei took on the face of a puppy who had just been kicked. Having Szayel yell at him was like shitting on the carpet and having your nose rubbed in it. Liking these dog puns? You should; they're clever. Hanging his head in shame, he walked over to the table and sat down upon it. He sniffled a little like a small child and looked up at Szayel once more.
It took Szayel only a second to compose himself - the boy was sniffing. Was he going to cry? He frowned. Hopefully the boy wouldn't start bawling - he wasn't a child. And Szayel wasn't even doing anything. Perhaps it would be funny to watch the boy cry over being told to sit down, but Szayel would prefer to check a few things.
"Oh don't make such a fuss," Szayel quipped as the boy apologized. He lent in with the needle, and stabbed at the boy's knee. His rather warped version of a reflex test. Should it make its mark, he would remove the needle immediately.
After setting the syringe down on the counter, he picked up a small, tube-shaped instrument and pointed it at the boy's eyes. A ray of light moved forwards, and Szayel moved forward to put his fingers on the boy's eyelids, intent on holding them open. "Hold still."
There was a heartrate and such to be concerned about, but Szayel already had readings from those when Xuan and the boy walked for the lab. There were other questions to be asked, such as, "Any dizziness? Lightheadedness? Nausea?"
He smirked, and then leaned in a little too close. "Any discomfort in the genital region?"
Alexei stopped talking right after that, he simply looked at Szayel with large eyes. He didn't know what was coming now, but Szayel seemed to be in a better mood. This man had an uncanny ability to compose himself. It really impressed the young Vizard. The Arrancar had his moments of anger and then snapped back into a calm persona.
"My apologies, Szayel-sama."
Suddenly, the Arrancar poked him in the knee with a needle. It led to the standard knee-jerk reaction which was commonplace for anything that got poked there. Alexei then looked up at Szayel and smiled a small smile. Surely that was what the Arrancar had expected and desired. The young Russian had good reflexes and such. He was just stupid. Oh so stupid.
Then Szayel began to ask him if he were experiencing any symptoms. To be honest, he wasn't. Alexei didn't understand why he wasn't feeling bad. Last time Szayel had given him something he had vomited on the floor. Now he was simply fine. Shaking his head "no", Alexei's eyes widened as Szayel leaned in to ask if him if there was any discomfort in his private regions. Where Alexei was raised, that wasn't something you asked someone. In spite of this, Alexei leaned back and looked at Szayel.
"No Szayel-sama. I'm experiencing no discomfort at all."
His reflexes were alright, and when Szayel leaned in, Alexei leaned back. The fear was appropriate, in the sense that Szayel could do whatever he liked to the boy with no repercussions at all. But mostly Szayel found it amusing.
"No, Szayel-sama, I'm experiencing no discomfort at all," the boy answered.
"Really now?" Szayel whispered, leaning in further so that he needed to put a hand on the table for balance. His eyes were half-lidded, with a certain threat held in them. His smirk remained. "No discomfort at all? You are not at all uncomfortable?"
Suddenly, he laughed, and stood upright. He ran a hand through his hair and turned around. With a simple shrug, he said, "Alexei-kun, I'm afraid I don't swing that way."
Character List "Let's eat, Grandma!" "Let's eat Grandma!" Commas save lives.
"No discomfort at all? You are not at all uncomfortable?"
Alexei continued to lean back as Szayel continued to lean over him. This was odd. This man was too close to him. Yes, much to close. However, in true Alexei fashion, he didn't voice this discomfort. He simply knuckled under and stared up at Szayel. The man was rather creepy when he really thought about it. Luckily, Alexei didn't really think about...anything.
"No Szayel-sama."
Szayel then stood up and turned away from him. He told him that he didn't swing that way. The young Vizard didn't understand what he meant. Did he mean that he didn't bend over tables? Yes that had to be it. The man was a scientist and didn't bend over tables. That was obvious; he sat at them. He didn't swing that way at all. It all made perfect sense to Alexei. What the stupid Vizard didn't know was that it was a sexual joke.
"No Szayel-sama, I suppose you don't. A man of your smarts should be sitting at tables. No need for you to swing to bend over them."
The boy was not dumbstruck nor flabbergasted by Szayel's change in demeanor, which was not as humorous as Szayel had hoped. It had been funny, yes, but the boy's response was, "A man of your smarts should be sitting at tables. No need for you to swing to bend over them."
"What are you talking about?" Szayel giggled, putting his hands on his hips. He turned back to Alexei and smiled. The boy was clearly stupid - obviously he didn't understand that Szayel had attempted to unnerve him by making certain comments of certain natures that may or may not have been appropriate. Hint: they were not. Perhaps the boy was asexual. "Swing that way, Alexei-kun? Aside from as a researcher, I've little interest in little boys."
Szayel chuckled at the thought. Hadn't that red-headed shinigami tried to unnerve Szayel by invading his personal space? Obviously the vizard's intelligence was about equal, but the nature of the two was quite different. Szayel turned back to the counter, shuffling about. A small screen somewhere on the wall listed numbers and fractions - blood pressure, reiatsu level and stability. But not temperature.
He pulled a thermometer out of a drawer and approached Alexei with a raised brow. The boy was ragged - not only was he cut up and bloody, but he was bare-chested and the clothes he did have were a mess. "Those clothes are in shreds, Alexei-kun."
Before the boy could respond, he took the thermometer and shoved it at his lips. "Hold that under your tongue."
Character List "Let's eat, Grandma!" "Let's eat Grandma!" Commas save lives.
Szayel seemed to not understand. Wait. Was Alexei's assumption wrong? No, it couldn't be. What else could he have meant by "swing that way"? Alexei's face contorted into a look of confusion. What could it mean? "Swing that way..." "Swing that way..." What else could it mean other than bending over? Obviously there was some kind of word magic at work here. Alexei just gave up on it.
Then he pulled out a thermometer. Oh, Szayel was going to take his temperature. That was a pleasant change. No violence. No bringing out of Sablya Tigra. He was just getting his temperature taken. He didn't know if he was supposed to be feverish or not. He didn't feel feverish. Then again, being Russian one learned to block out temperatures. He gave a small smile to the Arrancar as he approached.
"Taking my temperature Szayel-sama?"
"Those clothes are in shreds, Alexei-kun."
"I'm sorry Szayel-sama. I don't know what happened to my shirt after I left it on the ground. And my clothes have been through a lot as of late. On the bright side, at least I still have clothes."
It was that kind of cheerful optimism that made Alexei who he was. He didn't see the bad in the situation here. Living in these conditions was horrid but the Vizard didn't seem to notice. He simply tried to focus on the positive. That was how he was brought up. Can you spell Stockholm Syndrome? Here's a hint A-L-E-X-E-I.
"Hold that under your tongue."
The Vizard did as he was told and the thermometer was promptly shoved into his mouth. He hoped Szayel would get the information he wanted.
Once again, the boy apologized. It was getting irritating, and far less endearing. More like that Adan boy than anything else. Szayel said nothing, making a mental note to throw some clothes that weren't revolting into the boy's cell later. The thermometer beeped, and Szayel turned around. He pulled it from the vizard and red it, his brow furrowed.
"Unfortunately you're over thirty-eight degrees Celsius," he murmured, noting that it was a fever and the boy most likely had an infection. Szayel didn't particularly want to heal the boy, but he supposed it was necessary if he was going to continue. And the boy would need at least several hours of respite before the drug had cleared his system, more if Szayel was to remove all the pesky variables. Testing to see if the Alexei was dehydrated - and he certainly was - Szayel pinched the skin on his wrist and released it, watching as it sunk back slowly. "You are dehydrated..."
Szayel paced by the counters, knowing that the boy's zanpakuto was tucked safely away in a drawer. The boy wouldn't be able to reach it before Szayel noticed, and he wouldn't be able to open the drawer in the first place. Finally he reached the end of the counter, where an odd canister was. He pulled a small bowl from beside the metal contraption and held it beneath a thin nozzle. Some odd pink gel oozed from it, collecting into a fist-sized lump. When he returned to Alexei, he frowned.
"You're rather ill," he noted, most likely because he enjoyed the sound of his own voice. "And that you do not notice either means that you have a very high tolerance or you are lying to me, and I suggest you refrain from the latter."
He held out the bowl to the vizard, his gaze stern and somewhat accusing.
Character List "Let's eat, Grandma!" "Let's eat Grandma!" Commas save lives.
