Okay, You guys were asking for it...COOKING LESSONS! some people were asking for this...so IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU HEAR? You know who you are.
To everyone else: I'm sorry, but THEY MADE ME DO IT. *points accusing finger*

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Cooking Lesson #1

"Okay. So first, you have to preheat the oven…" Ulquiorra fiddled with some dials on the stove. His fingers brushed one of the touchup jobs that Grimmjow had done with white wash and spray-paint. Grimmjow held his breath. The places where he had burned the stove top were not quite as smooth as the rest of the thing. If Ulquiorra noticed…he might cancel his cooking tutorials. Which he had, for some unconceivable reason actually agreed to.

"You get that, Sexta? Then you do all the other stuff while the oven heating up."

After Ulquiorra's temporary mental breakdown of the week before, the Espada had washed his raven hair of the green dye he had used on a whim, and had reverted back to his usual self. His detached, fairly disdainful self. But though he was now removing himself again from the others, it seemed as though there was something…a little…different.

Grimmjow nodded. He examined the recipe that Ulquiorra had picked. "So we're gonna cook this pastry thing?"

"Yes."

Why did Grimmjow want to learn how to cook? Well, it wasn't exactly clear in his own mind. He kinda liked it. It was exciting. And Grimmjow cooking was little less than a daredevil sport.

Cooking involves fire. Fire means explosions are imminent.

But also, Grimmjow was always hungry. Thought not as much as Yammy. Yammy is a beastly food vacuum. But Grimmjow hates waiting for food to be made, so maybe he wanted to learn how to cook so he could randomly make his own food and eat it whenever he liked.

Ulquiorra was assembling ingredients. "Big difference," he said, holding up two bags of flour, "Between different types of flour. Remember to make sure you have the right type."

"Hmmm."

"Okay. Now, I'm going to show you how to use the stove." Ulquiorra looked sharply at Grimmjow. "You'd better watch, Sexta, because if you blow anything up and burn my nice stove, I swear, I will Cero you into oblivion!"

Grimmjow gulped and decided to pay attention.

Ulquiorra pushed the dial forward. "You have to press it in so you can turn it," he explain. "Hear that clicking noise?"

Grimmjow heard the clicking noise.

"That's the spark. Wait for three clicks, and then turn the dial." Ulquiorra maneuvered the dial. The flame shot up, then subsided as he turned it down. "Make sure you get it down fast." He stepped back. "You try."

Grimmjow advanced on the stove. He had used it before, but now that Ulquiorra had told him how it was supposed to be used, he was unsure of how he had done it. He vaguely remembered putting on the gas and Cero-ing the burner…or had he used the dial? Grimmjow pushed the dial forward.

Click. Click. Click.

Three.

Grimmjow turned it counterclockwise. The clicking went on. The dial didn't turn. A puff of smoke…

"Clockwise, Sexta! Clockwise!"

Oh. Grimmjow quickly turned it the other way, coughing in the smoke. A flame jumped up, and then died. Ulquiorra coughed. He waved his hands to dissipate the smoke. Grimmjow looked at him. The normally pale Arrancar's face was smudged black. It made him look faily ridiculous. Grimmjow stifled a laugh.

Ulquiorra, did not.

He hid a smile behind his hand. He chuckled.

Grimmjow frowned. "What?"

"Your face is black." Ulquiorra said, voice muffled behind his pale hand. Grimmjow examined himself in the stainless steel fridge. It was true. Black rings had appeared around his eyes, giving him a somewhat raccoonish appearance. Grimmjow had to stop himself from laughing at his own reflection, because that would be rather embarrassing.

Ulquiorra laughing at him was just kinda…creepy?

The week before, when Ulquiorra had lost his mind/sanity/senses, he had laughed a lot. But it had been a kind of manic laugh of the lunatic, the type of laugh that threatens to turn into hysterics any moment.

This was a more normal laugh.

Or at least, it would be, if laughing was normal for Ulquiorra.

But it most definitely was not. Ulquiorra, the ice cold emotionless blank eyed Espada was laughing? Grimmjow felt the way Yammy and Zommari had felt when they had first seen Ulquiorra's green hair: Is This the Apocalypse?

Grimmjow turned around to face the sooty faced Espada again. Ulquiorra had gained control of his features again. Grimmjow strode forward. "While soot on my face makes me look manly and rather warlike, it makes you look stupid. Here." He grabbed a paper towel and wet it. He handed it to Ulquiorra, who began dabbing at his face. He then handed to towel to Grimmjow.

"You missed a spot."

Ulquiorra was a bit taken aback, as the teal haired Espada carefully scrubbed at a portion of his cheek. Grimmjow flung the sooty paper towel into the trash. He frowned. "I thought it was make up," he admitted, embarrassed.

"what?"

"Those lines." He traced tear tracks along his own cheeks to show what he was speaking of. "but either they're water proof, or…"

Ulquiorra shrugged. "It's not make up, Grimmjow," he said, a little irritated. Make up was for girls. Like Haribel. And Nnoitra, who stole Haribel's. "They're…birthmarks, I suppose."

"That's pathetic. And kinda miserable." He snorted.

"What?"

"That your birthmarks make it look like you're crying. That makes it seem like you're destined to be a fucking emo for the rest of your sorry hollow-y existence."

Ulquiorra had never thought about it that way. Actually, he thought, probably only Grimmjow could think about that way.

Grimmjow turned back to the fridge, knocking over a chair in the process and startling Ulquiorra out of his thoughts.

"hmm." He examined himself in the reflection carefully. "I will leave this filth on my face, because it makes me look tough. That is all."

Ulquiorra rolled his eyes. Typical Grimmjow.

"Anyway…weren't we cooking?"

"No. I was trying to get you to cook. You were blowing out the gas and coming verrry close to setting something on fire. Like maybe the cabinets." Ulquiorra gestured to the cabinets. Grimmjow noticed that they were covered in soot. "Fuck!" He gasped in horror.

"Clean it up, won't you?"

"You are fucking evil! It'll take me all day! Those cabinets are white!"

"So are our uniforms." Ulquiorra pointed out.

Grimmjow looked dreadingly down at himself. He hadn't even noticed…

His blackened uniform. Or Ulquiorra's either, for that matter.

"Aizen's gonna murder us."

"Most probably."

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Hmmm...a little OOC in my opinion...going a bit over to the GrimmUlqui side...but, hell, who cares. Do you? *threatening* XP

And yes, my stove actually does that if you twist the dial wrong. go figure.