Caretaker
Toshiro sat on his bed, his bare legs dangling off the edge. A soft sigh escaped his lips. To think the people he had thought would have his back were the first ones to turn theirs on him.
"Toshiro?"
He looked up and over to his side, seeing his 'caretaker' standing in the open doorway.
The brown haired espada made his way over to where the ex-shinigami was sitting with a frown marring his young features.
"You feeling better?"
Looking down at his bandaged hands and legs littered with little scars, he snorted humorlessly.
The espada did a once over of his charge's battle wounded body before taking a seat beside him on the bed. He placed a light hand on his bony shoulder and stated with a worried undertone to his voice, "I take it that you meant 'no',"
It had been more than half an year since Gin and him had first stumbled upon Toshiro in the Menos Forest, trying to take on multiple Vasto Lordes while barely being able to summon his shikai, much less bankai. The defected ex-captain of the tenth division, for the first time ever since Gin had known him, seemed like the child riddled with overwhelming responsibilities he always denied to be, barely able to stand as the hollows toyed with him.
Stark, having accompanied Gin to investigate the sudden turmoil in the forest, had found himself feeling oddly pulled towards the child shinigami. It was an impulsive decision, honestly, to bring the barely lucid boy back to Las Noches with them. Surprisingly enough all Aizen had done after being informed of the development was to sigh and mutter a, "I knew this was bound to happen sooner or later," before ordering Zayel to heal the nearly dead boy and appointing Stark as his caretaker.
Currently the two were sitting on his bed in a comfortable silence, both lost to their thoughts.
"Why though?"
Stark gazed sideways, locking eyes with Toshiro.
The white haired boy squirmed uncharacteristically under the attention, snapping his eyes back to his hands. A hand falling on his nape had him stiffening up in surprise before slowly relaxing with the motions of the fingers massaging the back of his neck.
"Why what, Toshiro?"
The hand continued its soft rubbing on his nape, moving up and down to soothe the tense muscles.
"Why did you bring me here? I'm, I mean I was a shinigami, your enemy but... just why?"
The hand stilled, causing Toshiro to tense up as if preparing for a lash back. Stark noticed the almost unconscious hunching of his shoulders, barely suppressing the urge to simply pick the kid up and hold him in his lap.
'What horrors did they made him go through,' he thought, placing both his hands on the tensed up shoulders and rubbing up and down the length of his arms, mindful of his injuries.
"I'm not offended by the question kid, it just caught me off guard. Don't worry, relax, no harm will come to you under my care."
Dull teal eyes peered up into his momentarily before he made an almost imperceptible nod. Though the relaxing muscles in his body were all Stark needed to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Honestly," he began, pulling himself and the boy up over the big bed. He placed his hand on his back, supporting his spine while helping him lay down slowly as to not agitate his broken ribs which were taking a long time to heal, a lot longer than considered normal. "I don't know." Toshiro glanced at him with unbelieving eyes causing him to let out an amused grin, "I honestly don't kid, it just happened. We saw you in the forest, took you back here and it just, you just seemed to fit, at least for me. We might have been enemies before but personally, I don't think we have ever even met before I saw you in that forest battling hollows multiple times your size with a zanpaktou taller than you are."
Toshiro stared up at the espada who seemed lost in his thoughts, smiling dopily while retelling the events that had transpired the days soon after he had been appointed his babysitter. He felt this weird warmth in his chest, his oh so broken chest with injuries that had been inflicted upon him by those whom he had devoted his whole self to, as the man carried on and on, speaking and smiling to himself, gazing down at him on occasion, his hand subconsciously running through his white hair, white hair that once were matted down with his own blood and sweat all because of them.
"Thank you,"
Stark stopped, looking down and for the first time noticing the glistening eyes, eyes that seemed brighter than he had ever seen them in the duration of the time they had been together. The child held his gaze, his bandaged hand coming to grasp the hand that was resting his hair and squeezing it once, with as much strength as his injured body could muster.
"I just... thank you, so much."
Stark, having caught by surprise, resumed the smoothing motions on his scalp while his other hand held the two small bandaged ones, "No need to thank me Toshiro. You didn't deserve what they did to you, you didn't deserve the hurt, the betrayal, to be used and thrown away like that."
A sob escaped unbridled through his bitten, chapped lips.
"You're safe here son, no one will hurt you, not under my watch."
That's it for now folks! As you might know, I've been on a lonnngggggg hiatus and honestly, this is just a work of sudden inspiration. What with my schedule and a 7 day working week, finding time for long term writing projects is near impossible. I apologize to all those lovely people who have been waiting on updates. I might come back to them at a later date but for now, they're on hold until further notice.This is the first work I've typed out after a slump period of more than a couple of years so I hope it wasn't much too bad or cringey lol. It's been a long time since I've completed the BLEACH manga so my knowledge on that, too, isn't up to the mark as such Toshiro and Stark might be waayyyy toooo OOC.Thank you all for reading this and I hope I'll soon be able to upload more stuff!(I imagined Toshi as a 8 year old sized nugget so hope that helps lol) Credit for the cover image to its maker, I don't own it and simply found it om Pinterest.