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It starts after the Quincy's Blood War. Or maybe it had started before that, right from the moment they'd laid eyes on each other and inexplicably found more than just a stranger looking back.
But it hadn't mattered back then. It couldn't matter, not when all the lines in the sand had already been drawn and set in stone by those they'd each pledged their respective allegiances to.
Then that war had ended and another had begun, and it had mattered far more after that, after Starrk had been forced to reveal himself to save the man’s life, and in turn, Kyouraku Shunsui had halfway torn Hueco Mundo apart until he'd tracked Starrk down, until Starrk had let him find him. For a while, he’d even thought - with more bewilderment than anything else - that the captain had just wanted to kill him that badly. But no, Shunsui had found him, Starrk had let himself be found, and all the man had done was pester him back to Soul Society with him, all flowery words and frivolous gestures, putting on a show that hadn't meant much to Starrk, but with something dark and intent and borderline desperate burning in his remaining eye, raw and grieving and lonely most of all, and somehow that had meant much more.
He doesn't know what Shunsui had done to make the other captains agree. He doesn't know if some of them might've demanded restrictions placed on him at least - they probably had - if not imprisonment or outright execution, but for all that a handful of them are very visibly unhappy with his presence in the Seireitei whenever they see him out and about, they've also never done anything about it. And Starrk doesn't make a habit of parading himself in front of most of the Gotei anyway. Besides, compared to the property damage Grimmjow and the Kurosaki boy cause every time the former comes through to challenge the latter to a fight, Starrk is surely less trouble than them.
The point is, he lets his Shinigami take him back to Soul Society, into his territory and into his home, and no one says a word about it within Starrk’s earshot. He lets Shunsui hover and stare and show him around with fingers curled around his wrist or a hand pressed against his back or even an arm slung around his shoulders or waist, always gentle despite the strength he possesses, the violence he's capable of inflicting. The touches don't feel like collars or chains against Starrk's skin, and they're certainly far easier to shake off than Aizen's deceptively benevolent hands had ever been.
Starrk never shakes him off though. He flinches from it, at first, unused to any touch that doesn't come from Lilynette or someone attempting to do him harm. But Shunsui never retreats, never stops reaching for him, though Starrk thinks he would if he were to ask. He doesn't ask, because as much as instinct tells him to pull away, it also wants with a hunger that sometimes makes him feel something like shame, like fear.
It’s a foolish thing to want, especially when it leaves him so vulnerable under Shunsui's too-perceptive gaze, and the first time he wakes up and finds himself already melting into a familiar warm hand on his shoulder without it even being a conscious choice anymore, it should feel like a loss.
Instead, he keeps his eyes shut and his body lax, listening to the quiet chuckle above him as Shunsui settles down beside him in a rustle of fabric and a creak of wooden floorboards. His hand withdraws Starrk's shoulder, only to card idle fingers through his hair, and that too is a first. But Starrk doesn’t move, and that's all the permission Shunsui has ever needed.
"Did you sleep the whole afternoon away again?" Comes the amused murmur of the man's voice. A pout slides into his voice, theatrically indignant. "I'm jealous. You wouldn't believe the day I've had. Nanao-chan came in with five stacks of paperwork after lunch and expected me to finish it all before I left!"
He rambles on, whining about his workload with the affectation of someone who's been terribly wronged, and all the while, his hand remains on Starrk, curved along his skull, tangled in his hair. The sheer possessiveness of it should be unbearable. But lying there on the sun-warm engawa with Shunsui's dappled-shadows-drifting-over-a-lazy-brook presence at his back while words wash over him in the man's steady lilting timbre, the hand on Starrk's head only feels reassuring, a physical weight to prove he isn't alone, but never more than that, never a shackle or a brand, and that's-
He moves, at last, and Shunsui pauses midway through an animated recount of the Fourth Division acting captain finally losing her temper with some Eleventh Division officers and putting them through a wall and three buildings, which had won Shunsui a longstanding bet, but had also generated even more paperwork for him that apparently no amount of money can make up for.
Starrk rolls onto his back, stretching languidly as the last cobwebs of sleep fall away under the glow of the setting sun. The movement dislodges Shunsui's hand, but Starrk is hardly surprised when it finds its way back as soon as he's made himself comfortable again, splaying innocently over the flat of his abdomen this time.
The world feels quieter in the seconds that follow. A breeze blows by, carrying cherry blossom petals on its wings. The clack of a bird's talons as it lands on the roof comes from somewhere above. Starrk tucks an arm under his head and stares absently down at Shunsui's hand resting light and unrepentant over his defenceless belly, separated only by the single layer of his yukata.
There's something very wrong with me, he thinks somewhat ruefully, if even this won't set off any alarm bells anymore.
He flicks his gaze back up to meet Shunsui's, who's already peering down at him, a faint smile on his lips, an avid fondness in his eye as he drinks in Starrk's features. Starrk doesn't know what he sees, but the man never seems to grow tired of watching him, even after almost seven months spent in each other's company.
He sighs. "Are you asking me to do something about it, Taichou-san?"
Shunsui's smile widens. "Maa, you can see it that way if you want." Some of the humour fades from his face. "The Fourth Division has big shoes to fill, but they need to learn to stand their ground on their own, preferably sooner rather than later. It wouldn't be good for them in the long run if the Captain-Commander has to intervene on their behalf for every little thing."
Starrk scoffs, vaguely amused. "So you'll send your pet monster to do it instead?"
He stills when fingers thread themselves into his hair again, tugging gently in a way that feels like a reprimand.
"Not my pet," Shunsui corrects with enough gravity to sink the Soul King's Palace, and Starrk has to suppress the urge to run from the unblinking sincerity in that hooded gaze. "The Fourth Division adores you after you single-handedly kept them afloat during the war, and we would still be digging up bodies if you hadn't left your wolves behind in the aftermath to help. Everyone knows this, even if some might still not like it. Isane-chan is working hard, and the rest have pulled together admirably under her command, but it's also fact that they're a bit too... lenient when confronted with unruly personalities, except they now also lack the strength to stonewall them. Unfortunately, that isn't something that can be fixed overnight, so I would like to send someone I trust, who is likewise trusted by the Fourth, and widely associated with the Fourth, to send a message. One that says just because Retsu-senpai is gone doesn't mean her division has become open season to disrespect and harassment."
"...Your Fourth Division is full of crazies, I don't know if their opinions should count for much," Starrk finally mutters after a long moment of studiously avoiding eye-contact because he never knows what to do with Shunsui when the man gets like this, so all he can do is pick the least disconcerting part and focus on that.
And he isn't wrong, is he? At best, the Gotei is uncomfortable with the presence of Arrancar in the Seireitei. But their healers actually seem pretty happy about it, or at least about Starrk's presence, and all because of what? He'd protected a few of them during the war? That had just been the obvious and practical choice to make. Or that he'd helped transport some patients and corpses around? His wolves had been uniquely suited for it, and it had cost him nothing, so why not?
(It had cost him, in a way. Two months after the end of the war, when the last body had been retrieved and the Fourth had no longer been on the verge of sleep-deprived collapse, Starrk had recalled all his wolves to his soul and thought that would be that. Not a day later, Hueco Mundo had quaked with the blast of reiatsu released by the Gotei 13's new Captain-Commander at the gates of Las Noches, wave upon shadow-tinted wave that had overturned sand dunes and sent Hollows fleeing for miles, and it might not have been able to reach every corner of Hueco Mundo, but it had certainly reached far enough for even Starrk to feel it. That lunatic man had then continued doing the same thing for two weeks straight, stalking through the endless desert with single-minded purpose while his shadows had spread further and further like an ever-growing pool of deadly ink staining the sands pitch-black, and he'd only stopped at two weeks because Starrk had given up and gone out to meet him.
Some days, Starrk wonders if Shunsui would've come after him if he'd simply left right after ensuring that Quincy general was well and truly dead instead of proving himself useful to the Shinigami as a whole. He wonders if Shunsui would've come if that white-haired captain friend of his hadn't died. He wonders if simply revealing himself to be alive would've been enough.
Most days, he doesn’t want to know the answer.)
But nowadays, not even the lowest-ranking healers seem to be afraid of him when he swings by, Kotetsu keeps inviting him to eat with them at their mess hall, and he can only be grateful that Shunsui has taken pity on him and not said anything so far about the growing piles of medical texts scattered around the house. As if any Shinigami not unconscious or sporting a concussion would ever let him heal them, so what's even the point? But the Shinigami at the Fourth keep foisting books on him, keep approaching him for conversation or even the occasional spar, keep expecting him to be around, and if that's not crazy, then what is?
Shunsui only laughs though, deep and delighted, and like the tide to the moon, Starrk is helpless to do anything but turn to look at him again, embarrassment forgotten. Not for the first time, he gets the fleeting thought that he wouldn't mind hearing Shunsui laugh more often, if only to watch the way it brightens the man's expression and wipes away the weariness that still lingers in his face to this day.
Such a thought is, of course, as foolish as the things Starrk wants these days, so he stuffs it down with everything else and hopes he isn't as transparent as he feels in these moments.
"That's certainly not something I hear every day," Shunsui remarks, smiling again. "Is it so strange? You cared enough to help them when no one else could, or would. You treat them well even now. Of course they would like you."
Starrk snorts and glances away. "I'm a Hollow."
And that really should be the start and end of it but-
Another tug on his hair makes him huff but look back again, meeting the sudden sharpness in Shunsui's single eye.
"What you are shouldn't make any difference to how people treat you," The man says quietly. "Who you are, what you do, why you do it—these things matter far more, and I think it's long past time for Soul Society to learn that."
Starrk stares up at him. "And if they can't learn it?"
In his peripheral, the shadows lurking in the corners shiver for a moment like they're alive. Above him, Shunsui smiles, but this time, it only reminds Starrk of the abyssal depths of the man's Bankai.
"Then they have no place in my Gotei 13," Shunsui tells him, and every word rings with the same ruthless conviction that had ultimately cut Starrk down in their first and only battle to the death.
Last time, he had admired it, even right up to the end. This time, he closes his eyes and takes a breath that shakes in his chest more than it should, and then - for the first time, before he can think better of it - he reaches out the way he's wanted to so many times before and rests his own hand over the one Shunsui has yet to remove from his stomach.
He still half-expects Shunsui to pull away.
Instead, there’s a moment of audible surprise, a hitch of a breath that sounds like hope, followed by a short exhale that can only be relief, so deep that his reiatsu resounds with it. And then, a second later, the hand under his flips around to slot them together, fingers folded over his knuckles and a large calloused palm pressed against his own, warmer than any touch Starrk has ever felt.
When he opens his eyes again, Shunsui is still watching him, smiling now with a covetous sort of satisfaction that probably would've triggered a flight response in anyone less broken than Starrk. As it is, the instinct is there, a bit, but it's easy to ignore for the exact same reason.
No one has ever wanted him this much. He's powerful, and useful, and loyal once you have him, and he won't do Shunsui the disservice of thinking this man hasn't considered all these points already, but even Starrk can tentatively acknowledge by now that what Shunsui wants most from him is just... him. His presence. His company. Someone to share disgustingly early mornings with, someone to come home to after a too-long day. Someone who understands the way loneliness can eat at you until that relentless bleed is all you know because no one cares enough to staunch it, because you don't know how to staunch it yourself, right up until you think you've been bled empty, and yet death still somehow won't take you even as it takes away everyone else, and so all you can do is keep bleeding.
Except Shunsui had sought him out in the middle of a sprawling desert, beneath the cold distant light of an eternal moon, bleeding in the exact same way, and in the end, all he'd really had to say, the one thing he'd said that had made Starrk fold like a house of cards—
"I can't promise you'll never be lonely again, but I can promise you'll never be alone if you don't want to be. I'm a rather difficult man to get rid of, in every possible sense, and I get the feeling you're the same. Isn't that a pretty good guarantee? So how about giving it a try, one last time? ...Give me a chance to try, Starrk. Maybe I'll surprise you. Maybe we'll surprise each other."
And now here they are, seven months later, and... still trying, but not in any way that feels tiresome, or at least, it hasn't felt that way to Starrk. He hopes Shunsui hasn't felt that way either, because the last thing Starrk wants is to be a burden, but to get to this point at all...
"Sometimes," Starrk says slowly, watching Shunsui watch him. "I don't know which of us is the bigger fool."
Most days of course, it's definitely Starrk.
Shunsui chuckles, sweeping a thumb over Starrk's knuckles in a hypnotic back-and-forth. "Is it foolishness to want companionship? I think that's just human nature."
Maybe. But it's foolishness to make such a risky gamble just to get it. Or desperation. But that's about the same thing in the end.
"You and your gambles," Starrk grumbles without much heat. "You and your games."
Shunsui's hand tightens around his own. "I only play to win."
Starrk smiles sardonically. "Then doesn't that mean I'm the one who loses?"
His next breath stalls in his throat when Shunsui brings their joined hands up between them, and without a single blink, he presses his lips to the back of Starrk's hand, right over the ragged burn scar there that's all that's left of the number that had once marked him as Aizen's strongest pawn. It's pressure, nothing more, light and chaste, and yet Starrk finds himself staring all over again, unable to react.
"This game we play," Shunsui murmurs, grey eye gleaming. "What's the point in playing against each other when it isn't necessary? Gamble instead against the merciless vagaries of fate—isn’t that a game we must all play? We call it life, and roll the dice, and accept the cards we're dealt. But those are the only rules. No one said we must play alone. No one said we must win alone."
He smiles, sly and steeped in shadows, sharp as a sword swathed in silk. "It's lonely at the top, Starrk. We both know that well. So of course, we can only win together or not at all. Don't you agree?"
I agree you're a lunatic, Starrk doesn't say, because who in their right mind would expose their entire heart to a man who'd nearly killed him not even three years ago, a man who belongs to a race that's been natural enemies with his own for eons, a man he's really only known for a fraction of his lifetime. But that just means I'm equally insane because all of that applies to me as well.
"I'm here, aren't I?" He sighs instead, because really, at this point, they both know full well there isn't anything Shunsui could ask of Starrk that Starrk wouldn't do for him. It’s just that Shunsui’s never asked, not for anything beyond small everyday things and this one big thing that had started it all.
Shunsui hums, evidently pleased, and finally lowers their hands, only to clasp it between both of his own this time. Starrk tracks the action, then glances up again when Shunsui adds abruptly, "And I'm here too."
Starrk quirks a half-smile and lowers his gaze, and this time, he makes certain nothing leaks through, because this time, he knows that to be a lie.
Kyouraku Shunsui will never place anything above his duty. And Starrk doesn't really mind. It's something he's always known about this man, since the first time they'd met, and it'd been part of why he'd respected him even then. Resolve like Shunsui's is... horrifying, actually, and horrifyingly lonely.
But that's just the way Shunsui is—the oaths he's sworn, he'll keep to, even if he has to break his own heart to pieces along the way. Starrk already knows that, and it’s fine. It just means he'll have do everything he can to make sure Shunsui will never be placed in a position where he would have to choose between duty and Starrk, or where he would have to watch Starrk walk away into battle and be left to wonder whether he would come back at all.
Starrk won’t be another Ukitake, or another Unohana, or another Yamamoto, not if he can help it. And it’s not like it would even be that difficult. His excessive amount of power is finally good for something, and these days, his only loyalty is to this one man.
He doesn't need Shunsui to prioritize him above everything. He doesn’t dare presume he holds nearly that high a position in Shunsui’s heart anyway, no matter how attached to him the man seems to be. But either way, he doesn’t need that sort of thing from Shunsui. He only needs him to stay.
So he smiles and looks back up and lets amusement carry them over the pretty falsehood. "You're not going to contest the monster part?"
Shunsui blinks, then laughs again, bright and easy. "Only a monster can survive another monster, and you're the only one who's seen how terrible of one I am and lived to tell the tale."
Starrk rolls his eyes because Shunsui is always so dramatic about this. “I’ve told you, Katen didn’t even try that hard to pull me in.”
“Nevertheless,” Shunsui insists with good cheer even as something dark and fanged glints in his eye. “You saw me."
And almost jumped in all on your own to join me, as if I wasn't something to be feared. The words go unspoken but Starrk hears them anyway.
Except Starrk hadn't considered any part of Shunsui's Bankai even remotely frightening. Instead, the first thought that had sprung to mind when he'd finally witnessed it firsthand—
What a kind Bankai. To be able to die with someone by your side to the very end, to not have to die alone—what a gentle way to go.
He'd thought too, then, that if he were destined to one day die by Shunsui's hand once more, he would ask again for the captain to use his Bankai. So long as they're alone, Shunsui shouldn't have any reason to refuse him a second time. It would be a mercy, and he doesn't think Shunsui would be against being merciful if it gets the job done either way.
And he still thinks that now, though now, he also knows he won't ever ask again, because his second thought had been—
What a cruel Bankai. To always be the last one standing, to always be the one left behind—there is nothing in the world more lonely.
Starrk could never ask it of Shunsui, not anymore, not even if they end up enemies again one day.
A part of him yearns for it anyway of course, because of it, despite it. Perhaps that's what makes him a monster. To see something others would reasonably recoil from, and only wish to call it kind. To see something that would break Shunsui's heart to pieces if ever forced to turn it on him, and wish for it regardless. To see death approach upon a resplendent stage of glorified savagery, and simply think it beautiful.
He'll never ask again, but that makes him no less a monster, so perhaps it's fortunate that Shunsui seems to believe the same of himself, if for different reasons. None of it much matters though when it comes down to it. Starrk doesn't care what kind of monster Shunsui is, and he himself can be any kind so long as Shunsui doesn't mind.
"I saw," He agrees, then continues dryly, "I'd say it was a breathtaking Bankai, but then you’d accuse me of punning.”
Shunsui grins, startled and all the happier for it. "I would never. Pun away. I promise to enjoy the novelty in silence."
Starrk scoffs. Silence has never been in Shunsui's nature. Even when he doesn't talk, his reiatsu hums like a voice hidden in the shadows, beckoning the reckless and the unwary into its domain as it remains just out of reach.
"No need," Starrk says flatly. "I don't pun."
He proceeds to ignore the exaggerated look of disappointment on Shunsui's face in favour of levering himself up into a sitting position before glancing down at their hands. He doesn't retrieve his own, and Shunsui makes no move to release him.
He turns instead to stare out across the sprawling back garden, full of ponds and streams, grass and trees, sunlight and shadows that blend together in seamless inviting harmony. It's probably his favourite place to be in all the known worlds.
"I'll go deal with it tomorrow," He says at last, turning back to Shunsui. "Kotetsu-taichou wants me to go in anyway. They're starting repairs in Sector 82 tomorrow, and there are a lot of underground storage facilities in that area that should still be intact, so they have to clear those out first, but it's difficult to get people in there at the moment. My wolves can help with that."
It's strange, even now, that he can help. That people want him to help.
"Also some of the unseated officers want to spar again," He recalls. "They're pretty weird kids actually, they keep trying to mimic my long-distance attacks with their Kidou. But it's not a bad idea for healers to know how to fend off enemies from a distance, especially when they're busy with patients, so we've been talking about firing off spells without hand gestures. Apparently that's not something Shinigami do? But you know I can do it with my Ceros, and whether it's that or Kidou, it's basically all just manipulating reiatsu, so we figured we could give it a try and-"
He breaks off. Shunsui is watching him with something achingly soft in his single eye, and listening with a patient sort of earnestness that threatens to make a flush rise in Starrk's cheeks.
He averts his gaze. "Well, anyway, we'll see how it goes. But since I'll be there, if people from the Eleventh come by for revenge, I'll take care of it. You don't mind if I humiliate them a little, do you?"
Shunsui gives him a knowing look but obligingly follows along. "The Eleventh needs a little humiliation now and then. A sound defeat would make the lesson stick, at least for a while." He smiles, grey eye warm. "I appreciate it. Thank you."
Starrk grunts noncommittally, then glances down and lightly jostles their hands. "Still not letting go?"
Shunsui's grip tightens again. "Never."
They both know they're not talking about their hands anymore.
Starrk flicks his gaze back up to study the lines in the other man's face, the fatigue in the slant of his shoulders, the way he's been even clingier today than usual. And even besides all that, he knows Shunsui well enough by now to pick up on when he's just complaining about a regular workday and when it's a little more, when the memories weigh a little harder on him, when the empty spaces in Seireitei yawn a little too big, when the voices of the dead echo just a little too loudly.
Today is undoubtedly a little more.
Starrk sighs again but also - before he can second-guess himself - reaches out once more with his free hand and brushes knuckles along Shunsui's jawline, then again with a thumb over the faint bruising beneath the man's eye. He can pinpoint the exact second Shunsui stops breathing.
"Then let go just for now," He says briskly. "Go take a bath. I'll cook dinner tonight. I learned a tofu dish today so you can be my taste-tester and tell me if it's good."
Shunsui stares for a full five seconds before tilting his head into the light press of Starrk's fingers. His grip on Starrk's on other hand is near-bruising for a moment.
"What if it's not good?" Shunsui asks, voice light and teasing even as his gaze remains fervently fixed on Starrk.
Starrk shoots him an unimpressed look. "Lie."
Shunsui's next breath is all laughter, as genuine as before, but this time, it's accompanied by the slump of his shoulders as some of the heaviness draped over him like a funeral shroud falls away, and his grip on Starrk's hand loosens again.
"I can do nothing else," Shunsui concedes without missing a beat. "My wolf is already cooking for me. How can I possibly criticize it?"
Starrk huffs. "As if I ever make you anything you don't like."
"This is true," Shunsui admits before turning his head further to skim a smile across Starrk's fingers. "One day, you'll have to tell me your secret. Or perhaps I brought home a genius chef."
Starrk rolls his eyes. What genius? Shunsui had cooked for him first, and inundated him with all sorts of takeout menus too, when he'd first come to live here, so it hadn't taken any effort to notice what dishes Shunsui preferred, even if the goal at the time had been to try and figure out what food Starrk liked. All Starrk has to do is copy those recipes or pick something he knows will suit Shunsui's palate. For the former, it takes a couple tries to get the taste to match, and for the latter, there are books to help. On top of that, Starrk has free access to a fully stocked kitchen and a bank account with too many zeroes, so it really isn't difficult to whip out a new homemade dish that Shunsui will like every time he finishes figuring one out.
"Come on," He says, finally rolling to his feet and dragging Shunsui up with him. "Bath first. Food will be ready when you come out."
Shunsui doesn't speak this time. He lets Starrk chivvy him inside and into the hall leading to his bedroom, and then he lingers just long enough to tip an indecipherable look at Starrk before finally letting go of his hand and ambling off to go take his bath.
Starrk watches him until he's out of sight, then rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.
Dinner is a cozy affair, as it often is these days, sitting around the kotatsu with food and drink laid out between them. It's quieter tonight but no less comfortable under the warm glow of the lantern lights.
By the time both of them are full, and Starrk has cleared away the empty dishes, and Shunsui is drowsily enjoying a last cup of sake, the moon is hanging high and full in the sky.
Starrk comes back with a fresh pot of tea and - after only a second's hesitation - settles into the space on Shunsui's left, shoulders touching.
Shunsui huffs, but tellingly, he also immediately leans into Starrk. "Do I look that bad today?"
Starrk casts him a swift glance as he pours himself a cup. "No. You look like usual."
His usual bad days, at least, which, on the surface, isn't much different from his good days. Shunsui is very skilled at hiding everything he doesn't want people to see. But Starrk is observant, and he pays attention to Shunsui more than anything, and he thinks Shunsui hides a little less around him too. Most of the time, that combination is enough to allow him to figure out Shunsui's moods.
But that's not why. Shunsui's had bad days before, but he's never taken more than what Starrk had been willing to give each time. The man likes pressing his advantage at every given opportunity, but somehow, he always knows when to stop. And likewise, Starrk has never offered more than he'd felt ready to give, out of pity or anything else. He is actually capable of denying this man, no matter how familiar his damage feels to his own.
"I just want to," Starrk says plainly, hands falling still around his cup as he watches the steam curl lazily upwards. "You can tell me to stop."
Shunsui makes a muffled sound of exasperation into his sake. "I can also take a week off, but that would leave me buried in paperwork and possibly also a shallow grave after Nanao-chan is done with me. Both are equally counterproductive, don't you think?"
Starrk hides a smile and sips at his tea. "I'd come dig you out."
Shunsui snorts. "Why thank you, how thoughtful of you."
Starrk suppresses another twitch of his lips and says nothing else in favour of letting his gaze drift to the star-studded night beyond the open shoji doors.
It's funny how different it is from Hueco Mundo. They're both night, dark and vast and uncaring. But here in the Seireitei, it doesn't feel as oppressive. Maybe it's because the night here isn't forever. The sun will always rise. The light will always come. And even if they don't, the long hours in the dark don't seem quite so bleak if you have someone to sit through them with.
A nudge against his shoulder draws his attention back to Shunsui, who's now peering inquisitively at him while moving to help himself to some tea. "What are you thinking?"
Starrk steals the pot back from Shunsui's grasp for a refill even though he's not finished his first cup yet. If he lets him, Shunsui will hog it all.
"Nothing much," Starrk replies, then sighs when Shunsui pouts at him, but relents and pours the man a cup of tea. "No, actually, I'm thinking why you can't make your own damn tea and always have to drink mine."
Shunsui beams as he gets his tea. "You make it better of course. I simply can't compare."
Starrk scoffs. Someone who's been making tea for at least a thousand years can't compare to someone who hadn't even known what tea was three years ago? It's a good joke.
"You're just lazy," Starrk mutters, which is really something coming from him.
Shunsui chuckles and leans even more heavily against him the way he does in public sometimes when they go out for dinner and he's playing up the harmless drunk act for one reason or another despite being perfectly sober. There's no audience here to put a show on for, but Starrk doesn't push him away, especially when he doesn't continue their banter, and the droop of his head against Starrk's shoulder feels more tired than anything else.
Shunsui's shed the multiple layers of his Shinigami uniform for a simple yukata instead, so he's even warmer than usual against Starrk's side. He's also removed his hat and foregone his eyepatch. His right eye is a filmy faded grey-to-white, and the thick craggy scar that starts at the corner and curves along his temple is much more noticeable like this.
It's not even close to the first time Shunsui has bared various scars in front of him, when it's just the two of them. This is after all Shunsui's house, and if he can't let his guard down here, then he can't anywhere. And then he'd invited Starrk into it, into his home, into his heart, and even now, a part of Starrk still marvels at the way Shunsui never seems to know fear when it comes to these matters.
They drink their tea in easy silence, ensconced in the decadent mountain of pillows Starrk has amassed over the past few months. His host has never seemed to mind swimming through a sea of them every time he has to cross his own living space, and even makes use of them himself when he wants to nap or read or sneak out of the office early but can't get away without bringing his paperwork back too lest he ends up facing his lieutenant's wrath the next day. Somehow, he's more productive getting the stuff done while sprawled out over the pillows than sitting in a chair. Or something. Shinigami are weird.
He isn't surprised when Shunsui finally nods off, empty cup almost slipping from his fingers before Starrk catches it and sets it and his own back on the table. A flex of his reiatsu materializes three of his wolves. One of them goes to nose the shoji doors shut. The other two run off for blankets.
Starrk moves the table to the side, then reaches up to work Shunsui's hair out of its ponytail before carefully easing the man off his shoulder and onto the infinitely more comfortable surface provided by the pillows.
He climbs to his feet and takes the tea set and sake cups back to the kitchen, rinsing them off before doing a round of the house to extinguish the lights. By the time he returns, his wolves are gone, and a pile of blankets have been left to the side.
He takes a few and tucks them around Shunsui's slumbering form. Then he drops back down beside him and begins arranging the rest of the blankets over himself.
Outside, some passing clouds shift, and a shaft of moonlight slices through the doors and across his hands. His movements slow, and for a few seconds, he loses time to memories of an empty desert stretching out as far as the eye can see in all directions and mounds of dead all around him and a lonely sky high up above. The silence is deafening, and before Lilynette, and after her, Starrk remembers the way he would sometimes talk out loud to no one just to remind himself that there was still one person alive. And the rest of the time he wouldn't dare make a sound because the reminder that he was that one person had felt even worse.
He flinches when a hand - still shockingly warm even after all this time - takes his and jolts him back into the present. He looks over, startled, and finds Shunsui watching him through heavy-lidded eyes, always too discerning even when half-asleep.
"Come here," Shunsui murmurs, and Starrk doesn't resist when the man pulls him down beside him.
It's not the first time they've slept together. Only sleep, so far. Sometimes, Starrk sacks out on the couch in Shunsui's office. Other times, Shunsui finds him under a tree deep in one of the forested training grounds in the Seireitei and joins him there. They take naps on the engawa, on the roof, in the pavilion overlooking the lake out back. They have separate rooms - Shunsui had given him his own room when he'd first arrived - but even Starrk had figured out pretty early on that he has an open invitation into Shunsui's bed if and when he ever decides to take him up on it. For sleep or otherwise.
For now, more often than not, they spend their nights sleeping out here on the ever-growing collection of pillows Starrk brings home, and tonight is no different.
Starrk raises his eyebrows at the ceiling when Shunsui lets go of his hand, only to worm his arm beneath both their blankets so he can slide it over Starrk's waist. That is a first. They've fallen into the habit of sleeping next to each other, but they don't touch overly much when they're both planning to sleep.
Today seems to be a day of firsts though. Starrk doesn't protest, and the inconspicuous tension in Shunsui's arm vanishes without a trace as the man tugs him just the slightest bit closer.
The world is quiet again, but no longer overwhelmingly so. Shunsui's shadows whisper secrets in the background, and the man himself radiates a warmth Starrk doesn't know if he'll ever grow accustomed to. He doesn't mind if he never does.
Shunsui's breathing settles into slumber once more, it's rhythm slow and calm and soothing. Starrk counts each one, and like this, it takes nothing at all to follow suit, safe and warm in the cradle of Shunsui's solid frame.