Okay so me and TDW (Creator of the Gin and Cherry story) were talking on DA and the subject of Tosen owning a turtle came up. I got some ideas and decided to make my own pet story but this one is ah…strange like many of my other stories. Van Halen is me and my uke's creation but if you want to draw fan art of him then I won't stop you. :P Review if you want more.
Thank you for reading-
RabidSheep
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This is the story of an egg. Born as normal eggs are often born, from a mother who had a brief fling with a male of the species then kicked the male out when she was pregnant. It has siblings but this is not about them. This egg is torn from the fate of its normal course and placed in a world few will ever see or be aware of even exists. The nest the egg is born to is not in a tree or on a cliff face but rather on the bank of a muddy creek somewhere in south Alabama, USA.
Night had fallen warm and humid and a storm brews violently around its home nest. Lightening cracks as rain pounds and washes the caking of mud over the nest to expose the eggs at the top of the buried pile. The top egg is pushed around in the wind then finally detaches and rolls down into the water. It plops then is swept away in the storm flooded current, coming dangerously close to being smashed against half submerged rocks. Narrow it fate saves the egg from being turned into a scrambled mess in the water. It make it to morning where it is washed upon the bank of the creek like a giant pearl half buried in silt. And now it waits, helpless to what fate may bring.
--
A sandaled foot steps into the wet Alabama grass. The foot belongs to a young shinigami named Shūhei Hisagi whom stands beside the imposing form of Kaname Tosen. Blood trails down the length of Tosen's to drip into the grass as their black robes flap in the wind left over from the storm the night before.
"The hollow has been taken care of." Tosen states, He slowly sheaths his sword into the hilt as his waist. "Return to the soul society and in from them the shinigami for this area is deceased and a replacement is needed."
Hisagi bows and turns to leave. "As you command, Captain." Then he is gone, only a gust of wind as he flash-steps away.
The dark skinned man draws in a deep breath. 'Even the air is wet here.' He muses silently. Something draws his attention forwards through the bushes, a faint beacon of spiritual pressure. An animal perhaps? But it hasn't moved the whole time he has been standing here. Curious he walks forwards to the glint of spiritual essence, but stops as he feels the ground beneath his feet slope down towards the sound of moving water. Odd.
He reaches out with his senses then locates the glint near where he stands. Bending down he reaches out and touches something round and smooth in the mud of the brook's bank. It is warm with inner life.
He digs it out then cradles the egg in his hand as a father might hold a newborn baby.
"What a strange place to find an egg." He remarks to the round object in his hand. "You're a long way from home, aren't you?" Silence is his only answer.
--
"An egg?" A boy in his squad chirps as two of his seated squad members arrive to greet the returning captain.
"Are ya gonna eat it?" A girl asks. Strangely Tosen feels protective over the warm little egg and moves away from the girl.
"No. I'm not going to EAT this egg." He softly growls.
"So you gonna raise a chicken as your pet?" The first boy chimes in.
"I don't know is it's a chicken or not." Tosen retorts.
"So you ARE keeping it as a pet?" The girl says then giggles.
Tosen glares at her , even tho he is blind he manages to look intimidating.
"Don't you people have work to do or something?"
"Oh, Hai!" They say, seeming to get the hint then scamper away.
Tosen walks into his house but stops when he hears someone in his kitchen. There is the oh so familiar sound of banging pots, the hiss of water splashing on to a way to hot stove top, and muttered curses.
"Gin. What did I tell you about cooking in my kitchen?" He gently places the egg on a pillow on his couch.
Gin pops his head out of the kitchen with a cloud of smoke in his wake.
"Ah, C'mon Tosen-san! Kira never lets me use our kitchen. He says I can't cook." Gin sniffs whilst waving around his dirty soup ladle and splattering his already stained cooking apron.
"That's because you don't know how to cook, Ichimaru."
"Oi! I can cook…just not well." He laments.
"Something's burning."
"My muffins!" Gin yells then runs back into the smoke filled kitchen. Many screams, dropped pans, and singed hairs later he emerges with a smoking tray of what once were blueberry muffins. "Ah I managed to save a few! Want one?"
Tosen who had been sitting on the couch and meditating shakes his head in irritation. "No, if they taste anything like the smell."
"Delicious?"
"Burned."
Gin picks up one of the pieces of charcoal from his pan and takes a bite then makes a face and spits it out onto the carpet.
"Did you just spit that out on my carpet?"
"No." Liar liar, pants on fire. Quick, change the subject! "Hey what you got there? A ball?"
"Its an egg. I plan on hatching it." He informs the cooking challenged man.
"So your gonna sit on it?"
"No. I plan on making an incubator."
"Ah that's good because I was having trouble imaging you sitting on it. I think your so obese you would squish it."
"Im not obese." Tousen growls, its true all of the captains of the thirteen court guard squads are wonderfully in shape from daily workouts. Gin shrugs at this.
"Tomato tahmahtoe. Besides your blind so how can you tell?"
"Get out of my house." Tosen snarls. There is a knock at the sliding door followed by Aizen's voice.
"Can I come in, Captian Kaname?" His silky tones leak past the thin door.
"Yeah come in." Tosen calls and he hears the door slide open. Aizen softly shuts the door behind him then sits down beside Tosen on the couch. He looks a mushy black mass on the carpet and frowns.
"Gin did you spit on the carpet, again?" Aizen asks with one eyebrow quirked. Gin shakes his head and tries to motion Aizen to shut up. Tosen looks pissed.
"Uh n-no, that was here when I uh snuck in." He says then cringes as Tosen utters a binging spell. Gin falls into the floor with his arms pinned at his sides by invisible bonds. "Ow…."
--
An incubator was surprisingly easy to acquire. One trip to some farming district that raises chickens sold him a small one. Tosen had set it up with paternal care beside his own bed so he can know it is safe even as he sleeps. He talked to it as he lies in his bed when he knows no one is there is hear him.
"What am I going to name you, little egg?"
He thinks for a moment on names to put on the creature inside that ivory shell.
"How about an English name, becaue you were found in an English speaking country…I know.. Van Halen. Do you like that?" He finds himself asking then egg but then stops.
"I'm talking to an egg." He mutters then falls back into his bed, sleep taking his mind away as the hum of the incubator to his right fills the silent room.
--
"How long have you been cooking that ball under that light." Gin whispers as he and Tosen stand before the incubator.
"Gin, its and EGG. And I'm not cooking it, I'm trying to coax it to hatch. That's why I ran in here when I heard it squeaking."
Gin looks unfazed. "So…how long?"
Tosen sighs and mentally counts the days he had been taking care of this helpless egg named Van Halen.
"About sixty days give or take." He says then turns his attention back to the sound of something clawing around inside the egg. Its hatching! Van Halen is hatching!
Tosen slowly lifts up the top of the incubator and holds the hatching egg in his hands. He feels the baby inside struggling then with a chirp of victory a small head bursts through the shell of the egg and looks at the two men with large black eyes.
It squeaks then blinks its round eyes. Gin faints. Tosen runs his fingers over the small head, feeling its shape and soft texture.
"A turtle. Van Halen is a…turtle." He says softly and the baby turtle makes a happy growling sound in response to being petted. The captain helps remove the left over bits of shell from Van Halen then lies back on his bed with the hatchling on his chest. The turtle is exhausted from breaking free of his shelly prison and soon falls asleep on Tosen, his tiny shell rising and falling as he sleeps so innocently.
Later Kira comes by to pick up Gin and taken him home.
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Van Halen is an Alligator Snapping Turtle. Google pics of em if you want to know his basic shape. D: