Warning: Characters will be off and on OOC in this particular story of mine. Can't help it, that's just the way it has turned out. Mildly angsty, a bit darkly themed, and a whole lot of mind humping poor little Ichigo. Promise I will try and make it have a happy ending, but I don't really know at this point. It can go either way, unfortunately. With that little spill, enjoy.

Edited by my super awesome beta, operagirl76.

My Oxycodone

I was being hunted. I could feel it, deep down in my bones as I moved through the dark streets of Karakura with my head hanging low and my shoulders hunched over against the cold. Not that the fact mattered, really. It didn't even faze me, though in the deepest parts of my mind I was aware that it should have bothered me. It should have set me on edge.

It didn't. It was like, I don't know. Like when you have a hangnail, and it hurts like hell, but you are just too lazy to cut it off. Or maybe when you get that gnawing hunger in your belly that makes you feel sick and you know that you should get up and get something to eat to make the sickness go away, but you just don't because you don't have the energy.

It was something like that. Something. I just didn't care, and I continued not to care when they stepped out from somewhere behind me after I had already stopped walking, staring at a pebble on the ground in disinterest. It was the smallest of things, just lying there on the side of the road by itself and completely out of place. I wanted to kick it, but that would take too much effort, and so I didn't. Instead I sighed, rolled my eyes up to the dark starless sky, and listened as the guy…he must have been their leader or something….rambled on about the dangers of walking alone at night and how he and his friends would just love to educate me on the subject.

Which, of course, only made me sigh again. This was ridiculous; the whole thing was extremely uninteresting. Why did they have to do this? It's almost like whenever I want to be left alone the most, someone always has to just drop right in and ruin it. And, just like everything else in my life, I'm just so tired of it. It makes no sense. It's like my hair was a bright light upon the highest standing lighthouse, gleaming in every direction for people to just slither out of their hell-holes and attempt to do…this, whatever they were doing.

My lack of verbal or physical response must have made that guy really angry because before I really knew it he was charging at me and swinging a bat, a freaking metal bat, at my head with all of his strength. It was…pretty funny actually. The way his beady eyes got all wide and his round face went all puffy and red in his anger. I mean, really? Was someone ignoring his pointless ramblings that infuriating?

I sidestepped the attack easily enough. I mean, I know I should have felt some sort of rise within myself, some sort of heart thudding and speeding up or panic or worry or anything, but I just didn't. It was almost like watching him in slow motion as I moved, my arm instinctively reaching out so that the back of my fist collided with the nape of his neck. I watched, mildly interested, as he stumbled a step before he pitched forward and face planted onto the asphalt.

I half expected the other two to come charging at me as well and I was somewhat disappointed when they didn't. Tch, couldn't they have at least tried? And so I let out a long suffering sigh and continued on, stuffing my hands back into the front pocket of my hoodie, ducking my head once more to trail on the ground.

Yeah. Same boring stuff, just a different boring day.

…..

There is something wrong with me, I think. I just kind of go through the motions now. I can't exactly tell what it is. There's just this never ending gaping hole of nothing settled right in my gut and, for some reason, nothing fills it up. It's irritating, but I stopped trying to figure it out a long time ago.

I smile, I laugh, and I have fun and joke around. The people around me…they don't seem to notice. That doesn't bother me either. Let them be ignorant, let them not see. I don't want them to see, but it wouldn't matter even if they did. It doesn't matter what they would say, what they would do, what looks they would give.

And so I continue on. With the roughhousing whenever friends want to roughhouse, with the jokes and subtle jabs that they want to throw back and forth, with the fake romance bubbling between me and that sweet-faced girl, woman, to whom I owe my life and who in return owes her life to me.

Just going through the motions. That's all. That's all that I need to do, because they all expect me to. They all look at me and see their answer, the wonder teen who will become their savior. Their salvation. I see it in their eyes, their heavy freaking expectations. Their hopes, their wishes, their dreams. A whole boatload of stuff that they just plop on my shoulders with their eyes, no words needed.

There was a time when I didn't mind. There was a time when feeling needed and wanted and stuff like that made me feel proud, made me feel strong. Now it just leaves me tired and drained and aching for something else, something to relieve me of this heavy burden that I have saddled myself with. I don't know when this feeling started.

I'm lying. I have a general idea.

It might have been when Aizen stood so close to me that our bodies nearly touched, those molten eyes of uncanny knowledge boring into my very soul as he murmured words that only I could hear. It might have been whenever I watched him cut down his own subordinates, or when the Soul Society had their most talented Captains dropping like flies around me. It might have even been whenever I woke up from my inner battle to see my father on his knees with his head bent low, trying to keep me as long as possible in the precipice world so that I could master the one last hope for us all.

But, I don't think any of that is right. I don't believe any of that is right at all. Although they might have had some part of it, some little niche of the overall gaping crack that now splits my mind; I know what drove the stake into my mind first. What opened the smallest little crack to allow the rest of it to finally seep in was that one thing, that one thing that was so big a triumph to everyone else, and yet life-changing for me.

It was those eyes, those goddamn eyes. I hated them. They haunt me even now. Resigned, thankful. Even as I went to strike what I thought would be a killing blow, he had held back what could have possibly been a successful defense and had looked at me with such an expression of utter acceptance that I nearly hadn't finished the attack at all.

And then Kisuke had come and bound him and delivered him like a wrapped present to the Soul Society and even though I knew, I knew that he deserved whatever he was given, I still couldn't help dreaming about those eyes and the way they had looked at me, and more than once I have woken up with a heaving chest and frantic eyes.

And life goes on.

…..

"There has been another strange surge in Hollow activity in the last past week."

He's got that stupid fan in front of his face again, and of course the upper half of his face is shadowed by that ridiculous hat and awkward hair. I wonder if he will ever cut it; it doesn't quite look right at the length that it's at. I don't answer at first, my eyes wandering to one of the windows and noting that the sun is starting to fall. It's getting kind of hazy out, that hour right before dark actually starts trying to creep up and replace the fading orange sun. What do they call it? Ah, yes. Dusk. When people comment on how pretty the sunset is and coo over with their lovers at the view. I wonder if maybe I should sit outside and watch the sunset with Orihime sometime. Sounds like something she would just love.

But….that would be too much effort. It's a nice thought though. My eyes return back to the cross-legged form of Kisuke, and I let that little smile that I know he is familiar with crawl onto my face and stuff my hands into the front pockets of my jeans.

"Yeah, well, no problem. I'll just keep fighting them like always. Shouldn't be a real problem anymore, not with Aizen gone."

I wonder, idly, if he hears the way my voice gives the smallest of breaks at the name. If he does, he doesn't mention it and instead reverts back into the old familiar creepy candy shop owner that everyone knows. Sometimes I wonder if his entire personality is fabricated like mine. Possibly. But I don't care enough anymore to actually think about it, and so the thought leaves me almost as soon as it flutters into my mind.

"Don't forget to keep up your training, Kurosaki-kun! You never know when you might need it!"

With that delightful little meeting over with, I leave the store, glad to get away from the overwhelming bite of sweet that always lingers on the air, my eyes sliding left then right before I continue on down the road towards my house. He is right, in a way. I shouldn't allow myself to get too far out of shape, but I just can't seem to muster the energy to care about that either. I train at least twice a week in that damn underground room of Urahara's, and that's just to appease the general populace. After all, they all feel safe when they know that their protector is keeping himself in tip-top shape! Gods forbid I don't train at all. I can't even begin to comprehend the actual repercussions of that. Too many questions, too much general probing.

No. I can appease them with at least twice a week. At least when I train I can let out some frustration. Not like when I get into a fight on the streets. No, then I have to hold back because God forbid I hurt an actual human being.

Life goes on.

Boring day after boring day.

I wish that something was different, that something would happen to snap me out of this continuously monotonous existence that I have fallen into. I wish something would just happen and fill up this nothing that has invaded my stomach.

I should know better than to wish for things like that. Nothing good ever comes out of anything that I wish for.

…..

Hope you like this new one. It's an idea that has been niggling at my mind for a little while now and I have been studiously trying to avoid it…what with all my unfinished stories already….but as always its little voice has gotten louder and louder and, well, here it is.

Anyways. A little OOC. But really, I hope you end up liking it, when the pairing actually comes into play. Reviews are always welcome!