Act Five: How to Save a Life

Let him know that you know best

'Cause after all you do know best

Try to slip past his defense

Without granting innocence

Lay down a list of what is wrong

The things you've told him all along

Pray to God, he hears you

And I pray to God, he hears you

And where did I go wrong? I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness

And I would have stayed up with you all night

Had I known how to save a life

How to Save a Life - The Fray

"Take your time okay? There's no rush. I'm here for you. I want to help."

I don't want to talk. I never want to talk about it. So I don't talk. I won't talk ever again if it means I don't have to talk about it.

"I want you to know I'm on your side. There's nothing you can tell me that will ever change that, okay?"

Ha, yeah right. If only you knew.

"It's okay to feel scared. You've been through a lot for someone so young. What you're doing now is a good step though. You can heal if we work together."

I wish she'd shut up. As if she knows anything. I can't wait to leave so I can get high.

"You know, when I was your age, something similar happened to me. Someone I trusted took advantage of that trust. It was truly violating. At the time I blamed myself. 'How could you be stupid enough to fall for that crap?' That's what I used to tell myself. It took me a long time to realize that it wasn't my fault."

Looking at her makes me want to die. Her sweet smile and kind eyes make me hate myself even more. If she got over it why can't I? Why am I such a fuck up?

"If you take nothing else away from this session, that's what I want you to know. It's not your fault, alright?"

How could it not be my fault? Was I not the one who put myself in that situation? I made myself vulnerable; I was naive, gullible. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to belong. It was my decision. So whatever happened has to be my own fault. Right?

"Take all the time you need. Whenever you're ready, I promise I'll be here."

Dr. Momo Hinamori. Probably the nicest woman I've ever met. I took advantage of that. I lied to her to get drugs. It was easier and much safer than dealing with fuckheads like Maki, but it was still wrong. She almost lost her right to practice because of me. I could never keep my destruction to myself, especially not back then. I'm such a parasite.

Looking up at the familiar sign outside her office, I feel like I'm going to drown in a wave of nausea. I have to know what it is she wants from me though. It must be extremely important.

I push the door open and walk in. She has the same receptionist, and he gives me the same blank stare that he always did. He definitely does not have the personality for this job.

"Hi, Toushirou. Been a while, huh?" His frown somehow deepens and I'm honestly intimidated though he's much smaller than I am.

"Ichigo Kurosaki. I'd say it hasn't been long enough. I won't dwell on it, however. It's very important that Momo speaks to you. Please wait while I notify her of your arrival."

I nod, not bothering to get upset about his low key diss. It's not like I don't deserve it. I make my way to the waiting area and sit down. I stare at the television on the wall that's always playing MSNBC. The world is so shitty; that's something that'll probably never change as long as humanity still exists. No matter what I'm going through there's always someone going through something worse. I guess that's why I could never take therapy seriously. My trivial problems don't matter in the grand scheme of things. What right do I have to sit on a fancy couch and whine to someone about my bullshit while someone else is hiding in a bomb shelter or lying in a train station on the brink of death from starvation? It's nonsense.

I grow more uncomfortable as the time passes while I wait for Dr. Hinamori. My thoughts drift to Grimmjow for some reason. He says he's still here for me. Maybe I should take that to heart. He did make someone who I hadn't spoken to in years say something to me. Then again, maybe he just doesn't realize how bad I am. I literally don't know how to be better; I wouldn't even know where to start. He says he can handle it, but everyone says that before shit gets real. I'm just tired of people thinking they can fix me. Dr. Hinamori, Grimmjow, my dad and sisters. It's all the same. I'll just end up hurting them in the end. It's best to just leave me alone.

"Well, haven't you become quite the sight for sore eyes?" I look up and see Dr. Hinamori, her smile just as sweet as it was all those years ago. I try to lessen my scowl a bit, just for her. She gestures for me to follow her and I stand letting her lead me into her office.

Everything is pretty much the same; there's her large mahogany desk with photos of her dog, the two tall bookshelves on either side of it filled to bursting with books. The myriad of plants she keeps because "it's always best to be surrounded by living things". Her framed degrees on the walls; the mauve chaise that matches the drapes over the window. I start to feel claustrophobic as memories of the reason why I started coming here in the first place flood my mind.

"Are you alright, Ichigo?"

I nod trying to choke down the bile that I feel rising at the back of my throat as sweat breaks out all over my body. I hate that I'm like this. I must look like a fucking case.

"I - I'm fine, Dr. Hinamori," I say, my voice quivering. I breathe through my nostrils, closing my eyes as I start to shake from the effort of trying not to lose it. I open my eyes and she's giving me that look that I always hated. The one that means she knows I'm on some bullshit.

"Sit with me, Ichigo." I shake my head.

"Really, I'm okay."

"Have a seat, Ichigo. Now."

The stern tone in her voice scares me even more than Toushirou's frown, so I follow her instructions and join her on the chaise. She takes my hands in hers, looking into my eyes.

"Copy what I'm doing, okay?" I nod and she starts to inhale and exhale, slowly and deeply. I follow her actions, and I can feel myself calming down. "Just listen to my voice. We are here together. You are safe. Nothing is going to happen to you."

After another minute of deep breathing, I finally stop shaking and she lets go of my hands. I feel so embarrassed for freaking out like that. I get so sick of my shit.

"There's no reason to be ashamed. It's honestly my fault. I didn't consider that this place might be a trigger for you. I apologize."

Jesus, is she a psychiatrist or a telepath? "It's okay. It's my own fault for being such a weirdo," I reply, with a nervous chuckle, rubbing the back of my neck.

"I see we haven't stopped the negative self talk," she scolds, and I can feel myself blushing. She sighs and stands up to sit at her desk. Once she's settled, she looks at me in that way that only she can that makes me feel like I'm completely exposed. "I'm sure you want to know why I reached out to you after all these years, given the circumstances of the dissolution of our relationship. Believe me, it's of the utmost importance."

This shit has me nervous as hell. I'm about to have another panic attack.

"It's about your sister."

My eyes widen, and I immediately start fearing the worst. Depending on which sister she's referring to, that is.

"A colleague of mine reached out to me and told me she'd be treating you. It made me happy to hear that, even though it didn't work out. But I know you'll get better when you're ready so I'm not worried. Your sister, however. . ."

"Which one?" I ask, the sweat beading up once again as I wait for her answer.

"It's Karin."

My heart sinks, as if I didn't already know what she was going to say before I asked the question. No matter how much I thought I mentally prepared it still hurts. I know it's my fault. Whatever happens to either of them is my fault.

"Is she. . .did she - ?" I can't bring myself to form the question because I just don't want to hear the answer. Dr. Hinamori gets up from her desk and comes to sit beside me again.

"She's going to be okay. You have a very resilient family, Ichigo. It was a particularly close call though. She was doing so well. She'd been clean for almost six months. She and Toushirou were actually trying to work on things again. But something happened. Your friend Tatsuki is the one who found her."

Tatsuki. There's a name I haven't heard in a while. Dr. Hinamori is delusional if she thinks that girl would ever consider me a friend.

"Okay. So why are you telling me this?" I ask. I mean honestly, Karin doesn't need me. If anything I'd just make things worse for her being around. Nobody needs me.

"I know what you're thinking. She doesn't need you and you'll only make things worse." She chuckles slightly when I give her a shocked look. But seriously it's not funny how she can read me like this. It's actually terrifying. "Well, I think you're wrong. Karin, Yuzu, your father. They all need you. They miss you. They want you back in their lives. I just know it. That's why I called you. Karin is at the Shady Oaks Rehabilitation Center. Please, go and see her. I feel like just seeing you will help her."

I shake my head. Now I know she's delusional. "Dr. Hinamori, I can't. I mean, what would I even say to her, huh? What could I say to her in the sorry state I'm in?"

She just smiles that same sweet smile that makes my stomach churn, her eyes soft but stern. "Do you want to know what she said to me the last time we saw each other? She said she wished she knew where you were. Not because she wanted to scold you or make you apologize, even though she definitely should. But because you're her brother and she just wants to know that you're okay. She said that she'd give anything just to hear your voice or see your smile or for you to pat her head the way you used to when she was young and she'd tell you to cut it out even though she never wanted you to stop. She'd kill to hear you tell her you love her and to be able to tell you the same. And I usually don't disclose this kind of information but I'm being selfish because I want my wish to come true too. I want to see you all reunited. Because I know you miss them just as much as they miss you."

This is making me want to jump out of the window, if I'm being honest. Why do they still care after all I've put them through? I get it, we're related and all that. But there's only so much bullshit you can put someone through, family or not. I mean, it's my fault Karin got strung out to begin with. I was such an idiot thinking that drugs would help her. I just didn't think, like usual. She was hurting and I had pills. Pills led to other things and before I knew it she was gone. As if it wasn't enough that I caused one of my sisters to be violated, I had to go and get the other one addicted. I'm probably the worst big brother on the planet.

"I know you don't think very highly of yourself, but you're still her big brother and she still loves you. So if you could just consider it, maybe?"

Dr. Hinamori looks so hopeful; I suppose the least I could do is tell her I'll think about it. I nod my head and she smiles again before she goes to her desk and grabs a business card. She hands it to me and I look down at it feeling the bile rising in my throat again.

"Thank you, Ichigo. And thank you for taking my call. I hope to see you again sometime."

I don't know what to say so I don't say anything. Just nod as I stare at the business card. The name of this place is the same name that was on the notebook that Grimmjow tried to give me. If I'm going to do this, I'm gonna need some emotional support. I can't ask Shinji because he's almost as bad as I am with this stuff, but he's pretty much my only friend. I'm terrified to ask Grimmjow for help but what other choice do I have? I can't do this alone.

Before I know it, I'm already standing outside his door.

I'm distracted from my cooking when I hear light knocking on my door. Obviously it's a little strange to me because I don't get a lot of visitors. I turn the heat down under the dutch and make my way to the door. All I see is a very familiar shade of orange when I check the peephole and my breath hitches. I undo the chain lock and open the door, tentatively. Sure enough, Ichigo is standing before me looking like he's about to die from anxiety. He keeps his eyes on the floor, picking at a loose thread on his hoodie.

"Uh. . .hi? I'm - uhh - I'm sorry to bother you, but I just. . ." He shakes his head and backs away before I even get the chance to ask what's going on. "I'm sorry, it was stupid of me to come here. I'll leave you alone."

I might be panicking slightly, so I reach out to grab his arm maybe a tad too urgently. I feel his bicep tense and let go like it bit me. I have a feeling other muscles responded too; calves ready to push off, delts hunching over with protection, hyoids choking down whatever brought him here back to his stomach to fester. I'm not sure how it's possible for him to be thinner than he was six weeks ago. Even so, he's passed clear through lean and moved all the way to gaunt. I step back to the doorway and hope I haven't already frightened him off.

"Sorry, just - well, hey. Can we wind that back a bit?"

He blinks, staring at me as hard as someone can with only their peripheral vision. Thinking, weighing, arguing with both better and lesser sense. He picks at a scrape on the back of one hand and flashes his eyes at me.

"I shouldn't have come," he settles on saying, but doesn't make the well-planned break for the staircase.

"Can't decide that until you tell me why you did, can you, Ichigo?" I ask quietly. Then, a gentle power play: I step back against the face of the door, giving him a wide berth to come inside. A corrupted Dike in the crumbling colosseum of his mind, calling him to her in the shadows. I wait, because there's no better option. After what feels like hours, he slowly turns around and slinks past me, eyes still somewhere else entirely. I close the door and follow his anxious steps to the living room.

Now what?

I try what seems most natural: going back to the burner and praying to what-the-hell-ever that my fond hasn't gone so dark that I have to debase myself and call a quality fricassee a stew. He stares absently across the bar separating us for a bit, watching me add butter and cook the mirepoix. The roux is gold and I have stock and gris at the ready when he finally speaks again.

"You seem like you know your way around...that. I mean, cooking." His eyes and face have softened a bit. Under the warm stove light his face looks younger, boyish even.

"Thanks," I lean back, adding the alcohol to burn off, then the stock. Once it's at a simmer and the lid is on, I turn more attention to him. His face tightens a bit again.

"I've always liked cooking, but I'm cursed," I say, moving around the bar to the sofa. Slowly, he lowers himself into the wing back chair, a very calculated safe distance away.

"What do you mean? It smells pretty good to me."

"My curse is that I was meant to cook for an army, not a single bartender. I can't make anything less than fourteen servings at once. The American in me, I guess," I grin. He snorts softly, rubbing the back of his hand under his nose. He looks into his lap with the ghost of a smile, anxious fingers at work.

"I can't cook for shit. When we were kids-"

He stops abruptly - unnaturally. He is somewhere far, far away from me and the fricassee. Maman is much better trained for whatever is about to happen. I try to think like her, ease into the grace of her experience. It doesn't work.

"I didn't know you had siblings," I offer, letting the silence bloom.

"Twin sisters," he whispers, coming back just enough to respond before he's in the ether again. Then, "I wasn't very good to them."

"You don't seem like that kind of person to me. Does...do they have something to do with you coming here, Ichigo?"

His head whips up, brows furrowed, mouth slightly parted. He's on his feet soon after.

"I have to go-"

"You don't," I say too loud, but manage to keep my damn hands to myself this time. "You don't have to."

"Well I sure as fuck can't stay," he croaks, an arm wrapping around his middle like it hurts.

"I always wanted siblings," I spit.

Now I view him from my peripheral, looking at the legs of the wing back chair. A concession to my upbringing. Not a bad one, just empty. Halls and wings echoing the silence of gentility. I know I'm doing exactly the wrong thing - turning inward, giving information, taking time. The word vomit burns coming up.

"I wanted a little bit of a mess, if that makes sense. You know how you can find a sense of home in other people? An identity, even, especially in your family. How they know you the way only they can know you. It's a scary thought, being so understood. Scary and liberating, at the same time. In my head at least."

I peek at him, realizing how bad I've botched the operation at this point, only to find him sitting again in the chair, chewing on an already battered lip. He curls his legs up deftly with a glance at me.

"I've never thought of it like that. But I guess you're right, in a way. I was a brother before I was much else, right? You start to think about yourself that way. Maybe that's why when you mess up that vision they have for you it hurts so bad. Because it's been a part of you for so damned long."

My chest tightens a little with something close to that scary and liberating feeling I talked about earlier with too many, not enough words. Before I can respond, I feel my pocket vibrate and pull it out to turn the timer off.

"Bad segway, but remember how I mentioned I can only cook for a clan?"

"The curse," he smiles.

"Hungry?"

He pauses, closing his eyes with purpose. When they open, I see what a wonderful brother he must have been sometimes.

"Starved," he says dotingly.

We sit at the bar and I see, doting or not, he was starved. I wonder how long it's been since he had food - a real meal, protein, nutrients. Butter. But I'm sure to focus on my own dish instead. No one should be embarrassed about being hungry. He sops up the remaining fatty liquid with bread and I can't help but scoff and ruin it all.

"Pretty fucking pathetic, huh," he leans back, curling into himself.

"Actually, I was thinking that any French mother would be proud to have you at her table," I mumble behind my napkin.

"How do you figure?"

"Bread is a conduit for sauce and gravy. Which can be difficult to collect with utensils, but above all else, should never be wasted. They print that in French Bibles, you know."

His laughter is the sweet chime of a bell just fixed after years of neglect. With only a breath of his former hesitation, he picks up the end of the roll and runs it along the bottom of the bowl. The sigh as he chews is enough to make me feel like I didn't do so bad after all. We sit in the quiet, stuffy warmth of a well used kitchen.

His smile doesn't fade. I don't realize he's crying until it's too late to prepare myself.

"My sister just relapsed. She wants me to come see her and I don't know what to do. How sick is that?"

I've never met someone who could cry beautifully, experience pain with unyielding patience. His voice is clear, face unpinched, presented with the most powerful of emotions. He looks at me more fully than I think he's ever looked at me, at the peak of vulnerability, but I feel exposed.

I meet his eyes anyway.

"Let's go together."

I can see it processing, moving from department to department. Review, testing, quality control. Fax machines, supervisory review and red tape hold in what may be hope.

"You wouldn't do that," he says. He sounds pretty damn sure.

"I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't mean it, Ichigo."

He contemplates my response for a second. I watch his brow furrow and his teeth assault his lip again. That string on that hoodie finally gives in to his tugging, and he twists it around his pinky as he continues to wrack his brain as if the idea of me wanting to be supportive of him is literally breaking his mind. Then finally, he releases a tight breath. He nods as his eyes meet mine.

"She's at the place where your mother works."

"Even better. How's Friday? They have a little event for family members." That's three days away. Gives him time to run, but also time to decide not to. I think it's pretty fair. At first, he doesn't look like that suggestion is one he's interested in, but then he steels himself; finds his resolve.

"Yes.

Thank you to kurokun, the love of my life. Thank you for reading.

Until next time,

Patd06