A/N: I was inspired to write an alternate (less sad) ending to this little story.
ALTERNATE ENDING
Orange hair bobs curiously as the substitute shinigami, now twenty-five and a respected doctor like his father, knocks on the doorframe again, puzzling over the lack of response. Ordinarily Toushiro wouldn't keep a guest waiting, and Ichigo knows he's home - there's fresh traces of the frosty reiatsu all over the steps. So after the fifth knock Ichigo merely rolls his eyes and opens the unlocked door.
That is what first sets the alarm bells ringing inside the young doctor's head, but the light is on in the kitchen so he checks there first. It's deserted, and the house is eerily silent. A cold breeze flutters down the stairs, and Ichigo glances up them cautiously. He calls Toushiro's name. There's no answer. But the bathroom light is still on, its warm glow spilling from behind the closed door.
Suspicion strikes fear into his heart, and he bolts up the stairs, throwing his whole weight against the door. It bursts open easily, revealing a scattering of round white tablets on the tiled floor, a plastic bottle with the word Oxycodone on its label lying on its side, the cap on the counter. Toushiro is on his side as well, limp and lifeless on the cold bathroom floor, the bright emerald of his eyes glazed into dull jade, the pupils shrunk to tiny points of ink. There's no smile on his pale face, only a yearning, distant stare, as if he'd been waiting for something that never came.
Ichigo howls and drops to his knees, knowing before his hands even move that there's no pulse, no breath left in this cold, clammy husk pretending to be Hitsugaya Toushiro. The body in his arms is an empty shell. But Ichigo tries anyway, clasps his hands together over the boy's sternum and compresses, ignoring the tears starting to run down his tan face. He's screaming, screaming for the young man he loves as a brother, as a dear friend to come back, his reiatsu spiking wildly in distress. There's no response.
He's still breathing into empty lungs and cracking ribs in an effort to force the cold heart beneath to beat when Unohana rushes in, Matsumoto close behind her. He can feel the captains' reiatsu closing in around them, alarmed by his sudden loss of control, but it's all he can do not to sob as he puffs oxygen into Hitsugaya's chest. The Fourth Division captain shoulders him out of the way with strength far beyond anything even Zaraki possesses, placing both of her hands above Toushiro's heart. Vicious green kido glows from her palms. A defibrillator come out of nowhere.
Hitsugaya convulses on the floor, dull stare rolling. His carotid flutters as blood pumps through the artery
Then there's shouting, and Ichigo is pulling a distraught Matsumoto away as Toushiro is lifted onto a stretcher, a pressurized tube stuck down his throat to force him to breathe. Naxolone is shot into his bloodstream the second Ichigo points out the scattered painkillers on the floor, and through the mess the emergency defibrillator used to shock the young captain's heart back to life is discarded on the floor. The captains and shinigami gathering outside scatter as the emergency response team from the Fourth comes squalling through, Shunpoing the moment they're outside.
Matsumoto screams, clawing at Ichigo's face as she tries to follow the stretcher her captain is strapped into. He takes the blows silently, hoping the nail marks will hide the terror on his cheeks, and just keeps her still. Ukitake looks at the orange-haired doctor with nervous fear on his face. They'd all seen Hitsugaya lying clammy and pale in the cloth stretcher, his body limp.
"Kurosaki-kun…do you know what happened?" he asks. Matsumoto starts sobbing again, but now the fight is leaving her and she sinks to the ground, clutching vainly at her knees. Ichigo rubs at his eyes, then shakes his head in sheer disbelief.
"...overdose." he whispers finally. The tiny little word carries like a snowflake melting on the wind. Realization grips tightly. Ukitake's expression turns pained. The captains look shocked - how could one so strong be brought so low?
"On what?" the sickly, kindly man chokes out. Ichigo sighs.
"Oxycodone."
They wait for him to wake up. All of the captains and lieutenants stand outside his hospital room in various stages of anger, disbelief, and grief etched onto their faces. Soifon is the only one truly furious, but even from across the room Ichigo can tell it's because she's angry at herself for not seeing the signs that they'd all missed. Ukitake and Matsumoto are huddled together with Hinamori in a ball of hurt and help help, where did we go wrong?
Unohana comes out, her dark hair bound back, her expression grieved beyond reckoning. Her face is crumpled with guilt.
"I prescribed it." the whisper is enough to convey her feelings. They try to deny it, try to reassure her. But her guilt runs deep. They all feel that same guilt. It had been noticeable, looking back, when Toushiro had stolen away to the bathroom every five hours. It had been noticeable when he'd started hurting and had to withdraw to assuage his craving. It had been so painfully noticeable that he'd slowly started to stop caring about his life beyond what was in that bottle.
And nobody had noticed. Nobody had fitted these two puzzle pieces together with the polished, perfect image of Captain Hitsugaya Toushiro. Nobody had thought he would fall for what seemed like such an obvious trap. Yet he had. And perhaps that was a testament to the terrible power of addiction. That it could make even the greatest fall.
Matsumoto and Yamamoto follow Unohana in. They're the first allowed to see him, and nobody protests this. It's their right. He's conscious when they walk in, but clearly in distress. There's a trashcan by his bedside, already splashed with puke. He's pale and shaking, whimpering in pain and discomfort, sweating like he has a high fever. He looks miserable, and it's heartbreaking to watch. Even Yamamoto looks mildly troubled by Hitsugaya's obvious suffering.
"...Taicho?" Matsumoto calls softly. Her voice trembles with fear but he hears. He turns weakly to face her, his pulse fluttering in his throat. There's an IV in his arm, and he cries faintly as the needle shifts. His tolerance for pain is shot to hell, and his lieutenant can't stop herself from running to his side. She cups his cheek in a warm hand and just looks at him as his constricted pupils lock on her face.
He stares vacantly - empty eyes, empty mind, empty soul, but please let him still be able to hear Hyourinmaru - through her for a minute, then refocuses his attention. He grits his teeth.
"It's not going away." he cries, and the whimper is a child's plaintive wail for help, an innocent why that resounds like the haunting scream of shrieking wind. "I…It hurts, and I…why? Where…"
His voice dies away, but Matsumoto knows what he's asking for, and it breaks her. She shakes her head, tears spilling down her cheeks.
"No." she tells him. A sob wracks her, spilling blonde from her shoulders like rays of sunset. "You're never touching those damn pills again."
The terror that passes across Hitsugaya's pale little face shakes even Yamamoto from his stupor, and as the young captain blubbers, panicking over the sudden denial of his drug, he stands.
"We will not enable this addiction, Hitsugaya-taicho." he rumbles, but his voice is uncharacteristically gentle. Toushiro stares up at him from the bed, weakened by the withdrawal symptoms to the point of lethargy. He blinks, nonplussed.
"...Addiction?" the confusion is genuine. And suddenly the pieces click into place. Matsumoto bursts into tears.
He hadn't known.
The detox is painful to watch. Unohana has decided to cut the young man off entirely, and so a week passes in which he can't sleep, can't eat, can't even drink. He's in constant pain, his nervous system unused to operating without the powerful opiate suppressing its functions, and he shivers violently. The heart monitor Unohana attaches him to beeps irregularly as he sweats feverishly in the bed, barely able to stand up and walk himself to the bathroom. But they remain strong for him, guiding him through the encompassing agony that is fighting his addiction.
And he fights. He fights like a man possessed once Unohana explains what the oxycodone has done to him - once she explains that his overdose has almost killed him. The breakdowns happen. Anxiety and depression blindside him, crashing through his psyche like a freight train, but with Matsumoto, Hinamori, Ichigo, and every single one of his colleagues behind him he perseveres. He takes each frantic urge he has to reach for the prescription pills in stride and forces it back, most often calling his lieutenant in to help talk him through the roughest patches.
And he gets better. It takes five months of rigorous therapy and a veritable tsunami of support from his Division and his friends, but finally, Unohana hands him a bottle of oxycodone and tells him that if he wants one - just one - he can have it.
Its clear to everyone that he wavers in the way that his fists clench tightly, nearly crushing the plastic, but then he grits his teeth and hands the small vessel back, face contorted in a scowl. Matsumoto feels her heart swell. Ichigo grins broadly. Hinamori starts laughing and hugs Kira, who looks awestruck by Hitsugaya's willpower. But he's done it.
"No." the ice-captain snarls. "I…I don't need that crap."
Unohana can't stop the brilliant smile of her approval from lighting up the whole room.
Hitsugaya walks out of the Fourth high off his own success, and resettles Hyourinmaru on his back with a confident smile. He knows this addiction will haunt him for the rest of his life, and that he may relapse if he ever tastes those little white tablets again. But he's beaten it once. And with a support system like the Gotei 13 (including the obnoxious old man who threatens his suspension 'if you ever scare us like that again') he knows that if he falters, he'll beat it again.
A/N: So, a little more hopeful. This is the outcome you want - the one where you're not dead. So if you're struggling with an addiction - tell someone. GET HELP. You are strong enough to not need any of that mess, and you are strong enough to ask for help. It's the best thing you can do for yourself.
Review, please. Believable? Yes, no, maybe?