Disclaimer : Bleach and all song titles and lyrics belong to their respective owners.
Warning : Language, violence, alcohol use.
Note : I know nothing about drinking or being drunk. I'm eighteen and socially inept - what do you expect? e.e
Dedication : To everybody else who's also never been on a date and thus hasn't the first clue of the differences between "expensive dates" and "cheap dates" and is thereby screwed for the in-class English essay. Also, to my apparent Freudian slip on the word "expensive," of which I seemingly always manage to typo as "expenisive" or "expenisve."

Candy Cane : 6 : Madness

Cry, cry when there's something to cry about... Cry, cry, baby, but don't drown in the sadness...
It's madness.
Don't ask me to explain... Don't take away the pain... It's impossible to save me...
It's madness.
So easy to complain... Nobody left to blame... It's impossible to save me...
Crack in the shield...feels so unreal...no one to blame...for losing the flame...
Crack in the shield, lost in the fields of sadness...
It's madness.

"Do you get a lunch break?"

"Yeah – an hour. I usually don't take it, though."

"Take it today – my treat. I'll meet you outside. Twelve-thirty sound alright?"

"Yeah, sure."

That was the conversation that had taken place just before Ichigo left for work. Since he'd gotten a night's sleep, some food in him, and hadn't thrown up or had any flashbacks, Renji couldn't keep him from going. It wasn't like it was such a bad thing, though. As long as Ichigo was there, Renji didn't have to worry about him as he popped by Urahara's again.

"You any expert on mental illnesses?" Renji asked rather bluntly as the blond man rifled through the money.

Urahara eyed him from under his hat. "Maaaaayyybe. Why?"

"It's Ichigo."

"Ah. Isn't it always," he teased. "I'm assuming you've noticed by now what kind of shape he's in," he added a bit more seriously.

"It's not just shell shock. Normal shell shock doesn't include memory loss or jumpin' like a scared bunny at every unexpected touch."

"Post-traumatic stress reaction," Urahara said plainly. "It's evolved – or devolved – from shell shock. Includes nightmares, flashbacks, insomnia, emotional detachment, clinical depression, memory loss, irritation, hypervigilance, excessive startle response, and loss of appetite."

Renji stared at him. "If you knew, why didn't you say anything?!"

"First of all, you needed to figure it out for yourself, otherwise everything I just said would be nothing but gibberish. Second, I did say something – I tipped you off, didn't I?"

"That hardly counts. You could've done something to help, you know."

"Which brings us to my third point: I'd love to help Kurosaki-san, but I'm not exactly the kind of person he'd accept help from. Nor am I really in any condition to offer sympathy. You, on the other hand, are just the man for the job."

"What's that suppos'ta mean?"

"You're almost exactly like him – you can figure out how to get things working right in his head again." He gave the money to Renji. "You've got him eating again, haven't you?"

"As long as I stay away from burning toast, yeah," he said, pocketing the money.

"It's a trigger, then?"

"He gets a flashback from the district that burned down and throws up when he comes to."

Urahara sighed. "That's a relatively tame one compared to everything else he's been through…"

"Yeah, I know. He was getting flashbacks and nightmares about Shibata Yuuichi, too – I think I've managed to get him over that one since it's a pretty common issue."

"Find more triggers."

"What?"

"For his memory loss – that's the biggest problem we're dealing with here. Find the things that trigger those memories. Hopefully at least one of them will shock his brain into releasing his memories to him. After that, he's going to get worse before he gets better. As long as you're here, though, he should be fine."

"I've only got a week here. We're swamped with paperwork and all sorts of things. This was the earliest I could get off and they're only allowing me to stay for a week unless a major assignment comes up."

Urahara seemed to contemplate this for a moment. "I think saving Soul Society's greatest hero from himself counts as an assignment."

Renji waited outside the boring-looking building, constantly checking his watch (okay, it was Ichigo's watch, but since it was lying around, it fell into Renji's possession). He was five minutes early, but he'd already scouted out the nearby restaurants and eateries, and now he had nothing to do. So he waited. But not for long.

"You're early," Ichigo said, coming out of the building.

"So're you," Renji retorted. "You doin' okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Where are we gonna go eat?"

"Mmm… There's a pizza place that smelled really good, and there were tables outside. Sound good?"

Ichigo shrugged. "Sure."

They took off walking towards the pizza place.

"So what kinda work you do in there?" Renji asked. "Seemed pretty boring."

"It is boring. I do data entry."

"Sounds like paperwork…"

"I sit in front of a computer for eight hours, repetitively entering in numbers into a database. I'd almost rather work with paper – it wouldn't give me such a damn headache."

"If you hate it so much, why don't you get a different job?"

"It's not that easy. Thanks to the war, I still have two years of school I need to finish before anybody will look at hiring me for a job with a pay higher than minimum wage. My only real options are boring shit like what I'm doing or working at some fast food place, and I'm not exactly the people-friendly kinda person, if you haven't noticed."

"Well that kinda sucks…"

"You're tellin' me… Is this the place?"

"Yep!"

After they ordered their pizza, they waited at one of the tables in the patio.

"I talked to Urahara again," Renji said, trying to be off-hand about it.

"'Bout what?"

"You. What you're going through. He actually had an answer for me, which is surprising."

"Let me guess – you can't tell me?"

"I could, but you'd just deny it."

"Tell me anyway."

Renji sighed. "It's an extreme form of shell shock. Post-traumatic stress reaction."

Ichigo looked at him, frowning. "It…sounds so tame like that."

"Not the way he said it. He listed off the symptoms, and you're showing every single one of them."

The boy suddenly seemed very preoccupied with the pattern of the table top for a long minute. "Is…there any way to cure it?"

"Urahara said to deal with the memory loss first, then we could move on from there. But that's your biggest problem right now."

"How…"

"Let's eat first," Renji said, nodding his head to the arriving pizza.

They ate in silence for a few minutes. Ichigo nibbled away at his piece, lost in his thoughts. Renji watched him as he ate his own piece, making sure the food was at least disappearing, even if at a painfully slow pace.

"Ichigo, let me talk with him. Tell him I can help."

Ichigo looked up at Renji. "Shirosaki wants to talk to you."

Renji blinked at him. "Why?"

"He says he can help."

"How?"

The boy sighed. "Hold on – you can talk to him yourself…" he said, closing his eyes.

"You're letting him take over?"

"It's not like that – my body can act as a transmitter for him."

Renji watched him, not exactly trusting this method.

Ichigo's eyes slowly opened again, though his irises were a yellow-gold instead of deep brown. "You need this to happen as fast as possible, right?" The voice was Ichigo's, but with a very different attitude that Renji couldn't quite place.

"That would be the ideal pace, yeah."

Shirosaki smirked. "Normally memory loss for this long would be virtually irreparable. But what's traumatic to the will isn't traumatic to the instinct. As Ichigo's embodiment of his instinct, I still have every memory he doesn't, but even if I just told him or showed him, he wouldn't be able to see or hear it. His consciousness won't allow him to. It's protecting him from the pain, and I don't blame it. As soon as he gets those memories back, there's gonna be a serious storm in his inner world and I'm not gonna be a happy camper."

"Get to the point – what can you do to help?"

"You don't need to know what I'm going to do – you just need to get him sedated and under your control. As soon as I start, he's going to…get a little wild. It's your job to keep him from hurting himself."

"Any suggestions on how to sedate him?"

He smirked again. "Getting a few drinks in him should do the trick."

"One more question."

"Yeeeees?"

"Is Ichigo hearing everything?"

A rather evil grin. "Iye. And he's pretty pissed about it, too."

Renji smirked. "Alright. Is that all?"

"Don't hurt him – only I have the privilege of fucking with his head." With that, he closed his eyes.

Seconds later, Ichigo's eyes opened, back to brown. "Did that help?"

Renji nodded with a reassuring smile. "We'll get you through this, I promise."

Ichigo nodded slowly, understanding. "A—"

"Don't," Renji cut him off. "I don't want you to thank me. I'm only doing what any good friend would do."

A small smile played on the boy's lips. "Fine. But I don't think I wanna go back to work. Letting Shirosaki have control is a bit draining."

"What do you want to do, then?"

"Whatever you and Shirosaki have planned. I'm willing to go through with it, so what we do is up to you."

"You might wanna call in sick for the rest of today and tomorrow, then. I don't think you'll be in any condition to work for at least that long."

He nodded and dug out his phone.

"Why Urahara's?" Ichigo asked as they jumped along the rooftops in their shinigami forms. They had gone back to Ichigo's apartment and left their corporeal forms there.

"The underground training area is the only place we're allowed to lift the limit."

"How'd that get authorized?"

"Very carefully. It's not in name, but we were able to get a new law in place allowing the lifting of the limit in a place under very specific conditions – conditions that only his training ground has."

"Wait – I'm fighting you at a hundred percent?"

"That's right."

"Is that…necessary?"

"As far as you know, yes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Renji didn't answer as they moved to the streets and ended up at Urahara's shop. Several minutes later, they were fighting head to head.

"We'll be out of the house until tomorrow evening. Make sure to lock up after you come inside. And try not to destroy anything outside of the underground training room."

"One more question…"

"You know where the liquor cabinet is. All I ask is that you at least restock a few bottles or so."

"Right. Thanks, Urahara."

It had taken several hours, but they were both finally exhausted. Renji helped Ichigo back upstairs to the guest bedroom, which was empty save for the futon in the corner, a small table, and a few pillows.

"At least you didn't bring up anything this time," Ichigo said with a slight groan as he accepted the sake bottle from Renji. "Fucking hell… Haven't done that in a while…"

"You're still not at your best, though," Renji pointed out, taking a drink from his own bottle.

"What do you expect?" the boy snapped before taking a swig of his sake.

"Actually, you were a bit better than I expected. You're recovering okay – physically at least. Eating something other than noodles and Cheerios is helping."

"Yeah. I just wish I could say I'm feeling better. I still feel like shit."

"That's to be expected. You won't get over that for quite a while."

"That's reassuring."

"I'm not trying to be reassuring. I'm trying to let you know what to expect."

"And yet… you can't tell me what you and Shirosaki have planned."

"Well, no, but that's only because telling you would ruin everything."

"Even though I'm perfectly willing to go through with anything?"

"Just shut up and drink…"

Renji wandered over to Matsumoto's house, tracing Ichigo's reiatsu there. The red-haired man had been in the infirmary for the past few hours and still wasn't quite recovered. Ichigo would have stayed but Unohana showed him the door, saying that his agitated reiatsu wasn't something the recovering shinigami needed to feel. No doubt Ikkaku and Iba had shown him the way to the land of oblivion once again…

"Renji!"

The man looked down to find Ichigo sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, a nearly empty bottle in his lap. "Shitfaced again?" he asked with a smirk.

"I'm not that drunk," Ichigo replied, a childishly indignant pout on his face.

"Well, you connecting 'shitfaced' to mean 'drunk' is a good sign," he teased, sitting down next to him.

Ichigo watched him, a stupid smile on his face. "Did Kaa-chan-taichou fix you up all better again?"

"Yep." Renji took the bottle from Ichigo's lap, only to have the boy grab for it rather ineffectively. He teased him with it for a moment before Ichigo lost his balance and toppled into Renji's lap.

"Teme…" Ichigo whined.

"No more. Go to sleep – you're gonna have a nasty hangover anyway," he said, softly petting him.

Ichigo's eyes drifted closed. "That was only my first one, though…"

Ichigo's tolerance had increased as the war dragged on. At this point, he could get through two bottles before he started babbling stupidly – which was exactly the point they were at when Ichigo somehow ended up in Renji's lap, leaning back against him as the older man's arms were wrapped around him.

"You're comfy…" Ichigo murmured.

Renji gave a small smile. "Don't worry, this'll be over soon," he said softly.

Ichigo attempted to look up at him, dazed and confused. Then suddenly, his eyes went wide before shutting tightly. "Oh God… Oh God, Renji, make it stop – make him stop!"

The man sighed, tightening his embrace, keeping his arms down. "I'm sorry, Ichigo…"

The boy bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, whimpering as tears streaked down his face. "This can't be real…!" he choked out. "It's not real!! Cut it out—CUT IT OUT!!"

Renji grimaced – the pure pain in Ichigo's voice was almost enough for him to yell for Shirosaki to stop. But he couldn't – it would do more harm than good – so he held his hand over Ichigo's mouth as the boy screamed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Song Title and Lyrics: The Rasmus "Madness"
Vocabulary...

Kaa-chan-taichou: "Captain Mommy"

Words: 2279
Total: 13315