Overdoing it
So yeah, maybe he should get over Kuroko. He knew that. He did not like to think about it but he knew that´s what everyone wanted. They just did not know what that meant for him. Hell, he did not know what that would mean just … a lot of pain. He was sure about that. Was it so wrong he did not want to face that? Who would actually invite in his own nightmares with nothing but the small hope that his life might be better afterwards? It might also be worse. He had enough nightmares as it was, thank you very much.
Getting over Kuroko would mean therapy. It would mean talking. That would immediately lead to talking about his family, his childhood … he could really do without that. Sure, he wanted to be better. It would be nice to not always be the asshole who let everyone down. If he went into therapy, Satsuki would be ecstatic. Even Kuroko might call to congratulate him. He did know that he had problems but … he had no hope that therapy would change anything. Hell, he had no idea where to start if he did go into therapy. He knew they would ask for a concrete goal – he got that from the first hundred times Satsuki had talked about therapy – and he had none but something vague like “I wanna be less of an asshole”. Which was shit anyway because what should he be instead? Some lovey-dovey guy like Kagami? Kuroko was taken, there was no one to change for.
He wished Satsuki had never asked him about marriage. Was she really interested in him that way? If she was, why the heck should he change? Because it was right and good and because he would never let himself marry her with his current attitude? Really, if he wasn´t himself, he would beat up the guy that thought about marrying his best friend with that kind of shitty behavior. He would not marry her because he would not treat her right. Hah, he had an actual answer! That even sounded like shit good guys like Kagami would say. Not that he would have to say it, he wasn´t an asshole, but the point still stood. If she ever asked again, that would be his answer.
No, it wouldn´t. She would follow up with the possibility of changing. That was not a good lane to go down. She would talk him into getting therapy, he just knew it. She would guilt-trip him until he went and then he would be forced to talk and he did not want to. He could not even answer their introductory question. What did he want to change? He wanted to change the past. He wanted to be a better brother, he wanted his baby brother alive, he wanted his baby-
No. He was not going down memory lane. He was not going to therapy. He would never think about that baby he had killed with his own hands or he would be severely tempted to hack them off or shit like that. Not gonna happen. He turned up his music, trying to hammer those thoughts out of his mind. It never worked. Oh well, sometimes it did. But not when he got this low, that´s when he needed alcohol. Wasn´t there anything left? Maybe he could go out, find some homeless person and pay them or something. Or he could go to a bar, pick up some woman, have her order some drinks and shit or get smashed at her place.
Sounded like a great plan. He got up, grabbed his jacket and some condoms and left.
Okay, maybe they all were on to something. Maybe Kuroko had not told him himself because he knew he would need someone in the aftermath. At the wedding, it had been Kuroko himself. This time it should have been Satsuki but Aomine had destroyed that possibility all by himself.
So here he was. Satsuki was crying her eyes out, his coach looked close to exploding and the nine-month-pregnant Himuro Tatsuya of all people was standing in the back of the room. What the ever loving fuck. The room but more importantly the intravenous needle told him that he was in a hospital. Seeing as he did not remember much after the second bottle of whiskey and that brunet women- oh no, actually, he remembered her husband showing up but he did not remember getting hit. Lucky him. It did nothing to alleviate the pain in his jaw and rips now. Unlucky him.
“Aomine Daiki! Do you know what scandal you caused with this trip?” His coach yelled.
The blue-haired just winced and scrunched his eyes shut again. Why had he woken up again? Maybe he should just stay asleep for the rest of his miserable life. But no, Satsuki would cry next to his bed every day, just like she did now. He turned his head to look at her, knowing she was the only one in the room that actually counted. The coach continued to scream but it was her silent “Why?” that got him to say: “I´m sorry for worrying you.”
That got the coach to shut up, staring at him in pure astonishment. He never said sorry, he knew that. He just behaved like shit and hoped people would forgive him and know he was sorry without having to say it … saying it would mean people could actually remind him that he sometimes did shit and knew so. It came down to that therapy thing again. Saying sorry never made it better, so he had long stopped trying. But bringing himself into a hospital, that was a new level of foolishness and Satsuki had a right to remind him of this fuck-up. Banging a married women in her own house, getting smashed with her husband´s booze – that was low, even for him. He hoped that was all that had happened.
“What do you remember?” She asked in a small voice, knowing he must have a splitting headache.
“I had a shitty day, so I went out to pick up some woman. We got drunk at her place, had sex, drank more … she suddenly said something about having a husband and that one came in seconds after. I don´t remember anything after that.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was her way of holding back from screaming, he knew. It also meant she was too angry to simply scream at him. Leaving the room would have been worse but this was bad as well. She finally nodded and said: “He assaulted you. Your nose and two rips are broken. You are to remain in hospital for a week. You will not be allowed to play basketball for three months.”
“Three months?” He shouted, only to cough and cringe at the pain that shot through him. Ough, shit … broken rips. Damn fucking rips. “I played with broken rips before, I´m good after a month.”
“You will do no such thing. You will stay at home, your lady here will look after you and you will start therapy next week. This is a requirement for being allowed to play again. This is not negotiable” His coach informed him.
“Like fuck I will-”
“Daiki!” Satsuki stood, suddenly an imposing threat by his bedside. “Be happy they don´t fire you for this. This is your second chance. Do not fuck this up.”
Ugh, yeah … she did have that side. Girls did not swear but Satsuki did when she was really, really angry. It silenced his coach who stared at her with a hanging jaw. That Himuro guy in the background just smiled, seemingly amused.
Well … therapy. No one could make him talk, right? He had to attend, okay, but he would definitely not talk. So he snorted and turned his head. His coach and Satsuki shared some silent communication before the man took his leave, telling him to “get well soon”. Asshole. His whole life was fucked up, there was neither “get well” nor “soon” in sight. Himuro took this as an opportunity to step near.
“How long until birth?” Aomine asked to divert the topic, trying to be nice for a second instead of asking “What the fuck do you do here?”.
“With the length of contractions, it will be tomorrow or the day after.” The guy sat on a stool as if he hadn´t just said his body had already began to push out a baby. Ugh. Omegas had nerves of steel. “Kagami called me. I am to look after you as long as I can because Tetsu is crying his eyes out.”
Ough. Shit. Aomine´s stomach sank. Kuroko … he would be blaming himself. Damn, he had not thought about that. He had not thought, that was the fucking problem all the time.
“Daiki, please go to the therapy. If not for me, then for him.” Satsuki looked at her lap, wringing a handkerchief in her hands. “You are hurting your friends with your behavior.”
What had he said about guilt-tripping him into therapy? Damn her. He had just given her fuel. He turned back to Himuro and said: “I am not going to storm out of the hospital to do shit. Look after yourself.”
“It´s nice to have someone to distract me from the pain.” The man smiled, then grinned. “Was that women worth the pain?”
“Huh?” The fuck? “No.”
“Was the booze worth the pain?”
What exactly was wrong with this guy? He said instead: “Not exactly.”
“Was being able to forget for a while worth all this?” Himuro made a round-about motion with his hand, indicating he meant the hospital.
Blew, therapy talk. He hated that crap. So he groaned and closed his eyes. Let them talk to his unresponsive self. Satsuki cried though, a deeply pained noise before getting up and saying: “Sorry, I can´t take this now.”
Good god, women. Why were they always so emotional? It were just two rips and a nose, nothing the get this flustered about. Everyone fucked up once in a while. He was just unlucky this time. She should not take it to heart like this. Still, he felt unable to joke about it. This Himuro guy did not look like he would share his humor about the situation.
“I could feel this one kick for over four months now.” The guy stroked his impossibly round stomach. “Because of the contractions, he´s unable to kick. It´s only when something isn´t there anymore that you notice you miss it. You have to lose things to be able to miss it.”
“I´m not gonna miss her nagging.” Aomine snorted.
“You´ll miss her smiles, her optimism, her laughter.” Himuro looked at him, not accusing, just … nothing. Like he didn´t care. He most likely did not, they only met a few times. “And then you won´t drink to forget Tetsu, you´ll drink to forget her.”
“I´m not drinking to forget.” If he had been able to do so, he would have crossed his arms.
“Everyone drinks to forget. It just doesn´t work.” Himuro leaned back, pressing his thumbs into his back. “Have you read the book “The little prince”?”
“I don´t read.”
The other man snorted but smiled before he continued: “I guessed not. The little prince is living on a lonely planet, so he travels to other planets to meet people. One day he travels to a tavern and finds a man who downs one drink after the next.”
Great. A pregnant man was telling him bedtime stories about drunks. What had his life come to? Was this really the only person willing to stay in his presence without crying? Fucking hell.
“So he asks him why he drinks and the man answers that he wants to forget.” So that was his great psychology resource? A children´s book? “The prince asks the man what he wants to forget and after a long moment, the man says that he wants to forget how ashamed he is.”
Shit. Aomine redirected his gaze. There must be something interesting in this room. His IV drip? Damn, it was already through. Where was his phone? He was bored, damn it all. He did not want to listen to shitty stories.
“So the prince asks the man what he is ashamed about.” Himuro steadily looked at him. “What do you think was his answer?”
“Some sob story, whatever. We all have one. Tough luck.” He would have shrugged his shoulders if he could.
“He answered that he was ashamed about his drinking and took another drink because of that.”
“That´s some really bad story.” He shook his head. “No fairies saving the poor old drunk.”
“No. The prince thought the same and left. That´s the story.”
“That story is shit.”
“It´s true though. Nothing the prince could have said would have saved the man. That´s because he did not want to be saved. If someone wants to drown himself in alcohol, there´s nothing you can do. You can only wait for him to decide he wasted his life long enough and do something else.”
He knew. His parents were both drunks and nothing he ever did had changed anything about that fact. His mother hadn´t even stopped drinking while pregnant. Maybe it wasn´t so bad his brother was dead, he already showed signs of being mentally crippled with his three years. Or maybe that had to do with all those brain injuries he had, mostly bleedings from being shaken. They found a lot of them when his brother was autopsied. No wonder his own thinking capacity was limited, killing a few more of his brain cells would not make much of a difference.
“It´s the same with whatever you drown yourself in. Alcohol, self-pity, self-harm, shopping, food, whatever. And one day you get stuck and your comfort will turn into something to be ashamed about. Addiction is always about forgetting your shame, your guilt and insecurities.”
“You went to some kind of those AA meetings in America, didn´t you?” He had looked those up when he had thought about helping his parents. But there had only been one group half an hour away and he knew he would never be able to get his parents to go there.
“There are special groups for friends and family of people with drinking problems. I think I´ll refer Momoi to one of those, maybe Tetsu as well. Those in America are quite professional, he´ll certainly go.”
“I´m not a fucking drunk!” Aomine sat up suddenly, only to be stopped by his pain and a glare promising death if he moved another inch. Murasakibara was standing in the doorway, keeping watch over his Omega. Shit. How had he overlooked an over-two-meters-giant? He breathed through the pain – not exactly helpful when he had two broken rips – and said calmly: “I do not drink that much.”
“You picked up a married women to get more booze.” Himuro arched an eyebrow. “That does seem like something a drunk would do.”
“I picked her up and got smashed because my ex-boyfriend is pregnant with someone else´s kid, asshole. It´s not like that´s a daily occurrence.” He tenderly leaned back against his pillow because sitting up hurt like hell. Lying down too, but less so at least.
“Kuro-chi is not your ex-boyfriend” The giant drawled. “He asked you out but you hurt him. That´s not what boyfriends do. You´re not his boyfriend. Never been.”
“Shut the fuck up, you dim-wit.” He had more brain cells than that one, thank god.
“Call him whatever you want but he´s a much better boyfriend than you are.” Himuro´s eyes had turned to slits. “He knows how to treat other humans with respect, that´s a skill you lack.”
“Aren´t you here to cheer me up or something?” He glared at the pregnant man.
“No, I came because Kagami asked me to. Tetsu and him are worried. I don´t know what for, it´s not like you don´t like your nest of self-pity.” The other stood and turned to leave. “Go rot in it for all I care, just stop taking people down with you.”
Asshole. Aomine wished he could get up and hit him. Getting that smashed had been a shitty idea, if only for the fact that he was unable to polish the floor with that haughty bastard. He had no right to say that. If Satsuki and Tetsu decided to be his friends, who was he to meddle? Asshole. If they were unhappy, they could say that on their own. They did not need some fancy queen bee speaking for them. It was childish but he flicked his middle finger when they left. Good riddance.
He fucked up once. They were really exaggerating. Okay, it was bad that he couldn´t play for three months, that was shitty for a professional player. He could not do this again, he got that. But forcing him into therapy? That really was a bit much. He did not have a drinking problem, he did not regularly get into fights, nothing. He only had one shitty day that turned out worse than he had anticipated. Not that he had exactly thought ahead much, he had only wanted some wet pussy and booze. That problem would solve itself when he turned twenty, he would be able to buy his own booze. Maybe he should even buy pussy, that would save him from all that emotional entanglement women always liked to get into.
He spotted his mobile phone next to some flowers – most likely brought by either Satsuki or his nightly conquest – and grabbed it to scroll through his timelime.
