Work Text:
He’s standing in front of her, placing an empty bottle into her hand. He expects one of two responses to this; her usual disappointed admonishment, or pity at his pathetic display. He’s surprised to receive neither. Her eyes widen when she turns the label over to read it and connect the dots—because he’s not going to tell her what he’s done, blatantly. It’s fairly obvious. The bottle wasn’t empty this morning.
It’s not like he’s never considered the idea, in passing. But it’s not like he woke up this morning with plans. It’s not like he’s thinking coherently in the moment, but he’d be lying to say he doesn’t have moments of impulsiveness that make him do unexplainable things—like swallow an entire bottle of a prescription drug without a second of thinking it through. He can still taste the pills on the back of his tongue, nearly choking his throat and he wonders what the fuck is wrong with him.
Clearly something is wrong with him, if he knows he’s doing something so caustic to himself without a pause.
He’s taken a handful before, yes. Because Bulma says it’s a sedative. She says it’s supposed to be a relaxer, relieve pain. It’s probably not meant to be taken by the handful. And he’s figured that out, because last time he took them, he thought his brain was going to slide out of his ears and he was going to puke the lining of his stomach in response to that bad decision. So why did he decide this time, to go all in?
What prompts the choice to take the whole bottle? He can’t figure it out in depth yet, and he’s not going to have a lot of time to work out the thoughts because he can feel it start to hit him. He doesn’t know the exact moment he swallowed them, but he knows his actions clicked with him damn near immediately. Reading the lettering on the bottle after he clicked the cap back on, snapped reality back into him and maybe he’s a little too late for his wake up call. But at least this time he has the balls to actually go to her. Last time he let the head splitting pain go its course and banked on it not killing him.
Maybe this time he knows he’s going to die without her intervention. And maybe he’s not ready to die just yet, despite what his damnable impulse seemed to imply. What a contradiction. He’s not ready to chase Kakarot that far. He’s not ready to be the reason she cries—if she even would cry. Well, she’s crying now, so he’s under the impression she will if he leaves her. So he’s already messed up his one goal. He’s an idiot, and needs to explain that when she fixes him.
He probably won’t explain anything. But she knows that it takes a lot for him to come out and own up to anything he’s done, and that’s what he’s doing in asking for help.
And well, that’s huge progress.