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Koushi opened his eyes slowly, greeted by the floaty darkness. Green light peered over the foot of the bed, the clock reading just past three am.
Rather than being close, the alarm clock sat far away. Months prior, Sawamura made the executive decision to move it out of reach after they were both late due to the pesky snooze button. That particular morning, Sawamura had snoozed it six times. Koushi merely did not get up and clearly didn’t want to or was too tired to care…
Speaking of stupid tired, Koushi could barely hold his eyes open. Heavy weights, as if the eyelashes were held down, pulled at his eyelids. The achy feeling in his muscles sat primarily in his legs and shoulders and in all of his joints. Not fun.
Not possible to sleep, either. Not like this.
Even so, he willed his hands to move the sheets and fuzzy blankets. With a quick motion, he swiveled his legs over the side and cringed at the new cold. Sawamura stirred by didn't seem to wake; however, the jarring in Sugawara’s head increased. He stiffened. New waves of sickening dizziness were pins and needles to his temples and like a wall of wind, it nearly knocked him backward.
Which, needless to say, would've been the most counterproductive thing he could’ve done, as that would have sent him falling right back towards Daichi. So, instead, he leaned forward. Clearly a miscalculation on his part, because when he stood up a stray shoe attacked him.
...And then he was on his achy knees. His body did try to do him a few favors, having de-stiffened and tucked up to prevent actual freaking injury. After his knee-joints found the carpet, his body—which folded like a bad hand in poker—followed in suit. Crumpled and stunned, his nervous system, in all terms, abandoned him. Okay, ouch.
Waking his weary partner wasn’t on the agenda though, and besides, he was fine. Everything’s just fine. Nothing’s wrong with me, just dizzy.
Suga suppressed the yelp of surprise—or pain, he was yet to figure out which it was, or if it was both—as he wasn’t one to scream or startle. Besides, the only thing that hurt was his carpet-burned knees and pulsing ache in all the joints and muscles. Somebody deep down was beating his muscles with rocks or a jackhammer or something. Somewhere in his head, the same was being done, and he reciprocated with a mental finger. Leave me alone, will you?
It’d surely hurt worse if he woke Daichi up. And, despite the low probability of that outcome, anxiety continued to linger. The small, tucked-away idea that he was still a burden to Karasuno’s former captain simmered in the portion of his chest not already stocked, upping the 70% congestion to more like 100.
Constriction hitched his chest and took his breath when Daichi suddenly shifted slightly, an arm absentmindedly thrown over to where Suga usually was. His soft, peaceful face contorted slightly, almost expecting to feel something. Or rather, someone. Suga smiled, then faded.
Fumbling for his phone, he unplugged it and used the screen to trek down to the bathroom. Slow, steady steps won the race and the wall took the form of his greatest ally. The light flicked on and his eyes squinted for a moment. Incessant pounding of his skull spiked and he had to use the frame as a brace—the wall transferring its responsibility
“Medicine, medicine, medicine,” he babbled quietly, reminding himself of the reason he was in there. All the files of thoughts jumbled about within his skull, likening to an inflatable at a child’s birthday party. Like chalk, the current goal may be warped by the wind of his mind at any given moment.
So, he spoke it into existence. Well, the reason for his existence in the bright, cold bathroom.
As he fumbled about, Daichi’s eyes fluttered open. Beckoned by a higher force, stirred from slumber by the light and chittering of Suga’s chattering, or just a natural coincidence—or, heaven forbid, a nasty combo—he wasn’t sure, but the point was: he was awake. Massaging a dull headache away, he propped himself up with a sore forearm.
Before he flipped over to rediscover sheep, he failed to locate his silver-haired partner. Losing the security he thought he had, he fumbled about for his phone, “Suga?”
The no-answer he expected returned, and instead, the random nonsense from down the hall greeted him. So, he swung his feet off of the bed, wrapped a blanket around his bare shoulders, and fumbled through the hallway. Announcing his presence once again: he turned the corner.
“I’m fine, I swear,” He rasped, but didn’t have a smile to muster to prove it. And, instead, to back that claim, he reached for the bottle of acetaminophen and instead yanked about twenty other bottles, among other things, down with it. Daichi cringed as a small one clocked Suga in the head and then laughed at how particularly funny his silvery bed head looked.
Something was funny? It’s not like I meant to drag all of those down and make a huge mess—and, oh, that bottle of cough syrup just bust and painted our shower curtain and toilet like a crime scene.
Forget you too, Dai. Why’d you have to leave it all so high on the shelf? Yeah, thanks. Love you, too.
“You’re so short, Kou,” Daichi said. A smile crept back into his features as he stepped onto the tile to assist, offering a dark towel to mop the cough syrup up.
“Yeah. I guess so,” Suga responded, hating how ugly his voice was.
“You’re not sounding so hot, hun.”
“Maybe not sounding, but feeling,” He hated to admit it.
Daichi moved the back of his hand to feel the other’s forehead. The latter ducked his head away, shaking it. No. Who were they kidding? He didn’t have time to be sick and Daichi did not have time to be worrying about him. Nope. If it is not acknowledged, it isn’t happening.
Somebody had to help pay the bills. Somebody had to keep doing his part of the relationship. He needed to keep up with the amount of work Daichi was doing. He couldn’t fall behind.
Missing work wasn’t an option. That’d push him far, far behind, and not just in his relationship or promises made to Daichi. His boss’d have his head anyway. She’d be on his butt so fast it wouldn’t even be funny. The board-straight, unable-to-enjoy-anything lady already didn’t like him. For whatever reason that was, he had no idea.
All he knew or needed to know was already laid out very specifically in black and white. Hell in the form of a handwritten, pen-smeared paper from her. From all of the corners, her rage seeped into his veins.
A paper in which Daichi had found and shredded into about a million pieces before doing anger-push-ups.
Yeah. When he got angry, he’d workout. Not really a surprise, though, especially since he was an official professional volleyball player. It wasn’t exactly logical to serve volleyballs indoors.
Suga’d no doubt kill him if he put holes in the wall because of some stupid old lady.
On an offhand note: Asahi had also caught on to this workout emotional release and had been feeling better ever since. It came as no surprise that Kageyama already did that when something was bothering him, and the rest of the team made fun of them for doing it. But, hey, it helped and that’s all that mattered.
He hated that old good-for-nothing hag (Another note, Daichi: she isn’t that old. Only in her early forties). She was a lying, creeping, homophobic bit—mean, uh, boke from the depths of hell. ‘A spawn of the devil’, he called her when Suga wasn’t around. She rubbed Sugawara’s soft heart raw on the daily.
He’d honestly just about gotten sick of it. Anytime the conversation shifted, he’d take the chance to motion towards Suga to look for a new job. But, of course, Sugawara, as stubborn as he was, refused to. He loved the location, work, and flexible hours and benefits it offered.
After feeling Daichi’s penetrating stare just about murder his soul and existence, he uttered a sort-of confident: “I’m fine.”
And, there you have it, he’d just lost the battle. But, alas, not the war.
“Your eyes are red and puffy.”
“I’m fine.”
“You just knocked half the shelf down, babe.”
“I’m just clumsy.”
“No, you aren’t. Hinata covers that for the entire team.”
“Sawamura, sweetheart, just go to bed.”
“No, I’ll help you out. What meds do you need?” Daichi stood after helping clean up the haywire liquid and other bottles and then helped Suga off of the floor, who seemed in worse shape than he originally anticipated. “You can barely stand up.”
Suga saluted. Captain obvious has just surfaced. All men: hit the deck. Or, your head, either one.
“Whoa,” Daichi shot forward, a swaying Sugawara catching himself on Daichi’s strong forearm and the counter, and not by his head. “Yeah, let’s go sit down somewhere else, shall we?”
Suga resettled on their bed, relayed his symptoms, and awaited woozily for Daichi to return. A moment later, right on cue, he did. With a cup of water and several different meds, he sat down beside him and carded fingers through Sugawara’s head as he choked down the meds he was given.
If he was honest, he wasn’t sure what Daichi gave him and hoped nothing was poisoned. Actually, that thought was somewhat funny, but he didn't laugh.
...what if he did?
“Did you poison this?” He asked, his voice sounding surprisingly clear and out of the blue. Was he serious? Daichi stiffened and then giggled...and then cracked up...and then belly-laughed for longer than he should have.
“Of course I did, now go to sleep,” He helped him lay down easy and covered him up, tucking the blankets around his clammy body. A peck on the forehead and the click of the light. He laid down on the other side of the bed, smiling gently to himself. If he’d wanted to, for whatever reason, poison the love of his life he would’ve done it a long time ago.
Never would he ever, though. Not even if someone paid him.
***
Daichi awoke to a heavily snoring Suga, which surprised him but really didn’t. Sure, there wasn’t poison within the decent plethora of medications he selected for Suga, but there were sleep inducers tucked in there. Three in total, disguised as multivitamins. He wouldn’t be waking for a while, he was sure.
Not even at the alarm did he stir. Something inside of him refused to flip the switch and rested in the bliss of ignorance. Reality’s going to be different, and it wasn’t about to allow it get ruined by some stupid, annoying machine he’d rather beat with a baseball bat.
Or throw through a window.
Or throw into the depths of the abyss of Hell.
Or...never mind that.
As Daichi suspected, even after a full minute of allowing the alarm to scream, Suga didn’t even budge. To his delight, his plan had worked.
No, the aforementioned plan did not include overdosing, per se. He gave him the recommended amount, just without telling. That was legal, still.
Sugawara would’ve pushed himself to go to work anyway, regardless of how he felt. He’d lie about how he felt. He’d just quadruple-shot his coffee. He’d just go through the motions. And he didn’t exactly need sickness to make that happen, but he digresses.
Just past the guaranteed ten-hour mark, a form stumbled into the living room. Franticness etched his face, but the rest of his body refused to respond to that kind of stimulation.
“Before you worry yourself sick—or, well, before you worry: I already cleared it with your work. You’re staying home and that’s that.”
“What about your work?”
“Told me that I could stay home as long as I worked out here, instead.”
“If you put another hole through the wall—”
“I won’t! I won’t. I promise. Now, sit down. You look like a zombie.”