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Painkillers are a godsend.
Tomoyasu rolled over onto his back, pillow mashed over his face in the hopes it would either block out every hint of light, or suffocate him eventually. Unfortunately, only one of those two things happened. But for once, he was waking up painless. Whether he was simply just that lucky, which he highly doubted, or he had finally managed to convince his body that he was taking the painkillers for a reason and to accept the damn things already. Whichever it was, he felt good for once.
He almost didn’t want to leave the bed. Several layers of blankets kept the warmth trapped, even without his husband's comforting presence he wasn’t cold. He could hear the man in question somewhere in the next room, the faint footsteps moving from what he imagined was the living room to the kitchen. It was technically supposed to be their day off, one of the few times they happened to fall on the same day. Tomoyasu very nearly swore at their hectic schedules.
He supposed he should be getting up. It was getting late, a peek at the clock told him it was nearly seven-thirty. Reluctantly, he peeled the pillow from his face after his failed suffocation attempts and dropped it somewhere on his husband’s side of the bed. He stretched, arms twisting just enough to hear the joints click like a computer mouse—
—pain. Burning, agonizing pain in his leg so bad he scrunched in on himself so hard and fast his forehead cracked against his knee.
JESUSFUCKMESIDEWAYSWITHAVRCONTROLLER—
When he was finally able to move again, lungs unclenching just enough to give him more than a hissing wheeze for air, his leg still burned with the rage of a thousand suns. Every tiny movement, no matter how small, made his leg burn anew.
It took several minutes until he could actually move enough to get out of bed without hurting himself too badly. The second he tried to put any weight on his leg, however, it burned and he almost hit the floor. He sat there, back against edge of the bed, one leg at an awkward angle that hurt the least.
He didn’t want to call for help. It was stupid. He should be able to stand on his own! He was a full grown adult, he didn’t need any help.
The burning in his leg was a little concerning though. He took a deep breath, his vision wobbly with unshed tears.
“Koku?”
Clank.
Clank.
Clank.
A cane. He needed a cane to walk. Tomoyasu had never felt so humiliated in his life. Well, maybe once before, but he was not about to think about that. All he did was stretch! How did he mess up his leg so badly he needed a cane to walk??
Koku was with him as they walked the short distance to the front door, hands around his arm to hold a bit more of his weight on his injured side. He was talking to fill the silence, but Tomoyasu barely listened. It still hurt to move, and he hated to admit the cane helped a lot. It was just a cheap one you could find in just about any large grocery store, the current consensus was that he probably wouldn’t need it long term. And if he did? Well, screw him, he guessed.
He leaned on it heavily as Koku left his side for just long enough to get the door unlocked, and he was already starting to feel the pain in his joints again. It wasn’t fair. The morning had started so well, how had it all gone to shit that quickly?
Tomoyasu didn’t have the energy to think about it, crumpling onto the couch like an empty spider shed the moment he was able to. He ignored the blanket draped over the cushions, turning his back to the room and letting his cane slide to the floor with an ominous metal clank. If he was lucky, he’d be able to go back to sleep without any painkillers, and he wouldn’t have to get up again for a few hours.
It was only a quarter past eight. Less than an hour ago things had been almost good.
What the fuck, man!??!?!
The hand on his shoulder was warm, the couch cushions dipping with a new weight. “Tomo?”
“Let me wallow in rage.”
“Ah. You know, I daresay you’re more dramatic than that strange masked man we’re forced to work with.”
“Shut up.”
Koku chuckled. A warm sound that almost melted the anger boiling his blood vessels. “No threats or insults. It’s that bad, huh?”
Tomoyasu didn’t answer him, only trying to scrunch the rest of himself smaller without moving his leg too much. He felt the weight leave the couch and return a few moments later. Soon, his hair was being swept aside. A soft bristled brush ran through his hair, Koku being exceedingly gentle of the tangles and snags. The pain had been so bad, Koku had rushed getting him out of the house to see how bad the damage really was. The result meant Tomoyasu ended up stuck in a hospital bed in nothing but his husband’s shirt from the night before, his husband’s coat, and the shorts he’d slept in. And of course Koku had been fully dressed when it happened, so it was just Tomoyasu suffering in silence.
It was a special kind of embarrassing. And cold. Thank god the coat was stupid long, he could tuck himself into it fairly well. He would give it back later, maybe.
That rage turned down to a low simmer, his blood vessels no longer quite boiling him alive. The tangles were slowly worked out of his hair, then portioned out into sections and twisted all together. Koku tied the braid off with a hair tie he’d found somewhere. Where? Tomoyasu didn’t know, he was always losing them.
Lips pressed to his cheek, a blanket tucked around his shoulders, and Tomoyasu didn’t know whether to cry from frustration at needing to be taken care of, or because it was so disgustingly sweet. Koku seemed oblivious to it either way, because he just sat with him on the couch, not really doing anything else.
A not so foreign concept, just existing with his husband this way. He wished it didn’t happen so often because he screwed himself over doing something stupid and putting the country into national debt from all the painkillers he was probably single handedly increasing the demand for.
“I want to jump off a roof.”
“The pain is still pretty bad, I see. How about this: we don’t do anything today. We stay inside, and just watch terrible movies you can pick apart.”
“....Fine.”
Koku left him with another kiss to his cheek, disappearing into the kitchen. Tomoyasu didn’t care to figure out what exactly he was doing, he put his focus into rolling over without jostling his leg too much.
It was the not quite start of a series of increasingly stupid injuries.
⸺⸺⸺
Four days later, Tomoyasu sneezed so violently he doubled over and smacked his forehead against the counter so hard that a bruise developed within minutes. He was left sitting on the couch, holding an ice pack to his forehead and growing a wicked headache. No concussion, thankfully, but ow that hurt like a bitch.
His hair hid the absolutely awful welt that formed and stayed for way too long, and he was grateful for that.
⸺⸺⸺
A week after the welt had faded, he, in quick succession, did the following. In order from first to last:
Accidentally punched the door knob trying to open his bedroom door.
Banged his shoulder against the doorframe.
Hipchecked the dining table so hard he genuinely feared he’d dislocated something.
And last but not least:
Fell down the porch stairs and faceplanted in the grass.
Tomoyasu decided to call it a day. No one would find it weird if he attended meetings virtually. There was a very real fear it’d only get worse from there, and he did not want to incur the wrath of an all powerful deity who may or may not exist if this was how his morning was going. Just in case.
⸺⸺⸺
Exactly one month after that, Tomoyasu finally injured himself in the absolutely most imbecilic way on the planet he called home. He wasn’t even surprised anymore when he put himself in the hospital because of it, he was just so done with life at that point. Some god out there seriously wanted him to suffer.
Tomoyasu Chikazoku, in all his idiotic, computer obsessed glory, bent over to pick up an empty paper bag off the floor. The stars aligned to perfection, every cosmic entity combined their power, the Aurora Borealis lit the skies as all nine planets joined together in a perfect line.
Two ribs out of place, at least one broken, and the mother of all bloody noses were among the list of injuries. His doctor just stared at him in complete bewilderment when Tomoyasu told him how it happened, and recommended that he stay away from paper bags for a while.
And so, he simply laid in the bed. Drugged to high hell on with some painkiller he promptly forgot the name of but knew he would remember later, wrapped in bandages and still cleaning the dried blood from his face. Or trying to. Was he still bloody? Who cared, he wanted out.
He napped through most of his stay, waking up occasionally to flowers on his nightstand or one of the former MLA members sitting at his bedside trying not to laugh at his predicament. Koku was both the nicest and the least nice about it, laughing when he first heard about it all. But also bringing him his favorite flowers when he did visit, so Tomoyasu could almost ignore the teasing that went along with it. To a point.
Tomoyasu made Koku sleep on the couch after the comment about wrapping him in bubble wrap.