The sliver of light cutting into the eye that isn't almost swollen shut is just a few degrees brighter than he can stand. With a muzzy groan, he squints through the pain - or the additional pain, rather, as he's pretty sure every inch of his body is currently riding the line between human flesh and mincemeat, and aching down to his very bones. Closing his eyes and letting his head that's throbbing like a bitch fall back would be so much easier, but it's vital that he know exactly who's discovered him in this deplorable state, and whether he should start thanking his rescuer or cursing his luck.
The glint of a flashlight and a belted blue police uniform fuzzes into view, and it seems he's going to have to go with the latter. Yukio doubts he can manage a hasty retreat when even standing up is debatable, and he thinks it's safe to assume the cop that's about to bust him wide open is armed, but dying on his feet would be preferable to dying on his ass, he reasons, so he might as well try to get up. The effort he gathers into his shaking legs to push himself to his feet abandons him, however, when the police officer speaks to him.
"...Kasamatsu-san?" The voice that addresses him is low and husky; hushed with shock and the faint hint of the grudging respect Aomine Daiki once reserved for him alone.
If he didn't think it would worsen the already dubious state of his viciously stinging and probably broken ribs, Yukio thinks he might have laughed. How ironic. Aomine doesn't give him the chance to respond, and the light trained mercilessly on his face dips slightly as he crouches to his level, where he's sprawled almost flat on his back, slumping against the filthy brick wall that's digging painfully into his shoulder blade.
"Can you stand? ...Shit, what the hell happened to you?" Illuminated by the flashlight's glow, Aomine's piercing blue eyes rove over Yukio's beaten body, likely taking in the ripped and dirty clothes, the blood on his shirt and face.
"N-nothing," he grits out through his teeth, his voice coming out strained and harsh as he cranes his aching neck in order to hold his gaze.
Aomine's broad shoulders shake briefly, and a soft sound that might pass for a grim laugh expels from his lips, "You look like you got the ever-loving shit kicked out of you and you're telling me nothing happened?" The flash of wry amusement vanishes as his mouth becomes a straight line, "Where's Kise? Shouldn't he be hovering over you nursing your wounds? ...Or did his luck finally run out even worse than yours?"
"Not...with...me," Yukio manages, struggling to lift his good arm and brace his hand against the wall behind him, wincing as his broken knuckles come in contact with the hard, cold, grimy surface.
Aomine's eyebrows slowly settle into a frown, "They sent you alone?"
"No," Yukio spits, bitter, "Haizaki, he…"
But Aomine doesn't need to hear just what Haizaki did, and is already scowling, "That bastard." After a moment, he's reaching out, and Yukio reflexively flinches, almost a convulsion, when his hand comes in contact with his wrist, "...Come on, senpai, let's get you out of here."
Yukio sighs and grudgingly accepts the gesture, winding his bent and twisted fingers with Aomine's lean, strong ones and allowing himself to be pulled up, "Old h-habits die hard, huh?"
Whether he takes the remark to refer to the helping hand or the obsolete title Yukio's pretty sure he's never used on anyone else, Aomine just smirks dryly and loops Yukio's arm around his shoulders, letting him lean on him. And though it's entirely possible he's only being so charitable now to end up throwing him behind bars later, as Yukio glances at the concerned, yet resigned and too-knowing blue eyes resting on him, he considers counting at least one lucky star somewhere out there after all.
.
.
"Careful, you idiot -!" Kasamatsu hisses as Daiki starts to set him down, pain scrawled like a distorted mask across his bruised and bleeding face. Snorting at the familiar insult, he just adjusts his grip and gingerly repositions the legs he's still not sure aren't broken, guiding Kasamatsu to sit in the passenger seat of the patrol car. Not the back, which must have told him at least something of Daiki's intentions. While he would probably have to dig himself out of a heap of trouble later if anyone found out he'd had a confirmed drug dealer in his custody and didn't cuff the bastard on the spot, arresting Kasamatsu is the furthest thing from his mind at the moment.
He pauses a moment and leans against the open car door, once again taking in the blood stains blossoming across Kasamatsu's forehead, smudged down from his split lower lip to his chin, the shiner that almost swallows his left eye and the bend in the bridge of his nose that suggests it's been broken fairly recently. Around his swollen, reddened nostrils too is a faint dusting of telltale white powder, but that's another matter entirely.
"...Why the hell are you still doing this?" he can't keep from asking, and the steel grey eye that isn't a puffy, black and blue mess drifts over to look at him with a glare that says everything and nothing at once. Daiki's never been a particularly good listener, so he ignores the hint to just drop it and presses on insistently, "Kasamatsu-san, you're so much better than this...you don't have to get dragged down just because Kise tangled with the wrong crowd; he's been collared for it twice already, do you want to go the same way?"
"Why don't you turn me in, then?" Kasamatsu challenges weakly, voice hoarse and brittle, almost strangled. Daiki furtively eyes the ring of vivid purple marks around his throat...shaped like fingers. "M-make an evening of it and get in good with your chief? ...Bring down the whole goddamn mafia while you're at it, who gives a fuck? You'd be a fucking hero."
"I'm not turning you in, senpai," Daiki sighs, closing the passenger side door with an almost gentle click before Kasamatsu can say anything else. Crossing over to vehicle's the other side, he slides into the driver's seat and just rests his elbows against the steering wheel for a moment, hiding his face in his hands.
"...Then what are you going to do?" Kasamatsu asks eventually, and even with his eyes covered, Daiki can tell he's not looking at him. He would have been able to feel his gaze if he were.
Breathing out deep and slow against his tense, practically twitching forearms, Daiki sits up straight and starts the car, making sure the lights and sirens are off, before turning his gaze to the darkened road ahead, "Something really fucking stupid."
.
.
Yukio's eyes snap open, and in a panic, he realizes he has no idea how long they might have been closed. A minute? An hour? He could just as easily have blinked as he could have lost consciousness, but when he registers the cool, damp weight of a cloth covering half his face and the softness of thick warm blankets surrounding him, he decides sluggishly that it was probably the latter. He can't begin to guess how long he might have been out, and when he attempts to sit up, every muscle in his body screams in outrage, and he falls back with a pained gasp, clenching his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut as a wave of hot agony wrings through him, considerably worse than the numb, stunted aching that had beset him before.
"Fuck…" he groans as soon as he can breathe, sinking down further into the mattress he's currently lying on and trying to keep as still as possible. His head has started pounding again, like it's trying to hammer his brain out through his ears, and the rest of him is hardly faring any better.
"Still clinging to life then?" Aomine's voice rings out a moment or two later; a touch mocking, but there's relief under the surface as well, and the sound of his padding footsteps signals him approaching the bedside.
"...Where am I?" Yukio asks blurrily, turning his head - with difficulty - to look at him, a few paces away and no longer in uniform, loose grey sweats hanging off his long legs, a black tank hugging the lithe muscles of his chest and practically putting his limber, dusky arms and shoulders on display.
"What, you don't know a love hotel when you see one?" Aomine smirks, bending over with a teasing laugh at his own joke and folding back the blankets to expose Yukio's bare chest. He can't remember taking off his shirt, and doubts he would have been capable of it, so Aomine must have, at some point, undressed him. "Nah, this is my apartment...or uh...not really mine, a couple other guys from the station crash here too, but it's just us right now. My shift doesn't start until later tonight."
"I have to get out of here," Yukio declares immediately, unable to keep the note of hunted desperation from his voice as he attempts to sit up again, but a warm, insistent, and surprisingly gentle hand holds him down.
"You're not going anywhere," Aomine says, with finality, a particularly steely note of authority in his voice that Yukio doesn't think he's ever heard before, "I was about a second away from taking you to the hospital after you passed out on me yesterday, no way in hell am I letting you leave like this."
Yukio fixes him with a chastising glare that probably would have held a lot more significance if they were back in high school, where being the arrogant brat's elder actually meant something...before his recent boost in rank pretty much evened them out...or put him below Aomine; a position he's never particularly enjoyed being in.
"What do you care?" he tries, meeting that resolute blue gaze head-on, "I'm nothing to you. You made that pretty clear when you broke it off five years ago, why would you bother -?"
"I respect you, senpai," Aomine says, looking at him seriously. Yukio blinks; though he's always assumed as much from the deference Aomine seemed to show him and no one else, he never expected him to actually say so out loud. "Or...I did."
And doesn't that just flatten the air right out of Yukio's lungs to hear? That he'd had Aomine's respect - which he gathered was pretty damn impossible for anyone to obtain, especially when he'd walked around both Touou and Kaijou's campuses like he owned them; like he owned the whole goddamn planet - but, probably due to recent circumstances and this situation right here, he'd gone and lost it. Maybe he shouldn't be all that surprised. What's left to respect?
"Don't play stupid, Kasamatsu-san, it doesn't suit you," Aomine continues in an undertone, no longer looking at him. "I only broke up with you so we could both focus on our plans after high school, you know that."
After a moment, Yukio sees the corner of his mouth kick up fleetingly with a sort of dry non-humor before his gaze returns, "I didn't believe it for a second when I heard where you'd ended up; almost punched the prick who told me right in the face for daring to talk about you like that. Even when they brought Kise in with the same story I still didn't believe it...until I saw it for myself."
Yukio doesn't comment, and it only takes a few more seconds for Aomine to open his mouth again, looking reproachful now. "How could you do this? I mean Haizaki I'd believe, sure, even Kise to a degree, but you? ...You'd never sink this low."
Hearing that from him of all people, the obvious pity in that rich, familiar voice, Yukio starts to laugh, but breaks off with a choking gasp as his ribs sting wickedly in protest. Closing his eyes with a sigh, he disregards the concerned, delicate probing of Aomine's calloused fingers against his chest, searching for injuries.
When he speaks, it's in a low, rasping whisper.
"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do, Daiki."
TBC