"you are the part of me,

That is passed out on the floor,

The pretty misery."

One slip and he was at the bottom of the hill again.

Fuck it, he was too drunk to come up with a better scenario, but simply put, that was what it was. It had taken years to overcome those feelings of constant mistrust and anxiety; a slope so steep he couldn't climb it without Otose the first time. It didn't go away entirely; he always felt better facing the door, he was always waiting for the sound of blade being drawn, always trying to understand a person's ulterior motives (there always had to be something, people didn't change). Gintoki could live with those feelings, he could cope with them, but there was something that kept nagging at him. How could he go to her again admitting that those steps had been pointless, absolutely meaningless, and that his stumble was due to a piece of fucking space meat? How could he go back there knowing that something, anything, might set him off? And it wasn't even the kind of meat he occasionally liked, nope, he was cursed to have gazes feel like ants on his skin; the touch of a warm hand, hot breath on his neck, now that would only lead to somebody getting stabbed. Usually, sex was what he turned to when shit got this bad, but now the idea of a stranger seeing him weak and emotional just turned his stomach. Wouldn't be such a big deal if he had control of his emotions, but that was out the window. Otose already knew that about him anyways, how he normally liked chasing tail to forget what was chasing him, but would always stop at the first sign of seriousness. Now, a quick fuck wasn't gonna help him. So that left one option: might as well have another drink.

"Oi," he slurred at the third bartender that would probably kick him out tonight. "One more ounce for Gin-san, alright? I've had a bad day."

The bartender looked skeptical, but reached for the bottle. A voice stopped him before he could grab the neck. "You don't need anymore, Gintoki. When are you going to go home to those kids? It's been three days." He couldn't help but scowl. The main person he was trying to avoid, and for being so on edge since his… dissociation… he didn't even notice she'd sat next to him. If he was capable of being able to gauge how drunk he really was, he wouldn't be surprised.

"Grannies should mind their own business," he tapped his glass on the counter, "Another please." The bartender definitely looked concerned now, just cleared his throat and declined. Gintoki sneered at the look, knowing exactly what he thought. Another drunk here to runaway from his wife and kids and responsibilities, and fuck didn't he obligate enough of those things? Gin could launch himself at him, the anger so quick to bubble in his chest. He turned to Otose instead, intending to lash out but stopped at the look in her eyes. She didn't look anything like he expected her too; angry, maybe annoyed or frustrated, but definitely not tearful.

"I'm sorry, son."

He gaped at her, the cup slipping in his hand and clattering onto the tabletop. He was stunned, the anger draining away and leaving him feeling empty. Why was it that she had to bring it up? Why couldn't they just leave it until Gintoki drank the memory away and denied it ever existed? He could live with that smell, that burning image of the war, but those kids faces… He tried not to show it, but he saw Kagura's face, looking like she wanted to hug him and never let go, and Shinpachi. The boy was right there, he would have had a front row seat. Gin had slammed Sougo into the table only two chairs down from where he was sitting. He had done it, he was the culprit, so why was she apologizing? "What do you have to be sorry about, Granny? It was your voice that brought me out of it."

"It happened before, when I bought that meat from the market. You remember, don't you?"

Gintoki didn't say anything. He remembered, how the situations were pretty much identical but without the humiliation of being in a full room. It had just been them, alone in the shack and Gintoki hadn't had cooked meat for the longest time. Not since out in the country, where he could find his own creatures to eat, but he tried to stay away from things not fish. It had been way worse in a different sort of way; he hadn't gotten violent, but he knows he cried. She kept going like he had said something anyways. "I was smart enough not to touch you, unlike that stupid boy. You were just gone, but I sat and talked at you until you came back. I should have remembered."

"It's been years," he said before softly, "I thought I'd gotten better."

Otose now looked angry, mood shifting as fast as Gin's had. "You have gotten better. You were a recluse, and a purposeless ghost. You're not like that anymore, Gintoki, you have people you can lean on. So why are you out here haunting?"

He ran his tongue along his teeth, wondering how to say it without sounding weak. It wasn't obvious? She was looking at him like she wasn't going to leave without an answer, so he took in a deep breath and spoke what was bothering him, a thought that had been weighing him down for three nights. The reason he couldn't go home. "What if it was one of them?"

"What?"

He turned and glared at her, "What if it was Kagura or Shinpachi? What if I had stabbed them, or hurt them, and I didn't know it. What if it happens again and it is them I'm attacking? How is that me getting better?"

"So you're avoiding going back because you don't trust them to be able to take care of themselves or you? That's good, I'll go let them know."

"No, you don't know. I strangled men to death with my bare hands, and drowned them in the dirt, I broke their necks and cut off heads, I once maimed four men and Amanto on one polearm in a single go and I was proud of it. What the fuck makes you think they should be around me?" Especially if I can't tell what is reality. He was drunken slurring, he knew it but he babbled on anyways, desperate for her to see what he saw. He missed Otose pulling out a cigarette, and the bartender staring at him in horror. For a quick second, he was reminded of his own parents. His Amanto parent had tried to kill him almost immediately after birth before killing his father instead. That was what he was born from, surely that had to mean something. He didn't know a damn thing about parenting and should not be trusted to be giving those kids advice.

Otose sat there and dug for a lighter, before finding it and lighting her smoke. "It has nothing to do with what I think, it's what they want. Those two have been waiting for you this whole time, and you just come to sleep before disappearing before they wake up. Stop running away. So what, you enjoy a good fight? You've never fought just to gain something for yourself, that's what matters. That's what you're teaching them. Not to do what you did. Do you get that?"

Gintoki scoffed, "What are you talking about? Kagura gets more like me every day, it's terrifying."

"That's what being a parent is. You have to teach them and then let them grow. Kagura will learn her own way, same as Shinpachi. Kids leave then they come back to you, if they're good."

He scoffed, "What do you know about being a parent."

"I have one, bull-headed son, I know more than you think."

That made Gintoki pause before bursting into laughter. That was the second time this night she had called him that. This Earth had taken away his first parents only to give him a father, and now it seemed a mother. He rubbed his head, the curls droopy and oily from lack of washing and the sweat of three days clung to him probably as much as the booze. He suddenly felt the urge to take a shower, but he looked at her pondering something else. Sons should never lie to their mothers, right? There was something else, something that shouldn't really matter to him anyways. He made the choice, and it wouldn't have helped him anyways. He would still have gone nuts whether he'd destroyed the sword or not. "Can I tell ya a secret?" he asked, knowing the answer already. She just raised an eyebrow, and he took it for what it was. She wanted in.

He leaned in close, his lips close to the shell of her ear. Something he thought he'd take to the grave held on to the tip of his tongue. He let it go. "I'm half Amanto"

She looked shocked for only a moment before she turned to him, "Is that supposed to change anything?" Gintoki shrugged and threw something else her way just to try and throw her, because at this point did it matter, "I'm also older than I look."

She only eyed him, "How much older?"

"I don't know, ten to fifteen years give or take." Though he suspected years ago those years he spent staying a young boy scavenging corpses had caught up to him.

"Nothing to worry about then, ten is one of mine, boy. Plus, newsflash, you already look like an old man. Why are you telling me anyway?"

He smiled, shaking his head before slipping off the stool, feet surprisingly steady. He reached out a hand, helping her off her chair before letting go. His walking was good now, but he didn't want to bring her down if he stumbled. "Don't know, just wanted to get it off my chest. I threw it away, though. Thank God for that, or I would have really cut off that kid's head."

Otose didn't really understand, she chalked it up to his drunk rambling and walked him home.