Sickly Sweet

Summary: The taste of sugar can be a rush. Sometimes too much of a rush.

Inspired by MALI and xir Kuja/Mikoto doujinshi trilogy.

Mikoto hummed to herself as she stirred the ingredients together, watching as the mixture darkened into a shade of brown. She smiled at the sight, the smell of it. Mikoto could practically taste the chocolate from the air as she grabbed the bowl and moved over to the pan next to the freezer.

She dipped the bowl over the pan so that the mixture poured inside the small circular pan. Once she put it in the freezer with the cool breeze turned on to an approximate temperature she turned her attention to the cup of white frosting.

Mikoto got out a few small bowls to put the food coloring in first, dropping in spoonfuls of frosting into each afterward. She would spend the time it took for the chocolate to cool making individual bowls of frosting that were pink, purple, and a yellow-gold color - as close as she could get that is.

She transferred the colored frosting to individual packets so she could more easily apply it to the chocolate later.

At the beep of the timer she wiped her hands on her pink apron before taking the chocolate out of the freezer.

Mikoto pressed a finger to the surface of the chocolate, testing the temperature before giving a nod of her head. It was ready. She took the packets so she could decorate the top of the chocolate. First making golden flowers at the points of a compass, then putting another in-between each of those. Then she was taking the pink frosting and making vines to connect the flowers, a complicated framework for the purple frosting focus. In the middle was a depiction of a dragonfly, wings open and thinner than the other layers of frosting.

She set the last empty packet down and cut the chocolate circle into eight pieces, much like a pie. Mikoto put one slice on a plate, picking it up to walk out from the kitchen into the living room where Kuja currently sat, looking out the window to the town though she couldn't be sure if he was actually seeing it or not.

"Kuja, I made you some chocolate."

"Hm?" Kuja turned his head to look at her over his shoulder, snapped out of whatever he had been thinking about. His gaze lowered to the plate she carried a second later. "I didn't ask for chocolate."

In actuality he hadn't asked for anything for more than two hours, which was a rarity, but... "I know. I just wanted to make them for you."

He regarded her for a moment before motioning her over and she stepped forward to place the plate on the table in front of him. Mikoto smiled when Kuja leaned forward to take the fork she had set on the plate and slice off a portion of the chocolate to eat it a moment later.

For a moment his expression remained neutral. Then the corner of his lip twitched. "Just how much sugar did you use in this?"

Mikoto blinked as her mind went back to when she was putting the ingredients together. "Two cups."

"Two?" His nose actually curled at the news. "That's too much."

"It is?" She had tried to follow a recipe she had heard of while at the store, but she must have gotten some of the finer details wrong. A rumble echoed in the air and her eyes went back to Kuja a second later, centering on his stomach that had just made the noise. "Kuja?"

He didn't answer her though and at the sight of him actually wincing her lips curled down. She should have double - no, triple checked that recipe if this was the effect it was having on him.

"What can I do to help?"

With another grumble of his stomach Kuja laid down on the couch, putting the fork back down on the plate that still laid in front of him. "You do know how to make a simple remedy potion, yes?"

Mikoto gave a quick nod of her head and walked from the room to go down the hall into the alchemy lab. She would set to work gathering the few ingredients: chopping, cutting, or peeling them before dropping them into the liquid solution she had prepared a couple days ago. The base for the remedy potion was the same as a few others and she had been meaning to make one of those for a couple days but Kuja had kept her busy. At least it hadn't gone to waste and made it so Kuja could get immediate relief for his upset stomach rather than waiting a day and a half for the liquid part of the potion to settle.

She set the solution on a burner, allowing for the solids to liquefy. After a moment she tore a leaf from a peppermint plant, taking the potion off the burner before laying the leaf on the surface. Hopefully it would make it taste better and easier for Kuja to swallow down as well.

Once she was sure the hint of peppermint was embodied in the potion she removed the leaf, holding the bottle by it's thin stem. Mikoto paused though before stepping back into the hall, remembering what Kuja had done when she had gotten sick. Perhaps she could do the same?

With some hesitation she moved the lip of the bottle to her mouth and poured in some of the contents. She found the hint of peppermint rather refreshing and she hoped Kuja would as well.

Mikoto kept her mouth closed, one hand still wrapped around the potion when she walked back into the hall just in case Kuja refused her. When she walked into the room though she found he had curled up somewhat while she was gone, hands pressed against his stomach and eyes squeezed shut.

She rushed forward at seeing him in such a state, bending down to pry his mouth open with her empty hand before positioning her own above his and parting her lips so the potion would slip through into his own mouth. At the sight of Kuja swallowing the contents down she sighed in relief as his hands relaxed. The potion was already setting to work then.

"Are you okay?"

Kuja's eyes opened slowly, gazing up at her, flickering to her lips for a second and she could feel a drop of the potion still clinging to her bottom lip. It was only at him seeing this that she felt a sudden soft burn in her cheeks. "Better. Don't make me chocolate ever again unless I'm there to supervise you, sugar-crazed kitten."

The burn along her cheeks only increased in intensity. "Of course, Kuja."