This is a collaboration between me and Squidbiscuit from y!gallery. :D (I apoligize for the awful summary. Thank you for coming to look anyway. ^^)

Summary: A sickness traveling around Enies Lobby infects most of CP9. Jyabura is left to take care of Kaku. (JyaKaku)

I do not own One Piece. D:

Jyabura knelt and stretched out, feeling his calf muscles loosen as he prepared to train for the day. He did a few more warm-up exercises and concentrated on focusing his mind. Today he was going to go through the rokushiki skills and train a bit in each. He'd begin with his weak point and work his way up.

Jyabura finished warming up, chose a target dummy, and took his stance.

"Oi, Jyabura!" Jyabura let out a shocked groan/yelp as his rankyaku all but exploded upon release and sent little sparks of energy tearing through the training area like a well-aimed shrapnel grenade.

"What the hell?!" Jyabura whirled around, fully intending to dismember the man that had interrupted him. His leg was cramping from the remnants of energy and the aftershock from the badly executed rankyaku. "Kaku! What's your problem?" He growled at the other man. Kaku was smiling placidly, not a hair out of place, looking as if he'd done nothing wrong.

Jyabura's anger audibly went up a notch.

"Why don't you come fight me? I could use the training, and I'm sure you could." Kaku said, smiling again in that disarming way. Jyabura growled, went to go sit on a still relatively sturdy-looking rock and promptly sat down and massaged his abused leg. Kaku's smile faded into a slightly annoyed frown. He didn't enjoy being on the ignored end of a conversation, which was Jyabura's normal place.

"Jyabura, I said let's fight. Train, remember?" Kaku said, crossing his arms and huffing. Jyabura barely spared him one scathing glance before going back to his work.

"I ain't fighting ya, kid. You're not all there today, or did ya not notice?" Jyabura muttered. Kaku blinked.

"… What? Exactly what does that imply?" Kaku was becoming more than a little hacked off. He definitely did not take well to being brushed off like nothing more than a fly, or at least that was his perspective. Jyabura finally looked at him, really looked at him. It was unnerving. Kaku fidgeted. "… What?"

"You don't smell right."

"What?!" The word was seriously becoming overused. "What is that supposed to mean? I think I smell just fine!" Kaku bit out, not bothering to soften the "Dirty mutt," he muttered afterwards. Jyabura's shoulder and arm muscles spasmed as if they wanted to pick up the nearest rock and bash in Kaku's head with it. Repeatedly.

"You don't smell bad, idiot. I said you don't smell right. It's different." Jyabura snorted at Kaku's look of indignation, feeling better already.

"… You afraid?"

That comment alone gained Kaku Jyabura's complete attention.

"Wassat, brat?"

"I asked if you were afraid, that's all." That damn smile was back. That kid always thought he knew what was going on at all times. Jyabura stood up and brushed off his clothes.

"You're going to regret this kid. I ain't no pussycat like that tom that thinks he's our leader." Jyabura growled out. In a completely unrelated series of events, the temperature around the building seemed to drop several degrees and the sky seemed to darken. Or maybe that was just his imagination, Kaku thought.

"Stop talking old man. I came here to spar with my body, not my words." Kaku readied his stance. Jyabura felt like there was something distinctly wrong. He looked at Kaku closely. Nothing seemed wrong. The boy seemed flushed a bit, probably from anger or anticipation. Without warning Jyabura charged at him. He swung his leg around in a large arc, not even trying to land a real decisive blow. His gut feeling told him to restrain all his attacks to bare minimum damage. Kaku blocked with his arms and a quickly applied tekkai, and turned to deliver a swift blow to the older man's exposed back. He never even finished the turn.

Jyabura saw Kaku's entire body freeze up and drop. He immediately brought his leg down to land and stopped his rotation.

"O-oi, Kaku! You OK?" Jyabura ran over and put a hand on Kaku's shoulder. Kaku immediately shrugged it off, but the motion only served to make him feel even sicker. Kaku clapped his hand over his mouth and shut his eyes. His other arm came up to wrap around his shoulders. Jyabura kept making dumbfounded and worried noises off to the side, completely unintelligible. Finally he seemed to gather his nerve and put his arms around the ailing man.

"S-stop that." Kaku was now upright, but his body was being wracked with shivers so hard his teeth made audible clicking noises. "I'm n-not w-weak."

"What? Weak? 'The hell are you on? You're sick kid," he ignored the half-hearted disagreement, "That's what I smelled." Words do not do justice for the look Kaku gave him right at that moment. It was as if a person had just told him that the reason the Earth was square was because it need to close properly like a box to keep all the people inside.

"W-what do you mean, smelled? How the h-hell are you sm-smelling sick people?!" Kaku ground out, trying to steel his jaw against the shuddering of his body.

"Che, how am I supposed to know? I do what I do and it works, so why the hell would I want to think about it more." Jyabura ground out. Kaku could only look at him with the complete conviction that that statement summarized Jyabura better than anyone else could.

"That's ridiculous. How do you even know if you-" Kaku cut himself off, coughed and took some deep breaths, inhaling through his hand. Jyabura gave a frustrated groan.

"Are you going to puke?"

Kaku took some testing breaths, but felt that the danger had passed for the time being. As soon as he shook his head and before opened his mouth to say, "No it's passing," the older man lunged forward and scooped him against his broad chest. Kaku gave a loud distressed cry of indignation.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?! Put me down!" Kaku tried struggling a bit, only to find that it aggravated his stomach. Once he stopped moving he realized that Jyabura had not proceeded to throw him into a wall to pound him senseless, or any other number of violent things. No, Jyabura was carrying him bride-style up to his room, presumably.

"You should rest n' stuff. Don't want to be beating up an invalid." Jyabura muttered, seeming embarrassed. Kaku was too stunned to comment, and remained that way until they reached his room. Jyabura put Kaku down on his feet, his arms remaining a second longer to make sure Kaku didn't collapse. This was a good thing, Kaku thought, since as soon as he touched ground a sickening feeling rose from his stomach upwards…

Jyabura must've noticed the look on his face or his rapidly paling complexion, because the next thing he knew, Kaku had been rushed to the bathroom where he immediately began puking for all he was worth.

Jyabura made some disgusted groan from the side. Kaku gave a few pitiful coughs between heaves, prompting Jyabura to reach over and pat the boy on the back awkwardly. Kaku was glad for the comfort, however strange it was.

Kaku seemed to be finished and was just resting his head in his hands. Jyabura realized he'd stopped heaving a minute too late, and he pulled his arm back hurriedly. Kaku cracked his eyes open slightly, but Jyabura was looking at everything but him and looked like he wanted to go five minutes ago.

"Uhh, well, I guess you got this from here. I'm just gonna go, alright kid? Take care." And with that he turned. Kaku grabbed his sleeve to stop him. Instead of halting the other man through force however, Kaku only succeeded in gaining one very confused glance as he toppled over with all the finesse of a drunk and ended up looking up at Jyabura from the ground, feeling too weak to hoist himself upright. So weak that he felt a certain amount of pride that he was still holding onto Jyabura's sleeve, dangling arm's length above him.

"K-Kaku?"

"…. Please stay…" Kaku said, embarrassed at asking such a thing. Jyabura was all set to protest, but he really looked at Kaku. Kaku's eyes were watering, his skin flushed, and his mouth hanging open in a constant fever-induced pant. It took Jyabura all of three seconds to process this image and decide to stay, but for the sake of appearances he heaved an exasperated sigh and slapped a very, very tiny grin onto his face before kneeling down.

"You're killing me, kid. Come on, let's get you up." Jyabura lifted Kaku carefully and stood him up. After they got him cleaned up, Jyabura quickly deposited him into his bed. With a quick, "I'll be right back," Jyabura went out the door, ran to the kitchens, grabbed 2 water bottles, earning a strange look from Kalifa, and ran back upstairs. When he got back, Kaku had kicked off the covers and was lying in bed shivering and coughing. Jyabura scowled.

"You gotta stay under those, idiot. Got ya some water." Jyabura opened one of the bottles and helped Kaku drink some of it. Kaku seemed to doze off again. Jyabura stayed and watched him, occasionally wiping the boy's face clean of sweat. A few minutes later, Kaku started writhing in his bed, causing the covers to slip off. He gave the occasional grunt of effort, as he was still feeling very weak. Jyabura stared at the seemingly wanton display before growling out, "What are you doing, kid?" It came out only a little high-pitched.

"Mm… 's hot…" Kaku groaned, before lapsing into a bout of coughs.

"What the hell are you talkin' about? You're shakin' like a leaf! It's a wonder the rest of the guys haven't come up here to see why the whole damn room's shakin'!" Jyabura said, looking clearly annoyed. Kaku gave him a distinctly unimpressed look and promptly lay back down.

A few minutes passed in complete silence before Kaku heaved an annoyed sigh and promptly peeled his shirt off. His body was streaked with fever-induced sweat making it hard for the shirt to come off, especially in his weakened state. He struggled with it a bit, finally pulling it up and over his head, letting out a rather loud, relieved cry as it finally came off his head, allowing him to breathe clearly again.

"Wh-what are you d-doing?!" Jyabura cried, his face going beet red in an instant at the uncaring display. Kaku whirled around, jumping and yelping, clearly caught off guard. He blinked confusedly for a second before-

"Oh… Heh. I forgot you were there… S-sorry…" Kaku blushed and ducked his head, clearly embarrassed. He quickly turned back around and buried himself in the blankets and within seconds began to snore softly. The shivering and blanket throwing commenced summarily. Jyabura sighed and watched Kaku again. In five minutes Jyabura had to replace the blanket several times and was getting fed up.

Kaku woke up to see a half-naked Jyabura slide into bed with him. For a few seconds he just stared before he finally realized what was happening.

"J-Jyabura… What…?"

"Sh-shut up! You keep kicking off those damn covers so I'm just going to be in here and make sure you keep warm, is all! J-just go back to sleep!" Jyabura muttered out, feeling glad for the dim lighting as it made it hard to see his face doing its best tomato impression. He positioned himself close to Kaku, turning the sick man over so they were back-to-chest. Jyabura wrapped an arm around him and settled down. There were a few moments of awkward silence, then-

"Kid, if you do not go to sleep right now, I will put you to sleep."

"… Night, Jyabura." Kaku said after a second. Jyabura only muttered in response, shifted Kaku so they were both more comfortable, and promptly drifted off to sleep. Feeling too tired to think anymore, Kaku followed his example.