My Favorite Anodyne

Summary – No one should have to contemplate one's own mortality –alone– in the depths of night. Especially not if that one is a little boy terrified by sudden, mysterious, shockingly intense pain.

Disclaimer – Yu-Gi-Oh and the characters in this story are Mr. Takahashi's creations. I claim no part of Yu-Gi-Oh as my own. This story is written to explore facets of those characters, and to show my appreciation for Mr. Takahashi's work.

– – – – –

He woke, with a strangled gasp, as agony shot through him in searing spikes of pain. The pain started in his shins, but sped almost instantaneously through all his bones – his thighs, his hips, wrapping around his chest, spiraling up through his spine, and curling with sickening solidity in his hands and feet. He shifted, slowly, carefully, as if he were a man of a hundred years or more – instead of a boy of only twelve. Much blinking and the alarmingly slow and bleary focusing of his eyes on the glowing green digits of his alarm clock showed it to be a little after four in the morning. He would have cried out, if his pain would let him without brutal punishment. The depths of night, indeed. This time of night was so deep it was a pit seeking to swallow him completely and leave no trace. The pain wracking his body was like the teeth of the night trying to tear him into small enough pieces to accomplish the task.

Everything hurt. He'd hurt himself before. Skinned knees, wrenched ankles, hard falls upon his hands that stunned his wrists for days, cuts and scrapes and bruises – all the badges of courage, or stupidity, of those who dare foolish things in their youth they'd know better to try when they were older. Bandages, ice packs, even a sling or two – he'd used them all, and grumbled a bit, but didn't really mean it. After all, he'd done something daring, or stupid, or maybe something not that daring, or not that stupid, but just clumsy, and the pain of the injury, and the tedium of the recovery were all part and parcel of just being a kid.

But this...

No mere scrape, or ache from banging into something. Not a singular stab or twinge of soreness from stressing a muscle, or even a group of them, too much during the day. There was no mishap to point to, no over-abundance of the exuberance of youth that would account for it. This was –

Agony unearned.

Worse than the most gory skinned knee, worse than even the fall from a building he'd once suffered. The pain was everywhere – throughout every part and piece of him. Not just in his joints, or stabbingly bright upon the surface of his skin – this was pain, agony, torment – woven through the very fabric of his being.

Buried in his bone, not like a bruise floating in the soft tissues above it, but behaving as if it had been somehow inserted into his bones. His skull felt like a giant bony balloon filled with pain – not a headache, but pain somehow taking over the normally quiet and unremarkably solid stability of his skull. Every bone in his body hurt. 'Hurt' wasn't the word. 'Agony' started to approach it, but 'torment' or even 'torture' was even closer. There was no touch of heat or cold, or the sensations of 'throbbing' or 'pulsing' or 'aching'. His bones weren't merely 'sore'. It was as if he were experiencing the purest essence of pain – distilled down into its most concentrated form, and somehow filling the very center of each and every bone in his body. Perhaps in sympathy with that deep-seated pain, his muscles hurt and even deeper than that, but not quite as deep as within his bones, slivers of agony separated the muscular pain from the deep pain. Tendons, perhaps? His joints, where all three -- muscles, tendons, and bones knitted themselves into one were isolated knots of pain, but the pain within him, away from his joints, in the center of his bones, was stronger still.

There was no reason for it. It was just shockingly there, full-blown, out of nowhere, with no cause, no reason to exist. Trying to move made it worse – though the converse – remaining still – didn't alleviate it at all. The mystery regarding its onset was at least as worrisome as the pain itself.

He'd felt it before. This was the – fourth time this had happened – waking suddenly, from a sound sleep, as agony tore through him. He'd remained very still, for hours, during the darkest times of night, for fear of moving, for fear of the agony building past his woeful capacity to contain it, only to somehow lose track of the passage of time, and wake the next day, with no memory of the agony from the night before. Otherwise, he would have asked someone about it. His doctor, or maybe his brother.

Even his brother would be sleeping by now. Not that he could even consider trying to rise from his bed to seek out his brother for–for comfort. For relief. For an explanation. Or at least to tell him, one last time, how much he loved him for all the things he'd sacrificed for him.

He feared he would die. The pain was so palpable, so real, so consuming – he wasn't sure he could survive it until morning. He feared to move, and make it worse. The agony was almost a living thing, vying with him for his very body. It had taken over, and it wasn't going to simply give his body back, just because it was his. No, the pain wanted him, or wanted to be him, or wanted to kill him. He didn't know which, but one thing he was certain of, the pain wanted something, and it wouldn't leave him alone until it got it. Whatever it was.

Disease? Could it be some disease? Pain, eating him from inside out – could it be...? No! He wasn't going to think it. He wasn't going to name it. Naming it would give it power – he was sure of it. He would fight it. He would remain still, and quiet, and fight it until morning. Until someone came into his room to wake him. Perhaps he could think of moving his lips just enough to explain. If he could only explain, his brother would come. A doctor would be summoned. And this, whatever it was that was eating him up from inside out with pain, would be stopped. He was sure of it.

Part of his mind laughed at him, and reminded him that he'd done this – three times before. He'd resolved to endure until morning, and ask for help to fight the pain, and explain it, and make it go away. Why would this time be different? Why did he think he would remember this time? He'd fall asleep, or go unconscious, or whatever happened, and he'd forget, just like those three other times.

No, he argued with his own mind. There's no way to forget this sort of pain. But, he had. Experiencing it now, he recalled those other three times when he'd felt it before. He had forgotten – somehow. Maybe the light of day brought some sort of relief so deep it erased even the memory of the pain from his waking mind. Perhaps he could somehow get up, write a note to himself, to remind himself in the morning to talk with someone about it... But, that would involve moving, lots of it, and he wasn't sure he could manage that right now against this horrible pain.

He despaired. If he forgot, what would he do when it found him again? How many times could he endure it before it devoured him? He tried to lift the smallest finger of his right hand. The pain in his body noticed, reared back, and smashed into him even harder than before – so hard, he couldn't even gasp in response. Tears started in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. No telling how the pain would punish him, if he did.

He grit his teeth, mentally, since doing it in actuality would bring another wicked backlash of pain, and resolved to endure. He resolved to remember. He'd somehow make it through the night until morning. He'd recall, in the morning. Even if some horrible, incurable disease waged war against him for his own body, this time he would remember to tell his brother. Even if it were too late to save his life, at least he could do a few things before he died. There were so few loose ends to tie up, but he didn't want to leave things half-finished. He might not complete even this grade in school, much less high school, but he could at least finish his homework assignments. There was a project on his desk at work he'd been putting off, too.

But, most important of all, he wanted to tell his brother how much he loved him. Just one – last – time...

– – – – –

Seto woke suddenly. He'd only been sleeping about an hour, so it wasn't a nightmare waking him. It was quiet, very late in the night, or very near morning, and everything slept. It was that rare hour when those things of the day were at their lowest ebb, humans sleeping their deepest sleep, and those things of night were quiet, too. Perhaps not sleeping, but not creeping through the night hunting, eating, or whatever activities those things that shunned the sun found most fun to do.

Something had wakened him. The alarms all around the house were silent. His security team, the part of it vigilant during this watch, had not sounded an alarm. No danger from outside threatened him, or his. He kept still, and sent his senses out. Nothing was in his room. No one intruded into his space.

Assured of his safety to act, he slipped all but silently from his bed. Something had wakened him. He would not rest until he knew who, or what, it was.

He started at the top of his internal list, with the treasure most important to him. Not his bank balance, or stock in Kaiba Corporation as the unkind might suggest. Not his deck or even his precious Blue-Eyes White Dragons, as the dueling-obsessed might claim. He toggled a switch cunningly hidden in his nightstand. Mechanisms moved in their designed way, and revealed a small screen and control panel for his use. He touched a button, and the screen lit, displaying the status of his most important treasure.

Internal tension eased within him upon viewing his brother. Mokuba was safe in his bed. He switched the views, as there were several mono-filament cameras threaded into the very ceiling and walls of Mokuba's room. Seto didn't use them to spy on his brother – no, they were there only for Mokuba's protection and Seto's peace of mind. This small, but powerful monitoring and security system was completely off the grid – not connected to and not part of the Kaiba Mansion security system. No one knew of its existence – except for Seto. Not even Roland, Seto's most trusted security agent, knew of it. Ultimately, it was Seto's responsibility to keep his brother safe – and so only Seto had access. It was how he wanted it – no, how Mokuba's privacy – needed it to be. As it was, Seto rarely used the system himself. It was in place against Mokuba being taken from him, again, taken from his own home. For as much as he tried, for all the security he tried to surround and protect his brother with, Seto knew there was little he could do to keep Mokuba safe outside the house. Pegasus and the Big Five had taught him that. If that lesson hadn't been enough, and it so had, there were all the magic-wielding fanatics out there, too.

Having surveillance on Mokuba's room, even if he rarely ever looked at it, gave Seto some comfort that at least here, in his own home, his little brother was safe. Or, if something dared to try to take his brother from his own room, Seto would at least have some idea when Mokuba had been taken, where to start looking, and whose ass to kick with extreme prejudice once he'd secured his little brother's safety.

Only after scrolling through all the views and confirming that Mokuba was indeed where he belonged, quiet in his bed, Seto crossed the room to snag his laptop and check the status of his fortune, his company, and the latest goings-on in the world – especially the dueling world – that might have impact on him.

All quiet. Nothing alarming anywhere.

Too quiet.

Somehow, he had a thread of a thought that somewhere, some one had been too quiet... Alarming in and of itself. He couldn't shake the feeling that even though Mokuba was safe, and secure, and right where he belonged, that it had been Mokuba – some concern or some threat dealing with Mokuba – that had wakened him.

He returned to his hidden nightstand console. He toggled through the views. He turned the gain on the sound up as high as it would go. He watched.

Too still. Not the stillness of... He dared not even think the word – but he took the time to focus the view tightly on the rise and fall of his brother's chest. Mokuba breathed, so the stillness was weird, as there was somehow too much of it, but not immediately crushingly disastrous.

Too still. How would he think Mokuba was too still as he was sleeping?

That was it. He focused, from another camera angle, and noticed how the long sweep of Mokuba's black lashes did not quite angle down across the bottom lid. A hint, the merest bit of a gleam through that thick curtain of lashes revealed that Mokuba's eyes were partially open.

Still, and stiff. Breathing shallowly, though awake. Not bolt upright in bed from a nightmare. Seto regretted that even though his surreptitious surveillance system alerted him each and every time Mokuba had cried out, or started upright from a nightmare, he'd never been in time to comfort his brother afterward. The act of crying out, or sitting up, waking, even partially, mercifully dispelled Mokuba's nightmares. He'd never needed Seto's help to master them.

But what – what could wake his little brother, and yet induce him to stay so still, and stiff, in his bed? Not night terrors, but...

There was tension, around his little brother's eyes. A hint of a grimace in the line of his brother's jaw. A soft moan, artificial loud through the system, made Seto jump. Pain. His brother was in pain.

He cycled, as quickly as the system could handle it, through all the views again. Mokuba stayed in bed because he was in too much pain to move. There weren't any alarming signs of what could be causing such pain – Seto recalled how his little brother had been moving during dinner. Nothing had happened during the day to cause Mokuba the least physical distress that could account for it. There was no reason...

Mokuba gasped, and choked back a moan again. Seto watched as tension warred in his little brother's limbs, as if the child wanted to do nothing more than curl up in a ball around his agony, but fought against the natural instinct. That struggle stayed Seto's hand as he unconsciously reached for his cell phone to summon the doctor. He knew that struggle. He knew it intimately well.

A sad smile touched his lips as he walked across his suite into the bathroom. He snapped on the light, opened the medicine cabinet, and selected an analgesic for his brother.

The expense, which wasn't cause for concern, the ingenuity to design his mono-filament camera threads, and contrive to place them in Mokuba's room himself, all the effort to make his special surveillance system had just paid off. He might not ever be quick enough to help Mokuba out of the aftermath of a nightmare, since Mokuba conquered them so quickly himself, but to be here, in place with exactly what Mokuba needed, when Mokuba needed it most, it was worth every penny, every effort, every qualm he'd had while designing and placing the system.

Because of it, he knew his brother needed him. That was all that mattered.

– – – – –

The effort to remain still, and yet awake, to some how survive until morning against the life-crushing pain, deep, so deep in his bones, and this time, to remember, so he could finish all the things he needed to do...

It wasn't about school work. The project on his desk at work could go undone, as far as he was concerned. All he wanted, if he survived this wretched night, was to see his brother again. To see the sparkle of concern, intelligence, and deeply buried humor in his brother's warm blue eyes. To hear his voice, filled with the soft solicitude that only he knew Seto was capable of. To utter, even if badly, the words that battered at his heart, that gave him the strength to hold – so – very – still – to endure, to try his best to hold on until morning.

Someone would come to wake him, in the morning. Make sure he was up and moving about, and getting ready for school. It was...

He squinted, as gently as he dared, at the alarm clock across from his bed. It wasn't even five in the morning, yet. It would be at least another two hours before – before anyone came... He'd have to hold out, somehow, until then... Hold out against the pain so it wouldn't kill him, and hold out against the amnesia-inducing sleep – just in case he survived the night. He would shudder to think of forgetting, and having to endure another session of pain, like this, again if he thought he could without the pain noticing and punishing him for the movement. How many times could he manage it? How many times could he endure this agony buried so deeply in his very bones before it would simply tear him apart?

Just – have – to – hold – on...

...just – want – to – see – Seto – one – more...

A hand reached toward him from the darkness – Seto's hand. Hallucination? Was the pain so intense that he was starting to see things?

"Mokuba." Seto's voice was soft. "You hurt, I can tell. Let me help."

Seto's voice. His hand. His touch gently smoothing wild bangs back.

No hallucination, this. It really was his big brother, somehow appearing, when he – when he needed him – most.

"Hold on, a moment longer," Seto said.

Mokuba would have nodded, but for the pain. Seto disappeared from his side, but Mokuba didn't panic. He knew his big brother would be back.

And, he was. Light flooded softly through the partially opened door to the bathroom attached to Mokuba's suite – just enough to make out dim colors, but not strong enough to blind night-adapted eyes. Seto took a moment to place a glass of water from the bathroom on the bedside table, to drag an overstuffed, upholstered chair closer to the bed, and to snag a throw from the foot of Mokuba's bed.

"Open," Seto commanded. It hurt Mokuba to even think of obeying, but not obeying wasn't an option. Medicinal cherry liquid flowed across his tongue. Seto knew he hated taking medicine, of any sort, but... Mokuba swallowed the icky sweet yet still somehow bitter liquid down.

"It won't make all the pain go away, but it will take the edge off," Seto explained. He examined how stiffly Mokuba still held himself. "Pretty bad, huh? And, as is usually the case, it hits at night. Probably woke you up?"

Mokuba nodded, just a little. Maybe Seto just being here, with him, forced the pain back. He didn't think the medicine, any medicine, could act that quickly.

"You've probably been worrying, too. Not knowing what it is. Afraid to move, because it always gets worse when you do move, and yet terrified of what it means. I remember that pain well." Seto seemed to be talking to himself.

"What...?" Mokuba managed to say.

Seto looked down on him a moment more, then knelt and slid his arm under Mokuba's back where his shoulders rested on his pillow. "Don't move, just let me lift you, and the pain won't increase." He took up his brother's slight weight, lifting his shoulders from the bed easily bringing him to a sitting position. Seto snagged the glass of water and held it to Mokuba's lips. Mokuba gratefully cleared the last of the sticky fake-cherry medicinal taste from his mouth.

"What is it?" he managed to ask. "This – pain?"

Seto didn't answer right away. He ran his hand soothingly down Mokuba's shoulder, tucking his arm against his side, all the while supporting Mokuba's shoulders on his other arm. He reached under Mokuba's knees and lifted him from the bed. Mokuba resisted the urge to clasp his brother around the neck, as it had been a while since Seto had picked him up, and the motion startled him, but the pain, seemingly drowsing on its own from the dose of medicine, took notice and snarled at him.

Before he could protest, or move, or do anything, Seto had seated himself in the overstuffed chair, placed Mokuba across his lap, and settled the throw over both of them.

"It makes me wonder, sometimes, what babies feel," Seto said, seemingly out of the blue. "The pain," he clarified. "When you stop to think about it, babies are so tiny compared to adults, or even children. They grow so fast, gaining height, weight, strength. When babies fret, and no one can calm them, or when they wake, in the middle of the night, and there's nothing wrong, that any one can see, but they won't stop crying – I think, maybe, they are feeling that pain. Do you understand, Mokuba?"

Mokuba dared to shake his head. Seto thought he was a baby, fretting in the night?

"There's so much, to distract us, during the day. We walk, and move, lifting things, or jumping – our bodies constantly in motion. It's no wonder the pain can't make itself known – during the day. It waits, patiently, silently, for night, for when we are quiet, and then it strikes."

"What is it – the pain?" Mokuba asked again.

"It's nothing to be alarmed about – even as intense as it is. It's not anything wrong and there's no cure for it – but time. It will go away, in time."

Mokuba shuddered. He might not be dying from some disease, but he wasn't sure he could take another night of such pain. And, if Seto had it, too – perhaps it was some sort of family curse, or some condition he shared with Seto since they were brothers...

Seto's arms tightened around him in response to the shudders. "Mokuba, it's nothing to worry about, I promise. It will go away when you finish growing. The pain, intense as it is, as deep as it is, is just growing pains." Seto snorted gently. "'Growing pains'. That's become a trite platitude parents toss at their children whenever their kids are wailing because something didn't happen the way they wanted it to. I guess parents have forgotten their own growing pains, to mention them so lightly, or maybe they never had them. Some people don't – or they aren't aware of them. Others, like you, like me, experience excruciating agony in our bones, when they hit. It makes sense too – as your bones are growing. It's not an easy thing to do – grow up. Emotionally, mentally, or, for some of us, physically."

Growing pains. His brother was right. It seemed too 'pat' an answer for the pain he'd been feeling – that had, while they were talking about it, all but disappeared. But, it seemed right. It made sense. It fit. And Seto would never, ever, lie to him. Growing pains – which meant...

"Will I be – taller?" Mokuba asked.

"In the morning? No. Not that fast, I'm afraid, little brother. But, yes. Eventually. Given how much pain you were in, and how stoic you usually are, I think your bones are preparing you for quite a bit of growth," Seto replied. There was a touch of pride in his voice. Mokuba hadn't noticed until this very minute, but Seto had been stroking gently along his shoulder the entire time. The motion was soothing, relaxing, even a bit – hypnotic...

"I'd take it again – the pain that is – every night, if..."

Seto smiled in satisfaction at the sleepiness in his brother's voice. The analgesic was working, taking the sharpness of the pain away. He could function on very little sleep, but Mokuba was still – a growing boy. Seto smiled at his internal joke, even as he gazed fondly down at his brother, who was all but drowsing in his arms.

"If...?" he asked leadingly.

"If... I get to be – as tall as – you..."

Seto looked down at his little brother, and tightened his arms around him again. Yeah, that would be nice. Seto would never admit aloud that he was pleased his brother would be gaining some sort of height. He'd feared for a while the boy was destined to be a pipsqueak like Motou. Now it seemed that fear was unfounded.

It was only a few hours until morning. He could hold his brother until then. There hadn't been anyone to hold him when he'd suffered his own growing pains. He'd worried, in the deep hours of the night, that he was dying and would never see another dawn. It had taken him about a year to finally realize what those intense bouts of pain meant – but even knowledge, and understanding – hadn't helped against the pain, or the fear, during the blackest hours of the night. The least he could do was to use that hard-won knowledge, and understanding, to make certain Mokuba didn't suffer too much from it – as he had been forced to. If he could lessen the pain, and the impact of the pain, on Mokuba, it would make every night he'd suffered from it worthwhile. It would give meaning to the pain and fear he'd endured – when he was Mokuba's age – and there had been no one there to explain it to him.

Mokuba's eyes opened. Something was pushing him awake again, against his need for sleep.

"What is it?" Seto asked gently.

"Vocabulary," Mokuba said.

Seto's brows knitted together. Vocabulary? What did that have to do with...

"Word," Mokuba added.

Seto locked his eyes on his brother, wondering what that was supposed to mean.

"Anodyne."

Oh. One of Mokuba's vocabulary words from his homework from school, no doubt. "Yes, anodyne. Something that relieves pain. The analgesic..."

"No," Mokuba mumbled while tucking his cheek more tightly against Seto's chest. "You. My – fav'rite – anodyne."

There were worse things he could be. Right now, he didn't think there was anywhere else, or anything else, he rather be. Sometimes, like right now, just being a big brother was more than enough. Seto grinned, tightened his arms around his brother, tucked Mokuba's head gently under his chin, and finally crossed his ankles as he lifted his his legs to prop on the edge of the bed. Just before Seto succumbed to sleep himself, Mokuba's sleepy voice repeated that line in his memory.

"My – fav'rite – anodyne."

It was enough.

–end–