Falling Sick, Seto Style
Mersedes
What if the infamous and untouchable Seto Kaiba fell sick? Who would take care of him? Brother-love, and J/K. Fluff and romance. And a touch of humor.
Warnings: Minor swearing.
Please don't flame me.
"Uh, Seto?"
Seto turned around slowly, quickly masking his pained features, and wiping the sweat off of his forehead surreptitiously. He bit back a moan as his head thoroughly disagreed with the movement.
"Mokue? What are you doing up so late?" Seto asked.
Mokuba peered up at him, his silver eyes glistening softly in the dim light of the hall. He bit his lip and directed a questioning gaze up at him. His hair was slightly ruffled from sleeping, and he rubbed the sleep tiredly from his eyes.
"I thought I heard something," he stated simply. He tried to look behind the door of the room that Seto had just vacated. "Apparently from the bathroom. Seto?"
"Ah, no Mokuba. I didn't hear anything. I was just getting something to eat." Mokuba quirked an eyebrow at this. He knew his brother too well. Before he could retort, however, Seto ushered him back to his room. "Why don't you go back to bed?" He smoothed down Mokuba's hair, and then sat down on his brother's bed. Mokuba reluctantly crawled in, and Seto pulled the covers up to his chin. Mokuba's eyes were already drooping. Seto shifted, about to get up, when he felt Mokuba's small fingers grasp his wrist. He looked down at Mokuba, questioningly.
"Seto, you'd tell me if there was anything wrong, right?"
In the moonlight, his little brother looked like a perfect angel of innocence, peeking out from covers all too large for his small body. Seto hated to lie to him. He bit his bottom lip, and answered guiltily, "Of course Mokuba."
Mokuba relinquished his grip on his brother's wrist, satisfied with the lie, and let it fall to the bed. "'Night, Big Brother," he mumbled sleepily, and then closed his eyes with a small smile.
"Goodnight Mokuba," Seto replied softly. He stood, smiling slightly at Mokuba's sleeping figure, and then exited the room, closing the door softly.
Outside, Seto slumped against the wall, and sighed in relief. He did not want his brother to know he did not feel well—but that, of course, was an understatement. Running a trembling hand through his slightly damp hair, he inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to placate the merciless devils that hammered away at his skull. He cringed as a particularly nasty shock of pain reverberated through his head. That he felt like he was submerged in an icebox did nothing to better his situation.
Oh, well, he thought. He'd just down some more Tylenol and don a sweater.
Downstairs, he grit his teeth as he opened the refrigerator for the orange juice carton. The frigid air made his teeth tremble and his body quake. He quickly poured himself a glass, letting the cool liquid wash down his burning throat, and swallowed the bitter pills. He made a face—he hated taking pills to make himself feel better, although coffee was another matter entirely. His stomach turned over at the thought; his body would not allow the bitter tasting, yet necessary, caffeinated concoction to pass his lips.
Seto stumbled towards the den, and unsuccessfully tried to make the throbbing die down by massaging his scalp. He merely grunted when the pain refused to subside, and sat in front of his computer. His eyes watered at the bright glare of the laptop screen and caused another flare of pain. Too bad, he thought, and began hammering away at his keyboard, rapidly assessing profits and losses of his company, unwaveringly through the night.
"Seto!" Seto blinked in surprise, and swiveled his chair around to face the door. He muffled a cough that had developed during the night, and stood when his brother entered. "Good morning!" Mokuba's grin dropped almost immediately after he assessed his brother's condition. If the dark bags around his brother's dulled eyes weren't any indication that he hadn't slept, then the stark pallor of his face was a sure sign. Mokuba frowned at his brother's abnormally disheveled appearance, from the wrinkles in his pants to the way his shirt was hanging open to the hair sticking out wildly in every direction, and then narrowed his grey eyes in anger.
"Good morning Mokue." Seto grinned, trying to salvage the situation. But Mokuba could see that the grin did not reach his eyes. He crossed his arms.
"Seto Kaiba don't you dare 'Good morning Mokue' me." Mokuba flared. Seto's shoulders visibly slumped. There was no way he was getting out of this one. "I know what you've been doing, Seto. If you even mention leaving this house until you get a decent amount of sleep, I will tie you down, take all of your clothes and burn them, cut the phone lines, lock your door, and throw the key into a gutter." Mokuba hissed, wagging his finger at Seto.
"Mokuba," Kaiba began, looking sternly down at his little brother. It wasn't working today, however, as his gaze was slightly glazed over, and his disheveled appearance gave him a slightly insane look.
"I'll disassemble your laptop piece by piece, and toss the hard-drive into the toilet."
Seto gaped at his brother open-mouthed. Why was his brother so damn adamant?
He smirked. Must be a Kaiba thing.
But that still did not resolve the issue.
Seto grumbled, but replied, "Fine."
"Then I'll tell everyone at school you like Joey—wait, what?" Mokuba's angered look transformed into one of confusion.
"What?" Seto gasped at the same time. How did he know that?
"You're staying home?" Mokuba asked incredulously. Seto would have laughed at his expression if he hadn't been so surprised at Mokuba's claim. That was oh-so-true. Not that he'd ever admit it.
"I do not like the mutt," he spat. "And yes, I'm staying home."
Mokuba grinned, and hugged his older brother in a manner that resembled a tackle. But Seto hugged his brother back, despite his annoying tendencies—for who else in the world did he have?
He patted down Mokuba's unruly raven colored hair, and straightened his collar. Mokuba merely rolled his eyes, and whined, "Big Brother! I'm twelve, I can do it by myself!"
"Did you eat?" Seto asked seriously, kneeling. Mokuba nodded, but before he could remark on Seto's eating habits—or lack thereof—Seto pushed Mokuba gently pushed Mokuba outside the room. "It's already 7 Mokuba! Hurry up so you won't be late!" He gave his younger brother a quick hug before Mokuba ran downstairs, shoving a few more books into his bulging backpack.
"Bye Big Brother!" Mokuba yelled, waving. Seto smiled, and waved back.
"Study hard!" His voice echoed in down the stairs, which dizzyingly wound downwards. Seto shook his head slightly and looked away.
The door slammed. Seto smirked. Like hell if he would let a simple cold get in his way.
"Blundering idiots." Seto dropped his suitcase on his desk with a satisfying SLAM. His secretary ran into the room, setting a stack of papers on his desk.
"What is this?" he snarled. The woman, Marie? Maria? Melissa? Who cares? Glanced upwards at her boss.
"These are--" she began.
"I don't have all day!" Seto snapped, but immediately regretted it. He began coughing, and couldn't stop until he sipped the water his secretary had rushed over and set on his desk. His chest felt uncomfortably congested. He looked up, and slightly softened his gaze before hissing "Answer me!"
"Letters from other companies hoping to—" She began gleefully; her boss was human, and not a robot as she had previously thought.
"Alright, go do some work." He snapped open his suitcase, and cracked open his laptop. He noticed that his secretary was still hovering next to his desk.
"Yes?" he ground out, and stared at her.
She flushed slightly, but determinedly asked, "Sir, are you feeling alright? You don't look well—"
"Your ridiculous little opinion has been noted. Try not to let your mind wander...It is too small and fragile to be out by itself," he snapped angrily. Couldn't the woman keep to her own business? She was the only one who dared talk back to him.
She pursed her lips, and walked calmly outside.
He stared at the pile of papers in front of him. His stomach churned unpleasantly; he felt slightly nauseous. He tried breathing in slowly, in and out, in and out. That calmed his unruly stomach slightly. He flipped through the papers on his desk, trying to ignore the buzzing that filled his ears.
"Sir?"
"What?"
"Here," And with that, his secretary slid a plate of toast and fruit, and a glass of orange juice on his desk. He peered at her curiously, looking for an ulterior motive. She merely smirked, whirled around, and left. Seto merely bit into his toast and gratefully sipped his orange juice. Now time to fire the employee he had been itching to get rid of. Incidentally, the man was his secretary's ex-husband.
Seto chuckled despite his sore throat, and began to type.
A largely rotund man, who was currently and unsuccessfully flirting with the young female employee in the cubicle across from his, received a letter on his desk. He slit it open, and his eyes bulged outwards.
Dear Mr. Morrison,
I have a few very basic expectations. Chief among these is that my employees have an intellect that ranges above the common ground squirrel. After your consistent and annoying harassment of employees during the commission of your duties, I can only surmise that you are one of the few true genetic wastes of MY time. Asking me, the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company, to explain every little nuance of everything you happen to need help with is not only a WASTE of MY time, but also a waste of precious oxygen.
You are apparently suffering from the impression that you were hired to provide amusement to myself and other employees, who watch you vainly attempt to understand the concept of "cut and paste" for the hundredth time. You will never understand computers. Something as incredibly simple as binary still gives you too many options.
You will also never understand why people hate you, but I am going to try and explain it to you, even though I am sure this will be just as effective as telling you what an IP is. In a world of managerial evolution, you are the blue-green algae that everyone else eats and laughs at. Managers like you are a sad proof of the Dilbert principle.
Since this situation is unlikely to change without you getting a full frontal lobotomy reversal, I am forced (not really) to fire you. However, I have a few parting thoughts.
1. I have all the passwords to every account on the system, and I know every password you have used for the last five years. If you decide to get cute, I am going to publish your "favorites list", which I conveniently have on the company's history. I do believe that terms like "Lolita" are not usually viewed favorably by the administration.
2. When you "borrowed" my office's digital camera to "take pictures of your Mother's birthday," you neglected to mention that you were going to take pictures of yourself and your equally idiotic drunken friends at a party. Then you forgot to erase them like the techno-moron you really are.
3. Never FK with your boss.
Thank you for your (insignificant) time.
I expect every trace of you to be gone by 8:10 AM, today.
Seto Kaiba
President and CEO of Kaiba Corporations Inc.
The man checked his watch. It was now 8:05 AM.
Seto hoped school would be as bearable as work. But of course, why should it be?
The inane chattering of those stupid people cluttering the hallways nearly drove Seto up the wall. His headache had worsened tenfold, if that was even possible, and his vision was slightly blurred. His throat burned. Of all the days, his school had picked this day to install a fire-hydrant next to the infernal building, thereby shutting down all the water fountain lines across school. He swallowed dryly, grimacing. Idiots…he muttered under his breath.
He clenched his fingers against his sides as he walked through a particularly annoying bunch to get to the cafeteria. His irritation at everyone in general had sky-rocketed, and people sensed his presence as one would an impending thunderstorm. He sneezed several times, and dizzily stumbled backwards for support, crashing into someone foolish enough to ignore the horrifiedlooks on his friends' faces. Seto sent him a cold glare, silencing any remarks, and then whirled around heading to the library. He always had work to do. He'd eat later.
Seto held his arms to his stomach as another shiver rippled through his body. This was not working. He let his head rest on the hard surface of the table. He closed his eyes, and let the rush of dizziness sweep him away. Moments later, he jerked awake at a noise only a few tables away. Seto rubbed his eyes to see who had disturbed him, and grunted when he noted it was Joey. Typical mutt. Another wave of coughing overcame the overworked billionaire. He wheezed as the coughing died down, but his throat was still itching and burning. Tears had formed in his eyes, and he rubbed those away angrily. He clutched his stomach again, and almost doubled over in his seat. Suddenly, the urge to vomit grew intense, and it was all he could do but run out of the library into the closest bathroom.
He heaved into the porcelain bowl, emptying his stomach of merely acid and the toast he had nibbled on that morning. He could feel tears escaping his eyes from the utter pain that wracked his body. He hated himself for being weak. The tears rolled down faster and faster, and Seto choked on his tears. Great heaving sobs shook the young CEO's body. He couldn't stop it, any more than one could stop a tornado from destroying all in its path. He didn't know why exactly he was crying. Maybe it was because he hadn't slept for four days straight because Mokuba had been sick only days before, maybe because he had attended both school and work despite his sleep deprivation, maybe because he had fixed a major glitch in his company's system, maybe because the nightmares and flashbacks from his past had begun again, maybe because—
Why was the bathroom spinning so fast? And what was on his back, rubbing comforting circles so that he stopped sobbing uncontrollably.
"Easy Seto. Take it easy," a soothing voice whispered. Seto unconsciously leaned backwards into the warm body, grateful for the warmth that his shivering body was starving for. A bottle of water had suddenly appeared in his hands, and washed out his mouth, and then greedily drank from it, moistening his parched throat. He swished the cool water around in his mouth, savoring it, before drinking more. The hands had stopped rubbing circles on his back, and helped move Seto down so that he was in a sitting position against the wall. Seto whimpered. Where did the warmth go? He closed his eyes dizzily as fingers caressed his forehead.
"Man, Kaiba, you're really burnin' up," an accented voice commented.
Seto's eyes immediately shot open, and he crawled away from the teen sitting with him on the floor.
He leaned against the walls, and tried to stand up. He hated when people saw his weaknesses. Seto's eyes flashed dangerously as Joey stood, and held his hand outwards.
"Mutt." The name dropped out of Seto's mouth automatically. He straightened and smirked as anger reddened the other boy's face.
"I'm trying ta help ya here an' all you can do is call me names?" Joey took a step forward, narrowing his normally warm, honey-colored eyes.
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go," Seto quoted, and smirked. He loved it when Joey became angry. He loved provoking Joey to become angry. He loved it when the other teen became flustered or couldn't reply to his own witty comments because he was so angry. It was truly amusing.
"Whatever." Joey moved to the side, and headed towards the door.
What was going on? That wasn't supposed to happen.
Seto's mind, already whirling because he had just emptied his stomach and hadn't slept for four days, unsuccessfully processed this odd information.
"What are you doing?" Seto stumbled over to Joey, tugging on his shirt. He felt like he was floating.
"You're obviously sick, Kaiba. And I'm not gonna pick a fight with you when you're sick," Joey glared at the wall, refusing to look at Seto.
"You, listen here—" Seto began.
"Kaiba, can we finish this another time?" Joey rolled his eyes and turned away.
But Seto barely heard him. The roaring in his ears intensified so much that he wondered if someone had flushed all the toilets at the same time. Darkness was creeping upon his sight, obscuring his vision.
He suddenly lurched forward, onto Joey. The water bottle rolled away from them, leaking its contents on the tile floor.
"What the?" Joey immediately turned around, and caught Seto before he fell unceremoniously to the grimy, and now wet, bathroom floor. "Seto…" he murmured against the other's forehead so that Seto wouldn't hear him. He scooped Seto, who was disturbingly light Joey noted, into his arms and pulled the other's arms up to hang around his neck.
Joey looked down at Seto as he walked down the mercifully empty hallways to the nurse's office. Joey normally adored his crush's sharp profile, but today he looked unusually pale, and his eyes flickered rapidly underneath his eyelids, as though he was re-visiting some terror. His breathing had quickened, and he felt warmer than he should. Joey grimly entered the nurse's office.
"I'm at lunch, come back in a few minutes," a voice called out from a room.
"Well, dis can't wait," Joey ground out angrily. The weight in his arms shifted slightly so that his head rested against Joey's chest. Joey's eyes widened as the CEO tightened his grip on Joey's neck. "Uh, can you just—" he called out.
"What is it—oh!" The nurse hurriedly led Joey to a joint room, and motioned for him to set Seto down on the bed. "Wait outside," she muttered and donned a pair of plastic gloves, snapping them on. Joey winced. He hated doctors.
Just moments later he heard muffled shouts coming from the room. Bewildered, he barged into the room, expecting to find fully armed kidnappers stuffing Seto into a large bag. But instead, to his vast relief, he found Seto arguing with the nurse.
"I don't need to—"
"Well, at least take this," she shoved a booklet into his hands and shook her head in annoyance. Joey caught the title. "How to Take Care of Yourself" Joey snickered. But he caught the attention of both the nurse and Seto, who glared at him once again. Joey rolled his eyes.
"Thank God you're here. Take Seto home, and be sure he follows all that this says. I will not allow him to set foot inside the school until he feels better," the nurse heatedly stated. She whirled around, and threw the gloves in the garbage, leaving a fuming CEO and a confused blond behind. Joey glanced at Seto, who was glaring at the book as though it would spontaneously combust.
He suddenly looked up at Joey, who took a step back. It was the no nonsense I-am-Seto-Kaiba-Get-Out-of-My-Way-Or-You-Will-Be-Crushed look.
"Well?" Seto snapped.
Joey decided that he liked the Seto that he had met back in the bathroom better than the super pissed Seto he was facing right now.
"Uh? Well, she said—" Joey started. Did the nurse seriously want Joey to take care of Seto?
"Obviously. Now go get your stuff. We're leaving right now. Besides, I have to get home before Mokuba." His eyes softened at his brother's name. Well, Seto seriously wanted him to take him home.
"Why doncha just call one of your limos?" Joey asked before he crossed the threshold.
Honestly, this mutt was driving him crazier that all the people in the halls. He breathed in and out slowly before answering.
He hoped the mutt had disappeared in the interim. He opened his eyes. Damn. He hadn't.
"Because you're here moron, and my limo-driver is on his break," Seto answered. "I'm not that heartless."
Joey grunted in response.
"You do have a car, don't you?" Seto questioned him. He smirked, anticipating the answer.
"No, but I do have a motorcycle."
Seto blanched. Motorcycle? He loved motorcycles, but wasn't sure if he could exactly handle sitting on one right now.
Joey noticed the discomfited look on Seto's face, and immediately regretted being so abrupt with him. He wasn't feeling well, after all.
"But don't worry, we'll take a taxi." And with that he left to get their belongings.
"Don't paw at my stuff, moron!" Seto called out, or rather tried. Another bout of coughing caused pain to radiate through his body. He curled up slightly, and wheezed.
The dizziness refused to abate, but instead seemed to engulf him. He closed his eyes, and held his breath against the vertigo. He clasped together the buttons of his coat, and wrapped his arms around his stomach. But it was nothing compared to the warmth he had felt with Joey. Joey. He smiled slightly, before succumbing to the darkness that pulled him away from consciousness.
"I already put our stuff in the trunk. Are you ready—Kaiba? You alright?" Seto felt a hand on his shoulder, but mumbled in response. He wanted to sleep. Who was bothering him?
"Sleepy…" he murmured, grabbing Joey's arm and tucking it between his own, as though he were hugging a teddy bear.
"Aw man, if only Tea could see this…" the blond chuckled, before lifting Seto into his arms again. Seto murmured something, and could feel that he was moving. But he was too tired to care.
Insults courtesy of (some of the quotes there are actually pretty funny!)
I will be re-editing this. It's 3 am in the morning. No it's not done yet, I'll add more onto this chapter, so it'll be one long huge delicious chapter filled with Seto-ey goodness. (Ok, you can laugh at me now...No I do not have ADD, but one of my friends does!)
Please review. I'll give you a cookie...or something...heheee. Please. Review. Weiver esealp.
Mersedes out (actually to bed...)