Seto slowly opened the door to the mansion and stepped inside, shivering slightly as an icy wind swept past. He closed the door and walked into the living room carefully laying the blonde duelist onto the couch. Joey grimaced in his sleep and let out a pained moan as his battered form was laid down.

Seto cringed slightly just from the sounds the younger boy was making. Seto took the chance to look over the shorter blondes appearance, and found himself less then satisfied with it. He could see bruises peeking out from underneath his shirt, and a bleeding cut on his upper arm. Upon further inspection he noticed a darkening mark forming on his jaw. Not to mention the blood stain on the side of his shirt.

Seto found himself looking back at his own hands, his normally pale skin now smeared with scarlet red. Joey was still shaking and whimpering; panting heavily. What was worrying Seto even more was the fact that Joey's cheeks were now tinted a dark shade of pink.

He carefully slid his hand over the blonde's forehead, and frowned.

He wasn't warm. He was burning.

The ruby eyed boy quickly flinched away from Seto's hand letting out a frightened sound. The brunette's brow creased in confusion upon witnessing the strange reaction. Joey shuddered all over and curled up in a ball on his side, wearing a pained expression.

Seto reached out to him, but stopped himself suddenly causing his hand to hover above the teenagers golden locks.

What the hell was he doing? He shouldn't even care about this stupid mutt.

Seto tried to harden his expression, but found it increasingly hard to glare at the hurt look on Joey's face. He found his gaze softening involuntarily with concern again. He closed his eyes against the image and let out a sigh.

"Why is this mutt doing this to me?" he whispered beneath his breath. He glanced back down at the child again when he heard him whimpering. He placed one hand on the arm of the couch leaning against it to steady his weight as he leaned over the red eyed teen.

He allowed his other hand to touch the duelists forehead once more, only to have Joey flinch and shake beneath his fingertips.

"He probably got sick from being outside so long," he murmured to himself. Sapphire blue eyes shifted from the blondes face to his abdomen again, his eyes unintentionally narrowing at the sight of the blood. He knew that Joey was a street punk. He was hot headed and he always got into street fights. So him showing up to school with some cuts and bruises was never an abnormal thing...but this was a lot more serious then a few bruises.

This was...god he didn't even know what this was.

This was like someone had literally beaten the boy with a bat. Something told the brunette that this wasn't from just any street fight.

Seto let out a small huff, "Why do I even care?" he asked himself silently. He straightened; however, and removed his hand from the younger boy. "Well, there's no point just leaving you there to bleed."

He turned around and walked to the kitchen.

He suddenly found himself glad that Mokuba was asleep, he really didn't want to have to explain to him why Joey, his proclaimed rival, was laying passed out on their couch bleeding. Yeah, that would be a hard one to get out of. The young ceo began rummaging through the cabinets in search of the first aid kit. His staff was on holiday currently including his medical staff. Luckily though Seto wasn't a complete moron when it came to first aid, he wasn't any doctor, but he knew enough. He spotted the white box and grabbed it before shutting the cabinet door and walking back to the living room.

Joey didn't look any better then when Seto had left him though, in fact he looked worse. He was now sweating lightly and breathing heavily. Seto placed the box on the table in the center of the room and turned back to the ruby eyed boy. He tentatively reached for his shirt but faltered, he almost wasn't sure that he wanted to see what was underneath. After all Seto found himself a little sickened just by what had been done to the already visible parts of Joey, he didn't know if he wanted to see the rest.

He innerly shook himself though for thinking so stupidly, this wasn't debatable, Joey needed medical assistance. And that had to be his priority not his own uneasiness. He took a deep breath and pulled up the hem of the golden haired boys shirt to expose his bare chest.

Crystal blue eyes widened and filled with something in between horror and shock.

If he had thought Joey looked bad before, that was nothing compared to how the rest of him looked. His chest and stomach were covered with angry marks and bruises. Some were black others were blue and purple, and older ones looked yellow.

Seto wasn't stupid, he knew that different colors meant different stages of healing, some of these were newer then others. Meaning that whatever had happened to the mutt had probably happened before...many times before from the looks of it.

The ceo's eyes grew narrower and more horrified with every new inch of abused flesh he looked over. He spotted cuts adorning the side of Joey's stomach and some on his chest; each one trickling small tendrils of blood. And since he had moved the boys shirt the blood had now been smeared across his sun kissed skin.

For some reason unknown to him the angry marks covering the younger boys body made him positively furious. It took every bit of self control he had to stop himself from blowing up. He didn't know why it made him so angry though, after all this was the mutt.

This was Joey Wheeler.

The guy who he hated and vise versa. The person he insulted and couldn't care less about. And yet seeing him in his current physical state made him see red. For some reason the thought of someone injuring his puppy to this extant filled him with rage. Seto let a soft growl slip past his lips, momentarily choosing to ignore the fact that he had just referred to the dog as his puppy.

Seto ceased his growling; however, upon hearing the distraught and feverish whine that emitted the young teen. He glanced back up from Joey's chest to his face to see his eyes shut tightly, his lips pressed together and quivering, and his brows furrowed together. Every bit of him screamed pain and fear.

Seto frowned.

Who could have done such a thing to his-...the mutt. Who could have hurt him so badly and instilled so much fear into the normally fearless duelist. Seto forced himself look away from the teens face and back at his chest. He knew why Joey was making that awful expression...he knew he needed to do this job quick and painless...for both of their sakes.

With that thought Seto silently went to work; cleaning and bandaging the boys injuries. He made himself ignore all of the pained cries and frightened whimpers that came from the crimson eyed youth. Although he found himself grimacing with each one.

He tried to make himself focus on Joey's injuries, but the very sight of them made Seto want to turn away. So he allowed himself a little bit of mental reprieve by going back to pondering about his strange feelings caused by said blonde.

He shouldn't have cared that Joey was injured...He shouldn't care about it now.

But oh god he did care! And for the love of Blue Eyes he couldn't figure out why. Perhaps it was because Joey kept reminding him of Mokuba when they were kids, Mokuba tended to be the only one who could ever bring out those types of feelings.

Maybe their likeness was getting to him.

But that couldn't be all of it, after all there had been plenty of times he had seen Joey beaten up and it hadn't gotten this reaction from him. So what made this time so different? Maybe it was because of how helpless he seemed.

That might have been it...after all Joey never let those kinds of emotions show around other people. Seto didn't need to be close to the blonde to know that. He supposed it was one of the few ways Joey and himself were alike. They were both the kind of people to put on brave faces and then flinch when no one was looking.

Seto let out another sigh.

There was a nagging feeling in his chest, this wasn't the only reason he was feeling this way. Perhaps...maybe...it might be possible that he felt this way because seeing him like this reminded Seto so much...maybe too much of himself when he was younger. More specifically after Mokuba and himself had been adopted by Gozaburo.

Seto still remembered hundreds of times when he felt terrified of going to another lesson. When he felt sick of the thought of reading another textbook. When he felt too hurt and tired to concentrate on his studies. He had never been beaten directly per say, it wasn't as if someone had ever physically hit him . But in a way they had worked him so hard it might as well been considered abuse.

Yes...maybe that was why Seto felt so commiserative towards him. Why he felt so obligated to help him...in the way no one had ever truly been able to help him.

His short reprieve of thought was broken when the sound of Joey's mewling finally got to hard to ignore. He had managed to clean off all the blood and was now just finishing with the bandages. He had already checked to see if his rubs might be broken, but it appeared it was nothing but severe bruising. Seto finally leaned back a little, most of the golden haired duelists chest was wrapped in gauze, but it at least looked a bit better then the sight of cuts.

Seto was glad when he was finally able to lower Joey's shirt, which in return caused said teens whines to decrease in volume. However, Seto realized immediately upon replacing Joey's shirt that it was still covered with blood stains. He would probably have to let him borrow some of his clothes, even though they would probably be much too big for him. Seto breathed out a sigh, they would have to do.

Seto turned his focus to Joey's arm. The blood had stopped flowing for the most part leaving lines of dried crimson on the shivering flesh. He picked up another swab from the first aid kit and wetted it with peroxide before pressing it against the cut earning a hiss from the still sleeping boy.

Seto frowned softly knowing that his fever must be pretty bad if he was still sleeping through all of this. He once more detached himself or at least attempted to and forced himself to carry on with his work. He gently dabbed the wound before he started cleaning off the dried tendrils of blood. Once that was finished he discarded of the swab along with the others he had used and picked up the roll of gauze again. He gently lifted Joey's arm causing him to flinch and whimper once more, earning a slightly upset look from the brunette.

Seto made quick work of wrapping Joey's arm up, finding himself wanting to get all of this done and over with.

The blue eyed ceo leaned back finally and let out a deep breath. At least that part was finally finished, sapphire orbs shifted to the side to look at the clock on the wall.

11:04 PM.

"Hm..not too bad.." he muttered to no one in particular. He stood back up from the ground and carefully slid his arms underneath the boy again and lifted him up from the couch. He blinked when Joey's head rolled to the side causing it to lay against his shoulder, he chose to ignore it as he carried his 'rival' up the staircase and to one of the spare rooms.

The brunette carefully laid him down on the bed as to not disturb him any further. He stood beside the boy gazing down at his so called 'enemy'.

"I know I shouldn't care..." he murmured. "But for some reason..there's just something about you, Mutt."

TBC

Im sorta on a roll. Yeah this was pretty much done i just added about two lines before i published it. Yeah...well things are moving a bit slow I noticed. Going to choose to ignore it though Lol. Oh by the way I probably spelled Gozaburo wrong, I was way to lazy to check how it was spelled. Well...not much to say actually I hope you enjoy it and please review.