-1DAY SIX: Saturday
Joey's alarm clock went off at its usual time in the morning. He awakened, remembering all the things that had been on his mind last night in one huge rush. Joey lay back down, hitting the snooze.
Joey rolled over in his bed. His body was still tense from the night's onslaught of dreams, not to mention an entire week's full of suppressed emotions . He briefly remembered Kaiba's words from yesterday. "Satisfied your violent urges yet?"
Joey rubbed his face in his pillow and growled. "No! Maybe if you'd have let me hit you!" he thought angrily. "Or at least let me keep you pinned down for a while longer." He tried to rub the redness off his face by burying it into his pillow.
His alarm clock went off again and he threw it against the wall. If he got up now, he'd have to face his Dad again. Joey's head started to pound and he decided that the day was better spent asleep.
Kaiba clicked his pen in an irritated fashion. He continued to glance at Joey's empty desk throughout their short school day. Where was the mutt? He had a media card waiting in his pocket that needed to go in Joey's necklace.
Kaiba approached the nerd herd after their half day. "Where's Wheeler?" he asked, directing his question towards Yugi.
"I think he's home sick today," Yugi replied.
"How would you know that?" Tristan asked skeptically.
Yugi held up his cell phone. "He called and left a voicemail of him coughing into the phone."
"How innovative," Kaiba commented, turning on his heel and stalking away.
Kaiba commanded his limo driver to find out where Joey's apartment was located. He looked out the window as they drove the opposite direction of what he knew to be the ritzy part of town. Several apartment buildings huddled on the corners of the residential streets. The limo stopped in front of a short, pinkish colored building with a name that tried to make it appear bright, happy, and appealing.
Kaiba stepped out of the limo and consulted the driver. "Apartment 6," the driver informed him. Kaiba nodded and waved the driver away, saying he would call later for a ride home.
Kaiba flipped open his cell phone as he entered the building, dialing Mokuba's number.
"Hey," Mokuba answered.
"I've had to make a stop at Wheeler's….place of residence," he informed Mokuba. One could hardly call this place a house. "He didn't attend school today."
"Oh. Are you worried about him?" Mokuba asked.
Kaiba frowned at the phone. "No, Mokuba. I have to change the media card or it will run out of space."
"Okay," Mokuba responded in an unconvinced tone. "Call me when you're on your way home."
Kaiba stood in front of the door to Apartment 6. He knocked several times, and when he received no answer, tried the knob. It was unlocked. Kaiba decided to let himself inside. He seemed to remember that Joey lived with just his Dad, who was probably out at the moment.
Kaiba closed the front door behind him, and surveyed the Wheeler's dimly lit apartment. Joey was nowhere in sight. The place was fairly clean, for the fact that it housed two males. Nothing smelled funny and there was no old food, garbage, or dirty laundry all over the place like Kaiba had seen apartments portrayed in the movies.
Kaiba pushed his shoes off and draped his coat over the back of the living room couch. Now, to ascertain where Joey was at. Down the small hallway there were three doors. Joey's room was rather obviously the one with the Red Eyes Black Dragon poster tacked to the front.
Kaiba politely knocked. After a few minutes, the door was opened to reveal Joey. He slouched terribly, not bothering to wear anything more than a pair of pajama bottoms. His hair was twice the atrocious mess it usually was, and his eyes were half closed as he stared at Kaiba, wondering with all his brain cells what he was doing there.
There was some staring on both their parts before Joey opened his door wider and shuffled back to his bed to sit down. Kaiba took it as an invitation to enter. Joey's room was less than clean, but it once again wasn't the overwhelming mess that he expected. Joey sat cross-legged on his bed, head practically in his lap.
"Are you sick?" Kaiba asked bluntly.
Joey nodded weakly. He leaned over and groped at his desk for a pad of paper and a pen. Very slowly he started to write on it. Kaiba noticed his hand was shaking slightly. He pulled up Joey's desk chair beside his bed and sat down to wait.
Eventually, Joey handed him the pad of paper. "Why are you here?"
Kaiba dug the media card out of his pocket and held it out to Joey. Joey took it and popped the other card out, replacing it with the new one. He handed the old one back to Kaiba and picked up the pad of paper.
He showed it to Kaiba a second later. "Every muscle in my body aches. And my head."
Kaiba rolled his eyes. "What do you expect? With the amount of rabid yelling and fighting you've been suppressing, I'm not surprised." he stood up in an attempt to leave. "You should have seen this coming when you decided on this bet."
Joey groped at his desk again, finally choosing a small book and holding it out to Kaiba.
"What's this?" Kaiba asked. Joey obviously didn't answer and flopped back down onto his bed.
Kaiba opened the book to page one. It had "Day One" written on it and the following:
"Today is day one of the bet. I'm supposed to stay silent for a week, and so Tea suggested that I keep this journal thing to let out my uh……feelings? It sounds too girly to me. I can very well let out my feelings to myself, whatever they are.
BY THE WAY KAIBA'S STUPID FACE IS GOING TO LOSE."
"You kept a journal? Really lame, Wheeler," Kaiba commented, flipping the page. The entries got increasingly more angry. One full page was filled with the words "Kaiba sucks", another with "I hate Kaiba". There was a full two page spread of every swear word that Joey could think of, written in red sharpie.
The last entry was marked as day four. It was a very short entry.
"Mokuba is a conniving sneak. I don't know how to answer that."
Kaiba placed the book back on Joey's desk. "Mokuba is quite the mastermind, isn't he?" at least Kaiba wasn't the only one who saw Mokuba for what he really was.
Kaiba noticed that Joey's face was becoming increasingly red. He'd taken care of Mokuba a few times when he was sick, and knew well enough that this wasn't a good sign. "Are you actually alright?" he asked Joey warily.
Joey didn't move. He focused on breathing to try to reduce the throbbing in his head. He felt Kaiba's hand push up his bangs and rest on his forehead. He weakly tried to bat it away, though admittedly the skin on Kaiba's hand was much cooler than the skin on Joey's forehead, and it was okay if he left it there for a while.
"How convenient of you to develop a fever just as I was about to leave," Kaiba said, standing up from his seat.
Joey turned on his side and scrunched his body up. His face felt as if it were on fire, and just thinking about the fact that the fever wasn't the only reason it was so red, made him heat up even more. Joey wanted Kaiba to leave, not to see him in such a pathetic state. Joey also wanted him to stay, for the sole reason (he convinced himself, anyway) that there was no one else to take care of him right now. He silently thanked Kaiba for making it possible for him to withhold expressing his thoughts.
Once Kaiba had gone, Joey rolled back over onto his back and spread his arms wide, wishing he had the strength to open the window, turn on the fan, anything. Just as he was starting to tug at the elastic of his pajama pants to rid himself of any pieces of unnecessary clothing, he felt a hand brushing back his bangs again, and the sudden shock of a cold, wet washcloth on his forehead. His entire body shivered in reaction.
"Don't go getting any more naked while I'm still around," Kaiba muttered, sitting back down in Joey's desk chair. He forced his eyes to focus on Joey's face, and not where his hand still attempted to push the waistband of his pajama pants down.
After a moment, Kaiba couldn't take it anymore and reached down to bat Joey's hand away, but stopped when he realized what he was doing. With an annoyed sigh, he knelt on the edge of Joey's bed and leaned over him to pull open the window.
Joey gave a sigh of relief and stopped trying to further strip himself. He could feel the water from the washcloth running down his cheeks and dripping into his hair. It had already lost its bite. He'd rather Kaiba had stuck an icepack on his forehead.
Kaiba took the washcloth and left for what felt like at least an hour to Joey. "What's he still doin' here?" he thought to himself, opening his eyes halfway and staring at the ceiling. Joey struggled to sit up. "I gotta tell him to go home. I can't have him takin' care of me like this, he'll never let me hear the end of it! Pad of paper, where did you go?"
Kaiba's voice came from just outside the door. "It'll be a little while longer before his fever breaks….What?! No, I'm not being…detained. Mokuba, tonight you and I will be having a little talk about how you're coming up with these farfetched ideas of yours." Kaiba gave an irritated little sigh, lowering his voice. "Thanks Mokuba, I appreciate that you've recognized that I have a heart." He snapped his cell phone shut and walked into Joey's room.
Joey appeared to be looking around his room for something. Kaiba rolled his eyes at the fact that he was even sitting up. Kaiba sat back down in the desk chair and handed a glass of water to Joey. "Drink this while I think of a good way to make you sweat."
Joey choked on the water and coughed. Kaiba narrowed his eyebrows. "You're as bad as Mokuba," he stated, stalking out of the room again.
Joey downed the glass of water in two seconds flat. Kaiba returned with another, and a fresh washcloth. "Lay back down. I won't take responsibility if you die," Kaiba commanded. Joey anticipated the cold cloth on his face and obeyed immediately.
"Good boy," Kaiba muttered with a smirk, and Joey growled.
Kaiba quietly closed the front door to his mansion. He glanced at his watch in the dim light as he padded up the stairs. Ugh, he was barely able to get home early enough to keep his visit to Joey out of the sleepover category.
Mokuba wasn't the kind to let Kaiba off the hook so easily. He intercepted his big brother at the top of the stairs. Mokuba's short stature and yellow cupcake pajamas weren't exactly intimidating.
"You're kinda late," Mokuba pointed out.
"Save it, squirt," Kaiba said, shuffling down the hall to his bedroom door. Mokuba hesitated; his big brother hadn't called him such a little kid name for quite some time.
He followed Kaiba down the hallway. "How's Joey?" he inquired.
"He'll be fine. No one is more stubborn than he is," Kaiba responded.
"I can think of someone who comes pretty close," Mokuba replied.
"Goodnight, Mokuba," Kaiba said, closing the door to his room behind him.
Mokuba stifled a giggle as he ran down the hall to his own bedroom.
