Disclaimer: I own nothing but the words on the page.
Warnings/Notes: I'm sorry it took me to update. Eventual Toonshipping, I just have to say that I LOVE this story compared to my others and plan on updating a lot quicker.
Tearing himself away from Pegasus, Kaiba brushed away the tear with the back of his hand. "Just stay out of this!" He bellowed. "You'll never-"
"Understand?" Pegasus finished with a laugh of disgust. "You have no idea Kaiba boy and it seems you never will. Sometimes I wish you'd just grow up, it's so hard to resist treating you like the child you act like. I realize your stepfather stole your childhood from you but can't you see you're stealing Mokuba's from him now? Let him be young, take chances, have a life outside of what you know, he only gets to do so once. I am nearly eight years yours senior and I have been through a hell of a lot in that time. You have no comprehension of what its like to be emotionally intact, all you know outside of Mokuba's love is pain and therefore your decisions reflect as so. You are making the wrong choices Kaiba, maybe not in your eyes but in reality. There is life outside these walls, every day people suffer to get by and go through many more a tragedy than you could ever dream of. Your life was hard Kaiba, it was, but you and everyone else on this earth needs to live for the here and now. Your past life is in the past for a reason. For god's sake-for Mokuba's-let it go!"
Kaiba blinked, the shock prominently gracing his features as he took a step back and felt himself pressed against the railing of Mokuba's bed. "How dare you!" They were the first words that would form on his lips as he was overcome, once again, by rage. He rose his fist and drove it hard into what he wanted to be Pegasus's stomach. The older man, however, caught the punch, furrowing his brow as he realized he was left with no other choice.
As he too drew back his fist he quietly muttered, "forgive me…."
He felt his knuckle collide with the side of Kaiba's pale face, which caused the man to stumble back a few paces. For a few moments he stood motionless, trying to register what had just happened, slowly though, once he'd gotten enough hold on himself to move his fingers, he cupped the dully-aching area of his cheek.
"You struck me." His voice was robotic as he forced away childhood memories of Gozaburo.
"I'm sorry Seto but you left me no other choice." Pegasus hadn't moved but noted Kaiba was looking down at Mokuba's sleeping form. "I'd hoped you wouldn't make me beg not to be so cruel to get through to you but for the love of god we can't keep this up…"
"You act like we're married…"
"No, I act like we're trying to work through a problem that if not resolved correctly could be the difference between the life and death of more than one person."
Kaiba moved passed Pegasus, a chill running down his spine as he did so; it made Pegasus physically ill to think that may've been a sign that Seto was afraid of him. "This is the hardest thing I've ever done." He stroked Mokuba's hair and face.
Pegasus moved now to stand beside him, "I know." He said simply, "And I admire your bravery."
Swallowing hard Kaiba realized that Pegasus hadn't meant to hurt him as Gozaburo had as a child, and finally then some part of him understood that for such a man to be this angry at him he must be doing something utterly wrong and stupid. He blinked and forced himself to regain his composure, he refused to keep thinking of times in his life that had no bearing on the present situation. All that mattered to him now was that Mokuba get well.
"Little brother." He whispered to him, as the boy's breaths became closer together, "It's alright to get up now." His hand found its way over Mokuba's trembling one as the younger boy opened his eyes.
"What's wrong?" The raven-haired teen asked in a voice hoarse from his current condition.
"Nothing Mokuba. You just got a little sick, but you're going to get better now. A doctor gave you something to counteract the allergic reaction you had to the pills you took." Kaiba replied, and for a moment Mokuba looked at him, unable to recall the medication in question. But then, all too quickly the memory came to him in a hazy flood of darkness and mumbling strangers above him.
"I didn't realize…" The boy's eyes narrowed to avert his brother's gaze before the elder Kaiba spoke to console him.
"It's all right now, don't worry about it." He replied, and then, feeling a hand on his shoulder, he momentarily turned his attention away from his sick brother.
"It sounded like he could use some water." Pegasus said as he smiled fondly down at Mokuba who Kaiba helped sit up and drink. "You're a trooper." The older CEO chirped to him, "You had the two of us worried for a minute there." He winked at this and Mokuba, who'd at Seto's whim, finished off the glass of water given to him, smiled in response.
"How long was I asleep?" He asked, both men exchanged glances and shrugged.
"We weren't exactly worried about the time aspect." Pegasus informed him and nodding with a look on his face that relayed to Mokuba 'you-have-no-idea,' Seto rose to full height.
"Do you want something to eat now, Mokuba?" He asked as he watched the boy yawn and lean back against the bed to get more comfortable.
The boy shook his head, "Seto." He called up to his brother, and then, without any warning or understanding of why he felt inclined to do so, he sat up and flung himself at the brunette, locking his frail arms tightly around him.
"Mokuba!" The shock was prominent in the elder's voice and even Pegasus moved to stand next to the two of them to see if he could provide a sense of moral support.
"Seto." The two could hear that the boy's throat had constricted as he slinked the lower half of his body off the bed and stood on shaky legs, "I can't stop being sad." The sobs came out muffled against the fabric of Kaiba's shirt as Mokuba tried to fight them away. He gasped out in a desperate manor, "And I don't know why!" Kaiba felt his reserve crumbling as he returned the child's embrace all the tighter and picked him up to hold the child's head in the crook of his neck.
"It's alright now, I'm here Mokuba." He comforted, Pegasus stood watching as Kaiba placed a hand on the side of Mokuba's head and used the other to stroke the child's growing, unruly hair. The boy's tears came in a flood of deluged anguish as he clung tighter to his brother.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm no one at all Seto!" He sobbed into his brother's neck, nuzzling his nose against it though it was beginning to run, "Like I'm tr-trapped and no one knows where I am. They can't see me, or hear me, they don't even realize I'm gone and it's like a part of me doesn't want to realize it either!"
"What're you saying Mokuba!" Kaiba demanded as he clutched the boy closer to him in an act of desperation.
"Sometimes I feel like…it'd be better if I were dead!" And he lost all control.
Pegasus watched in horror as Kaiba began to shake violently while holding his brother close to him and then moving him away, positioning him so that he could kiss the boy's forehead and the top of his head lovingly, "Mokuba." His voice cracked, but he wouldn't allow the tears to come, he was a grown man, above crying. "Do you know how much it hurts me to know that?" He could feel himself letting go of all of the defenses he'd worked so hard to build up, "If you ever did something to hurt yourself…if you ever…"
"I would never Seto b-but…"
"Mokuba!" Seto burst out before the child could find the words to continue, "I love you!" He exclaimed and at the sound of the words leaving the elder Kaiba's mouth Mokuba's tears stopped for a moment and he caught him in a tight embrace.
"I l-love you too…" He managed to get out through sniffles.
"If anything ever happened to you, I couldn't go on living Mokuba. You're everything to me and I care about you more than anything else in the world. You have to know that." It no longer mattered to the CEO that he was gushing in front of the wrong company, as everyone to him was the wrong company, this was for Mokuba and he would do anything for him.
"Mokuba." Pegasus spoke the child's name as he patted his head, though the child was still in Kaiba's grasp, "You poor dear child." He gushed to him as Kaiba shifted him to the arm closest to Pegasus so that he too could offer comfort, "Who on earth told you that you were a nobody?" He asked. And then Kaiba remembered what his brother had said, sometimes he felt the like he was no one at all, and the anger built up inside of him, for he realized Pegasus was onto something, children don't just take something like that into their heads at random.
"W-well…" Mokuba stuttered as he dried his eyes with his hand, "No one, it's just that I…"
"It's alright Mokuba." Kaiba assured as he forced himself to calm down and think rationally, "You can tell me."
"I'm not like everyone else…" He whispered, and though they knew they shouldn't, the two ventured with Mokuba out into the halls to get into his room where he'd feel more comfortable talking about such things.
"Damn right you're not, you're better than they are." He assured him as Pegasus dismissed his nagging servants. "You know that, right?" He tilted Mokuba's chin up so that the boy looked him in the eyes.
Fidgeting in his brother's arms as they reached his room, Mokuba drew a deep breath, "I know to you that's true." He began, "And that's really not how I meant that I was different from everyone. I know it's nice to be special and everything, but sometimes I just wish people would accept me."
Pegasus sat down on Mokuba's bed and mouthed for Seto to do the same, "What do you mean?" Kaiba inquired as he let his brother go so that he could crawl over beside him on the bed.
"I just wish that they wouldn't automatically assume I'm stuck up just because my brother's made something of himself."
"Very nice way of putting it." Pegasus made sure to put in before Mokuba continued.
"And it's like just because I like to write more than I like to play duel monsters sometimes people are like 'you're emo, go cut yourself' and that hurts me." He continued.
"What on earth are these children thinking!" Both Kaiba and Pegasus exclaimed in unison, "I think parents need to be called!" Pegasus added in anger and disbelief. "Go cut yourself? That's, THAT'S horrible…"
"Called, you mean sued!" Kaiba exclaimed.
"Now Kaiba-boy lets not get carried away." Pegasus intervened with a sigh as Mokuba giggled in the background.
"Carried away my ass that's a horrible thing to tell someone, and its harassment." Kaiba replied.
"On a different note…" Pegasus cut in before Kaiba could continue ranting, "What does emo mean?" He asked the boy.
Mokuba looked down at the carpet, "I don't use stereotypes but people who do say that to people they think are dramatic and depressed all the time…it's really stupid."
"Yes Mokuba, it is." Both Kaiba and Pegasus stated firmly.
"I don't understand what it stands for. Emotional? Everyone's emotional, stupid fucking kids!" Kaiba went on to vent.
Mokuba shrugged, "It's just because they've seen what I write for class…" He replied.
"What…types of things do you write?" Kaiba then asked as Pegasus still contemplated whether or not suing was getting carried away.
"About our life and stuff we went through…I mean the world isn't all rainbows and sunshine, people just don't get it. It's like, just because I see things in a different way I'm weird!" He exclaimed in frustration, Pegasus nodded in understanding.
"You know why that is Mokuba-boy." He replied, and Mokuba shook his head no as Pegasus drew him closer to him, "Because they have no real concept of tragedy or death, and you do, which makes you see the world differently than someone who's never experienced something that painful and life-changing. You're artistic and people are jealous of your creativity. They don't know what to make of you because you're an empathetic boy with a darker side to you that people can't make out because it's such a contradiction to your nature-"
"What do you mean darker side!" Kaiba protested.
"Just let me finish." Pegasus replied with a sigh, "I only mean Mokuba that no one can be happy all of the time and people are jealous of your means of escaping those feelings of depression. They can't find a way to cope like you can, and like I can, you write to express yourself just as I paint to express myself and there's nothing wrong with that. It's completely normal." He replied, and Kaiba took in quite begrudgedly everything Pegasus was saying as it made quite a bit of sense.
"Now I understand." Kaiba replied, "Mokuba, you stopped writing when people started to make fun of you huh?" He asked as he gave his brother a one-armed hug. The boy nodded without being able to find the words to explain himself.
"And that's why you got so depressed, things you could normally handle if you wrote about them piled up inside." Pegasus then added, and once again Mokuba nodded to confirm. "Just know that you shouldn't change who you are or anything about yourself for someone else. You know yourself better than anyone else ever can and what's best for you isn't going to be best for everyone else, all you have to know is that those people and their opinions don't matter at the end of the day." He continued.
Mokuba nodded in understanding, "Yeah that makes sense." He replied, feeling sheepish, "I guess I was kinda stupid to let it effect me that much…"
"Not at all." Kaiba replied, "You're going through a huge transition faze in your life, and people's words are going to hurt you as well as them pushing you away, but know you'll always have someone who cares about you right there to welcome you back where you belong." He explained.
"But you don't let it effect you…" Mokuba replied and Pegasus shot a worried glance Kaiba's way.
"Mokuba." He interrupted to give the man a hand, "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to read some of what you've written." The boy was stunned, never had someone been this interested in him or anything he'd done before.
"Really?" He stated without being able to stop himself.
Pegasus laughed, "Yes, really, really." He assured, and without hesitation Mokuba got up and rummaged through his suitcase to find the three subject spiral notebook he'd been writing all of his stories in of late. Handing it to Pegasus nervously he moved to sit between the two adults again. Both patted his head as Pegasus flipped the book open and began to read aloud, causing Mokuba to blush in embarrassment.
"She Walks Alone. Often in life we don't know what we have until we've lost it…. She moved her right hand to run slender, agile fingers down the side of his cold face. His eyes were glossed over as though he were about to cry, had this been the case they'd have been the first tears she'd seen grace his features. She deepened the touch so that her warm fingers caressed his pale jaw line. She could feel her own tears leave her eyes as they fell, dotting his face like rain.
As her body wracked with sobs she could feel her tears lessening, soon she'd be able to force no more and an eerie numbness would settle in. She looked into his lifeless eyes one last time, haunting voids of nothingness met pools of watery kohl and she moved her hand off his body. She wanted to hold onto him forever but the man she had so quickly grown to love and respect was gone, his corpse was the only thing within her reach now…"
"You spelled reach wrong Mokuba."
"I was probably in a hurry to get the thought written out."
"You damn simpleton now you've ruined the mood!" Pegasus chided and both Seto and Mokuba laughed before the man continued to read until the story came to a close. "I would paint to that!" Pegasus gushed in honesty as Kaiba fought back the urge to smack the man over the head.
"I bet you would…"
"Are you implying it's not wonderful!" Kaiba something so vivid coming from a fourteen year old, or anyone for that matter, is amazing, you ought to think about entering him in contests, getting him published-"
"And you can paint for my books!"
"Ah yes, see and I can-" He stopped, "Now wait a minute here I don't know about all that." Mokuba laughed at the response and plopped back down against the blankets. "Anyway, I'm hungry and we never got to play uno the other night." Pegasus laughed as Kaiba shook his head.
"I'll never understand how we go from, sickness to sorrow, to brats, to more sorrow, to venting, to writing, to reading, to painting, to uno." Pegasus replied. And Mokuba laughed again.
"Only us." He replied, and Seto nodded in agreement. "Hey Seto…" He then spoke up.
"Yes Mokuba." His brother replied.
"You remember how when I was 11 you told me you'd never not tell me something I wanted to know because of my age." He inquired, and Kaiba nodded. "Well there's kinda something I've been wanting to ask." At this Pegasus swung his arms out and leapt up from the bed for dramatic effect.
"Alright, if you're sure." And both of the adults froze, immediately reconsidering their responses. For a moment a dreadful silence filled the room, and then, "Why can't men have babies?" It was going to be a very long evening.
AN: Bit of a random ending I know, but I wanted to leave off on a lighthearted note, also, to people who believe in stereotyping and use or consider themselves emo, I am not at all trying to offend with the material used in my story. The opinions were personal but were not meant to attack any one for their beliefs, that said, please R&R!