It was the sound of gagging that set off Mokuba's panicked instincts into breaking into a full-fledged run. Lingering at the doorway, he heard the strangled grunt of pain, Yami's soft question, and Seto's irritated reply. He shoved the door open, and gaped to see Seto's pale, clenched face twisted as he hunched over, and waved Yami's hovering away with a gesture and a snarl. "I'm alright! Yami, stop it! I appreciate the concern, but damn! It's vomiting, not a gaping bullet wound. Just because I'm dying doesn't mean that I'm exempt from suffering from some food poisoning, or even a bout of the flu!"

Yami only shook his head, and frowned, worriedly. "Be that as it may, Seto, I will not be leaving you alone when you're chilled and vomiting. At least let me call Mokuba."

Seto stared up at Yami with his eyebrow arching in scorn. "And what good would that do, Yami? Mokuba practically pisses his pants every time I breathe too loudly. Exactly well how do you expect him to cope with this? And, I hardly find it alluring to force my younger brother to watch me vomit. He has enough to contend with on my behalf, as it is." He muttered darkly.

Yami crossed his arms, and his concerned frown only melded to a scowl. "I'm not leaving you alone, Seto. And it has nothing to do with your competence, or my wanting to intrude. It is the simple fact that you are ill, and notoriously stupid when it comes to admitting that fact."

Mokuba heard Seto's sigh of defeat. "Fine. Call Mokuba, if you feel that compelled. Just make sure you keep the drama to a minimum. I don't need him getting any more worked up on my behalf than necessary."

There was a long pause, then a shifting of some sort, followed by the uneasy pacing of Yami's boots against the tile. "I understand your concern about not wanting to worry Mokuba, Seto, but I thought you finally figured out that it's a worthless issue now. He loves you, and therefore, he's going to worry about you."

Seto's voice was soft,and subdued, and sadly accepting, "I know. But that doesn't make it any easier."

Mokuba couldn't stand to hear any more of that broken defeat. With a raised boot, the door flung open wide, as Mokuba strode forward, his eyes forbidding and demanding as he narrowed them at Seto. Then what will, Seto?" Mokuba asked the question quietly, as he slid his arms over his chest, and only glared silently. Seto stared up at his little brother looking as if he had been shot and hadn't quite made it to falling down, yet. Seto's mouth opened and closed a few times, as Yami smirked despite himself.

"Yami." Mokuba turned to him with a polite nod. "Thank you for staying with Seto, and for the attempt to make him see the need to take care of himself. I hope that I don't seem rude, but I think that we have some issues to discuss that might be a bit...volital."

Yami gave Mokuba an understanding nod. "I will be leaving now. You may want to know that this strange illness has only come upon him a few hours ago. We thought that if he emptied his stomach, that would take care of it, but I was wrong. I am sorry. Please feel free to call if you need any more assistance."

Yami lingered briefly to stare at Seto levely, but Seto looked up to see the clear worry in his violet eyes as he whispered, "I hope you feel better soon, and if you don't, you don't hide it from us. I hope that I have proven that you don't need to do that anymore."

Seto stared at him for a long moment. "You have, Yami. More than I'll ever tell you." Yami did not say anything more, but the sliver of warm regard that lit his eyes made Seto look away, awkwardly. Yami said a brief good-bye to Mokuba, with a stern request to be informed of any new health issues for Seto. He left without looking back. Seto was grateful for that.

The silence that filled the room after Yami's departure was explosive even before Seto had time to think of a plausible excuse in the attempt to hide his stomach's upheaval. But to see Mokuba's withering look of hurt and concern nearly broke him again. Mokuba only sighed, and sat across from Seto with crossed arms, before asking, "Seto, were you really planning on puking your guts up alone and hoping that I would just conviently ignore this? I'm your brother, damn it! If you're sick, or hurt, I want to know about it, so I can help you! Didn't you already promise me that I wouldn't have to go through these stupid mind games again to sort out the truth from the bull? Even if it's just a stomach bug, Seto, we can't take the chance of just hoping it goes away. Not now!"

Seto stared up at his brother in shame, and misery, as he clutched his stomache with another grimace. "I'm sorry, Mokuba." His mouth twisted at the taste of bile burning at the back of his throat, as his stomache continued its ominous quaking. Seto's choking whimper and the desperate hand clapping over his mouth brought Mokuba to his feet instantly.

"Seto? Are you going to-" Mokuba couldn't even complete the sentence as Seto gestured frantically towards the corner of the room.

"Trash can!" Seto yelped, as he turned a horrific shade of pale, and clapped the hand over his mouth. Mokuba hastily shoved the can under his brother's quaking jaws and blanched as Seto promptly, and painfully spewed his stomach's contents into the waiting receptical. It was hell. Seto heaved, and heaved until he sat back, panting.Seto felt Mokuba's gentling hand rubbing his spine in reassurance, as the other hand brushed bangs out of his face, and whispered soft, soothing nonsense.

Earthquakes of nausea roiled in his gut, and Seto had no time to do more than lower his head before he errupted again, and then, again, until there was nothing left for his tortured instincts to do but yield to the painful dry-heaves as his stomache continued its agonizing cramps. When it passed, Seto leaned back in his chair, gasping and sweating, his hands gripping the arm-rests in white-knuckled fists.

Seto groaned in misery as he shivered at the sudden chill. "Seto?" Mokuba uncertainly held a glass of water out, and Seto stared at it for a moment, before dismissing with a bitter shake of his head.

"I don't think I could keep it down, Mokuba." Mokuba only shook his head wryly. "Then don't. You can at least rinse away some of that horrible taste." Seto took the glass in trembling fingers, slurped down some water, and swished it over his teeth as he spat it out. "Thank you." His voice was harsh from the abuse his throat had taken, his stomache was still quivering in ominous warning, and he felt as if he had just dived headlong into an Artic pool, he was so cold.

Worriedly, Mokuba shoved a palm over Seto's forehead, ignoring the searing glare. With a glare that matched Seto's, Mokuba scowled down at his older brother, and announced with a warning finger raised. "You're burning up, Seto, and vomiting."

Seto snarled,"That is a bit odd, Mokuba, considering I feel like I have just planted my ass in a freezer. Get me a blanket, or turn on the heater, before we see if it possible to freeze one's ass off!" Mokuba only gave his brother a condensending, but understanding clap on the shoulder. "I'll be right back, Seto."

Seto glared at his back as his brother left the bathroom and returned moments later with the blanket, and a thermometer.

Seto soon found the thick, soft blanket draped over him like an embrace as Mokuba carefully tucked it around his legs with a frown of concern.

"I don't like this, Seto. A stomache bug wouldn't be causing a fever, or chills, would it?" Seto shrugged. "I'm hardly a doctor, but my guess would be no.Vomiting is usually the body's effort to expell something out that shouldn't be in there in the first place. I don't know why I'm so cold."

Mokuba silently handed him the thermometer, as Seto's nose crinkled in distaste. "Don't you think you're overreacting just a wee bit, Mokuba?"

Mokuba raised both eyebrows in a challenge as he gave Seto an evil smirk that could rival his own. "I may be over-reacting, Seto, but you can either put the thermometer in your mouth like a big boy, or I'll wrestle you into submission and take your temperature like a little boy. Your choice, big brother."

Seto's look could have peeled paint. With an exagerated sigh and a great show of sticking the thermometor under his tongue, he clenched it between his jaws, and scowled around the tip. "Are you happy?" His speech was garbled by the instrument, but Mokuba only smiled and pat him on the head. He regretted it after seeing Seto's flinch of memory. "Sorry." He murmured with a shrug.

The thermometer beeped, startling them both. Mokuba hastily snatched it away, and his eyes bulged as he saw the temperature. Silently, he held it before Seto, whose eyebrows climbed even higher. "That...is certainly not a good thing." Seto muttered quietly.

"No, it's not." Mokuba's quiet agreement hid his growing alarm. "Seto, I really think you should go to the hospital."

"And I second that notion with a resounding hell no." Seto groused irritably, as he scrubbed fingers through his sweating hair, and grimaced. 'Stop being such a damn drama king, Mokuba. Puking is hardly a reason to go to a hospital!"

"It is if you're already dying, Seto. I hate this, I do! But, given how weak you already are, again, like it or not, puking may be the least of your worries."

And so the bitter arguing went, for hours. Mokuba's worry, and Seto's dismissing scorn changing to heated to confrontation, in all the characteristic Kaiba fire and ire. Seto argued, in between the bouts of vomiting, and though he was hunched, and sick and shaking, he still put up one hell of a fight. Mokuba would have had

begrudging admiration, if he wasn't so afraid for him. It continued until Seto's voice was nothing more than a choked whisper from all the shouting and the heaving, and Mokuba was red-eyed from the fretting and the tears. An attempt to make the other see reason, against the other's wish to just be left the hell alone collided violently, then ground to a deadly stand-off. Finally, in the biting, horrific waiting, Seto stared at the trash can with its fresh liner- the third one of the long night, the weariness that gripped Mokuba, and the burning in his own throat. Seto blanched at Mokuba's misery, and shivered as he huddled deeper into the blanket that pooled about his knees. He felt sweating and unclean from the grime on his forehead. It was Mokuba's agony that finally forced his decision.

"Fine, Mokuba. Take me to the hospital. But when we find out that this is a simple case of the flu, or food poisoning, I expect you to get some medication for your severe anxiety, alright? This is getting old."

It was the same hated routine that Seto had loathed again. The dreary wait in the emergency room as the hours slowly crawled by, enduring Mokuba's irritating blathering about the most outlandish theories of why Seto was sick, and then, the general malaise of feeling like his stomach was going to explode into his throat, if only it was that merciful. Seto was hunched over and shivering in his trench coat, trying to keep down the constant sips of water, and failing. Mokuba had fought with the admitting secretary over the paperwork, ending with snarls that rivaled a rabid pitbull. Seto lingered in the plastic chair, bleerily clutching at his stomach. Mokuba watched with an empathetic wince of pain as Seto shoved his face down into the trash can and reguritated everything,and then some more.

He was now choking up searing throatfuls of bile and was in tears from the horrific taste. The pain felt like his insides were scraped raw with sandpaper, and then set on fire. It hurt. Everything hurt, from his throbbing head, to his burning fever, and his body that shook with chills...Seto only closed his eyes and groaned.

Finally, Mokuba came over with a tired smile and announced brightly that there was a room open and Seto would be seeing a doctor. Seto, by then, was too ill and exhausted to give a damn. He could only master a shrug and a sarcastic "Yay!" Wearily, he gripped Mokuba's shoulder, and leaned heavily on him, lurching along at a broken shuffle like an old man. He cursed himself for forgetting his wheel chair. A kindly CNA approached with a smile and a waiting wheel chair. Seto gratefully lowered himself into it, and almost curled up completely as Mokuba flanked him. They rolled him down the hall, under the same glaring lights, past the same rooms that he almost died in by his own hand. He winced at the memories but shook his head. Now was not the time to dwell on old pain. He had enough to contend with now.