Chapter 10: Battered and Bruised
"Hey… Kaiba… you okay? Wake up, man. You're freaking me out."
Seto's eyes partially opened. They couldn't open completely as it was too painful to have them open more than partially. His vision was blurred at first, but his surroundings slowly came into focus within a couple seconds or so. The first thing Seto saw was a hand stretched out towards him. Without thinking, he grabbed the hand and let it pull him so he was sitting upright. Seto winced from the pain in his shoulder blades; he assumed the pain was from when he had made impact with, and had broken off, Joey's rearview mirror.
"Dammit…" Seto groaned; rubbing his temples before determining that was helping the migraine he was experiencing rather than hindering it.
"You passed out for a bit. I think we both did, but you were definitely out for longer than I was," Joey said, taking a seat beside Seto, "I knew you weren't dead because you were breathing, but I'm glad to get confirmation that I'm not a murderer."
Seto looked down at his hands and saw that he was covered in dried blood. He spotted patches of dried blood on his shirt as well. Seto turned his head to look at Joey and was happy to see that Joey was in the same, if not worse, shape as himself. He was particularly pleased to see how messed up Joey's face was. The sight of the blond-haired mechanic caused Seto to smile which immediately inflicted pain throughout his face. Everything was sore and Seto's smile disappeared because of it.
"How long were we out for? How long was I out for?" Seto looked up to see if the sky would be any indication of the time.
The city was still masked in darkness, save for the streetlights and the general light pollution, which didn't give Seto any idea of what time it was or how much time had passed. Seto closed his eyes, finding that keeping them closed was less painful than having them open. He wondered if anyone had seen himself and Joey passed out on the ground or if this part of town was really that desolate. He assumed someone would've called the authorities had they seen the condition he and Joey were in.
"I'm not sure how long we were out for… not long enough, clearly, since Choki still isn't here with the tow truck," Joey groaned, giving his bloodied knuckles a lick before wiping them on his shirt. Joey used his other hand to lightly touch his eye; the eye in which Seto rammed a rock into, and he winced when it was touched.
Joey turned to Seto and stated, "I forgot that real fights hurt worse than bar fights. When everyone's a little drunk, the punches aren't so well-aimed, or well-delivered."
"And I forgot that you work at a gas station, so as terrible as you are at dueling, you're in halfway decent shape to do some real damage with your fists."
Joey chuckled, "You forgot that I work at a gas station? That was all you kept talking about."
"Oh, that's right," Seto replied and then shrugged.
He regretted shrugging… that felt even worse for his back. He contemplated how much of the pain he was experiencing in his back was from the car versus when Joey threw him to the ground. Seto brought his hands together and felt his fingers ache with pain from the fists he was throwing during the fight. His index finger traced a deep cut on his right hand between one of his knuckles. He couldn't recall which punch caused that kind of damage.
"Man, you were really pissed. I could feel the anger in every punch. For a guy, who I assume pays people to fight his battles; you were pretty good at holding your own. I wasn't expecting that… although it probably didn't help that you were so mad."
"You made fun of my dead parents," Seto said with a glare.
Joey held his hands up, "You're right and I agree that was not cool of me to do… but you have to admit, you were being a jerk too. You basically made fun of my entire life."
"Yeah…" Seto chuckled. He stopped chuckling when Joey turned to him, looking very annoyed. Seto, out of sheer desire not to spark another argument, took a more apologetic tone when he spoke, "Fine, I'm sorry. Just please don't punch me with your dirty hands again."
Seto and Joey shielded their eyes as a bright light crossed their vision. Sounds of the first car they had seen in the neighborhood they were stuck in for however many hours pulled up to the curb. Joey brought down his arms and saw that it was the tow truck they had been waiting for. Joey struggled to stand on his own two feet as Choki emerged from the truck and approached the two battered and bruised men.
"Whoa, Joey… what happened to you and your friend? Did you guys get mugged?" Choki asked before looking around.
Joey shook his head, leaning against his car for support as he reached down to help Seto to his feet. Seto refused Joey's hand as he got himself to a standing position, using the handle of the car door as a way of hoisting himself up. Choki averted his eyes, finding it difficult to stare at the bloody messes that Joey and Seto were.
"We did this to each other, actually," Joey responded.
"What caused that to happen?" Choki asked.
"He started it!" Joey and Seto yelled at the same time.
"And who finished it?"
"Exhaustion," Joey said with a sigh.
"My will to live," Seto replied.
There was a silence that followed; Choki didn't really know how to respond and both Seto and Joey were too exhausted and in pain to say anything else on the matter. The badly beaten men just wanted to return home and get a good night's rest. Choki turned and walked towards the car to assess the damage, but stopped mid-step when he saw something on the ground. He reached down and picked it up.
"Um… did someone lose a tooth in this fight?"
Seto and Joey quickly reached towards their face to check their teeth. Seto was relieved to find that his teeth were all still there, whereas Joey growled with frustration. He grabbed the tooth from Choki's hand and turned to Seto.
"Are you serious right now? You knocked out one of my teeth?!"
Seto shrugged, "I didn't know I could hit that hard."
"I should probably take you guys to the hospital before I deal with the car. You both look awful."
"No, no, no, that wasn't part of the deal. I was told that I would get a ride home and I demand to be taken home!" Seto mustered the strength to yell, trying to assert his CEO dominance even while in total and insurmountable pain. He took one step forward towards Choki, letting go of the car handle, and continued ranting, "You listen here… I am not going to a hospital. Whether you decide to tow or junk this car, I don't care, but I will not be told what to do. You got that? I'm Seto Kai…"
Seto's sentence was cut short as his vision began to blur. The finger he was aggressively holding up to Choki fell to his side and the strength in his legs disappeared. Choki swiftly moved forward with his arms open, catching Seto before he could hit the ground. Choki looked up to Joey with concern.
"Now we really should go to the hospital. Your friend just passed out and, Joey, you should probably be admitted to the hospital too. You look awful."
Joey wanted to snap back with a witty comeback about how whatever wounds he had endured could be easily fixed with a good night's sleep and a bottle of whiskey, but his concern for Seto took precedent. As much as he hated Seto, he didn't want to get arrested for neglecting to take the guy to the hospital after beating him to unconsciousness. Joey nodded in agreement.
"Okay, fine. If you can get Kaiba into your car, we'll go to the hospital. But you better come back for my baby after you drop us off! That car means everything to me."
-YGO-
Seto didn't know which was more annoying: waking from unconsciousness for the second time or sharing a hospital room with Joey Wheeler. Seto made sure not to make a sound when he awoke, not wanting to let Joey know he was conscious yet. He took in his surroundings—light was pouring in from the window of their hospital room, which meant that it was the late morning, and then he noticed there was an IV in his arm. Seto turned his head to find Joey in the hospital bed right beside him, fiddling with the remote.
"I thought we had agreed not to go to the hospital," Seto frowned.
"I'm glad to see you're awake," Joey looked up from the remote and placed it on the table beside him, "We decided to bring you in when you passed out again. Turns out we were both in worse shape than we thought and, on top of all that, you were severely dehydrated so that's why the doctors had to hook up an IV. They suspect that the dehydration is what caused you to pass out."
Seto crossed his arms and noticed bandages on his hands. He brought one hand to his head and felt a bandage or two wrapped around his forehead. He looked to his right and saw a bag of ice on the table beside his hospital bed. Seto grabbed a hold of it and placed it in his lap. His hands could barely feel the cold from the ice underneath all of the bandages but the cool that he did feel did somewhat help with the pain.
"That's to help with the swelling. I really did a number to your face," Joey remarked, "But hey! They were able to put my tooth back in. Luckily they had an emergency dentist on call and they put it in pretty quick… though it helped that they gave me painkillers beforehand."
Seto took a closer look at his bedside table; there was a small plate of food, a plastic cup with some water, and his cell phone which was currently plugged into a charger. Seto held onto the power button to turn on his cell phone before taking a swig of water. He leaned back against the pillow behind his head and closed his eyes, trying to recall the last thing he remembered from the night before.
"One of the nurses had a charger and let me borrow it so I could charge your phone. I didn't want you worrying about telling Mokuba—"
Seto put down his cup of water and turned to Joey.
"Mokuba… does he know? Did anyone tell him?"
"Not as far as I know, no. I didn't have his number, but I thought you might like to know that Serenity is coming to visit in a bit so I hope that's cool. When she heard about what happened, she decided to jump on train to see—"
"She didn't tell him, did she? I don't want Mokuba finding out about this," Seto said, grabbing his phone after it had finished booting up and making sure there weren't any missed calls or texts. Seto was relieved to find that only a couple emails from work had come in. There were no messages from Mokuba which meant he knew nothing about what happened.
"No, I didn't think my sister would have Mokuba's number but I told her not to tell anyone about what happened. I wanted you to be the one to decide how to break the story to your brother, not me."
For a moment, Seto felt a strange amount of respect for Joey and his consideration for Seto. The brief moment was interrupted by an incoming call on his cell phone—the name displayed on the screen was Mokuba. Joey sat up straight, his interest piqued when he saw that the call was from Mokuba. Seto took a second to compose himself before answering the call.
"Hey kiddo, what's up?"
"Hi Nii-sama, I was just giving you a call because I felt really bad about the fact that I didn't really stay long in town when I came to visit last night, especially after putting you through the train mix-up. I know I haven't visited for a whole weekend since I left but there's always so much cool stuff happening on campus and—"
"It's fine… it's totally fine. You're a college kid now and you're experiencing new things and, most importantly, you're having fun. You don't have to worry about me, Mokuba. You can come back for however long or short as you like; I'll always be happy whenever I see you," Seto said with a smile.
"Aw… thanks Nii-sama. I'm glad to hear that because that car accident coupled with the jail thing kinda made me worried that…" Mokuba's voice trailed off when he heard a new voice in the room with Seto.
"Oh, Mr. Kaiba, it's so good to see you're awake! Would it be alright if I took your blood pressure?" A nurse said as she walked into the room. Seto tried to wave her away as she approached, but she shook her head, "Now, now, Mr. Kaiba, I have a checklist I need to follow before I can let you check out of the hospital. Those items can't be checked off unless you and I work together to do so!"
"Did I just hear her say hospital? Nii-sama, who is that? Are you in the hospital right now?"
Seto's mind raced, scrambling to think of an excuse or something to say to throw off Mokuba's suspicion. His response was "What? No, of course I'm not in the hospital. Err, actually, yes, I am in the hospital. I'm doing my annual physical right now."
"Nii-sama, our doctor doesn't see patients over the weekend. Not only that, but why would you be answering the phone if you're in the middle of a physical?"
"Um… because you're more important to me than my annual check-up?"
Joey mouthed 'Come back later' to the nurse and she nodded before leaving. Seto felt slightly more at ease with the nurse gone, but he wasn't sure what else he could say to throw off Mokuba from finding out he was in the hospital. Seto shook his head and decided telling the truth was the best course of action.
"Okay, I was lying about the physical. I… got into a fight last night with Joey after we dropped you off. It got pretty bad and I guess I was also dehydrated, so I passed out and they took me to the hospital. But you don't need to worry because I'm all better now."
"Nii-sama, the one day you call me, you're in jail and the one day I call you, you're in the hospital?! What on earth were you and Joey fighting about that you got beat so bad that he sent you to the hospital?" Mokuba sighed, "And for a second, I really thought you and Joey were becoming friends."
"Friends?! Why would you think that? Did you think that coercing me into having dinner with him made us friends?!" Seto asked, feeling personally offended by such an accusation.
"You owe me another dinner after this, too, Kaiba!" Joey yelled from his hospital bed.
"Oh please, Wheeler. If I foot the bill for your tooth, will you finally leave me alone? That should be more than enough pay back for what I did to you."
"Wait, are you talking to Joey right now? Is he there with you?" Mokuba asked.
"Yes, unfortunately… but can you believe that I put him in the hospital and it wasn't from dueling? It was from my fists! I even knocked out one of Wheeler's teeth," Seto said with a laugh, "The fight got pretty bad but, like all dogs, I'm sure Wheeler will bounce back in a couple days."
"Would you quit it with the dog stuff, Kaiba?!"
Mokuba scratched his head with bewilderment. His older brother was in the hospital, and apparently sharing the same hospital room as the guy who put him in the hospital, and everything was… okay? Seto certainly sounded like himself, but the situation was so bizarre, Mokuba wasn't sure how to process it. He didn't even want to ask what it was that they fought about. It all sounded crazy and, if Mokuba was being honest, he had homework to do and he didn't want to spend all afternoon guessing the number of reasons why his brother would get into a fight like that with Joey.
"You promise you're okay, though? And I don't need to worry about you being in the hospital?"
"The hospital was a drastic measure on Joey's part; the only reason I'm here is because he insisted I see a doctor. I'm telling you, Mokuba, I'm fine. There's nothing to worry about."
"If you say so, Nii-sama. Just try and stay out of trouble, okay? I don't want to our next phone call to be how you're stranded in another country without a passport and with no money."
"No, I promise nothing like that will be happening any time soon," Seto laughed, "I love you, okay? Have a fun rest of your weekend."
"I love you too."
Seto hung up the phone and felt a huge amount of relief. It should be easier to lie about his life and his situation while Mokuba was attending college in a completely different city but somehow that wasn't the case. No matter, Seto was just happy to have a brother who could process the truth, no matter how strange it seemed.
-YGO-
A/N: WOW! It's "been a minute," as the kids say, since I updated! Originally I was planning on posting my next chapter last month but that didn't happen because I came back from a honeymoon, then I went on a work trip, then I came back and went on another work trip, and then the entire month of June was gone. How does that happen?! I'm not sure but somehow it's July and I'm very excited to be getting back into the swing of things. Now that my wedding is over, I'm hoping I can get back into having free time and writing again. Thank you for your patience, reviews, and support during my absence. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and have a great July!