Disclaimer: I do not own HunterxHunter, nor do I profit commercially from these writings.
ABC Series
F IS FOR FEVER
"No."
"Yes. You obviously need—"
"No. End of discussion."
"Excuse me?!"
"This is not getting anywhere."
"Obviously! You aren't even listening!"
"Because your argument is not relevant."
"WHAT? Not relevant? My argument, not relevant? KURORO LUCIFER, YOUR FEVER IS 40 DEGREE CELCIUS AND YOU ARE SAYING THAT GOING TO THE DOCTOR IS NOT RELEVANT?!"
"I just need to sleep it off!"
"YOU SAID THAT THREE DAYS AGO, YOU JACKASS!"
She contemplated the possibility of it going physical, and the result of her contemplation said that it was going to be really, really soon. She then wondered how it would end. It was hardly predictable, and while it had yet to be habit, she wasn't sure if this was going to ever be predictable in the future. After all, both her parents were quite…fickle? Volatile?
"Hey, Bia."
She looked up from her cappuccino and was greeted with the sight of her brother slipping into the room while indulging himself in a tub of ice cream—something that he wasn't supposed to do but was possible only because their parents were busy in the next room going bejesus at each other. She bet the people at the Prancing Pony would've heard the entire argument had Bia not set up a sound barrier—a nifty skill that Heen taught her. When was he coming to visit and teach her new tricks, she wondered?
"Are they still at it?" Meta asked as he flopped on the sofa while cradling his precious frozen cargo.
THUD!
"WOMAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!"
Both children whipped their head to the general direction of the argument with Meta blinking owlishly and Bia raising both eyebrows. Did they just hear their father shouting at their mother?
{Well, what does that sound like?} Bia finally said with her Nen-writing.
"Gee! This is serious." Meta said in shock, but at the same time excited. Exciting things always happened when their calm-as-a-frozen-lake father got worked up to the point of raising his voice.
"Eeee! Fight!"
Before the owner of said voice could zip away and slip into the Ground Zero, Meta reflexes had prompted him to catch the barrelling bundle of energy by its leg and flipped it to the couch. Said bundle landed with a 'whoop!'
"Ow! That wasn't nice!" Said bundle protested squeakily.
"I've just saved you from being a potential collateral damage, pipsqueak." Meta said while shoving a mini-iceberg of ice cream into his mouth.
"Mama and Papa will never hurt me!"
"Yeah?"
CRASH!
"Well, what do you think is….was happening next door?" Meta rolled his eyes. Obviously his parents were now taking the showdown outdoor. Oh God, he hated doing the carpenter work.
"They are fighting."
"Yea duh. Why are they fighting?"
"Uh… I dunno?"
{Daddy is sick, so Mommy insists that he goes to see the doctor. He doesn't want to.} Bia answered her little sister casually as she walked over towards the door. She would have to assess the extent of the damage on the wall and the furniture, and start doing some planning for the repair works.
"Sick?" Sarai widened her eyes in horror.
"Yep. Deliriously sick. So do you think he'll have the awareness to avoid you, when you can't strictly stay on the sideline when watching the—"
"Do we need to evacuate?"
Meta choked on his ice cream.
"Why would we need to evacuate?" He squeaked, his face beet-red from the strangulation-by-ice-cream.
"If Papa gets sick, then it has to be something REALLY bad, right?" The little girl said with a comically horrified face.
"Well…"
The logic wasn't ungrounded, because the kid had never really seen their parents getting sick. The fact that Lucian and Spiders had regaled them children with stories of Kurapika Kuruta and Kuroro Lucifer gallivanting around in some epidemic-infested places and coming out unaffected wasn't helping either. And really, Meta wasn't sure how bad the illness was. If Dad had been having a 40 degree fever for three days straight, suffice to say that it was probably something that would have killed lesser people (read: all other humans, his father ain't no human, that's for sure). Come to think of it, Dad hadn't stepped out of his bedroom at all for the past three or four days. Was he quarantining himself?
Oh gawd.
"This is bad."
"SWEET MOTHER OF JESUS—NOAH! When did you get here?!"
"Since Mother and Father catapulted themselves through the wall and out into the open." The four years-old boy deadpanned, his abysmally black eyes assessing their parents' bedroom with the critical observation that DID NOT belong to a child his age. He was one hell of a creepy kid.
"What's bad, Noah?" Sarai bounced from her heat and draped her arms over her twin's shoulders, giving him a sloppy hug from behind.
"Father's illness."
Sarai's emerald green eyes widened even more.
"It does not warrant an evacuation, sister." He deadpanned, as if reading his twin's thought. He paused, and added as if as an afterthought: "Not yet, at least."
"YARGH!" Meta shuddered. "Time to call for reinforcement!"
{What reinforcement?} Bia asked with a raised eyebrow. {And I'm not aware that Daddy being sick will require 'reinforcement'.}
"Dude—"
{I am not a dude.}
"Yeah whatever, man—"
{And neither am I a man—}
"Okay, okay! Fine, sister. What I was trying to say is that if what Noah said is true, then obviously Dad's illness is something that would've killed any other humans!"
"Positive." Noah confirmed with almost comically robotic voice.
"Exactly! So normal doctors will not work on him!" Meta said enthusiastically while pointing an ice-cream spoon at Bia. "Not even Leorio!"
Bia frowned.
{So who—}
The white-haired girl stopped mid-sentence, before enlightenment reached her. Her eyes widened and her mouth formed a neat 'o'. Meta, seeing her expression, wiggled his eyebrows at her; suggesting that he knew that she was thinking whom he was thinking.
The understanding was lost on the twins.
"Who who who?" Sarai asked, bouncing on her ball of her little feet and looking positively curious.
"Why, of course we'll be calling on the greatest witch doctor in the world!" Meta said dramatically while marching towards the door.
"Yaaay! Grandma!" Sarai squealed in delight, eliciting a wince from her twin brother; whose ears were at an entirely too close proximity to the girl's mouth.
{Should we ask Bara to fetch her?} Sarai asked as she trailed behind the blond boy.
"Nah. The trip from here to Ryuusei-gai and back to here again will take too long." Meta said while waving his hand dismissively in a manner that was reminiscent to his father's. Now where did Mom put her cell phone—oh screw it, he'd just ask his daemons to play fetch for him.
Noah, in the meantime, stayed in their parents' bedroom with his eyes fixed to the gaping hole on the wall where his parents had made their exit in their haste to settle their difference in the outdoor. Sarai went back to flopping all over him, observing his expression as he took in the air in the bedroom.
"Hey hey, Noah?"
"Mm?"
"You know what's making Papa sick, right?"
Noah nodded.
"Is it really serious?"
Noah turned to look at Sarai in the eyes. Obsidian black met emerald green, and the mischievous glimmer in the former wasn't lost on the latter.
God, he has to be so damn sick if I manage to beat his sorry ass in a match, Kurapika thought sourly as she hauled his limp body over her shoulder.
In their history of sparring—coughtfightcough—Kurapika had never beaten Kuroro in a match hands-down. If she managed to score an utter win against him, he had to be so badly incapacitated—which went to say just how sick the man was. Stupid arrogant man with astronomical ego had the gall to hide his sickness from her. Had the moron forgotten that they shared the same bed? Of course she would know! Not to mention that their shared Nen told her plenty about his health as well. Why did he bother to keep it secret from her anyway? Was he expecting her to just know telepathically that he was sick and therefore do something to take care of him? Sheesh!
Kurapika continued grousing as she walked back towards her house, and found a pleasant surprise from her children in the form of one scary-looking old hag who was already making herself at home in the house. If anyone could fix Kuroro, that would only be her.
After some thorough examination—which comprised of the witch doctor ruthlessly jabbing her clawed finger into Kuroro's chest, penetrating the flesh harmlessly due to her Nen but still eliciting a mild cussing from a startled Kurapika—Hatsubaba knew what was wrong with Kuroro Lucifer. She felt like beating the boy up herself—Kuroro would always be 'the boy' to her, no matter how old he was—but Kurapika had done the deed and it was pointless to beat him up when he was already out cold anyway.
"Good that you've managed to beat this stupid fool out cold. Now I can administer the proper treatment without him making my life so difficult." Said witch doctor said as she flexed her wrinkly fingers menacingly and with a sadistic grin on her God-awfully scary face.
Only Hatsubaba got away with calling Kuroro Lucifer a stupid fool, and she personally felt that she was completely justified to call him a stupid fool. Who contracted 40 degree fever from food poisoning?
Author's Note: The children over-reacted with their father's illness, Noah is trolling his siblings, Kurapika—being the good responsible wife she is—tries to make Kuroro see reason and go to the damn doctor to get himself checked out, Kuroro hates going to the doctor and probably had ingested some food infused with poison of enough dose to obliterate an entire village, thus causing said fever. Reviews please!