Don't Forget To Remember Me

Don't Leave Me

When Seto awoke, he roused his younger brother, urging him to get ready for the day. As Mokuba stretched, Seto sat for a moment, rubbing his tired eyes. He was reluctant to get out of bed this morning. His whole body ached and his mind felt slow, like it was filled with a thick fog.

He was pulled from his reverie by his younger brother, who climbed into his lap and faced him, looking worried. "Seto, are you okay? You don't look like you feel very well."

"I'm fine, just tired." How many times had he said that in the past few months? Dozens, if not hundred.

"You're face is all red, though," Mokua remarked, lifting both of his small hands to press them against his older brother's cheeks. Seto almost flinched; Mokuba's hands felt freezing. "You feel really hot, Big Brother," he said worriedly.

"I'm not hot," Seto stated with certainty, his lips twitching into a faint smile. "Your hands are just cold." He gently lifted Mokuba off of his lap, then finally got out of bed. "Time for you to start getting ready, Mokuba. If you're not ready to leave on time, you can't have a donut."

Mokuba perked up at the mention of a donut. Seto used them, on occasion, as a morning bribe to get his brother up and moving. They were effective, and Seto made sure to keep them a rare treat so that they didn't lose their value for the little boy.

As Seto stepped into a warm shower, he shivered, feeling colder than he usually did, and turned the water to a higher temperature than he usually used. Mokuba may be right. He may be getting a fever. The flu virus was going around the office again, after all. Even so, he was still going to work. So long as he was still able to drag himself out of bed to take a shower, he would be dragging himself to work as well. He didn't know what else he would do with himself without work. That was what made him a workaholic.

*****

The day passed slowly, and Seto found everything to be just barely tolerable. He ended up taking several Advil in the course of the day, managing to keep his temper with Mokuba, but snapping grumpily at anybody else who even slightly irritated him.

It was a relief when he could finally take Mokuba home and change his clothes into something more comfortable. He still had it in him to make sure Mokuba did his homework before they settled down to their nightly movie. Seto let Mokuba pick anything he wanted to, which was uncommon, though not unheard of. For the whole duration of the movie, Mokuba kept glancing up at his brother, noting that his face was still flushed and that he hardly seemed to be paying attention to anything.

When Seto's cell phone started ringing suddenly in the middle of the movie, Mokuba glanced up at his brother instead of the phone, watching his reaction. Seto looked annoyed—nothing new—but as he began to move towards the nightstand to grab his phone, he didn't keep the pain from his expression. All of his joints ached for no apparent reason, and it hindered his movement as much as it made him frustrated for feeling weak. Mokuba quickly scrambled across the bed-covers, fetching his phone for him unasked, much to Seto's relief.

Seto even offered him a faint smile—his first all day since early that morning—as he lifted the phone to his ear. The smile was quickly replaced with a scowl as he realized it was a telemarketer. He growled unintelligibly as he hung up and tossed his phone onto the covers at the foot of the bed, flopping down against the pillows and rubbing his eyes. Mokuba crawled over to his side and looked down at him with concern.

"Seto, you're sick. You know you are, and I know you are, so stop trying to hide it." Mokuba's words were too wise for his age. "You need medicine and sleep."

"Ach, you're right," Seto admitted grudgingly, lifting a hand to tousle his brother's raven-colored hair. "Bring me the bottle of Advil on the kitchen counter and a bottle of water from the fridge." Mokuba immediately scampered away to do as he was told, returning quickly and handing the requested items to his now-upright brother. Seto used the water to knock back four Advil, then let Mokuba take the both bottles from him and put them on the nightstand.

"Now it's time for you to go to bed, Seto," Mokuba said authoritatively.

"But I'm not tired," Seto protested weakly as he barely suppressed a yawn. Mokuba would have none of it, and for once Seto let himself be taken care of, bending to another's will. Mokuba turned off the TV and tucked Seto into bed, kissing his forehead and wishing him goodnight, but as he turned to leave, Seto grabbed his arm.

"You're not staying?" Mokuba looked down at his feverish elder brother, conflicted and confused. It was only recently that his brother had begun to express affection physically, but now almost verbally as well? It was strange. Mokuba wasn't used to it, wasn't used to seeing his brother needing someone else, being anything other than self-sufficient.

"If I stay, I might get sick too," Mokuba explained with a small smile. He gently dislodged Seto's hand from his arm, slipping it back under the covers. "But I'll stay home with you tomorrow so that I can help you get better. I'll even skip my schoolwork so that I can take care of you!" Mokuba grinned cheekily, then gave his brother another reassuring kiss. Seto looked... upset, maybe? Mokuba had no name for the unhappy expression his brother wore.

After murmuring his last few reassurances, Mokuba slipped out of his brother's room in order to go to bed.

*****

Seto was tossing and turning with an escalating fever all night long. For once, Seto sincerely wished that he kept sleeping pills on hand. He would sleep fitfully for an hour or so, then wake up from hazy nightmares of Gozaburo and Noa. His heart would pound wildly, fear of losing his true brother and being left all alone in this world inflating in his fevered hallucinations.

When Mokuba woke up the next morning, he was shocked to find his brother curled up on the floor in a shivering, sweating ball at the foot of his bed. This was bad, worse than he'd thought. Now he was really worried about Seto. He couldn't get his brother to wake up or to move from his spot on the floor, so he decided to get help. He called the highly-trained nurses that Seto kept on call for KaibaCorp and his own personal use.

They said they'd be there as soon as possible, and while Mokuba waited for them, he curled up on the floor beside his brother, burying his face in his brother's back. Fear was beginning to grip his heart as he worried over Seto. He prayed that this was nothing too serious, that Seto would get better quickly. He couldn't afford to lose his big brother.

He wondered about how Seto had gotten into his room, and why. He'd probably crawled there; he was in no state to be walking. But why would he do such a thing? Did he really need Mokuba's presence that desperately in order to sleep well at night? Or was he still just paranoid about the boy's safety? Or was it simply a manifestation of the emotional neediness he'd been hiding for so long? Mokuba couldn't begin to fathom his brother's mind.