Truths

Mokuba's phone rang at three thirty in the morning, more than a month after he had called Seto last, almost three months after his last visit. Such a call was never a good sign.

Mokuba rolled over in his bed. Who the fuck would call him now? He reached over onto his bedside table and flipped his phone open. "What!?"

“Mokuba-sama." The voice, though it was missing a lot of it's calm, was Isono's.

"Isono?" Mokuba knew immediately something was wrong, and he sat up quickly. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure if you care," the manservant said. "But your brother is in the hospital."

"How the hell do you think I could not care?!" He snapped. Atsuko shifted beside him, grumbling something about shutting up. "What hospital?" He demanded.

"You haven't called in a month, or been here in nearly three;I nearly didn't call to tell you. Sacred Heart, in downtown."

"I'll be there soon." Mokuba didn't address the other things, "What happened to him?" Mokuba pulled on a random outfit from his drawer, not really caring what it was before grabbing his keys and leaving the house.

"He tried to kill himself with a drug overdose."

"What the...Why weren't you watching him!?" he shouted as he got into the car. "Fuck!" With shaking hands, he turned one the car and was off down the road.

"He is still my boss; he ordered me away. That's why I believe it was intentional. He normally doesn't care if I'm in the room."

"I can't talk now!" Mokuba hung up the phone, and tossed it onto the seat beside himself. He cursed himself for moving all the way out to the suburbs.

Isono returned to the waiting room,waiting to either be allowed to visit Seto or for Mokuba to arrive.


It was at least an hour before he pulled up into the visitors parking spot. He hadn't asked, but the ER sounded like a reasonable place for Seto to be. Mokuba rushed in, looking around for Isono, or anyone that might be able to tell him where his brother was."

Isono stood as his lesser boss rushed in. "Mokuba-sama," he said. "I know nothing of his condition yet."

"You mean we still can't see him?" Mokuba's eyes darted around, as if hoping he'd see a doctor coming towards them.

"No, not yet."

A doctor came from the back with a clipboard, glancing around.

Mokuba spotted the doctor almost immediately, and was in front of him at once, "My brother! Seto Kaiba...Is he alright!?"

"Kaiba-san?" He waited for Isono's nod of confirmation. "He's stable, finally. We have him on a detox regimen, for the alcohol poisoning as well as the heroin overdose."

He couldn't say anything, too afraid that if he did he'd explode on the innocent doctor. A few deep breaths and he was satisfied that he was calm enough to speak, "Can I see him?"

"Yes, for a little while, but he's not conscious yet." He nodded to Isono as well, then led them both down the hall, to a clean, antiseptic room, where Seto lay thin and haggard in the white bed.

His breath caught in his throat at the sight and he couldn't move, frozen in the doorway. "I can't see him like this..." Mokuba muttered, but his gaze didn't leave the unconscious form wrapped in sterile white sheets.

"Are you going to run away again, Mokuba?" Isono asked calmly. "I didn't think he had raised you to be a coward, but I must have been wrong."

"I'm not a coward!" He snapped, "What if that was someone you love laying in that bed after trying to kill themselves? Would you be able to handle it?!"

"It is, and I've had to handle it twice before tonight, and I have done so." He stepped past Mokuba, into the room.

"Twice?!" Now Mokuba entered the room, anger flaring up as he glared at the much larger man, "Is there a reason I'm learning about these other attempts for the first time just now?!"

"They were in the nearly three years in which you left him alone. They weren't this serious, either. If you cared, you would have been there and not have to be told about them by me years afterward."

"You think I don't care?" His eyes burned with un masculine tears that begged to fall. "You honestly think I don't care? You think you know everything, and you know so fucking little!"

"Do you know what day today was?" the servant asked, sitting by his master's hospital bed and crossing his arms, looking up at Mokuba coolly.

"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Defensiveness because he really had no idea.

"It was the three year anniversary of the day you left him the first time. The first year he got this drunk for the first time and tried to cut his wrists." He gently lifted Seto's hand to show the pale scars. "The second he got high and overdosed on sleeping pills."

What the hell was he supposed to say to that? Instead of speaking, he leaned his back against one of the white walls, head drooped slightly. So he had been the reason for his brother almost dieing, not once but three times. Hadn't Seto said he would be fine if he had to leave?

"You abandoned him, Mokuba. He won't accuse you of it, so I will. You stopped calling, stopped answering his calls, when you said you'd call him every day. You haven't been back to the mansion. You know for three straight weeks, he didn't drink, hoping you'd come to your senses? For an alcoholic, that's amazing. You lied. You lied, and you showed your cowardice, by not even telling him you couldn't see him again. He could have dealt with that. But you just disappeared again, stringing him along."

"I couldn't handle him...It's not an excuse, There's no excuse for this..."

"No..." Isono said, looking at his boss. "There isn't."

"He probably hates me..." Mokuba muttered softly, gaze finally raising back to his brother's bed.

"If he hated you he never would have done this. He needs you. It would be easier for you if he hated you, though, so you can believe he does, and go home, and never feel guilty again."

"Regardless of whether he hated me or not, the guilt would always be there..." Leaving was so damn tempting, but how could he do that to Seto...again.

"He never has to know you were here. It might be better for him if he didn't." Isono sounded defeated. "If you came, and then left him again, it would destroy him."

"I can't leave him like this..."

"I don't trust you to stay. I won't let you hurt him again. Your brother is more like a son to me than anything else." And what he left unsaid... was that Mokuba wasn't.

Seto made a noise on the bed, stirring slightly as he began to wake. "Make your choice now - leave and never see him again, or stay and actually do something to help him for the first time in your adult life."

Mokuba's gaze was fixed on Seto as he saw the man move. It was a hard decision to make, because he had no idea whether either choice he made would benefit anyone. With a small silent bow, Mokuba walked quickly from the room.

Isono was disappointed, but not surprised. Much the same reaction Seto had to find himself waking in a hospital with Isono by his side.


Mokuba hadn't left the hospital, instead, took to pacing the hallways. He was fairly certain he'd been through the entire building at least once. And here he was, standing outside of Seto's door once again. The course of his life would change in this moment, no matter which option he chose to take...

"Your brother is a coward," Isono was telling Seto. "He doesn't deserve this from you." Seto was refusing to answer.

His hand was on the doorknob, but he could still turn back and leave. As Isono said, maybe Seto would be better off without him showing up...But what if Seto just got worse, and did this again in another year. Mokuba shook his head, swallowing his worries, before silently pushing the door open.

Seto looked up as the door opened, expecting a doctor, or possibly the police to arrest him for possession of a controlled substance... Instead, it was Mokuba there, and he sat up far too quickly, almost fainting.

Mokuba didn't look at anything but his brother, "Seto... I'm so sorry," he muttered quietly as he stepped further into the room.

"Mokuba..." he said quietly. His eyes were sad, but he said "It's all right..."

"How the hell can you say it's all right..." He motioned his hand towards the machines his brother was hooked to, "This isn't alright..."

"No, it's not, I know..." He rubbed his face and grabbed his hair, resting his elbow on his knee. "I'm sorry..."

"Don't apologize," he snapped, "This is clearly not your fault."

He flinched a little. "Sorry..." he whispered.

"I said don't apologize..." His voice was softer as he moved to sit on the edge of his bed.

"I've obviously been drinking..." Seto said bitterly. "This kind of shit only seems like a good idea when I'm fucked up..."

"I promise I won't leave you this time...and I truly mean that...I had no idea that it was so bad..."

"I..." Seto trembled slightly, but that was normal for him now. He wanted to say that he didn't know if he believed him... but most of him latched onto it. He had to believe him.

Mokuba brushed aside the other's bangs from his face gently, "I'm sorry..." He muttered again, so depressed at the sight of the wreck that was his brother.

"It's not your fault, Mokuba. I told you I'd understand, and I do."

"Understanding is one thing...It's killing you Seto. I'm not going to be the reason you kill yourself!" Mokuba clutched at Seto, holding him in his arms.

Seto leaned against him lightly. "I'm..." There wasn't anything he could say. There was no denial that it was killing him... Or that it was Mokuba's fault...

"You don't have to say anything..." He let Seto go so he could speak to him face to face, "When I go home after this...I'm telling Atsuko that we need to divorce."

Seto shook his head. "I can't let you ruin your marriage like that..."

"I love her Seto, but it doesn't come close to how I feel about you..." His hand brushed gently over Seto's cheek.

"Even if you're not in love with her..." Seto said quietly, and leaned his head into his hand, taking a deep breath. "You're not in love with me, either..."

His eyebrows creased downwards as his eyes narrowed, "Of course I do!"

"You might love me, but... I don't think you can be in love with me... not with..."

"Not with how you left," Isono supplied from the background.

Mokuba's gaze snapped at Isono, and his voice matched, "I'm quite certain this is a conversation between Seto and I!" The way he held such resentment towards this man was unreasonable.

"He's right," Seto whispered, as though afraid to say such things aloud. Isono said nothing, but he didn't move.

Mokuba's gaze softened to a much more somber one as he turned to look at Seto. He stood and then spoke, "Well...If that's how you feel then there's no changing that."

Seto flinched and said nothing. Mokuba was going to leave him... again... and keep taunting him, coming back once and then leaving just long enough for him to break, come back and glue the pieces back together, and then leave again... He couldn't take that. He took a shaky breath and drew his knees to his chest.

Mokuba stared at his brother, emotion not obvious by neither his demeanor nor his flat voice, "Well if you don't feel I love you, why should I stay? What good am I to you?

"You've left so much. You come back and promise to stay and then you leave again... I don't want that to happen again. I can't take it. That's what does this to me... I'll die if it happens again. if you're going to leave, I'd rather never see you again, and have you tell me..."

"Fine...I hope you manage to enjoy the rest of your life." Wasn't it better to walk away now, even if he was leaving behind the person he loved most in this world, then to crack under the pressure and leave the other broken again?

Seto buried his face in his knees. So Mokuba really had planned on leaving him again...

The younger turned back to look at the elder after the door was already opened, "I just want you to know...That even if you don't think it's true...I do love you. And it's because I love you that I'm leaving; I don't want to end up hurting you further..."

"Why can't you just stay then?" Seto asked quietly.

"Because I'm scared I'll get scared and run off again..." Mokuba said with equal quiet to his voice.

"So just stay," Seto said. "Just don't leave. That's all you have to do..."

"It's not that easy..."

"It can be..." Seto said quietly.

Isono didn't really like where this conversation was going. "Mokuba," he said, standing. "Why don't you go home and think about it. Seto-sama will call when he gets out of the hospital. You'll both have time to clear your heads."

"No. There's nothing to think about." Mokuba said, shaking his head stubbornly before simply walking back out of the room.

Seto flinched. Isono watched him leave.