A Christmas Carol with Kaiba

When Brother Doesn't Need You

He saw blue before he met the ground face first. The cackling of Wheeler behind him made any bruising pain become insignificant. He peeled himself off the ground, spitting out snow, swearing up a sailor of a storm.

"Pretty words you got there, Kaiba." snickered Joey.

"When I'm through with you there's going to be a new hole in your ass you never had before."

"Sure, sure, whatever. Just look up before you do that. You're going to want to see who's walk'n towards us."

He did so, doing everything possible to sweep up to his feet in a dignified manner. The black silk pajamas didn't help, and this time, when his feet met the freezing snow, no one bothered to conjure his soft warm slippers for him.

There, walking towards them, was Mokuba, back to his eighteen year old self. Holding tightly to his hand was a petite, slight girl with doe-like eyes and dark hair that bounce about her cheeks. She barely reached his shoulder.

"It's been like this ever since Gozaburo left the picture," his brother was saying. "I don't think it's going to change, and I've given up believing I could change any of that."

The girl looked up at him with concern, and Seto, ever sharp when it came to his observance of human nature, knew it in an instant to be sincere. "There's always hope. Maybe, tonight, it will be different--"

Mokuba cut her off with a dismissive grunt that sounded all too much like his brother. "No it won't."

"How can you say that!"

"Because I know him, Kristy, I know him better than anyone. And miracles don't exist where he's concerned." he kicked at the snow with his converse. "In the world he's made you either make it happen or you don't. There is not chance, there is no magic, there is no nothing."

His brother suddenly stopped in front of Seto and Joey, as though frozen. For a minute Seto got the horrifying thought that he had been seen—not because his brother would have then caught him listening in on an obviously private conversation about him, but because that meant he could be seen standing in the snow in his nightclothes with Wheeler dressed up to be a Christmas tree topper besides him. His image would never recover.

But instead Mokuba tipped his head up towards the sky, mouth parted, eyes wide to the blue of the sky. They shone with tears.

"How can he not see it? How can he not feel it? How cold and lonely he's become? He's not like Gozaburo, he's worse! He's worse because he still has feeling, still has a heart, but refuses to accept any happiness that comes of it. I love him, Kristy, but he hardly even looks my way any more. How can he live like that? All numbers, all stocks, surrounded by selfish people who hate him?"

"It's just the nature of his job, Mokie--"

"But it doesn't have to be! He has all the money in the world, but for what?" Mokuba lowered his face back down, untwisting his hand from the girl's to rub both his palms hard against his eyes. "It's done, it's been done for years. Seto's dead. I don't have a brother anymore. I don't know when it happened, or if I'm just being stupid, but he's gone. There's no use waiting for him anymore."

The girl frowned, looking dismayed. "What do you mean?"

"Kristy," Mokuba's voice was shaking. He then did the unexpected. His younger brother dropped to one knee in the dirty snow and slipped out a velvet box from his jacket pocket. Kristy's eyes flew wide and his gloved fingers clumsily popped it open. From his distance, all Seto could make out was a luminescent sparkle.

"Kristy, please marry me. I want a family, and I want to make that family with you."

The dark haired, pale faced girl just stared down at the jewel and the boy who held it. She didn't weep for joy, she didn't jump in place, and she didn't yell. Instead, her expression crumpled and she fell in the snow in front of him.

"Mokie," she said, voice thick with tears, "if I say yes, will that make you happy?"

"Of course," he said quickly, "but shouldn't you be worried about myself?"

Tears finally leaked out of her eyes and she gave him a watery smile.

"Mokuba Kaiba, I'll never meet a man as wonderful, naïve, silly, and good as yourself. I'll be the happiest girl in the world." She tipped over like a dove and pecked a chaste kiss onto Mokuba's forehead. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas." his brother breathed.

Seto turned to the side as they kissed, feeling oddly mismatched. He should be angry. His brother hadn't even bothered to ask his opinion on this or even told him it had gotten this far. If he had just told him he had been planning to propose to the freaking girl, maybe he wouldn't have been so quick to shake off the dinner that night.

But he was then caught up by the curious tilt of Joey's mouth.

"What are you smiling at, mutt?"

"You don't know that girl, do you?"

"Your point?"

Joey's smile faltered and he downright stared in disbelief. "You're telling me that the little brother you risked life and limb for and lived your life for is about to marry a girl and you haven't even met her yet? Is everything he said true about you then?" Joey then smirked again and snorted. "Of course it's true. You don't have to be Kaiba's precious, oh-so-close little brother to know that."

Seto scowled. "You don't know anything about me."

"Oh? Ever 'eard of the scripture 'you will know a man by his fruits'?

"Never took you for the religious type."

"Like you ever cared, but let's just take a look at how I know what kind o' man you are."