A Christmas Carol with Kaiba

Mr. Whitaker

Please let me know what you think. ^.^ 

Joey turned and started walking down the street. Seto meant to stay just where he was—like hell he was going to do anything that Wheeler suggested—but then the colors around them began to blur and Seto found himself being dragged along by some invisible force, almost as though someone had pressed a wall against his body and it steadily shoved him forward.

"Say, I ain't no expert, but isn't eighteen awful young to get married?"

"You're point?"

"Just saying yer brother must be desperate or somethan. How long has he even known that chick?"

But Seto didn't respond. He was both too busy trying to keep his ambiguous balance as well as wondering why his brother ever had to be desperate for anything, let alone desperate for love. But the answer was stewing in the part of his mind that also remembered the kiss he had shared with Kisara.

When the weird little super speed walking was over, Seto found himself in a non-distinct neighborhood he didn't recognize. All he did notice was the bad paint jobs and roofs in need of new shingles. The lawns were unkempt and dead, and the cars in the driveways were used and frequently patched with different colors.

"Why are we here?" Seto asked.

"To visit an employee of yours."

"Like any employee of mine would live in a dump like this. I know you and the geek squad think I'm some sort of reincarnated Scrooge, but I'll have you know I pay my employees well."

"Yeah yeah, I'm not gonna argue semantics with you." Joey unceremoniously kicked open the gate of a single story, shotgun style house. "Just make my job easy and get yer pasty behind inside the house."

"Do you even know what semantics mean?"

"Sure I do, now get in."

And so Seto found himself stepping through the door like a ghost again, which got him wondering why he had to spit snow out of his mouth earlier or why he felt the cold.

Inside the house was meticulously clean, well kept, and filled with the smell of roasting bird. The shaggy brown carpet was patched with stains and the popcorn ceiling above his head made his nose wrinkle.

Then there were the children. Yelling, screaming, snotty little cretins running about with blankets and cheap plastic thrift store toys. Seto counted five, but the way they ran about like complete maniacs multiplied them by three.

For once, he was consciously glad that he was some sort of invisible, incorporeal ghost thing.

And then Mr. Whitaker walked out from the back of the house, clothes rumpled, face blotchy and pale.

"Children!"

They must have not been used to their father raising his voice, for it was as though the earth had fallen out from under the childrens' feet. Half of them fell onto their butts, the oldest stopped and stared, and the smallest dropped her fists to her knees and started to bawl.

Mr. Whitaker sighed heavily and rubbed a hand over his shining, balding scalp. The hand shook so bad that the measly sweater sleeve fell down to his elbow.

"Kids, I'm sorry, it's just, your mother...I have work I need to finish too. If I don't, I won't be able to afford mommy's medicine, so please, just a little quiet."

The living room's deathly silence almost hurt more than the unholy din before. Seto glanced at Joey's expression, but he couldn't even begin to see what the mutt could be thinking, which was a rare one for him.

When Mr. Whitaker finally turned around, heaving breaths as though his nose wasn't working quite right, the children coiled back into the corner with a shabby looking Christmas tree and Joey and Seto followed. The man lead them into a darkened master bedroom that was taken up by a hospital bed. A fragile, frail, grey skinned woman lay propped up in it, her hollow gaze following her husband with a forlorn look.

"You didn't have to yell, it's Christmas, they have a right to be excited."

Mr. Whitaker sighed again, even heavier than the last. "I know, dear, I know."

He took up a chair next to her bed, where a laptop waited for him, and rubbed his eyes hard beneath his glasses before locking his eyes on the screen and typing away. The room fell quiet, and Seto watched as the slip of a woman closed her eyes and slipped into sleep. He noticed that he could see blue veins through her skin, fat and swollen like worms.

"Any of your Ghost of Present powers can tell me what's going on here and what it has to do with me?" Seto asked.

"Thought you'd never ask." Joey slipped his hands into his sleeves, looking rather sagely while doing so. "This lady here's heart is failing. It can be fixed with a heart transplant, but because her bloodtype or whatever is so rare that guy over there has to wait until a hospital in the area is able to find a donor with a match. She might not last till then, but he's been spending every extra penny he can squeeze out to afford the expensive care needed to prolong her life."

Joey's accent had diminished considerable, and he actually started striking a pretty impressive figure next to Seto, holding his arms like some Obi One Kanobi and talking like a normally educated young man.

"And this has to do with me...?"

In a flash the dignified sage was gone and his face flamed with passion.

"Isn't that the same man you bullied into working on Christmas? Who knows how many days his wife has, and yet he's struggling to spend time with her and keep his job with you so he can afford to keep her alive. In an hour he's going to have to return to his office for the rest of the day, away from his family, in order to finish your stupid ass project."

Seto flinched back, but instantly made up for it by straightening to his full height. "What is wrong with you people? Christmas is just some holiday in December, a day to celebrate commercialism."

"Haven't you been listen to a word Yugi or I say? He's was meant to remind you of what's left of yer humanity, as Christmas' of the past are to do, and me? I'm to remind you of the here and now and how yer soul, yer worth, is doing now."

Seto scolwed. "What are you talking about? My worth?"

"Yeah, moneybags, yer worth. Christmas is about what's really important, what's really of worth, and the worth of a human soul is based off of it's relations to others. Tell me, jerkweed, got any friends? Name one."

"And again, with the friendship speeches, I thought I heard the last of them when--"

"Exactly, none. If you had any, it would be Yugi, who's saved yer sorry ass more times than I can count, and that's only because he considers you his friend. Well, let's see what happens to the one's foolish enough to call you friend."