Disclaimer: Heinously not mine.

A/N: A request for cypsiman2, who asked for Caring Anzu. It was supposed to be a drabble. Curse my inability to keep things short.

Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul

© Scribbler, September 2008.

Yuugi stared down at the bowl. It was lukewarm in his hands, its contents vaguely yellow in colour, with the consistency of the water in which you washed your brushes while painting in kindergarten. He took a hesitant sniff – and only just managed to keep from wrinkling his nose in disgust. Even a stuffed up nose couldn't block out the odour.

Whatever this was, it wasn't chicken noodle soup.

"Sounds like this stuff really does clean out the sinuses," Anzu remarked, watching his reaction with obviously suppressed nervousness. It was weird, seeing her uncertain but determined not to show it. "I guess Mom was right. I followed her recipe to the letter."

Yuugi shot her a smile, though his eyes couldn't leave the slowly rising bunch of noodle-like-things in the centre of the bowl. "It looks yummy," he lied. Actually he wanted to eat it as much as he wanted to eat his own cold vomit, but he couldn't tell Anzu that. Jounouchi probably would have. Heck, even Honda might have risked offending her and getting a thick ear rather than eat this, but the words never even made it as far as Yuugi's throat to die there. He sighed inwardly and reached for the spoon.

Anzu held it away from him. "Nu-uh. I saw how the chills were making your hands tremble before."

"I think all those blankets you piled on me have taken care of th-"

"Nope. Open wide."

"You're going to … feed me?" Yuugi blinked. Somewhere in the puzzle he felt Yami stir, tempted from slumber by the sudden upsurge of emotion from his aibou. Yuugi sent hasty, haphazard thoughts at him to stay where he was and get some rest after his all-night vigil. Yami had thought Yuugi was dying, or afflicted with some terrible convulsing illness, until Grandpa took his temperature, answered the door to Anzu to tell her Yuugi wouldn't be going to school today, and assured them both that Yuugi would be fine once he sweated the flu out.

Of course, having learned Yuugi was sick, Anzu was on their doorstep practically before the final bell had finished ringing. She brought comic books, which was good; and homework, which wasn't.

She also brought an intention to cook, which was downright terrifying.

It wasn't that Anzu was a bad cook … well, actually it was, but she tried hard and made up for lack of talent with enthusiasm and a desire to get better. Unfortunately, in all Yuugi's years of knowing her, she never had. Nor did it look likely she would, if the concoction in front of him was anything to go by.

"Yuugi?" Anzu said, somewhat hesitantly. "Are you feeling sick again? Do you need me to fetch a bucket?"

"No, no, I'm fine." He sniffed, reached for a tissue and half-smiled at her. She passed him the box without even looking at it, still poised with the large, shiny spoon in her hand.

Yuugi had a brief flash of how long it would take his snot-riddled self to dive out the window and shimmy down the drainpipe. Then he binned the idea, a little appalled at himself for even contemplating it. Anzu's culinary skills may have left a lot to be desired, but her heart was in the right place.

He just hoped his stomach still was after this.

Anzu grinned until he'd downed the very last, gristly bite. Afterwards he blamed the icky medicine Grandpa had given him earlier, face burning when she had to hold his hair out of his face and insisted on fetching clean pyjamas for him to change into. It was testament to how often she'd stayed over when they were kids that she knew where he kept his sleeping clothes, and testament to Yuugi's ever-strengthening resolve that he managed to keep his yellow-ducky-pyjama-inspired blushing to a minimum.

"You shouldn't be here," Yuugi murmured as he clambered back into bed, exhausted from retching. "You'll catch this too."

"Don't be silly," she said, patting the spot above her chest like she was Tarzan. Did that make him Jane, then? "I have an iron immune system."

"But -"

"Shush. Get some sleep and let me take care of you."

Too tired to argue, and taking a little pleasure in his soothing touch on his forehead, Yuugi allowed himself to drift away and pretend she was stroking his hair for a quite different reason than she'd just seen him upchuck.

"You're a pretty good nurse, Anzu," he whispered with the last of his energy before he went under.

"Maybe," she replied as if from the other end of a tunnel. "If I don't poison my patients with my cooking because they lie to me and don't tell me how awful it is with words."

Fin.