Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Crazy for you ❯ Dreams and small nightmares ( Chapter 13 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

A/N: The chapter is Mariku centered again!


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Mariku woke up slowly the next morning. He didn't feel like opening his eyes yet so he just laid there, eyes closed, enjoying the warmth that seemed to surround him. He had had another nightmare again last night, starring the bastard that wouldn't leave him alone even when he was dead. It had been different somehow this time... Sure the dream had all the usual elements in it, the ones he knew from memory already, after seeing the same one so many times but it ended weirdly. It wasn't the image of his burning father's face anymore that ended the nightmare, it had been something else entirely. Like a presence, safe and light, an angel.

Mariku snorted quietly to his thoughts, he didn't even believe in that sort of crap. Putting his musings aside for a bit, he moved to stretch himself but found that there was weight on him and in his arms. A smaller body. Now who could that be?

Finally opening his eyes and gazing down, he saw Ryou sleep peacefully in his arms, half on top of him, one arm wrapped around Mariku's torso. Mariku smirked though it was almost a smile, as close to one he could get anyway. The smaller male looked so peaceful and content, he didn't want to wake him up.

“Hey guys! I'm leaving, breakfast... Make your own breakfast! Bye!” Ishizu called from behind the door and then the sound of the door closing could be heard.

“Whatever...” Mariku mumbled though his stomach protested, telling that it needed food now. “You shut up.”

Ryou stirred a bit and made a small sleeping noise. It almost sounded like a word but wasn't really understandable. Mariku played with his hair a bit before placing his hand around him again. He sighed and decided to wait until Ryou woke up.

Mariku soon started to regret his decision when half an hour had passed and no sign of waking up could be seen. Ryou nuzzled him from time to time and mumbled something but that was it. He was getting hungry and his stomach was unhappy.

“I'm not that comfortable... Come on Ryou.”

Ryou disagreed with him though as he didn't bother to wake up. It crossed Mariku's mind that it was a school day and Ryou should be going. Not that he wanted him to go, he would rather have him there to keep him company but Ryou wanted to go so who was he to stop him?

“Don't you want to go to school?” He asked though the other couldn't hear him. Apparently, 'school' wasn't the magic word that would wake him up. As unbelievable it seemed now, Mariku had had his share of fairy tales in his time and knew stuff about magical words that opened doors and such as much as any other person. So he thought 'What the hell' and gave it a go.

Slowly tilting Ryou's chin up and bending to a bit weird position, Mariku captured Ryou's lips with his own. It was just that sort of innocent peck turned a bit longer than usually. Just as he was about to pull away and curse all the fairy tale writers for being full of it, he felt Ryou's lips move a bit under his own. It was just a small movement at first but turned to be not so small. It hit Mariku that Ryou was actually responding, though he was asleep, but this was still better than him waking up! It also dawned to him that Ryou wasn't awake and therefore had no idea what he was doing, unless he was having some kind of dream. It felt wrong somehow, even to him. So after he took action on his unexplainable urge to lick him, just a bit, he pulled away.

He stared Ryou for a while, wondering what had been going on in that small head of his when Ryou too, slowly opened his eyes.
They stared at each other for a while, then Ryou blushed and quickly sat up.

“I-I'm sorry... You were having a nightmare and I thought- Yeah...” Ryou quickly offered an explanation.

“It's ok, I didn't exactly mind either.” Mariku said with a smirk.

“O-oh, that's good...” Ryou stammered before getting up, not looking at Mariku.

“Hey, what kind of dream did you have?” Mariku asked suddenly and Ryou froze.

“W-what? Did I talk in my sleep or something?”

“A bit but I couldn't really understand you. What were you dreaming about?” He repeated his question, wanting an answer. Ryou looked like he wasn't about to answer but then he slowly opened his mouth to speak.

“This is a bit awkward...” Mariku's ears perked up. “Never mind, it's nothing.” Then he quickly walked out of the room. That wouldn't do and Mariku got up and followed.

“What was it? Tell me!” He yelled after Ryou.

“It was nothing, ok!” Ryou locked himself in to the bathroom. Mariku pounded on the door a couple of times.

“Oh come on! I want to know!”

“I don't want to tell! Leave it be Mariku!” Came the answer. He heard the shower start running and decided to give up for now. He would find out who Ryou was kissing in that dream, and it better not be that Toshiro guy or he'd be dead meat! Yes, he was one of those extremely jealous and possessive people.

It took Ryou very long to shower and Mariku decided to go finally get his breakfast. All he found was cereal so he just ate those.
Soon, but not soon enough, Ryou appeared from the bathroom and walked past the kitchen in his towel. Mariku's eyes followed his lithe form. Ryou stopped, as if sensing his stare. He looked back and saw Mariku staring.

“It's rude to stare, you know.” He stated.

“Since when was I polite?”

Ryou frowned. “Well, you could learn to be.” With that he turned back around and went to get some clothes from the bedroom. He closed the door with a bit more force than necessary and Mariku wondered if he was angry at him. What had he done wrong again?
Ryou came to the kitchen in a bit and sat down to eat cereal, not looking at Mariku. The tanned one sighed.

“What did I do again?” He asked feeling annoyed that there was nothing he could possibly do right.

“Nothing.”

“Why are you acting like that then?” He tried again to get some sort of explanation, not being very good with these things.

“Like what?” Ryou asked, still keeping his eyes on his bowl of cereal.

Mariku stood up and hit his fist on the table, spilling milk from the two bowls. “Damn it Ryou!” He snapped, making the other finally look at him, startled. “How am I supposed to know what I did if you don't tell me! I'm not a fucking mind reader!” He yelled.
“Is this about the dream or about me staring? What is it?!”

“I-it's not that... Please calm down.”

“I don't want to! Who did you kiss?!”

“Excuse me?” Ryou asked, confused.

“In the dream!”

“How- I don't know what you're talking about...” Ryou looked away again but Mariku would have none of that and grabbed his chin in a firm grip.

“Yes you do.” He wasn't yelling anymore but his voice had a dangerous tone to it. “Tell me. Tell me!” He vaguely realized that he had lost it and was going too far but he was angry and jealousy driven so he didn't really care right now.

“Mariku... please...” Ryou pleaded, eyes becoming teary and glassed over. Mariku narrowed his eyes at him, only faintly realizing that he was making him cry. The small voice in the back of his head was screaming him to stop and let go but since when had he listened to it?

“I-I...” Ryou stammered, tears starting to blur the edges of his vision. “It was you, ok!” Ryou finally yelled, closing his eyes and letting the tears spill free. “I kissed you! There! Happy now?!”

Coming to his senses again, Mariku quickly let go and took a step back. Ryou backed off much faster and then bolted to their room, closing the door behind him. Mariku stepped back again and stumbled to sit on the floor, burying his head into his hands.

“Oh god...” Why was he such a terrible screw up? Just so unable to control his stronger emotions and they ended up controlling him. “I'm sorry Ryou...” He whispered, never being able to say that out loud to his face. How exactly was he going to fix this one? He didn't know...


Mariku had sat in front of the bedroom door for about an hour now. He had been trying to get Ryou to come out but he refused to even speak to him. The door couldn't be locked but it might as well be, Mariku dared not to go in without permission.

Tired of trying to speak to him, he just sat against the door and waited. He would wait as long as it took for Ryou to come out and face him, though he didn't know what would he do them.

The front door opened and Ishizu stepped in. She stopped to stare for a second, trying to figure out what was going on. Then she visibly gave up.

“Ok, what's going on?” She asked.

“Ryou won't come out...” Mariku just stated. Ishizu raised a brow.

“What did you do?”

“So you just automatically assume that I did something?”

“You didn't?”

“Yes...”

“Uh-hu, I'm not even sure if I want to know... He's not... physically hurt, is he?” Ishizu asked, worried.

“No, at least I don't think he is...”

“Ok good, I just came to grab something, then I'm off.” She went to her room to get whatever it was and when she came out, she hissed. “Apologize you moron!” And then she left, leaving Mariku a bit dumbfounded.

He sighed and leaned his head against the door. Just then the door decided to open, making Mariku fall down on the floor. When he looked up, he saw Ryou looking down on him and noticed that his head was almost on top of the other's feet.

“Uh, hi...” He said and waved a bit up to him.

“Hi...” Ryou answered and offered a hand to help him up. As soon as he was up, the same hand came down on his cheek, hard. He had no idea that Ryou could slap that hard, it stung and the sound ringed through the apartment. Mariku raised his hand to touch his cheek that had a red mark on it.

“You're forgiven.” Ryou stated and walked off to the living room and turned on the TV. Mariku blinked at him but said nothing, just came to sit next to him on the couch. He must admit that after that he had this strange respect for Ryou...


He could still taste the blood in his mouth as he ran to keep up with him. He was a fast runner but Mariku couldn't lose the sight of him, so he followed, careful not to be seen. Not by the by passers, not by Ryou.

He had no idea where they were anymore but the one running in front of him seemed to have a pretty good idea as he ran through
the cemetery gates.

Ryou stopped in front of two graves and dropped on his knees, crying miserably. Mariku hid behind a tombstone near by and watched as the teen said something to the graves and then hugged them desperately. Mariku just felt terribly numb as he saw the other pass out on the ground.

Making sure that no one was around to spot him, he went to Ryou and proceeded to pick him up. He considered just taking him home but seeing the blood on the collar of the pale shirt, he decided otherwise. He needed to be taken somewhere where he could be taken care of, and Mariku highly doubted that he could do that. He knew that there was supposed to be a hospital somewhere near the mental one and walked out of the graveyard. Walking ahead until he knew where they were again, being careful to make sure Ryou was even relatively comfortable in his arms and making his way to the direction of the supposed hospital.

This was the least he could do.


Now that he thought of it, they had gone through some serious shit since they met, not that the meeting itself was any better... And all over the course of... a little over month maybe? Give or take a bit.

“At least things haven't been boring...”He muttered and Ryou glanced at him strangely.

“And now local news. Yesterday, two workers of the Domino's House for the Mentally Unstable were found in a local residence. The tip was given by an anonymous caller and the Domino Hospital personnel reported the incident to the police...” The news reporter read.

Ryou sighed. “There goes my college education...” The news man told that the occupant of the apartment was also currently missing, he was kind enough not to mention Ryou's name but told that he was a student in Domino Central College. “Bye bye future currier...”

Oh great... Now he had ruined Ryou's life... “This wasn't supposed to turn out so bad...”

“It did anyway, it's not your fault, you couldn't have known.” Ryou said. “Besides, I can just, like, move out of the country or something, I always wanted to travel.” He continued with the slightest hint of sarcasm. “Father always wanted me to follow his footsteps and come work for him anyway.” Now his voice was just plain bitter and he punched the pillow on the couch. “Damn it Mariku!” He stood up and yelled. This took Mariku by surprise and he just stared. “Why do you have to go and screw everything up! I liked my life! Now it's ruined...” He seemed to run out of steam and his arms flopped to his sides and he sat back down, hugging his legs. “Why me..?”

Mariku sighed, not really knowing what to do or say. This wasn't exactly his forte... He stared at the TV screen when something flopped on his lap, making him jump a bit. Looking down he noticed that it was a head full of white hair.

“Ryou?” He asked carefully.

“Just let me stay here for a while... I'll be ok...” Ryou said quietly.
They stayed like that for a while, Mariku placing his hand in Ryou's hair who closed his eyes and sighed.


The idiotic idea of music therapy never appealed to the young Mariku. When his old psychiatrist retired because of stress and what-not, he was replaced by a couple of new ones. Supposedly they were also teachers, another profession Mariku had a distaste for.

His sister was to accompany him to the “music room”, as if the facility had one... He should know, being send here at the age of ten and now, after being here for four years, with little progress, he had a vast knowledge of what the place had and what it simply couldn't afford.

The room held two men, the other was skinny and tall with cold gray eyes, the other looked much more friendly with is ruffed hair and typical brown eyes. They kind of balanced each other out...

“Ishtar?” The colder one asked from both of them and they nodded. “Welcome, meet my colleague Hiriwa, I'm Akishima, take a seat.”

Mariku often wondered if the Japanese people had first names at all... They sat down along with the men. The one called Hiriwa smiled pleasantly and poked his cold colleague on the shoulder, earning a glare.

“He means, please take a seat and nice to meet you.”

Ishizu smiled back at him but her brother only crossed his arms.

“Now then, we'll take over where your last psychiatrist left, ok?” Mariku glared. “It says in your file that you were supposed to start music therapy, is that right Malik?”

“Don't call me that!” Mariku snapped, standing up. Ishizu grabbed his sleeve quickly. The chair fell down with a dull thump.

“Ah... I'm sorry, what should I call you then?”

“Mariku...” He told and Ishizu picked his seat up so that he could sit back down. Akishima made a note in his file and the other nodded.

“Let's get started then!” Hiriwa said but his voice held faked cheerfulness instead of sincere one. “We picked something we would like you to hear.” He turned the stereo on. It was a classical tune, how original...

“Why don't we just skip this, it's not like it's going to do anything good.” Mariku suggested, getting tired of this quickly.

“Don't be so negative, you won't know until we try, right?”

“Hmph! How long have you been going through therapy?” He asked rudely. “I should know by now.”

“Mariku, please...” Ishizu tried and Hiriwa looked at the other man for help.

“Listen... Mariku, that's all we need you to do. What harm can it do?” Akishima questioned calmly.

Mariku crossed his arms again but didn't say anything, just closed his eyes and listened. Ishizu sighed in relief and smiled thankfully at the man. Everything was going surprisingly fine and the song changed. It was a bit rock-ish now with angry lyrics.

Just when the song was ending, the final lyrics rang through Mariku's brain like a knife. “...and let it BUURN!”

The image of his father at his final moments flashed in his mind and he grabbed the chair he was sitting on to smash the damned music playing contraption. “No! Shut up!”

Both of the psychiatrists stood up quickly and Hiriwa, being closer, was the first one to take a hold of him. Do to the intrusion, instead of hitting the stereo system, Mariku hit Hiriwa. The chair connected painfully with the man's face and the other was heard yelling and Ishizu was screaming for him to stop. The man fell down and was smacked with the chair few times for good measure before the security rushed in to stop him.

He was taken back to his room by force and an ambulance was called for the wounded man. They later learned that his face had been mashed in by the impact and pieces of his skull pierced his brain, causing his death. Ishizu was at his funeral, she visited Mariku once after that and then stopped coming entirely.


Ryou had fallen asleep. The door opened and Ishizu came in, sighing tiredly and just throwing her stuff on the floor. She came to the living room and noticed the sleeping Ryou.

“Is he alright?”

“Yes, he's just tired.”Mariku left out that his life was ruined, or at least that's how Ryou saw it. Ishizu nodded.

“You really care about him, don't you?” She asked carefully.

“What makes you think that?”

She shrugged. “You act it. How... how was your day?” Ishizu hesitated but sat down next to him.

“Fine... Why?”

“No reason... Work was murder so I'm going to take a shower and a nap, try not to make too much noise, alright?” She said, smiled a bit awkwardly and left. Mariku glanced after her wondering what was that about. He didn't really know what to think of her any more. He had hated her for the longest time but now... She had helped them after all. Ryou wanted them to bond and he liked her so she couldn't be that bad of a person, but then again, maybe one shouldn't trust Ryou's judgment, he liked Mariku too who wasn't the most easy person to like most of the time.

Mariku blinked. No wait, why would Ryou like him? He looked at the sleeping boy on his lap. At least he seemed to trust him...
Maybe that was something one shouldn't do either.

Ryou stirred a bit and smiled in his sleep. He said something and Mariku leaned closer to hear it. “Ma...” It was only one syllable that was understandable. He might as well be dreaming of his mother for all he knew. Ryou turned his head and cracked his eyes open just a bit. He smiled gently and reached out to touch Mariku's face, then he let the hand fall, closing his eyes and nuzzling Mariku's lap.

“Foolish Ryou...” Mariku smirk-smiled down on him and stroke his hair with surprising affection.


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A/N: There... Hmm, originally the death of Hiriwa was going to be more bloody... I was going to have Mariku stab him with a letter opener, actually, but changed my mind. Hitting someone on the face really is very dangerous, never do that. I have never cursed more while typing a chapter, the computer just doesn't act like I would like it to and I'm not very good with technology... I curse at it... (You fucking piece of useless shit!) Ahem...

Review please!!!