A/N: Written for the Crossover Boot Camp at the Madoka Magica Challenge Forum, prompt #024 – deliver, and the fandom this is crossed over with is a oneshot manga called Dream Vendor. The moral of the story: getting addicted to dreams is a bad thing. :D

The Music in his Dreams

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In a split second and the screeching of tyres, his dreams were stolen and replaced by nightmare. His legs lay still, unmoving limbs, beneath the blanket. His right hand lay atop the coverlets, equally still. His left was underneath, fingers bending stiffly like a poorly oiled joint. The sound of music of all sorts wafted through his ears and his mind – but that was all he could do. Listen to the sort of music he could never play again, and mourn for that.

And when he closed his eyes, it was to a ringing silence he slept. The sort of silence where only the sounds of nails on chalkboards screamed, those sounds he wanted to cover up by sweeter songs. But his hand wouldn't move; there was no guitar he could play with just one hand, especially with one that lacked the finer movements like his.

And hearing that music in the day and not from his own fingers was the icing of that cake of torture. Eventually he couldn't take it anymore and he ripped the buds from his ears with those stiff fingers of his.

He saw her face when he did it, the face of someone who'd stayed by him, tried to keep him happy, but she couldn't do it. The only way he'd be happy was if he could play again: hear the music that came from his own fingertips, that he'd poured his heart and soul into creating.

.

She walked slowly away from his room, even though her feet and heart begged her to run. She understood, of course, the pain her dear friend must still suffer through, with his dream denied to him as it had. And she was powerless to help as well, but to see him without his smile, without his hopeful expression even though she knew he only wore it for her, still hurt.

She passed a music shop, but this time she didn't go inside. When he smiled again and picked his headphones up and started listen to that classical CD she'd brought last for him again she'd find a new one, but neither of them could pretend to be happy now.

And that's all it was, in the end. A pretence. Because his dream was now gone, like water through stiff fingertips, and nothing either of them could do would give him those dreams back: the dream to play his piano on stage, in front of a crowd absorbed in his music – and her dream, to see that dream of his come true.

So she walked past the music door, leaving only a tear on the pavement as hesitation's mark.

But the next window called to her: an antique store with all sorts of strange and wonderful trinkets for sale. Things that promised magic – magic that wasn't believed in modern times. 'But why not,' she thought to herself. Nothing short of magic would restore her dear friend to his former self.

The bell tinkled as she walked in, and an old croaky voice at the back of the store called greetings to her. 'You seek something to fulfil dreams?' its owner asked, looming into view: tall but old and shadowed – completely shrouded in mystery.

'I do,' Sayaka said, swallowing. The proprietor, or who she assumed was such, unnerved her, but she had come for a fleeting hope after all she couldn't walk away. 'A friend has lost his means of achieving his dream, and I would like to give him something: hope, or a way…'

'Dreams.' The man's lips twisted out of their neutral expression, became unnaturally flat. 'I do have something for that: this doll. She only requires something the other owns in exchange. Anything, even something as insignificant as a lolly wrapper.'

He pulled it out from somewhere within the mountains of old things and held it out to her. It was an old doll, she found herself thinking, looking carefully at it. A wooden doll that looked as though it moved stiffly and saw nothings: its eyes like black beads. And yet, their empty depths made Sayaka shiver a little.

'Only those that can see through the material can influence dreams,' the proprietor said, seeing her discomfort. 'It is only natural – but I guarantee all the dreams she gives are good. And if you find otherwise, you can return her.'

'Okay,' Sayaka said, somewhat hesitant and doubtful still, but failing to see the loss. 'Okay; I'll take her.'

.

Kyousuke stared at the doll. It had been a surprise when Sayaka had brought it in, and even more of one when she'd explained how it worked. He knew she loved the fantasy worlds: of noble knights and powerful magic that would bend the world to one's will and happily ever after endings. It sounded like something from one of those, but Sayaka's departing words kept him from discarding it completely.

'What have you got to lose?'

Nothing but the foil off his container of custard – part of the barely palpable hospital meals he had to endure while he recovered.

Recovered. What a joke. His hand wasn't going to get better. And his legs were so slow in healing he might be dead or an old man before he could walk on them again. Those thoughts were bleak, but they were the truth: all he had left apart from shadows of dreams he no longer had…and the strange doll Sayaka had left on the beside table for him.

He put the wrapper in its mouth. He might as well, after all. Spend one more night pretending he still had hope.

'Give me a nice dream.'

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It was a few days before Sayaka could bring herself to visit Kyousuke again. Part of her was afraid the doll would fail and he'd be in a worse state than before. Another part of her was worried that the doll would work – because that would be proof beyond a shadow of doubt that magic existed.

And if magic existed, then so did everything else of fairy tales: noble knights and happily ever after lives – and it wouldn't be fair at all that there were people like Kyousuke who couldn't have their happily ever after futures anymore – unless there was a way to give his hands back to him as well.

But when she did visit Kyousuke, finally, he was asleep: his face a peaceful portrait against the pillow and his chest rising and falling like the gentle sonatas he'd so often played for her before.

He looked like he was having a good dream. She hoped he was.

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The doll did work. There was not a trace of that custard foil in the morning, and he could hear the hums of his music in the echoes of his dreams. But it was so soft, so pale – surely they had rung much louder when his fingers had been in the midst of that song, those songs…

For him, who hadn't played even in his dreams for far too long, it wasn't enough. He needed even more. His breakfast lay on the table, untouched. He ate a little of it, then fed the rest to the doll. 'Give me another dream,' he begged of it. 'A longer one.'

The doll ate the breakfast, custard and all…and to Kyousoke, thinking about dreams old and new, that wasn't strange at all.

.

Sayaka always seemed to come when Kyousoke was asleep, now. She tried different times, but in each he was asleep, unresponsive. And as time went on Sayaka noticed Kyousuke seemed to grow paler and thinner as well.

And she was not the only one who worried. The doctors and nurses too expressed concern about his state. 'His food is disappearing,' they would say, 'wrappers and containers and all, but it's like none of it is going in to his body.'

They were going to the doll, Sayaka thought, staring at the small smudge of jam on its lips. Food in exchange for dreams. But without food Kyousuke would die. How could he forget that?

Hopefully she could remind him. But she couldn't talk to him if he wasn't awake.

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Kyousuke woke one day to a note from Sayaka. 'Eat your food,' it said. 'Otherwise the nurses will put you under and hook you on to a drip. Are you trying to starve yourself to death, idiot?'

The words seemed foreign at first, and it took him a while to understand them. Moreso because he was so tired, sleep was dragging him back almost immediately after he awoke. He was tired because he needed food.

But he needed those dreams. The feel of the strings beneath his fingertips, and the sound of the music in his ears. He gave the note to the doll, and fell asleep to the crunching of paper, and when he awoke to the sound of his own movement, it was to an empty table, save the doll, a needle in his right arm, and the desire for even more sleep. And the drip wasn't his, but the hospitals. That wasn't a price he could give.

But he felt a little stronger. Perhaps it was the needle in his arm, taped solidly so he couldn't get it off. He didn't have that much strength, to rip through five layers of tape. Just enough to roll over a little to the other table, to see what things he had left.

A few flower bouquets and get well cards. It only took a few days before they were all gone. A couple of balloons that were tossed out before he could get to them. A few books…that vanished in a couple days more. And…the CD player and CDs that Sayaka had brought for him.

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Sayaka came one day and found the room completely barren, except for Kyousuke sleeping in his bed and the doll. It looked even more eerie now, creepy after having eaten so much of Kyousuke's things. And Kyousuke looked even paler and thinner on that bed. Barely waking before falling asleep again.

The doll she'd given him was killing him. 'You can't do this,' she whispered, to the doll.

Its empty black eyes stared at her.

She shivered. It begged her to flee, to leave the doll – to her prey. But she couldn't do that. That would mean losing Kyousuke forever.

I may have already lost him.

She shook her head violently. She hadn't; he was still there, no thanks to her idiocy. Well, she could change that.

She took the doll with her.

.

One day he woke up and the doll was gone. Sayaka, he thought. She was the only one who knew what the doll did for him. And she was there in a few minutes, after a beep he presumed came from one of the many machines attached to him.

'You're awake,' she said, sounding happy and sharp, all too sharp, for his ears.

His voice came out as a croak as he answered. 'Sayaka…'

Her smile dimmed a little. 'You need some water,' she said, turning around.

'The doll…'

Her back froze. 'Get better first. Your health isn't worth those dreams.'

That angered him. He pulled himself up with the railings, dragged himself up so that, when she returned with the water, he could grip her jacket tight and keep her close to him. 'I need those dreams!' he half yelled. 'They're all I have.'

Hurt stamped itself across her face. 'What about your family?' she demanded. 'Your friends. Me?'

His grip slackened; she pulled herself free and fled, something crashing somewhere close to him, but too far for him to see or reach.

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His next sleep, without the doll, was riddled with a haunting silence and burning fingertips, and whatever guilt or anger he might have felt before he fell asleep vanished. He needed the doll: he needed the dreams. That was all that mattered. He needed to play, to be able to move his fingers until he'd sent that horrible silence away – and that horrible beeping that was a constant when he was awake.

He opened his eyes. The doll stared back at him, on his table once more. There was a nurse as well, smiling at him. 'Just a few check ups,' she said brightly. 'Open up, dear.'

'The doll..?' he croaked.

'Oh, that?' She barely spared it a glance. 'I guess one of your visitors dropped it.'

It didn't matter. So long as the doll was back. But when the nurse was gone and he looked around, he saw nothing that still belonged to him left. Nothing except himself…and the doll. The clothes he wore were hospital issued. The blankets, the pillow, the bed – all of it belonged to the hospital. And the equipment too. He looked at his hands: that almost useless pair that sat above the coverlets like the dead weight they were –

He lifted one arm and offered the dead hand to the doll. It bit down, but he didn't feel any pain. Nothing at all, not even when the hand was gone and the doll bit into his forearm instead, then his elbow and so on until his whole body was gone: the payment for his that and final dream.