"I love you man, but I swear to god. If you point that dolphin at me one more time, I will zucchini you, and I don't care that you're secretly Harry Potter." -My stepbrother in his sleep. (I'm assuming that it was aimed at my twin brother, as his room is located underneath the staircase so we joke that he is actually Harry Potter.)

I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, YGO:TAS, the concepts of Marik, Bakura, Mariku, or Akefia. All I really own is the plot, and I'm still cheating a bit.

Wednesday, April 6, 2005

Midday

Akefia frowns, pushing himself up off the bed. "I can't really do much, Kuku…" He says softly.

Bakura doesn't respond, his face buried in the pillow as he lies on his stomach. He's been lying like that for nearly two days.

Akefia brings his hand up to scratch at his head, looking sad. "I mean, I can get you some painkillers. And some anti-biotics, because Lord knows what kind of infections you can get from rectal cuts…"

Bakura nods weakly. "Please," he gets out.

Akefia pulls a small notepad and a pen out of his pocket and starts scribbling. "I should be back in an hour or so. I'll grab you boys some lunch too, how bout that?" He turns around and attempts to smile at me. I just stare at him. He sighs, smile sliding from his face.

"You cleaned up the glass that was on the floor, right Marik? Did you get cut up at all?"

Actually, I did. I tried my best to avoid the glass as I made my way to the bed to help Bakura, but I still stepped on some of it. And I cut up my hands trying to get the shards of glass out of Bakura. But I just washed the cuts with soap and water. My cuts weren't bad compared to Bakura's.

I nod. "A bit," I say uneasily. "Just on my hands and feet."

Akefia makes a motion with his hand. "Let me see."

I lift my hands up and he takes one in his, looking at the cuts around my palm and up my fingers. He drops that hand, grabbing the other one and repeating the process. Then he sits down in one of the chairs and turns the seat towards me. "Feet up," He tells me, patting his lap. I comply. It's really weird to have Akefia looking at my feet.

"You actually did a pretty good job of cleaning yourself up…" he mumbles to himself, dropping my feet and standing up. "But I'll probably grab you some pills too, just to be safe. God knows Mariku wouldn't let me take you to a hospital even if your hand was falling off…" He sounds angry.

I get to my feet, and Akefia wanders back over to the bed. "And you did a fairly good job of helping Bakura. He could have bled way more than what he did if you hadn't gotten the glass out right away."

What else would I have done, sat there and let him bleed and cry? Bakura was in pain. And I could help him. Of course I helped him.

Though it was really weird to stretch Bakura's opening, sticking my fingers inside to get the broken shards of glass out. And he kept crying and telling me to stop, which made the job a lot more difficult, but I kept going until I couldn't feel anymore glass.

There was blood, though. A lot of blood.

Bakura's been in a lot of pain ever since. It hurts him to sit, and he can barely walk. I've had to help him get to the bathroom whenever he needed it. I think sitting on the toilet hurts him way less than sitting normally, too. But the last time I brought him in there, he sat there for a really long time and crying in pain so loudly I could hear him outside the door. I asked him if he was okay, but he didn't answer. I think he was embarrassed. I wanted to tell him there was no reason he should be embarrassed. It wasn't his fault.

Akefia opens his mouth to say something, but right then the door beep beeps and his head whirls around, looking terrified.

Mariku steps through, looking bored. He stops suddenly when he sees Akefia, and I swear I can see his lip curl. "You. What the fuck are you doing in here?"

Akefia snaps his mouth shut, drawing his shoulders back and standing up straight. "I'm here to take care of my nephew. As you already know and don't care, he's been injured."

"He's fine," Mariku rolls his eyes. He makes a motion with his hand, coming closer to us. The door swings closed behind him, but no one makes any move to lock it.

Akefia's eyebrows go up, his nose wrinkling. "Fine? Fine?! Mariku, he has fucking lacerations on the inside of his rectum."

"Calm down. And stop using your big doctor words." Mariku holds his hands up. "You never even became a fucking doctor. You think that because you went to medical school for a little while you car waltz around and diagnose these kids-"

"Yes, I fucking can!" Akefia's hands make fists, stepping forward. Mariku moves to walk around the table, and Akefia suddenly reaches out and grabs me, shoving me behind him. I drift to Bakura's side, taking his hand in mine and squeezing it as Akefia stands in front of us. "Somebody has to, since you express no concern for these boys' well-being-"

"That's a lie!"

"That is not a lie!" Akefia seethes. "You've starved them. You've beat them black and blue. You've allowed Bakura to get sick and never once tried to get him help, even though he was dying, and you'd probably do the same thing again!"

Mariku folds his arms over his chest. "That is not true."

Akefia seems to get even madder. "It is true! These two would probably be dead if I wasn't around to make sure you haven't killed them! Honestly, sometimes I just want to take Bakura away from you and have him live with me. I-"

SMASH.

Bakura and I remain silent.

Akefia is on the floor, staring dazedly up at Mariku, seemingly perfectly calm.

Mariku crouches down. They're at eye level with each other now. "Repeat what you just said." He says slowly.

Akefia is practically shaking. "I-I said I'll take Bakura away."

"Yes, yes you did." Mariku gets to his feet, looking up as he steps around Akefia's legs. "But you can't, Akefia. You know why?"

He's so close now, and I'm scared. Mariku looks down at the two of us with cold, purple eyes before he randomly seizes hold of me and spins me around to face Akefia.

"Because I own these two. See these collars? They're mine. One hundred percent mine. You gave up all rights to your nephew the minute you handed him over to me. You better be fucking grateful I still allow you contact with him."

Akefia looks down at the ground. I can't see his face.

Mariku lets go of me, walking around until he's in front of Akefia again. He bends down, meeting him face-to-face. "Your nephew is mine, Akefia. It would be smart of you to remember that."

Silence. Mariku grins, standing up. Akefia continues to sit there, staring at the floor.

"Now, Akefia, I did come in here for personal reasons, so if you don't mind…"

"I certainly do bloody mind," Akefia spits out as he grips the table, pulling himself up. Mariku rolls his eyes.

"Well, I guess you can watch if you really want to…" He moves towards the bed. Bakura stares back, his large brown eyes wide with fear.

And I know I can't let Mariku hurt him.

I jump in front of the bed, spreading my arms out to my side. "It's okay, I'll do it!" I say too quickly. Mariku narrows his eyes. I stutter, looking to the floor. "J-just do it to me, it's-"

"DAMMIT, STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!"

The pain comes from nowhere and everywhere. A fist in my gut. A hand in my hair. Pulling me away from Bakura, away from my best friend. Throwing me to the floor. And above it all, Mariku is yelling.

"You all seem to forget whose boss around here! Let me ask you, whose property is this? Who pays to keep you boys fed? Who pays the electricity bill, who pays for all your shit? Who allows Bakura and his uncle to see each other? That's right, ME! I do! I'm in charge here, and it blows my mind that you all so easily forget it!"

Mariku turns around and angrily seizes the waistband of Bakura's sweatpants, yanking them down with enough force to tear the elastic. Bakura yelps in pain as his midsection is jostled. Mariku fumbles for the zipper on his pants.

I reach up, latching onto his forearm. Mariku looks down on me with such an intense expression of fury and hatred that I almost recoil.

But I don't. Instead, I force myself onto my knees. I bend my back over until my chin hits the floor, my nose nearly touching his feet. I stare up at him, pleading with my eyes.

"Please," I say. "I'll do whatever you want me to do. Just please leave Bakura alone."

Mariku stares at me for a long minute. I bow my head, looking to the floor. I can do this. I can be submissive. It's for Bakura. I can do anything for Bakura…

Suddenly, Mariku's hands are in my hair again. One hand gripping the collar of my shirt. Lifting me up. I'm off the floor. And he throws me back.

The air rushes out of me as my body hits the wooden floor. I lay there, unable to draw breath. I stare at the ceiling. I try.

"I'm fucking in charge…" Mariku mutters. I can hear some more rustling, and Akefia stands up. I hear him step across the room, and he stops by the door. I turn my head to look at him, and strangely enough, he looks back.

For once, Akefia's face isn't filled with hatred or concern. His mouth hangs slightly open as he stares, our eyes meeting in an electrically charged moment that neither of us has a name for. I stare back.

Then Bakura screams out and Akefia turns away, out the door and leaving us all alone.

Thursday, April 7, 2005

Morning

I wake up to a strange clicking noise echoing inside the shed. I raise my head up, trying to open my eyes. And then I realize that they are already open.

The shed is almost pitch black. No light from the alarm clock, no light from the microwave. Small bits of natural sunlight leak through the cracks in the boarded-windows, but it's not enough to see anything. The clicking continues.

"Bakura?"

A few more clicks, and then it stops. "Sorry," Bakura responds. The floor creaks and I hear a drawer opening.

I move the blankets aside, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. My feet hit the floor and I instantly recoil. The floor is freezing cold. "What's going on?"

"No power…" Bakura mumbles as he sifts through the drawer. "So no light, no TV…no hot water…ah, here we go."

Another click, and the room is flooded with light. Bakura's face is illuminated by the large black flashlight he holds in his hands. He moves it over to point the beam at me. "Well, we could tell scary stories."

I smile a bit. "I bet I can scare you more."

"I don't get scared very easily." Bakura balances the flashlight on the counter, lighting up a good a portion of the room. "What do you want for breakfast?"

I cross the room, picking up a brown banana and wrinkling my nose. I toss it in the trash. "We should probably eat the stuff that'll go bad in the fridge…"

"Good idea."

Bakura and I drop our tub of ice cream in between us and eat it right out of the carton. It's mushy, but it still tastes good. Then we're full, so I dig out two cans of Coke from the fridge for us as Bakura goes to the bathroom and rinses out the empty ice cream carton.

"Well, we still have running water, so that's good…" Bakura muses as he steps out of the bathroom, wincing a bit.

I nod in agreement, even though Bakura can't see me. "We should probably take our pills, 'Kura."

"Already took them." Bakura grabs the flashlight and wanders over to me. I flash him a look before reaching for the plastic container Akefia brought in the day before. I flip up the lid for the Thursday box and find that it's empty.

Akefia did come back a couple hours after Mariku hit him yesterday, bringing us medicine and Subway sandwiches just like he promised. He gave me an orange bottle filled with antibiotics and told me to take one every morning, and he gave Bakura this weird plastic thing with seven boxes for each day of the week. He said he would come in every week to refill the boxes, and Bakura had to take all the pills in the box every day. I don't know what all those pills were, but they seem to be helping him. Bakura doesn't seem to be in as much pain, plus he's acting a lot different. He isn't freaking out over the loss of power, something I would have expected him to do not too long ago, and he's more talkative. I don't think Akefia should be trying to change Bakura with pills, but he seems happier. So I'm happy.

"Why do you think there's no power?" I ask as I open my Coke and take my pill. "I didn't hear a storm or anything."

Bakura leans his back against the counter, shining the light around the room. "Mariku probably turned it off," He says a bit carelessly.

My mouth hangs open. "But why-"

"He probably got pissed off at you trying to tell him what to do," Bakura says bitterly. "He doesn't like that."

"I was only trying to help you."

Bakura hmphs and looks away. "He likes to be in control. Don't tell him what to do."

We don't really know what to do all day. We only have one flashlight, so we can't read our own books. We try to have some school and page through our science textbook, but it's hard when one person has to hold the flashlight steady and neither of us have free hands. We know most of the material anyway, soon we'll have to ask either Mariku or Akefia for new textbooks. Probably Akefia.

We play more Pokemon. We spend most of our time getting Steve lost and battling every Pokemon we find in the grass, so we still haven't gotten that far in the game. Or maybe we have, since we don't actually know how long this game is. The GameBoy runs low on batteries fast, and since we can't recharge the batteries right now, we just turn it off.

And then we're bored. We have practically nothing to do, and it's steadily getting colder in the shed. Even though we've layered on our shirts and sweats and socks, we're both still freezing. My teeth are starting to chatter, and when I turn the flashlight on him, I notice that Bakura's fingertips are turning blue.

Bakura glares at me as I take his hands in mine, but he doesn't say anything. I rub the tips of his fingers, bringing them close to my mouth so I can breathe on them.

"What the hell are you doing?"

I drop his hands. "You're cold."

He turns to look at the wall, not saying anything. Suddenly, I get an idea.

I grab Bakura's hands again, jumping to my feet. "Hey, Bakura!" I say excitedly.

Bakura just looks annoyed. "What the bugger are you all smiley about?"

I pull him up, ignoring his grumbles of protest. "Let's build a fort!"

"A fort?" Bakura looks unamused. "Why would we want to do that?"

"Because it'll be fun. Now shut up and help me."

I grab Bakura's wrist and drag him over to the bed, filling my arms with pillows. Bakura continues to complain like a cranky old person, but he grabs one of the blankets.

Our fort is located in between the table and the bed. We drape blankets over the table and bed to hide the gaps underneath, and stretch our biggest blanket from the table top to the mattress. We keep the roof of our fort in place by piling books on the edges holding them up, using our chairs as stakes to create a tent shape.

Inside, we cover the floor with spare pillows and blankets. Bakura grabs one of our notebooks and some colored pencils and I take our flashlight. We crawl into the fort under the table top.

It's warm and bright inside our fort. The flashlight doesn't have to light up the entire room, so it reflects and bounces off the inside of the blanket. Our combined body heat gets trapped, and my teeth stop chattering.

Bakura opens the notebook and starts drawing a picture. I watch, happy that Bakura is drawing again. He's barely drawn at all since he got sick. The pictures he gave me for my birthday were the only things he's really worked on for a while, I think.

The same blue bald woman I've seen Bakura draw so many times appears on the page, swirling purple and red behind her. Dark black boxes form above her head, the hands of a clock reaching across the page.

"Why do you draw her so much?" I ask, propping my chin up on my hands.

Bakura doesn't look up. "Who, her?"

"Yeah."

Bakura shrugs. "I just draw what I see all the time."

I shift onto my side, watching his face intently. "But she's not real. I never see her, anyway."

He's silent for a bit. "When I close my eyes," He finally says quietly. "Every night. I just draw the things that I see when I'm asleep." He continues shading the dark black boxes. "She's actually really nice. She's always treated me really well when I see her. I think a lot of kids dream about her and get scared, and she gets sad. She's really lonely."

Bakura continues coloring, and I don't bother him about the blue woman anymore. He turns a page and we doodle together, and no more of Bakura's creepy monsters make an appearance.

I feel sleepy, so I lie down and tell Bakura I'm going to take a nap. Bakura scurries out and grabs one of his books, retreating back inside the tent to read it.

I lie down on my stomach and close my eyes, but I can't get my brain to turn off. I listen to the sounds of Bakura's pages turning, the steady sound of his breathing. I crack my eyes open and watch his shadow move against the blankets, watch as the flashlight begins to dim. The batteries must be dying.

My eyes slip closed again, and I try to force myself to fall asleep.

Suddenly, I feel Bakura's fingers at my back. He rests them just above my pants, but gradually brings them up, pushing my shirt and sweatshirt up in the process.

"What are you doing?"

Bakura stops, pulling his hands away.

"Your tattoo was showing."

I stay silent. Bakura clears his throat.

"Can…can I touch it?"

I don't respond. Instead, I reach down and grab the hem of my shirt. I pull both my shirt and sweatshirt over my head, the sweatshirt string snagging on my collar.

I lay back down. Bakura comes up behind me. His hands on my back. Feeling it.

"Did it…hurt?"

My eyes shut. I nod. "A lot."

His fingers hover over the spot in between my shoulder blades, where I know the image of a pair of wings is inked into my skin. "Why did you get it done?"

Bakura's fingers continue to skate over my markings. I let him.

"My father made me get them. He said every first-born male in our family gets them."

"Don't you have an older brother?"

"Yeah, but he's adopted. It has to be a biological Ishtar."

Bakura shifts, then begins rubbing my back. "You and your brother still look kind of alike."

I run my tongue over my dry lips. "That's just because we're both from the same area in Egypt. His biological parents abandoned him by our home, and my parents adopted him because they thought my mom was infertile. But then she had Ishizu, and then a few years later she had me. She died giving birth to me, though."

Bakura continues rubbing my back. "I'm sorry."

I don't say anything. I bury my face in my arms as Bakura continues to massage my back. He stops, and I start to get up, and then I feel something soft pressing against the base of my neck.

I lie still, not moving, barely even breathing. Bakura kisses around the wings, kisses up and down the lines. He runs his lips over the rune-like hieroglyphics, around the cross-like thing in the middle of my back. His breath on my spine makes me shiver.

And I can't help it. I twist around, grabbing Bakura by the shoulder and pulling him down onto the blankets with me. Bakura looks at me, confused, and my arms go around him.

I hold him tight, burying my face in his shoulder. Bakura's hands come around me as well, though hesitantly.

"Marik?"

I don't answer at first, but I kiss the soft skin of his neck above his collar. His breathing slows.

"I love you so much, Bakura," I say, still keeping my grip on him. "You…you know that, right?"

"Of course I do." I pull away slightly to look at his face, but Bakura is looking down. "Why does it matter right now?"

I pull him closer. "I don't know…" My finger finds a lock of his white hair, and I twirl it. "I just…we've been fighting a lot lately."

Bakura hmphs. I go on.

"You know, when Mariku said you were dead, I thought…I thought I wouldn't be able to survive. I wanted to die."

"He told me he was going to kill you," Bakura says suddenly. "He said you were a troublemaker and a bad influence, so he was going to kill you with some chemical gas thing he learned how to make online."

I nearly stop breathing, my mouth dry. "Really?"

Bakura nods. "I remember, it was right after he started giving me medicine and I started getting better. I couldn't really talk but I kept crying, but he wouldn't change his mind. And then a few days later he came back in and said that I was going back. It was like he just forgot about it or something."

Mariku forgot about killing me?

"Was he actually going to do it?" I ask. Bakura still doesn't look at me.

"No, I don't think so. He likes to lie. He lies a lot, but then sometimes it won't be a lie. And you never really know which is which with him. I don't think he always knows either."

We're both silent for the longest time. Bakura seems to relax in my arms, and I smile. I brush away some of his white hair.

"You're acting different today."

"It's those damn pills my uncle made me take," Bakura says bitterly. "I don't like them."

I lean in and kiss his nose. Bakura squeezes his eyes shut and wrinkles his nose. I laugh. "Don't they make you feel better?"

Bakura opens his eyes again, normal bored expression back in place. "A little. I don't feel as heavy anymore."

"I'm glad you're taking them. You seem happier. I don't like it when you're sad, 'Kura."

He doesn't answer, instead looking up at the ceiling of our fort. I lean in, pressing our foreheads together. Bakura doesn't say anything.

I close my eyes, savoring the feeling of Bakura's body against mine, his warm breath against my skin. "I don't like it when you're sad. I don't like it when you're hurt."

"I can't be happy here," Bakura says gruffly.

"You have to be." I open my eyes. "We're…Bakura, we can't leave."

"Of course we can. We almost did once. If we-"

"Bakura, you almost died!" My breath comes fast, and I grip his shoulders hard enough to leave bruises.

Bakura shakes his head vehemently. "No, I didn't die. I'm fine. I'll be fine."

"We're not trying again." I force myself to loosen my grip, as Bakura is obviously in pain. "I can't…I can't lose you."

"What about your family? Aren't they more important?"

I lean against him, placing my mouth near his ear. "No," I whisper. "Nothing is more important that you, Bakura."

Bakura says nothing, so I draw back, kissing his cheek.

"I love you, Bakura."

"I love you too, Marik."

We draw together and close our eyes, our shared body heat creating a pink aura of safety around us. I breathe, and for the first time since I was kidnapped, I feel safe. Bakura and me, together we are safe from the world. Safe from the world. Safe from Mariku. Safe from this means of force that keeps us both here and allows us to be hurt.

Bakura and I allow ourselves to sleep, content with the knowledge that we are safe in our fort, our sanctuary, leaving all danger outside.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Noon

We're kept in the dark for three days.

Our flashlight battery runs out during the first day, leaving us without a source of light. Bakura and I entertain each other by playing Hide 'n Seek in the dark, which was fun for about five minutes until we both had bruises on our foreheads from banging into things, and were completely bored because we both know every inch of this place anyway.

On the second day, we try to sleep for as long as possible, but we both wake up eventually. We proceed to smack the crap out of ourselves trying to wander around the room, bored out of our minds. Then, around-midafternoon, we hear a sort of hard sucking noise and light floods into the room. We scurry to the one window that isn't covered by a plant to see Akefia prying the boards from the side of the shed. I try to wave to him, hoping he'd come in and we could convince him to turn our power back on, but Bakura explains to me that the windows are so heavily tinted that Akefia can't see us at all.

On the third day, Bakura and I take turns reading by the light of the window. I entertain myself when it's not my turn by mastering my paper airplane folding in the dark. I don't know what Bakura decided to do, but at some point it involved grunting. When the sun goes down I tell Bakura we should do strength exercises. He said that it was a stupid idea and I was a wanker for thinking of it, but we might as well since there's nothing else to do. Together we do sit-ups and push-ups, and that's all the exercises we can remember that don't involve exercise machines.

When we woke up this morning, Bakura went over to the light switch like he's done every morning, and when he flipped the switch, the light came on.

So, naturally, we had to run around the shed turning everything on, threw some pizza in the oven so we could have actually hot food for breakfast, then crammed ourselves into the shower together to take a long, hot shower.

Mariku comes in a few hours later, looking displeased. He motions for us to sit at the table, and we do. Bakura and I exchange fearful glances at each other while Mariku rests his chin in his hands, seemingly contemplating the woodwork in our table.

"Alright." Bakura and I snap to attention. Mariku shifts, putting his hands down on the table. "I'm not happy, boys. Not happy."

We're all silent. For at least five minutes, no one talks. Bakura and I don't dare to move.

"Do you know why I'm not happy, boys?"

He looks at us expectantly. I clear my throat.

"Because we were disrespectful."

A fake smile appears on Mariku's face. "You're right, Marik!" His expression returns to normal. "Can you tell me how you were disrespectful towards me?"

I bite my lip, looking to the floor. "Um…because…"

"Because we tried to undermine your authority." I look over. Bakura sits up straight, a glassy, blank look in his eye. "Because we tried to tell you what to do, even though we had no right."

"Correct, Bakura." Mariku smiles at him. "But it wasn't completely your fault. Akefia's behavior was inappropriate as well, and a bad influence on you two."

We both look down. Mariku doesn't seem to notice.

"I think…I think I'll have to get Akefia out of the picture, in the end." Bakura's head jerks up, wide eyes staring at Mariku in horror. "Yes…I'll change the locks, change the passcode. And I'll…" He stops, thinking so hard his eyebrows knit together. "Yes. Yes, I can make him stay away." His eyes refocus on us, and he smiles. "Anyway, you two are probably hungry. What do you want me to make you for lunch?"

Neither of us answer. Bakura just stares, eyes wide and fearful. I swallow.

"B-but…"

Bakura's head snaps sideways, looking at me worriedly. I force myself to look away from him. Mariku still hasn't changed facial expression. He looks almost bored, sitting there. "What? What now, Marik?"

I can do this. I have to do this. Even though I hate Akefia, I know we can't survive here without him.

"T-that's not fair," I say. Mariku slowly begins to get up, never breaking eye contact with me. I stay rooted in my chair, my heart beating faster than a jet. And still, I find words. "We need Akefia here. We-"

A wild, animalistic noise escapes from Mariku as he lunges at me. I jump to my feet, chair toppling over behind me. I turn, looking for a place to hide, any place to hide.

His hands around me. Gripping me. Punching me.

The pain explodes inside me, each blow sending electrical pulses through my bones. My side. My stomach. He holds me in place with his left hand and beats me with his right.

"What did I just get done punishing you for?!" He screams. "What was I just lecturing you about?!"

"Please, Mariku, stop it! You're hurting him!"
"FUCK YOU! I'LL HURT HIM IF I WANT TO!"

More pain. One specific blow to my stomach makes me want to throw up. I can't breathe.

"You're going to kill him like that, you-"

"SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU, JUST SHUT-"

The fist comes at me in slow motion. One perfectly rounded fist, knuckles out, headed for my face.

I don't even have time to blink. I watch as the fist comes closer, Bakura's screaming and Mariku's yelling just dim echoes in the background.

The fist comes down perfectly centered on my nose, the force of the impact seemingly driving my nose back into my skull. I hear a terrible, terrible crunching noise.

And then, pain.

Red hot pain, pain that centers in the middle of my face and radiates outwards. I've felt pain before. I've been beaten by my father before, I've been fucked without preparation by Mariku before. It doesn't compare to this pain. Nothing does.

Mariku curses loudly and lets go of me. Bakura screams, one last time, before I fall to the floor and everything goes black.

"Marik? Marik, can you hear me?"

I groan. Someone puts their hand on my forehead, and I immediately flinch away because their hand feels like the icy grip of doom.

"Marik?"

I'm in a bed, I can tell that much. There's a mattress beneath me, and sheets over me. I try to crack my eyes opening, and I get a blurry glimpse of a tan hand and a white ceiling before I have to close my eyes again.

Maybe I'm…in a hospital? Maybe Mariku took me to the ER. Maybe they figured out who I was. Maybe this is Rishid above me, speaking to me.

My mouth is dry, but I open it anyway. "Rishid?" I croak out.

"Shh, no. It's me. Akefia."

I knew it.

I try to open my eyes a little more, and Akefia moves his hand to block some of the offending light streaming in through the curtains.

I'm not in the shed, I know that. Other than that, I don't know where the fuck I am.

"He's awake?" I can hear Mariku's gruff voice from somewhere behind my head. "Is he-"

"Marik's awake?!" Bakura's voice sounds more high-pitched than usual, more like it did when we first met. "Marik? Marik, are-no! Let me see him! Let me in!"

"Go downstairs and watch TV or something. I don't care. Just stay out of our way."

A door squeals shut. I manage to open my eyes a bit more. Akefia is staring back at what I assume is Mariku. "You know, you could be a little more gentle with him. You did just break Marik's nose."

What?

"Getting pushed around a bit isn't gonna hurt the little bastard."

I try to move my arms, but realize that my wrists are handcuffed to something above my head. Akefia sighs. "Still. It wouldn't kill you to be a little kinder."

Akefia leans in closer, addressing me for the first time. "Listen, Marik. Your nose is broken, pretty badly, but I set it and I have you on some pretty intense pain medications. If you're feeling at all weird right now, that's what it's from."

I don't answer. My mouth feels incredibly dry.

"The bitch doesn't need pain meds." Mariku scoffs. Akefia looks up, presumably at him. "Seriously, it's just his nose. It's not even an actual bone."

Akefia slowly gets to his feet. "It's still extremely painful. But of course," His voice takes on a mocking tone. "You know everything! You certainly know what's best for these boys!"

"I never said I knew-"

"Good, because that would be a straight-up lie. You're killing them. And you know it."

"You need to shut up about how I treat them. I may have let it slide with Bakura, but with Marik, you certainly have no right."

"Yes, I do have the right, because I'm the one who has to take care of him when you've injured him! Rather stupidly, I might add."

This room is blue. Light blue. Sort of the same color as the inside of the shed. There's a window ahead of me overlooking a street, and another window across the room. I don't know what that looks out on. I can't see out of it.

"It's my own damn business what I do with Marik."

"Not when you repeatedly put his life in danger."

"Oh for the love of-" Mariku punches something. Probably the wall. "I hit him a little too hard, yeah. He deserved it."

"He's twelve, Mariku. Twelve-year-olds are always rebellious, he certainly didn't deserve to have his nose broken for doing what all kids his age do."

"Oh, would you quit the Mr. Know-It-All act?" Mariku scoffs. "If anything, we should be happy about this. You said that his nose would heal crooked, right? That means his face will look a bit different. So he won't look so muchlike the Marik Ishtar that went missing last year. He'll-"

Mariku stops suddenly. There's a lengthy pause, then the creak of the door.

"Bakura?"

"Yeah?" Bakura's voice is small and far away. The floor creaks.

"Mariku, what are you-"

"Do me a favor, baby." Mariku calls down to Bakura. "Go get my big knife from the drawer, you know, the steak knife. Take that and go lay down on the table for me, will you?"

I can't hear Bakura's response. I hear Akefia's, though.

"No."

"You haven't even heard what I was going to-"

"No. A million times no. You are not maiming my nephew. I'm drawing the line. I swear to god, I'll-"

"You'll what?" Mariku challenges. "Call the police? I'll put you in a coma and take these boys halfway across the country by the time you wake up. I don't lose at my own games, Akefia."

Akefia is silent.

"You still have those doctor tool thingies, right? Go grab those and there won't be a need for the big knives. What was that surgery called again, the one to mess with a person's eyelids?"

"A blepharoplasty." Akefia says quietly. "We are not performing a blepharoplasty on my nephew. I don't have the proper tools or training to do one. I could end up blinding him."

"Well, I'm sure it's better than cutting him up with a steak knife. Now, be a good uncle and run home and grab that shit. I'll load the kid up with painkillers and put him to sleep for you."

Mariku's footsteps carry him out the door, down the stairs. Akefia doesn't seem to even breathe for the longest time. Finally, he follows Mariku.

I lay there for what seems like the longest time. I hear the door slam, soft voices from below. The front door opens and closes again, more voices. Then less. Then none.

Bakura's getting hurt. I couldn't help him. Again.

And I'm hurt too. And I'm trapped.

I close my eyes and pretend I'm not here. In the shed. At home. I don't care. I just want out.

I can't tell if I hate this because it's genuinely bad or because I've spent a month writing the thing and I'm about ready to tear my hair out. Most likely both.

I think most of my writer's block is stemming from the fact that all but like, two scenes have occurred outside the shed since the first two chapters. There really isn't that much to do when you're locked in the same room, with the same stuff and the same person for nearly a year. So we are going to expand our world a little bit. Hopefully that will help clear up the problem.

Part of the reason I don't like this chapter is because I kind of feel like Marik and Bakura's character development is regressing. But I really didn't write this chapter for their character development, it's sort of meant to serve as a bridge into the next arc of the story. Plus, Stockholm Syndrome. Marik is getting it bad. Bakura's kind of went away for a while because he had Marik around, which kind of rocked his world, metaphorically speaking.

Also, Bakura is acting weird in the middle scene. I'm saying he's drugged up and calling it a day because I'm a lazy author with writer's block. Oh, and yes, a blepharoplasty is a real operation. (even though my spellcheck doesn't recognize it) It's mainly used as a cosmetic surgery to alter the shape and fold of the eyelids. If you have a weak stomach at all, DO NOT google it. Even the Wikipedia entries are shudder-worthy. I don't know if you could actually do one at home without lab equipment, but let's just say it's possible for the sake of the story. Possible, but extremely dangerous. I'm a realistic author, right? Yeah, I thought so... 'walks away sadly'

Anyway! News about my life! Well, show choir is ALMOST done for me! Yay! We still haven't done any better than fourth place, but we have one competition left in like a month. Then I'm done! (It's actually really sad...) I have school off this week, and thanks to my workplace being dumb, I'm not scheduled at all. (So maybe the next chapter will be out within a week...) Unfortunately, my biological mom is in the middle of her 42nd divorce or something like that. (I lose track.) So I've been busy with moving all my crap out from her soon-to-be-ex's house. But whatever.

We're almost to the end. I was wondering if anyone was going to AniMinneapolis this year! It's held, obviously, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and it shall be my first ever anime convention! (I don't know how I managed to avoid them so long...) LittleKuriboh will be there, part of the reason I decided I would go. It's like, $35 if you order tickets right now. I will be there, dressed up as Marik. Actually, I will be dressed up as Marik in an Aperture Science outfit, from the 'Marik Plays Portal' video. I'm way too excited about it.

Oh, and review! I won't bitch about reviews for too long because this A/N is already far too long...but I was a little sad about the response I got for the Akefia fic. I got less reviews for that than I would a normal chapter of MOF, and I put like, way more work into it. I do appreciate constructive criticism, as I am looking to improve my skills. I just felt kind of sad about the response the Akefia fic got, but I guess that's just life.

...Okay, time for me to go now. Bye!

-FairyFai