Living With Maniacs
Chapter 15- Diversions
Yes, well, we all know who's introducing the chappie. "I Froggy, am taking a vacation. From hence forward I shall refrain from introducing chapters. You will have introductionless chapters. So all I have to say is enjoy the rest and please SEE BIO."
It was now early afternoon, and in the heat of the May Oklahoman sun, the inside of the tank was quickly becoming an oven. Misty was sitting in front of the controls, sweating and fanning herself with one of her sandals. "I knew I shouldn't have worn jeans today," she panted. "But I haven't shaved my legs. Then again, I do need a tan very badly…"
"Aw, stop complaining," Bakura muttered. He was sitting back to back with Marik at the foot of the ladder. "It got loads worse than this in Egypt. The only really bad thing is that my hand is sweating under this bandage and it burns!"
Marik sighed. "I need to wash my hair."
Ryou, pathetic thing, was taking the heat the hardest. He lay sprawled on the floor with his tongue hanging out. "God, I'm sweating like a pig! Why are we just sitting in here?"
"Actually, pigs don't sweat," Misty corrected him. "They have no sweat glands, which is why they have to roll in mud to keep themselves cool."
Ryou glared at her.
"I learned that from my best friend. Her mom used to work on a hog farm."
"Yeeeahh, ookaaay…so why are we sitting in here roasting like pigs?" Ryou asked.
"I dunno, hiding from the cops and military? Wait; are they even out there? Where did they all go?" Misty asked, suddenly noticing the absence of any outside voices and gunfire.
"Well," Marik spoke up, "most of them were killed by my yami shooting them and the helicopter explosion…and the rest of them bailed."
"Oh." Misty frowned. "Then what are we doing in here?" She got up and put her sandal back on. "I'm driving us back to my house for something to eat, drink, and a cold shower!"
"I call the shower first!" Marik said, leaping up and suddenly depriving Bakura of a backrest. -WHAM- Bakura fell backwards and smacked his head.
"I call first dibs on the Advil," he moaned.
"But I need the shower first," Ryou whimpered. "You guys are used to the heat. I'm dying!"
"Tough luck. You do look pretty awful though," Marik sympathized. "Bet you could make use of a water hose or something."
Ryou rolled over and whined. "Just take us back Mistaya. I'll find something."
"Fine. I'll take us back. All two and a half blocks." And she did. Surprisingly well, actually. The only thing she ran over was a Chihuahua, which was no big loss because, as Misty put it, "I never liked that thing anyways. It always tried to bite my heels when I walked home from school."
As soon as they stopped in front of Misty's house, Ryou leaped to his feet and shot up the ladder. "Air!" he gasped, bursting melodramatically out of the hatch. "Sweet air!" He hopped off the tank and began running with his hands in the air. "Oh, and wind too!"
Marik climbed up the ladder next, rolling his eyes. "What a big baby." He turned to help poor, wounded Bakura up the ladder, with Misty close behind (enjoying the view, more likely than not). They stood there for a moment, as if enjoying the peace and quiet (interrupted occasionally by Ryou's cries of "Air! Wiiind!").
"Say Marik?' Misty spoke up. "How exactly did you get Malik to agree to stop fighting for the rest of the day?'
"Oh, it was nothing," Marik said with a shrug. "I just told him he was smelly and sweaty, so he decided to take a break- and a shower."
Misty grinned. "Aren't you a genius, playing on his little weaknesses like that!"
Marik scratched his head. "But don't genius live in a lamp?"
Mist and Bakura stared at him. His intelligence had obviously stayed the same.
"And besides," he continued, "I didn't do it on purpose or anything. I was just telling him the honest truth!" He shrugged. "And now, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a shower!" He vaulted off the side of the tank and skipped -yes, he's skipping again- into the house.
Misty shook her head. "And people call me blonde!" She crawled carefully off the tank, followed by Bakura. "Would you like that Advil now?" Bakura nodded pathetically and followed her to the medicine cabinet.
Several blocks away, along Main Street, Malik had not quite gotten to his shower. Instead, he had just spotted Yugi, Yami, and Tea. Why were they in Apache? What did he care! Misery and woe, here comes Malik! He set his Toybox carefully behind a dumpster, pulled out his beloved chainsaw, and snuck up on the group.
The three mentioned weren't, in actuality, a "group." No, Yugi and Yami were walking by -Yami was trying to cover little Yugi's eyes- and Tea was standing on the street corner. Dressed in a short leather skirt, a low-neck, tight black shirt, and thigh high black boots. Making lewd suggestions to Yugi.
Malik, disgusted by the thought of Tea as a hooker, tried to sneak carefully up behind her. He would have successfully done so, but five feet away from her, he tripped over a rat. He dropped the chainsaw and threw his hands down to break his fall, but the clatter of the chainsaw hitting the sidewalk alerted the other three to his presence.
"Hey Malik!" Tea cried, looking at him as though he were a dream come true. "Feeling lonely? I could keep you company all night long." She winked at him. "I work cheap."
"I bet you do," he growled, crawling to his feet and picking up his chainsaw. "I would have never guessed such a small town would have prostitutes."
"Oh, it doesn't," Tea replied with a wave of her hand. "Which is why I figured I'd get some good business!"
Yami had stopped trying to cover Yugi's eyes and was now staring as transfixed as Yugi was. "Tea!" he admonished in his deep and rather sexy voice. "How could you drop so low? That's horrible, even for you! And Malik, what are you doing here…without a shirt?"
Malik looked down. "Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Well, I'm here to fill your lives with misery and woe!"
Yami took a step back. "Look man, I'm on vacation. So do me a favor, and just leave me and the Young One alone, all right? Do whatever you want with Tea, and Joey and Tristan are down in the park."
"Hey, that's not very nice Yami!" Yugi said, turning his huge and unbelievable adorable eyes on his darker half. "And would you quite calling me 'Young One'? It's so annoying!"
Yami put his hand on Yugi's shoulder. "Calm yourself, Young One. It may not be nice, but I don't want my vacation ruined! I don't care if the damned world needs rescuing; let somebody else do it for a change!"
Yugi was about to protest, but he glanced at Tea and stopped. She was hitting on Malik.
"You know Malik," she purred, sauntering up to him and running her hand across his bare chest, "you're awfully sexy without a shirt…I bet you'd look eve better without your pants. As a matter of fact, let's both get naked and-"
"Augh! Back off!" Malik revved up his chainsaw and swung it right through Tea's neck without a second thought.
"Oh my God!" Yugi squealed in a panic. "Yami, he just killed Tea!" Yami snickered.
Tea's head rolled to Malik's feet as her body fell motionless to the ground, pooling blood. Malik stared down at the head in a satisfied sort of way, and the head stared back. And it blinked. "You didn't even let me finish my proposal! I said let's both get naked and-"
"Holy Mother of Ra!" Malik cried, jumping backwards.
"Get back here!" screamed Tea's severed head, rolling after him.
"Get away!" Malik yelled, and he kicked the head like a soccer ball- right at Yugi. Yugi caught it and stared, horrified, as Tea smirked up at him.
"How about you Yugi? Wanna get naked and-"
"Eeeeek!" Yugi shrieked, tossing the head.
"Why won't anybody let me finish what I'm trying to say!" wailed Tea's head as it soared through the air.
Before anyone could kick her head again, however, a police officer rushed -or actually waddled- out of the corner building. Yes, this had all just happened in front of the Apache Police Station. "What's going on here?" bellowed the officer. "I -oh my God, there's a dead body out here! You killed someone!"
"Hey, watch who you're calling dead, tubby!" Tea's head hissed.
Before the officer could register who had spoken, Yami strode over to him, gracefully kicking he head backwards as he did so. It rolled to Yugi, who quickly kicked it out into the middle of the street. "I'm sorry officer," Yami said. "Nothing has happened at all." He reached forward and shook the man's hand, and when the officer withdrew, he had a twenty-dollar bill clutched in his fat fist.
"But-" he tried to protest.
"No, no," officer," Yami shushed him, slipping a Krispy Kreme donut into the man's other hand. "Nothing's happened."
"Welll…" the man said, caught in the middle now.
"Really sir, nothing at all." Yami winked and pulled out his final token: a huge steaming mug of coffee.
The officer's beady eyes widened, and he reached for the cup, but Yami withdrew. The officer shrugged. "Nothin' happened out here man. Nuthin at all!" Yami nodded agreeably and handed over the mug. The man stuffed the twenty in his pocket and the donut in his mouth, then waddled happily away.
Malik nodded approvingly. "Bribing an official…Pharaoh, I am almost impressed!"
"Thank you," Yami said, bowing modestly. He turned back to Yugi. "Come along now. We've got a vacation to enjoy!"
"Um, okay…" Yugi said doubtfully. As they walked slowly away, Yugi turned his tear-jerkingly innocent eyes on his taller half and asked, "Yami? What a…a prostitute?"
Yami stopped short, then cleared his throat and continued walking. "Uh, well, Young One-"
"Would you stop calling me that?"
Malik shrugged. "Ah well. Enjoy your vacation, Pharaoh. Now, how 'bout those twerps down at the park?"
Back in a more sane environment, Misty and Bakura were sitting in the living room with the air conditioner on full blast. Doing absolutely nothing. Marik was finishing up his shower, and Ryou - "Whee! Aaiiirr!"- well, he was still doing laps outside.
Misty cocked her head. "Y'know, running nonstop out in the heat isn't any better than roasting in a tank. He's going to have a heat stroke!" (Bakura just grunted.) "I mean, look at him!"
Ryo stopped in front of the window, threw off his shirt, kicked off his pants, then ran into the backyard shrieking "I'm free! I'm freeeee!"
"Yeah, the heat's definitely got him delirious. But I'm sure he'll come inside soon enough, don't you?"
Bakura rolled over and looked sleepily at her. "Would you get me a blanket? I'm cold."
"Oh, I can turn the air conditioner off if you'd like," Misty said, getting up out of her recliner.
"No," Bakura whined. "I want a blankie!"
"Fine," Misty sighed, rolling her eyes. "I'll get you a blanket." She trudged out of the room and into Bakura and Ryou's bedroom, pulled the top blanket off their bed, then headed slowly back to the living room. She paused in the dining room, staring out the window to where Ryou danced, twirling under the neighbor's pine tree like a ballerina. In his British flag boxers. He stopped suddenly, threw hurried looks to his left and right, the dashed into the backyard. Misty heard the squeaking of something rusty, then Ryou came running back to the pine tree holding a water hose going at full blast. He stuck his thumb over the nozzle, making the water spray madly about. He then held the hose above his head and danced about.
"Whee! Wheeehoo! I'm siiingin in the rain, just siiiiingin in the rain!"
Misty stared, open-mouthed, then started snickering. "The heat does strange things to people," she giggled. CLICK Another picture. She was going to have quite a collection.
"Ryou kept singing. "It's raaaaining, it's pouuuuring, the ooolld man is snoooring, he bumped his head, went to bed, and couldn't get up in the mooorning. Cuz 'e was dead!" he burst into a fit of giggles and tried to take a drink out of the hose. The water went up his nose and made him cough.
Misty shook her head and walked back into the living room to give Bakura his blanket. "Here you go, 'Kura."
Bakura snatched the blanket and wrapped himself like a cocoon. "Took you long enough," he grunted.
"I'm going to sleep," Misty yawned.
"It's only two in the afternoon," Bakura muttered.
