So this chapter was a lot of fun to write. I mean really. Super thanks to HermioneSakuraGardner07, Aya El maghrabi, and Numinous-Alqua for the awesome reviews! You guys really inspired me to try and make this chapter awesome!
I do not own YuGiOh.
"Oh my gawd!" shrieked Tea. "You-you! Under my bed! You!"
"Yes," Marik replied toothily. "It is me." He sounded ridiculously pleased by this, and Tea, still hanging over the side of the bed, gaped at him, unwilling to believe her eyes.
Her door banged open as Ryou burst into the room, and the girl fell all the way off the bed with a squeak and skittered over to her friend.
"What's wrong?" he panted, brandishing a pair of scissors and looking incredibly adorable in cloud print pajamas. He glared around the room with sleep ridden eyes, and in spite of the danger of the situation, Tea had a hard time not hugging him.
"Marik's under my bed," she said, feeling half hysterical. "He's under my bed, Ryou!"
The boy stared at her. "Um, Tea?" he said slowly, lowering the scissors. "Did you have a bad dream?"
Tea slapped herself in the face. "No, no! He's really there." Grabbing the baseball bat she kept by her night stand all the time now, she flicked the covers up from the bed, revealing Marik's face beneath the sideboard.
Ryou blinked, his warm chocolate eyes closing and opening. And then his mouth opened, and he gave off a sound that was half a shout and half a wail.
"Marik's under your bed!" he exclaimed, raising the scissors again.
"I know!" Tea shouted back.
"Why is he under your bed?"
"That I don't know!"
They huddled together against the far wall, both in their pajamas with their makeshift weapons at the ready, and they stared down at the man curled up beneath Tea's bed.
He stared back, large violet eyes wide and unblinking, his unnerving smile not wavering a whit. His inactivity confused Tea, who was expecting something more along the lines of being stabbed or exploded rather than gawked at.
The standoff continued for over five minutes, which was more than enough time for the girl to grow exasperated with the situation.
"Er…Why are you under my bed?" she asked the psychopath with no small amount of discomfort.
He tilted his head, pondering the question, long fingers tracing patterns over the floor. "It's more comfortable than your closet," he replied, his deep voice annoyingly amused.
Tea's eye twitched.
"What were you doing in her closet?" Ryou whispered, looking rather horrified by the idea.
Marik tilted his head back the other way, his teeth and eyes gleaming in the light from the open doorway, three spots of light in the darkness beneath the bed frame. "Watching," he answered succinctly.
Tea's eye did a full out spasm. "Wait, that was you?" she snarled, her fingers clenching tighter around the bat. "I knew I felt someone watching me! Has that been you this whole week?"
Marik observed her anger with delight. Her transformation fascinated him, as fear faded from her eyes to be replaced by boiling indignation. And yet, it was nowhere near a match for the furious determination that had blazed in her when they had fought a week ago. He found that he wanted to see that again, to dig at her days and nights and mind and heart until he had unearthed all of her emotions and dissected each and every one of them.
So he answered honestly, and shamelessly. "Yes."
Ryou gave an appalled squawk, his innate sense of courtesy rebelling at the violation of privacy. Tea, however, was too grumpy, tired, and scared to be properly scandalized. Her body cried out for sleep, and this strange person under her bed was keeping her from it.
She slammed the bat onto the ground, leaving a dent in the floor. "Get out from beneath my bed," she ordered, her bloodshot eyes settling into a peeved glare.
Marik grinned at her, every tooth exposed. "No."
Tea forced a smile onto her face. It looked more like a grimace. "Get out, please."
Marik drummed his fingers on the floor. The girl really was fun; her face moved into such interesting positions. "No."
Ryou took a step back as Tea's composure cracked straight down the middle. "Get out!" she howled, running and leaping on top of her bed and jumping on it as hard as she could until the bottom of the bed frame bashed into the man beneath. "Get out! Get out! This is my bed, and I want to sleep on it!"
Marik growled as the wooden planks collided with his head. There was the pain again. His encounters with the girl seemed to be full of pain. He had liked it better when he could just watch her without her knowing, and thereby getting angry at and consequently hurting him.
Giving a twist of his hand, he used a pinch of shadow magic to knock the girl from the bed. Long arms of darkness whipped at her, but to his annoyance and slight approval, she avoided his first four strikes. He pushed in additional power, and the darkness grew more arms, catching at the nimble girl and dragging her down to the floor.
"Stop that," he ordered, because while her thrashing around in the grip of his shadows showed impressive strength, it also made it likely that she would be seriously injured, which would probably make her boring. Most of the people he had seriously injured had become very boring. He had a long list of experience to draw from.
She actually spat at him, twisting around to face him in a position that required all her years of dance earned flexibility. While he blinked in surprise and logged away this newest action of the girls', Tea ripped free of his spell.
"Ryou!" she barked to the boy, who had been futilely stabbing at the black appendages with his scissors. "Go phone the others! I'll hold him off!"
"Right!" Ryou shouted, running out the door. Marik sneered, shoving a bit more of his power out. All of the bulbs in the apartment exploded.
"…Did you just blow out our electricity?" Tea hissed. "You just lost us our security deposit!"
Marik did not know what a security deposit was, but he smirked at her anyways. Strangely, she still didn't look as angry as she had a week ago. What was the difference?
He didn't have time to ponder it though, for the mentally exhausted girl hurled herself at him, reaching in under the bed and ripping at his hair.
"Get out!" she yowled, attempting to yank him forth by his follicles. Marik grabbed onto the bedposts and resisted her efforts, laughing madly in her face all the while.
"Tea!" Ryou sped back into the room, looking frightened but determined. His eyes widened when he saw the girl attempting to wrestle with the mad man. He hurried over, looping his arms around her waist and tugging backwards.
"All right Ryou!" cheered the girl. "Together we should be able to pull him out!"
"Tea!" squawked the boy. "I'm trying to pull you away! We need to run!"
The girl blinked. Retreat hadn't even been something she had considered. "Ah. Right." She released her hold on Marik's hair, and the recoil made him hit his head against the floor with a satisfying thud. Ryou pulled her up, and together they scrambled out of the room.
"Did you not even think of running?" asked Ryou, and his own experience with stressful situations showed in how he almost laughed at her grimace.
"I'm really tired," Tea answered. "I haven't been able to sleep well for ages, because I felt like someone was watching me-"
"-And as it turns out, someone was." Ryou's lips thinned in a highly disapproving scowl. They ran right through their living room to the front door, but just as they reached it, a strange dark purple glow surrounded it, pushing them back from their escape route. Marik's laughter sounded out from behind them, but when they turned about, he was nowhere to be seen.
"Try the window," Tea whispered breathlessly, her blue eyes darting about.
Ryou obliged, rushing over and attempting to open the kitchen window. Yet it stung his hands when he laid them upon it, and he was driven back with a startled yelp as it began to glow as well.
"What do you want?" he demanded of the invisible psychopath, and in answer, Marik stepped forth from the shadows creeping about on the wall.
From behind a manic grin, he regarded them, his thoughtful eyes at odds with the strained stretch of his smiling mouth.
"Want?" he asked, and his eyelids fluttered a bit as he contemplated the word. "What I want. What do I want."
He became a bit lost as he mulled it over, and Tea, feeling peculiarly grateful for their unwelcome guest's derangement, took the chance to grab Ryou by the elbow and yank him back down the hallway into her room.
"What's the point in running?" Ryou asked, genuinely curious. "He's only going to pop back up in here."
"I know, I know," Tea answered, riffling through her closet. "But this might help."
"I doubt it," yawned Marik, effortlessly appearing in the room. "I have been in your closet-" Ryou glared at the reminder- "and you don't have much of use in there."
"Good thing I bought this today then!" Tea grinned, withdrawing from her closet, and she fired up the chainsaw she held with a vindictive gleam in her eyes.
Neither of them knew it, but Ryou and Marik adopted similar expressions in that moment, eyes rounding and jaws dropping as they beheld the force of feminine fury before them. And her chainsaw.
Tea grit her teeth and narrowed her eyes. "Either get out of out of our apartment," she hollered over the sound of the machine. "Or let us out!"
Neither sounded like good options to Marik, who was rather set on continuing his observations, especially since the odd girl just kept proving more and more interesting. What even was that thing she was holding? Curious, he sent a tendril of darkness whipping at her, and was a little dumbfounded when the machine she held ripped it to shreds.
Huh. He wanted one of those. They looked….useful.
Then she was close to him, too close, given the reach of her contraption, and Marik was put in the unfamiliar circumstance of needing to retreat several steps. Ryou ducked behind Tea as she advanced, guarding her back.
Slitting his eyes, the blonde madman felt his pulse speed up, blood hammering through his veins. This-this was exciting. This was infuriating. This was marvelous.
Howling out a dirge of bloodlust and battle, the man reached even deeper into his core of power and began to throw increasingly powerful attacks at the girl and boy.
He turned every shadow into their enemy, having them reach up from the floor and out from the walls to rip at the two frantic friends. He wanted to test them, to see how strong they had become and to find out just what it took to grind them down into the ground.
But so far they were surpassing his expectations. Ryou, despite his lack of athletic ability, furiously slashed at the shadows with his scissors, and although he was almost certainly exhausted, his eyes held determination. And the girl, Tea, had only become more ferocious as he fought her. She wielded her machine wildly, showing inexperience in its use, but ably, hacking the shadows to bits as they came close, and stomping those that attacked lower back into the floor. Her movements were unflagging, showing her great strength, and her eyes found his, and the conviction in them was a challenge he could not bear to refuse.
Thrilled, Marik laughed again, and he redoubled his efforts to subdue them. Ryou was almost overwhelmed, so Tea swung him up onto their table where the shadows from the floor couldn't reach him as easily.
"We can't do this much longer!" he gasped to her.
"I know," Tea replied, breathing heavily herself. Fighting the shadows was getting them nowhere; she needed to take out their source: Marik. The problem was, she didn't know that she could. Marik had powers she would only ever dream of, and he also had more combat experience than she did.
However, she did have the benefit of the chainsaw. Best purchase ever, seriously.
Setting her teeth in a grimace, the girl took the offensive. She raced forward, holding her chainsaw like a lance. Marik cackled at her approach, blasting her with a wave of darkness. It almost drove her down, but she set her knees and shoved through it. Marik was waiting for her on the other side, and he grabbed onto the handle of the chainsaw, his hands smothering hers.
Thus began a completely insane game of tug-of-war.
"Let go!" Tea snarled.
"I want it!" Marik snarled back, and then he cheated by stomping on her foot, so Tea head butted his nose.
And then the front door exploded.
Yami burst into the room, positively radiating power, leading Isis, Joey, and Tristan, who all bore looks of matching resolve.
The scene they entered was laid like so: darkness writhing through out the room, Ryou crouching on the table, stabbing at shadows with a pair of bent scissors, and Tea and Marik viciously attacking each other as best they could while trying to wrest a running chainsaw from each other.
"…I don't remember getting drunk tonight," Tristan mused aloud in confusion.
His words broke the spell of bafflement laid over the group, and Yami roared, growing into something terrible and grand in his rage and fear for his friends. His eyes glowed red, and his entire body was outlined in black and gold.
He raised his hand, and a literal wall of darkness, somehow deeper than anything Marik had summoned, burst forth from his outstretched palm. It ran through the entire room, and when it cleared, the shadows Marik had summoned with gone, and Marik himself was trapped in a bubble of translucent darkness.
Ryou slowly and carefully got down from the table, looking more than a little battered and bruised. Tea turned off her chainsaw, and she drew a deep shuddering breath that resonated all the way down to her bare toes.
"Are you both alright?" Yami asked, quickly striding over to them. Tea and Ryou looked to each other for the answer to that question.
"A bit shaken," Ryou admitted, pushing his tangled hair out of his eyes.
"But otherwise all good," Tea finished, and they grinned at each other in the shaky way of people who have just gone through a terrifying ordeal together.
"Your apartment is trashed, man," Joey whistled, looking around the room. Tea and Ryou winced simultaneously, and Tristan kicked Joey in the shins for being tactless.
Running footsteps announced the arrival of a new person, and Duke popped through the broken front door, followed far more sedately by a sharp-eyed Seto.
The green eyed duelist skidded to a halt as he beheld the others, heaving out a sigh of relief when he performed a cursory check of Tea and Ryou and found them mostly intact.
"You lot attract far too much trouble," he informed them haughtily, and then he went and nonchalantly flopped over on Ryou again, to which the British boy narrowed his eyes peevishly and Tea laughed.
"That's one psychopath down, I suppose," drawled Seto, arrogantly seating himself upon their mutilated couch. He then surveyed the rest of them with patented disdain. "Took you long enough."
"But wait," Tea said, ignoring Seto for fear that she might very accidentally sucker punch him. "Marik blew out the electricity; how did you guys know to come?"
Ryou flicked her lightly in the forehead, and then flicked Duke much more firmly on his. "It's called a cellphone," he teased, and Tea face-palmed. Oh good grief but her brain did not work right when she was this tired.
"And you," Ryou continued, poking Duke again, who looked down at him with wide-eyed innocence. "Please get off. I've been bruised enough tonight without being accidentally blinded by your earrings." For Ryou, this wording was quite extreme, and Duke stepped back with a worried frown.
"Right." He snapped his dexterous fingers. "Time to get you bandaged up. Tea?"
"First aid kit in the closet," the girl replied wearily.
"Thanks," the man tossed her a suave grin, already swaggering down their torn up hallway. "Damn gorgeous chainsaw, by the by."
Which brought the collective attention of the room to the machine at Tea's feet.
"Tea," Yami asked, still glaring at the captive Marik. "Why do you have that device?"
And that was a question the girl really did not want to answer. Somehow she doubted they would take it well if she told them she was planning on using it to hack up monsters. "Um," the girl started eloquently. "I saw it in a store, and I thought it was pretty."
Joey snorted in laughter, and Tristan outright guffawed. Even Isis cracked a bit of a smile.
Yami opened his mouth, then shut it. He opened it again, and then shut it.
Tea sighed deeply. "You don't think I should have it, do you?"
Yami began to sweat, feeling more apprehensive than when he had confronted Marik. "It is a dangerous machine," he stated carefully. "I am not certain the advantages of owning such a thing outweigh the disadvantages."
"It's not like I'm going to do anything irresponsible with it!" Tea snapped crossly, and Yami turned to give her a flat look.
"You were trying to decapitate Marik with it when we arrived," he pointed out stiffly, and Seto, who had not been present at the time, adopted an expression that on anyone else would have been startled, and on him was mildly interested.
"Not his head," Tea objected weakly. "Maybe just his arm or leg…." She drew herself up proudly, ignoring Yami's alarmed expression. "Besides, I did it responsibly!"
Joey cackled in derisive laughter at the sight she made: mussed and bruised and bleeding in her pajamas all while trying to stare down Yami, who was taller than she was.
The girl flushed, rounding on her blonde friend. "So help me Joey," she growled. "I'll bury you where no one will find you!"
"Allow me to offer my assisstance with that," Seto smoothly interjected, and Joey went from laughing to glaring in record time.
"I am relieved to find you and young Ryou well," Isis intervened before a fight could break out. As usual, she commanded the attention in the room effortlessly. "But now, I believe, the Pharaoh and I should remove Marik to a more…permanent location."
Which Marik found unacceptable, because for the last few minutes he had the opportunity to compare his interest in the Pharaoh to his interest to the girl, and the latter had won with surprising ease. The Pharaoh hadn't changed at all, except for turning to flesh and blood, which Marik already knew all about.
So Isis's declaration was clearly his cue to blast a hole in the cage Yami had put him in. He sprang through the opening with uncanny grace for a person of his size and scampered back down the hall. Tea's eyes widened as she realized his destination.
"Oh no you don't!" she roared, tracing after him. To her fury, he had indeed once more ensconced himself beneath her bed.
"No!" she shouted, feeling half-dead with exhaustion. "Nooooooo!"
Yami tumbled into the room after her, and came to a halt as a baffled expression crossed his face. The rest of the group, following him in, wore equally bemused countenances.
"Tea?" Joey said. "Marik's under your bed."
"I know!"
"Why's he under your bed?"
"We had this conversation earlier," Ryou informed the blonde. "I'm going to put the kettle on; would anyone care for some tea?" Even after being attacked by a magical madman, his manners as a host remained impeccable. The same could not be said for Duke's bandaging skills, as the guaze he had liberally wrapped Ryou in was already unraveling.
"Please get him out, Yami," Tea beseeched of her friend.
"I shall," the tan boy promised her, recomposing himself. He drew himself up, and muttered a long string of words that ended in a shout. A wave of power pulsed out from his hands, heading towards Tea's much abused bed. It hit her covers, but then it rebounded in a flash of runes and crimson light.
Marik sniggered, completely untouched.
Isis covered her eyes, feeling oddly humiliated by the events. For all he was a magical manifestation of anger and hate and an incredibly awful childhood, she still felt strangely related to the man-child, for he was of her brother, and therefore in a sense, her brother as well. Which meant that when he had tried to take over the world, she had felt guilt and sorrow, and now that he was hiding under a girl's bed in the middle of the night, she felt rather embarrassed.
"It seems," she said, her keen eyes having picked apart the runes that had appeared and her equally keen mind having interpreted them. "That Marik has made a claim upon the shadow of your bed."
Yami's mouth twisted sourly. "Are you sure, Isis?" he inquired, leveling a crimson glare at the cattily smiling man.
Isis only nodded in response, still suffering a bit of mortification.
"What does that mean?" Ryou asked, brown eyes worried.
"It means," Isis said heavily. "That Marik more or less has complete control over that area of darkness. Not even the Pharaoh can bring him forth."
Marik blew a raspberry at them, and Tea, who had the idea of a peaceful slumber dangled in front of her only to be snatched away, promptly lost her temper again.
"So help me I'll drag you out!" she ranted, throwing herself to the floor and grabbing Marik's hair once more, yanking for all she was worth.
"Ah, we're back to this again," Ryou commented, slipping back into the room with a tray full of teacups which he distributed politely. His own weariness detached him from the fear he would customarily feel, and he took a deep sip from his own cup, trying to draw strength from the fluid.
Yami gaped down at his friend, who had a vicious grip on Marik's hair as she braced her legs against the legs of her bed and strained to pry him out.
"Stop pulling my hair!" Marik growled, swiping at her with his nails. Tea bit at his hand as he brought it near her face, and he retracted it promptly.
"I'll never stop!" she raved, feeling half-delirious with fatigue. "I won't stop until you're as bald as an egg! Baaaaallllddd!"
"This…," Joey mused, scratching at his head. "Is actually kind of…funny." He sounded surprised by his own assessment.
"There is nothing funny about this!" Yami denied. He strode forward, cautiously resting a hand on Tea's shoulder(which he couldn't really be blamed for, since he had witnessed her flailing around a chainsaw after all). "Come away, Tea," he coaxed her. "I know this is all very…aggravating, but…this," he gestured vaguely at her position on the floor. "This solves nothing."
"But he's under my bed!" she moaned, feeling very put upon.
Yami patted her shoulder with awkward, jerky movements.
"And he's been in my closet!"
Yami's hand froze in midair as it descended once more towards her shoulder.
"Wait, wait, wait," Joey said. "What?"
"Marik earlier admitted to having watched Tea through out the past week," Ryou filled them in, and he was not so tired that he didn't give a disapproving sniff.
Isis's mortification increased drastically.
"That's just wrong," Duke commented in disgust, taking up a place next to Ryou in the spectators.
"I'll kill 'im!" Tristan snarled, flopping down alongside Tea and grabbing onto Marik's hair as well.
Yami futilely began to pat both of their shoulders, feeling hugely out of his depth. "I know you both are angry," he tried again. "But we need to get out of here. Tea, you and Ryou can come stay with us."
"Wait!" Marik commanded, feeling for the first time a frisson of anxiety. "I want to make a deal with you and the boy."
Tea released his hair grudgingly, scooting back to listen to him. Ryou cautiously walked over, crouching down by her side.
"We need not strike any deal with you, Marik!" Yami snapped.
"No, no," Tea held up a hand. "I kind of want to hear this."
"Yeah, man," Joey grinned. "This is kinda hilarious." Duke stared at him skeptically; Joey just shrugged.
Marik's mind ticked through possibilities. Negotiations were not exactly his strong point, so he just opened his mouth and went for it.
"I want to live here with you both," he announced to the overall shock of the room.
Tea's eyebrows shot up, and she exchanged a confused glance with Ryou. "I'm not sure I want to ask why," the boy said delicately. "But I do want to know what you would give us in exchange for this favor."
"What," the Egyptian grinned, confidence bolstered by their apparent consideration of his deal. "Do you want?"
Tea pursed her lips, looking once more to Ryou. "Huddle?" she asked, and he nodded.
They scooted off into a corner and conferred in whispers while the others tried desperately to eavesdrop. Then they returned, appearing satisfied with their decisions.
"First off," Tea said. "Ms. Isis, is there any way of magically binding Marik to this deal?"
The elegant woman smiled approvingly, pleased by the younger girl's question. "There is."
Yami gazed in consternation at them, and Tristan with concern, but Tea gave no heed to anyone but the grinning man under her bed.
"These are the conditions," she informed him. "For the duration of your stay with us, you will not attack any of us. You will not try and do serious harm to us, or in any way try to kill anyone anywhere, whether directly or indirectly. You will not stalk me or anyone else. And," she added. "If Bakura should try and harm us here, you will help us fight him off. You will not work with Bakura to do evil."
She squinted, trying to remember if there had been anything else. Ryou coughed lightly, taking over.
"In addition," he stated. "Depending on the duration of your stay, you will have to get a legal job to help pay for food, rent, and utilities."
Marik considered this fretfully. The restrictions being put upon him were many, and they all asked a great deal of him. What was life without attacking someone?
"He'll never agree to it," Yami said darkly, and Marik's eye twitched.
"I'll do it," he contradicted impulsively, because in a flash of understanding he knew that this would infuriate the Pharaoh even more than trying to take over the world again. He watched with glee as the tan boy's eyes smoldered with rage, his mouth drawing into a grim line. "On one condition of my own," he quickly added. "I still get to sleep here."
Tea's eye twitched.
"Enough of this charade," Yami exploded. "I can confine him to this room with my magic; let him stay here and rot! Ryou, Tea, we can find you new lodgings and furnishings."
Which Tea, honestly, just wasn't willing to do. She was a remarkably forgiving and tolerant person. However, she was also a person who been belittled by her friends(even if they had good intentions), was suffering from healing injuries, hadn't gotten more than a handful of hours of sleep in the last week during which she had exams, and she had a stupid pink rock in her hand that meant she was supposed to save humanity by killing a lot of things that wanted to kill her. In a world that she had already given up a whole freaking lot for, Tea Gardner was not going to give up her bed.
She ground her teeth. Marik stared at her in hopeful suspicion, which was a really weird combination, actually. Tea made a half-hearted jab at his eye, and he laughed, full and throaty and deep like the ocean.
Ryou threw the rest of his tea in his face, and Marik stopped laughing.
"I know I don't tell you this enough," Tea declared seriously to Ryou. "But I seriously love you."
"Now, now," Ryou returned mildly. "We both know that you're just using me for my muffins."
"Kinky," Duke tossed in, and he wiggled his eyebrows and grinned at them both when they shot twin glares his way.
Tea thought for a moment then. She really didn't want Marik under her bed(because that was so wrong for so, so many reasons) but she couldn't deny that it would be a huge win for them if Marik was no longer able to harm them. This was something she could do for her friends, and so she would do it.
"Fine," Tea decided, nodding her head. "Ryou?"
The boy glanced at her worriedly, but seeing her resolve, nodded as well. "It is fine by me."
"Very well," Isis declared striding over to them. "The deal has been struck. Now, to reinforce it. Pharaoh, your assistance please."
Yami grumbled, but he saw the sense in the deal as well. Together, he and Isis chanted out a long stream of words which danced through the air, coiling around Tea, Ryou, and Marik. Tea found them to be a strange presence, soothing but agitating all at once. Slowly, a golden band appeared on the wrists of all three, and chains grew between the bands, connecting them, binding them.
Then the two magic users stopped, their words dying away, and the chains flashed before disappearing along with the manacles. Tea found she could still feel it though, a whisper around her slender wrist.
"This has been wonderful," Seto sneered, breaking the awestruck atmosphere in the room. "But unlike you rejects, I actually have work tomorrow." That said, he rose, sweeping out of the room.
"Aw crud," Duke hissed. "He's my ride home!" Giving Tea a quick hug, and Ryou a rather longer one, he raced after the billionaire.
"Well Joey and I are staying here tonight," Tristan asserted, already going for the sleeping bags. Joey whooped.
"I shall stay as well," Yami said, but Tea shook her head. "You need to be with Yugi," she told him, and she gave him a tight hug, much like the one she had given him at the party. "Thank you," she told him, and this time, when he hugged her back he did so strongly.
"No," he sighed. "No, thank you."
He and Isis took their leave, and Joey and Tristan set up their rolls in the hall between the two rooms so as to be close to both Tea and Ryou.
Their deep breathing filling the air, the three boys fell asleep quickly, but Tea, understandably did not achieve slumber so easily.
"Stop moving around under there," she snapped crossly as Marik rearranged himself for the umpteenth time.
He hissed at her. "It's not my fault someone took a chunk out of my arm, and now it's impossible to be comfortable," he replied sulkily.
"Yes, it actually is your fault," Tea bit out. "Since you kind of assaulted us and everything."
That just made Marik chuckle, and the girl groaned, rising from her bed to pad across the floor to the first aid kit. She rummaged around in it, finding the leftover gauze.
Tea tossed the roll under the bed. "For your arm," she explained tersely. "So you'll stop bleeding all over my floor."
He laughed at her. "I'll paint the floor red as I please!"
"Look, do you want an infection?" the girl asked, exasperated, and the man-boy examined her more carefully.
"You don't just care about your floor or your sleep," he deduced. "You feel a shred of guilt over wounding me." He thought about this while Tea sputtered denials. "You're very stupid," he decided at last, and Tea stomped on his hand.
"If you snore," she hissed. "I'll put spiders under there. And rotten milk. And dirty socks. Now shut up and go to sleep."
He guffawed, and the girl stomped on his foot again as she clambered back into bed. She was going to move in with Ryou tomorrow. She was. Except, her bed was her bed, and there was just no other bed like it. No other mattress as soft; no other covers as fluffy.
She sighed, her mind drifting. There was so much to do. So much to do. She had a stone in her palm and a chain around her wrist, and there was just so much to do.
Under the bed, Marik began to hum.
"Shut up!" Tea yelled, and bizarrely, the anger made her feel better. Mind cleared of worries, if only just for the moment, the girl finally, finally went to sleep.
Under the bed, Marik smiled.
AN: Marik joins the house party! Hope you guys enjoyed reading; feel free to leave your opinions in the comments!
Have a great week!