Chapter 11

Marik couldn't believe his eyes. His jaw actually hung open in shock.

He'd expected to come into the garden and find Akefia with the March Hare and Mad Hatter, sitting around joking, drinking tea, eating sandwiches and talking about whatever.

Instead, Akefia had the March Hare bent over the table, pants around his ankles, and was fucking the pale boy hard enough to bleed.

The lion wanted to cry, to scream, to curse, to roar, to claw that rabbit to shreds and to kick his master in the balls all at once. With all the conflicting emotions he didn't know what to do, and so his body froze at the sight of his beloved master, the King of the Ring, screwing around with someone who he probably couldn't care less about.

He'd always been loyal, hadn't he? Sure, there were those escapades with Bakura in the dressing rooms, and a couple with Malik before shows, but he'd always gone back to Akefia like a good pet. He inwardly cringed at calling himself that, and somehow let out a rather loud whine in reaction to the sight before him, which the two white haired men on the table heard.

"Shit, Marik?" Akefia called out, halting his actions and looking over at her pet lion. "What the fuck?"

Not wanting to make a scene, either one of rage or one of embarassing wailing, Marik did the only thing his mind could think of. He ran.

He vaguely heard the Ringleader call out to him but either he ignored it or it just didn't register in his brain. Marik didn't care eitehr way, he just had to escape from the situation. He wasn't looking where he was running, eyes screwed tightly shut as he tried not to cry, and ended up crashing headlong into someone.

"Woah woah woah!" The voice of the person he crashed into reached his ears, and the lion looked at who he currently sat on. "Mr Lion, why are you sat on me?" The Mad Hatter asked, blinking in a rather adorably confused way.

"Sorry." Marik apologised, standing up and giving the other blonde a hand in getting up himself.

"Let me guess, you ran in on their antics." The Hatter guessed, looking heartbroken when Marik didn't answer, only looked down at the floor, ears drooping. "Awh, you really love that King of yours, don't you."

"Of course not!" Marik growled, suddenly looking the other in the eye. "I don't care about what he does, and he doesn't mind what I do."

"But clearly you do care if the sight of him screwing around with another furry nearly brings you to tears." The Mad Hatter observed, gently holding the lion's cheek and brushing away the tears that were forming in his violet eyes. "Come on! Tea time!" The tanned blonde tugged him in the direction of his house by his hand.

Behind him Marik heard the Ringleader call out for him, and, not wanting to see the white haired Ring King at that moment, went with the Mad Hatter without a single utter of protest. The smaller blonde happily pulled him inside the crazy purple cottage-like house, pretty much skipping along the way.

Once the door was shut behind him, Marik looked up and gawped at the decor of the place. Its actually quite tastefully done considering the strange shade of purple the outside of the house was. They'd entered what the lion could guess was some sort of lounge, where the walls were a soft shade of lilac and the furniture was mostly a classy looking black. Numerous picture frames hung on the wall and cluttered the shelves and cabinets dotted around the room. Marik couldn't help but notice a pocketwatch on the coffee table that looked suspiciously like something he'd seen the White Rabbit with, but he chose not to ask any questions.

"Tea, tea, I love thee! Tea, tea, I love me!" The Mad Hatter sung happily, shoving Marik to sit on one of the black plush sofas before skipping off into the kitchen. "I know just the kind of tea you'd like, Mr Pretty Lion Sir!"

Marik had to shake his head at the boy's strange behaviour, but he suppsed the Malik he knew was pretty much the same, just not as... gay about it. He slumped back in his seat, slightly snuggling into the overstuffed cushions behind him. All he wanted to do was curl up and sleep for a while. That sudden emotional outburst had actually drained him quite a bit (and he supposed that all the walking he'd done in the past two days didn't help either).

"Here we go!" The Mad Hatter suddenly bustling into the room with a clinking tray of tea snapped Marik out of his thoughts. The blonde put the tray down on the table before taking a seat next to the lion. "Sugar?" He chirruped with a smile.

"No, thanks." Marik replied, his voice giving away how distracted and depressed he was.

The Mad Hatter poured the tea out of a rather strangely shaped teapot into a cup decorated with severed limbs. Marik raised an eyebrow at the design but took a guess that it was actually the March Hare's, because he sure as hell couldn't see the hyperactive and sugar-sweet blonde to willingly have such a thing. He was handed the cup, and he took it with a small noise of gratitude. It actually smelled quite good, and he didn't even really like tea. Wonderland was making him like it, he mused. The one in his hand smelled like mint, vanilla and something he just couldn't quite place, but it was definately familiar.

"My own special blend!" The Hatter told him with glee. "Everything grown in my own garden. Well, either mine or the White Rabbit's." Marik could've sworn the Mad Hatter had a small blush in his cheeks at that thought, but he both ignored it and didn't care. It probably explained the pocket watch on the table too.

"It's nice." Marik told him after a couple of sips, managing to hold the cup properly this time. The Hatter before him seemed overjoyed at this simple phrase and giggled in a happy and girly way.

"Yey! I was afraid you wouldn't like it. Bunny doesn't like it. I mean, the Hare doesn't. Doesn't like me calling him Bunny either." The Mad Hatter rambled, "He doesn't like sweet things, and I'm almost one hundred percent certain he puts blood in his tea. He doesn't tell me but I know. I taste it. He thinks I don't know but I do!" The tanned boy suddenly stopped. "I'm rambling aren't I. Sorry sorry! Tell me about your problems then." He swivelled around and faced Marik, curling up with his cup of tea against the cushions. "Why were you so upset with your dear King?"

"I wasn't." Marik growled, not wanting to look his friend's mirror image in the eye. "He can screw around with whoever he wants, just like I can screw around with whoever I want."

"That's not all there is to it." The Mad Hatter told him, "I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say that you, Mr Sexy Lion, are very loyal to him in every way. You might screw around, but he is your master and at the end of the day you'll do what he says. You hate yourself for it and refuse to admit it but you know its true."

Marik had to stare at him and blink. He'd hit the nail smack on the head with that. Who knew the off-kilter young man before him was so observant and insightful?

The blonde went on. "You say you don't care about Akefia fucking that rabbit but it does bother you. I'm gonna take another guess and say that he doesn't like it when you screw around, that he punishes you, if the whip marks on your back are anything to go by." He then smirked in a way that Marik found to be down right filthy, "And judging by the fact you don't complain you like it too."

The blonde lion fought the urge to blush. The Mad Hatter had actually gotten pretty much everything correct, and had said it in a way that wasn't crazy-sounding or rambling, like he'd expected. "Fine, maybe I do care that he went behind my back. But only because he's a damn hypocrit." He took an angry slurp of his tea. He was beginning to feel quite hot for some reason. "He gets pissed off when I screw with Bakura or Malik, and yet there he is fucking a Bakura look-a-like without me knowing! And who knows how long he's been doing it?! That portal thing in his hat didn't just appear today! I bet it's been there for ages. I just know he's been coming here and fucking with horny rabbits like that damn Hare for longer than we know."

"Wow, you finally admitted it to yourself." The Mad Hatter smiled knowingly. His hat had been thrown to the floor at some point during Marik's rant. "You do care. And not because he's a hypocrit, like you said. You're heart-broken that he found someone else besides you."

Marik was finding it hard to breath and concentrate. Staring into the teacup in his grasp, his eyes widened when he realised what that third taste was, and groaned.

"Oi, there was catnip in this tea, wasn't there?"