Okay, so it's been a few years since I did any fanfics and several months+ since I really took time to write anything. I have a fixation on the Bakuras and decided to give writing a short story/novelette a shot. I had planned on it being a completely different story in 3rd person with Kaiba as the focused POV, but Bakura had different ideas and wanted it from his POV. I had also planned on making him an actual brother to Ryou, but again, he changed my plans. Bakura whines until he gets what he wants, so I decided to just give him control.

The following piece of crap is what I farted out. There's language, a little violence, insanity, and a dash of sarcasm to make Bakura feel better about me distorting him so much. I don't consider myself a very good writer, but you're welcome to read.

I was too lazy to come up with a real name. For now it's just gonna be deemed "Questionable Existence" because I am fail that way ^^;

PRELUDE

(Yami Bakura's POV)

I couldn't remember the last thing that happened to me, but I remembered it being hot; I like the heat. Around me was nothing but two colors: a blonde-shade of tan, and blue. That was all that was there, those two colors, and the way they engulfed me in that heat was possibly the most comforting thing. Beyond that, my existence was minimal, even questionable. I couldn't feel or hear or see much of anything outside of those colors and that overwhelming warmth. The only thing I could hear was a muffled sort of crying that gradually became wails of horror. Over time it became a voice that begged in a series of tearful prayers for help. I am really not sure when it happened, but the sound suddenly became deafening, and the colors around me blackened.

For the first time that I can recall, my eyelids opened.

I was on the floor of a room I recognized, though I couldn't begin to figure out how I knew where I was. It was only a brief moment later that I realized I had been the one screaming, that I had been the sound that had pulled me from that comfortably warm non-existence.

Disorientation was overcome when I felt something bludgeon me in the back. My face hit the floor, forcing a grunt of pain from my chest from the impact. It had been a chair, probably an expensive one, but my attacker didn't seem to care. He was yelling and I was still crying. What the hell was I doing, crying?

My body shook; I wasn't so sure why. It could have been from the shock of my current physical state (which was badly beaten), or maybe from the shift of the scenery. Regardless, I wasn't about to just remain here on the floor and let some bastard beat the shit out of me.

The tears had stopped coming at this point, but I could still feel the wet smears on my face as I struggled to sit upright. My body quivered, rebelling weakly against my willpower to stand, begging me to just lie down again and wait the beating out like it seemed accustomed to doing.

Well that would never do.

What might be called 'memories' remained vague, but my mind had already begun to tick into existence. With my growing clarity of existence came my intolerance of being anyone's bitch, and with that I summoned the strength to stand.

The guy who hit me with the chair was still screaming at me, but I mostly ignored it. I could feel him moving through the room, looking for something else to attack me with, so I took the moment to gather my scrambling thoughts.

I lifted a bruised hand to stare at it and took careful note of my pale skin, bitten fingernails, and how my arm was shaking. Stupid body, still trying to rebel. I focused to force the nerves to quiet, smirking with some self-satisfaction when the limb was hushed. There were memories beginning to take shape in my mind. I knew even then that they weren't mine, but they were familiar, stamped with my own signature, and I knew that I owned them now. I allowed the surreal images of faces and places and moments to get snatched and settle, examining them in my inner-eye as I waited for my attacker to make his next move.

I was a fifteen-year-old boy that seemed to lack any notion of a spine or any taste for the sun (if my pale skin was any sign), and the man attacking me was my father. His name was Zorc, and he'd been at this fit of his for a while now.

He was the reason I existed, and he would be the reason I ceased to exist.

Or, at least, that seemed to be the case.

"You little prick!" he cried jaggedly. The sound sent shivers down my body in waves of proverbial horror, but I compelled the flesh to relax as I turned on the ball of my worn-out blue sneakers to face him. If I was a creature of light, with my pale skin and pale hair, he was my opposite. Everything about the man was dark: black hair, black eyes, tanned skin, and a black suit that looked like it was worth more than a year's salary for anyone I'd known in the past. Then again, I hadn't exactly had much of a 'salary' to call my own, but I knew expensive when I saw it. "Get your ass back on the floor and beg me not to throw you out!"

I wiped blood from my lip, growling when I realized it would stain the sleeve of my teal-blue shirt. Damn it. That was one of my favorites, too. "Hit me again and I'll kill you." There had been no sign of wavering in my tone—I made sure of that. I snarled again. My brown eyes, reddened around the edges of my irises, slowly lifted to steady with his. The other monster was seething, enraged at my response, which only made my lip curl up in a fierce grin of satisfaction.

"What did you just say?"

"I said, hit me again and I'll fucking kill you," I repeated, irritated that I had to restate my warning. "Have trouble hearing, old man?"

"How dare you talk like that to me? I'm your father!" he shrieked and then slammed a fist on his desk. The wood under his hand released a sick buckling sound that made my stomach tighten, but I didn't allow my body to betray me: it would learn to obey my commands, but it took more effort than I wanted to think it would to keep the flesh steady. I kept my dark eyes level with his, my expression unyielding and my hair bristling like a wolf's haunches. We kept that stare for several seconds, testing each other's resolution. I don't break. "Get your pale ass out of my damn office," he hissed. "NOW!"

Under different circumstances, there's no way in hell I'd be one to just do as someone told, but leaving sounded like a better option than just launching my broken body at someone two times my size. At least for now.

I turned and vacated, closing the door behind me, and walked towards where I instinctively felt my room was.

Once I was recovered and had adjusted, I'd make him pay. No one just hit me with a chair. No one just screamed at me for no god-damned reason.

That was my first memory of my existence, this existence as Ryou Bakura's 'brother'.

That was 3 years ago.

And with that, the crap begins!