Soooo. I had to. Short fic, very, um, cliffhanger-ey? it's a Ryou punishment fic. Don't like, don't read. No blood, no gore… thus far.

I know I was supposed to be working on a Witchcraft sequel… buuuuut… this just sort of happened. Somehow… mysteeeeeriously. *Cough* Yaoi *Cough*

"Yugi?"

"What is it, Ryou?"

"… Don't, uh… It would be best if you didn't, I mean to say, that is…"

"Are you trying to tell me not to be your friend again, Ryou-kun? 'Cause I told you before, it doesn't work like that." Yugi smiled, that light, easy, trust anyone smile.

"No, I'm afraid its more specific… I just have an urgent… something came up so, tonight… that Halloween thing we were going to do, I can't make it. Sorry." Ryou tried to smile. He was doing the right thing, after all, no matter what the eerily silent voice in his head thought. Still, his mouth couldn't help but twist down at the edges. He still had a scar on his left hand, reminiscent of the first time he'd defied his… darker self.

"But Ryou-kun, you were so excited! We were going to dress up and watch scary movies! And Candy! It was your idea." Yugi pouted.

It was hard to resist giving in when Yugi did that. One of the risks inherent with having a baby panda for a best friend. Still, this was for Yugi's own good.

"I really can't, but I'll make it up to you, I promise!" Ryou looked as re-assuring as he could manage. "You still have Tristan and Joey and Tea, you'll have a great time."

Yugi sighed. "Fine, but next time…"

"Yes, Yugi, next time, I promise."

Concentrating on his classes was a complete loss for the rest of the day. Ryou couldn't ignore the nagging lack of death threats. Bakura, he'd had plans for tonight, another attempt to destroy Yugi completely, take his puzzle, and probably kill his friends. He didn't like when Ryou got in the way of his schemes.

Bakura was thinking; Ryou could feel the twisting dark foreboding at the edges of his mind that, as far as he could tell, meant his Darkness was turning some plan or plot over and over, working out the best way to deal with a situation.

That meant one of two things. Either he was going to go through with his plans for Yugi tonight anyway, or he was thinking up some extravagant punishment for Ryou's indiscretion. Ryou was inclined think the latter. His Yami rarely leaped into any situation without knowing exactly how it would go, calculating the risks, finding them in his favour. Ryou had thrown the proverbial wrench into a plot that Bakura had been very excited about.

Ryou was, perhaps, more reluctant than ever before to open his apartment door, enter, and seal himself alone with the worst part of his existence. He knew better than to try to get rid of the ring. He still had the scars on his chest from that attempt. He could go somewhere public for a while, like the mall, but he might run into someone he knew, then Yugi would want to know why Ryou was ignoring him, which would lead to awkward questions and, horror of horrors, Yugi discovering that Ryou was still at the mercy of Bakura.

He couldn't let that happen. If Yugi knew that Ryou might loose control at any moment and become a soul stealing psychopath… well, that didn't really contribute to a healthy, open friendship.

Ryou breathed deeply, his hand on the doorknob. He had to go in. Another breath, in…

And out.

Ryou opened his door, and as usual, went straight to the lamp on the table of his small sitting room. He flicked it on, illuminating the apartment with a dim orange glow. The ceiling light had broken weeks ago.

He stood straight, looking at nothing, just waiting with baited breath, and hoping that he was just being paranoid.

The sound of his apartment door slowly clicking shut, and the metallic rattle and slide of the bolt, froze his blood. Afraid to look, his eyes still slid to the door of their own accord, his head following their lead reluctantly.

Ryou's jaw dropped, and he fell back a step. Every hair on his body felt like it was standing straight up, and the chill of fear raced up his spine.

Standing next to the door, with his finger still resting on the bolt was… himself. Perfectly solid, undeniably there, it was him… but not him. Ryou knew his own reflection, and this very real refection's eyes were all wrong, too angled and cold. If Ryou's hair looked like snow, other man's hair was the sharp edges of ice so cold it would freeze anything that touched it solid.

This must be his darker half, in the flesh, so to speak. Ryou backed away another step. The expression on Bakura's face was… unhappy. Disappointed, even, but only marginally.

"You know, I was really at a loss." Bakura said conversationally, leaning back against the door.

"What punishment can I create, what action, could possibly be terrible enough to inspire such fear in you that you would never dare to defy me again?" Bakura put his hands in his back pockets, looking at Ryou like he was some puzzle, some game, that needed merely to be beaten.

Ryou swallowed, his heart racing in his chest, skin tingling and pulling all over, a lump of panic struggling to escape from somewhere in his stomach. His body was in that moment of extreme awareness between fight or flight, when neither was possible.

"I think I've figured it out, though. How to own you completely, I mean. I don't think you're going to like it, but really, that's all the more reason, for me." Bakura raised an eyebrow. He drew himself up to full height, abandoning the relaxed posture for one of power. He was visibly taller than Ryou.

"Take off your clothes." The spirit said simply.

Ryou's heart stopped for a moment, and his mind ground to a halt.

"W-what?" Ryou asked stupidly.

"Oh, you do have a voice. I was starting to wonder. I said take off your clothes, you weak, useless stupid little excuse for a landlord." Bakura took a step forward, forcing Ryou to retreat, marking him further as the weak one, the prey.

"I-I don't understand…" Ryou mumbled, anything, any way to get out of this situation, to be anywhere else but here, he'd jump at it gladly. This wasn't happening, this wasn't what is seemed like. Ryou continued to drift back, keeping a constant distance between himself an the threat.

"Take. Them. Off. Nothing complicated there. Just follow orders."

Ryou shook his head mutely, just as his back hit a wall. The panic surged up, choking him, forcing him to look from side to side, to cower. He was cornered. Bakura continued to advance, his pace unchanging.

"If you won't, I'll do it for you." Bakura was close, now, uncomfortably close. Ryou shook uncontrollably, but the thought of Bakura forcibly stripping him… It was too much.

Ryou slid his shirt over his head. The bare skin was covered in goosebumps in the faint chill of the room. His nipples were two pink raisins on his chest.

"Keep going."

Ryou shook his head, no, his cheeks flaming. He couldn't stand the impassive way he was being looked at, judged. It took him a moment to notice that Bakura's shirt was gone now, too. He couldn't help but compare the difference, his own slender shapeless frame, his ribs, hips, shoulders showing bony beneath his skin. The other him was thin too, but that thinness was outlined in corded muscle, without a spare gram of unused weight.

Ryou was suddenly very much aware of what would happen if his own pants came off. Bakura's would too. He was spared the choice when Bakura reached forward, across the small distance between them, toward the button on the front of Ryou's trousers.

He tried to twist away along the wall, but Bakura's hand slammed to the plaster inches from Ryou's face.

Carefully looking anywhere but at Bakura, Ryou wiggled out of his pants on his own, standing exposed in his boxers in front of a monster more terrifying than any he'd seen in scary movies. A monster that he knew, without looking, was also wearing nothing but boxers. Blue ones. With spots.

"You really are pathetic, just look at you. You're a skeleton tied together with some twine. I don't mind, though. It makes you easier to break. You know what excites me?" Bakura pressed himself closer to Ryou, his face inches from Ryou's flushed cheek. A stiff bulge in Bakura's blue, spotted shorts pressed against Ryous thigh.

"Fear."

If Ryou could have wiggled backward through the wall, he would have.

"No, no you c-can't, please just, just let go, I'll never go against you again just please don't…" Ryou had started to cry, twin rivers of terror trickling down his cheeks.

"You're right." Bakura mused, as he ripped Ryou's boxer shorts off, and flipped the boy around, pressing his face to the wall.

"You won't."

Soooo… do I continue? Yeah, its pretty classic in content, I just had to write one. None of the BakuraXRyou fics I've read this far had exactly what I had in mind, there was always either too much eventual fluff, too many other pairings going on, or too much ooc. So here's mine. Wheeeeee!