An old piece of mine that I've been working to remake, but unfortunately in a hurry. Grammar might be iffy. Not really proud of this first chapter since I had a hard time setting up some exposition and background, but, hey I did the best with what I had.

All you need to know is that Bakura treats Ryou like garbage. Despite this, Ryou is head over heels in love with Bakura and he hates himself for it. Bakura also likes to exploit Ryou's feelings for him.

Chapter 1

Change had been inevitable. Ryou didn't know why he ever thought it would be this way forever, but somehow over the years he had become complacent. Accepting of punishment in all of its gnarled forms. As much as he would have dreamed of a life not filled with paranoia and self loathing, it never seemed really feasible. So, when the tides had finally shifted, no one was as surprised by it than Ryou. Neither of them really knew why or, quite honestly, even how it had happened (despite being there). More than likely it had been the anger stuffed achingly behind the hikari's tightly clenched teeth—compounding over the years of being told he was worthless, of being forced to hurt his friends, of suffering silently—that had upset the parasitic balance Bakura had forced them both to live. When he really stopped to think about it, though, Ryou had a theory that it had actually been because they were tired. Tired of the poison they kept forcing themselves to ingest day in and day out—the darkness the thief had grown accustomed to so easily that he could no longer register anyone's pain, including his own, and the near constant terror and self-loathing Ryou held closer to his chest than any love he had ever felt. This, of course, was just a theory.

All he knew for sure was that it had been a long time coming.

-o-o-o-

The boy had been in the kitchen that day, he remembers, eating a light lunch when a sudden...there-ness appeared behind him that hadn't been there before. Ryou really had no other way of describing it other than a sense of being alone turning to the allconsuming-panic of being hunted. There was a presence so intrusive in a single instance that warning signals were blaring 'DANGER! DANGER!' from his mind in flashing yellow lights.

The younger jumped and, without meaning to, ended up sending his lunch plate flying off like a porcelain Frisbee as he swung back to face the intruder behind him, causing the plate to shatter against the cabinet on the other side of the kitchen. The deafening crash was only followed by awkward silence as two sets of eyes stared down at the pieces of broken china. Crayola would easily have paid billions to capture the shade of red Ryou's face turned.

"…You scare way too easily." Bakura's quirked eyebrow and cold stare made the boy want to wither away in a dark, dark corner somewhere.

Ryou's hand went straight to the back of his neck, a nervous habit of his, as he tried to chuckle at his own clumsiness. "Y-you…uh… surprised me…"

"Then you surprise way too easily."

"Heh…yeah…I-I know…" The hikari quickly noticed how stupid he must've looked still standing in his kitchen with a half-eaten swiss-pastrami sandwich and turned back toward the counter to try to find himself a new plate and to also find an excuse to get out of the current staring contest he had with the sennen spirit.

Unfortunately, Ryou could still feel Bakura's eyes burning into the back of his skull. Just as he had set down his sandwich on a new dish a sudden inquiry from the other's mouth sliced through him with a bad air. "You'll agree to anything, won't you, faggot?" His skin prickled at the low malicious tone, almost as if the nasty intentions radiating from Bakura were freezing the air itself. There was no way that this conversation was going to go anywhere good.

"You're just so stupid and easygoing, aren't you?" the thief spat hatefully as he took another step closer. Ryou could just hear the smirk on his face. The boy was suddenly starting to hear his heart thumping fearfully loud, blood pumping in his ears as the other stepped even closer.

A giant explosion went off in his mind of every emotion under the moon and stars, from overwhelming, fanatical, heat rushing ecstasy to that weird emotion one gets when they receive 16,000 Slifer cards as a birthday gift in a dirty gym sock worn by the fat kid on sprinting day, as Ryou felt Bakura sliding up against his back with his next step. His face was on the brink of turning blue. Bakura was so close! So close and here and now and everything was getting hotter, everything was spinning, almost teetering off of the edge of the planet. Ryou felt like gasping, gulping down gallons of tanks of oxygen like a land-cast herring. His lungs seemed to be getting smaller but he refused to show it, not knowing what Bakura would do with the ammunition. It was suddenly smoldering and every inch of his body was screaming! Screaming to run or lean back into the spirit's chest or shut his eyes tight or squirm away knowing that the reason for this was wrong.

There was no way in hell the spirit would be this close to him for the reasons Ryou was thinking of. More than likely, Bakura was probably trying to intimidate him or mock his apparent 'faggot'ness. These thoughts seemed to calm his body down a little bit, at least enough to keep him from completely flipping out and tackling the yami to the floor in a lust-filled rage.

As his mind started to clear in the mere five seconds that had passed like hours, Ryou noticed something that made the fear-hotwire jumpstart again. Within the time it took to bat an eye, his body temperature had dropped from smoldering to graveyard cold.

Bakura had a hand on both sides of the counter around the hikari.

He was completely boxed in.

"Well? Aren't you?" came a hushed but demanding voice directly behind him.

Ryou had almost completely forgotten that he had been asked a question in the first place. Once he had finally recalled it, the predicament he was in hit home a little harder. He couldn't turn around, he couldn't run away, and the thought of how easy it would be for Bakura to wring his neck, like he'd already done so many times before, or bash his head into the counter killed all thoughts of actually sticking up for himself.

"Um…yeah, I guess I am," he answered meekly. Ryou stared down at the counter and tightly clenched his fists by his sides.

There was a small airy chuckle following that statement. "That means that you'll agree with everything I say, right?"

"Well…" Ryou's dreading feeling was sparking wildly off the charts now.

"So…what if I were to call you dumb, ugly, pathetic, and pitiful?" Bakura's voice was hushed and breathy, reminding the boy much of a dark, eerie forest right before a wolf attack. He flinched ever so slightly as the other's knuckle strayed to brush a loose strand of hair behind his ear unexpectedly.

Mockingly.

Ryou quickly shut his eyes and dug his nails into his palms, trying his best to shut everything out. The words, the radiating disdain emanating towards him, the brazen gestures against his effeminate behavior and appearance. It was shameful what he had been reduced to in Bakura's eyes. Nothing more than entertainment, a doormat to take all the mental torture that was thrown at him.

He hated it. Hated Bakura. Hated himself. Hated every moment just like this where he had no choice but to degrade himself further and further into a pit just to avoid getting bashed in the face. Almost every day now. No, definitely every day. And his eyes were burning. Not tears, never tears, but they burned. His eyes scrunched so tight flashes of white were almost blinding him. Getting worse. Slowly growing, this burning beneath his eyes for two years. The feeling was spreading dangerously throughout Ryou's entire body like venom, pumping heavily through his veins. And as the thief leaned in closer to his ear, he could suddenly feel something bubbling inside of him, ready to burst out from its prison. "Or maybe if I called you disgusting and barely deserving enough to be on the bottom of my shoes?" This surrounding rage that seemed to make his skin steam beneath his clothes. He could feel his teeth clenching subconsciously, almost as if caging the monstrous fury housed within.

All he had to do was keep his tongue held, his hands fisted in his pockets, and especially keep his eyes clammed shut and everything would be all right.

Hopefully.

The spirit's wicked sneer suddenly fell. "Hey! Look at me when I'm talking to you!" shouted Bakura angrily at Ryou's silence. He took a quick step back away from the counter and grabbed onto the smaller's shoulder, gripping tightly.

It was odd. Normally, Bakura's hand on him would've shot Ryou through the roof.

Now, not even a twitch.

"I would appreciate it if you didn't yell at me," seethed the smaller boy through clenched teeth.

"Now, Ryou…was that a threat?" There was a small silence, before Bakura roughly spun the other around to face him. "I asked you a question."

Let the world know no fury like a hell never seen before by the likes of man.

Ryou had opened his eyes, opening the cage of the beast.