AN: This chapter was supposed to be about Isis and Kaiba, but sadly if I had kept it in with the way the rest of the story was structured around it, it would have thrown the pacing off. I feel bad because Isis and Kaiba aren't getting that much attention and the chapter outline I'd written included a really cute bonding moment between them, but sacrifices must be made. Isis at the very least will start making more appearances in the chapters from here on out, though.

Despite Amir's promise to save Ryou and the sincerity of his words, Malik couldn't help but worry about his friend. Knowing Ryou was in danger and that he couldn't do anything to help was tearing him apart, and the thought that he could very well lose Ryou if the demon inside him got its way terrified him to no end. For the rest of the day he was consumed by anxiety, and not even Bakura playing board games with Amane could distract him from the fear eating away his insides.

After a tense dinner with his family where he didn't speak unless spoken to and answered questions with five words or less he retired to his room early. Before that he'd made an unsuccessful grab at one of the books Amir was borrowing from Rishid and only received another lecture from his brother in return.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Rishid and Amir. He trusted his brothers with his own life, so he was confident in trusting Ryou's safety and wellbeing with them as well. But he was easily paranoid, and it was still possible they could fail, and no amount of trust could guarantee a successful exorcism. He wanted to help. He needed to help, just to placate himself. So in one way or another he was going to help, regardless of what Amir said.

Once in his room he opened his laptop and typed "possession" into the search bar with shaking fingers. The results only brought up definitions and articles about a movie titled Possession, so he tried again using "demonic possession". This time he was met with news articles and and trashy journalist posts, and he cursed softly as he clicked onto the search bar again. Now he added "symptoms" and he finally found the results he needed, with various articles and blogs describing the possession process. A demon or a malicious spirit is invited in, intentionally or unintentionally, and takes root in a person's body like a weed, growing and spreading over time and altering everything from a person's personality to their morals to their mental health in order to weaken them in order to claim their body or soul. It was exactly as Amir had said, and as Malik read on, the more anxious he felt until his nausea returned.

Eventually he was lead to lists that contained any and all possible signs and symptoms of possession similar to one he'd seen Amir looking at before dinner. He read on, feeling as though his stomach was twisting itself into tight constrictor knots.

The afflicted may begin cursing when that is out of character for them.

The afflicted may go for long periods of time without blinking.

The afflicted may become promiscuous when that is out of character for them.

The afflicted may seem tired all the time, as if they haven't slept for many days.

The afflicted may speak in languages they do not know.

The afflicted may have a diversion to religious objects.

The afflicted may feel disconnected from their mind or body.

The afflicted may become violent or quick to anger when that is out of character for them.

The afflicted may exhibit precognition or postcognition

The afflicted may be restless, forgetful, or experience depression and a lack of focus.

The afflicted may exhibit super strength.

The afflicted may pick up habits and behaviors that they otherwise wouldn't engage in, such as drinking, smoking, or gambling.

The afflicted's voice may change.

The afflicted may dramatically alter their wardrobe, hairstyle, or make up.

The afflicted may hear voices.

The afflicted's sleep pattern may change dramatically.

Malik felt a lump form in his throat. There were dozens upon dozens of listed symptoms, and while admittedly the ones he recognized were few, every single weird change he'd noticed in Ryou was listed here. And who knew how many other symptoms Ryou had that Malik hadn't noticed, or couldn't notice? He would have no way to know if Ryou was hearing voices or having a hard time focusing and sleeping unless he asked.

Aside from the disturbing amount of symptoms Ryou did exhibit, there were also a number of symptoms that concerned Malik even more.

The afflicted may begin participating in forms of self-mutilation.

Was Ryou hurting himself because of this demon? The thought in and of itself was more than enough to make Malik nauseous; it had him trembling, hyperventilating, and curling into himself as intrusive thoughts swirled in his mind. Images of Ryou hurting himself played like a movie behind his eyelids, and he was bound to the spot with his eyes forced open, unable to look away.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed like that. The next thing he knew, he heard Bakura's voice, sounding distant and muffled, as if spoken through a pipe. He looked up and came face to face with his ghost. Bakura was yelling, black eyes wide and hands raised to instinctively comfort, though they came nowhere near Malik. He seemed to move in slow motion, and Malik didn't seem to register what he was seeing for several moments.

"Malik, holy shit, answer me!" Bakura's voice was slowly becoming clearer. "Do I need to get one of your siblings?"

Malik blinked once, twice. The third time he squeezed his eyes shut tight before opening them again, finally realizing that what he was seeing was real. His hands were tangled in his hair and he slowly lowered them; his scalp was sore and broken strands of hair were wrapped around his fingers. He began picking off the hair and brushing it onto the floor. It seemed important to do this.

"Malik, hey."

His attention was brought back to Bakura, eyes widening when they landed on the ghost.

"Are you okay?" Bakura asked. His eyes were still wide and concerned, and his translucent face seemed paler somehow. "What happened?"

"I…think I just had a panic attack," Malik said slowly, familiarizing himself with the act of speaking. He felt tired and weak. "And no, I'm not okay."

"Should I get one of your siblings?" Bakura asked, moving towards the door. "Do they need to call the hospital or-?"

"No." Malik shook his head and motioned for Bakura to come closer. Bakura hesitated a moment before moving back over to the bed. He looked expectantly at Malik, obviously wanting an explanation. Malik sighed; all he wanted to do now was sleep and forget the reason why he'd had an attack in the first place.

"Physically I'm fine," he said, leaning against the large pile of pillows at the head of his bed. "Or at least I will be after a nap."

Bakura nodded. He sat cross legged on the other side of the bed. "So why did you say you're not okay?"

Malik made a dramatic sighing noise. "Long story short, my bed friend is possessed and I can't help him."

Bakura's brows furrowed. "Ryou?"

"That's why he's been acting so weird," Malik affirmed with a stiff not. "Remember, I said it was like he's a different person? Apparently it's because of this…demon thing inside of him. That's one of the symptoms. It's rearranging his entire personality."

Bakura ran a hand through his hair, the silver strands shimmering as they settled back into place. "Shit… So what are you going to do? Call a priest; get a good old fashion exorcism going?"

Malik shook his head, considering his words for a moment. He started biting his nails as he spoke. "No… No, Rishid and Amir are planning something, and I trust them, but I really want to help. But I don't know anything about white magic or exorcisms or anything like that. I've always been too busy with my ghosts and school and work to learn." He looked at the article still open on his laptop and closed it quickly, shoving his laptop away. "Even if I could help I can't because I need to focus on you."

Bakura shrugged, his lips pursed in a cute, comical way. "I wouldn't care if you ignore me for Ryou. Just saying. He's your best friend. I'm just the most annoying ghost currently inhabiting the mortal plain."

Malik huffed, hating it when people threw his own words back at him. He shook his head. "I would never forgive myself if I intentionally failed you." He tapped his fingers on his leg, still tired but needing a distraction. "Come on, let's play truth poker. We haven't played in a while."

Bakura cocked his eyebrow, his grin betraying the otherwise cool expression. "You sure about that? Last time you played you signed yourself up for not-quite-sex with a ghost."

Malik laughed and shrugged. "Well, not-quite-sex with a ghost didn't really turn out too badly for me, so I'm not seeing any downsides."

Bakura grinned and was speeding across the room in a split second, retrieving their deck from the bedside table drawer. Malik watched him with a small smile. "Besides," he added as Bakura returned to the bed. He grabbed the cards and began shuffling. "It'll be good for me to focus on something else for a while. Stressing myself out over Ryou won't do any good, since I know I can't actually do anything to help, and giving myself panic attacks isn't going to help anyone."

He dealt the first two cards, and Bakura immediately flipped them over to reveal a 10 and an ace.

"Are you kidding me?" Malik asked incredulously, looking at his own cards. A 2 and a 4.

Bakura just grinned cheekily and dropped his winning cards to the side. "Luck must be on my side tonight."

"Yeah, yeah," Malik said with a roll of his eyes. He was prepared for an inappropriate question, something that would instantly shift this from a game about answering questions to one about revealing sexual secrets. He was half hoping for one too, but Bakura, as he'd learned, was full of surprises.

"What was your life like before you became a medium?"

Malik considered the question thoughtfully, his hands fiddling with the losing cards he'd yet to discard. "Uh…I guess it wasn't too bad. My brother and I were just normal kids, or as normal as we could be with our destinies looming above our heads and our father and sister always talking to ghosts we couldn't see yet. Father was strict and if he wasn't so worried about keeping a good reputation with the public he probably would have homeschooled us in Ghosts 101. But I was allowed to go outside and have friends and play games, and I had Rishid and Amir to keep me sane, so I guess I was happy."

Bakura nodded slowly, taking the deck and cutting it in half, just for something to do with his hands as opposed to the deck needing to be reshuffled. "Are you not happy anymore?"

Malik looked away at the question, really thinking hard about it. "It comes and goes. There's a part of me that's always going to hate having to heel like a dog every time I get a summons, and there will always be shitty ghosts to deal with –current company included," he added with a small smile. Bakura rolled his eyes. "But there's also a part of me that likes the challenge, and likes helping the people no one else can help. It's rewarding, in a weird, morbid way. But if it weren't for my siblings and their support I'd hate it a lot more than I do now. They make it more tolerable."

Bakura nodded again and dealt their hands. This time Malik won. He'd had a few questions about Bakura's life that were relevant to his requirements for passage that he'd planned on asking now, but at the last second he changed his mind. "What were your parents like?"

Malik felt the drop in temperature in the room drop immediately. For a second he thought he'd fucked up and had asked something too personal, but when he looked at Bakura's face, his expression told a different story. He wasn't looking at Malik, and his eyes had a far off look to them; his lips were curled up in a very small, sad smile. The look made Malik want to cup Bakura's cheeks and kiss his forehead, but he pushed the thought away.

"Dad stayed home to take care of me and my brothers," Bakura answered after a moment. "He was so smart, and he had like a hundred college degrees in a hundred different subjects. He could have probably done anything he wanted as a career, but he got into an accident soon after my brothers were born and it fucked up his legs. He could still walk, but he had to use a cane to support himself, or a wheelchair on bad days, so no one would hire him."

Bakura looked down at his hands and sighed. "So he stayed home. He would tutor me and my brothers after school most days, but sometimes he'd take us fishing or to the movies or arcade. He taught me how to cook –which I had no talent for, by the way."

"Somehow I'm not surprised."

They both chuckled, Bakura's dying out sooner as he continued his story. "But Dad would always happily eat whatever horrifying mess I'd managed to make. And he was always so happy, so optimistic about everything… Sometimes it felt like nothing could make him angry or sad, even when the bad days turned into bad weeks, or our power was shut off because we couldn't pay the bills, or hell, there was this one time I was at a party, and I was drunk out of my mind…couldn't have been older than 16. Something got me freaked out and I called my dad and asked him to come pick me up at like, 3am, and he did, no questions asked. Never punished me, just said he was glad I trusted him enough to call him when I needed him. Took me out to some waffle house to get me sobered up and sneaked me back into the house. I don't think he ever told Mom about it."

His expression turned even sadder, his eyes looking even farther away. "My Mom… Fuck, she was like a super hero. She was working three jobs, trying to provide for all of us, and stubborn as a fucking mule. Refused to let me work until I'd graduated, even though there were no rules at my school about students having a job or anything."

"I'm guessing you took after her in that regard," Malik cut in. He was rewarded with a short, sharp laugh and a nod. Then his eyes grew distant and glassy, and Malik wondered if Bakura would be crying if he could produce tears.

"Yeah, stubbornness and looks. Dad was Japanese, but mom was Egyptian. She's where I got the white hair and sexy tan. But yeah, she was fucking Superwoman. Even though she came home bone tired every single night she always found enough energy to push Rami and Jun on their favorite tire swing, and always helped me with whatever teenage angst I was going through at the time. She always put the family first, even when she got punished at work. She never missed a single one of my baseball games, and she ended up getting fired from her job for taking off too much time. She just gave corporate the middle finger and never looked back, and she immediately found a better paying job with more flexible hours, so when baseball season rolled back around she even had enough time to help me with my pitch. I was a great batter, but had trouble with the gloves until Mom showed me how to wear it correctly."

The room grew silent, Bakura's voice halting so suddenly Malik almost didn't realize he was done speaking. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it, not knowing what to say. He'd lost his parents, but he'd never known his mother, and he'd never been close with his father, so he couldn't truly relate. He opened his mouth to try again, but Bakura's sigh cut off anything he might have said.

"I miss them a lot."

Malik frowned, the utter sorrow in Bakura's voice making his heart ache. In that moment he forgot all about his duty, and passing on, and rules, and just wished he could pull Bakura to his chest and pet his hair and whisper something that would make him feel better. Never mind the fact that he was making progress with Bakura; he just wanted to comfort his ghost in any way he could.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up," he said softly, scooting closer, knowing he couldn't truly comfort Bakura since physical contact was against the rules and anything he thought to say was clichéd.

Bakura shook his head, finally looking back up at Malik. Malik's breath caught in his throat at the warm, sad smile Bakura wore. "No, it's fine. It actually feels pretty nice to talk about them. I haven't done that since…fuck, since they died."

Malik nodded, still wishing he could soothe that gloomy look away. "I know there's nothing I can say or do to make you feel better, but I am sorry for what happened to them."

Bakura's smile grew slightly, but Malik could tell it was forced. "I know. Thanks for trying anyway. You listening helps."

Malik offered him a genuine smile, hoping it would rub off on Bakura and he'd smile genuinely at Malik in return. He grabbed the deck, raising his brow to ask if Bakura wanted to continue. Bakura nodded, so Malik dealt another hand. This time it took a couple hits, but in the end, Malik was victorious.

A part of him knew he should be asking questions about Bakura's love life, about his friends and family and other things that might help him get Bakura to pass on, but then he thought back to their very first game; specifically, how Bakura had lightened the mood with a dirty question.

Malik smirked and put his chin in his hand. "So what's your masturbation routine like?"

In an instant Bakura's mood improved; he threw his head back with a hearty laugh, and he got that kind of shimmer on his translucent face that reminded Malik of a blush. "Far more entertaining than yours, obviously," he said once he'd calmed down. He winked and licked his lips. "And I sure as hell didn't just beat it in the shower to get it over with. Masturbation was like an art to me."

Malik shook his head, rolling his eyes. "Oh, please."

"No, really. I practically made love to myself. Spend at least a solid half hour jus touching myself, get myself good and aroused…" Leaning back, Bakura demonstrated by running his fingers over his chest; they curled around the zipper of his hoodie and slowly pulled it down. He shrugged out of the hoodie and brought his hand to his stomach, lifting the hem of his undershirt ever so slightly so Malik could catch a peek of his stomach. Malik swallowed and tried not to look rapt with Bakura's movements.

"If I didn't have time for foreplay, I didn't masturbate. And then came the toys." His hand strayed between his legs, ghosting his fingers down one thigh, up to his groin, down the other thigh. Malik forced himself to look up at Bakura's face.

"I didn't have as impressive collection like you do –what a fucking waste, by the way- but I used everything I did have to their fullest potential. I had a masturbator like yours, a vibrating dildo, a little bullet vibe, and a pair of nipple clamps. Sometimes I'd use all four in one session."

Malik felt warm at the thought of Bakura using the mentioned sex toys, a deliciously intrusive image of Bakura throwing his head back in pleasure as he fucked himself with the dildo, chest rising and falling with labored breaths. He shifted slightly, trying to discreetly adjust his position to hide the tenting in his sweat pants.

Bakura caught it and grinned knowingly. "Oops, did I turn you on?"

Malik scoffed even as his face turned red. "No."

"Are you sure?" Bakura licked his lips, dipping his hand between his legs and squeezing the subtle bulge in his own sweatpants. Malik bit his lip. "I think you are turned on, Malik. Too bad your siblings are home. If they were gone I'd take care of that little problem for you."

Malik had never wished he was an only child before that point.

"…Then again," Bakura continued, his voice dropping to a hum. "I like the way you're looking at me. Maybe I'll just give you a show instead." He dropped the cards still in his non-occupied hand and removed his shirt, then began undoing the strings on his sweat pants. Malik's eyes widened, his own cards clutched tight in his hand. He didn't dare look away as Bakura stood and began sliding his pants down, down, revealing his hips and Adonis belt and a cute trimmed patch of white-

His door swung open.

"Hey, Malik, have you seen my…" Amir stopped in the doorway, his sentence trailing off as he took in the sight of Malik's half naked ghost and the shocked, guilty expressions on both their faces. "Uh… The fuck are you doing?"

Malik quickly held up his cards as an explanation. "Strip poker! Just playing strip poker," he blurted out, not knowing what else to say, not sure what he could say to make something like this okay.

Amir just looked even more confused, and now a little skeptical. "Why are you… Actually, never mind, I don't want to know why you're playing strip poker with your ghost. Have you seen my phone anywhere?"

Malik shook his head quickly. Amir huffed and frowned. "Well, if you do see it anywhere, let me know. I keep misplacing it." Without waiting for a response he left, practically slamming the door shut.

Malik winced and looked back at Bakura, who hadn't bothered to move from the position he'd been in when Amir had walked in. He turned back to Malik and gave his waist band a tug, silently asking if he should continue. He was grinning wide, not seeming to care at all that Malik's brother had nearly caught them breaking the rules.

Malik shook his head, face red. When Bakura's face fell, Malik sighed. "Later."

Bakura's grin returned, and after he pulled his pants back up, he helped Malik collect their cards.