Disclaimer: I don't own. Period.

Authoress Note: FINALLY I UPDATED! YAY!

Ryou woke with a groan. His wrist were pulsing and he head hurt like hell. He sat up in bed and looked around him. His sheets were stained red and the towel lay on the floor in a puddle of drying blood. He sighed. His mom would be coming home from her most recent business trip and she cerytainly wouldn't like to see this. With another groan he stood and held onto the bedpost as the room began to spin. Everything gained a silver lining for a moment and his stomach did a somersault. Falling to his knees his legs grew cold as the blood that had soaked into the carpet came into his jeans. His stomach did another flip and his spilled his guts onto the floor. He hadn't eaten anything since his mom had been gone, seeing as neither he nor Bakura could cook worth anything, so all that came rom his mouth was bile. He choked and rushed to the bathroom. He hung on the sink for a moment, splashing his face and trying to rinse the nasty taste of acid from his mouth. His breath came to his ragged and the room began to spin again. He just about fell over when a pair of strong arms held him up.

"Hey, Ryou? You alright?" Bakura's voice broke through the surreal world that the boy had fallen into.

"I-I I really . . . don't know." Even his own voice seemed out of place. He heard Bakura sigh and soon he was lifted into his yami's arms and carried back into the bedroom.

"You really shouldn't be doing this Ryou. You're a wreck because of it. I hate seeing you be a part of my addictions." Ryou rested his head on his dark's shoulder. Had Bakura just had a tone of guilt in his voice? No, that couldn't be possible. Why would Bakura feel guilty?

There was the rustling of sheets as Bakura set his hikari on the bed and pulled the spread off the mattress. He balled up the blankets as well as the towel and threw them into a corner.

"I'll go get something to clean this up." he said, turning his back to Ryou. "And I'll throw the bloody stuff in the washer while I'm at it. Wait a bit until you feel better, then you can go get some new sheets. But whatever you do, don't go to sleep, not at this point." He stepped out the door and just before he closed it, he muttered. "There's a good chance that you wouldn't wake up."

Ryou sat there, looking about the room as if he couldn't quite place where or who he was. It was strange , the whole world seemed to have changed over the course of one night. Why had his dark seemed so sad? It's not like he had done anything out of the ordinary. This sort of thing always seemed to happened when his mom was away. She'd been working really long hours since dad had died. She was barely at home at all. And when she was, she was either on her laptop or the phone, talking to someone. There was only one person Ryou had was Bakura; who, to most people, wasn't a real good influence.

Bakura was one of those people that just had an arua about him that sent shivers down your spine. He was sarcastic and selfish and popping up in the most inappropriate places. All he ever seemed to do was cause trouble. Cause trouble and spill blood. Those were Bakura's favorite things to do. Which was not exactly what he'd think of as fun. His dark seemed to love doing anything to put himself into trouble and then it thrilled him even more to try and come up with a way to get himself out.

From downstairs, Ryou heard the washing machine start. Sure the thing was a piece of junk and loud as can be, but he never normally could hear it from his room, esspecially with the door closed. It was deathly silent in the house. It was unusual. Unusual and unnerving. The silence seemed to seep from the cracks in the wall and fill the room like water. Soon he was swimming, drowning, in it. He looked around frantically in search of something as a source of sound. He ran into the bathroom; or more like stumbled, and turned on the water.

He was surprised at the crushing grip he had on the faucet, and at the heaving of his chest, his labored breathing.There was no sound whatsoever. Everything was quiet save his pounding heart. That was what was wrong. His heart, it was beating, pounding as if he'd been running. But there was no other sound. He couldn't hear the washing machine in the basement. It was like he was all alone. He couldn't even hear his own breathing. He looked around him frantically and realized that that too sent the world spinning. He stumbled for the door, falling to his knees on the carpet as his shoulder caught the frame. A black ring began to constrict his vision. What was happening? It hit him.

He was dying. He began to panic, forcing himself to his feet only to hit the ground again. No, he refused to die this way. He called for Bakura. He screamed and cried but he couldn't find his voice. His throat was tight with fear as tears welled up in his eyes. He screamed for his yami but once agian, his voice was lost. Rivers streamed down his face as he crawled toward the door. His world had gone almost completely black now. His breath came to him in short, shuddering gasps. His heart raced, pumping blood into his muscles in a futile attempt to move. His lungs screamed for air that could not be supplied.

Finally after struggling for what seemed like forever, he laid himself on his stomach, arms at his sides, tears soaking into the carpet. His chest heaved in shallow breaths. Breaths that was getting shallower and shallower with every second. Bakura He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to relax. If he was going to die, there was no way he could fight it. He stared with half-lidded eyes at the fading world. And just as the world disappeared into black, the door opened.

Bakura stood in the doorway, unable to move from shock. Before him lay Ryou's paling form. His chest was just barely moving and his eyes were starting to roll back. That moment seemed to freeze. Bakura stood for eternity staring in disbelief at his hikari at his feet. Finally, he found his voice.

"RYOU!" he threw the clean sheets he'd carried to the floor and dropped to his knees, pulling the boy's form into his lap. "Ryou? Ryou?! Ryou, don't close your eyes. Please! Don't close you eyes!" He rested Ryou's head in the crook of his arm. He patted the boy's face. His skin was cold and almost paper white. He was almost gone. He nearly jumped out of his skin in delight as Ryou turned to meet his eyes. He tried to speak but his voice was gone. Bakura knew what he had said. "It's ok Ryou, it's going to be ok. I'm here now. I'll help you. Just don't die on me."

Another Authoress Note: HAHA! Cliffy!