Wow! I never realized that a cliffhanger could induce so many reviews... And, good news, not too many people were mad at me for splitting up Ryou and Bakura. Woo! I never really meant for the cliffy to happen though...it just came about on it's on. Eh, oh well.
EEE! I was listening to this Phantom of the Opera song, All I Ask of You, but with a different Raoul. OMG. Cliff Richards ROCKS. He's so much better than Steve Barton or Patrick Wilson. Steve Barton has a really low and rich voice and since I'm mor eused to Patrick Wilson, I just couldn't get into it. Patrick Wilson, though, sounded MUCH too young... Cliff Richards was just...perfect. I'm not a big Raoul fan but... I LOVE his voice!
The other day, I was thinking about Harry Potter... Dunno why, dunno why I'm bring this up either but JK Rowling is goign down... It's really sad. To quote my friend, she's taking Harry Potter apart like she does with everything else in her life, like her marriage. It's so sad! And she's letting them ruin the movies too. Like, they straightened Hermione's hair WAY too early so that there wasn't that big a contrast in th eYule Ball. And they made her wear PINK! Pink! Pink is not a Hermione color. Blue just suits her. fumes
Anyone else think that "R.A.B." is Regulas Black? Sirius' younger brother that joined the Death Eaters. No one knows where eh is anymore adn Sirius said that he assumed he was dead. Assumed. And they mentioned him more than once in the Fifth Book, each time only in passing... Hmmm...
Anyway, enough of my ranting...
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Bakura
Reality gripped my mind as I realized what an idiot I truly was.
I left Ryou with a pile of broken glass. Ryou who was depressed. Ryou who had shown every sign of being suicidal. With a broken angel.
With a broken heart.
Scowling, I ran back up the cement stairs of Ryou's apartment building two at a time.
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Ryou
The glass shard worked nicely.
A handsome, gaping wound now stood on the skin on my arm, making a nice contrast with my pale skin. Small beads of red appeared slowly, small flower buds. The flowers blossomed and whispered their way down, aiming toward the white bathroom tiles. They tasted sweet, I decided. Sweet to my tongue.
The second cut would be on my face, I decided. I hated my face. The way I looked. I hated how people would stare at my hair and pale skin and wonder what sort of idiot I was. The blood that ran down my cheeks felt like tears and made me smile. No joy in my smile, though.
I looked in the mirror with all that blood-tears streaming down my face and smiled again. Once, I had broken the mirror because of my shameful face.
This time, I broke my face.
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Bakura
Ryou was not where I had left him. He was in front of the only mirror in the house. I knew this without really knowing.
Once at the bathroom, I broke through my rush of adrenaline and tried the door. Locked.
I, of course, picked the lock in two seconds flat.
Ryou seemed to not only want to off himself but to destroy his body as well. Horror froze my blood when I saw the bloody gashes on his face and forearm. Ryou's hand gripped a shard of glass with white-knuckle fingers and held it to his palm. I cringed when the shard disappeared halfway into his soft flesh and as he began to pull it toward his wrist.
"Ryou…" I saw only desperation in Ryou's eyes as he turned to face me, distracted enough to stop the moving glass triangle momentarily. "Stop that."
He didn't.
"Ryou! Stop!" I took a step toward him when a trickle of crimson made beads of red whisper dripping secrets in their sly voices as they splattered on the white bathroom tiles. They had company-small, lonely beads that already fell. Ryou stepped away from me, defying me for the first time in months. I took another step forward and Ryou another back. This pattern repeated itself a few more times before Ryou tripped on the porcelain bathtub.
Shock clouded his already frighteningly wide brown eyes as Ryou fell forward, toward me. I let him fall into my arms with a staggering step back and grabbed Ryou's glass shard from his hands, taking advantage of his surprise.
Ryou gave a cry and tried to grab it back, failing at this task when I flung it out the door. Whimpering, Ryou made a reach toward it and I turned him around in my arms, sinking to the floor and leaning against the plaster white wall.
"Shh…" I whispered in my hikari's ear, attempting to calm his broken glass sobs. He tore at the gash on his arm, making me grab his wrists and force them behind his back where he could not possibly hurt himself any further. I shhhed again and kissed his cheek, wetting my lips with his cold tears.
"Shhh…" I said again, holding his wrists in a tight grip with one hand and hugging him to my chest with the other. Ryou only struggled toward the door, where I had thrown the glass triangle, attempting to tear out of my grasp. "Shh…" I had nothing else to say.
I held him tighter and continued my attempts of calming my hikari down and, eventually, he settled in my arms, crying broken sobs. I said nothing until his sobs became only whispers of the shatterings they had been.
"Are you going to be okay?" I expected no and was not disappointed.
"I made a…mistaked, didn't I?" Damn…Ryou sounded so…fragile.
"No…you're alrigth." I kissed his cheek. "You're fine. Just a little sad."
"I made a horrible mistake…" Ryou didn't seem to notice my voice or my kiss. "I need to be punished…punished badly."
"What do you mean?" What? What the hell was Ryou talking about?
"Mistakes mean punishment." He sounded tired, out of breath.
"Ryou…do you hurt yourself?" My breath was ragged against Ryou's neck. "Do you…"punish" yourself?" Ryou didn't answer. "Do you?" I demanded with too much intensity.
"Sometimes." Ryou whimpered. Damn…
"What do you do?" I lowered the tone of my voice a bit.
"I deserve it." Ryou whispered.
"What do you do?" I said, slower, emphasizing each word, as if Ryou were a slow child.
"I…burn myself." Ryou mumbled. "On the inside of my thighs…because I don't like that part of my body."
"Why?" My voice was tense again, breathless. "Ryou…why that part of your body?" I held him tighter when he didn't answer.
"It makes me feel ashamed." Was the answer. I felt a wave of horror as I imagined that smooth, flawless skin decorated with scabbing burns.
"Will you show your burns to me?" I whispered. There was a long silence before Ryou said anything.
"No." I blinked at the direct refusal.
"Alright." There was nothing else for me to say but that. What could I do? Forcing him would only make things worse, especially when he was so shaken up.
"Broken angels don't sing." Ryou whispered after a long pause. I, confused, fept silent. "They can't even cry."
"Are you thinking of that glass figurine?" I murmured against the back of his neck. There never was an answer. Ryou's eyes had closed and his shaking breath had been calmed into a steady, gentle beat. Too much shock had made him pass out.
As I stood and carried Ryou's sleeping body to his bed, I became dimly aware that the sea of broken angel were not anywhere to be seen.
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Ryou
Everything was so blurry when I woke up. Everything was weal and yellow and I could barely lift my numb limbs.
I needed Bakura.
Nothing mattered except to know that eh was here with me. If he was here, I could live. Without him, I could not. That was all there was to it.
My life depended on his presence.
I relaxed when I felt a hand comb through my hair. Bakura's hand. I could tell through his touch.
"You haven't eaten in days. Combine that with blood loss." Bakura's voice paused. "And I think you might have a fever."
I was sick then. As a child, Mother would take care of me in sickness. Would Bakura take care of me? He was mad at me, though. Because I had been bad, I remembered. I needed to punish myself or he might go away again.
But it was oh so hard to move. And when I did sit up, everything spun in a merry-go-round of colors and sickness.
"I told you that you're not well." Bakura's voice told me. "Don't try to get up."
Upset? Was he upset? He sounded upset. At me? Please, God., don't let him be... I prayed.
And my angel. Bakura's angel which he gave me…it was safe. It was broken but safe. It's shattered pieces were not thrown away… They were safe in Amane's box.
"Are you hungry?" Bakura spoke again.
Was I hungry? I hadn't bothered to think about food for so long. Hunger was not important. I shook my head.
"You sure?" Again, I shook my head though this time harder. A echoing pain drifted in my temples. "You should still eat something though." I knew that. But food sent tremors of sickness in my stomach and if I threw up, Bakura might get mad. "Alright." Bakura's voice said. "Suit yourself." He made me lie down again, my head making a dent in the soft pillow.
My punishment. I had almost forgotten. But I couldn't do anything with Bakura seeing it I could not bear to let him leave.
"Ryou?" He wanted to see my burns? Why was he asking? I didn't want to show them to him but he had asked like he cared about me.
I nodded.
I tried not to think about that night Bakura took my virginity as he slid my jeans off. The night had not been particularly enjoyable though Bakura seemed to have liked doing it. It had made Bakura happy enough to give me a present and kiss me soft so it was alright, I guess.
Nevertheless, I was glad that Bakura didn't take my boxers off. He pushed the fabric out of the way and didn't seem happy when he saw my self-inflicted punishment.
"Ryou…I think I'm going to have to put some cream on these, okay? It'll make them heal faster." He said. He left my side for a brief moment to get cream from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I watched him from my bed.
I couldn't help but let out a cry when his hand touch my inner thigh though. Too many memories of that night attacked me.
"Shh…" Bakura whispered. "I'm just rubbing some ointment on it, okay?" I nodded my head up and down though it was not okay.
I held still though. I was good even though warm tears leaked from my eyes the entire time. Nothing would matter if Bakura was pleased with me afterward.
My yami's warm fingers were gentle and warm when they raveled strips of bandage around my thighs. After he was done, Bakura pulled the covers around me and tucked me in, like Mother used to do. I smiled.
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Bakura
Ryou was sick.
Not just physically but me was mentally lost. His eyes were evidence. No sane person could have eyes that looked like my hikari's. No one.
He was desperate for someone to take care of him and I seemed to be the only option. His nurturing mother was gone but I, twisted spirit, seemed a worthy substitute.
Interesting how twisted the world had became.
He was pretty though, With his long eyelashes touching his delicate cheekbones. He was pretty with the horror in his eyes. His fear and wavering innocence that attracted me to him.
But I knew I could have lost all that if he had just slashed a little lower yesterday.
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Ryou
My forearm and face throbbed horribly with yesterday's pain. It was bruise-like with black and blue carnations except the actual thing looked more like a pretty, smooth rose petal.
Rose petals tasted like cotton candy, though. You could taste it if you tried very hard with your tongue not your teeth. My cuts were not sweet-smelling flowers like I liked to pretend. They were horrible gashes that bled through Bakura's white bandages.
I liked them though.
I liked the on my palm the most, the one that threatened my life the most. That was the one which made Bakura hold me and kiss me again.
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Woo! Bakura ot the rescue! Ryou is saved!
I'm so sad! Next chapter will be the very last! gasp The only fanfic I've ever really finished... huggles I don't want to end this thing yet! Next chapter will be quite a fluffy one though. I don't think it's TOO cheesy but... Heh. Whatever. I don't even care if it's cheesy anymore... As long as it works.
I didn't really like the ending of this chapter... I feel like there something missing in it but I can't think of a better way to end it. sigh This will have to do...
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