A/N: This is it, the last chapter. I do hope you readers like it! Thank you for staying with me all this time! I added another dialogue scene to help the pacing, so this is actually a reupload. Bakura needed more convincing to get to the final scene. I hope it's not too adrupt.

Chapter 30: Release

...

His lips quivered.

Bakura bit his knuckles as his eyes burned. The way the Pharaoh was looking at him, the cock eyed glint, the, the.

"Are you alright?" a pointed question, one Bakura had been fending off for months, from Marik, from Ryou, from Yami, even from himself.

Bakura scraped his teeth across his knuckles, as his chest constricted. He found himself unable to take a deep breath.

A soft voice, "Stop that. You'll make it worse." Kind tones wrapped around short words. A command: which Bakura found himself unconsciously following.

It was sudden. Without the pain to focus on, everything came crumbling down.

Like paint, his eyes spilled over, and before he knew it, Bakura was full on crying. Yami stood up, and embraced Bakura. Awkwardly at first, arms akimbo, then fingers lacing entwining into Bakura's, Yami led the still sobbing Bakura over to old tattered couch in the far corner, and allowed Bakura to just cry. Yami made those stereotypical soothing sounds, and Bakura found they did, in fact, help.

To feel. For the first time, all the emotions of the past year came welling up in short, ragged gasps and the tears flowed. Unbridled pain. Anguish. And Yami held him all the same. Bakura cried until the tears stopped and his breaths evened out.

When the tears ended, Bakura jumped back, scrubbing his eyes furiously.

"Sorry," a low mutter.

"You needed that. That is why your arms look like that," Yami gestured towards Bakura's covered arms. A stiff nod was his response. Better than nothing.

"Well," Yami started, only to be interrupted by Solomon.

"I had an inkling it was you, Bakura," Solomon said. Bakura jerked his head upward, heart racing. What had, what could have Yami said about him?

"I didn't tell him," immediate denial from Yami.

"You don't get to my age without some common sense, boys," Solomon said. He sat upon one of the empty seats, facing himself squarely in Bakura's sight.

"I came across research Yami had been doing about you, and put some clues together." Solomon reached out to brush Bakura's hand. "I had never heard about self mutilation, but I could connect the dots."

His face grew serious, and something in Bakura calmed for the first time in months. His secret was exposed, and the world had not ended along with the discovery.

...

Bakura was invited up to the living room of the Mouto house, but Bakura preferred the quiet of the game shop backroom. The familiarity of the room calmed his jangled nerves. Yami said something about sending the rest of the group home. Bakura heard the distant voices of Joey, Tristan, and Tea parting, but he was too consumed by the impending reveal to Ryou, Solomon had insisted upon. It turned out the old man wasn't just a pretty face.

Once he realized the situation in regards to both Bakuras, he insisted upon therapy. Rather, a return to therapy for Ryou, and Bakura was bound for the same. This proclamation did not fill Bakura with as much dread as he thought. Frankly, it was nice to not have to hide his habit. It was soothing to know his self mutilation was not constantly in secret.

The call of dread, rather, the call to Kaiba was taken care of by an involved Solomon. "This is not something you boys should be worrying about, a resolute tone. Solomon calmly spoke down the line to Kaiba or to one of Kaiba's subordinates about the possibility for therapy referrals in a way Bakura had never thought of. It seemed everything fell into place with the swiftness of open communication.

"Yes, and I am speaking to Dr. Satou regarding Bakura Mouto," A pause. Bakura's ears pricked at the name of the solemn doctor with scars similar to his own.

"He made a request for a therapist, excellent. We'll be in touch then." The doctor had already put the referral in for him; Bakura felt like he was wrapped in a warm blanket. All these difficulties seemed to ease as he realized Dr. Satou had been after his best interest after all.

"Well," Solomon said to Bakura after hanging up the phone, "I do believe, medically, everything is secure. Now, how about we give Ryou a call?".

...

"Bakura!" Ryou entered the room, mindlessly discarding his jacket as he crossed the length of the game store. "I was so worried about you."

Bakura felt that thing curl up in his chest again. Ryou had worried about him? He shrugged, not trusting his voice.

Solomon spoke to the silence of the motley group, "Ryou, I think Bakura needs to talk to you. Also, I think you need to be honest about your current relapse."

Ryou blushed and Bakura crossed his arms. Both boys did not want to bare the secrets closest to their souls.

Yami said, "I think Grandpa is right."

Ryou exhaled, and like a dam, admitted he was, in fact, in a relapse, and he needed the help of his therapist. "I'm sorry for putting it on you Bakura; it's not fair to you."

Yami placed a hand on Bakura's shoulder, a silent giving of strength.

Bakura uncrossed his arms. "Um. It's kind of hard..." He glowered at his inability to express the secret that had taken over his life. The secret that seemed so normal to him, but to Ryou... How would Ryou react? Finally, with a growl, he shoved the sleeve of his co-dominant arm up to his elbow, and muttered an apology.

Bakura could see the damage done. The silver-white of healed cuts interspersed with flaming red, newly healed scars, the layers of cuts, undulating and worn, a scarred patchwork of despair, the bright red of newer cuts, still brimming with blood: all of it was etched into his skin, a reveal-all in macabre litany.

Ryou said nothing. A long moment of awkward silence passed.

Then, a tear leaked out of glassy eyes. "Oh, Bakura," Ryou moaned.

"Bakura..." Ryou held the scarred arm within his hands. A full minute passed where Ryou simply held the injured arm as if it was the weight of the world. He blinked, and raw determination set upon his features. "We'll get you help."

Bakura just shrugged, all his emotions purged out earlier. He knew the inevitable therapy awaited him.

Ryou stared directly into Bakura's eyes. "You deserve help, Bakura."

...

After Ryou had excused himself to freshen up and Solomon to make niceties with the Kaiba brothers, Yami and Bakura found themselves alone in the game shop once more. Bakura sat upon the couch, whilst Yami sat to the side in one of the reclining chairs by the table that was normally scattered with duel monsters information. This silence was the type shared between two people whom did not necessarily need to speak to one another, a trusting peace.

"Sometimes, I would cut myself, like off a rock of a tomb or on a dagger." Bakura said into the quiet work space, turned reveal.

"You mean back then, as a theif king?" Yami asked. Bakura nodded

"It added to the high of stealing. In that moment, I had everything, even dominion over myself."

"And without it, I have nothing." Bakura muttered, closing into himself. "Stealing was all I ever knew."

"Well, we're going to change that," Yami said. He grabbed Bakura by the hand and pulled him into the daylight, into the living room, where only Yugi and Marik remained. The two were in conversation about a video game that just released. Yami continued to pull Bakura through the game shop, across the block, to the play park.

Bakura and Yami stood by the whistling November trees of the small play park. The little boy and his mother were at the swings again. Bakura smirked, a sort of smile, but laced with years of melancholia.

Yami sidled up between the thick branches of a tree. "What was your childhood like, Bakura?"

Bakura shook his head. "It's not important."

"Bakura," Yami prompted.

A sigh. "It wasn't good; you know that."

"I'm sorry."

Bakura pressed his lips together, as if trying to prevent more honest truisms from escaping. His dominant hand found it's way to his wrist.

Yami caught his Bakura's hand in his own. "Talk, please."

Eyes glared at the former Pharaoh. Through clenched teeth, Bakura said, "I know it wasn't your fault, okay! It's just easier…"

"Easier than what?"

A shrug was Yami's answer. Then, "Anger is easy, rage, even easier. If I hated you, then, well I wouldn't be here."

A shiver worked down Yami's spine. Surely Bakura wasn't referencing suicide. "You don't mean—"

"No," said firmly. "Here. Crying like a fucking idiot—"

Yami whirled around to face Bakura, grasping both of his wrists in his hands unconsciously as he tried to make his point sink in Bakura's psyche. "That is a good thing, Bakura!"

Bakura hissed at the contact to one of many stinging cuts, and Yami immediately let go. "Bakura, crying is healthy; cutting or starving yourself like Ryou, so you don't feel anything, isn't."

"I guess," Bakura muttered the verbal equivalent to a shrug. All ambivalence.

"No, I promise it is." Yami gazed out to where the little boy was swinging. "You know," Yami ventured. "That kid is rather found of you."

"I don't know why," Bakura said, relieved at the change of topics.

"Maybe you remind him of someone," Yami said, smiling.

Bakura quirked an eyebrow. The kid was all of four or five, at best. Bakura doubted he had enough attention span or life experience to experience nostalgia.

"He reminds me of a mini you," Yami continued.

Bakura scoffed.

"An innocent you, perhaps," Yami amended.

Bakura laughed aloud. He agreed. "Very innocent, maybe."

Yami lightly jabbed Bakura in the ribs. "You should swing with him."

"Like hell."

Teasing, Yami said, "But you'd make his entire day."

"I assume you're joking."

The smile on Yami's face widened. "I'll join you."

Bakura smirked back. The thought of the once high and mighty Pharaoh playing on park equipment like a child was awfully difficult to pass up. He deliberated for a few moments, before saying simply, "Sure."

The look of surprise on Yami's face was almost as delicious as the thought of him on a swing.

"Yeah, sure, why not," Bakura said.

And the two jogged across the small hill to the play park and plopped down on a swing each next to the little boy who had hugged Bakura during one of his darkest moments. To the little boy, Bakura said, "I bet I can go higher than you and my friend here!"

The little boy squealed, and the two teenasgers and small boy proceeded to enter a swinging contest. The score did not matter, rather the smile on Bakura's face as he finally accepted a part in this new life.

...

finis