Hope you enjoyed the first 2 chapters! I never realized how entertaining it was to write fanfic! Well R&R plz!

DISCLAIMER – I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING THAT HAS BEEN USED IN OTHER STORIES OR YU-GI-OH……..I WISH I OWNED THIS STUFF BUT SADLY I DON'T!

Ryou awoke the next morning in control and on the couch. He rolled over to look at the digital clock on the VCR. The neon digits read 6:30. Ryou yawned and stood up. It wasn't that unusual for him to wake up this early on a Saturday morning, it happened quite often actually.

Wandering through the kitchen to the hallway and up the stairs, Ryou entered his room and gathered some clothes. He'd made plans to meet with his friends Joey, Tristan, Yugi/Yami, and maybe Tea and Mai but that wasn't until 10:30 or 11:00 so he had hours to just relax.

After his shower Ryou looked at his face in the mirror. The cut on his lip wasn't that bad just a little swollen but the cut on his cheek looked kind of bad. It had a pinkish tinge around the edges and was coated in dry blood. The bruise around it was a purplish-black color but had lost the yellow tint. He cleaned that cut and then bandaged it. What do you put on a cut like that on your cheek?

Grabbing a brush Ryou went back to his room and untangled his mane of hair that reached to the middle of his back. It didn't take long, his hair was almost always tangle free after a shower, then he decided to check on Bakura.

Walking down the hallway to the "guest room" that Bakura now used, Ryou touched his yami's mind gently. Apparently he had taken physical form after his visit to Ryou's soul room the night before and went to his own room to sleep rather than stay in his soul room as usual.

Quietly opening the door Ryou just leaned against the door jam. The room looked so different from when Amane lived in it. Then it had been clear and calming. The curtains on the windows had been a soft white, the bedspread was a simple pale blue covered by a soft yellow canopy, the corner had been full of big fluffy pillows that were yellows, blues, and whites, surrounded by tons of books, the carpet had been a baby blue, and the walls were yellow with white designs. Now everything was darker, the white was still there (sort of) but… Ryou laughed silently at the memory of when Isis told him Marek's and Malik's side of the story…

"But Kura!" Malik whined. "Black makes it too dark! You need purple! Pretty light purple!"

"Naw! He needs white! Lots and lots of white! And then some red! Just splat it on there like blood! It would be so him!" put in Marek.

Bakura looked between the two and cocked his head to the left. "Uh…No. I want black!"

"Black is too dark! And it's mean and ugly and…and too you!" Malik objected.

"Aw, come on Kura! You know you want white and red!" Marek said.

"But Ryou only bought me white…" Bakura muttered.

"Yeah, and?" Malik hinted slyly.

"Hm…" Bakura responded, a glint in his eyes.

An hour later the 3 friends returned to Ryou's house carrying 5 cans of paint. 1 red and 1 white in Bakura's arms, 2 black carried by Marek, and, unbeknownst to Bakura and Marek, 1 lavender that Malik had.

Multiple death threats, many changes of clothes, 5 cans of paint, 7 paint brushes, quite a few paint stains, and 6 hours later the 2 Egyptians and Bakura stood in the middle of the room with their backs to each other. They had each claimed 1/3 of the room as their territory to design however they wished. heehee

Bakura had immediately taken the side of the room with his bed, dresser, and mirror.

Marek had gotten the wall with the door and the desk.

Malik had been stuck with the closet, the wall around the closet and everything in the closet that, to the psychopath, was considered paintable, or that's how he saw his area. no one had ever really set guidelines about what could be painted and what couldn't.

This is how the room looked:

Bakura's side – the bed Ryou bought him a new bed and sold Amanes or something was painted black with black sheets and bedspreads and a few white pillows. The walls were black and designed sparingly with white hieroglyphs placed randomly across the wall. The border of the mirror was painted black. The dresser was also black but the drawers were a contrast of white.

Marek's area – the doorframe was painted red, the actual door was black and the door handle was white. The wall around it was the same as Bakura's side only flipped. The wall was white with black hieroglyphs. The desk sides and top were black, the desk top and the inside of the shelves white, and the drawers and chair were red.

All in all those sides of the room went pretty well together…

Malik's "territory" – the wall around the door looked fine, white with black border by the ceiling and where the wall met the floor. The door was black and the handle white. It actually looked pretty good…till you opened the door…

Bakura, having approved of the walls and doors was about to do just that. Malik had entered the closet after painting the wall and closed the door. When Bakura had tried to open the door and ask him a question, Malik had turned off the light inside the small room and held the door open a crack to talk to him. The hikari had locked himself in the closet (with his unnoticed can of paint) for the rest of the time till now.

Opening the door cautiously Bakura blanched, slammed the door shut, then rounded on the mortal boy. But he stopped short at Marek's laughter and the absence of said mortal. The door to the room slammed against the newly painted wall then slammed shut again.

Marek stopped laughing immediately and growled. "Oh great! Thanks Malik! I am probably gonna have to repaint that now!" he yelled through the door. Malik poked his head back around the door and grinned apologetically. "Heh…sorry yami!" he looked around for a second then opened the door a little wider.

Marek began laughing again as his light screamed, much like a girl, then turned tail and ran down the stairs Bakura quite close behind him. "'Help me yami!' " he yelled both mentally and physically, causing Marek to laugh even harder.

As the angry tomb robber hunted down his prey, the other yami wandered over to the closet, wanting to know what his light could've done to piss off Bakura so badly. Opening the door caused Marek to collapse, literally, to the floor in a fit of giggles yes giggles. And that is where Ryou found him, followed by a pouting Bakura and a smug Malik 20 minutes later, after Ryou returned from his sleep over at Yugi's house Yugi had let him stay all day to give Kura time to repaint.

Laughing softly to himself, Ryou shook the memory from his head and studied the shadowed room, his eyes slowly growing accustomed to the dark. The youth entered Bakura's room and closed the door silently behind him. Taking a couple steps to the left Ryou found himself within 3 feet of his yami's bed. The form on the bed shifted slightly and then settled down again.

He loved watching Bakura sleep. He looked so calm, so gentle in sleep. 'I could only imagine his reaction to me calling the infamous tomb robber calm and gentle. Ha!' Ryou chuckled to himself again.

Leaning on the wall he let himself slide quietly down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, his right leg spread straight in front of him and his left pulled up to his chest. Wrapping his arms around his raised knee Ryou rested his head on his leg and relaxed.

Bakura sat at his dark window seat, resting his head against the glass and staring at the dark sky. Rearranging some of the lavender and black pillows Malik threatened to tell Ryou 'The Secret' if Bakura didn't take the offending pillows. Marek had also helped by backing Malik's threat and continuously dialing Yugi's home number (which is where Ryou was at the time) just to make Bakura sweat. that crowded the seat and pushing a few to the floor.

He hadn't slept well…actually he hadn't slept at all. After his glimpse into Ryou's dreams he'd had a lot to think about. Mainly about his actions at Yugi's house. He knew Ryou would want him to apologize for what had happened, but not to Ryou, no, just to Yami and Yugi for his misconduct at the other lights house. And Bakura, as always, refused before even knowing for sure that Ryou would ask him to.

Sighing heavily the spirit stood and walked to the middle of his room. Not sure wat to do, so for now he just waited. He stood there for about and hour. Finally he decided he wanted to do something.

Exiting his room like the spirit he was only he was still in physical form Bakura stalked down the hallway to the stairs. Staying to the shadows out of habit, he moved through the downstairs hallway, into the kitchen, and to the couch in the living room.

He was about to sit down when a glimpse of Ryou's dream came back to him: He unlocked the door and found his way to the couch in the dark. He located the couch but changed his mind and chose, instead, to sit on the floor against the wall.

Deciding he liked that idea as well, Bakura prowled across the room and slid to the floor against the wall. He stayed that way for maybe half and hour, watching the moonlight flickering through the curtain onto the carpet in front of him. Growing even more restless than before, he stood again with a low growl of annoyance, and retraced his steps, almost exactly, back to the stair way.

Stopping in front of Ryou's door Bakura thought of the only thing that could relax him. Slipping into the room as quiet as any of the shadows clouding the dark corners, he closed the door and stood just beside it. He stood there and silently watched his light sleeping. He had taken over their body again after his hikari fell back to sleep and walked him upstairs to his bed. Bakura had given his light control long enough to get ready for bed and then he'd taken back over before his light collapsed from exhaustion.

Standing there Bakura heard Ryou mumbling incoherently and had to laugh at the few words he did hear: bubbles, puppy, no, bubbles again, and something that sounded like pretty talking fishy.

Sighing heavily the spirit slipped across the room to Ryou's window seat and curled up on the big, fluffy, surprisingly comfy pale blue and white pillows. Turning with his back to the window so he faced his light, Bakura lay there and relaxed immensely.

He'd only closed his eyes for 5 minutes when he heard a quiet whimpering sound from the bed. Sitting up immediately, he sat there listening intently. The room was silent for a moment until he heard the sound again followed by Ryou mumbling in a quiet urgent voice.

"Amane? Mother? Amane! Oh Amane!" Ryou rolled over on his right side then switched to his left, and then back again. He began tossing and turning even worse as he mumbled, "N-no. Please, no. Please, Bakura. No!" Bakura flinched as the words caught his memory.

"Bakura! Stop! Please Bakura! Don't!" Ryou pleaded from his position on the floor, across the room from Bakura and the 3 bullies who'd cornered Ryou in the empty classroom. "Just stop! Please Bakura, they've learned their lesson!"

"How can you say that? They corner you, beat you, and then I come to save you and all you want me to do is leave them alone with only a warning? Damn, Ryou! If you aren't gonna protect yourself then who is! You cant expect me to come to your rescue every time you are too stupid to watch where your going!" the angry Egyptian snapped at his light while glaring at the cowering teenagers in front of him.

Ryou didn't respond just sat there on the floor, facing the floor, with his hair hanging over his shoulder and his bangs covering the hurt and pain in his eyes. Bakura, not really expecting a response from his weak light, payed him no attention and approached the teens at his feet.

Said boys had already regretted their decision to bully the innocent teen, but now they were wishing they weren't even in Japan after seeing the psychotic look on the face of the young man who had seemingly materialized out of no where when they had started beating on Ryou.

Bakura shook his head to rid himself of the remaining memory. He had ended up turning on Ryou when the bullies quit fighting his attacks on their minds with shadow magic, causing them to believe their worse fears were real. Ryou kept on pleading with him to stop (which is where his mumbled words came in) which had just ended up enraging his yami further and it all ended up with Ryou knocked out cold for a couple hours then having to many bad injuries he missed school for the better part of a week.

Ryou continued to whimper and cry out as the dream/memory went on. After a split second of hesitation, Bakura interfered by taking over his lights body, sending the boy calming feelings through the bond, and casting the teenager into the dreamless sleep of oblivion. The spirit left the room, went back downstairs, and took the same path he'd taken less than an hour before to the living room to lay down on the couch.

Closing his eyes he left his soul room to check on Ryou one more time. The hikari had calmed down and was now in a deep sleep in his softly lit soul room. Bakura walked to the side of the large bed. Ryou always slept on the side farthest from his door but still facing it. Silently sitting on the edge of the bed the thief tilted his head, watching the sleeping boy. Unable to resist the spirit leaned over and gently shifted a lock of long soft hair off of Ryou's face. At the soft touch Ryou turned his head a little and shocked his usually un-shockable yami by turning his face into Bakura's palm.

His first instinct was to yank his hand away from the innocent contact but right after his initial shock he realized how sweet his hikari looked when sleeping. NON-YAOI! NON YAOI! Without warning a wave of fatigue over came him. Giving in to exhaustion, the murderous spirit removed his hand from his lights face and lay down next to him on the bed.

He didnt actually sleep (actually, he hardly ever slept anymore) but he did relax enough to go into a kind of cat nap. Closing his eyes he regained his strength from that day and stayed there for another hour or so. When he came to full awareness he brushed more of Ryou's unruly hair from his angelic face before taking on his physical form.

Glancing at the clock on VCR he sighed at the early hour just after 6 and took the stairs back to the solitude of his isolated room. Falling on his bed he laid there and stared at the ceiling fan going around and around and around and around and around, for lack of something better to do. After growing increasingly dizzy he rolled onto his stomach and stayed there untill Ryou entered his room.

He shifted slightly so as to watch his light before settling down once more. He watched Ryou slide down the wall and lay his head on his raised knee, stretching the other in front of him. Bakura waited a few moments for his light to drift to sleep again before rising without a sound and leaving the room. He knew Ryou had made plans for the day and he decided to make some plans of his own.

He struggled for a full hour with the Ra-Cursed machine that Ryou called a-what did he call it again? Oh well it was a blasted machine that made you able to talk to someone by dialing some numbers or whatever, but he was sure the pharaoh had something to do with. Anything that caused Bakura trouble had to be the Ra-Cursed King of Games and his Ra-Cursed hikari and their Ra-Cursed friends' faults!

Or at least that's what Bakura believed. Cursing the phone repeatedly he returned to his room and just sat on his bed watching Ryou until his light stirred and looked up.

The spirit stared into the face of his not-fully-awake hikari. He noted the swollen cut on his lip and the bruised cut on his cheek with unemotional eyes. Ryou ran his hands over his face and then just stared at the ground, trying to figure out where he was.

The sound of someone standing up from the bed caused his eyes to widen and he looked up quickly into the dark eyes of his yami. The only other time Bakura had caught Ryou in his room hadn't ended very well.

Biting his lip then whimpering and stopping when he hit the swollen cut, he averted his eyes and tried to stand. Bakura's hand shot out and slammed into the wall right next to Ryou's head, stopping him from leaving the room. Removing his hand from the wall Bakura placed his other hand on the injured side of Ryou's face.

Closing his eyes he called on a small amount of shadow magic to fulfill his wishes. A few seconds later he released his lights face, looked into his chocolate brown eyes, then turned and left without a word.

Ryou stood rooted to the spot for some time after his yami left before shaking his head clear and following the tomb robber into the hallway. He had wandered into the kitchen and started finding breakfast before he even began wondering what Bakura had done to him.

Putting down the bottle of juice he had in his hand he rushed to the downstairs bathroom. Flipping on the light he looked at his face in the mirror with surprise. Removing the bandage from his cheek his eyes widened. The cut on his cheek was gone as was the cut on his lip. There wasn't even a trace of a bruise in either places and if you had the ability to feel it, just a little smudge of shadow magic.

He practically ran from the bathroom to the living room. He stumbled into the room and looked around. Bakura wasn't there. Biting his lip thoughtfully Ryou wondered where his yami could have gone. Doing a quick search of the house with the Millennium Ring told him that the thief wasn't there.

'He must have left. But…where?' the teenager tilted his head a little to the right pondering the thought. Finally he decided that as long as he kept the bond open and checked on Bakura periodically throughout the day then they might as well enjoy themselves. After all Bakura hadn't had any thought of going with Ryou to Yami and Yugi's house where everyone was going to meet.

Nodding his head Ryou returned to his room to get ready for the day. Half an hour later he grabbed his keys and was half way out the door before he had an idea. Going back to the hall phone Ryou dialed Malik's home number. The phone rang 3 times before Isis answered.

"Hello." The Egyptian woman greeted.

"Hello, Isis. I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you?" Ryou asked politely.

"Why of course you could. But I think I already know what you would like to ask." Isis answered knowingly.

"Well I – wait. What?" Ryou stuttered in response.

"You want to know if I could keep an eye on Bakura if he comes over or goes out with Malik and Marek, right." She guessed.

"Um...well…yeah…I guess…"

"Don't worry about it Ryou. As a matter of fact would you like to talk to him? He's came over a little while ago and asked if the twins would like to go to Yugi's and Yami's with him and you."

Ryou heard her pull the phone away from her hear and place it on the table with a click as she went to hunt down the evil spirit. "Bakura! Malik? Marek? Oh no! No, no, no! Get back here tomb robber!"

The phone was picked up and Ryou winced at the fast paced words of his yami. He pulled the phone a couple inches away from his ear and tried to make out whatever it was Bakura was trying to tell him.

Two minutes later when the phone was hung up, but to Ryou it sounded like it was used as a weapon and thrown across the room at someone, the white haired teen had gleaned only two things from his rushed yami : everything was Malik's idea and the three would be over very, very shortly.

Wanting to leave but actually very curious about what was going on, Ryou decided to stay and wait for his yami. Not 5 minutes later he heard shouting and yelling and the sound of tires squealing on the asphalt. Looking out the front window Ryou sighed.

His yami was currently sliding off Marek's motorcycle and preparing to leap over Malik's they each have their own bike. The young teen remained at the window looking through the space between the curtains and watched the 3 friends sprint the few yards up the front stairs and to the door, causing the first two, which happened to be Malik and Bakura, to slam into the door at full force, expecting the door to be unlocked for them.

Ryou smirked to himself and sauntered to the door. He waited a little bit longer hearing his yami pounding on the door while screaming threats at him. He was just about to open the door when he heard mail scream, Bakura curse repeatedly and pound on the door even harder, and marek pleading with someone.

Then all was silent.

Everything stopped, the pounding, cursing, screaming, pleading, everything. Curious still Ryou unlocked the door and opened it cautiously. Peering out he had to grab the door to keep himself from collapsing in a fit of laughter at the scene before him.

Cowering on the porch before him were 2 platinum haired Egyptians, one a psychotic mortal, the other a spirit born of hate and anger, just begging to be challenged. But what amazed Ryou the most was the sight of his evil, scheming, oh great Thief King Bakura on his knees begging with a woman not to hurt him.

After he had calmed down some Ryou even noticed that Bakura was occasionally switching from English to Arabic to Egyptian and sometimes even speaking a few words of Japanese while he retreated towards Ryou.

The teen looked down fondly as the evil spirit hid behind his hikari's legs. His expression quickly changed to on of extreme terror. The figure approaching him caused the white haired boy to take a few hasty steps backwards, or at least to try. The first step caused him to trip over Bakura's cowering form and fall to the floor painfully hitting his head on the door.

"I am going to kill you!" Isis screamed at her brothers and Bakura. Ryou just stared as the glaring turquoise eyes were turned on him. The eldest Ishtar wasn't wearing her usual head pieces or necklaces. Her hair was a frizzed mess around her head and covering her burning eyes. But of all the most vivid thing of her usually odd outfit was her robe. They were the same robes she wore everyday, well, almost.

The usual cream brown color of the robes was now a bright cheery canary yellow. And the guilty party was currently cowering before her.