"There's always some reason to feel not good enough,
and it's hard at the end of the day.
I need some distraction or a beautiful release.
Memories seep from my veins.
Let me be empty
oh and weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight."

~In The Arms Of An Angel by Sarah McLachlan


"Ryou, we have your father."

The white-haired teen felt weak-kneed with relief when he heard the voice of the federal agent outside the classroom door. Fear quickly followed the relief, though, and he wouldn't have managed to cross the room to the door and ask for confirmation if Bakura hadn't helped him along.

"He's really here?"

"Yes, Ryou. We'll send him in after you've let the others out."

Ryou looked up at his hostages, who all looked back at him with guarded expressions. He hadn't known these people at all before today, but surely they hated him now. He nodded and they all scrambled out of the classroom. The only person who stayed with Ryou was Tristan, who offered him a reassuring smile as the authorities announced themselves and entered the classroom. Someone rushed over to Ryou and immediately began disarming the bomb while the student craned his neck to look past the man and try to spot his father. Was he really here? His heart began to sink to his shoes as he realized that his father was nowhere in sight. As more agents entered the room, he stiffened, shaking with terror as he felt that he'd surely been tricked. They were going to take him away now. He would never again see his friends, never again see the light of day—

"Ryou, we know that none of this was your fault," was the first thing he heard, and as the bomb vest was removed from his body, he suffered an emotional meltdown. It had been inevitable, and even though Bakura knew that, he couldn't help but watch his weeping host with disdain. As they started to comfort and question the distraught teenager, Ryou's mouth opened and spilled the lies Bakura fed him. He could hardly even recall or understand what he was telling them, but whatever he said must have been consistent with whatever they knew, and they treated him more kindly than he thought he deserved.

At first, he wasn't able to answer many questions at all because he cried so hard, but after letting Tristan hold him for a while, he finally began to calm down. Once Ryou ceased crying, he became rather numb, his expression blank and his voice quiet as he told them everything they wanted to know.

No, his father wasn't here. When they told him the truth, he felt devastated and immediately began to withdraw, wanting to just get away from everybody and be left alone. They promised that efforts to find his father would continue, but Ryou doubted it. Bakura was right: they wouldn't really be trying as hard as they could be unless they were forced to.

Yugi and the others had stayed all day until the crisis was resolved, and while Ryou was grateful for their concern, these were also the friends who consistently forgot his birthday, left him behind on every adventure, and mistook Bakura for him. Their forced cheerfulness was nauseating and Ryou had no energy to deal with them right now.

"I just want to go home," he murmured as he stared at the ground while Joey tried to cajole their friend circle into going to the arcade. Only Tristan seemed to realize that Ryou was in no mood to be around people right now.

"Hey bud, what didya say?" Tristan asked, softly placing one hand on Ryou's shoulder as the others continued to discuss what they should do now.

"I just want to go home." Ryou lifted his sad eyes from the ground long enough to glance at Tristan's expression and see that he seemed to understand.

"Hey guys, I'll just take Ryou home first, then I'll meet you at the arcade, okay?" Tristan gently escorted Ryou to the parking lot where his motorcycle was parked. He handed his shorter friend his extra helmet, and once both teens had fastened their protective headwear and the driver knew where he was going, Tristan took off at high speed, Ryou hugging him tightly from behind, his eyes squeezed shut. Watching the blur of lights, faces, buildings, and vehicles they passed made Ryou more nauseous than he already felt.

When was the last time you ate, Spirit?

A couple days ago, maybe yesterday, Bakura answered indifferently.

Ryou didn't realize that he was home until Tristan cleared his throat and tapped the top of his helmet. His eyes flew open and he quickly released his friend, removing the helmet and climbing off the bike as he handed the borrowed item back to its own. He mumbled a "sorry" and a "thanks" and turned away, hurrying towards the front door with his head down.

"I'm sorry about your dad, Ryou."

Tristan's soft words called to him just as he lay a hand on the front door. Ryou was frozen for a moment, not really sure what to say. He muttered something polite and unintelligible before entering his home and slamming the door behind him. He leaned back against the door and slid down to the floor as he was overcome with weakness.

"You said it would work," Ryou whispered into the darkness as he closed his eyes again. "You said he would come home." He choked up and began to sob, much to Bakura's annoyance.

"Give it time, Yadonushi," the Spirit of the Millennium Ring growled as he appeared in ghostly form, standing before his host with his arms crossed.

"He's never coming home," Ryou whined as he lifted the hem of his shirt to soak up his tears.

"You ungrateful little—" The spirit had started to insult his host yet again, but for some reason stopped short, catching himself with a sigh. He watched Ryou for a while longer as the boy wept. When he gave up on that, he stood shakily and made his way to the bathroom where his stomach tried to empty itself. It was already empty, though, and Ryou's painful heaving was fruitless. After that, he took a look around his house, finally registering its ransacked state. You would have expected the feds to be a bit more respectful with a person's home when they were searching for evidence. Bakura knew that they would take his entire knife collection, but he still seethed in anger at them.

"Where are they?" Ryou asked as a note of desperation entered his voice. He had searched under his bed and in between the couch cushions and inside the kitchen cabinets, but he couldn't find any of the knives he'd allowed to clutter his home for so long.

"Obviously, the police took them," Bakura retorted bitterly. Ryou scratched at the inside of his forearm as he looked around, his gaze settling on the kitchen knives. Those would work. He turned to Bakura then with pleading eyes, the Spirit of the Millennium Ring already knowing what he wanted to ask.

"Fine," was all that the spirit said, prompting Ryou to grab a stainless steel blade and stagger back to the bathroom. He stopped the drain and turned the faucet on at full blast so that the bathtub began to fill with warm water. Ryou pulled an old, stained towel out of the bathroom closet and set it on the closed toilet lid before he locked the door and started to undress. Normally he didn't bother with the door, because he was so used to being the only one here, but after Bakura had mentioned Marik, he didn't want to take the chance that the Egyptian wandered into his home while he was in the bath.

The water was burning hot when he stepped in, knife in hand, but he grit his teeth and bore it, seating himself in the hot water with a gasp. Then he lifted his eyes to the spirit who'd been watching him indifferently all this time.

"Please, Spirit." His voice quavered as he begged the thief for release.

"You're pathetic," Bakura grumbled as he stepped forward and knelt beside the bathtub.

Ryou gathered his white hair onto the top of his head in a small bun, securing it with an elastic before he leaned back against the tub and lifted one leg, letting his foot rest on the faucet. Bakura put his hand over Ryou's and lifted the blade to the skin of his inner thigh. The spirit turned his steely gaze to glare at his host before he dragged the knife across his leg in a smooth, sharp stroke. Ryou gasped as red rivulets flowed down his thigh to mingle with the bathwater. Bakura lifted the knife and made another cut across his hikari's thigh, pausing to lick the knife. Ryou watched as Bakura's lips turned red with his blood.

"You want this."

Bakura's cold voice was filled with scorn.

"You beg me for this time and again, yet each time, you're too much of a coward to even start it yourself."

Another cut and another gasp.

"Everyone thinks that I'm the one who turned you into this."

Another cut, followed by a soft whimper.

"But you would be this way without me. Weak, whiny, weeping."

Slice. The bathwater was starting to turn pink.

"You bathe in your own blood because you're too spineless to ever speak up for yourself. I try to teach you how to be strong, and you complain."

Bakura cut Ryou's inner thigh higher than ever before, and his host flinched.

"You turn yourself into a victim because you prefer to wallow in self pity rather than let yourself be happy about anything."

"You said I deserved this," Ryou whispered faintly as Bakura shoved his bleeding leg into the water and his host lifted the other for him out of habit.

"You deserve it because you've turned yourself into an oversized, masochistic infant."

He licked the knife clean before dragging the sharpened steel down the outside of Ryou's other thigh. Ryou was still the one holding the knife as Bakura manipulated his limp wrist.

"You enjoy the sight of your own blood, and I'm ashamed to call you my host." Let alone his reincarnation, but Bakura didn't say that aloud. Ryou didn't need to know that.

"You enjoy cutting me as much as I enjoy being cut," Ryou answered in a soft, strangled voice, his eyelids low. He cried out as Bakura cut him hard and deep, angered by his words.

"I don't care what you do to yourself so long as you live for as long as I need you," Bakura growled, leaning down low over his frail host's tear-stained face. "But remember this: Continue on this path and one day, you'll be completely alone, not even I will be around to watch your ruin your insignificant little life. When I'm gone, you'll have nobody else to blame for your misery and your scars and your tears. Then you'll truly know what it's like to feel broken."

"Spirit," Ryou gasped out, and Bakura thought that his host's sensitive heart had been shredded anew and that he was about to cry again.

But no, that wasn't the problem. Ryou's face was paler than usual, and his hand was pressed over the newest cut on his thigh. It was bleeding more than the others, and as Bakura glanced down to watch his blood darken the water, he sighed in understanding. He dipped the blade in the water before setting it on the floor.

"Sit up," he ordered sharply, and as Ryou's shaking hands scrabbled against the tub to pull himself into a sitting position, Bakura reached into the storage space under the bathroom sink and pulled out a square of gauze, handing it to his host so that he could staunch the bleeding. Bakura just watched Ryou for a while after that, speaking once to remind him not to pass out, but remaining otherwise silent.

Finally, Ryou stood on wobbly legs and reached for his towel, wrapping it around himself before stepping out of the tub and getting the rest of his first aid kit. Bakura was done helping him for the evening. It took copious energy and focus to make his incorporeal form interact with physical objects, and he wasn't willing to spend anymore of his resources tonight. Not if he was to meet Marik in his soul room later.

Ryou didn't look at the thief as he bandaged his thigh, dried himself off, then limped to his bedroom. He donned some oversized sleepclothes and buried himself in the wrinkled sheets of his bed.

"Is it really so wrong that I want to be loved?" he murmured, his eyes seeking Bakura's translucent form. The ancient thief scoffed at him.

"If you wish to be loved, then be someone worth loving." He looked down at Ryou in disgust. "Would you want to love someone like you, Yadonushi?"

His host shrank against the mattress, hiding behind his comforter as he shielded himself from Bakura's fierce disapproval.


Author Notes: This was supposed to be the last chapter, but it was getting too long and I wasn't anywhere near done, so I just decided to break it into two pieces. Please review!