AN: Thanks for the amazing reviews!

Yay, chapter ten! xD Thanks guys. You all inspire me so.

Hints of Puppyshipping in this chapter (Joey/Kaiba) =)

Anyway, enjoy! I hope I didn't have too much of Bakura and Ryou in this chap (too much Ry/'Kura? IMPOSSIBLE!) but without that last part, it'd be too short!

Borderline

"After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music."

-Aldous Huxley

10 ; Morbid Melodies

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh! (Or the song by Third Eye Blind I put in this chapter because I'm obsessed), and this storyline is absolutely, positively fictional. I mean no offense to anyone.

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"Ryou, stop."

"Please?"

"All right, fine."

At exactly 12:20 in the afternoon on a Friday, the Rockford Psychiatric Hospital's Art Room in Ward 227 is opened for Ryou Bakura.

It took Ryou forty-five minutes of constant pestering directed at Duke before the man finally cracked and unlocked the door for him, but now it's all worth it as he stands in the empty room, staring excitedly at the instruments in the corner, just waiting for him to play them.

Duke sighs.

"Twenty-five minutes, Ryou. That's it."

Then, Duke leaves, and Ryou is alone.

He goes over to the piano first thing.

Before, when he first toured the Art Room, he had struck one key on the piano to see how it sounded. That key was Middle C, and it was way out of tune. Regardless of tuning, however, Ryou now slides anxiously onto the bench and begins to poke a few keys.

Then, finally, the opening of "Slow Motion" by Third Eye Blind is dancing through the room.

He adores that song. It's dark and morbid, and his father hated him listening to it, but he always, always was walking around singing it when he was back home because he loves the melody and doesn't care what his father thinks.

He's more than halfway through the first verse when—

"I guess I didn't mean it—"

"—But man you should have seen it, his flesh explode."

Ryou stops playing immediately.

He flies around to find the source of the new voice, and when he does, he's genuinely surprised.

There, in the doorway, is Bakura. He's got his arms crossed with that ever-present smirk, leaning against the doorframe.

Ryou blinks.

Bakura doesn't say a word, and just uncrosses his arms and walks over to Ryou and the piano. He slides on the bench next to the smaller boy.

Ryou stares.

Normally, he'd push Bakura off the bench. He'd scream and throw a fit over Bakura daring to sit next to him.

But not today.

Not that moment.

All Ryou does instead is simply start to play where he left off in the song.

He takes himself by surprise, actually.

And as he's approaching the chorus, a few other notes mingle with his, and Ryou smiles a tiny smile when he realizes Bakura is playing a duet with him by ear.

Then the chorus arrives.

Bakura and Ryou look at each other for a moment, noticing the huge smiles on each other's faces that neither can help from appearing as their voices mix together quite nicely, and for a split second, they both feel okay.

"Slow motion, see me let go…"

The song is over, and Ryou is resting his head on his arms that are folded across the piano keyboard. Bakura is on the ground, sitting up with his back against the leg of the instrument's bench.

They're silent at first; then, Ryou blinks, swallows a little, and begins to speak. His voice sounds kind of tired and cracks, even though it's only 12:45 in the afternoon.

"You've been playing for a while, I guess."

Bakura doesn't look at Ryou. He only continues to stare at the far wall with a blank look. But he does answer.

"Not really. Only six years. So kind of."

Ryou blinks again. He replies,

"I've been playing piano for eight."

Bakura doesn't say anything.

There's silence in the Art Room for another few minutes, until finally,

"This isn't right."

Bakura, at Ryou's statement, takes the initiative to lean his head back against the piano bench and stare up towards Ryou as best he can. He bites his bottom lip a little.

"What isn't right?" he asks.

Ryou twists his lips oh-so slightly.

"You. Me. This."

Bakura gives him an empty look.

"I'm supposed to be terrified of and loathing you. Not…" Ryou groans. "Not singing and playing piano with you," the boy finishes, and Bakura laughs.

"Well, it's kind of a nice change to not have someone loathing and being terrified of me, honestly," Bakura admits quietly.

Ryou smirks a bit.

"I bet," he replies.

There's quiet again, and then suddenly,

"I really like your name, Ryou."

Ryou's breath kind of hitches in his throat.

It's the first time Bakura has ever said his name.

But none of his surprise shows through, and he simply nods almost unnoticeably.

"Thank you," he says.

Bakura nods now.

There's a shuffle of feet suddenly at the door, and Bakura and Ryou's heads shoot up.

There, in the hallway, Joey is standing shyly, peering out from behind a confident looking Seto Kaiba who's eyeing them with curiosity and a bit of disgust.

Bakura returns Seto's look with an even nastier one of his own.

Seto twists his lips.

"The two sociopaths. Together. How lovely," the young man says, obviously sarcastic. "What did you guys do to gain entrance to the Art Room? Threaten to poison someone in their sleep?"

Bakura scoffs, obviously not intimidated. Quickly, he stands up.

"Let's get out of here," he mummers.

Ryou blinks, and stays seated on the bench, confused.

Bakura begins to storm out. But suddenly, he turns around and gives Ryou a look.

"I'm talking to you," he says.

Ryou blinks, and then hastily stammers to his feet. He begins to hasten after the other boy, but not before swallowing awkwardly as he passes by Seto and Joey, earning two very either angry or confused looks.

The two boys are quickly walking down the hall, wordlessly, until Ryou finally blurts out,

"Okay, what was that?"

Bakura laughs a little.

"What was what?"

Ryou rolls his eyes.

"You know Bakura," he starts. "You seemed fine with Seto yesterday. Why, all of a sudden, today, are you two at each other's throats?"

Bakura squeaks to a stop on the tiled floor and flies around, taking Ryou a bit by surprise.

"Because," he starts, his tone dripping with a mix of sarcasm and frustration. "This morning the news got around that you're a borderline sociopath."

Ryou groans. Great. Now, everyone in the ward knows he's an "almost psycho", and, evidently, some people aren't too happy about that.

Bakura looks at Ryou with annoyance, seeing the distraught look on his companion's face. "You didn't let me finish," he says. "Seto's not mad `cause of the reason you're thinking of. Seto's mad `cause he's jealous."

Ryou raises an eyebrow, smirking and trying to hold back a laugh.

"Jealous?" he repeats, his voice dripping with disbelief. "Of being `anti-social'?"

Bakura purses his lips together, and Ryou feels a rush of frustration with himself. Whatever good thing he had going on with Bakura might have just been blown thanks his previous stupid comment.

"Yes. People want what we have, Ryou. They want to not be afraid to speak their minds. They want to be daring. But they can't fully do all that without our sociopath-ic gifts," Bakura explains, completely un-angry and willing to share his reasoning, unlike what Ryou expected.

Ryou is caught by surprise by the word "gifts". But, he doesn't show it, and instead just simply nods slowly.

Bakura laughs a little and smirks.

"You'll get it eventually, Ryou. Eventually."

Then, the two are walking silently down the hall, again.

Ryou plays with his fingers.

"Is Seto, like, Joey's bodyguard or something?" he asks kind of jokingly.

Bakura smiles.

"Nope. The two are just best friends. Personally I think they want to fuck eachother too, Either way they've 'got eachother's backs'," Bakura mocks.

Then, he gets a sad look on his face for a moment before adding,

"I wish my best friend had my back."

Ryou is truly surprised at A: Bakura's show of emotion and B: what he actually said.

"Who? Yugi?" Ryou questions, truly shocked.

Bakura turns. "Yeah. Yugi," he answers, and laughs bitterly at the end.

Ryou opens his mouth to explain to Bakura that Yugi is always sticking up for him, and that Yugi never talks about him behind his back, and that Yugi cries whenever he talks about Bakura and Bakura's past.

But Bakura speaks before he can.

"You know why I was so pissed at you the night you came, Ryou?"

Ryou remembers that first night's outburst with the yelling and the crying and the screaming and—

"No, I don't know why you were pissed."

Bakura narrows his eyes a little.

"They told me, a week before I first ran away, that I was going to get to move from seclusion into Yugi's room since I'd been `well-behaved'." He turns to Ryou. "I was gonna get your bed."

Ryou bites his lower lip as he feels a small rush of guilt.

"But, things changed. I left," Bakura says after a breath in, obviously not wanting to explain a long story. "And, I got back, my spot was gone, and apparently Yugi didn't give a crap."

He laughs bitterly.

"They told him I was dead."

Ryou's eyes widen.

Bakura turns.

"Dead, Ryou. Dead."

The two boys finally stop at the TV room, which is surprisingly empty for the mid-afternoon. Bakura plops down in a plastic chair, and Ryou simply continues standing and watches him.

"As you can see, I'm not dead at all," Bakura jokes a little, but Ryou can tell that he's not really meaning for it to be a joke so he doesn't laugh along. "And now that I'm back, Yugi hasn't so much as spoken more than three, four words at me. Barely looked at me, even."

He sighs heavily.

"So, anyway, I'm just disappointed in him, is all."

Ryou nods in understanding. He swallows.

"I'm disappointed, too."

Bakura looks up, smiling a little.

"In who?"

One corner of Ryou's mouth turns up, and he whispers,

"In everyone except us."

Yeahh. Review please =)