Text in bold denotes quotes from/allusions to the musical Hamilton.

"How did you know about my past jobs?" Seto asked before he hissed again at the burning sensation of the wet washcloth touching his fresh wounds once more. He'd only let the archaeologist see his back; he was still hiding the bruises for as long as he could. He could only traverse the road to recovery one step at a time.

"I have a friend in law enforcement who owed me a favor; I asked him to look into your employment records for me." He continued to clean the raw stripes on Seto's back, wincing himself whenever Seto vocalized his pain. "You need to stop pulling away, or I'll never finish this."

Seto grit his teeth and did his best to merely bear the pain in silence while Ryou's father focused on tending to his injuries. Of course, the silence was too good to last long.

"Who did this to you?"

Seto remained silent at first. "If I'm not ready to answer a question yet, then I don't have to," he said quietly. He couldn't be rushed through this. He still wasn't sure if he shouldn't already be regretting his decision to trust him.

"Fair enough." He thought for several moments, trying to choose a question that would be easier for him to answer. "Why, then?"

"For his own pleasure," Seto muttered.

"His?"

Silence.

"How long has this been going on?" It was all too obvious that this wasn't the first time he'd been lashed. The fresh wounds couldn't hide the older wounds and scars.

"It started not long after I lost my last job." It was easier to say when they started than it was to say how long he'd been thrashed on a weekly basis. Not that thrashing was the only thing happening on a weekly basis, or even a daily basis.

"How often does it occur?"

Seto choked on the words for a moment. "Every Thursday."

"Does that mean that I can expect to see you back here next Thursday?"

"Well, I'll be here to pick up Mokuba, so yes."

"Do you see an end to this anytime soon?"

"No," he admitted with a sigh.

"Why do you let it happen?"

Silence.

"You assume that I have a choice."

It wasn't quite an answer, but he figured it was the best he would get from him today.

"Is your father violent?"

"Only when he's drunk."

"How often is he drunk?"

"Too often."

"Has he ever caused you or your brother physical harm?"

"I've always protected Mokuba."

"And has he ever hurt you?"

Silence.

"When did he become alcoholic?"

"A few years after Mom died. He was still working, then, still trying to keep it together."

"How long after he became alcoholic did he become violent?"

"Not very long."

"Did he ever hit you when you were a child?"

"I couldn't let him hurt Mokuba."

What kind of an answer was that?

"How old was Mokuba the first time he hit you?"

"Four years old." That would make Seto nine at the time.

"Does he still hurt you?"

Silence.

"Did he do this to you?" Bakura really hoped not.

Seto opened his mouth to answer but closed it again. If his silence kept Mr. Bakura from guessing at the awful truth before he was ready to reveal it, then yes, he was willing to deceive through omission.

"If you don't answer my questions, I can't help you," Mr. Bakura sighed, pausing in his ministrations to get the antibacterial ointment out of the first aid kit. When he began to spread the substance over the raw flesh, Seto grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to cope with the pain. There was another pause in the conversation.

"My son told me a while ago that you stood up for him in gym class when the coach was overstepping his bounds. Thank you."

"Ryou's a good person. He didn't deserve that treatment."

"I would argue that the same thing holds true for you."

"With all due respect, you hardly know me, sir."

"I know enough to see that you're a hard worker, a protective brother, a good student. You manage your finances carefully. You juggle being a student, providing for your family, and raising your brother with impressive results. The way you defend others is honorable—Ryou's told me how you've always stood up to bullies, even for the sake of strangers. There are so many in circumstances as hard as yours who just give up, but you didn't, and that says something about your character."

It felt incredibly strange to be praised, complimented. He almost felt like he needed to deflect it somehow, to show how depraved he really was, because Bakura's lofty impression of him simply wasn't accurate.

"I don't think I would be all those things if it weren't for Mokuba," he said quietly. "I don't fight for myself. I work hard to give him a better future and to make the present not so bad."

"And there's nothing wrong with that. Just because the need to look out for your brother is what prompted you to be who you are, it doesn't make you any less honorable or good."

Seto didn't know what to say to that, so he remained silent as the archaeologist began to spread gauze over his back, securing it with medical tape.

"These should be left on for a few days at least."

Seto nodded, unwilling to tell him that he simply wouldn't be able to keep them on for even a full twenty-four hours.

"How much sleep do you get on average per night, would you say?"

"Four to five hours, usually. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a lot less. I only get full nights of sleep on the weekend."

"How come you never told anybody about your father, never asked anybody for help?" Seto chose his words carefully, not wanting to speak inaccuracies by accident.

"We have no extended family in the area, not that I know of anyways. At the least, we don't have many who were on good terms with my parents when my mother died. I think… I had a cousin who started going to college in Domino a few months afterward, and, if I remember correctly, my father paid her to come by and take care of Mokuba, since he was still so little then and my father needed to work. So at first, things were okay. My dad was distant, detached, but he wasn't doing anything wrong at that point. My cousin graduated college and left, and by then I was old enough to take care of Mokuba myself." Bakura had to wonder how Seto thought that nine years old was old enough to take care of anybody. "My dad had had a pretty good job for a while at that point; he'd been working at the same place for several years, since before Mokuba was born. After my cousin left, though, my dad started to slowly fall apart. He lost his job, and that was when he started drinking." He hesitated, not wanting to think about the details of the first time he'd seen his father drunk. "It was only intermittent at first, and he got another job, though it wasn't quite the same. It didn't pay as well and he didn't like it as much." He found that he had to pause again, trying to remember why he'd started into this story in the first place and where he was going with it. "He had a few different jobs after that point. He lost them as his drinking got worse. Things kept falling apart, and we lost the house when I was twelve, then we moved to the apartment we're in now. By this point, I was aware that things had gotten pretty bad, but I also understood that if I told someone what was going on, Mokuba and I would be taken from our dad and put in the system, where we'd probably get separated. I couldn't let Mokuba be on his own, so I've done what I can since then to help us survive so that we could stay together. When I graduate, I plan on appealing to the system for sole custody of my brother so that we don't ever have to worry about being separated."

Silence lingered between them for a few minutes as Mr. Bakura finished taping gauze to the teen's back.

"Well, that's the best I can do. Now you just need some time to let it heal, and you should be fine." Seto nodded and pulled his shirt back on before he turned around, not wanting to share anymore of himself tonight. Ryou's father put away the first-aid kit before turning to address Seto again. "I'm sure your brother must have fallen asleep by now. Do you need me to give you a ride home?"

"No, thank you," Seto answered automatically, even though by now the adrenaline from his encounter with Noah Kaiba was long gone and last night's hour and a half of sleep was taking its toll, nevermind his body's bruised and weakened state.

"Nonsense, you look like you could fall asleep standing up. It won't be any trouble at all." Seto didn't have the energy to argue, so he merely let Mr. Bakura lead him back into the main living area where Ryou and Mokuba had fallen asleep together on the couch. Bakura got his car keys while Seto shouldered Mokuba's backpack and then went to lift Mokuba into his arms. He carried his sleeping brother out to Mr. Bakura's car and sat with him in the back-seat, not wanting to leave him on his own back there. He gave his friend's father his address and sat back in his seat, trying not to fall asleep himself.

Seto and Mokuba had gone to sleep as soon as they got home. Seto had hoped to sleep well, but it seemed like his brain had different plans for him. Now, Seto had never been one to dream often. Even when their life had gradually descended into misery, his father had become alcoholic, and he'd been forced into prostitution, he'd never had nightmares. If he'd ever had any as a child, he didn't remember ever having them. That night, however, he had his first nightmare, and what a nightmare it was.

He was running in the desert, running as fast as he could, even as his lungs burned and he gasped for air. He knew that something bad would happen if he stopped running, but he didn't know what. He stumbled onward through the darkness, not even daring to look back over his shoulder, but soon enough the lack of oxygen made him dizzy and his vision blurred. He ran on despite this, but soon tripped and came to a painful stop in the dusty sand. He scrambled back to his feet only to have a heavy hand seize his shoulder. He cried out as he struggled against it, but soon there were many hands seizing him, grabbing him in strong, cruel hands that caused him pain and forced him to his knees. The human presence surrounding him was suffocating, and he shouted protests as he wildly kicked and fought to free himself.

"Don't touch me! Let go! Don't touch me! Let go of me!"

His cries remained unheeded as panic rose in his chest, making him frantic and incapable of thinking about anything but his need to be free of the hands that held him down, now pushing him from kneeling to lying face-down in the sand.

"Stop! Let go of me!" he screamed.

Seto's eyes flew open to find himself sleeping on his back, his sheets tangled as if he'd slept restlessly last night, which was unusual for him. With a groan, he rolled onto his stomach, still trying to catch his breath. His dream had unnerved him, and he needed a few moments to collect himself before he could get up and shower. One thing that he couldn't figure out, though: Why had he been in the desert?

Seto was quiet at breakfast with Mokuba and at lunch with Ryou, Yugi, and Joey, bothered by the events of last night as well as his dream. Besides, he was also mentally going over everything he knew about chess strategies, especially what he knew about Noah Kaiba's chess strategies. He needed to be prepared for his match tomorrow night.

"Hey Seto! Earth to Seto! Hey, are you in there?" Yugi's voice finally snapped Seto out of his reverie.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine," he answered, looking up to see that all three of his friends were staring at him.

"Whatchya doin'?" Joey asked, peering at the piece of paper Seto had in front of him, where the brunette had been writing a long list of letter-number pairs.

"I'm going over a chess strategy," he explained as the blond stared at the chess coordinates with a confused expression.

"Don't hurt yourself too hard trying to think, Joey," Anzu said as she entered the room, joining the four boys amiably.

"Why the sudden fascination with chess?" Yugi asked curiously.

"I have a chess match with someone tomorrow. I've played for years, so I know I'm good, but my opponent is also very good, and I don't want to lose," Seto answered calmly.

"Why is it so important that you win?" Joey asked suspiciously, one eyebrow raised. As Seto thought about his bet with Noah, he couldn't help but allow himself a self-satisfied half-smirk.

"Let's just say I have a lot riding on this match," he answered breezily, hoping they would drop the subject, but Joey was getting excited.

"You made a bet, didn'tchya? I'll bet you did!"

"Did you make a bet?" Ryou asked, his eyes wide as the word "bet" triggered everything he knew about gambling.

"Not for money," Seto assured, which satisfied Ryou.

"What do you get if you win?" Yugi asked, looking eager as well. Seto hesitated. He didn't want to tell his friends that he had a shot at winning the Blue-Eyes White Dragon in case he lost and had to come back to school on Monday to tell them that he'd failed.

"If I win, I'll tell you."

"Aw, c'mon, we all know you're gonna win anyways, so why not tell us now?" Joey griped.

"It's true: you're the undefeated champion of the chess club," Ryou pointed out. "I can't imagine there being anybody better than you."

Seto felt uncomfortable receiving all of that praise and sat stiff and flustered for a moment, but he was saved from responding by the ring of the school bell.

Author Notes: Hope you enjoyed the chapter! What was your favorite moment? Did something surprise you? Post it in your review! Remember, more reviews = more chapters, so keep reviewing! Lots of love to my dedicated readers/reviewers!