Absolution

Chapter Four: Sing For Absolution.

"There's nowhere left to hide, in no one to confide.

The truth burns deep inside, and will never die."

Ryou arrived to class just seconds before the teacher—his second day, and already he was beginning to look like a slacker. He carefully avoided Yugi's gaze as the lesson started; the shorter boy had been frowning, concern and puzzlement shining in his violet eyes. Ryou was grateful beyond words to have friends so soon after starting at a new school, but he'd be lying if he didn't say that Yugi's anxiety made him uneasy—he knew Yugi would want to hear more about the Sennen Ring, would want to know things that the paler boy wouldn't want to share.

Yesterday he had prayed that the break-period would come faster; today he prayed that it wouldn't come at all. But, inevitably, it did come, and he quickly found Yugi facing him from across his tiny wooden desk. "You seem different today," he said without preamble. "Edgier, less controlled than before."

And there's the pot calling the kettle black , Bakura laughed in his mind.

Ryou frowned, looking hard at Yugi. He seemed somehow taller, his hair was wilder, his eyes an aloof and angry red, and his voice was much more commanding than it had ever sounded. No one else seemed to notice the change, but Ryou saw it with unclouded eyes, and reeled at the implications. "You're not exactly the same yourself," he answered the new stranger before him. Did Yugi's puzzle house an ancient spirit as well?

It does , Bakura answered, and quite an annoying one, at that. He shrugged invisible shoulders, even as his eyes narrowed in thought. He seems damaged though, like he doesn't know the difference between himself and little Yugi.

Why do you say that? Ryou asked, already breaking the one rule he'd set down for himself that day. He had promised that he wasn't going to talk to Bakura during school, lest it make anyone suspicious.

Bakura shrugged again. Yesterday, Yugi said that he had lapses in his memory, which means that the spirit either hasn't revealed himself to the keeper of the puzzle yet, or he just doesn't realize that he's a completely different entity.

The boy in question frowned, something painful flickering through his red eyes. "Different?" he whispered to himself. "I am different, aren't I?"

Oh-ho , the thief crowed merrily. It seems he did know and he was just in denial.

"You're not Yugi, are you?" Ryou asked quietly, pitching his voice low so that no one else would hear him.

He shook his head, blond bangs whipping wildly. "No, I am Yugi! Who else could I be?"

Bakura rolled his eyes. Let me handle this, he growled.

For a moment, as he felt that sense of extra shift within him, Ryou panicked. He didn't want anyone else to know about Bakura. But, even as he thought that, his mind disconnected from his body—suddenly, he was floating at the back of his own mind, watching someone else control him. Don't, he pleaded.

Relax , Bakura soothed, turning his attention away from the troubled teen.

The red-eyed spirit seemed to notice the change from Ryou to Bakura instantly, his posture becoming defensive even as his eyes glittered with curiosity. "Who are you?" he asked quietly.

"The better question is: who are you?" Bakura smirked. "You have no idea, do you? Well, let me clue you in—you're not Yugi. Yugi is what happens to your soul after three thousand years." He leaned forward, blue eyes narrowing. "You are someone else entirely and, somewhere in that twisted soul of yours, you know it."

The other spirit shook his head once more, backing away slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"Where do you go when the little one is in control?" Bakura pressed. "Why do you know so much about games and ancient Egypt? Why weren't you around before Yugi completed the Sennen Puzzle?"

"The Sennen Puzzle?" a strange note echoed through the red-eyed boy's voice as he gripped the object in question.

Bakura snorted. "Face it, your destiny is tied into something more far reaching than Yugi's daily life. There's a whole world of memories waiting for you, if you were just brave enough to face them."

A darkness passed through the other's eyes, a darkness that was tinged with rage.

"You know, this is hardly any fun if you don't remember," Bakura smirked, giving control back to Ryou.

Ryou felt dizzy to be so suddenly in command of his body once more, and abruptly faced with the anger of the red-eyed teen.

"He's a prick, whoever he is," the spirit said nastily, glaring at the albino before him.

As Bakura's manic laughter filled his mind, Ryou couldn't help but agree.

"Hey guys," Anzu interrupted, walking toward the pair with Honda and Jonouchi trailing after her. "Did you hear about this?" she asked, holding up the front page of a newspaper.

Ryou had been dreading this conversation for hours. He knew exactly what the paper said; the damned thing had greeted him that morning, nearly giving him a heart attack as he left for school. Bakura's robbery was the news on everyone's lips, and Ryou didn't want to talk about it. "Some jewels were stolen last night," he shrugged, wanting to get it over with quickly.

"How can you say that so nonchalantly, Ryou?" Anzu gaped. "Men just don't get it—this was a premier collection from one of the best jewelers in Domino!"

Ryou sank into his seat; he understood only too well, but it wasn't as though he could admit that.

"I'm more concerned with the thief than with what he stole," Honda cut in seriously.

"Yeah," Jonouchi added. "Anyone who can baffle the police as thoroughly as this guy has is obviously a master criminal."

Well, what else would you expect from the King of Thieves? Bakura asked smugly.

Ryou ignored him, an ominous feeling itching across his skin as he noticed the Other-Yugi's gaze narrow on him consideringly. "Maybe the jewels will be returned," the pale boy murmured.

Let's not lie to ourselves , Bakura laughed. You know as well as I do that those jewels are never going to leave your possession.

Guilt ate away at Ryou. In the hours since he'd been presented with his 'gift' he'd thought of a hundred ways he could return the stolen treasure, but he knew he wouldn't carry any of them out. The longer he waited, the harder it was to part with the beautiful gems. And some dark part of him—maybe Bakura—whispered that if the jewels could be so easily stolen, they belonged to whoever could claim them.

"Why would someone go through all the trouble of robbing a place, just to return everything they stole?" Jonouchi interrupted his thoughts.

"I don't know," Ryou shrugged stiffly. "Maybe the thief likes the thrill of the steal more than any of the stuff he takes."

Or maybe he's after a greater prize entirely , Bakura whispered.

Ryou frowned. You can't buy my trust.

The ancient spirit chuckled darkly. We'll see.

Jonouchi noticed the pale boy's frown. "Is something wrong, Ryou?"

"Ah," Ryou's heart skipped a beat; he didn't want anyone's attention right now. "No," he finally answered after a moment, "it's just that this is more upsetting news than I think any of us realize." At the quizzical looks that greeted him, he explained, "Well, like you said, this thief was uncommonly skilled—and now that he's struck once, what's to stop him from striking again?" His blue gaze turned inward for a moment. "I'm less concerned with what he's already stolen, and more concerned with what he'll steal next."
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It took most of the school day for Ryou to calm down, and for the real Yugi to regain control of himself. In fact, it wasn't until their shared walk home that either boy were in any shape to talk to one another.

Yugi had admitted earlier that he knew the Puzzle did strange things to him. Even if he knew nothing of the spirit housed within that Puzzle, Yugi would still be the most sympathetic person for Ryou to talk to about his Ring. It was a risk, of course—he had no idea how the shorter boy would react to the stolen jewels—but he had to tell someone about Bakura. The secrets in his life were slowly building, one by one, until it felt like a great shadow was looming over his back, waiting to drown him at a moment's notice.

"How long have you had the Sennen Puzzle?" Ryou asked the other boy as they began their walk home.

Yugi cocked his head to the side, but smiled. "I completed it a couple of months ago, why?"

"And you said that ever since then, you noticed strange things happening in your life," Ryou hedged, not answering the smaller boy's question.

"Yes," Yugi's smile dimmed. "There seems to be a lot of things I can't remember anymore."

"Like most of today?" the albino offered. At Yugi's nod, he asked, "What do you think you're doing during those times you can't remember?"

The smaller boy looked stricken at the thought. "Tell me I didn't do anything awful!" he wailed, eyes wide.

"You didn't," Ryou soothed. "But you acted like a completely different person, you even looked a little different."

"And you think the Puzzle is causing me to do this?" Yugi asked.

The albino shook his head. "I think something lives inside the Puzzle, and whenever it wants to come out and play, it does so by possessing your body."

Yugi frowned. "Why would you say that?"

"Because I'm going through something similar with the Ring," Ryou explained, half expecting Bakura to start yelling at him. His darker incarnation remained suspiciously silent, however. "I know it's hard to believe, but there's a spirit that lives inside of the Ring, and because I wear the Ring, the spirit lives inside of me." He stumbled over his words, looking for the right way to describe what he was going through. "I couldn't understand him at first, but after a while he began to speak in words I knew." Why was that?

When you touched Yugi's Puzzle, the Sennen Items resonated with each other for a moment, allowing me access to your knowledge of the world , Bakura explained before falling silent once more.

Ryou ignored him. "He says I'm a reincarnation of him, that we're the same person separated by three thousand years."

A light was beginning to dawn in Yugi's violet eyes.

"He's says some of the most horrible things, Yugi, but they still make sense to me," the albino admitted with difficultly. "I know he's not a good person, but the longer I'm around him the more I begin to think that maybe I'm not a good person either."

"Everyone's got a dark side, Ryou," Yugi replied, uncharacteristically serious. "I may not have known you for very long, but I do know that you're a great person."

But Yugi didn't know about his secret shame, didn't know the depth of his darkness, and didn't know how easily his affection could be bought. The blue-eyed boy swallowed tightly, continuing on, "He said he was a Tomb Robber and—"

There was a hint of distrustful red eyes in Yugi's gaze, there and gone in the space of a second.

Ryou drew to a halt, closing his eyes in defeat. He couldn't face the scorn of the Other-Yugi, didn't want to lose the friendship he had with the real Yugi—or any of his other friends. In the end, his secrets were too big, too dangerous, and they would have to remain buried.

"And?" Yugi prompted, but his tone sounded strange—like an interlacing of two voices, both different but in perfect harmony.

"And this is where we part ways," Ryou said heavily, motioning to the apartment building in the distance. "I'll see you tomorrow," he added before dashing off.

That's twice now that you've run from him , Bakura observed. Do you fear little Yugi?

"The only thing I fear is losing his friendship," Ryou replied as he unlocked his door.

Bakura snorted. What good are friends that you must lie to?

"I wouldn't dare tell them the truth," the pale boy exclaimed. "They'd leave me in an instant."

Then they aren't really your friends, are they? Bakura purred silkily. Besides, you've got me; what more do you need?

Ryou walked through his apartment, quickly stripping out of his school uniform to change into more casual clothes. "I can't exactly confide in you about the hell you're putting me through," he grumbled, pulling his hair through the collar of a soft t-shirt.

Bakura's mental eyes narrowed. Well, it's not like you can confide in them, either.

"I know," Ryou sighed wearily, "but I don't want to be alone—even if that means I have to pretend to be a better person, to lie about everything."

His pale limbs grew suddenly heavy as a fog descended over his mind. As Ryou felt himself sink to the floor, his soul flew to another place—the strange hallway from his dreams. And just like last time, the tanned spirit was leaning against a wall, waiting for him.

"How can you be alone when there are two of us?" Bakura asked, quirking a silver eyebrow.

Ryou tried to turn away from the spirit, but he was gripped by a dizzying vertigo after having switched locations so quickly.

Bakura reached his side in the blink of an eye, wrapping a tanned hand around a pale wrist. "You'll never be alone again," he continued, "neither of us will. And what's more," his voice dropped to a velvet purr, "you never have to pretend with me. You're free to be yourself."

No one had offered him that promise, save his sister. How could Bakura be such a smooth blend of everything Ryou feared and desired?

Bakura's hand roamed away from Ryou's wrist, traveling upward to rest on a shoulder as the spirit drew closer to the other boy. "Few people will ever offer you that opportunity. Your friends," he snorted at the word, "they'll have expectations of you—how they'll want you to talk, act, even dress—and you'll never quite manage to catch their approval, but you'll continue to chase after it." His other hand moved to trail curious fingers over the pale boy's cheek. "I, conversely, expressed my approval from the very beginning. I know how you think, how you feel, I know your darkest secrets, and I accept all of it, all of you." His fingers began to draw light circles over the boy's skin. "There are parts of yourself that you hardly even comprehend, and I revel in them when others would abandon you."

Ryou felt every word as though they were being hammered into his soul, each sentence tearing him away from his friends and throwing him closer to the thief. Approval was such a tricky concept at his age; he wanted other people to like him, but at what cost? Could he really lie about himself to his friends, when there was someone else waiting with open arms for the real him?

The careful touches to the smaller boy's face drifted lower, until the tanned fingers were tucking under his chin, forcing crystal-blue eyes to gaze into eyes of the bluest midnight. "In the end," Bakura murmured, "I'll always know you better than anyone else ever could." His face lowered until their foreheads were touching. "Why fight that?" he whispered against the pale boy's lips.

There was such a small space between them, less than an inch—but that tiny inch held so many promises. Ryou closed the distance, pressing his lips to Bakura's. His reasoning was cloudy and vague, an action driven more by instinct than thought. In a moment of instability and turmoil, the tanned spirit had suddenly presented himself as an anchor to hold on to, and Ryou was desperate. But Bakura didn't respond for a moment, enough time for Ryou to begin doubting his decision. He started to pull away.

Tanned hands gripped his face, bringing him back. The kiss was different this time, fiercer and more intimate. Bakura's lips worked over his own, filling him with a lazy heat. Devilish little fangs nibbled at his lips until he gasped, opening his mouth for Bakura's invading tongue.

Ryou had kissed his fair share of girls over the years, and even a few boys, but those embraces had never felt quite right. Others had spoken of a soul igniting passion and a lust that could override common sense, but he had never experienced it himself.

Until now.

As Bakura's tongue tangled with his own, Ryou tasted the passion that he'd been denied. It went deeper than his lust for wealth, deeper than a simple desire to be touched—this was the sort of hunger that would burn through his blood, that would burn him, until it was satisfied. True to what he had heard so many times before, it felt as though his soul was on fire, pure desperation lacing his needy moans.

Bakura, for his part, did everything he could to feed that fire. His hands stroked the pale boy—first his face, then along his throat, slipping lower each second, until he was pulling off Ryou's shirt. The kiss was broken as the garment was thrown off, and Bakura enjoyed the sight before him. Ryou could only imagine what he looked like to the other—pale and disheveled, heat staining his cheeks as he panted for air. Whatever the tanned spirit saw, it pleased him. With lust shining in his dark eyes, he lowered his head to the other boy's neck, nipping and sucking as his mouth danced along the smooth column. All too soon, he pulled away, drawing a moan of disappointment out of Ryou.

But Ryou's demanding moan quickly turned into a low growl of pleasure as Bakura's mouth closed around one of his nipples. His teeth teased the skin and his tongue soothed the tiny stings, pulling Ryou deeper and deeper under his dark incarnation's spell. He might have stayed that way—in a blissful heaven of sensation—if reason hadn't crashed back through his head. At the simple feel of the other's hands toying with the clasp of his pants and his awakening hardness, reality reasserted itself. He was about to have sex—with himself. And though the spirit often made an odd kind of sense, this was one path Ryou didn't want to follow him down.

"Stop," he gasped out, still short of breath.

Bakura looked up at him, disappointment clear in his eyes. "So there's still some fight left in you?" he asked, his voice low and husky. "That's a shame." He swirled his tongue around a pale nipple one last time, drawing a shudder out of Ryou, then stood. "But time is on my side," he warned, smugness lurking in his tone as he faced the pleasured teen. "You'll come around to my way of thinking soon enough."
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Ryou shifted positions on his bed, hissing in discomfort. As he'd begged off the spirit, he'd known he was doing the right thing—having sex was a thrill, but having sex with someone who was, on most accounts, a copy of himself was a shameful decadence that could not be indulged. Still, hours later, as he laid in the darkness of his room with nothing to distract him, he found himself going over the moment he'd shared with Bakura, again and again. The scene played through his mind in an endless loop, teasing him with his unsatisfied desires, and the hardness that Bakura had so briefly fondled came back with a vengeance.

He shifted again, but no position could relieve the aching pressure between his legs. It wasn't a problem he wanted to take care of, not with wild fantasies of his other-self running through his mind; that would just be adding fuel to an already dangerous fire. Nevertheless, his arousal was not a problem that could be ignored. Every vein in his body pumped liquid heat through him, until he was heavy and burning, and the steady throb of his pulse became a torment. With a sigh, he gave in, doing his best not to think of the ancient spirit.

Ryou's pale hands ran through his hair, ruffling the white locks and scratching at his scalp. He stretched then, arching his back as his hands skimmed down his torso, stopping only for a moment to give attention to his flat nipples. Here and there he pressed at his skin, leaving small stings behind that tingled pleasurably. Slowly, ever so slowly, his hands drew close to the clasp of his uncomfortably tight jeans. Carefully, but as quickly as he could, the albino stripped out of his pants, another hiss filling the air at the friction it created. He straightened up, arching his back once more as his hands resumed their journey to the source of his agony.

Suddenly, and completely without permission, his hands froze in place.

"No!" he wailed into the night air, his toes curling as he desperately tried to regain control of his hands.

Not so fast, Ryou , Bakura purred in his mind. If I don't get release tonight, neither do you; we suffer together on this score.

"That's not fair," Ryou snapped angrily.

I think I'm being more than generous , Bakura hissed, especially after that little show you just put on. His voice dropped until the hiss became a snarl, After all, I'm just preventing your release—give it enough time and it will pass. If I really wanted to be mean, I could spend the whole night teaching you what unfulfilled desire is really like.

Ryou growled low in his throat. "Fuck you!" he snarled, nearly matching the spirit's tone. It was rare that he ever let his temper get the best of him, but arousal could turn him into an animal, pure and simple.

Bakura snorted. We wouldn't be having this problem if you had.

"I'm throwing the Ring straight into a dumpster the first chance I get," Ryou vowed, still battling to control his useless limbs.

Suddenly, I feel like being mean , Bakura said, his tone turning dark.

For several moments the flustered teen didn't know what to expect, but then his hands began to move of their own volition.

As pale digits caressed the quivering flesh of his stomach, the darkness of his room distorted. Bakura pulled himself from the shadows, the glowing imprint of a tanned fiend, and sprawled across the end of Ryou's bed. Like before, he seemed to exert some sort of presence, despite the fact that he was the flickering, ghostly memory of who had once been in life. Unlike before, his eyes smoldered with a worrying combination of madness and lechery.

Ryou began to struggle, fighting against the hands he couldn't control, against the force that was suddenly keeping him in place.

Relax , Bakura smiled widely, you've got a long night ahead of you now.

Tanned hands pressed against him, leaving behind the strange sensation of being brushed by a creature made of static. The peculiar digits danced across his chest, dipping low to his abdomen as his own hands trailed up toward his nipples. Ryou whimpered as a blunt fingernail was dragged over his sensitive skin, and squirmed when Bakura's insubstantial caress reached his thighs. He panted miserably, trying to block out what was happening, but it was too much to ignore—his body was eager for the attention, and it was like he was being pleasured by two people rather than one, since he no longer had control of himself. He was being forced to feel whatever the spirit wanted him to; he was completely at Bakura's mercy.

The spirit's hands skimmed the base of his arousal, touching him fleetingly, teasingly. In that one moment, when Ryou's whole existence narrowed down to those errant touches, he understood with painful clarity that the spirit was never going to let him come. Bold fingers wrapped around his manhood, stroking and bringing him to the edge of completion, but always backing off before the smaller boy could tip into that wild abandon. He was forced to hang there, suspended between the painfully intense rush of climax and the frustrated lull of thwarted pleasure.

Almost idly, Ryou's hands began to caress his chest again, dragging fingernails across his sensitive skin. His moans fast turned to whimpers as Bakura's hands settled on his thighs; the muscles there seemed to twitch and burn at the other's touch. But the strokes were gentle now, almost languid, designed to bring Ryou down from the frenzied pleasure he'd just received. After what felt like an eternity, his pulse finally slowed, the pain between his legs finally lessened.

But just as he thought he'd been given a reprieve, the spirit's hands returned to his arousal. Bakura repeated his actions from before: teasing the smaller boy to the point of coming, denying him release, and then soothing his body until it was calm enough to continue again.

The vicious cycle continued on for hours, always bringing Ryou so close to satiation, but never close enough. Climax was constantly one firm stroke away, but Bakura never let him have it. The night drew on, filled with Ryou's pleasured whimpers and moans, and Bakura's determined silence. Through the whole experience, through the hours of mind-numbing denial, the spirit said nothing, made no noise, gave Ryou no way to mark the passage of time. One moment bled into the next, until the whole night was a haze of pain and pleasure.

When the alarm clock finally went off in the early morning, Bakura stopped his torture. Ryou, disoriented and glazed, sobbed in relief.

The spirit rose above him, his eyes dark and unreadable. I warned you once before that the consequences of threatening to take off the Ring were more severe than you could imagine , he whispered lowly. And I wasn't lying, but Ryou , he soothed, stroking the boy's face, understand this: these hands can deliver pleasure just as easily as punishment. It's your choice which it will be.
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A/N: I'm going straight to hell. It's very uncharacteristic of me to write something so intense this early in a story. But, I mean… the man hasn't gotten any in three thousand years; I can only guess how sexually frustrated he must be.

Many, many thanks to both KHT and RainRaven4711 for proof reading and telling me when things didn't work quite right.

Please review!

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! or Muse's Sing For Absolution.