I don't know what compelled me to take this half-formed oneshot down, dust it off, blow the life back into the dying embers, finish it, and decide it would be cool as if it were a series.

They're gonna be really short updates too. That way you can, at least, count on their frequency.

Also I have not much an idea of where it's going. So we can all find out together.

ALSO, chronological/linear timeline? LOL.

Disclaimer: Own nothing, etc. etc. Why bother doing these, really?

"You gonna tell me why you did it?"

Ryou shook his head. His head, wrapped tightly in bandages.

"You sure?"

He nodded. The room gave in to the crushing silence. The heart monitors, thank God, had gone, the bags strung up on metal poles, clear plastic tubes worming into Ryou's skin had vanished, he was awake, but to Bakura, Ryou seemed just as lifeless as he was Six days ago, when he had first been wheeled in the ICU and Bakura was allowed his first of many ten-minute visits.

"Why the fuck did you jump out the window."

Another shake of the head. Bakura thought he might tear his hair out in frustration. He wanted to throttle Ryou, to beat and bruise him, to shout at him, kick, punch, something, that would force him to make a sound, and wrench the despair that was building up in Bakura's chest.

A broken shoulder. A concussion, brain damage. And irreparable damage to his spine, paralyzing him permanently from the waist down.

What the fuck went wrong here?

"Is it my fault?" Bakura couldn't hide the note of despair from his voice. Ryou merely shrugged, his eyes still fixed on his shaking hands. "Was it what I said? About you?" Another shrug. "Did you feel like I trapped you? What?" Another miserable, useless shrug. "Fucking say something to me Ryou!"

He started to cry again. Quiet sniffles, at first, but soon he was fighting down sobs, head bowed. Bakura paused, watching as Ryou tried to control himself, trying to drag up some sort of guilt or sympathy, some sort of warm, human emotion within himself.

But all Bakura felt was intense anger and misery.

"Stop crying!" Bakura shouted. "Crying is for weaklings! Is that what you are, Ryou? A pathetic little weakling?" Slowly, the teenager lowered his hands, his shoulders shaking. "Are you?"

He nodded. He actually nodded. Bakura wondered if he could hit Ryou hard enough to hurt without risking further brain damage. He decided against it. Instead, he stood up, kicking heavily at the solid metal frame of the gurney, which clattered loudly. Ryou winced, and wiped delicately at his eyes, wishing he had his long white hair to fall over his eyes. One hand gently touched the bandages, his lower lip trembling.

"Yes, Ryou, they shaved it off." Bakura muttered, looking at the wall "So they could slice your skull open, and try and stop your brain from bleeding all over the fucking place." His voice was riddled with an odd sort of disgust – one would expect he would enjoy something so gruesome. "So they could save your life." He sighed deeply again, trying so hard to control his breathing and heartrate. He was close to flying off the handle, he knew it, and it was the last thing Ryou needed at the moment.

He turned. His heart jammed tightly in his throat, Bakura walked towards the bed, and climbed onto the mattress, sitting down on top of Ryou's paralyzed legs. Of course, he couldn't feel a thing. Ryou protested silently, looking away, covering his face with his hands, but Bakura easily gathered his wrists with long, bony fingers, the other hand grabbing his face, forcing Ryou to look into his eyes. There really was no escaping his cold, terrified, scrutinising gaze. Not now.

"Why did you try to kill yourself." Bakura demanded, his voice shaking.

Ryou's eyes were filling with tears again, and they spilled over as he blinked, cascading down his cheeks. Taking pity on the boy, Bakura brushed them away with his thumb, but never broke his gaze with Ryou.

"Do you remember much of what happened?" Bakura tried again. After a moment of inaction, Ryou slowly shook his head, blinking again. Bakura wiped away a fresh bout of tears. "All right. You were standing on the ledge of a twenty-fourth-story window in our apartment building. You leaned back, and fell. Instead of hitting the pavement or the road, you fell onto the roof of a parked car with such a force the metal dented heavily and the glass in the windows shattered. You survived because the car absorbed a good amount of the shock. But you didn't want to survive, did you? Did you!" He dug his nails into Ryou's pallid skin, and the teen screwed his eyes up tight in a grimace of pain. "Say something to me!"

Nothing. Not as though he expected an answer.

"Was it a problem with attention?" Bakura leaned back a little as he wracked his brain, trying to think. Put himself in Ryou's shoes. "I know you had a problem with us. Didn't you?"

An odd, half little shrug. Ryou sniffed, eyes still closed. Bakura's hands relaxed, the fingers slackening on his bandaged scalp. The elder leaned back in, resting his forehead against Ryou. The cloth scraped him roughly. Bakura sighed.

"You should have said something to me... God Ryou I would have broken it off if I knew you were hurting that much... But, you were the one who said it was okay. That there was no point in both of us being miserable, that I should be able to go off and have my fun, I was... only human." Something burned in his throat. After all, that was not quite right. "Why did you lie? Were... were you lying to me? Ryou?" He could see a blurred flash of brown, on the very edge of his vision. "Please, I need you to say something. Talk to me. I don't care what it is, just anything. Something."

Nothing. Ryou was still refusing to talk, look him in the eye, to give any indication that Bakura even existed.

"Fuck you then!" Bakura shouted. A few silvered drops of spittle gathered in Ryou's cheek. "You wanna be like this, so fucking apathetic, then fine!" He swung his legs over the side of the bed. Grabbed his leather jacket, which had been carelessly tossed over the seat of the chair. Pulled it on as he walked out, swearing loudly. Slammed the door behind himself.

Ryou opened his eyes again as soon as he was alone. Pulled the sheets up a little further. The air conditioning was too high, and he shivered.

"You're wrong." His voice was a weak rasp, as brittle and dry and pale as sunbleached bone. Who was he talking to? Who could hear him? Who cared? "This has nothing to do with you, Bakura.

Not a single damn thing."

Hoped that had some intrigue for you. Piqued your attention.

You can tell that I've been having a lot of fun in my stylistics class. Don't worry, it'll get worse. I'm trying to go for quality, not quantity here. An actual decent effort to break away from what I've been doing for the past five years. It's what got me in a rut. I could call in an AU, put it in a new scenario, but I was turning out the same crap really. But this time the tides turning. I'm going to be economical and thoughtful and genuinely try to do something that hasn't been done before. This will be different.

With luck.

See you soon maybe. MAYBE EVEN TONIGHT my fingers are just itching to write.

Laters.