AN:  All right new ficcy!  One of my first AU's so please be kind.  Anyway not a whole lot to explain yet but there might be later on.  All you need to know for now is Ryou and Bakura are twin brothers, no yami/hikari thing.  And I hope it's not confusing but tell me if it is, I''m trying to be really descriptive.  Anyway hope you enjoy!

Japanese:

Hotaru no Hikari = Firefly's light

Disclaimer: I no own Yugioh, though I wish I owned two certain white haired bishies!  I'll just have to settle for plushies for now.

"Leave Sanity At The Door"

Chapter 1:  "Darkening Reality"

'I can't do this anymore.  I can't fake it anymore.'  He was lying on his bed face up, tears streaming down his face as the rain pelted against his glass window.  'Why was it always Bakura?  Why was everyone always friends with him?  The only reason they don't beat me up like the other bullies are because of him.  But that's worse then actually being beaten up.  The pain is too much.'  His hand dug into the piece of broken mirror he still had in his hand.  He pulled up his long shirt sleeve and looked over his scarred arm.  He'd been cutting for a little over a year.  The first time had been an accident, he cut his arm when a glass fell and broke in the sink while he was rinsing it.  He hadn't been paying attention, he was thinking about his brother again. 

            His brother had always been the stronger more outgoing of the two, ever since they were kids.  But whenever he saw Ryou alone he tried to include him in whatever he was doing even if his friends didn't want him around.  But he never seemed to notice.  But Ryou did, and because of that people always thought he had friends, that he was part of their group.  So no one ever knew the true loneliness that dwelt in his heart.  Day after day of either being alone or being dragged along by his brother pretending to be happy.  Pretending to smile, pretending that everything was all right.  But it wasn't.  It never was, and it only seemed to get worse after that fateful day he felt a release from the mental pain with physical pain. 

            But as time went on it was getting harder to cover the scars and even now it was harder to free himself of the mental anguish.  Every time he cut he had to cut more and deeper and find some more painful way to free himself.  Which is where Ryou was now; watching the blue vein in his wrist pulsate with every heart beat.  He felt the blood drip from his right hand with every heart beat as the glass dug deeper into his flesh as his grip tightened.  He raised the glass to his left wrist and without blinking dragged the jagged piece across his tender and scarred flesh.  Fear had left his mind long ago as the mental and physical pain he began putting himself through became too much to bear.  So without fear or remorse he plunged the jagged piece in deeper relishing in the painful sensations ringing through his body as the thin blue line exploded in an array of red and began trickling down his wrist.  The pain was overwhelming and he couldn't help but pull the glass from his arm and throw it across the bed before covering his wrist with his hand. 
            He took in deep gasping breaths as the pain continued shooting through his body, the blood dripping over his hand and onto the bed below him.  It seeped into his blanket as it started to pool where his elbow met his bed.  It didn't unnerve him at all when after five minutes the bleeding continued.  'It's never gone on this long before.  What if it doesn't stop?  What if I end up passing out?'  He let out a deep sigh as the pain ebbed away.  But something was different this time.  The pain was leaving but he felt hollow and empty.  He heard his brother knocking on the door but instead of yelling out he wasn't hungry all that came out was a muffled groan.  'What's going on?  I feel so numb and everything is so dark, when did it get dark?  It's only five,' he thought and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. 

            He heard knocking on the door again and a voice yelling from the other side, but it all sounded so far away.  He felt the darkness eating away at his vision as his hand slipped from his still bleeding arm and fell limp to his side.  Fear would have been the predominant feeling any normal person would have been feeling about then with their whole world fading before their eyes.  But as I said before, Ryou lost all fear a long time ago, and gave into the darkness with the last thing he heard was his door being broken down.

            Beep…Beep…Beep...Beep…Beep...Beep…

            He awoke to annoying but not high pitched or loud sound to his left.  He squinted his eyes open but shut them quickly as the light invaded his eyes.  'What happened?  Where am I?'  He tried to raise his left arm to block the light but felt a painful shock as it seemed snagged on something.  He quickly opened his eyes blinking tears away as his eyes adjusted.  He blinked the last of the tears away and looked down wide eyed at his arm strapped to a metal pole on the side of his bed.  'My bed?  This isn't my bed!'  He quickly looked down at the hospital gown he now adorned and at the small sanitary cot he was now lying upon.  'What happened?!'  He looked down at his other arm and both legs which were also restrained. He looked back to his left arm which had an extra layer beneath the restraint.  It was a bandaged wrapped around his arm.  'That's from…the last time I…'  He quickly averted his gaze as a young woman with long curly blond hair and violet eyes entered the room in a doctor's dress and a clip board.  She noticed he was awake and gave him a warm smile, which surprisingly enough he returned.  Of course it was faked, but he'd been at it for so long no one noticed.  'The few times I give a real smile are for my brother and him alone.  At least now I can fake it again.'  But after the years the doctor had spent with patients of depression such as this she could tell it was fake from a mile away.

            She pulled up a seat and sat next to his bed looking over his charts but not looking at any of the machines hooked up to or monitoring him.  "You're name is Ryou is it," she asked politely looking up to meet his eyes once again.  He mentally snorted at her.  He gave her one of his best smiles, and nodded.  "My name is Mai.  You do know why you're here right?"  He didn't even flinch but only politely nodded again.  'Because I carved myself up pretty badly.'  "Happy to see you decided to stay with us, we weren't sure you were going to make it."  'Woopy I live,' he thought sarcastically.  He still seemed completely unfazed by her words.  "Do you want to die?"  The smile left his face as he put on a pondering face.

            "I don't want to but if it happens it happens."  Mai's smile faded but was still there.

            "So you don't care if you die?"  He once again seemed deep in thought.  'So what if I die, it won't make a big difference?'  It took him a few minutes but his face instantly lit up with that fake smile as he met her gaze.

            "No I guess not."

            "What about your family?   Don't you think they'd miss you?"  This one considered no thinking on his part as he quickly responded with the smile still on his face.  'There's only one person who'd ever miss me.'

            "Well the only family I have is my dad and my brother.  My dad I can't speak for since I don't know him that well but my brother would definitely be sad.  But he has lots of friends and I'm sure they'd cheer him up!"

            "What about your friends Ryou, don't you think they'd miss you?"  'What friends,' he thought bitterly.  He continued to smile but after a few minutes she was sure she wasn't getting an answer.  He continued to smile that big fake smile but his eyes screamed in agony as tears threatened but didn't fall.

            "So have you always been alone?"

            "I'm never alone!  I always have my brother and his friends."  She noticed how he referred to them as his brother's friends and not his own. 

            "What about when you don't go with them then what do you do?"

            "I watch TV or go to a movie or the library sometimes.  They have a lot of really old and hard to find books there you know.  There are these really old ones about ancient Egypt, my dad digs up ancient artifacts and things like that in Egypt you know?"

            "Ryou that's something your dad likes, but what do you like?"  He seemed confused a minute and once again took on a pondering face before responding, in which he still didn't seem quite sure.

            "My brother." 

            "No Ryou what do you like to do?  What are your favorite movies?"  The boy seemed at a loss, his eyes held unshed tears but he only put on that fake smile again.

            "What do you like Mai?"

            "Me?  I like dogs (AN: LOL Jou) and horror movies and fantasy books.  Now can you tell me what you like?"  His smile held out as she finally stood.  "Well Ryou once your wound finishes healing you're going to be moved."

            "Moved?  You mean I'm not going home?"  She nodded as he took on a confused look. 

            "You're going to Hotaru no Hikari, it's a special hospital."

            "You mean a psycho ward?"  'Figures.'

            "Such a rude term for where you're going to be moving to."  Something unnerved her about his reaction.  "You speak of it so lowly but you don't seem at all upset you're going there.  Is there a reason?"

            "I don't understand?"  She sighed.

            "I mean do you feel like you should be going there."  'Of course I should be going there.  I'm fucking nuts lady, I almost killed myself!'  But the smile took precedent over what he really wanted to say.

            "No but if you think I need to go there then I trust you."  She sighed but smiled once more before she left the room.   She shut the door and leaned against it.  

            "So what do you think?"  She turned to see the 'warden' of Hotaru no Hikari himself, Pegasus J. Crawford. 

            "He's putting up a façade.  He won't tell me what he really thinks.  I've seen this before and it looks like he might be hard to crack."

            "Have you told his brother yet?"  She shook her head no.

            "The poor boy comes home and finds out his brother almost committed suicide and he's a cutter without him even suspecting a thing.  Poor guy has a lot to take in."

            "Yeah but serious cutters are good at hiding it, at least until the end."  Mai's eyes looked downcast.  "You are going to continue to be his physician once he moves right?"

            "I didn't come take the nice half hour long trip over here to evaluate him and then hand him off to one of your lackeys."  Mai definitely didn't like most of her co-workers.  She considered them too cold and distant to really have an impact on patients and a lot of them wanted to use medication as an answer.  Which she thought wasn't bad as long as that included therapy, but some of the doctors seemed to hand out prescriptions as almost a way to avoid their patience.

            "By the way how is the one girl you've been treating?  It's been two months now right?"  She sighed in frustration.

            "She's still mute.  She communicates just fine but she wouldn't speak if her life depended on it."  They stopped their conversation as a young man with long white unruly hair came through the doors, his eyes were red from lack of sleep and he seemed drained.

            "Bakura, didn't get much sleep?"  He looked up at her like a dumbass for pretty much stating the obvious.  "You're brother finally woke up."  He looked up expectantly.  "It doesn't look good."

            "I don't understand why he would do this," he growled.  "I'd do anything for him and he knows it."

            "From what we can tell that might be one of the problems."

            "What?"

            "The only positive thing you're brother would even speak about was you."

            "What do you mean positive?  He's always positive and smiling and happy."

            "Bakura," Mai said putting a hand on his shoulder to calm him.  "That smile is a fake; he's trying to look happy to make you think nothing is wrong."

            "But why-"

            "You said it yourself; you'd do anything to make him happy.  But he didn't want you to help him."
            "So it's all my fault?!"

            "No!  Bakura please calm down!  You're brother needs your support right now.  You won't do him any good by breaking down like this in front of him.  Listen I know this may sound cruel or unusual but after he transfers I don't want you to contact him unless we tell you."

            "What!?  He's my brother you can't do that!"  He lunged at her and grabbed one of her wrists in a painful manner.

            "BAKURA!"  She finally got his attention and waited as he slowly calmed down and released her hand.  "Listen your brother just told me that he didn't care if he died and the only person who would care is you.  And when I asked about his friends he couldn't tell me a thing.  Then when I asked him what he liked, like a movie or a book he only told me what other people liked he couldn't tell me a thing.  He needs to figure some things out on his own, like who he is before you see him again.  Seeing you again would only make him go back to what he was doing.  You still have a few days before he's released, so please do what you can with them."  He seemed to be in shock so she led him over to the chairs in the waiting area.  "I know this seems like a lot right now but your brother needs you."  He nodded his head in acceptance as Mai stood and said her goodbyes for then. 

            'Brother what happened?  Why didn't I notice?'  He took a few calming breaths to collect his thoughts before walking over to his brother's room and looking in the little window on the door.  'I promise I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy.'  He nodded in determination before slowly opening the door and walking in.

AN:  So what do you think?  Please give me some thoughts because I'm not sure about this.  Never did an AU before.  Anyway what do you think?  Keep it?  Frame it?  Burn it?  Use it for Teepee?  Thanks for reading!