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tenderdorks · 1 year

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have some random stream of consciousness writing because @yuusaris pretty much said “what if ryou and bakura in the same apartment and there’s neighbors/landlord??”

no second draft, we die impulsively

Ryou starts to notice that his neighbors are either ignoring him or looking very antsy when they make eye contact with him. It’s a little unusual—he’s lived here for a few years, now, and thinks he knows the basics about his neighbors’ behaviors—but not enough for Ryou to think much on it. At least, not enough until he finds Bakura talking with one of his neighbors in front of his apartment door. Said neighbor—Takahashi—does a double take when she finally spots him.

“OH,” she says, with as much self control as she can. “OH, there are two of you, I didn’t know you were a twin, Bakura!”

Oh, geez. “We’re not twins,” Ryou says. He holds his key in his hand and looks at Bakura, who—has a thing of sugar in his hands?

“Brothers?”

“No, no.”

“Cousins?”

“We just look alike, Takahashi,” Bakura says, and then says, “Look, do you want the sugar or not? I don’t need this shit.”

“Is that my sugar?” Ryou asks.

Bakura scoffs. “Fuck off, this isn’t about you.”

“Really,” Takahashi says, “I don’t need—”

“Bullshit.” Bakura forces it on her as Ryou unlocks his own apartment door, muttering something along the lines of, “Now we’re even,” and pushes past Ryou into the apartment.

Ryou waves awkwardly at Takahashi before shutting the door, then turns to Bakura, who is already on the couch scratching his own ear. “Now, what’s that about?”

“Shut up,” Bakura mutters.

“You can’t just give away my sugar to—”

“Landlord’s raising the rent on this whole place,” Bakura says. “And Takahashi isn’t doing well. She needs shit. That’s all.”

Ryou pauses, though. “What do you mean the landlord’s raising the rent?”

“Means the landlord’s raising the rent,” Bakura snaps. “He told me thinking I was you. That’s all.”

“When? That sort of stuff’s important, Bakura—”

“I don’t know when! It’s been a while, I don’t know.”

Ryou rubs his nose hard and grumbles, “Bakura. You can’t pretend to be me anymore. Do the neighbors think you’re me?”

Bakura’s quiet.

“Bakura.”

“I mean, I never said I wasn’t,” Bakura says carefully.

“Why,” Ryou says, slowly, “are you like this.”

Bakura turns his head to scowl at Ryou. “Fuck off.”

That’s it, for a while. At least, until Ryou runs into Takahashi again the next day, and Takahashi carefully stares at him as Ryou stares back at her.

“I’m Bakura,” he says.

“That doesn’t help at all,” Takahashi says.

“I’m Bakura Ryou.”

“Oh!” She relaxes. “Okay. Can you tell your friend he doesn’t need to leave groceries at my door? It’s a bit odd, is all.”

“What,” Ryou says.

At the apartment, when Ryou asks about the groceries, Bakura just growls, “Fuck off. You’re the kid of a rich guy, you don’t get it.”

“But did you steal them? Did you buy them?”

“It doesn’t matter!”

“It does!”

“It doesn’t matter because they were ours,” Bakura says. “It’s sharing. It’s not stealing.”

“You mean those were mine,” Ryou says.

“You let me eat them. What’s the difference if I share them with someone else? You’re rich.”

Ryou says, with as much care as he can muster, “My father is rich.”

“Same difference.” Bakura shakes his head, scratches his own elbows. He looks like Ryou’s got him under a microscope or something. “You weren’t even supposed to find out about this shit.”

“I think an empty pantry would be hard to hide.”

“I could’ve replaced everything,” Bakura says.

Ryou scowls. “What? By stealing?”

“Fuck you, stealing isn’t wrong.”

“It’s a little bit wrong sometimes,” Ryou says.

Bakura huffs. And again, that’s it, for a while.

At least, until the Landlord finds Ryou.

Ryou’s checking the mail, and neighbors are, Ryou now notices, giving him odd looks—even more odd than before, which Ryou doesn’t get until the Landlord comes up to him and says, “I hear you have a roommate, Bakura?”

Ah. “Well, not exactly,” Ryou says.

“Do you or don’t you?”

Why don’t you fuck around and find out? Ryou doesn’t say. “About the rent,” Ryou says. “How much are you raising it again?”

“Changing the subject?” The Landlord tuts his tongue. “We need to discuss your roommate, Bakura. He isn’t on the lease.”

Shit, shit, shit. “Can we talk about this later? I need to speak with my father on the phone soon, you know how the time difference in Egypt is…”

“Speak to him later,” the Landlord says.

“It’s really quite urgent.”

“Speak to him later,” the Landlord says. “Is your roommate home?”

“No,” Ryou says, automatically, right as he sees Bakura coming down the stairs.

Bakura catches his eye. Ryou makes a distressed, grimacing face, and the Landlord frowns.

Then the Landlord turns. Ryou makes huge shooing gestures with his hands.

Bakura stands his ground, like an absolute asshole.

“There you are,” the Landlord says. “Are you the one I’m getting complaints about?”

“Hell if I know,” Bakura says. “I know I’ve been getting complaints about you, though.”

Ryou wants to throttle him. “Bakura!”

“What? It’s true.”

“We need to talk about your living situation,” the Landlord says. “Especially if you’re going to be staying here permanently, Mister, ah…?”

Bakura narrows his eyes at the Landlord instead of saying anything.

“Right,” the Landlord says. “I am going to need your name for the lease eventually.”

“Don’t have one.”

“What?”

“Don’t have one,” Bakura says.

The Landlord barely reacts. “You don’t have a name?”

Bakura shrugs. “Nope.”

“Oh, you are going to be trouble,” the Landlord mutters, and Ryou’s insides shrivel up.

“No, no, no,” he says. “It’s, uh, it’s a perfectly normal name, the one he has, uh—”

The only thing he can think of, suddenly, is the sugar.

“Satou,” Ryou says. Sugar.

Bakura furrows his brows. Even the Landlord says, “What?”

“I mean Sato,” Ryou says, trying not to anxiously laugh. “Sato, right? Your name is Sato. It’s always been Sato. You just think it’s haha funny to pretend to be me, which is why people call you Bakura, too. Right, Sato?”

Bakura’s glaring at him.

“Sato, huh?” the Landlord says anyway. “Well, Sato, are you free right now?”

“No,” Bakura grunts.

“We have to call my father,” Ryou says, because it’s always been a convenient excuse. “Immediately, even. Thank you for your understanding, be seeing you.”

Ryou pushes Bakura back up the stairs. Bakura grunts and struggles, but all he ends up saying is, “The fuck did you tell him that for? I don’t want him addressing me by name, even if it’s some made up shit one.”

“You needed a name! It was all I could think of.”

“Fuck that,” Bakura says. He then turns when they reach the top of the stairs and holds both his hands in front of himself. “Listen, I have a plan.”

Oh no. “A what?” Ryou asks.

“A plan,” Bakura says. “To help Takahashi and shit.”

“Oh no,” Ryou mumbles.

“All the residents, really,” Bakura says. “We’re gonna—what is it—we’re gonna rise up and revolt against the Landlord. I’m gonna organize the residents against him.”

“Why do you need to do that?”

“He’s shit. He doesn’t need to raise rent like he’s planning to.”

“Bakura,” Ryou says, slowly, “how much is he raising rent?”

“Too much,” Bakura says. “Takahashi can’t afford it. I’m sure Tanaka can’t afford it either. Asshole’s expecting everyone to just take it when they—”

“Bakura, please, please do not get me kicked out of here.” Ryou is begging. He is pleading with his eyes, his mouth, his hands. “It’s hard enough to find an affordable two bedroom apartment in this part of Domino. It’ll take forever to find another one.”

“You’ll find one, though,” Bakura growls. “Your dad’s rich.”

“My father has been forgetting to send me money, Bakura,” Ryou says. “That’s why I’m so—ugh.” Ryou holds his own face. He sighs and lets it go. “You can’t keep doing this, Bakura, please.”

But Bakura doesn’t seem to get it. “He’s forgetting?”

“He’s been very busy—”

“How’s he forgetting? You’re his son!”

“I don’t know either, Bakura, just—” Ryou pushes Bakura toward the apartment door. “We can discuss this inside, okay? It just isn’t as simple as you think it is.”

Bakura scowls anyway. “We’re going to revolt against your father, too. Fucking rich asshole withholding money from you.”

“I don’t need his money. I have a job, Bakura.”

#yugioh #bakura ryou #yami bakura #tenderdorks #fanfic #my fic #me finally remembering this blog exists like pikachu face #long post

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tenderdorks · 5 years

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Sugar

Notes: Howdy, folks! It’s me, @justapalspal / @ryoubandwagon, taking a crack at writing some tendershipping on a sideblog I’ve finally given purpose to just now.

And y’all know me, I live, breathe, and eat goofy tendershipping, so have some post-canon tenderdorks while I stretch my writing muscles! Bakura buys Ryou cookies, then pretends he didn’t.

Word Count: 2722

Warnings: Save for two vague innuendos and Bakura having a semi-sailor mouth, nothing that goes above a T rating.

Ao3 Link: Here!

Oh, gods, I hate sugar, Bakura grumbled, fourth cookie crammed in his mouth. He wasn’t going to touch frosting for a month. Two months. Four was enough of them, he figured; that would be convincing.

Everything in his mouth was too creamy, though; Bakura made it to their floor and grunted, when he wasn’t crushing his teeth together. His jaw burned. His cheekbones stung a little from the force of it, too. By the time he made it to the door he was almost ready to swallow the damp lump, and he paused a second to give himself enough time to do so and scrub crumbs off his face so it wouldn’t look bad. Or suspicious.

Okay. Cool, cool.

Bakura stuck the key in the lock and pushed the door in. “Hey, Ryou.”

No response.

“...Ryou?” Bakura called, louder.

“Huh?” Ryou’s voice was loud, airy. Sounded like he was in the craft room, too; probably working on miniatures again.

“I’m back,” Bakura called, shutting the door behind him. He kicked off his shoes and pushed them into some semblance of order next to Ryou’s, just lying about. Messy, but hell, the rest of the place wasn’t any better.

He shrugged his jacket off—as much as he could, anyway, while keeping the box clutched to his chest. The jacket he threw on the couch. He stared at it. He stared at the walls, the unfolded laundry strewn about. He stood there.

“From work,” he said, blankly. Gods, he sounded like a damn fool.

A few clunking sounds, a door creaking, and Ryou poked his head out the hall, breathing just a bit hard from the rush. “Ah, right.” Holy shit, Bakura was going to die. Ryou was casual as hell and yet—his face? Rosie-red? His dark eyes glimmering a bit? His torso, all fluttering with life?

“Some idiot left cookies at work and I thought you and your whole sweet tooth syndrome would devour these if I brought them home.” That idiot being Bakura and work being a euphemism for I bought them on the way home from work to give to you because I am a sap holy fuck.

He held out the box. Four were missing. It would totally look like Bakura just grabbed them from the break room, he was sure.

Ryou only cocked his head. Then, walking closer, he snorted. “Did you steal someone’s food?”

“No, it was—” Fuck. “They left it for people to take, so I took them.”

Ryou flashed a toothy grin at him. That didn’t stop him from reaching out to pop open the lid.

Bakura’s heart jittered a little, inside him. “Really.” Was that too firm? Too desperate?

“I know, I know, relax.” He held it in some, but not all, of his fingers. The cookie, that is. Ryou did. “It’s just usually when someone leaves food around it’s a ‘take one’ type of deal, not the whole thing.”

Fuck, fuck. “Ryou, five people work there, tops.”

“Take two, then.” Ryou didn’t even nibble; he went straight for cramming it into his mouth, and Bakura had no idea how he managed to make chewing with his mouth open look attracting. Or reaching for another when he hadn’t even finished that first one yet.

Take two, take two. Cocky little—

Bakura didn’t want to think too hard about the warmth twittering up in him. Twirling, and flowing, like warm smoke, seeping into his ribs. So he just watched Ryou, and in watching him, realized he had been watching Ryou far too long. Much too long to be a normal, in-passing look.

Eyes lit up, Ryou grinned at him, with that damn cookie partially obscuring his teeth. “I’m messing with you.”

Hell. “Yeah, sure.”

“Did you have an alright time at work, at least?” Ryou crunched some more, the sounds soft, and took the box out of Bakura’s numb grasp. “Tolerable, intolerable? Yay, nay?”

“It was something, I guess.” Stay cool, stay calm. Everything had gone good. It’d gone great. It was okay, Bakura, really, Bakura, why were his fingers and toes so fidgety, his head so seepingly bleh—

He clenched his hands and then his toes. Ryou hummed as he walked to the kitchen, and without thought, Bakura followed him. It was as natural as being, this mindless tug toward him. So when Ryou set the box down and opened the fridge, Bakura sat down in a chair, filtering the mechanical buzz of it out.

“Is it a good something?” Ryou didn’t turn from the fridge’s contents; his head did, though, skim and flick about, and Bakura really needed to stop watching him this much, fuck.

“Uh.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good something.” The milk carton, ah. Bakura should’ve expected that. He just didn’t expect the chocolate one to be the one Ryou wiggled by the handle, and pop open with that crispy crack—

“I—oh! Fuck that noise, my legs are ripped from all the biking. You wanna see?” Bakura grinned so wide his face burned, and reached for his pant leg—pulling it up before smacking his leg on top of the table. “Look! Feel my calves, Ryou, they’re rock hard.”

Ryou burst into snorty sounds. “Bakura.”

“Seriously! Feel my legs. I could crush a man’s head with my thighs.”

“What, and you have men’s heads there often enough that you’d need to?”

There was no way he’d heard that right. Bakura blinked blankly, still smiling. “Y—what?”

Good gods, at this point, Bakura couldn’t tell if those doe eyes were Ryou playing clueless or messing with him. “What?”

“Uh.” Cup. Ryou had a cup in his hand now, he was coming toward the table, he had that—the milk—Bakura’s eyes darted to the cookie box and his brain jolted hard to connect straws together. Anything together. “You. Oh, hell, are you—”

“Am I what?” The chair made a small, skidding yell as Ryou dragged it back to plop into. His cheeks tugged up in a lopsided grin. Bakura groaned, shutting his eyes.

“You are. Why do I even…”

The milk glugged and popped and dribbled noisily as Ryou poured it. When Bakura opened his eyes again, Ryou had a brow cocked up at him. And a grin. Cocky—

“Yes?”

Bakura’s nostril twitched. “No.”

Ryou laughed, and it bubbled through his chest. “What, Bakura?”

“Oh, you know what. You’re disgusting. You’re mixing chocolate milk with frosting?”

“Yeah?” Ryou dunked that half-eaten cookie into it, not even blinking. “And? Coward.”

Bakura scoffed. He scoffed loud, hard, enough to send his nose high and his head shaking, but it flittered into a quiet giggle, a smothered grin. Grunting, Bakura rubbed his fingers along his brow, down his eyelids. “You’re an absolute monster,” he muttered. “Gods.”

“You’re telling me this is worse than pepperoni pizza and chocolate chip ice cream.”

“I’m saying I get you sweets and you wreck them beyond any recognition.” And—okay, Bakura couldn’t help it. He giggled, and snickered, skin tingling so warm that it blazed. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Ryou kicked him from under the table. “You eat raw garlic. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“We’ll see when I don’t have tapeworms and you do.” Bakura kicked him back. Then he leaned far over, hunching on his elbows and arms. “You wanna try garlic, if you’re going to be nasty about food?”

Ryou jerked back like he’d been physically startled. “What? No. You are not making me eat that again.”

“It’s good.” Bakura licked his own teeth, very slowly. Very deliberately. “Zingy.”

“You look like a buffoon.” Ryou pushed his head away hard, and Bakura snorted. Maybe cackled a little. Fell back in his seat, even, giddy, as Ryou gave him a deadpan look and said, “Your tongue’s supposed to stay in your mouth.”

Bakura stuck it out at him.

“Imbecile,” Ryou muttered, dunking his cookie again.

And without a single ounce of filter Bakura tipped his own chin up and grinned and said, “If you want it to stay there so badly maybe you should make it stay, nedjeb nefer.”

”I’m...” Ryou’s eyelashes fluttered fast from how many times he blankly blinked. “I’m not sticking my hand in your mouth, what?”

Hand. Bakura snorted, lightly, out his nose. “You’re not?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes?!” Ryou’s torso jerked a moment, before sputtered, half-muffled sounds spewed out. Laughter. What a fucking dork.

“You’re really sure.”

“Yes I am really sure.”

“‘Cause you can kiss me anytime you want, I’m not gonna bite.”

“What?”

“What?” Oh holy—well alright then. For a second, Bakura lost the ability to feel. Then everything throbbed at once, shooting into a nauseating spike that made him want to get up and jig and shake his fingers and feet out until they undeniably hurt.

And all Ryou could focus on was that dang word. “Did you just say—?”

“Stuff your hand in my mouth? Yes, I did.” Put it right next to Bakura’s whole-ass foot, gods be—

“You said I can kiss you anytime I want.” Was Ryou red? Was that a flush on his face going down his neck or was Bakura hallucinating from the lightheadedness? “You did, I heard you—”

“No shit, really? How’d you get that from ‘stuff your hand in my mouth please, Ryou, just smash your fist into my esophagus?’”

Leaning in on his elbows, Ryou squinted and said, “Do you want me to kiss you?”

Yes?! “Pff—ha! Ha!” Bakura contorted into some sort of human spring, legs going one way and torso the next. “No? Why would—it’s a joke, holy crap, people joke about stuff all the ti—”

“Because here I was,” Ryou said, head cocked now to one side, “about to give you want you want and smooch you, maybe. You know. If you wanted.”

Bakura had to choke down a squeak; it sounded like some odd, aborted burp. And then he went very very quiet.

What was—what was happening?

“And I finally looked up nedjeb online,” Ryou went on, swirling cookie in chocolate milk concoction like a tea party guest might stir a spoon. “Have you really been calling me ‘sweetie’ this whole time and expecting me to think it was an insult?”

Dry, thickening throat. Bakura had to swallow the gunk away to speak. “Uh.”

“‘Cause I thought you were calling me pretty boy or something at first, but.” Ryou shrugged, eyes rolling upward, head making a few idle movements. He nibbled on his cookie thoughtfully. “Eh? That’s a bit sweeter, I guess.”

“I—uh—r… right.” Right. Some of the tightness was his spine locking up, Bakura realized. Ah, that was it. He sunk down in a vain attempt to relax it. Then he just plopped onto his arm, leaning all his weight on it. Buzzing fingers started tapping.

And kept tapping.

Tap tap, tap tap.

All he could hear was Ryou’s chewing.

“Maybe a peck on the cheek,” Ryou mumbled, sounding aimless. “Take this nice and slow.”

“They got nedjeb up online?” Bakura didn’t usually squeak, but this one was a bit hoarse, so it didn’t count. At all. He winced and sunk lower anyway.

Ryou puffed a laugh out his nose. “One of the few words from Ancient Egyptian they got up that’s easy to find, yeah.”

“Fuck.” Bakura dug his face down into his arm, then the table. End him. End him now. He felt too exposed, like eyes bored into his back, like every ounce of his skin had attention on it and he was a tingling display—

“It’s a cute word, now that I know what it means, not gonna lie.”

Bakura breathed deeply, noisily, in through his nose. Okay. Okay. He rocked a bit, trying to psych himself up, because come on, holy crap, he could deal with this, what was even happening though he could deal with this—

He shot his head up, blinking the imprint of lights from his eyes. His vision wasn’t blurry, per se, but he could definitely feel his ability to process it wither.

“Are those—any good?” Bakura flapped a hand at the box. Good, yes. Carry on like nothing happened.

Something about it made Ryou’s brows furrow. “These?” He turned his head to eye them. One side of his mouth tugged up. “Would I be eating them if they weren’t?”

“You eat shit combinations and then have the gall to say you can cook.” The itchiness spread up Bakura’s neck. Behind his ears, tingling, buzzing. He scratched at it hard, digging his nails into his roots. “But. You like them.”

“Yeah?” Ryou punctuated this by reaching over for the whole box.

“Cool. Cool, good, right. Yeah.” What the hell. All this nodding was going to snap Bakura’s neck in two, he was sure.

“Thank you, I don’t think I said that.”

“No problem.” Bakura rocked his chest a bit with the nodding, now.

Ryou laughed a bit, definitely awkward; not meeting Bakura’s eye; turning his head one way, then back the other while putting his mouth into his palm. His arm balanced him just barely on the table. “No, really. That was really nice of you to think of me, when you saw the—”

“Eat the goddamn cookies,” Bakura wheezed.

Ryou scoffed. It stayed muffled in his palm. “Well alright, sourpuss.”

And then they… sat like that. Nothing special. Perhaps too much nothing special, even with the hum of the air conditioning blaring, and the faint chatter in the background from other apartment goers drowned out by the walls and halls.

Eventually, Bakura’s foot started running a mile under the table, bouncing so hard his ankle burned.

“Bakura, do you like me?” Ryou asked, out of absolutely nowhere, except only a little not, and Bakura couldn’t even fathom how to respond anymore. “Because I’m absolutely oblivious, most of the time. I used to think crushes mean basically stalking because of my high school fanclub, and I don’t always pick up on the cues—”

“Holy crap, what do you think I mean by getting you sweets when I hate them but you don’t? Gah!” Bakura scrunched his face up. His eyes crushed shut.

“Oh! Good.” Through the numb pounding in his chest, Bakura cracked a slow eye open. Ryou smiled at him, lips closed, mouth full, crumbs on his cheek. “I think I like you too. You’re fun to be around now.”

Oh. Oh, well okay. Bakura eased up the rest of the way, but a layer of tension kept him stiff.

“Especially with how funny you are when I tease you.” Ryou leaned over to pinch his cheek and gave it a good tug. All Bakura felt was the soft stinging yank at his gums and cheekbones, and Ryou jiggling it again, again, and Bakura stared—well, gawked—the whole time, because Ryou’d just said—

“Ahh yuu—fuhk, leggo!” Bakura scrunched up as much of his face as he could then, which was just his nose really, and shook him off.

And Ryou just giggled, low and bright and giddy. “Awww, but your cheeks are so cute!”

“Are you serious? I’m going to—fuck!” Bakura stomped once, twice, three times with all his weight and both feet, before throwing his head up and back. “Aaaaaah!”

“Neighbors, Bakura.” Now Ryou spoke in faux-whispers. Cheeky ones. He smirked, lopsided and just as goofy as any time he did. “And save that for later.”

He was one hundred percent messing with Bakura. Those doe eyes were a farce and Bakura balked at him anyway, body burning, face tingling, the skin of his nose buzzing—and damn it all to hell, he reached over and yanked Ryou in by the shirt so he could get a kiss for himself.

Ryou’s mouth was soft; his hands warm, and getting warmer from how they started patting frantically at Bakura, before settling down steadily on his chest. Ryou kept laughing out his nose and puffing air on Bakura’s face. Fucking hell, Bakura thought, leaning into that smile. I can do sugar, if Ryou’s the one tasting like that.

“Did you—” Ryou muttered, not even breaking away. Fucker just talked right on his mouth. “Did you eat some of these? You taste like them—”

“Please just kiss me, oh gods.” It was wonderful, how Ryou’s laughter filled his mouth and ears.

#yugioh #yami bakura #ryou bakura #bakura ryou #tendershipping #fanfic #my fic #tenderdorks #yeet!

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