forks and spoons
yuugiou fanfiction
ryuujitsu & co.

Disclaimer: Saying Yuugiou belongs to us is like saying the Beatles were from the Bronx.

A/N: Something silly, and I hope I don't offend anyone. Alcohol in excess is BAD.

-

One morning, just as he was about to nod off over a cup of coffee, Ryou heard a clang and a terrible shout. "Mother of all forks!" said Bakura, throwing the alarm clock into the sink, where it sank like a twentieth century luxury cruiser after striking a particularly fearsome mass of suds.

Still groggy and now drowning in the heady coffee smell, Ryou managed to raise his head a fraction of an inch. "What?" he said, feeling like a limp noodle in a steam bath. "Mother of. . .what?"

Bakura was pouring himself coffee. He dropped nine sugar cubes in one by one and listened to every satisfying 'plop' as they hit the surface and disintegrated. Even with all the sugar his coffee looked blacker than sin compared to the contents of Ryou's mug, sickly white thanks to all the sugar, milk, cream, pills, and God knows what else Ryou had managed to get to dissolve in there by stirring with a finger. Then, with a plop similar to the sound made by his sugar cubes, Bakura sagged down in a chair beside his host.

". . .Breakfast?" asked Ryou blearily. The speed and sugar and caffeine had yet to take effect.

Bakura's Sunday-morning raiment consisted mainly of pieces of clothing stolen from the closets of every member of Ryou's family. He was looking particularly ridiculous in the paisley purple nightdress that had belonged to Ryou's mother and the pair of shriveled old pajama pants that had been Ryou's at the not-so-tender age of thirteen. Ryou thought Amane's Hello Kitty crown was a nice touch, even if it was a little lopsided.

Bakura made a noise between a moan and a grunt and shook his head.

And that's the last time we go to one of Yuugi's very lovely and innocent parties. Ryou had meant to say it aloud, but his tongue and jaws were not yet at that point where complex sentences were made possible. His brain was expanding and contracting and pressing with valiant effort against his skull; the experience was, if anything, amplified by Bakura's hangover vying for first against his own.

Bakura downed another cup of coffee, this time with twelve granulated, half-crumbling sugar cubes. The buzz was finally starting to set in—Thank God, thought Ryou.

"I want to fork you," said Bakura, smiling dizzily at him.

Oh, Christ.

-

Saturday morning saw Ryou, as hung-over as he'd been last Sunday, abandoning the coffee in favor of standing with his head in the sink, faucet on full blast. Cold water gushed through his hair, into his ears, and down past the neck of his sweater. He groaned and gargled a little as his head dipped forward a bit more and his nose broke the surface.

Bakura's tolerance for alcohol seemed to have increased exponentially in the past week. He sauntered into the kitchen fully-dressed and whistling, and paused only for a moment to push Ryou's face entirely into the sink.

Ryou emerged dripping and spluttering but too drained to be too upset. He realized that they were really getting to a low point, that they had really, truly degenerated, if he was so exhausted in the mornings that he could not even raise a slight protest against Bakura's way-too-cheerful-to-be-human attitude this morning. Ah, wait, is he human? No. Never mind, then. Muttering, he contented himself with walking over to Bakura and wiping his face with the other's shirt, making a point to blow his nose too.

"Landlord, that's disgusting," said Bakura, promptly removing his shirt and swatting Ryou over the head with it.

Ryou slid, boneless, to the floor and mumbled something else.

Bakura squatted beside him. "What was that?" he said, taking Ryou firmly by the ears. This, Ryou decided, was a good thing, because it kept him from staring at the too-perfect shadow of Bakura's breastbone. . .

He also had a headache that was fast transforming into a particularly vicious migraine. "Not so loud!" Ryou screamed, and then winced. The migraine was on a rampage. It was King Kong. It was tearing the New York City of Ryou's brain apart in its wild search for those oh-so-pretty thieves, with hair like spun starlight—

Blondes. Platinum blondes. Possibly with bad teeth.

"Blondes," whispered Ryou, staring vacantly into Bakura's lively face. "Platinum blondes," he said. And then, almost crying, "Get me some coffee, please, Bakura. And the pills in the white bottle. Ah, God. My head."

Bakura brought him the pills first, and Ryou, with stunning disregard of all the warning labels ever printed, took six and swallowed them dry.

"Maybe you shouldn't go tonight," said Bakura, eyeing him with pity.

"What?" Ryou screamed—again—and immediately began wincing and clutching at his head. "No!" he said, in a quiet but deadly hiss. "You? All by yourself? Oh, no," he said, accepting the mug of coffee and dropping another two pills into it. "No. No, no, no. I'm a good citizen. I will not endanger the rest of the population by allowing you to walk home, more drunk than a. . .than a. . ." He struggled for an accurate comparison.

"Than a Nubian on camel shit?" suggested Bakura unhelpfully.

Ryou turned green. "Bakura!" He drank the coffee and did not come up for air until he had emptied it. "I'm going no matter what you say," he said fiercely. "There's no way I'd. . .I'd. . .one more cup, please, Bakura, darling?"

-

"It can't go on like this," Ryou moaned into the kitchen table, where he had passed out the night before. Oh, but he was sore. He could not understand how Yuugi, sweet, innocent Yuugi, could have organized so many nights of partying. It must have been Jounouchi. Jounouchi was a bad influence. "Always Jounouchi's fault," he mumbled, peeling his cheek away from the tablecloth. He shrieked when he saw the kitchen. There were spoons everywhere, and—were those claw marks on the table? He gaped at his hands. Was that wood under his fingernails?

Bakura was making pancakes, humming to himself.

"Bakura," said Ryou, picking at his fingernails in an effort to fight rising panic. Oh God, oh God, oh my God. "What happened to the table?"

Bakura said, "Do you want to wait until you're sober?" He flipped a pancake with amazing skill and tossed it onto a growing pile, already soaked with syrup. He was covered in flour, from his hair right down to his. . .

"Oh my God!" yelled Ryou, staring in horror. "Where are your clothes!"

Bakura raised a significant eyebrow at Ryou's legs, and then Ryou looked down and realized that those were his boxers that were pooling around his ankles. He bit down hard on his knuckles and attempted, valiantly, not to hyperventilate. "Did we—" He faltered to a halt and looked desperately at Bakura, at all the parts of Bakura not covered by the apron, and tried to remember. "Did we—did we—"

"Play strip poker?" said Bakura smoothly. "Yes."

Memory exploded into his skull like a gale-force wind, and Ryou looked down at the ace and kings in his left hand. For a moment it did not register. Then, with a shout of fury, Ryou hurled his cards at Bakura's head. They missed and landed in the skillet, and lay there sizzling nicely until they caught fire.

"What about the claw marks?" said Ryou, when the last pancake had been eaten. Given that they were still naked and that Bakura was covered in flour, the breakfast had had a very surreal atmosphere. Or it could have been the pills-speed-caffeine.

He gave the white-dusted Bakura a stern glare. That was the tell-me-now glare, not to be confused with the feed-me-pancakes-or-die glare. He had spent a good deal of time perfecting his technique. He and Bakura practically had a glaring language. So why was Bakura taking so long to reply? Ah, he's choking, thought Ryou with a gleam in his eye. He must know something. It occurred to Ryou then: Cowards die a thousand times, and heroes only—oh, yes, bravery was good, but did he really want to know? He decided it might be nice to be a martyr and turned the glare on full force.

Bakura coughed. "Spooning leads to forking," he said, not very mysteriously at all, and he made his escape, leaving Ryou to contemplate the scattered kitchen utensils with a steadily reddening face.

-

A/N: Yes. Silly. Possibly stupid. But. . .dare I say it? Fun.