Ryou looked around him nervously; he barely recognized his own room anymore. Bakura had filled it with long, suggestive looking 'thingies', to quote the ever-eloquent tomb-robber, and he was beginning to get a little worried about the uses of some of the objects.

Picking up a small jar that was near his bed, he turned it around in the light. Baffled, he glanced at Bakura who seemed to think that Ryou should be pleased for some reason.

"Bakura, what is all this stuff for?" Ryou softly inquired.

"Remember that I promised to give you a massage a while ago? I decided that now was the best time."

"Now? I'm suffering from sunburn. There's a barely an inch of my skin that you can touch without sending me into convulsions."

"Hush Ryou. Have some faith in me, I know how to do this. Besides, I'll finish it off by massaging sunburn medicament into your poor skin."

"I still think that it's unfair that you don't burn."

"Life isn't fair. Get used to it. Now help me figure out how to set up this candle holder." Holding up the item in question, Bakura showed the plethora of holes it possessed to Ryou, then pointed to the candles that were supposed to fit into it.

~*~*~*~

"Hey Yugi, you think that we should invite Bakura and Ryou with us? I know Ryou likes the beach at night – and at least he can't get sunburnt from going to a hula." Joey suggested casually.

"Joey, that's an excellent idea! Those two should spend more time with us." Yugi looked overjoyed. "After all, everyone else is here, even Kaiba and Mokuba, so they should come as well."

"I'll go tell them then, eh Yugi?" Joey jumped off the table he had been sitting on, and absently tried to swipe a grape from Mokuba's bowl, only to have his wrist seized by Kaiba. Apparently his protection of Mokuba extended to Mokuba's food as well.

"Why don't you go as well Kaiba? You get on with them well."  Better than you get on with everyone else that is, Yugi mentally added. "Besides, you should spend more time with Joey, get to know him better and then maybe you two will get along."

"Yeah, go on Seto! Make Ryou and Bakura come over here to play with us." Mokuba insisted, his eyes lighting up at the idea of dragging the mischievous tomb-robber to the hula party that Mai was throwing. Where ever Bakura went, things always became interesting, or at least eventful. Unable to resist giving in to his little brother, Kaiba nodded, then immediately regretted it.

"Let's go mutt." Kaiba curtly said, earning himself a death glare from Joey.

~*~*~*~

"Yami, why don't you leave that till later, and give me my massage now? You can light that just before you start with the sunburn cream." Glad for an excuse to stop struggling with the stubborn candle-holder, Bakura zipped around lighting the other candles which he had strategically placed, to be rewarded by a gasp of delight from Ryou.

"Yami, it's beautiful. But why so many candles?"

~*~*~*~

"…why so many candles?" came Ryou's voice down the corridor. Not finding anyone on the ground floor, Joey and Kaiba had quietly ascended the stairs and were currently heading towards Ryou's bedroom. They were just about to open the door when Ryou spoke, causing them to freeze.

"I wanted to make your first time special hikari." Bakura's voice drifted down to them, sounding considerably gentler than usual. Joey gulped, and was whacked on the arm by Kaiba for being noisy. Kaiba himself had leant closer to the door so that he could more efficiently eavesdrop. A slight pause, then Ryou spoke again

"Do you want me to take off my clothes now?"

"No, I'll take them off for you. You just relax, after all this is supposed to be about you, not me." There was sound of zips being undone, and clothing falling to the floor.

"Have you done this before?"

"Often."

"With whom? Malik?"

"Yeah, amongst others."

"Which others?" Despite knowing that those two hardly ever did anything the normal way, the listeners found it strange that Ryou should pick then to discuss Bakura's previous partners.

"Just others. Now stop talking and lie down on your stomach." From the flop that followed, it was obvious that Ryou had obeyed. For a while there was silence, then -

"Oh, Bakura, that felt so good." The 'so' was drawn out in an exaggerated manner for emphasis, and closely followed by a rapturous sigh.  More sounds of bliss were heard, but this time it was Bakura that spoke, and his tone was distinctly smug.

"See, Ryou? You should have trusted me when I said that it would feel good."

"It's just nobody ever did anything like this with me before."

"You'll never be able to say that again."

"I know…don't forget that you have to get it set up though."

~*~*~*~

"It?" Bakura asked, confused. Ryou gestured with one hand towards the candle-holder. "Oh, it." Bakura strode over, picked it up, along with a selection of candles, and returned to the bed.

"Now, what do you suggest I do to start with… Ryou?" Ryou propped himself up on one arm and regarded it thoughtfully.

"Put that in there."

"Where?" Since there were many holes, Bakura was understandably confused.

"That hole." This time, Ryou pointed to make it clearer. Tussling with it for a little while, Bakura finally gave up and turned imploring eyes on his hikari.

"Bakura, just use the oil for lubrication." Ryou suggested coolly.

"Which one?"

"I don't care. Just use one of them, and whatever you do, use a lot of it!"

~*~*~*~

Instead of Bakura's reply, the listeners heard a gasp, then a guggling sound, like liquid being poured from a bottle. In slightly anxious tones, Ryou spoke up.

"Uh, Bakura? What are you going to do with that?" 

"What you told me to..."

"I know, it's just that I don't understand why it has strawberry extract in it. According to the label at least. Do you have a strawberry fetish or something?"

"No...I just picked up the first one I saw. They didn't have these back in my time - nor comparison shopping."

~*~*~*~

Bakura poured some of the liquid over the candleholder, then as an afterthought drizzled some onto Ryou who was taken completely off guard.

 "AH! That stuff is cold." Ryou complained. Bakura continued playing with the candleholder while trying to get Ryou to relax before the rest of the massage.

"Relax a little. It'll hurt less that way."

"It's going to HURT?!"

"Of course it'll hurt. It always hurts."

"You promised that it woudn't!"

"Only because you wouldn't have agreed if I had told you that it would hurt." 

Ryou sighed heavily, and hoped that Bakura wouldn't finish with the candleholder for a long, long time. It certainly didn't seem as if he would anyway, since he was apparently trying to get in by using brute force.

~*~*~*~

There were a few groans heard, then a triumphant "YES!" from Bakura.

"I got it in!" He yelled loudly, sounding somewhat out of breath.

"I know." Ryou didn't seem as happy as Bakura was, and he sounded somewhat tense.

"Now to get down to the real point of this."

 For a while there was silence, broken only by something not entirely unlike the noise of flesh rubbing against flesh.

By now, Joey was beginning to have second thoughts about the ethics of his situation, and was tugging on Kaiba's arm to make him leave when a scream of pain erupted from the depths of the formerly quiet room.

"Bakura, STOP! It hurts too much." Ryou's voice was ragged, and he sounded like he was close to tears.

"Don't be such a baby Ryou. This is for your own good." Bakura replied unsympathetically.

 Kaiba's lips tightened ominously. How dare Bakura not stop if Ryou wanted him to?! Joey looked shocked as well.

"No, Bakura, yami, please stop. Please, I'm begging you, you have to stop it just hurts so much..." Evidence that Bakura wasn't listening to Ryou came in the form of another piercing scream. Joey couldn't take it anymore, and closing his eyes for decency's sake - although Joey had no idea as to how he was going to fight with his eyes closed- he rammed the door open. Kaiba instantly followed him into the room.

"Alright, that's enough Bakura. Let Ryou go! We shoulda known better than to trust someone like you, you -"

"Person who is attempting to treat Ryou's sunburn?" Kaiba smoothly interrupted.

"What?" Joey opened his eyes, to see Ryou lying on his stomach, fully-clothed from the waist down, and fully red-flushed from the waist up. Bakura was seated next to him, holding a bottle of sunburn treatment lotion in one hand, and supporting himself with the other.

"Bakura was just trying to put lotion on me because I'm sunburnt, but my skin was so sensitive that it hurt too badly for me to go through with it." Ryou explained quietly, looking at Joey in wide-eyed wonder.

"Yeah. Did you think that I was beating him up?" Bakura growled angrily.

"No, we thought that you were having sex with him." Joey blurted out defensively, then realized that it wasn't much of an improvement. Ryou's eyes looked liable to pop right out of his skull, but luckily Bakura looked too surprised to actually attack Joey for that comment.

"Obviously the mutt's only talent is  jumping to conclusions. What we came here to do was invite you and Ryou to Mai's hula party." Kaiba said smoothly. "Since Ryou is in no condition to go however, I suppose that you won't be going either Bakura?"

A quick nod was the only answer he got, since Bakura seemed to be shocked speechless.

"Well, come on then Joey, we wouldn't want to wear out our welcome. Hope your sunburn clears up Ryou." Grabbing Joey's arm and forcefully pulling him out of the room, Kaiba exited as quickly as he could without actually looking afraid.

After they left,  Bakura recovered his powers of speech.

"You know, that wasn't such a bad idea that Joey had…" He trailed off with a predatory smirk that said everything he hadn't.

Author's Note: Hm, take this as an offering (and an apology) for not getting up the 8th chapter yet of Hate To Have You Love Me yet…hope it amused you,  and if you spot any errors, please let me know.