steam

yuugiou fanfiction

ryuujitsu & co.

Disclaimer: Saying we own Yuugiou is like saying everyone finished the history test today. Okay, so I finished, and I'm definitely gloating, but that doesn't count.

A/N: This drabble was inspired by a very odd, excruciatingly well-detailed and somewhat one-sided online conversation I had two days ago with Yukari. It's more drabble-y than my other drabbles too. . .pffft. Y'all just have to deal. Anywho, it shouldn't be too long, so give it a chance. And yes, I'm working on Faust. Just. . .very slowly. Incredibly slowly. Too slowly, in my opinion, but apparently my schoolwork thinks otherwise.

PSATs are tomorrow! Save me.

Steam: In which Bakura takes a long shower, and wet bishounen are prevalent.

:::begin:::

Bakura is fascinated with water.

Right now, he's fiddling around with the shower, and Ryou can hear the water running, a steady streaming pitter-pat fainter than the pitter-pat of rain against the window glass. Ryou is lying across his bed with his back to the window, not quite reading but listening to the hiss of the shower and the drumming of the rain.

It's been an hour, and Ryou is beginning to wonder when Bakura will finish his shower and dry off. He's beginning to wonder if Bakura has drowned in the shower.

Just as Ryou is about to get up and knock on the door to make sure Bakura is still alive, the water-noise stops, the shower curtain crinkles, and Ryou senses bare feet padding across bathroom tiles. He backs away and goes back to staring at his book, standing by the windowsill, waiting.

Then the door slides open and fills the room with broiling liquid heat. Thick, translucent clouds are drifting from the bathroom, and from that mist steps Bakura, sopping wet, wrapped from the waist-down in a baby-blue towel. Ryou forgets the book and redirects his stare at the worthier target. Beads of scalding water layer skin that is tinged faintly pink in some areas and overcooked red in others; his upper back has been burned white by the water and his hair is a feral, dripping silver mess. The tip of his nose is also cherry red from the heat, but so is the oddly soft contentment in his eyes, the euphoric crimson curve of his mouth.

Ryou watches in awe as the steam rolls off Bakura's narrow shoulders.

Bakura blinks languidly at Ryou and tumbles onto the unoccupied bed in a heartbeat, flinging water all over the book that Ryou was reading upside-down. The towel flops lifelessly to the floor, and he's lying naked and eagle-spread, sprawled under the sheets like the Vitruvian Man, heat and humidity radiating from his body like the water slowly saturating the bed.

Ryou looks at him and thinks of the possibilities.

Bakura pushes Ryou's pillow away and tilts his head back, closing his eyes. Ryou can see the water clinging to Bakura's soot-black eyelashes, the clear slippery droplets meandering over his seared red-white-red skin.

C'mere, mumbles Bakura with a drunken lilt. His voice is like darkly-colored velvet. Ryou glances at the bathroom and can see the fog still lingering there, coating the tiles and the faucets and the mirror. C'mere, landlord, says Bakura again, lifting a lazy hand. Heat swirls from it; water trembles across his gaunt wrist and down his arm.

Bakura is painfully thin sometimes, but right now Ryou can only see the red and the wet and the heat.

And then Ryou is lying on the bed on his stomach, with his head turned towards Bakura, listening as breath creeps in and out between swollen moist lips, shivering against the warm-wet hand that is resting across the back of his neck. Baku-chan. Ryou stretches out his fingers and toys absently at cooling, moon-hued tangles, and his eyes light up at the satisfied hum that rumbles up Bakura's burned-pink throat. He decides to experiment.

Bakura is fascinated with water.

Ryou is fascinated with Bakura.

Ryou buries his nose in the wet sheets and inhales. His bed smells like Bakura and kiwi shampoo.

:::end:::

A/N: Reviews are lovely, lovely things, you know.

Thanks to Melon for bearing constant ranting about bishies, school, and stalkers, not necessarily in that order, and to Yukari and Yanagi-chan's shower for (unknowingly) inspiring steam.