Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters presented here and am not making any profit off of this whatsoever.
Title: Movie Night
Word Count: 2,138
Rated: PG-13
Romance: Bakura Ryou x Jounouchi Katsuya
Notes: This takes place a few years after the Ceremonial Duel. Comments and criticism gratefully accepted.
LJ Challenge: This was written for the 12_stories challenge. Summary: Jounouchi's been thinking some very disturbing thoughts about Bakura.

Jounouchi winced as Dark Necrofear came sweeping in and took out the last of his life points. Bakura's gentle smile took any sting out of the loss, however. It just wasn't possible to get upset with that kind of warm expression to look at it. Frankly, seeing Bakura Ryou smile was something that lingered in his mind for days after he saw one.

"That means you get to pick the movie tonight," he said, picking his cards off the Duel Disk and putting them back into his deck. He'd really played well, and the duel had been close, but Bakura had won it fair and square. It had been almost as hard as playing against Yuugi was.

Bakura nodded some as he put away his own deck. "You're very good, Jounouchi." He walked over to where all of the movies were stored and began to look through the collection seriously.

Jounouchi put his deck and Duel Disk away in the bag he'd brought and tried not to pay too much attention to what Bakura was doing. It wasn't that he didn't like the white-haired duelist. That was something of the problem. He did like him. And not just as a friend.

That was something that had been growing solidly and surely over the last few months, and it was also something that disturbed Jounouchi a great deal. He was supposed to be a guy and guys didn't like other guys! Especially not ones who were their friends. If Honda found out, he'd laugh his ass of at him.

For that matter, he was kind of laughing his own ass of at himself. Why couldn't he have fallen for someone like Yuugi, who probably wouldn't have minded at all? Whether or not he returned it wasn't the point. But Bakura Ryou…Jounouchi didn't know what to think about it, but he'd never seen him looking interested in anyone.

Not that he could blame him, either. After having had the Spirit of the Millennium Ring in his head for years, Bakura had had problems getting truly close to people. Jounouchi didn't think about it in so many words like that, but it was something that he'd seen over the years since they'd met. Bakura talked to people. He would hang out with them. But they were never allowed within a certain mental radius.

Which was one of the reasons he'd been surprised when Bakura had asked him to spend the weekend at his place. No reason had been given for the invitation, but Jounouchi had decided he would take it anyway. Yuugi was off at a tournament and while Honda was still around, Jounouchi didn't see why that meant they had to spend every single moment together. Hanging out with Bakura, even with those confused and confusing feelings, was a pretty good alternative.

"What about this one?" Bakura turned and held up a DVD and Jounouchi looked over at it. As soon as he figured out the title and saw the picture on the cover of an elegant figure in a fancy suit, with blood dripping down from his fangs, he groaned.

"A vampire movie?"

"Why not?" Bakura shrugged briefly and Jounouchi reminded himself of the deal that they'd made. Whoever won the duel would get to pick what movie they watched that night.

"All right." It was just one movie, and it was just a movie. Even with all the weird things they'd seen when they'd been in high school, vampires had never been one of them. They weren't real. He was twenty-three years old. He could deal with watching a fake vampire drinking fake blood from other fake people.

Jounouchi started to set up the movie while Bakura went to the kitchen to get the snacks ready. Bakura had a taste for popcorn, generally with Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top of it, which Jounouchi found kind of strange and weird. He wanted something in the nature of a bag of chips, something simple and easily acquired. Besides, popcorn had a tendency to get stuck between his teeth.

Snatching up the remote control, he flicked past the previews for other movies and prepared to get started once Bakura came back in there. He could hear the popcorn popping already. Bakura preferred to do it the old fashioned way in a hot air popper, not in the microwave. That was yet another trait that made Jounouchi shake his head and wonder at himself and his friend both. At Bakura for why he did it in the first place and at himself for why his weird fancies had landed on the guy who did that.

Not going to say anything to him. He'd already made his mind up on that. He was going to find some girl some day and get married and be normal. Not that he had anything against guys who liked guys. He just didn't really want to be one of them.

Even if Bakura's hair looked as if it would be really and truly soft to the touch and even if his skin was soft, because he'd brushed against him once or twice and tried to pretend it hadn't happened.

Even if his dreams hadn't been filled with images of what it would be like to kiss him.

No. He didn't want that. He decided he'd call Mai as soon as he got home and see if she wanted to go see a movie or something. But not a horror movie. Something squishy and soft and with lots of romance and deep heartfelt sighs. Something he could laugh about and pretend he was only going to see it because of her. Even if he picked it out himself, he'd say that he was seeing it because he knew that she wanted to.

It wasn't because he would want to see anything that would keep his mind off of wondering what it would be like to be back here with Bakura, and making some very different decisions. No. Nothing like that at all.

"Here we go." Bakura came back in and held out a bag of nachos, a small can of dip, and a cup of coffee towards Jounouchi. The blond took all of it and settled down on the couch. Bakura didn't have anything in his apartment like separate chairs. He didn't entertain people enough for that, or so Jounouchi guessed. So since this place had been decorated for Bakura's own pleasure, he had a long, comfortable couch.

There was more than enough space on said long, comfortable couch for them both to sit there and for Jounouchi not to have to feel as if he were too close to Bakura as well. Jounouchi got settled in and grabbed the remote, starting the movie.

He noted out of the corner of one eye that Bakura had curled up on the other side of the couch with his bowl of popcorn and a hot cup of tea. Jounouchi did not want to be attracted to him, but he couldn't help but notice the soft fall of white hair, the gentle arch of his throat…

The amused sound of his laugh as the vampire stalked and sucked someone's blood.

Jounouchi had always known that Bakura had a taste for the bizarre and the exotic. But he'd never had any idea that he would laugh at these movies. Whenever they'd had group get togethers, they generally never watched them. It was always something the whole group could agree on, and most of the time, he was the dissenting voice when it came to a horror movie.

This had to be someone's idea of a cosmic joke. The guy who would be perfectly happy if vampires, werewolves, and everything else that could be considered supernatural never existed with a crush on the guy who would squeal like a fangirl if he met a vampire in person and probably ask for its autograph.

Well, he didn't want to admit that he had a crush on a guy, but if he did, Bakura Ryou was probably the last person he would have expected for it to be. Well, second to last. The ultimate last would've been Kaiba.

If it had to be some guy I know, at least Bakura's a pretty nice guy.

And who said that he had to say anything about it to anyone but himself. Sure, he didn't want it. He wanted to like some nice girl. Maybe Mai, maybe Anzu, maybe someone else he hadn't met yet.

Though if you didn't look too closely, it was possible to mistake Bakura for a girl. Maybe that was what had confused his hormones or his head or whatever part of him it was that wondered what it would be like to push Bakura back against the couch and kiss him until neither one of them could breathe anymore. That had to be it. Nothing else made the slightest bit of sense. So it wasn't that he liked guys, he liked Bakura Ryou, and it was most likely because his silly head thought Bakura was a girl.

That made him feel quite a bit better about the whole situation and he even laughed during the fight sequence with the vampire and the vampire hunter, where both of them defied every law of physics known. Jounouchi had been in quite a few fights in his life, and he knew exactly how you could move in tight quarters and how you couldn't.

"There's no way that someone could do that. They'd break an arm," he stated firmly. Bakura nodded in agreement.

"This one isn't too bad, though. They tried, at least. I've seen some where they didn't even do that much," he replied, stretching out some on the couch. This stretching ended with him being somewhat closer to Jounouchi, but the blond pretended not to notice. It was probably accidental anyway.

"What really makes me laugh is some of those martial arts movies where you can tell they didn't even try to make it look right," he said, keeping what attention he could on the movie. Which wasn't as much as he wanted, because Bakura was very close to him, and it had to be an accident, because even if his stupid brain had convinced itself that Bakura was a girl and thus an acceptable object for crushing, Bakura's brain wasn't that dumb and wasn't going to think he was a girl.

If it did, then wouldn't that mean they were sort of…

Jounouchi didn't let his brain that that any farther. At all. There were scenes that were fun to think about and then scenes that were just wrong.

"So," Jounouchi decided what they needed was a little small talk, especially since the movie was over now. "Seen any cute girls at your store?"

"A few." Bakura didn't move any farther away, but he didn't move any closer, either. Jounouchi hadn't ever actually been inside his store, but he did know that it was primarily a small game shop that doubled as a bookstore and an occult supply store. It was doing surprisingly well. Who would have thought there were enough people in Domino interested in the occult to really make a store like that worthwhile?

On the other hand, given some of what had happened in the past, he shouldn't have been that surprised.

Jounouchi nodded, and tried to think of something else to ask. Try as he might, the subject of girls just wasn't that interesting at the moment. Not when he thought he was actually smelling the scent of Bakura's hair. He'd always known that he had a keener sense of smell than most people. It was just something that he had. But he'd never actually smelled something like someone's hair. It was probably the shampoo that Bakura used. He couldn't identify it offhand, other than the fact it smelled really, really good.

Not asking what he uses. I am not. He managed to keep that vow, too, even when Bakura shifted a little closer and the scent was just a touch stronger because of that. Not too much, he was probably just noticing it more, really. But it certainly sent all of his senses reeling to realize that they were as close as they were.

"Bakura." Jounouchi's mouth was suddenly very, very dry, and he wondered when he'd drunk the last of his coffee. He also had no idea of what to say after he said that. His mind was as blank as it had ever been in his life.

Bakura said nothing else. But he did look at Jounouchi, and in his entire life, Jounouchi had never seen a look like that, not one directed at him. In all of his time watching Bakura, he'd never imagined that the other would look at him like that.

And he'd even less expected Bakura to swallow briefly, then to lean over, and he didn't have to lean that much, how in the world had he gotten that close and Jounouchi hadn't noticed, and …

Oh.

So…

That was how it felt to have Bakura kiss him.

The End