The thing about Sora Strife was that he wasn't a particularly temperamental person. Sure, Roxas in all of his younger-brother-by-two-minutes glory knew how to piss him off, and there was that one time when some Twilight Town dickhead made Kairi cry at a party and Riku had to hold Sora back from breaking his nose, but these weren't overly common occurrences.

Sora's problem, he often thought, was that once he got annoyed or angry or upset, he got really fucking stupid. Which was why he was sitting on his bed across from his best friend, trying to ignore the fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt. Although, to be fair; neither was Riku.

"I win," he declared, placing his final three cards face up on the mattress between them. Riku smirked, shifting to kneel on the bed as he slowly undid the top button of his pants, winking at Sora.

"Hurry up, Princess," the brunette laughed, throwing a pillow at his best friend. Riku made a face, standing up to let the denim cut-offs slide down his legs, revealing black boxer briefs and pale hipbones that Sora kind of wished he could touch without it being, like, super fucking weird.

Riku had always been the best at riling him up, after all.

.

It had all started when Destiny Islands was hit by its first storm in over 20 years and, like any good island kids who had been raised by salt-water, Sora and Riku were both completely stunned, sitting lazily on Sora's bed as they pondered the fact that the world was, quite clearly, ending.

Sora's mother, a kind woman with short brown hair who had a smile somewhere between Sora's ridiculously happy grin and Roxas' cock-sure smirk, told them both to stop sulking about the weather and threw a pack of cards at Sora's head.

It all went downhill from there.

.

"Solitaire is such a lonely game," Sora mused from where he was lying on the bed, arms held straight above his head as he stared at the pack of playing cards.

"I hope you drop them on your face," was Riku's response, before he grabbed them from his friend to be examined. "Of course it's lonely; it's a one player game."

"I'm pretty sure you can do it with two players," he argued, dropping his arms and resting them on his stomach. Riku picked his jean-clad legs up from where they were stretched across the bed, making himself comfortable before dropping them back onto his lap.

"I think you're thinking of Go Fish," the silver-haired boy answered, pulling a card from the deck and flicking it towards his friends face.

"The one Kairi banned us from playing because we got too competitive?" Sora laughed as he dodged the flying card, sitting upright and crossing his legs to face his best friend.

"Kairi's not here now, is she?" Riku teased with a raised eyebrow, throwing the rest of the pack at the brunet boy. Sora laughed again, pulling the cards out and shuffling them.

"I don't know if I can handle that kind of blatant disregard for her rules, Ri."

"You live once, baby, may as well make it good."

"Riku, stop," the younger boy smirked, fanning himself down with a grin. "You're getting me all hot and bothered."

Sora began shuffling the deck again, and Riku pretended like he wasn't thinking how else he could make his best friend need to cool himself down.

He was, though. He could count at least 37 different ways using just the objects in the room. 52, if he could get to the kitchen.

.

A game of Go Fish, it turned out, was much more fun when the players were seventeen and eighteen and allowed to swear rather than six and seven and desperately fighting for Kairi's attention.

"Yeah, Riku, you fucking fish for those cards," Sora teased in a low voice, leaning forward with narrow eyes. "Do you want the three or the four? Maybe even the two. Don't choke, Ri, you can do it. Fish, asshole, fish."

"I literally hate you," Riku laughed, shaking his head as he tried to ignore the boy sitting in front of him. "Give me a seven."

Sora glanced down at his own hand before smiling, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. "Go fish."

Riku swore loudly, although it was less at the need to draw a card and more at the fact that he was wondering what it would be like to wet Sora's lips for him.

"I think I'm starting to remember why we got banned from this game," the silver haired boy laughed, rolling his eyes at the card he picked up. "I feel like I'm hurting seven year old us."

"At least it's reasonably G rated," Sora reasoned, shuffling his hand as he hunted for a pair.

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno," the boy laughed, still not looking up from his cards. "It's only swearing, isn't it? Not like we're playing strip Go Fish or anything. That would hurt right in the childhood."

Riku tried to ignore the sudden images his mind conjured of strip anything with Sora and shook his head. "Not like you would, though," he scoffed, rolling his eyes.

Even as he said it, he knew it was the worst (best) thing to possibly leave his mouth. The younger boy's head snapped up, bright blue eyes narrowed in a way that Riku knew very well.

"I so would!" He declared, dropping his cards and his jaw at the same time. "Don't get all seven months older and therefore better with me, bitch."

"I'm just saying, Sor," Riku protested, holding his hands up in the air and shrugging. "Golden Boy Sora Strife playing strip card games? I think the world would go into shock."

"Fuck you."

(Yes, please.)

"Don't get pissy, you know it's true."

Sora's eyes narrowed again and he snatched the cards out of his friend's hand, gathering the rest of the piles off the bed and pulling them towards them.

"What are you doing, Sora?" Riku sighed, a bit concerned that he might have crossed the line between Riku-Teasing and Riku-Being-A-Dickhead.

"Starting again. It's pretty obvious that I was going to win that one, and we have to play fair."

"Have to play what fair, you crazy person?"

"Strip Go Fish. If you had to guess, how many items of clothing would you say you are wearing right now?"

Too many, Riku's mind supplied, and he was very, very careful to keep his mouth shut.

.

"How does one even play strip Go Fish?"

"You play Go Fish and take your clothing off, Riku, it's not difficult," Sora supplied helpfully with a small smile, not looking up from the cards he was shuffling.

"When did you get so much attitude, bitch?" The older boy asked. "Go back to being six and idolising me, that was easier for us all."

"I think if you were playing strip Go Fish with a six year old, you would get arrested," Sora laughed, finally looking up from the cards and grinning. "But in response to your question, I actually have no idea how we should play. Maybe when one of us gets a group of three, the other one loses a piece of clothing?"

This seemed reasonable, so the silver haired boy shrugged, and his best friend handed him seven cards before looking at his own. Riku took a deep breath; Sora was trying to kill him. That's obviously what this was.

"Boys?" Sora's mother knocked on the door and poked her head in. "All the power is gone in the office and I need to go help find some files. I probably won't be back before dinner and Roxas is at Axel's, so just reheat the leftovers from last night if you get hungry."

Sora nodded absentmindedly, tilting his head to the side to accept the kiss on the cheek without looking up from his hand.

She was in on it, too. They were a family of evil fucking masterminds.

.

"Do you have a five?" Sora asked, blue eyes focused on the cards in his hand. Riku groaned and handed the card over, shaking his head as the brunet grinned.

"You're making it too easy, Ri," he mocked playfully, placing a trio of five's on the bed in between them. "Take something off."

"It's part of my plan," Riku argued as he knelt on the bed to remove the black belt from his pants, throwing it to join the small pile of socks, belts, gloves and, in Riku's case, a lip stud removed with a grimace ("totally fucking counts, Sor, stop trying to get me naked faster") and placed carefully on the bedside table.

"Sure," the smaller boy agreed easily, flicking through his remaining hand with an appraising eye. "Or maybe you just suck."

"Or maybe you're only winning because you're pretty much still a four year old at heart."

"Also possible," Sora allowed, glancing up at Riku with a smile. "Or maybe- you just really suck. Your turn."

The brunet boy grinned and deliberately ignored Riku's muttered suggestions about what he could suck, because the words 'mother,' 'cock' and 'bitch' should never belong in the same sentence.

.

It was when Sora lost his shirt and Riku whined enough ("what if it closes over? What if it gets infected? Sora, I feel lost and alone, please")that he was allowed to put his piercing back in ("but don't think it gets to count again, you sneaky liar") that things started getting a bit weird.

Because the thing was, this game wasn't going to introduce anything new. They'd been friends since before they knew what friendship was, they had seen each other naked over the past seventeen years more times than either of them could count. But they were sitting, home alone, on a bed, systematically getting naked, and they had been dancing around each other for the past couple of months, ever since Roxas came out and Axel had jokingly asked if there was anything any other Strife twins wanted to say, and Sora had accidentally super quickly glanced at Riku, who had pretended like he didn't notice but like, come on, he obviously did.

So if Riku was looking at his half naked best friend in a way that was a bit different than usual, it could really be excused, and if he was thinking things (because he knew Sora was fit but he didn't know he was that fit, and how did such a small guy have such well-defined arm muscles, and what the fuck Sor, why do you have nipples) that he probably shouldn't have been, well, these things happen.

"Do you have any nines?"

And then Sora won again, and Riku took his pants off.

.

"Like something you see, kid?" Riku asked with a wink, draping his jean shorts over his friends shoulder instead of throwing them to join the rest of the lost clothing.

Sora rolled his eyes and threw them back at his face and Riku was a very nice friend and decided against mentioning the fact that his usually-tan complexion was definitely a little bit pinker than it had been before. The brunet lost his shorts within the next five minutes, leaving him wearing nothing but red and white boxer shorts and wondering why he had thought this was a good idea.

And then Riku won.

.

"Fuck," Sora groaned, glaring at the pile of fours sitting in between them.

"Sor…"

"Fuck."

"Sora, you don't have to prove anything. Seriously, we can just call it a draw. I don't care."

"Shut up," Sora huffed, jumping off the bed and grabbing for the waistband of his underwear. Riku followed, placing his hands on top of Sora's.

"Seriously, man, I don't care. This is weird. You win, I pussy out, it's fine."

"Why are you pussying out, Riku?" Sora demanded, pushing his hands away and taking a step closer, frustrated. "I'm the one getting naked."

He was pussying out because he suspected hiding how turned on he was quickly becoming would be soon very difficult in the small amount of clothing he was wearing, but he thought it best to keep that to himself.

"Sora," he said, and then forgot how to speak.

"I don't care," the brunet whispered, and Riku knew he didn't just mean about losing the game, but he was too distracted by the feeling of his friend's naked chest pressing against his own to really figure out what was going on.

"Me neither," he answered, and before he could figure out what he had actually just agreed to, Sora reached up and kissed him.

Well.

.

"Sora?" Roxas yelled as he walked up the hallway, Axel following. "Sor, are you home?"

He opened the door to his brother's bedroom without knocking.

Finding him kneeling in front of a very naked Riku with fingers in his hair and a dick in his mouth was definitely not high on his list of 'Things Roxas Finds Sora Doing When He Doesn't Knock."

"HOLY FUCK," he yelled, slamming the door shut again and burying his face into the neck of the laughing redhead behind him. "I want to die, Ax. I want you to take me out of this house and I want you to kill me."

Axel was laughing too hard to do much more than take his hand and lead him away from the door, wondering how soon he could start sending Riku text messages congratulating him.

Probably not for a while; it didn't sound like the interruption had stopped them.