AN: Okay, so it feels like it's been AGES since I've been on here/uploaded anything. I've had this one lying around for a bit and finally decided to polish it up (if only a little) and submit it. There's probably a LOT of errors when it comes to tense (e.g. past/present/future), so feel free to correct me and I'll gladly fix it! I really hope you guys enjoy this.

Disclaimer: Takao Aoki may keep Yuriy, and only Yuriy. That is all.

Title: Cryptic

Association: Beyblade

Pairing: Bryan/Tala, YuBo

Short Summary: Y'know, you're kinda beautiful. Like, point-blank. Yuriy's POV, YuBo one-shot.

Full Summary: Boris is busily typing away something on his laptop and Yuriy can't help but hover over his shoulder and watch the magic unfold. Set several years after season three.

I think it was the time you started biting your nails that did it.

Years later, here we are, you sitting in your worn-out office chair at the kitchen table, the letters on your keyboard long since faded from your long, yet chubby fingers pounding the life out of your laptop. I've watched you do it for ages, but it never gets old, Borya.

I stand off to the side of you, leaned up in the doorframe with a smirk on my face. To me it's more of a smile, but I'll be damned if I let you know that. I watch as you adjust your thin wire glasses and rub the bridge of your nose. You look exhausted, but I know better than to believe it. You only adjust your glasses when you're deep in thought, trying to capture the right emotion for the scene you're writing about. You crack your neck and pop your goddamn knuckles, knowing I hate both actions, and you turn to me with a grin, just enough to let me know that you acknowledge my presence.

With that mysterious look in your stormy grey eyes, you turn back towards the screen, absorbing your newest paragraph with a wide sense of awe. Your pupils shrink in the midst of the light and I find myself back to the first time I caught you like this, ten years younger and glasses gone, a few less wrinkles and far fewer ILYs.

I'd waltzed into your bedroom unannounced, not bothering to knock or ask your permission before barging in. Seeing as I was your captain at the time, I'd thought little of it, and apparently so did you. You were sitting up against the headboard of your bed, that ancient black laptop resting on your thighs as you typed away furiously, a gnawed pencil hanging out the corner of your mouth. At the time, I'd have said you looked menacing. Or perhaps it was just the intensity etched into your face that made you appear that way to me, that sharp look in your eye piercing the miniscule screen in front of you. You picked up a notebook off to your side, made a quick annotation with your pencil, and tossed both objects to your other side on the nightstand. You looked up at me in the doorway and grinned.

"What's up, Cap'n?" you said. "Got bored of beatin' the shit outta Ivan already? Or are you running from Sergei because you trashed the kitchen again?"

"Neither," I replied with a chuckle as I sat down next to you, my thin frame looking like that of a child next to your larger stature. "Whatcha doin' in here? I haven't seen hide nor hair of you since you got that damned machine. Ya writin' something?"

"Well," you drawled, a slow smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. "I was. I've already written about nine pages today though, so I was thinkin' of taking a break. Wanna come outside with me?"

"Oh, a smoke break?"
"Yeah. Don't hafta come if ya don't wanna."

"Nah, I'll go."

We stood and walked down the hallway, leaving our apartment on the fifth floor and trotting our miserable selves down the stairs, that odd little smile of yours still plastered to your face. And I didn't know it then, but apparently your smile is contagious. I was smiling too, even though we were both getting ready to get bitch-slapped by Mother Nature the second we left the complex. It was a harsh, bitter wind that greeted us once we got there, so we hauled ass down the steps and around the corner to reach the alley on the right side of the building. There was nothing quite as reassuring as getting between the walls, the cold seemingly unable to reach us even as we pressed our backs to the frigid bricks.

You were standing opposite of me, reaching out with a warm hand and offering me your cigarettes and lighter, knowing I'd probably ask you for one anyway. I snickered at your Tickle-Me-Pink BIC and lit up, handing the items back with a smirk. You smirked right back and took out a cancer stick for yourself.

"Jealous, Ivanov?" you asked, snorting as you lit your own cigarette and inhaled the first drag deep despite your constricted lungs.

"Absolutely. Why the fuck is it pink again?"

"Simple," you shrugged like it made all the sense in the world. "God forbid Yuriy Ivanov would ever walk around with a bright pink lighter in his pocket. If I use the gayest possible color available, the chances of it getting stolen are slim to none. Unless you decide to get a sex change on me," you snickered and tilted your head up toward the sky, drinking in the pure white sheath of clouds that de-saturated our already dim little world. There were light snowflakes drifting down that day, catching on your odd gray eyelashes.

"Oh is that so? So you're not worried that I might be gay?" I asked somewhat jokingly, not really sure where I was going with a bold comment like that.

"I guess you could be." You looked back down and bore your cold gray eyes into me, questioning and hazardous. I felt a hot tingling sensation as we locked irises. "Are you?"

"Should I be?" I asked frugally, tip-toeing my way around the subject of my sexuality with utmost care.

"Do you have a reason to be?"

You stubbed out your already half-finished cigarette on the wall beside you and pushed yourself off of it, closing the slight distance between us. You were taller than me after the growth spurt and a whole lot more muscular, but I didn't mind it. You were perfect eye-candy even if I wasn't allowed to touch. You were staring me down again, but this time your eyes held something different...was that opportunity or had I imagined it? I wanted to believe, but life had thrown me many curveballs in the past. I looked up and gave you the faintest of smiles.

"You plan on givin' me one, Borya?" I asked teasingly.

"Please, I'm not that selfish," you placed your hands on the frigid wall above my shoulders, hovering over me with that warm, delicious scent of your cologne filling my nostrils. "I'd like to think I can give you more than one."

And before I could bring myself to make even one smartass remark, you did.

I'd waited two solid years for you to come around after figuring it all out for myself, and much to my astonishment, you rewarded my efforts. You crushed our lips and bodies together, entirely blocking out the slight draft around me with your solid figure and searing tongue. I could've retaliated with a million snide comments before you'd done all that, but the way you went about it left little room for protest. Your warm breath, steaming in the midst of the winter, had ghosted over my lips for a mere second before you plunged your way in. And I didn't fight it, Borya. I didn't fight the way you tore at my aching raw lips with your cracked ones, and I sure as fuck didn't fight the feeling of your muscles shifting against my own, demanding further exploitation.

So what did we do? We pulled away, caught the sadistic gleam in one another's eyes, and we were running, literally sprinting back up the stairs in the apartment complex. We got back to the fifth floor, slammed the door shut together as we took just a second to catch our breaths. Unfortunately, you'd given me little to no time for that because just as soon as I stole a side-glance at you, you were all over me again, dragging me away to your room.

Everything from that point flashed before my eyes, as though my two years of apprehension had finally burst forward from the catapult of a slingshot, stretched far too taut to be contained any longer. I was half-naked by the time you slammed the door to your room shut, pouncing on top of me in a way that I had never allowed from any other guy I'd slept with. We were there on your bed, and just as you were about to finish the deed of stripping me from head to toe, I caught sight of your laptop, of which would've fallen off the bed had I not caught it.

"Borya, wait...a minute..." I muttered between your relentless ravishing of my lips and other parts of my exposed skin. You looked up and opened your eyes, tilting your head in confusion.

"What? I'm clean, I swear."

I laughed. "No, that has nothing to do with it. Your laptop's about to fall off; lemme move it real quick."

I heard you begin to protest, but I quickly placed a finger over your lips as I shifted to move the equipment off the bed. As I was getting ready to place it on the floor, my eye caught onto a particular line on the page that was opened. It was a simple Microsoft Word document with what I believed was the material you'd been working on before we left to smoke. In mid-movement, I reversed my actions and brought the laptop back up onto the bed, placing it on my lap as you glared at me, eyes wide and fierce.

"Hey, I didn't say you could read that! We've got more important things to be doing right now!" you protested, reaching out to snatch the computer away. I had blocked you with my free hand, using the other to scroll down the page. You continued to reach for it, but when it became clear I was interested, you backed off. After reading with you pouting above me for a bit, I looked up and smiled.

"This is...really good, Borya. Where the hell did you learn to write like this?" I inquired, noticing the slight way your stony features lightened at the compliment. I patted the spot next to me on the bed and you crawled up there beside me, your chilled skin feeling perfect against my own.

"You're not gonna believe me when I tell you anyway..."

"Why don't you try me?" I raised an inquisitive eyebrow and smirked. "If there's anything I've learned about you by now, Borya, it's that you're full of surprises."

You sighed, raking a large hand through your thick gray hair. "You'll laugh."

"I might."

You grinned back at me. "Believe it or not, I always wanted to be a writer, Yuriy. I guess it was because I was one of those kids that didn't really have a 'natural-born talent', so I used to get jealous of kids who did. You know as well as I do that I can't sing, can't draw worth shit, can't act, can't do math to save my life, the list goes on...so I developed my talents in an area where I could actually improve myself. You remember those days in the abbey when I'd be so pissed I'd start breakin' shit?" I nodded and you smiled. If I hadn't known any better, I would've thought you had never broken anything before in your life. "It was usually because I ran out of paper. Or my pencil snapped. That shit's hard to steal, y'know?"

You blushed slightly, unaware that you were doing it, and skimmed your own document with an avid expression. I was staring at you in complete awe. How odd it is that I could live with you for so long, having known you even before the abbey, and then have been so oblivious to such an impressive talent. I guess it goes to show that you really never know even your closest companions.

But God knows I was ready and willing to learn a little more if I could.

You squinted your eyes and began rereading your last paragraph, nibbling on the tip of your thumbnail and making an odd clicking sound in the process. You looked so goddamn intelligent right then, so downright irresistible that I jumped you right then and there, not giving a damn where your laptop ended up after that. You just pushed it aside and grabbed my arms as I got on top of you, a smirk gracing your lips as I got to work. It was all pretty much uphill from there, just going through the motions.

And for the most part, Borya, we stayed that way. Ten years later and little has changed. I look at you each morning when I rise and feel the same old flame. It's never dull; warm and familiar perhaps, but brighter with time. You and I still go outside our apartment together to smoke; at least once in the morning and once at night. I still work at a little coffee shop downtown where you always grace me with your presence. I bring you your usual order and check up on you from time to time in between other customers. I tease you each day about looking like Quasimodo, the way your shoulders are hunched forward for hours on end over your battered laptop. We make bets about the other customers and the like, but each day is something new.

And with you, Borya, I pray it always will be.

FIN

So, completely disappointed yet? I know it's not AI, I know. I keep trying to work on that and I can't decide on the best way to start Part III (believe me, I've got about six documents started and none are good enough). I could have done a lot more with this, and I may revamp it at a later date, but this is the best I can give you guys for now. This scumbag writer here would sure appreciate a review or two!

With love,

Crimson