OMG IM SOOOOOOO GLAD TO BE BACK ONLINE! it was torture!

jk I'm fine. This is going good, so I'll be keeping it up.

Another long chapter to tide you over for a week.

I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh!, YGOTAS, Hetalia, the fanfiction site, Bakura's hair, the British language, Slenderman (the game or the abridged version), or any of the character/trademarks in those.

R&R

ENJOY~!

Marik and Bakura brought Ryou and Melvin out of Marik's room. The two of them were sitting on the couch, a whole couch cushion away from each other, while they thieves stood in front of them, side-by-side, arms folded, staring down on them.

Melvin was bored already.

Ryou was suffering from déjà vu.

"Do you know why we have called you here?" Marik asked evilly.

"N-no," Ryou said quietly.
"Don't care," Melvin said loudly.

"Well, I will tell you why we have gathered you two here today! We are here to discuss the terms and conditions of your residency here, in this apartment, which Bakura and I have purchased fairly—after stealing about a year's worth of rent money from a local daycare—and have been living in for over a year, while you two have not."

As Marik was talking, Bakura's face took on that irritated and bored look it always had during Evil Council meetings.

"Both of us have reasons for not wanting either of you to be present here, but unfortunately there are also reasons that you should be here, or at least should be allowed to be here. My partner and I have thoroughly discussed all of these reasons and arguments, and we have come up with a list of resolutions that we must all decide on together, then agree on one plan of action."

"Marik," Bakura said boredly, "this isn't the bloody Evil Council. Just talk normally."

"Hey!" Marik cried defensively. "Shut up! This is a meeting. And when in meetings, I go into my Greatest-Head-Ever-Of-The-Greatest-Evil-Council-Ev er mode. So shut up, Kitty."

"Absolutely NO one likes that 'mode'. It gets annoying. And don't treat this like a Council Meeting. AND I AM NOT A KITTY!"

"Shut up, Kitty. Yes you are."

"I am NOT!"

"Kitty!" Marik insisted. To prove his point, Marik reached for Bakura's hair and began petting his head gently and rhythmically, careful to avoid his bat wings.

Bakura cringed. "Leave my bloody hair al—" His eyes involuntarily slid closed and his head tilted to the side. He began purring noticeably. He blushed. "Marik! Stop it..." *purr* "...now before I..." *purr* "...detach your hand from your body and..." *purr purr* "...strangle you with your own..." *purr purr puuuurrr* "...intestines and hang your dead body out of my window by your..." *purr purr mew purr* "...hair!" Bakura snapped and grabbed Marik's hand, pulling it towards his mouth with the intent of biting it.

Marik freaked out and swung his free hand wildly at Bakura, while simultaneously trying to tug his hand out of Bakura's grasp.

Bakura turned his head so the impact of Marik's hand would be blocked blocked by his hair, and continued trying to bite Marik's hand.

This fight continued in a similar fashion for about another two or three minutes. Meanwhile, Melvin sat there with his eyes narrowed and an extremely bored and unamused expression on his face. Seeing Florence being reduced to a purring kitty by Marik had been amusing, but watching them fight like they were at that moment wasn't as amusing to him as it was to thiefshipping fangirls. Or anyone else for that matter. He didn't bother trying to break it up, and just let them fight.

He looked at Ryou, so he wouldn't be bored and would have something to look at. But he noticed that Ryou...

"Hey, I think Ryou fell asleep," Melvin suddenly said.

The thieves halted their fight and froze. At that moment, Marik's hood was over his eyes, held in place there by Bakura's teeth, Marik had one hand on Bakura's forehead and over his eyes, the other hand was holding one of Bakura's wrists, one of Bakura's hands was trying to pry Marik's hand off of his face, and Bakura's other hand was on Marik's stomach.

They turned to look at Ryou. (Bakura pulled Marik's hood up a bit so Marik could see again.)

Ryou's eyes were closed. He was leaning back and breathing softly.

The thieves stepped away from each other and stood up straight. "Hey!" Bakura shouted sharply, snapping his fingers in Ryou's face. "Former host! Wake up! No one gave you permission to sleep!"

Ryou slept on. His face was so adorable. Marik couldn't stop staring at it. He couldn't help it! Ryou was more adorable that Bakura!

Bakura tried repeating the message through their mind link. No such luck. It still didn't work.

Melvin moved over and leaned close to the Brit. "CREAMPUFF!" he shouted in Ryou's ear.

With a shout of surprise, Ryou instantly perked up and sat us straight, his eyes shooting open and his entire body going tense. "Uwagh! What?!"

He looked around, met the other three person's gazes, then looked shyly at the floor. "S-s-sorry," he said. "I was paying attention, though."

"Hm..." Bakura said. "You had better be paying attention. You don't speak now, you don't speak at all, meaning you don't get a say in what happens to both of you."

Ryou's eyes widened and he looked up. "Both?! You mean...Marik was being serious about a reason for...me to leave as well?!"

Bakura folded his arms and nodded. "Yup."

"But that's not fair!"

"It is. So shut up and pay attention."

"Now!" Marik began.

"Do me a favor, Marik," Bakura said, "and stay out of your best-ever-evil-council-mode thing."

"Quiet, Fluffy."

"I'd attack you, but 'Fluffy' is not as bad as 'Kitty', so I'll let it slide..."

"Fine. Now...!"

"...for now."

"Stop interrupting, or you're not getting it tonight."

Bakura suddenly looked really worried. "No! I am! I'll shut up!" Bakura clamped his hand over his mouth.

Melvin snickered.

Bakura glared at him.

Melvin glared back.

Ryou looked at Melvin with confusion.

"Okay! Everyone shut the frig up and let me talk!" Marik shouted, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Then talk already!" Melvin shouted.

"Omr fine!" Marik lowered his hands and cleared his throat. "Ahem. Now! Here are the two options for you two that Bakura and I have decided to let you choose from. Think about your decision carefully, because once you choose there is no going back or changing your mind."

Bakura's eyes widened briefly. He was about to comment to Marik that they had agreed to give them three options, and ask what Marik was doing leaving one of them out, but he didn't know if Marik would take it to be interrupting and then not give him...is. He kept his mouth shut and just glared ineffectively at Marik.

"Here are the options: either both of you stay and share what is currently Ryou's room or both of you leave and move to Ryou's old apartment. Those are your only two choices. Pick one and we decide for you."

"What?!" Melvin and Ryou cried.

"That's what we've decided. Either both of you stay of both of you go."

"Pfft, fine," Melvin said. "We both go."

But at the same time, Ryou cried out, "We'll both stay!"

They exchanged glances. "Wait...what? Why?"

They said nothing, waiting for the other person to speak first.

Bakura looked at Marik. "We ran these options by them so that we wouldn't argue about them all night, but it looks like they are just as likely to argue about it as we are. This had better not take all day."

"What time even is it?" Marik asked, looking around the room for something showing the time.

"Around lunchtime," Bakura replied.

At that exact moment he said that, all three of them clearly heard Ryou's stomach rumble.

He hugged his stomach and looked up with a slightly embarrassed look on his face. "Lunch time? Already?" he asked. "Can we...?"

The thieves exchanged glances.

"Might as well," Bakura said. "I'm kinda hungry, too."

"Fine," Marik said. "We'll all think about this over lunch." He looked at Melvin and Ryou. "Do you want—"

"Order out," Ryou said, anticipating the question. "To give us more time to think."

"Seems reasonable enough," Bakura said. "Marik, order pizza. Because you know Ryou doesn't like tacos."

Melvin looked at Ryou incredulously. "What the frig is wrong with you?" he asked.

Ryou shrugged. "I'm just not a taco person."

Melvin rolled his eyes. "You're weird."

"So are you," Ryou shot back.

While Marik went to get the phone to order, Bakura went to retrieve the pencil from wherever Marik had thrown it and put it back in the drawer. (They had already cleaned up the sticky notes.) Then he took a chair from the kitchen and brought it over to the couch so he could sit on it and watch Melvin and Ryou and make sure they weren't doing anything.

"Who was the one who wanted both of us to leave?" Ryou asked.

"Marik," Bakura replied. "And I wanted both of you to stay."

Ryou smiled. "Really?"

"So I can keep an eye on you," Bakura continued. "And the psychopath. But specifically you. And you know why."

Ryou's smile faded and he nodded.

"You okay, by the way?" Bakura asked, examining Ryou and look him in the eyes.

Ryou nodded. "I'm fine. I got over it."

"Why the bloody hell did you name one of them?"

"I don't remember. It was a long time ago. The name just stuck with me."

"I didn't know you actually cared, Florence," Melvin said.

Bakura glared at him. "Sod off. He may be my host and I may abuse and torture him a lot, but it's only because I know he can handle it and recover. And also, I actually do care about him, even if I don't show it. It's more than I can say about how you treat Marik."

Melvin began glaring back at him. "Hey. Shut up. I care about Marik as well. I just prefer to pretend like I don't. We're actually on semi-okay-ish terms nowadays. I actually help him in the museum once in a while. You don't know me. So shut up before you judge, Kitty."

Bakura stood up abruptly. "You're not allowed to call me that," he growled.

"Please don't start," Ryou said in a small voice. The two yamis turned to look at him. Ryou shrank back slightly under the weight of their stares. "S-sorry."

"Don't apologize," Bakura said to him. "He's just an instigator, that's all."

"And he just doesn't know when to quit," Melvin added.

"And you—" Bakura began.

"Both of you shut the frig up," Marik said as he walked back in to the scene. "Like Ryou said, don't start. I've had enough of yami-related issues. I don't need another one, especially not one involving two yamis."

"I could agree more," Ryou said.

"Shut up, Creampuff, I wasn't talking to you."

Ryou scowled. "Just because your yami called me that doesn't mean that you automatically have a right to."

"Haven't you learned from Bakura that I only give nicknames to the few people I actually care about in my life? Take a compliment, Creampuff, or you can just leave right now with or without Melvin."

"Was that a subtle threat of some sort?" Ryou asked.

"Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But it actually wasn't."

Ryou held up the Millenium Ring in one hand and aimed the palm of the other hand and Marik.

"Don't forget who has the Ring and Limey Man powers."

Marik held up the Millenium Rod, then removed the bottom part of it and revealed its hidden blade. "And don't forget who has the Rod, or the fact that you're the only good guy here in a household filled with and owned by villains, not to mention the fact that all three of them are surrounding you right now."

"Leave us out of this," Bakura said.

"How is it that you two told us not to have a yami fight and you're having a hikari fight?" Melvin asked.

"Because shut up," Marik said, not tearing his gaze away from Ryou.

The two hikaris continued their stare-down of each other.

"I'm sensing some kind of conspiracy going on," Melvin said. "And Aquailita is probably responsible for it."

"By the way," Marik suddenly said, looking away from Ryou and at Melvin, "did you two turn off my computer?"

"We didn't," Melvin replied.

"Well go do it!" Marik ordered, pointing to the hallway. "I never gave you permission to go on it in the first place!"

"You do it!" Melvin cried.

"Let's go turn off the computer," Ryou said quickly as he stood up. "While we wait for the food to get here."

Melvin pouted, but decided to follow.

I don't care that "cream puff" is two words, or if it's spelled "Millennium" and not "Millenium". I say "frig it:" and spell it however I want.
However, I DO care that absolutely NO ONE across ANY of my Yu-Gi-Oh fanfics EVER pointed this out to me, and let me assume forEVER that "Millenium" was a word in Yu-Gi-Oh even if it wasn't spelled that way in the dictionary.
}:T

It's okay. Perhaps YOU assumed this as well.

Anyway, you'll get another chapter next Saturday! The fact that I'm not allowed to WORK ON my fanfics during school days won't be an issue for this fanfic because I have about ten more chapters written out already. YAY!

See you next chapter!

BYEEEEEEEEEEEE~!