IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!! - This is the Yu-Gi-Oh! Yaoi portion of the Shipping List in order. Be forewarned. Some "pairings" will not be fluffy and cute. But they will all, hopefully, be believable. Rating's will vary.

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! is the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi

Author's Comments: Friday slipped by me again! How did that happen? I'll tell you how it happened. I spent all evening traipsing from one end of Ivalice to the other, that's how it happened.

Rating: T


Yu-Gi-Oh! Shipping List #7

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Angstshipping (Malik x Ryou) - "Hot Malik and His Hot Car"

Malik's car was hot. And not in the "Malik" kind of hot either; although it was true that with its sleek, shiny new streamlined design, the ebony vehicle could easily have been called that; the 'hot' that always came to Ryou's mind when faced with the vehicle was the temperature kind. Not only was the thermostat always on high, but the fan was always on too, turned up just enough to make it unbearable inside but not so high that it interfered with conversation.

Malik would smile and open the door for him and Ryou would smile and step inside. The heat would already be on.

"Isis is flying back to Egypt tonight." Malik said, glancing sideways at Ryou. She won't be back for three days. You wanna come over?"

"Sure." Ryou replied, shrugging out of his coat.

Whenever Isis left, Malik got lonely … and if he should get bored, the city generally suffered. Isis often made these archeologically based trips back to Egypt for the sake of the museum and Malik rarely went along with her as he was then expected to "make a good impression" on her contacts and it wasn't worth the trip. Ryou had heard that she'd even spoken with his father on occasion.

He knew Malik missed Egypt. He missed the warmth of its sun and the smell of warm sand. His bedroom smelled of it from the incense he always burned. And Ryou was pretty sure his car was a good example of the weather in Hell. Ryou had been to Egypt once and he was fairly certain it hadn't been this hot. He didn't want to be rude but he was pretty sure he was going to pass out if he didn't do something.

Malik watched as Ryou discretely pulled his light sweater off. They were sitting at a light. Ryou folded the sweater in his lap.

People said that Malik was hot, but that was easy in his opinion. Anyone could change their appearance until society considered them hot. If he ditched the bike and the tight clothes and the gold, he wouldn't be hot anymore but Ryou was beautiful and beautiful was either something you were blessed with, or not. Beautiful was not something a person could consciously change themselves into but it was a quality that everyone could recognize - everyone except the person who was beautiful. It was a strange fact. Here was this beautiful person - that even a blind person could tell was beautiful - and they thought they were nothing special.

Sometimes, Malik wanted to ask Ryou if what he saw in the mirror was Bakura, and not himself - that might explain it, but he never did ask. Malik could see the sharp outline of the Sennin Ring beneath Ryou's shirt. Now that Bakura was able to manifest his own body, he had insisted that it be Ryou who carried the Ring, so that its power could protect him when he could not.

Bakura and Marik were currently making Ryou's house unlivable but Malik wasn't complaining - he had gotten Ryou, after all.

'Heatstroke', Ryou's mind droned on. Desert death. Volcano sacrifice. Blazing Inpachi …' Ryou glanced to the thermostat. It was 90 degrees and the fan was on four - of only six settings. He looked away and out the window. He couldn't breathe through his nose anymore so his mouth was open slightly as he took in each breath, wondering how close they were to Malik's house. He couldn't think anymore.

Malik spared another side glance in Ryou's direction. Ryou was panting slightly, probably without even knowing he was doing it, his lips parted just enough to allow the tip of his tongue to pass between them, darting out to wet his lips, a fine sheen of sweat was gathering on the side of his exposed neck where Malik could see his adam's apple rise and fall when he swallowed.

Malik didn't know when exactly he had fallen for Ryou, but he had fallen fast and hard. It seemed that Ryou was all he could manage to think about these days; Ryou's kindhearted smile, Ryou's patient words of encouragement given when helping with a school assignment, the way Ryou bit his bottom lip when he was nervous, Ryou's firm scowl given on rare occasions when he demanded obedience…Malik would gladly roll over and beg if Ryou asked…and of course there was the subtle way his lips parted when he was hot - how Malik wanted to slip his tongue past those lips to join Ryou's own, and the way his eyes glazed over in the heat - Malik could imagine them glazing over that way directed at him, glazed not from heat but from love and lust.

Ryou was the absolute vision of divine perfection, made only more so by his complete naivety and utter cluelessness. Whenever Malik cuddled up to him, throwing his arms around Ryou's waist from behind and his chin on Ryou's shoulder while he whined about something from school or home, Ryou simply obliged him, never reading anymore into it beyond the fact that Malik was a very physical person. When Malik, with a half-joking tone in his voice, said "Thanks again, Ryou. I love ya.", Ryou only smiled back and said "It's no problem." Ryou had even kissed him under the mistletoe that Bakura and Marik had snuck up on April Fools Day, saying that tradition had to be honored no matter the circumstance, and especially in light of April Fools Day…otherwise the yamis might chose more destructive tricks next time.

Each unintentional gesture on Ryou's part served to further torture Malik in his growing desire and restless anxiety. It just wasn't fair! There was Ryou, right next to him, and he didn't have the guts to just come right out and say it for fear he might never be this close to Ryou again.

"OH MY GOD, MALIK, LOOK OUT!"

Malik jerked his gaze to the windshield just in time to swerve around the old lady in his path and crash unceremoniously into a lamppost. Malik stared out the windshield ahead of him in shock, hands gripped tightly to the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white under the pressure. The impact hadn't even been enough to trigger the airbags as they'd been in town but the corner of his hood was slightly crunched and the front light on that side was beyond all hope.

Malik looked over, his heart still speeding in his chest, mind too frozen to actually worry yet if either of them was hurt. Ryou was looking back at him with wide but slowly calming eyes. He was fine, as far as Malik could tell. They were both fine.

Malik got out of the car, Ryou followed, and they met at the lamppost to survey the damage.

"It doesn't really look too bad." Ryou stated optimistically.

"Yea, I can get it fixed. … Isis is gonna have a cow." Malik moaned, cringing at the mere thought of having to show this to his sister.

"You weren't paying attention." Ryou stated in a tone that Malik thought must have been subtly meant for the listener to scold themselves rather than having to listen to a statement that sounded scolding in itself…or maybe the guilt was just kicking in on its own.

Malik gave him a half-hearted smile. "I guess."

"You know, it's not just today." Ryou observed. "You've been lost in thought a lot lately. I was going to ask later but now's starting to seem like a decent time…what's been bothering you?"

So Malik spilled his guts. He told Ryou everything, how he couldn't stop thinking about him and about all of Ryou's frustrating not-quite-reciprocations, and how he was too chicken-shit to just up and tell him how he really felt. He even confessed that the reason he had been turning up the heat in the car (and subsequently was even driving the car because it had heat) was to watch Ryou undress. It sounded worse when he said it than when he thought it. It made him look even more like the shameless voyeur he was.

Ryou listened silently to the entire sordid tale, and when Malik was finished he sighed in exasperation and frowned slightly. "You got into a crash because you were having dirty thoughts and trying to get me to undress? If that's all you wanted why didn't you just ask; instead of making me suffer? I can't believe you were so stupid. I thought we were in a relationship."

Malik stared back dumbstruck, in complete and utter shock, his jaw dropped to further his current imitation of a gaping fish.

"I kinda thought it was weird that you hadn't kissed me yet." Ryou added, finally piecing it all together. "But I just thought you were taking it slow. After all the times we cuddled and how close we were and when I kissed you under the mistletoe…I kissed you on the lips you know." he reminded Malik bluntly. "I'm not like that with everybody."

"You…you like me back? You liked me back all this time?" Malik's brain was slowly sputtering back to life. All of his angst over not telling Ryou and all of the time he'd wasted had all been for absolutely nothing?! They could have been together the whole time?!

"Of course I like you back." Ryou answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Then…we can go make out at my house?" Malik asked hopefully.

Ryou laughed. "After all this, …we'd better."

Malik surged forward, grabbing Ryou tightly, and kissed him like he'd been daydreaming of doing for months, overjoyed when Ryou kissed him back just as passionately.

Malik let Ryou drive them to his house. That way he had his hands free to get a jump start on making up for every second he'd wasted. Malik figured if he'd just told Ryou right from the beginning and asked him out then, that they would probably be sleeping together by now and he was trying to figure out how to stuff all of that in-between time into one or two days so they could get back on track.

If Ryou's reactions to the hand slipping across his thigh were any indication, along with the subsequent demand of "Do you want to get into another accident?", it might not be that hard.


Post whatevers: I'm not overly satisfied with this one because I really like this pairing so it could have been better...

Next up is Seto x Jou x Noa

As always, if you liked, please review. I picked up another brave reviewer! I'm so happy! Ja!