Even the best men fall flat on their faces

Bakura grabbed the hand that gripped his face and forced it back as far as it would go until the other let out annoyed sound of pain and jerked away. Once the other was a safer distance away, Bakura ran his hands through his hair checking for any blood. To his relief, at most he would just have a bad bump and a headache for a day or two. His attention was brought back to the situation at hand when he heard a low chuckle across from him. He stared at the blond who was now hunched over, his unruly tresses falling down into his face and his shoulders shaking as the ungodly sound vibrated lowly from his chest.

"I was wondering when you would turn up," he said, slowly straightening himself back up, his head lolling to one side and an inane grin stretched across his features. His usually relatively straight hair now stuck up like that of a demented punk rock star, and his eyes seemed slanted and empty.

"I could say the same to you," Bakura spat and pushed away from the door, not liking feeling so trapped, and walked around the other fearlessly. "How exactly are you back?" he threw back over his shoulder, moving into the kitchenette and putting a considerable amount of distance between him and the blond.

The other chuckled once more, "Again, I could ask you same thing, I thought you were long since banished by myself no less,"

"I have back up plans and resources, unlike you. I don't just blunder into a situation, guns blazing and hoping for the best,"

"Assumptions! If I didn't have back up plans, then how would I be here?"

Bakura stared at the other with a blank expression before a grin broke onto his face. "You don't even know, do you?"

The smirk was wiped off the tanned face instantly and replaced with a glare, but he remained silent, causing Bakura to break into laughter. "I didn't think so, just another lucky mistake on your part,"

The blond kept glaring and opened his mouth to spit back a retort, but a sudden pained expression crossed his face and he grabbed his forehead with a groan.

Bakura raised an amused eyebrow, "Oh? Leaving so soon? Just as I thought, you're weaker than ever." He chuckled lowly once before allowing his face to become stony and serious again, staring at the other with icy eyes. "Remember this, Darkness; if you ever touch my host again, I will personally see to it that you don't come back from the hole you came from."

Said 'Darkness' glared spitefully at the other, his left eye twitching as pain consumed his head, as if something were punching his skull from the inside out. "We'll see about that," he managed to bite out before his pained expression suddenly went lax and he fell to his knees like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

Bakura watched the now still form with caution for a moment, before slowly walking over to what was Malik once more. He pulled at the blonde's shoulders and the other rose in a zombie-like trance but showed no sign of acknowledgment. With an annoyed 'tsk' Bakura lead Malik to his temporary room and laid him down. They hadn't even drunk a drop of alcohol, yet Bakura was still babying the blond like a drunken buffoon.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooo

Malik had watched as much American and Japanese media as he could possibly handle in his time on the surface. From the mainstream anime's and Hollywood films to the twisted Japanese occult flicks and B movies of America, Malik had ingested a twisted amount of Eastern and Western knowledge. Because of this, he was pretty sure he knew what a hangover felt like; he at the very least knew what one looked like.

Staring at himself in the mirror, the tired look in his eyes, the messy hair, and the pale complexion, plus the throbbing in his skull and the vomit that he had just flushed down the toilet, Malik had concluded that he had had a night 'well spent.' However, Malik failed to see the benefits of the blasted alcohol considering he couldn't for the life of him remember what had happened the night before. Between failing at cooking and the smashed bottle in the living room, Malik was struggling to connect the dots, and what was worse was for some reason Bakura or Ryou had slept with their bedroom door locked. Malik had only tested the door once but quickly deciding whoever had locked the door obviously didn't want him around, and he figured it best to find out what on earth he had done wrong before he wandered in on a possibly terrified host or significantly pissed off thief. Neither of which were exactly appealing considering Malik's current headache, so instead he cleaned himself off in the bathroom sink and found himself some breakfast. Odd… wasn't a loss of appetite to be expected when hung over? That said, Bakura had insisted Malik not take every word and detail of the movies he watched to be of exact truth or fact, so again he decided to ignore yet another detail. He never was one for details.

He kept himself busy, eating breakfast, watching TV and reading through some of Ryou's many comics but he soon became restless, annoyed that neither of the two souls have ventured out of their room. He kept trying to relieve his boredom, flicking through TV channels he knew held no promise. He even entertained the idea of cleaning, but once he stood in front of the pile of washing… including a pan full of rice, meat and what he could only decipher as paper… (Oh wait. Yeah, they were his notes… at least he remembered that bit.) He decided against it, it was much too strenuous a task, and Ryou seemed to enjoy his chores, so why deprive the little cotton ball of such a bountiful amount of cleaning~

Malik had soon found himself sat upside down on the sofa, apparently his now customary way to sit when dealing with boredom, flicking through the pages of some book he cared not for, when he finally heard the creak of the door followed by some quick shuffling footsteps before the hurried click of the bathroom door locking. He raised a fine eyebrow; it was obviously the host, Bakura didn't shuffle nor did he hurry.

The now irritated Egyptian manoeuvred himself into a more conventional sitting position and peered over the back of the sofa, staring intently at the bathroom door. It was noon, and this was the first sign he had gotten that his two roommates were not in fact dead, which he had reasoned at some point during the day was actually a likely scenario. After only a couple of minuets, the bathroom door shyly opened again to reveal the doe eyed host, looking more like a deer caught in headlights than ever before. Malik's eyebrow was still raised in peeved curiosity, and when it became clear the white haired boy was not going to move from the bathroom threshold, Malik huffed out a frustrated sigh. "Where have you been?"

"M-my room?" Ryou supplied nervously, and Malik nearly laughed.

"You don't sound so sure," he said, almost amused but his patience had run thin. He lived in this apartment for amusement and entertainment, neither of which he was going to get if both host and spirit alike decided to keep themselves holed away! "Why have you been in your room all day?" he asked and noticed the boy didn't even seem to be listening to him, instead his eyes were flitting to the side as if he were talking to someone else… which it appeared he was.

"You honestly don't remember a thing?" the sudden change in demeanour and voice nearly took Malik aback, he'd never witnessed such a quick change between the two before, but the blond didn't let his shock show at all. He merely remained passive, and forced his normal smirk onto his face at the appearance of the ancient spirit. "Remember what?" he asked with an air of disinterest, it was always best to keep up appearances with Bakura around, even if in truth he was dying to know what had happened.

After a minuet of scrutinised staring from Bakura, Malik felt himself begin to squirm, right before the thief abruptly stopped staring and simply waved his hand, dismissing the topic. "It's nothing. Have you eaten?"
Malik's patience was now worn out completely. "Dammit, Bakura, what did happen? Your host looked at me like he'd seen a ghost! What on earth did I do?"

"Calm down," the spirit instructed, his fare eyebrows furrowing in warning. "We don't need it happening again that's for sure."

There was something much darker in Bakura's voice than Malik had been expecting. Surely a few drunken mistakes were not worthy of such a cold shoulder act from the white haired duo… "Uh…" he suddenly fumbled over his words, annoyed at himself for his own failure in communication. "The um, what does your host call it? Half state?"

To Malik's interest, Bakura seemed to relax, which was odd considering Malik hadn't noticed Bakura had even been tense. Slowly, the spirit wandered closer to the sofa, seeming much more at ease, even if his eyes did never leave Malik's own. "Not quite." He shook his mess of white hair. "I think you went full blown… psycho."

Malik slowly took the information, like trying a new food for the first time. He sheepishly chewed it and swirled it around his mouth before deciding he quite hated the taste. "Well that's not very good is it?" His smirk and amused tone hid his repulsion.

Bakura, again, surveyed Malik like he would a wild animal. "Not very good at all," he said flatly. "Looks like you're going to have to move out," he added flippantly before turning heel and heading back to that blasted bedroom of his. This time, Malik was up like a bullet and around the sofa so fast he caught his toe on the corner. With a curse and a stumble Malik lurched forward to grab Bakura's arm and off balance them both, the force causing them to collide with the back of the sofa painfully.

"Bloody hell, Malik!" Bakura exclaimed, narrowing his eyes at the blond.

"You're not throwing me out!" Malik argued, his grip never faltering on the spirit's arm.

"I am if your deranged imaginary friend is back!"

"Why?! Did he touch a precious hair on your damned host?!"

Bakura opened his mouth quickly to reply, but snapped it back shut, his brown eyes stared heatedly into Malik's, fuming with anger. They burned so bright they almost seemed red, but Malik didn't unleash his grip on Bakura's pale arm. Instead, he turned his attention to how easily his fair skin pinked under his grasp.

"You and your damn host…" he mused as if their sudden shouting contest hadn't just happened. "I swear, he's as important to you as your ring sometimes." The sudden harsh smack across Malik's face was so unexpected the blond actually gasped, and clutched at the side of his face in pure shock and a little bit of awe. Bakura had hit him?

"I don't give a bloody damn about my bloody host," he seethed, his face so close to Malik's own it made something boil deep inside of Malik. Anger. Anger boiled deep in the pit of his stomach and made him want to throw Bakura against the sofa and… beat the shit out of him. Yes, hitting Bakura was just what he wanted to do.

"You fucking hit me!" Malik threw his fist back before imbedding it in the surprisingly soft flesh of the spirit's stomach. Bakura let out a surprised 'oof' before stumbling back as Malik used his other hand, the one that had been holding Bakura's arm, to throw the spirit back.

Once he regained a fraction of himself, Bakura looked up with those red eyes and growled. "Good… punch. So you're not just a pretty face…"

"I would be much more impressed with your bark if your bite wasn't so damn pathetic." Malik snapped back but before Bakura even attempted to bark back this time he threw his whole body weight at Malik and threw the blond to the floor, the movement effectively winding them both.

"Ugh, you oaf!" Malik huffed out before hauling Bakura's shoulders to the side and rolling over so he was now straddling the other, pinning his shoulders to the ground. "You fight like a teenage girl," Malik finally regained his composure and grin, feeling much more at home on top.

"At least I don't dress like one," Bakura jolted forward to try and shock Malik off of him, but the attempt went in vein as Malik's physical body strength simply outweighed his own. Landing on his back, he let out a frustrated sigh.

"All talk, no walk~" Malik grinned, watching the other struggle beneath him before his face went suddenly stony and serious. "You're not throwing me out,"

Bakura threw his head back and laughed until he became breathless with Malik's weight on his chest. "Of course I'm not…" he mumbled when he had calmed down, "At least not while those fools are in America… I'd be far too bored." Malik's grin split across his face and felt the most genuine it had felt all day, it was good to win.

They stayed like that for a while, Bakura staring at the ceiling and Malik staring at… well, staring at Bakura.

Malik tried to tell himself it was normal, that this fit into their twisted relationship, but between the bitter taste of his darker self being back and the adrenaline of having pinned Bakura beneath him, he could think of a variety of choice words to describe the situation. 'Normal' was not one of them.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooo

A/N: in other news, sexual tension induced fight scenes are hot.