"Come on, Duke, let's get you to bed." Ryou shifted his hold on Duke in order to help him get into their apartment. Duke was getting heavier and less cooperative as he started to crash from his buzz, making him more difficult to handle.
"Your bed or mine?" the dice-master slurred with a silly laugh.
As Ryou tried to walk Duke towards his room, Duke swung around in front of him and put his arms around Ryou in an intimate way. Ryou froze, blushing as Duke leaned in and kissed his cheek.
"Duke." Ryou's breath caught in his throat, and he couldn't speak. He stared into Duke's glowing green eyes, trying to maintain a level of resistance, but finding it incredibly difficult.
"Yes, my darling?" Duke purred, his cheek brushing against Ryou's. A soft whine sounded from Ryou's throat, surprising himself and making Duke chuckle. "You want more kisses, don't you?" Duke pressed his lips to Ryou's, and the Brit couldn't help that he melted into Duke. He wanted to be kissed, and he wanted Duke to kiss him. Duke deepened the kiss into something wet and somewhat sloppy, but Ryou didn't care. He wanted passion and tongues touching and bare skin and he had been so afraid of wanting all that ever since he'd been freed of Bakura that he'd been too scared of trying to have any of it. When the kiss broke, and Duke butted his nose into his roommate's cheek, leaning heavily on him as a heavy feeling of dreaded settled in Ryou's stomach like a stone.
"Oh gods, what have I done?" he whispered in horror, then looked down at Duke, who was falling asleep on his feet, and swallowed hard. He won't remember any of this tomorrow, right? he thought as he helped Duke to his room. There was some part of him that wished for an answer to echo back from the recesses of his mind, but Bakura was gone, and he was left to handle his fears alone.
"There you go," he sighed with relief as he shoved Duke towards his own bed so that he fell onto it instead of the floor. He wasn't sure what to do now; Duke was laying there giggling like a little girl, but he was still fully clothed. "You can take care of yourself now, right?"
Duke muttered something incoherent and started kicking off his shoes, which Ryou took as a sign that he was competent enough to be left to himself. Ryou went to bed with the taste of Duke and tequila on his lips, their kiss tumbling around in his mind through a thousand different filters to see every outcome imaginable. Only once he'd exhausted every possibility did Ryou's mind finally quiet enough for him to fall asleep.
When Ryou woke up the next morning, Duke was singing in the shower, sounding exuberant, of all things. Ryou'd expected him to be hungover, but Ryou was the one feeling groggy and sluggish, not Duke.
"She's my cherry pie! Put a smile on your face, ten miles wide! Looks so good, bring a tear to your eye! Sweet cherry pie!"
Ryou could hear Duke's singing over the whistling of the tea kettle. As he poured the hot water into his mug, the steam curling up and wreathing around his face, he listened with one ear to the progression of the song.
"Swingin' to the drums, swingin' to guitar, swingin' to the bass in the back of my car! Ain't got money, ain't got no gas, but we'll get where we're goin' if we swing real fast!"
Holy Ra, it's a sex song, he grumbled mentally, seating himself at the counter with his mug of lavender tea as he blew on it to cool it down. He couldn't help but wonder if Duke had broken his fast last night.
"I scream, you scream, we all scream for her! Don't even try 'cause you can't ignore her! She's my cherry pie! Cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise! Tastes so good, make a grown man cry! Sweet cherry pie, oh yeah!"
Duke's volume only went down once he turned off the shower, as was usual for him. The sound of the shower was replaced with the blow-dryer, though, and the singing got louder again.
"She's my cherry pie! Put a smile on your face, ten miles wide! Looks so good, bring a tear to your eye! Sweet cherry pie, oh yeah! Swing it!"
When Duke finally emerged from the bathroom, his hair half-dry, a towel around his waist, steam spilling out of the room from behind him, Ryou was still half-asleep, his hair unbrushed and his pajamas askew.
"Good morning," Duke chimed much too cheerfully, ducking into his room with the door open as he began to dress.
"Good morning." Ryou turned his back on the doorway, trying to force the color out of his cheeks.
"How did you sleep?" Duke asked as pulled on fresh underwear.
"Well enough, how about you?"
"I slept great!" Duke reemerged wearing black skinny jeans, the waistband of his underwear just barely visible, but wearing nothing else that could be seen. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail as usual, and he went straight into the kitchen to start taking things out of the fridge.
"I'm surprised. You seemed pretty wasted last night. I was sure you'd be hungover." Ryou sipped his tea, his elbows resting on the counter as he held the mug in both hands.
"I don't get hungover very easily. I'd have to be just sitting at the bar drinking nonstop for that to happen." He nudged the fridge door closed with his hips as he turned around, arms full of ingredients. "Want an omelet?"
"Sure." As Duke started laying things out, Ryou watched him, noticing the phone number on his arm. He started to chuckle as he remembered their encounter with Kaiba. Since Duke didn't seem to remember their kiss last night—thank Ra for that—he might not remember how the number came to be on his arm.
"What's so funny?" Indeed, Duke had no recollection of kissing Ryou last night, but even if he did, he might not have said anything about it just to spare Ryou the embarrassment. He was even more likely to ask Ryou if he could kiss him again.
"It looks like you made a new friend last night," he said with a teasing smile, nodding towards the phone number. Duke looked down at it and laughed a little too.
"I suppose so, although I can't for the life of me remember who wrote it."
"Why don't you call the number and find out?"
"I just might do that. Can you put it in my phone for me? It's still in my room."
"Sure." Ryou set down his mug and hopped up from his stool, going to Duke's room and checked the nightstand first, where it would normally be plugged in to charge, but it wasn't there. Of course not. Duke wouldn't have thought to do that last night. After a little rummaging around through dirty clothes on the floor, he finally found it in the pockets of his pants from last night. He returned to the kitchen, where Duke was frying mixed vegetables in a pan on the stove while beating eggs.
"Your battery's almost dead," Ryou informed him as he unlocked Duke's phone—they both knew each other's phone passcodes by now—and opened the contacts. Instead of returning to his seat, he stood by the counter behind Duke and plugged his phone into the charger there. "What's the number?"
Duke read it aloud, and as Ryou created the contact, he decided to be gracious and enter Kaiba's name with the number. As amusing as it would be to see him call Kaiba without knowing who would answer, he figured Duke was more likely to get an answering machine than have Kaiba answer the phone. The latter was the more hilarious possibility, but since it was unlikely, Ryou figured he'd tell the truth and get a kick out of that instead. Before turning around again, though, he quickly jotted the number down on a post-it note, folded it in half with the sticky part on the inside, and slid it into the pocket of his pajama pants.
"Do you remember when we left the party last night?" Ryou asked innocently as he returned to his stool and picked up his mug again.
"Not at all. Why, did something happen?"
Ryou grinned and fought the urge to laugh. "You called me when you were ready to leave, but it was hard finding you, so we had to play Marco Polo so I could track you down inside the mansion. Then, when I found you, you were too silly to stand."
"What was I doing?"
"You were on the floor with your feet on the wall, and I was trying to make you stand up when Kaiba showed up."
"He did?" Duke exclaimed in amused incredulity.
"He did," Ryou affirmed, starting to laugh despite himself. "He offered to help me get you to your car"—Duke seemed shocked at the notion that Kaiba would voluntarily help anybody—"so he had to throw you over his shoulder to get you out!"
Duke started laughing hard, and he at least had the good dignity to blush in embarrassment, because he did recall how he'd kissed Kaiba in a margarita-induced haze, and he figured that had influenced Kaiba's decision to carry him.
"Oh man, I sure wish I could remember that."
"You kept reaching into his pockets, too," Ryou added, relishing in the story. "I have no idea why he put up with it. You were pretty persistent about it, too. What on earth were you trying to do?"
"I was probably hoping to find some gold nuggets," Duke joked as he poured the beaten eggs into the frying pan over the food. Ryou's giggle encouraged him to continue. "He practically sweats money. I bet the maids in his mansion sweep up gold dust all the time then sell it online for some extra cash." Ryou was laughing pretty hard now, so hard that he'd had to set down his mug to keep his tea from getting spilled. "If we were to x-ray him, we'd see that his veins are filled with pure gold and his bones are steel-plated. It's all in preparation for his species-change operation."
"His what?!" Ryou gasped, wiping a tear from his eye as he fought for air.
"His species-change operation," Duke repeated, winking at Ryou mischievously. "Didn't you know? He's in the process of turning himself into a dragon. Having a dragon-shaped jet just wasn't good enough for him."
Ryou laughed so hard that it hurt, and he eventually had to put his head down on the counter with his arms, his laughter silent and his shoulders shaking.
"Are you okay?" Duke asked, a little concerned now that he'd gone too far with the jokes and killed Ryou with humor.
"I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard," Ryou answered breathlessly as he lifted his head from the counter again, his face pink and his smile broader than Duke had ever seen before.
And Duke was proud to be the one who'd put that smile there.
Author Note: I'm sorry if it seems like what Duke's saying isn't funny enough to induce such a reaction from Ryou. I try to be funny, I really do, but I'm only human. And my family doesn't think I'm that funny either, so you're not alone in that opinion. Please review anyways!