Work Text:
The knock on the door comes about half an hour after Ryoga closes the game window, his teeth gritted and his fingers hitting the keys so hard he’s almost worried he’ll break them. He slams his laptop shut at the sound, wonders who it could be, considering it’s 10 P.M. and he doesn’t have any friends who aren’t Yuma, but who’s actually there probably should’ve been expected, honestly, because it’s IV. Holding a pizza and a video tape. Ryoga squints.
“I didn’t want to be in the same room as either of them,” IV says, switching the pizza around to his other hand so he can toss Ryoga the tape. “And I thought you might want to watch Kaito lose.”
The tape’s the footage of Kaito dueling Tron in the WDC, and, okay, Ryoga would be lying if he said he didn’t want to watch it, and if he said he wasn’t hungry upon seeing the pizza, and – yeah, the point is he grunts and steps aside to let IV in, and maybe he’s less inclined to break IV’s face after that disaster of a BGO round (why had he thought it was a good idea to team up with him again?).
He spends most of the time cracking tasteless jokes about Kaito losing and shoving pizza in his face whenever he can’t find something to make fun of, and maybe he glances over at IV once or twice, because he’s weirdly quiet and his eyes are sort of glazed over while he watches and that’s the exact opposite of what IV usually is, but he doesn’t actually say anything because – what are you supposed to say to that, sorry I’m making you sit through watching your shota dad duel with me? And he’d been the one to come over with the tape, anyway.
It’s one in the morning before he thinks about making IV leave, and somehow – ‘somehow’ being ‘angrily’ at himself – he doesn’t actually want IV to leave, because he doesn’t want to dwell on Kaito and he probably will, regardless of whether or not IV is actually here, but at least IV is sort of a distraction, so when he doesn’t make any kind of move to head home Ryoga doesn’t say anything.
Neither of them will admit to having been the one to start building the pillow fort (but it was definitely IV and not at all Ryoga), but it’s an excessive creation that’s pretty much completely unnecessary – they’d moved the coffee table out of the way and dragged chairs in from the kitchen to throw the blankets over the couch and there were approximately ten different pillows thrown under there somewhere and as stupid and ridiculous as it was it was maybe kind of fun, too, even if Ryoga will never actually say that anywhere outside of his own mind and he’ll probably deny it there too.
The problem arises the next morning when he wakes up feeling like there’s a weird leech monster attached to his face and, after a moment of confusion, realizes that the leech monster is IV, whose face is on Ryoga’s forehead, which is – coincidentally – covered in IV’s drool. His first instinct is to leap away like every part of his body that’s in contact with IV is on fire, but the rest of the problem is that apparently every part of his body is in contact with IV, because he can’t feel his left foot due to his leg being under both of IV’s and his right arm is thrown over IV’s shoulder and – ugh.
(it isn’t cuddling, Ryoga will never in his life ever admit that he cuddles in his sleep, least of all with IV)
In the end, he just shoves IV’s face away so he can get the drool off. It’s probably fruitless, because IV doesn’t look like he plans on waking up, but gross, and – maybe Ryoga just ends up going back to sleep, too, even though it’s probably noon or some other ridiculous time when neither of them should be asleep.
----
Things fall into a sort of pattern, after that, and Ryoga kind of starts to feel slightly less lame about the fact that he broke up with Kaito by killing him five times in a video game, because IV is even more of a sadsack than he could ever hope to be – not that Ryoga is a sadsack, just that IV is the saddest of sacks to ever exist. One time IV shows up unannounced with an overnight bag packed, and Ryoga just rolls his eyes because, really, who is he fooling? He’d been staying overnight without that for days, anyway.
The pillow fort is still there, as stupid as it is, because even though he tries Ryoga can’t find the will to clean it up. It’s almost a permanent fixture in his and Rio’s apartment now, just like IV himself.
It’s almost three days before IV leaves again, and he’s gone a full day this time, so Ryoga actually sleeps in his room for the first time in a week – except he doesn’t actually sleep, because even though his bed is soft and has warm blankets he feels too cold and he knows exactly why and he’s mildly disgusted with himself for it because the fact that he got used to sleeping on the floor next to someone (he’s not kidding himself by substituting out the name, not at all) is pretty pathetic. So by the time the sun rises he’s sprawled on his bed staring at the ceiling and trying not to think, because his thoughts always lead squarely back to being pathetic.
He’s pretty sure he looks like shit when he lets IV in later that day, expecting snippy comments, but he’s surprised because he doesn’t get any, and maybe that’s because IV looks just as shitty. He didn’t even take the time to meticulously style his hair so that it would look like he hadn’t touched it. Ryoga decides to order pizza.
It’s 6 P.M. when Ryoga falls asleep, after they’re settled on the floor with their backs against the couch rather than sitting on it, with IV slumped onto his shoulder (he claimed the view of the TV was better there, but Ryoga’s only response to that was a snort; sure, IV, sure). He is, once again, being drooled on, because IV fell asleep already – briefly, Ryoga wonders if he couldn’t sleep, either, then shoves the thought away because it reminds him of the fact that he’s a loser – but he can’t find the will to care considering he ends up falling asleep after that, too, and they wake up stiff and uncomfortable but still feeling better and IV has a gem imprint on his cheek from Ryoga’s shirt and the laugh he got out of that was the best he’d gotten all week.
He thinks maybe he can handle being a loser as long as IV is a bigger one.