A/N: Dimwit and Fox Inc. present you this piece of random silliness.
I don't own or profit from any of what Kazue Katou has created.
Being a bartender is kind of like going to the zoo. The difference being that the animals come to you instead: all kinds and colours, all tiers of the food chain show up at the proverbial water hole. You see the herds that come to revel, maybe celebrate; you see the lone old elephants that nurse their drinks and memories, retracing the steps and missteps of their life's journey; you see grazers and predators, and occasionally some vegetable that seems determined to root permanently before the bar.
As a bartender you have a special radar for the loners that come to drown their sorrows. It's more akin to water torture, really. No sorrow ever disappeared from drinking.
There's a new such loner at the water hole tonight. He's broad and tall and fierce-looking and the bartender is sort of hoping he'll stay long enough – and drink enough – to be in the mood for some comforting.
Well damn. One of the regulars got to him first. And it's that guy, too.
There are special tiers in the food chain where you can no longer ask a troublesome guest to leave. One is when the guest is Johann Faust, who owns this and many other establishments in True Cross Town; another is when the guest is Johann Faust's superior, who frankly looks better suited to being his body guard. Or thug.
Suguro Tatsuma was a regular at many bars in Kyoto. For that precise reason, Suguro Ryuji would never have been seen in a bar without good cause. What Lewin Light had done today – what Ryuji had been part of doing today – would not leave his mind unless helped by a drink. Or two. And some lone time with the stars, sitting on the stairs to the bar's entrance. That's what people do when they ponder their problems, right? They drink and they look up at the stars and then something will magically fall out of the sky and when they find it it turns out to be the answer to all their problems – or an alien life form hoping to take over your mind and body.
"Yo. What's bothering you?"
There was a finger pointed in Ryuji's face; its brothers were occupied with the neck of a bottle that smelled of something stronger than the saké Ryuji himself was sipping.
"You?"
"Nah, credit where credit is due." The white-haired guy plopped down next to him with a grunt. Why wait for an inviation that wasn't going to come. "Nobody sits alone on the stairs like this unless they've got something weighing on their mind. Or a broken ankle. I can help with that too, if that's the problem." He flashed the pin on his chest: True Cross Order.
"You're drunk."
"I'm drunk", he agreed and left the bottle on the stairs in favour of lighting a cigarette. "And I'm a doctor. Both occupations dictate I help people out. So what's bothering you?"
"Nothing." Nothing he would share with an Order member who might pass word on to his superiors.
"Not gonna be a very good exorcist with that attitude, son." A white cloud of smoke flushed out of his mouth. "Whadda they teach you in school these days? 'Bottle your feelings up and demons will take advantage of it.' Your heart needs to take a dump from time to time – s'what you've got teammates and colleagues for."
"Well..." True, they were taught that, and admittedly, Ryuji felt like he might need to… take a dump, so… Eventually, he sighed. "There's this guy."
"That kind'a trouble, hah?"
"Yeah… We met in high school. I thought he was a cool guy, you know? He was everything I'd been looking for. Then he started murdering people. And I was like... Fuck, he's still a cool guy. But he's killing people."
"Oh man, I know exactly what you're talking about." The white-haired exorcist shook his head sympathetically. "You think you've met the guy who's gonna turn your life around and then bam. Turns out to be a homicidal madman."
"He killed people, too?"
"He killed kids, man."
"Fuck, dude, that's harsh", Ryuji grimaced. That called for another sip of saké.
"Yeah. Things were never really the same after that."
"And it's like you never see it coming, you know?"
"I know, I know... Like you think you should know better, you should see the signs... And maybe you would, but you're blinded by all the other things you see in them."
"Yeah. Makes it so much worse when they show their true faces."
"Amen." The exorcist blew a long, steady breath of smoke into the night.
"…The worst thing is I'm still hesitating. Part of me just wants to tell him to fuck off and slam the door, but another part of me wants to stay. It doesn't make sense, I know, I just… don't know what to do right now."
The cigarette wiggled contemplatively. Then he pulled another lungful, snuffed the stump out against the stairs, and folded his fingers.
"You know, at times like these I find it helpful to ask myself what would Jesus do?"
"...Forgive and turn the other cheek?"
"Hell no. Flip the table and chase the fucker out the door with a whip."
Ryuji… was not that drunk.
"Gospel of John, verse something-or-other, with the merchants in the temple and– Fuck!" The exorcist's bottle toppled and poured out half of its contents before he caught it. "Bottom line is if somebody acts like your guy does you whip his ass good."
"And… that's what you did?" Ryuji turned a full-blown stare at him.
"No – problem with my guy is he'd probably like that. But you are gonna turn the tables on your guy. He's gonna keep killing people unless you take action and put your fucking foot down; that's how these people work. You gotta let him know you're having none of it. Man up. Show him who's boss."
"…He is my boss."
"All the more reason to show him he's not!" The exorcist turned where he sat and faced Ryuji. Swaying slightly, he used both hands to emphasise his words: "After me, after me: 'he's not the boss'."
"He's not the boss."
"'I'm the boss'."
"I'm the boss."
"You damn well are!" He slapped both hands down on Ryuji's shoulders. "Say it!"
"I'm the boss!"
"You're the boss!"
"I'm the boss!" Ryuji clasped the exorcist's shoulders with his own hands and shouted at the top of his lungs. "And I don't need to put up with his shit!"
"His shit is his shit!" he hollered and gave Ryuji an encouraging shake.
"His shit is his shit! His laundry is his laundry!"
"You're doing his–?" The exorcist shook the befuddled look off.
"I am! And it pisses me off!"
"You know what? SCREW HIM! He doesn't deserve you! You're smart and caring and ambitious, and this piece of shit is exploiting that! So fuck him! You should ditch the bastard!"
"I should ditch the bastard!"
"Yeah!"
No one in the bar was quite drunk enough to miss the frantic shouting that was taking place on the doorstep. They were, however, drunk enough to mistake the shoulder grips and shaking for a fight.
Within seconds, it is a fight.