A/N: Written for the Mega Prompts Challenge, scenario prompt #067 - at a pub/bar
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drinks to true faces
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Many showed different faces when doused in alcohol, but Bakura Ryou was perhaps one of the few who showed his true self then. And Jonouchi was one of the few crazy enough to offer the spirit of the ring a round of drinks – but that was because it was well worth what he got in return. He hadn't forgotten. None of them had forgotten. They just had their own ways of reaching him and this was his: a gamble, but a gamble that always paid off.
Personally, he thought it was the most rewarding too. It wasn't just a flicker in the eyes like with Anzu or a faded spirit in the darkness that couldn't speak like with Yuugi or an innocently sleeping face when the spirit slumbered and the original found his body too spent to return to. But they weren't dangerous – except Yuugi who faced this like he faced everything: with his deck and his aibou and his friends. Ryou could talk, and listen. They could have a proper conversation, unhindered. The spirit of the ring didn't even know.
The downside was that, come morning, Ryou also wouldn't know. The memories would be Jonouchi's alone to bear.
But he found more hope in that. When the hard brown eyes became hazy and a shade lighter. When the mix of hatred and treats slipped into the half-drunken bottle and the head tilted forward, just a tad. Jonouchi smiled, as gently as though he were soothing his own little sister – and why not? His friends were his family after all. More family than the bastard he was working here for.
But it had given him this window, so he was a little grateful. A window he sometimes shared. And sometimes he didn't.
Today it was only the two of them. Jonouchi…and Ryou.
And Ryou stared at the bottle some more, then poured himself a glass.
Jonouchi felt his lips twitch. They always did, at the thought. How the spirit of the ring was arrogance personified (perhaps more so than Kaiba) and yet so uncivilised: all harsh words and no table manners. Ryou was the complete opposite: meek and polite. And, unfortunately, pessimistic.
Not that Jonouchi could really blame him, considering he rarely got control over his own body, and the only time he could do anything except sleep in it was times like this, drunk and getting drunker.
Jonouchi almost wished he had a glass of his own – but he was working technically, and it was bad enough he was sitting across the table from a customer and ignoring the rest. But this was an important time. A small window that didn't often come. And he wouldn't lose it. He wouldn't let it slip closed before he felt the fresh air.
'Honda's sister's having another baby,' he began. That was what he generally did. Talked about random stuff. Friends stuff. Family stuff. The stuff one would talk about on the way home from school or at the burger place or on the dinner table. And he did. He talked. And Ryou sipped and listened. Few words escaped. Just sounds, spurring the other on. A semblance of normalcy. A mask. Because there was no point begging for release, or crying from pain or despair. Those times had passed. Too long he'd been like this. Barely existing. Barely living. Barely knowing.
Times like these were his connection to the life he'd once had. To the friends who still fought for him, even after he'd begged for them to leave him, to give up. They hadn't. And now, he only had them. Anzu who danced on the world's stage, so bright that even in the depths of darkness Ryou could see her for a blissful moment. Yuugi who put his soul on the line time and time again to duel, just to get close enough to the shadows that Ryou could just make out his face. Honda who cleaned up his place and organised the bills and did all the things a three thousand year old spirit seemed incapable of doing – or perhaps he simply thought the rules of the modern world didn't apply to him. But it wasn't for him any of it was done. It was for Ryou. Always for Ryou.
And Jonouchi who sat across the table from him with a bottle in between, enough to sate the spirit before sleep and let him breathe a few true breaths as he talked. He wouldn't remember afterwards, but when the words still hung in the air they were a comfort. He could almost pretend it would last. But it wouldn't. It was a fleeting dream at best. Gone in the morning when his body awoke and there would be only darkness again, infinite darkness broken only by these tiny threads of light…
Jonouchi knew. And understood. And, perhaps, Ryou understood too, even if he wouldn't recall.
Because, always, in the middle of the tale he would start to cry. Soundlessly: tears slipping down his face even while he listened, and absorbed, and drank. And, finally but all too soon, Jonouchi would run out of things to say and Ryou would struggle to stay aware, and upright. And he, Ryou, would whisper the only meaningful question that night. The half-complete question because he couldn't bear voicing it in its entirety. Couldn't bear stripping himself like that, as though he hung on a final, frayed thread. 'Is there any..?'
He did but it was wrapped firmly in insulating darkness. That was why he still lived, why he still existed.
And, perhaps, that was the one thing he was happy to forget. Because Jonouchi would always shake his head. Say: 'we're trying,' or 'we'll find a way soon' even if it hadn't yet worked that way. Because if even the nameless Pharoah defeating him time and time again wasn't enough to banish the spirit of the ring, then what would? What would return that body to its rightful owner for more than these brief moments they worked so hard for.
But they searched anyway, because they'd been through too many seemingly impossible battles, made too lasting bonds, to give up now. 'We'll find a way,' he promised, like he always promised. 'Soon.'
And the bottle emptied. Ryou didn't call for another one. He simply sunk. First, his eyes flickered and his head lost the battle to stay upright. Then he fell with a thump onto the table: arms folded below and forehead resting there. His eyes still flickered, but they'd still soon too. Jonouchi swallowed and started talking again: talking about old memories this time. Duellist Kingdom and Battle City – the times they'd spent together, when Ryou had been more than he was now.
It was like a bedtime story and he had no way of knowing how much Ryou heard and how much he didn't. Nor did it matter: he didn't remember. The alcohol stole that away: the price for the time they borrowed. But that was enough, for now. It was hope for all of them. For Honda, it could be a memory. For Anzu, a phantom. Maybe Yuugi too could not mistake the sliver of the soul that remained for anything else but that was Yuugi, just Yuugi, and here was where Jonouchi felt closest to this friend.
And how they were both asleep: the spirit and Ryou too. And the silence was pressing, suffocating. The rest of the bar was a buzz and the manager's eyes drifted in his direction. Maybe he knew: he saw often enough and he never interrupted. But he jerked his head now and the message was clear. 'You've done your bit. Now get back to work.'
But that wasn't quite true; there was one thing left to do. He slipped his phone out and sent a text to Honda, and a few minutes later, once he'd stood up and thrown the bottle in the trash and wiped down the table, the brunet himself arrived. They exchanged a silent conversation and then it was all gone: Honda and Ryou and that dream. A new pair sat down on the table and Jonouchi pulled a grin over his features. 'What will it be today, sirs?'