Argenshipping (Bakura Ryo/Pegasus J. Crawford)
. . .
Ryo gasped awake, his skin slick with cold sweat and his hair matted over his eyes, his whole body tight and tense as he tried to fumble for whatever he was lying on—where washe—
"Sh, sh, sh," said a soft, kind voice. "You're all right. You're all right."
Ryo's mouth was so dry he couldn't make sounds, he could just move his mouth open and closed, his tongue flapping uselessly. Very gentle hands touched his shoulder, but he flinched, and the hands moved away.
"You all fell asleep sometime in the middle of your campaign," the voice said, low and calm. "You're currently still in the Kame Shop. You fell asleep on the table."
Ryo licked his lips. He still couldn't see, and his body was so sore and stiff. The hands returned to his shoulders, and this time, he let them help him sit up. Finger brushed his bangs gently out of his eyes, and he blinked.
"P-Pegasus-san," he mumbled. His memory was slowly coming back. He, Yugi, Jonouchi, Honda, and Anzu had been in the middle of a DnD campaign. Pegasus had been in the neighborhood; he had wanted to see Kame Game Shop after hearing so much about it and never visiting, and had ended up coming with them to see the shop, which had then turned into Ryo quickly writing him into the campaign as a mysterious temporary addition to the party because Pegasus was, not so surprisingly, realgood at DnD and it had actually been an amazing time to play a game with him joining in.
"What time 'sit?" Ryo mumbled.
"It's nearly midnight. I guess all of your final exams really took it out of you—everyone fell asleep."
Ryo licked his lips again—his eyes were finally clearing, and he could see the man sitting across from him, back in his own seat after having made sure Ryo was awake and all right. Jonouchi and Honda were slumped against each other, and Yugi had fallen across the table too. Anzu wasn't around.
"Anzu-girl went upstairs after you all fell asleep," Pegasus said.
"R-right," Ryo mumbled. Some of it sounded familiar, but he really couldn't remember what order everyone had passed out in, or when it had happened. What had been the last thing they had done in the campaign? He couldn't even remember that. He'd have to check his notes.
He swallowed—his heart was still racing. Had he been dreaming? He couldn't remember that, either.
"You were talking in your sleep," Pegasus said softly. "I'm sorry I woke you, but you seemed quite distressed."
Ryo blinked, and found that there were tears in the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away with the heels of his hands.
"Well, you know," he said, trying to sound as light-hearted as possible. "You get bad dreams sometimes."
Pegasus blinked at him in the dim, dusty light of the game shop, his one visible eye glittering slightly. For a moment, his hand twitched up, and pressed to the curtain of hair over his other eye.
"I do know, very well," he said, his voice soft.
For a moment, Ryo's heart clenched—and for just the briefest second, he thought he remembered what he had dreamed about. The car again. It had been years since he had had that dream instead of ones about...him.
He licked his lips, looking down at the table.
"How do you deal with it?" he mumbled. "N-not the Millennium Item part. That's...bad enough. I mean..."
Pegasus let out the tiniest of sighs.
"You mean, how do you deal with the pain of losing the ones you love?"
In Ryo's mind's eye, he saw his mother, and his sister. He saw their smiles. He saw, briefly, his father, before the Ring had made him lose his mind and turned him distant and strange.
"...yeah."
Pegasus didn't respond for so long, that Ryo had to look up to make sure that the man was still awake. He was, but he wasn't looking at Ryo. He was looking somewhere off into the middle distance, and Ryo wondered if he was seeing his long-dead fiance.
"I don't know if I'm a very good person to ask advice of," he said after a while, smiling wryly. "Seeing as my coping mechanisms put you and your friends through...quite some problems."
Ryo winced, but he shrugged.
"That's...over now."
"Mm, yes. But you never quite stop feeling badly for the people you hurt, no matter how much time passes, or how you apologize."
Pegasus tilted his his head slightly so that his hair fell over more of his face.
"It takes time," he said finally. "More time than you want it to. Perhaps as long as you live. But sometimes, the pain is a little less. And you remember the happier things much better."
He smiled, and his one eye softened like a father's might.
"The pain comes and goes in waves. But, as someone quite well known in America said once, 'don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.'"
"So you think it was worth it? The pain was worth the times before that?"
Pegasus smiled at him. He reached across the space and put his hand briefly on top of Ryo's hand on the table.
"I do," he said. "As hard as it is to remember some days, I do think it was worth it. More than worth it."
Ryo squeezed his hands against the table as tears bubbled in his eyes. He let his head fall so that his hair fell over his eyes, and then he let himself cry.
Pegasus didn't let go of his hand, and he didn't say a word.
. . .
A/N: I want Pegasus to become the gang's like, weird eccentric dad/uncle who's sometimes really good at comforting, tbh. Next is Ardentshipping (Shizuka x Honda).
