Title: Raise Your Glass
Universe: XXXHolic/Bleach
Theme/Topic: Drinking Buddies
Rating: PG-13
Character/Pairing/s: Yuuko, Watanuki, Mokona, Shunsui (with tidbits of ShunsuixJyuushirou thrown in)
Warnings/Spoilers: None I can imagine, but some um, wild speculations as to Shunsui and Jyuushirou's pasts.
Word Count: 2,473
Summary: A memory is a living, breathing thing.
Dedication: sophiap's holiday gift fic request. Hope you like it, dear! And thanks so much for your lovely card!
A/N: This ended up being much different than what I'd intended when I started, but such is how these things often go, right? And with this, it is the very last of the 18 fics I owe for this holiday season.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.

---

The smallest things prompted memory— things as simple as the sound of footsteps, the smell of rain, the taste of shaved ice on a hot summer's day could, all of them, bring forth the recollection of something far more powerful than any of those things might be on their own, in their simplest, textbook forms. They could become instead, something greater than the sum of their parts: beyond just and deep into I remember. The sound of footsteps transformed into last thing you heard when you left a lover for instance, or the scent of falling rain became your memory of the day you lost someone, and you remember the sweet flavor of shaved ice on your tongue as the moment you found someone new. Memories were living creatures with the power to transform everyday things and meanings and experiences in the soul of someone—and like words, all they needed was the smallest bit of encouragement to burst forth and overwhelm a person, to sneak in and settle like a cat in someone's lap. People lived in memories and with memories, they affected the future of those who lived with them and their echoes stayed with a person from one life to the next. Such powerful creatures, and all they needed in order to be let loose was the right key.

This time it was something as normal and everyday as Watanuki working (and complaining) away from the kitchen as he often did on days like these, the young man in the process of dragging out a large bottle of chilled sake and snacks to soothe Yuuko and Mokona on this, a particularly sultry spring afternoon. Watanuki had glared at their general lack of concern for his physical wellbeing as they sat in the shade and called order after order out to him, and as he'd served them, he'd sighed and exclaimed, "I don't know anyone in the history of anything who could drink as much as you, Yuuko-san!"

And just like that a door unlocked in her mind and from behind it a long dormant memory was freed. The little creature went sailing through her thoughts quicker than lightning and settled in her lap, purring and kneading and mewling for attention.

She stroked its head and couldn't help but oblige it. "Actually Watanuki," she began, and smiled at her charge, "I once met someone who most definitely could."

Because memories were living, breathing things and held power, like words. They needed to be shared, to be let loose and multiply in the minds of others, the memory of a memory of a memory told on a humid spring day while drinking sake and eating tea cakes. A memory's legacy— its offspring.

"Really?" Watanuki blinked, and by the wrinkle in his brow Yuuko could tell he thought she was outright lying to him.

"A story, weee!" Mokona cheered, and raised its glass to Watanuki and Yuuko both. Because Mokona knew what stories meant. "Perfect with alcohol!"

"And about alcohol!" Yuuko chuckled, as the memory began to take shape in her head, to change into words and form the story. All the preparations of a memory giving birth to another memory, one that was forming slowly now, in Watanuki's mind.

"Once… a long time ago," she began, and planted the seed.

Watanuki stopped and listened, and from the way he looked, Yuuko knew he would remember this story for a long, long time, whether he knew it or not, whether he ever found the key that unlocked it and brought it to the forefront of his thoughts or not.

She recalled how, a lifetime ago, she'd been walking the streets of Japan much as she did today, longing for a good, cold drink and tasty snacks, for things that didn't belong and things that did, for stories and actions and a wish with just the right price tag attached to it.

Thus she ignored the desperate cries of fishwives and farmers selling their goods from little covered shops in the streets—their wishes were too much too fast for folk such as them—and wandered freely instead, not looking for anything in particular but always searching anyway. She happened to wander into a bar that afternoon, because she felt there was one of those things she'd been searching for nestled inside (as there often was in places such as these), though she hadn't known which one exactly at the time.

When she entered she found a dark, dingy room that was quiet in terms of noise but screaming in everything else. She felt anguish and smelled booze and had a taste for both. People stared as she strode to the bar and sat down—magnificently out of place and uncaring either way.

The man next to her at the bar smiled and bought her first drink for her that afternoon, looking down into his empty cup and digesting a head full of wishes that weren't really.

"What are you wishing for?" Yuuko remembered saying, and sipped easily at her drink, while he appeared thoughtful and anguished all at once.

The smile he graced her with would have fooled anyone else into believing he was fine, but the enduring sense of something around him tipped her off, told her volumes. The smell of someone else, the feel of lingering affection fading away. She bought him the next drink.

"I'm not wishing," he murmured in response. "Not earnestly."

"Maybe if you try harder you'll get what you want."

He chuckled at that and they toasted one another, both draining their cups in a single breath.

"Someone precious to me died last night," he admitted, though she already knew. Everything about him seemed surrounded not just by death, but by sickness as well. Someone else's, not his own. Sometimes that was worse.

He bought her the next round. "I'm wishing to be reunited," he admitted, and grinned at her, despite those sad brown eyes. "But he wouldn't like that—not so soon anyway, and so I'm not earnest. It's difficult to lie to yourself when you're wishing."

She smirked at that, and rather thought she liked him because it was hard to find humans who knew their own capriciousness, let alone laughed at it.

"What if I told you—hypothetically— I could grant your wishes?" she asked, and put just the right amount of teasing in her voice to leave it up to him to decide whether she was joking or not. Her fingers danced across the lip of her glass and he bought her the bottle.

He seemed the sort who liked jokes then, because when he responded, he eyed her wryly and murmured, "Then you'd also know that my wishes aren't really wishes," and let her pour him a glass of alcohol from the bottle he'd bought her. "My wishes are his wishes."

True enough, and good that he could recognize that—often the wishes of others imposed upon us were the most dangerous wishes of all. She rewarded him, because his wisdom gave her pleasure and it was a price she would have to repay.

"He'd want you to live," she began, no teasing this time, "Full and happy and without a regret in the world."

The man looked self-deprecating. "And so here I am."

"Here rather than there."

They clinked their glasses together and took long pulls. "You aren't from around here, are you?" he asked, after they'd drank.

She didn't answer him, because it wasn't a question. Not really.

They sat together and drank and she listened to his head full of regret and pain and above it all love—warm and real.

After a while, he sighed—painfully human in the midst of his painful loss. "If you're still up to granting some of my wishes however," he began, and while he clearly thought her whole offer was a joke (she could tell by the way his brow was furrowed self-deprecatingly), he pushed on anyway, because despite their better senses humans were always so full of hope they could burst with it, even in times of great despair. "I wish…"

She smiled. "Yes?"

"…I knew if he was okay."

"I could tell you," she offered, because he'd bought her a bottle, and she owed him something for that as well.

He didn't believe her of course, but humored her anyway, because grief was so much worse when it was experienced all alone. Even the word of a stranger helped—just a little.

"Do you think he's okay, wherever he is?"

She rested her chin on her fingertips and took a breath, feeling warm from the drinks and generous from the company. "He's okay. The same."

The man laughed, and even if a part of him didn't believe her, a part of him did anyway. "Good. That's…good. Death couldn't change a stubborn guy like him anyway." A fond smile then, deeply nostalgic. "He was always sick…for so long he was sick. He fought until the very end."

She arched a brow. "He's still fighting."

Her companion swallowed, looking worried. "What, you don't think there's peace?"

It wasn't a matter of what she thought, but he didn't know that, and wouldn't understand what she knew anyway. She poured him more booze and he bought them both another bottle. "An existence that's nothing but peace isn't an existence at all, I think," was what she told him instead.

He chortled. "Right."

They raised their cups together and he said, "Until I join you again, my friend."

They drank deep and after a moment, he motioned for another bottle and the two of them didn't bother with the cups anymore.

"Thanks for granting my wish," he said after a while, before taking a deep, thoughtful swig.

"Any others I can take care of?" she offered as they drank. "I owe you for the wine."

He waved her off, because all he really wanted right now was the company. "Just reassure me. And get stinking drunk with me."

"A fair exchange," she conceded, and they continued to drink through the afternoon and into the evening, all through the night. And through the course, as they both grew redder and redder and their speech slurred more and more, she let him buy her drinks and reassured him that there was a whole different world waiting for him when he joined that precious person one day in the future, reassured him that while it would be hard it would be worth it and perfect and when he died, the man with long white hair who was important to him would be waiting with open arms for him, just like he always had. He listened with what faculties he could and even though his mind wasn't all there, listened with his heart instead, and it was just as good because he felt every word. As the night progressed, the seeds of memory were planted despite their mutual drunkenness, and Shunsui let himself be soothed from his grief momentarily, let the images Yuuko painted for him of a strange and magnificent place called seireitei rule his mind and for a while, bring him peace.

For as long as the alcohol lasted, he paid and she spoke just enough to make the exchange fair. His wishes weren't excessive after all, weren't greedy or fearful or hasty. Just thoughtful. Lonely. A remarkable human, and one day she knew, a remarkable god.

If only he knew what was fated for him beyond this life, the things that were waiting for him besides a precious person who'd gone on ahead of him.

But then again, he hadn't paid for that. Nor had he wished to know.

"And so he kept up with you?"

Watanuki's voice stirred her from that memory, and like a startled feline it jumped from its place on her lap and skittered away, back behind the closed door it had come out from. She smiled at Kimihiro and motioned for him to pour her another glass of wine. "Glass for glass," she informed him.

"And he paid for all of that? It must have cost a fortune!"

"Not that much," she assured him, without having to say that back then, things had all been markedly cheaper. "And he was a very important commander in a very important army, so I'm sure he managed."

Watanuki shook his head. "Still. That's a lot of booze."

She couldn't argue with that, she supposed.

And then the young man stopped, looking thoughtful—strangely, much like the man had that night. "So… what do you think became of him?" Pause. "I mean… do you think he'll ever find his friend again?"

Yuuko grinned mysteriously at that and raised her glass to Watanuki before emptying it in one magnificent gulp. "He died many years ago and afterwards, became a very important commander in a very important army," she supplied, and felt the alcohol settle in her stomach and go straight to her head all at once. She jingled her cup and gestured for more.

Watanuki stared at her. "Are you drunk already?" he asked, and withheld the drink from her for a moment.

"Watanuki! Pour!" Mokona ordered then, impatiently, and Yuuko couldn't help but giggle to herself happily, cheeks flushed and feeling warm all over.

"Right, pour!"

He sighed and did as he was told. "Really," he said, and looked exasperated, "I think I would have liked to meet a man who could drink as much as you. Just hearing you talk about him makes it very hard for me to believe he actually existed."

Yuuko smirked at that. "Is that a wish, Watanuki?"

"NO!" he said, hastily, and nearly fell over himself trying to retract his careless statement before Yuuko did something he would (undoubtedly) regret.

Yuuko snickered to herself at his distress and enjoyed her alcohol and snacks thoroughly, thinking that whether Watanuki wished or not, she hadn't been to seireitei in a long time anyway. Maybe it would be nice for Watanuki to meet Shunsui after all.

Besides, she was always up for the creation of new memories to join the old. It kept them from getting lonely.

And when Jyuushirou let him out, Shunsui was always up for more beer, which made him a great companion to create new memories with.

That decided, she smiled and raised her glass to Watanuki one more time. "Tomorrow will be memorable," she declared, before downing the entire cup.

"I DON'T LIKE THE SOUND OF THAT!" Watanuki protested, by rote.

She simply laughed and hiccupped, thinking to herself that just because it was often a simple enough thing to invoke memories didn't mean that making them went quite the same way.

Luckily for Watanuki, it was a lesson Yuuko was willing to teach him free of charge.

As it was, Shunsui always provided the wine anyway.

END