Goodnight

[quinientos]

If there's one thing that Vasquez had done quickly in Darrow, it had been to find a good bar with a decent bartender. He has one now, with two of the bartenders that he's fucked at some point, but has kept up a good relationship with. It's become his favorite place to be, but he also thinks it's good because it's quieter than some of the clubs.

Not only that, but he knows Billy and Goodnight will drink here, so every once in a while, he also gets to see his friends. It's strange for him, because he's grown to appreciate them so much more than he ever thought he would, but then, he also thought they were dead.

Tonight, he raises a glass when he sees Goodnight at the door, ordering his usual when the bartender comes back around, so that when Goodnight joins him at the booth in the back (the one where the seats face the door), there's something waiting for him. "Billy working?"

Comments

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight gave a polite nod when Vasquez raised his glass and he joined him in his booth. "He's got a shift tonight, yeah." Before the bartender left, he added, "I'll have a double, please, when you have a moment."

He was here often enough that most of the bartenders knew his drink. He was a simple man in that sense: he liked the same thing almost every time, and he liked it plentiful. He couldn't believe he'd come here actually looking for Vasquez. But he was familiar, and he was not as obnoxious as he'd seemed in Rose Creek. Perhaps because Darrow gave them more distance and less intense purpose.

"He might show up to peel me off the floor before the end of the night, but I don't expect him til late."

[quinientos]

He's said it before, that Billy working so much on the night shift must be a lonely fucking thing, because that's the best time to have someone in your life. He raises a brow when Goodnight orders a double, taking the drink meant for him and reclaiming it as his own.

"Is something so bad you need to be peeled or is your tolerance just turning shitty?" he quips, unable to help old habits of poking and prodding die.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"You gotta go to all the dark places?" he said with a shake of his head. "Maybe I just plan to enjoy drinks for a good long while."

Goodnight gave a polite nod to the bartender when his drink arrived and he looked across the table at Vasquez. He needed to make more friends in this damn city: he couldn't believe this was the first place he came with this.

"I'm going to propose to Billy."

[quinientos]

Fucking finally, he thinks, and he only stops himself from saying it because he's in the middle of taking a long drink. He claps Goodnight on the shoulder emphatically, because he's been here for a year? It feels like maybe about that, and if the man hadn't done it soon, then Vasquez would've proposed for him.

"Good man," he praises. "How are you going to do it? Write it on one of his knives?" he jests.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight shook his head. "Vasquez I am begging you, give me an ounce of sincerity for as long as you can stand it."

He sighed and took a sip of his drink, settling the odd rush of nerves. "I'm not sure yet. But no, it will not involve one of his knives. Unlike you and Faraday, I do not fetishize weapons to the point of naming them or using them as a substitute for romance."

[quinientos]

"Cabron, I am being sincere, I'm pleased for you," Vasquez responds, insulted at the idea that he doesn't want the best for them. Sure, he doesn't understand the idea that goes behind marrying one person for the rest of your life, but when he sees Billy and Goodnight, he can understand being with someone like this.

He's a little jealous, what can he say? And turned on to think of being with them, but he's not going to say that part. "I can be romantic in other ways," he huffs. "You could take him out for a fancy dinner and shower him in your fancy words and clothes and flowers."

Vasquez still thinks Billy would prefer a bar fight, but what does he know?

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight considered that. "Something quiet, I think," he said, almost like he was agreeing. "I don't think I'd feel right doing it in front of any kind of crowd, though. Maybe somewhere quiet in the park. It was where we first saw each other, after he arrived here."

He remembered it well: the snow, and hearing Billy's voice and fearing he'd lost his mind completely, or that he was somehow being haunted by a man he missed like a limb.

[quinientos]

Even Vasquez doesn't want to see the proposal, if he's honest. That's something for private, where with the wedding, he definitely wants to be there to witness it. "I don't think he'll care how you do it," he admits bluntly. "Whatever you do, so long as it happens, I think Billy will be happy."

If he were in his shoes, he would be. It would just be the waiting and the constant wariness about whether the other man felt the same that would get under his skin. "Besides, maybe if you wait too long, he'll propose to you and then maybe it could be with knives."

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"You're probably right," he admitted. "But I care. We've already been together so long... I want to do something that feels special. I want this to stand out in our lives, whatever comes after."

Goodnight huffed a laugh at the idea of Billy proposing with knives. "He knows me better than that. I think the only reason he hasn't proposed first is because he knows how important it is to me."

[quinientos]

Well, if that's the case, then Goodnight had better get thinking. Special, he says, as if it isn't special enough that he's come up with a relationship that most people would only be jealous of. "You're going to end up reciting terrible French poetry at him, aren't you?"

"You know, if you do love him, you should learn some Korean poetry, at least," Vasquez points out absently. "Wouldn't that be better?"

[goodnight_robicheaux]

Goodnight shook his head and looked at his drink. "Makes me miss Henry with a fierceness," he confessed quietly. He missed the boy dearly: he'd been gentle and helpful in helping Goodnight get used to the city and, potentially, cope with the idea of a life without Billy.

Then Billy had appeared, and he'd found himself enjoying listening to entire conversations in Korean while the pair of them cooked.

"He could tell me any traditions that might be... nice, I don't know. Suppose there's always the library for that, but it's not the same."

[quinientos]

Vasquez doesn't know who Henry is, but it sounds like a name from their time. He leans forward to drink his beer, finishing almost half of it in a single go, because he thinks that for this conversation, he still needs it.

"Is that what the wedding will be like? Things I've never seen before? Assuming I get invited," he jokes, giving Goodnight a wink, because he assumes that's going to happen.

[goodnight_robicheaux]

"Of course you're getting invited. You're the only one in this town that knew either of us before we got here. Even if you are a royal pain." He said that fondly, at least. He wasn't sure he wanted to imagine life here without Vasquez.

"I don't know. I know he hasn't been back to Korea since he was a boy, but that doesn't mean I can't work in a few traditions that might mean something, even distantly, to him."

[quinientos]

"That just means I should be invited because then I can tell all the stories about what you two were like when I knew you before," Vasquez boasts with a laugh, because even though there aren't many, he'd heard enough. "Faraday told me some, too," he points out, so it's not just the ones he'd seen, but also the ones he'd heard about.

"Maybe in the food? I bet you could find a planner who could help," he advises, taking back another shot of his drink. "If, of course, you ever propose."