Who: Rabastan, random bartender. What: thinking, talking, drinking. When: Monday night/early Tuesday morning. Where: some place with alcohol. Even Rabastan probably doesn't know. Why: 'cause this isn't something he'd write down in his journal. Warnings: drunkenness. Status: Complete.
It was late. Rabastan had lost track of exactly how late, even though he was wearing a watch. Past 3am, that was all he knew; he never looked at his watch after that. Never bothered to keep track of what drink he was on, either. What was the point of keeping track of a certain number of drinks on any given night? They were just a drop in the bucket, so to speak.
His mind should have been on Vera, but it wasn't. He stared thoughtfully at his whiskey - not quite as good as the stuff he bought for himself, but at this point it didn't really matter - and tried to work out what had happened that morning.
"The fuck would he ask me something like that?" he said, frowning. "Or talk about something like that? The hell was the point?"
"What's that?" the bartender asked. Rabastan blinked at him; he hadn't realized he was speaking out loud. Apparently he'd had more to drink than he'd thought.
Enough to think that it was worthwhile talking to the bartender, which was hardly an abnormal thing for drinkers like himself to do, but he had always chosen not to use the bartender as his own personal therapist. Then again, he didn't usually have anything much to talk about. Rabastan didn't often have anything weighing on his mind, and he liked it that way.
"Friend of mine," he explained, absentmindedly swirling the liquid remaining in his glass. "Just shacked up with another friend of mine, and now he goes and asks me if we ever could have been... something."
He took another drink and mused on it for a while. "I mean, what the hell could he have expected me to say? I don't even know what the real answer is in yes or no terms, but that almost doesn't even matter. Not like I could have said yes."
The bartender - blond, and attractive, Rabastan noted absently, but he wasn't going to make a move - seemed to consider this as he moved around, doing things with his hands out of Rabastan's line of sight. If it had looked naughty, Rabastan might have snickered to himself, but it didn't. "Suppose you couldn't have," was all the man said, which was unhelpful. Rabastan had figured that much out himself.
"If he really wanted to know, he should've asked before he got involved with someone else," Rabastan said, setting his glass down. "I told him I'd have been a shite boyfriend, and I would have - but I suppose if he'd managed to get me to agree, he could have figured that out for himself rather than wondering. Fuck all I could do about it now, even supposing I wanted to."
That about summed it up, in his opinion. He had always very much doubted that anyone could get him into any sort of relationship, at least willingly, but he supposed if Evan had managed it with Barty, it couldn't be entirely impossible for a man like Rabastan, either. Not that it was something he wanted, oh no, or something he'd be any good at.
He wasn't upset because they'd missed some sort of chance, some kind of moment, that Evan had apparently been hoping for. He wasn't sad, or angry, or anything to that effect. Saying it out loud might have sounded like denial, but it wasn't. It just sucked balls that he'd been forced to have that kind of conversation with his friend at all, much less at a time like this. The way he saw it, all it had done was force his hand, make him give an answer to a question he didn't have a real answer for. Rabastan had no idea how many people's feelings he'd hurt over the years, romantically speaking and otherwise, because the incidents didn't usually bother him this much. For whatever reason, he wasn't going to forget about what had happened today, even if it would be easier that way.
Shaking his head, he downed his drink and pushed the glass in the direction of the bartender. "One more, then I'm done. For the night."
And he hoped the problem was gone now, too, that Evan wouldn't be asking anymore questions like that. Rabastan didn't want to know the answers, for his friend's sake - both of his friends, Evan and Barty. He didn't need to know them, they weren't the kind of answers he'd ever sought, from Evan or from anyone. So long as he didn't know anything for sure, no answer he gave could technically be called a lie.
Fuck. Relationships made everything complicated and ridiculous, even with decent, respectable people like Evan and Barty. And people honestly wondered why Rabastan avoided them like the plague.
He knew one thing, at least. He wanted to maintain his friendships with both of them, but most of all, he wanted them both to be happy. If that meant he had to back off so that there were no hypothetical alternate possibilities even crossing anyone's mind, he supposed he could do that. He'd hate that part most of all, but he'd do it.
"Barty ought to thank me," he muttered under his breath into his glass, and then laughed to himself. "If he breaks Evan's heart after this, I'll rip his fucking throat out."
"You definitely don't need another drink, mate," the bartender said with a laugh, when Rabastan finished his final one with a flourish. He nodded in agreement and set the glass down, making a sharp noise against the table. He pulled on the suit jacket he'd taken off - when he'd done that, he wasn't sure - and headed for the door.
As soon as the door closed behind him, he decided, he wouldn't be thinking about this again. Then he would have nothing to worry about, except for his niece. He watched the door swing closed, and actually did feel a refreshing sense of finality. Or perhaps that was the fresh air.
For a moment, he just stood there enjoying the sensation, whatever had caused it, and looked out at the city. Vera, he thought, Where the hell are you? But he had no new ideas on how to do anything about that, either.
"Getting a bit useless in your old age, Rab," he teased himself, and then burst out laughing at his own joke.
It struck him for a moment how ridiculous all this was, and how much he just wanted to be at home, in his penthouse, in bed. He Apparated home and managed to get his, shoes, trousers, and suit jacket off, collapsing on the bed in his tie, shirt, boxers, and socks. Just before passing out, he managed to loosen his tie and made a move to throw it over the edge of the bed, but he wasn't awake long enough to find out how far it went.