More Reincarnation AU For deadlyhairpin

[intheashes]

It had been a few months that he had been living with Byeong-Lee. It had been a difficult transition for him, to go from a life spent in the military to the life of a civilian. He did he best not to cause too much problems for his lover. He'd been a handful in one life. He couldn't bare to be one in this one. So he did his best to find good (safe) work and be there for the doctor like the doctor was for him.

Most times, when he would leave the house they shared, he would leave a note, telling the doctor where he was going and when to expect him back. It was a habit from the army. But the call had been sudden and he hadn't the chance to write anything. He had rushed out the door to his Uber to get to his sudden interview. He hadn't thought it would take as long as it had.

Hours later, he still wasn't home. It was dark by the time he got out of a highly successful interview. He had promised to call back after he discussed things with his partner. From there, he had run into an old Army buddy in town. He hadn't seen the man in forever. The young Navajo man had been his spotter for a while in Afghanistan. So he had ended up catching up with him. John had to wonder if he remembered yet... Now that John did, he was starting to recognize people from then. He wasn't going to disturb Running Bear though.

He had thought to text Byeong-Lee only to realize that in his rush, he had left his cellphone at home, right on the dining room table. Just abandoned there along with the house keys.

But the time the Uber finally pulls back up to the house, he's not just a couple minutes late. It's more like hours and hours. It's dark and almost 10 at night. The lights are on in the house. The lights are on and the door is still unlocked, which is utterly fortunate. Fortunate but strange. He can't remember the last time Byeong-Lee came home and didn't lock the door immediately. And he knows the man is there because his car is in the driveway.

John lets himself in, calling into the foyer. "Hey there. I'm home!" Only, he sees no sign of his lover in the living room. Probably in the library then, since the TV is off. So he's just going to make his way to his second favorite room in the house, looking for his lover.

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[deadlyhairpin]

His eyes shut slowly, nothing like pets to his hair for putting him in the mood for sleep. "Goody," he purrs, settling in closer, nose pressed right above the other man's heart. To think just a few hours ago he thought he'd never see this again. Never hear it. Never feel it for as long as he lived. How had he not thrown himself off a cliff at the mere thought of such a separation? It defied reason.

With a small exhale, he leans his head up and kisses the bottom of his lover's jaw, soft. "I should have known you wouldn't leave me," he says. Because he should have. Goody didn't just up and leave for no reason. And, before, his reasons for leaving had been various and convincing. This? An off week? He should have known better than to think it would have cause his strong lover to turn tail and leave him behind. But that reminded him...

"I am sorry," and it's meant more for John than for Goody, but he's not about to let go of what he has now for that distinction. "It was... a rough week and I took it out on you. I shouldn't have. You're the best thing that I've ever had. I shouldn't have treated you like you were nothing. You would have been right to leave." His body tenses just at the thought.

"But I'm glad you didn't."

[intheashes]

He keeps stroking the man's hair. He smiles gently at the soft kisses and he stops the pets just to give the man a strong warm squeeze. "Billy. Darlin'. Do you remember? Remember when he had our very first fight? After, we promised that from then on, we'd discuss our differences like gentlemen?" His drawl is lazy and soft in his reminiscing.

The final fight they had had. The words Billy has thrown at him...it had hurt him so much and he had run away. He had fled, just as he had that night they had first fought. But that night, Billy had not come after him. Billy had chosen to stay in Rose Creek and die. Die without him. And so he had turned around. Because he hadn't wanted Billy to die alone and because he couldn't imagine living without him.

"I think maybe we need to do that now. When your day is bad, you talk to me. Even if you can't talk about your patients, you still talk to me. I don't know what's wrong if you don't tell me. You promise me, mon coeur? You promise me you'll talk to me from now on? Cause I'm not going to leave you. Not for anything."

[deadlyhairpin]

It's a fair thing to request. In the old days, it was sometimes the only thing that kept them together when things got bad. Their first fight had been so bitter and full of so much anger that could have been dealt with better and easier earlier on. Their promise to each other had been an agreement between partners, but as things developed, it became the hallmark of their relationship's success.

He has no idea why he'd sacrificed it, now. Perhaps it had something to do with how things ended. With all the lies and anger he'd hurled Goody's way to make sure he left in a hurry. The apologies left unsaid, forever quieted at the hands of a Gatling gun.

Billy exhales, shakily, and turns into Goody as his thoughts go dark.

"I promise you. I promise you that I'll talk to you. I...should have the whole week. I guess...part of me was still worried that...things would be different, this time. You're dependent on me like you used to be. But I should have talked to you about that, as well."

He sighs again, still clinging to Goody like he's the only thing left in the world that can save him. In many ways he is.

"It seems like a dream. Being here. Being able to love you how I always wanted to. Marry you. This second chance always seems like a dream. Part of me....part of me is always just afraid I am going to wake up or ruin it, somehow. I don't know how I can be allowed all of this..."

[intheashes]

Billy turns into his arms. He holds the other man close. He rocks a little, trying to keep the man together just like he had done for him for all these years. He drops kisses to the top of Byeong-Lee's head and murmurs against him. "I don't blame you." Not for what happened 100 years ago, not what happened this week. He'll never blame his lover for an off week. "Just remember that I'm here for you, okay? All you need to do is pull the book out of my hand and sit down and I'll listen to you. Even if you don't speak at all and just need held, I'll do that for you." Because his lover is right. He is fully dependent on Byeong-Lee. He has no job. He has no place to go.

Holding Billy, his Billy, he finds even if he did have anywhere else to go, he wouldn't. He didn't want to go anywhere else. Though he would like to work just to give himself something to do, he wouldn't trade Billy for that.

"Cher... I know. I'm afraid too. I'm scared that tomorrow, I won't be here. I'll still be in Afghanistan, laying in the dirt. All this will have been a hallucination. But I know it's not. This is real. This is real and you aren't going to ruin this. Not this time. I didn't come back just to lose you and you didn't come back just to lose me and..." Then he realizes what Billy said. What Byeong-Lee said and he goes a little red and takes a steadying breath. "And when you propose to me, I'll say yes."

[deadlyhairpin]

Shit.

That hadn't been how he'd wanted to do it. Byeong-Lee shifted, looking up at Goody and wondering, perhaps, if he should let John back in, fully. It was so complicated, sometimes. The push and pull that the two lives in one body had to do.

Sometimes it was seamless, both working as one to create the person they now were. Sometimes, like now, it was just easier to let one take over. The memories to overtake everything else and to let the past live once more. It wasn't really different people, inside. They were still who they were. But the memories. The emotions. All of that was what made them who they were. And it was what could change them to who they needed to be.

"I...will propose better than that," he assures them both, stroking a hand out, across Goody's knuckles. His fingers linger over his ring finger, teasing against the skin, there. "I mean..." His cheeks flushed bright red as he decided he might as well put his cards on the table.

"I have a ring. I'm sure you...probably suspected. That this was coming, at any rate." Or maybe he hadn't. Shit, again. Byeong-Lee closes his eyes and tries to bring Billy back up. He was always smoother. More collected and sure of himself. He was a man of fewer words, but they were always the right ones. Always.

"I had one, back then, too," he says honestly, lifting his head to look at Goody straight on. "Died with it in my pocket. I don't know why I never gave it to you, but I should have. Carried it for almost a year." He sighed, shaking the regrets off. That was then, and this was going to be now.

"But... I'm not going to do that this time. And I know you're going to say yes. But I'm still going to do this properly. I know you, Goody. You are already imagining a proposal with doves and a sunset and a gaggle of people around you to applaud when you say 'Yes'. And you're going to get it. Alright? I'm going to do this right."

[intheashes]

He flushes more when he feels Byeong-Lee's touch against his ring finger. His heart flutters and he's certain that his eyes are a little wet. John wouldn't have been too moved by this, but Goody, Goody is a ridiculous romantic, easily moved to tears by the smallest emotional moment. He tries to keep himself together and not just hug Billy. Not just burst into happy tears that the man would be so prone to. He has to tell himself it's not actually a proposal and he has to go through the strange disassociation between the man he was and the man he is because a part of him thinks that it wouldn't be possible. They could only ever be married in the eyes of each other. Never in the eyes of the people or under the eyes of the god he no longer believed in.

But then Billy says that. Says something he had sort of suspected. He remembered back then. Right towards the end, they had been in a town and Goodnight had taken it upon himself to insure that all their clothing, worn and dusty from the trails went to a proper cleaner. He had never seen Billy panic so badly as when he came up to ask where his clothing was after tossing nearly the entire hotel room looking for them. He can still remember the man tearing out of the room and running to the launderer in town and returning only hours later, looking a little less on edge. At the time, he had just assumed it was because the laundryman had been Korean. He had never thought it was because there had been a ring in his other set of pants.

"...A year...mon coeur... I never knew..." Honestly, he had never thought he would be worthy of such a thing. He had been happy with that they had. With their lives and their years, even if having a ring as proof of their bond would have been very welcome. He hadn't needed it because he had Billy Rocks.

He rolls over until he's straddling Billy. So that he can put his hands on either side of the man's head and just look down at him. He's certain he's too close to tears. "I don't care about sunsets or doves or people. You could have done it in the dirt on the trails. You could have done it while I was brushing Horace or Betsy. I don't need any of that. All I need is you. None of that other stuff matters so long as it's you." He leans down to press smiling lips to Billy's. "Understand. No matter what or how, so long as it's you, I'll says yes. There's no one I'd rather spend my life with."

[deadlyhairpin]

The two of them. As long as it's the two of them. Billy nodded, feeling rather dumb doing so, because of course that would be what Goody thought about. What he felt. Still... "I know that. But I still want to do it right. And I want... I want to make sure that I make it a day and a place that we can both look back on and remember. But it's coming, nae salang. I am able to make you my legal husband, now. And I intend to do so." He smiles and pulls his lover down for a kiss, again.

"You can plan the wedding," he concedes. "Just tell me where to go, where to stand, what to say. I don't care as long as, at the end, you're all mine. And everyone we know and everyone we don't know can see the proof of it on your finger."

The ring he has is tucked away in its box, locked up in the library in a fake book that is labelled with the most boring thing he could think of for it. Hiding things in plain sight usually worked fairly well. Besides, using a book had been half his idea for how to propose. Not now, but some day, certainly.

He turns their bodies, pushing Goody back onto his side and curling up against him.

"I love you. I love both of you. The you from before and the you that I have now. I...am going to do this right. Right for both of you. But until then, well." He tilts his head over and shoots Goody a teasing grin. "It's enough to know that you're so easy.

[intheashes]

It really makes his heart ache to hear that Billy...no. That Byeong-Lee would go to so much trouble for him. It ached in a good way. He understands more and more each day how his former self must have felt for this man. So lucky to have someone who cared so much for him. He can't help but smile. Smile and nod and look forward to the day it happened.

He laughs a little at the acquiescence that he gets to plan the wedding. A part of him thinks of huge Southern weddings but in the end, he knows he doesn't really have all that much in the way of family to attend. Byeong-Lee doesn't either. A huge to do would be terribly wasted. So he gives a sigh and murmurs, "I'll have the base chaplain preform it and I'll wear my dress blues one last time before putting them away for good. And you... You'll have to tell me some Korean traditions between now and then. So I can represent us both."

But he's not going to go hog wild and start planning now, no matter what his romantic poetic heart wants. He's going to wait and make sure they do this like they've done everything else. Together. That doesn't mean however, that he doesn't give Byeong-Lee the weakest little scowl at the tease before cuddling against him more. "Guilty as charged. But only for you."

[deadlyhairpin]

"Better be just for me," he said with a small laugh, turning them over with a small chuckle, starting to kiss along his jawline. He was still too exhausted to put that much effort into it, but just kissing John made him feel a bit more like he was on normal footing. That this was just a normal night instead of one where he'd fallen apart on the floor.

"I can't wait to see what you make for us," he said honestly, blanketing John's body with his own, now. His breath came out in small puffs against his neck, relaxing more and more into the inescapable lure of sleep. After all the excitement of the day, it was impossible for him to really resist it for more than a few more minutes, really. But he was making a grand effort.

"I don't care about any of my old traditions, really. I would rather you have me show up in my boots and my old clothes. Have the wedding we could never have, back when." Part of him was joking, of course. He loved John's uniform nearly as much as he liked his old clothes. But there was something almost poetic about them marrying as Billy and Goody.

But then again, them marrying at all would have them bringing those two along.

He let out a long yawn, letting the topic go as he settled back down and let his eyes shut slowly, comforted by the presence of the man he'd loved once, loved now, and always would love.

"I can't wait for you to be my husband. You were, all those years ago. I want to make it official. Want everyone to know that we're a matched set. Nothing can ever take us apart."