Rating: Everyone
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I keep asking but no one with any authority will give me the Third Watch characters.
A/N: Takes place about a year after The 55th closes. Song fic, all from Bosco's point of view. There will be a second part, but it will have a different title.
WHAT MAKES A MAN
Bosco stopped and looked at the small bar he was standing in front of. The Blue Moon. Sounds appropriate enough. Blue was exactly how he was feeling. For the life of him he just didn't understand why he couldn't shake the blue feeling that had surrounded him for months and months now.
Bosco grabbed the door handle pulling it open and stepped inside. It was certainly cooler in here. It might be 11:30 at night, but the humidity was still high. There didn't seem to be a breeze anywhere. Everything felt heavy to him. The door as he pulled it open, the chair that he pulled out from the small table in the back of the room, so he could sit down.
Bosco shook his head. He shouldn't be surprised at the blue lighting of the room. Quite fitting, it seems like he sees everything in blue. Deep,dark, depressing blue.
"Is someone joining you sir?"
Bosco looks up to see a young brunette waitress standing next to him. Petite, curvy in all the right places. She's exactly someone he used to hit on the moment he spoke to her.
She sets a blue coaster in the shape of the moon down on the table, she holds a second coaster between her fingers waiting for Bosco to answer her question.
"No. No one is joining me tonight." He finally informs her and watches as she drops the coaster back into the pocket of the short white apron, wrapped around her waist. The apron has a Blue Moon logo on it as does the upper left hand side of the white shirt she's wearing.
"What can I get you to drink tonight sir?" She asks him.
"Bring me a double scotch. The best ya got please." Bosco, says and watches her write it down on her white pad, with a blue pen.
"I'll be right back with your drink sir. I'm Mimi by the way. Oh and you got here just in time, our band tonight is Westlife. I'm sure you'll enjoy them." She gave Bosco a bright smile and walked away from him.
He sighed, as he watched her hips swivel in the dark blue pants. "You're in rough shape buddy!" Bosco thinks to himself. There was a time, in the not too distant past, a young woman like that would be writing her phone number on the coaster for you, before she ever went to get your drink. "Maybe I'm getting old." Bosco thinks as he rubs a hand over his face and lets out a sigh.
"No, it's not age, Bosco. You're just not interested in any sweet young things like her anymore." And if I keep talking to myself, I'm gonna get hauled off to the psych ward at Bellevue.
"Here you go sir. Would you like me to start you a tab?" The Mimi asks him, as she sets down the scotch in a blue tumbler, along with a bowl of blue tinted popcorn.
Mimi chuckles at Bosco's look of disgust at the blue popcorn. "They put a little food coloring in the oil when they pop it. Doesn't change the taste any and the owner says it's in keeping with the ambience of the place."
She and Bosco both roll their eyes at each other and Bosco even manages to give her a small smile.
Mimi smiles and walks away, thinking he's kind of cute for an old guy when he actually smiles.
Thankfully the scotch is the amber color it should be. Bosco takes a big gulp, and lets the scotch burn its way down his throat, into his belly.
He rolls the glass back and forth in his hands getting lost in the scotch sliding over the ice cubes. The band starts to play and Bosco sets the glass down. Giving a shrug of his shoulders, Bosco reaches for a handful of blue popcorn.
"Not bad...Still tastes just like popcorn. I bet Faith would just love this place, I'll have to tell..." Bosco stops..."I keep doing that. Thinking about how I have to tell Faith this or that. Then it slams back into my brain, that I don't work with Faith anymore. Hell I don't even speak to her. I just try to tell myself it's habit. Thirteen years of habit. Telling her stuff."
Bosco tries to push the image of his old friend and partner, out of his mind. He picks up the blue tumbler and finishes off the double scotch. He waves the now empty glass at Mimi, when she looks over at him. She nods her head and goes to get him another.
Bosco clinks what's left of the ice around the glass and looks over at the four member band playing on the small stage."Hmmmph. Dressed pretty well for this day and age."
"Their Irish. They're very popular overseas, thats why they aren't familiar to you." Mimi said as she sets Bosco's new drink down and picks up his empty glass.
Bosco nods his head at her. "Irish...well why not." he says to himself as he picks up his drink and really starts to listen to their next song. "With some luck it'll drive all thoughts of Faith right back into that closet I try to keep them locked up in."
Bosco would soon discover though that luck wasn't on his side and all those memories he's tried to keep locked up are about to come out in full force.
"What Makes A Man"
This isn't goodbye, even as I watch you leave, this isn't goodbye I swear I won't cry, even as tears fill my eyes, I swear I won't cry
Any other girl, I'd let you walk away Any other girl, I'm sure I'd be ok
Bosco feels his eyes start to fill up, as he remembers saying that last awful good-bye to Faith at what was left of the 55th. He was still so angry with her. He knew she'd wanted to talk, but he just couldn't. It was truly the first time in his life that he knew he was so angry at a woman that he honestly didn't think he could control himself. Bosco had to really fight himself not to go back and have it out with her that day. A week later when he thought about Faith, he found that he was afraid to go and see if she really hadn't, had a hard time walking away from him.
Tell me what makes a man Wanna give you all his heart Smile when you're around And cry when you're apart If you know what makes a man Wanna love you the way I do Girl you gotta let me know So I can get over you
All these blue feelings he'd been having for the last year, they never eased up at all. He'd had no problem getting into the rhythm of the 79th. He actually liked the guy he rode with. They were about the same age, been on the force the same amount of time, and both were considered loose cannons.
Bosco had yet to figure out who thought putting them together was a smart idea. He figured someone probably thought within a week they'll shoot each other and the NYPD wont have to worry about them any more. It turned out nothing could have been further from the truth. Bosco and his new partner, found out they thought almost exactly the same way about every situation. So they'd had very few arguments about anything except where to take their dinner break. They only had two rules they lived by. They never socialized outside of the job and they never ever talked about their old partners.
What makes her so right?
Is it the sound of her laugh?
That look in her eyes
When do you decide?
She is the dream that you seek
That force in your life
As Bosco lets the words of the song drift around him, he realizes this isn't about Faith his old partner. Thats not what has him blue, thats not even what he's been missing about her. If anything deep down he's glad they aren't partners anymore. What he's been missing is Faith the woman. The one woman he dreams of at night, the only woman he's ever dreamed about. Dreams that used to soothe him, now relentlessly taunt his sleep.
If he was any kind of man at all, he'd admit the one wish he'd had for the last thirteen years, finally came true and it's scared him half to death. What would Faith do, if she learned his wish upon a star, his secret prayer before he sleeps each night, is that Faith would finally be free of Fred. Oh the nights he felt guilty for such a thought. Would she laugh if she learned all the times he'd gone to confessional that he'd always felt his biggest sin was wishing Fred gone?
When you apologize, no matter who was wrong When you get on your knees if that would bring her home
What would Faith do if he went to her and got down on his knees, begging her to let him stay? He was
pretty sure Faith would never take him as being the kind of man who would beg anyone for anything.
There was a time that was probably true but that time was long gone. Well where it concerned her
anyway. Bosco was sure that if she'd accept an apology from him, he'd make it. He'd apologize for
anything, whether it was his wrong or hers.
Tell me what makes a man Wanna give you all his heart Smile when you're around And cry when you're apart If you know what makes a man Wanna love you the way I do Girl you gotta let me know
"Oh Faith do you have any idea how long it's been since I've smiled? I'd rather not say how many tears I've shed in my dark bedroom at night over you. No matter how many times I tell myself I'm not going to miss you tomorrow, well it just doesn't seem to work." Bosco's says to himself.
So that I can get over you
Other girls will come along, they always do But what's the point when all I ever want is you, tell me
"Other girls? Well they do come along, problem is they just aren't you. None of them have been close to being you. Actually I've never got involved with one that reminded me of you in any way,shape or form. If I'm going to have someone like you Faith, well I don't want a piss poor substitute, I want my real Faith!" Bosco finishes up his drink, then he tosses enough money for the tab and a nice tip for the waitress down on the table.
Tell me what makes a man
Wanna give you all his heart
Smile when you're around
And cry when you're apart
If you know what makes a man
Wanna love you the way I do
Girl you gotta let me know... (let me know)
Girl you gotta let me know... (wooo)
So I can get over you
As he walks out of the door of the Blue Moon Bosco thinks to himself..."I'm never gonna get over you Faith. Even if you told me how, I'm still never gonna get over you."
Knowing sleep is impossible for him, Bosco heads to the only place he ever seems to find a little peace with his blue filled heart.
Bosco's been here almost an hour lost in thought looking out over the river. So lost in thought of memories of the past, that he never hears someone approaching him until they whisper in his ear...
"Remember me?"
TBC...