contact part deux

[bouchonne]

if this were modern times byerly would probably make you listen to total eclipse of the heart before you were able to leave a message

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[bouchonne]

[ A laugh, and then a smacky little sound as he kisses the crystal in place of Bastien's beloved lips.

And then he has to get ready - drag himself out of bed, wash his face, so on - and so there's no time for talking. As a result, Byerly is actually on time at the docks - looking, as promised, a little disordered, a little unshaven, a little sleep-rumpled, yawning against the sea air. ]

[cozen]

[ Bastien should probably feel guilty for waking him up early on a day he'll also be kept out late. There are a few minutes on the long walk down the Hightown steps where he does feel guilty. But it's sunny and not yet too hot, especially with the breeze off the water, and he has had two chocolate croissants and four cups of coffee, and when he comes around the corner and sees By looking smudgy and stubbly and gorgeous on the dingy pier there isn't room for anything in his heart but joy. ]

Salut.

[ From a distance, but he closes it shortly. He's more shy about PDA out in the streets—where any spy and/or burly man with something to prove could be watching, and also it's sort of rude—than he is in either the Gallows or within the walls of their various haunts, but that just means the kiss he plants on By's cheek from his tip-toes is quick and could be arguably, Orlesian-ly platonic. ]

I brought four of the pain au chocolat and, [ checking the basket hanging from his arm, ] some other things. But no coffee, and you look like you could use some.

[bouchonne]

[ By laughs, and teases: ]

I could just inhale some off of your breath.

[ Bastien is absolutely redolent with coffee-breath. An answer, By fancies, as to why he's so incredibly peppy this morning.

Some other things catches By's attention, and he cranes his neck, trying to peer inside the basket, fully anticipating that he won't be allowed to in the name of a Surprise. ]

[cozen]

[ As predicted, Bastien cuts short his forceful coffee-scented exhale in favor of turning to protect the basket's contents from view. Though, ]

Nothing exciting. No puppies.

[ He will never in his life manage to bring Byerly a basket of anything better than a hound puppy. Maybe as good, when they someday get her a sibling, but never better.

He starts walking, headed deeper into the city from the shoreline. No fancy bakeries or Orlesian-run cafés, here, but someone will be selling coffee for the sailors.

There is also coffee in the Gallows. But they spend so much time there, surrounded by walls and eerily empty spaces, and here the street is teeming with people and activity and the mountains and Hightown are rising dramatically ahead of them. ]

You know, I realized on the way down, we do not have to do the crickets to Percy. You could go to dinner with the Antivans— [ unquestionably Byerly's role, in this party-splitting idea; he's the Ambassador ] —and I could go to his game and be there long enough not to offend him.

But I kind of want to do the crickets. He deserves it.

[bouchonne]

Hold on.

[ Byerly sounds positively horrified by this suggestion. ]

Leave you alone to Percy? Without a single person who understands bard-sign who'll know when you're saying this is so vapid? No. I'd lose you to madness. You'd come back to me a broken man.

[ He bumps his shoulder against Bastien's. Not bard-sign, but the translation is clear nonetheless: And I want to be with you. ]

[cozen]

[ Bastien sways when bumped, away and then back into By’s shoulder in answer. He doesn’t try to hide the relief. ]

I would. The mere sight of mahogany would send me into— [ a half-suppressed curling smile in anticipation of his own joke ] —mah-agony.

And he is more tolerable when you are there, if you can believe it. That is his best behavior. I think he likes you.

[bouchonne]

[ An appreciatively agonized groan at that pun. Horrible. ]

I think he's scared of me. Since I'll insult him to his face.

[cozen]

Mon féroce chaton.

[ Accompanied by considering tip of his head. ]

That could be. But I still think... Want to bet on it? I don't know how we'll find out, but we have time. He's not going anywhere.

[ Unfortunately. ]

[bouchonne]

[ By laughs. ]

What shall we wager?

brief nsfw comment warning 🚨

[cozen]

[ He thinks briefly about it before proposing, ]

Blow jobs.

[ Orlesian, for the delicate Marcher ears around them. ]

Three of them. In the outfits of the winner’s choice.

[ As if they need the excuse. That’s not the point. ]

[bouchonne]

Rare currency indeed.

[ It's not. ]

You're on.

[cozen]

[ Bastien smooths his own mustache with thumb and forefinger, eyes a cocky challenge above the gesture. But then he gets distracted by looking up at the line of By's neck and stubbly jaw—no subtlety, because there's no cause for it—and looks smitten instead. ]

Maybe Suzette knows, [ as he returns his eyes to the road to avoid walking into anyone. ] He talks to Suzette. But I suppose if she is a good person she will not tell us.

[bouchonne]

[ He catches that look of adoration out of the corner of his eye - and he turns back, and meets Bastien's gaze, and, overwhelmed, leans in to kiss him lovingly. On the lips, because to hell with the people around them and to hell with rudeness.

There will doubtless be a day when the infatuation ends and transitions into something a bit more modest and steady and low-key. Doubtless. Surely it'll happen sometime soon. ]

Eurgh. Good people. [ He wrinkles his nose. ] Surely she isn't. If she were, what would she be doing hanging around Percy? Or us?

[cozen]

[ Over the brief span of that kiss, Bastien goes through a short journey: startled happiness, fretful awareness of the river of people parting around them, and finally resolve to not give a damn. An attitude absorbed through osmosis, perhaps, from By's mouth. After, he grins and doesn't duck his head or curl in his shoulders, not even to make a show of propriety for the rest of the street.

So bolstered, he curls his hand around By's upper arm for a few paces while they resume their stroll in the vague direction of coffee. Good, probably, to practice not-hiding among the Kirkwallers—cranky but less fussed by this sort of thing, not counting the Fereldan Blight refugees still among them—before he has to not-hide in Ferelden. ]

I'm, [ a good person, he almost says, but ha, so there is only a pause before, ] very convincing.

[bouchonne]

You are.

[ There's a look from someone off to their right, a pinch-faced woman, and By looks back until she breaks eye contact. There's a pleasure in this - in knowing that he is, at the end of the day, the Ambassador, a political force, with far more weight than any pinch-faced rube, and so anyone who disapproves of him just - well, has to deal with it. Maybe when the war is over he'll lose his courage, or maybe if (when?) he's unceremoniously dumped out of his position, but right now, there's a real pleasure in being able to tell yourself that anyone else can get fucked. ]

Here?

[ This is a spot with, if he remembers, decent coffee - or, more accurately, cheap coffee, slopped out strong. (By's tastes are not so fine as Bastien's.) ]

[cozen]

[ Catching the edges of that stare down makes Bastien tighten his grip. Nerves—but at least they're not nerves that make him let go. ]

Here?

[ Full Orlesian snob, that word. He looks at the establishment before them. It is not the one he was aiming for. But the one he was aiming for is still a decent walk away, and the pastries aren't getting any fresher, and if they stay in this area they'll be able to see the sea and the ships instead of becoming fully enveloped by Lowtown's towering walls.

So he manages a mincingly diplomatic, ]

I suppose it will do the job.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly laughs, charmed enough by Full Snob to banish the last vestiges of the defiant anger from his heart. He gestures to the sign above the shop, bearing a stylized green mermaid wearing a crown. ]

What, do you have an objection to coffee that's scorched and bitter?

[cozen]

We only have so many days of life, Byerly. Only so many cups of coffee we will drink—and then it is over. Nothing but Fade juice. Every bad cup of coffee takes the place of a good one.

But—

[ His puffed-up offense deflates a touch. ]

—there are also only so many days we can sit there, [ with a gesture to a small mountain of crates, three deep and unattended, high enough that they can lord over the passers by in the street but hopefully not so high as to trigger anyone’s acrophobia, ] and watch Kirkwall’s harbor over breakfast.

If you can stand to do that to your poor tongue.

[bouchonne]

[ He's nodding mock-solemnly through Bastien's sermon, clasping his hands over his heart at fade juice - yes, yes, so tragic, yes - then finally breaks into a grin at getting permission to be tacky. ]

I can stand it. And I think you don't need more coffee today.

[cozen]

I don’t know what you’re implying.

[ He does. He’s fully aware of the unnecessary energy level he’s bringing to foisting his basket into Byerly’s hands, with, ]

I’ll buy it. My treat—sort of. Can we call it a treat? Don’t peek.

[ In the basket, because he’s leaving it behind to dive into the small crowd attempting to obtain their Medieval Fantasy Starbucks—which btw how DARE you hahahaha. He manages to go right to the front of the disorganized little line without seeming to cut at all.

(The basket, if peeked into, really doesn’t contain anything more exciting than pastries. Only Whiskey’s promised link of sausage and his other morning market buys: two books, good ink, the kind of oil he puts in his hair and the kind of oil he keeps in his bedside table.)

He returns promptly with a wooden cup. Bows low to hold it out. ]

Your shit.

[bouchonne]

My shit!

[ He's taken the time Bastien was gone to arrange a proper perch for them - boxes set upon a not-too-high height, some burlap arranged to provide scratchy cushioning, a smaller crate to serve as a makeshift table. He reaches down to accept the cup joyously, then offers Bastien a hand up into their little crow's nest. ]

Oh, it smells rancid. Thank you.

[ And, proud of himself, because he's telling the truth - ]

I didn't peek.

[ Like a child reporting a rare instance of good behavior. ]

[cozen]

You didn't peek?

[ Still on his knees from his ascent up the crates, Bastien leans forward to examine By's eyes for lies (the mischievous kind, fully permissible) and feel his forehead for fever. He finds neither, and he smiles. ]

You didn't peek. And you built us a castle.

[bouchonne]

I did.

[ He grins, even as he also reaches up to feel his own head for illness. ]

Am I not the best lover you've ever had?

[cozen]

No competition.

[ He sits on his burlap cushion throne and pulls his basket onto his lap to begin unpacking its contents onto the crate-table. The promised pain au chocolat, of course, but also a half-dozen others, each different, three herbed and savory and three sweet.

Ten altogether, and generously portioned. He surveys this collection, once it’s laid out, with the look of someone who’s just now realizing he went overboard. ]

Some can keep until tomorrow.

[ Better. Back on board. ]

And I will tell you my second best lover if you tell me your third.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly's lips part in appreciation of the variety. More than anything, his weakness is that variety: he has no love for eating the same thing time and again. Instead, having little nibbles of something different, a mouthful here and a mouthful there that's never the same - it's his favorite thing. These may keep, but they'll be keeping in bits and pieces, with chunks taken out here and there. ]

My third.

[ He hums in thought. ]

Are we talking skill in bed, or general interest?