bouchonne | contact part deux

[ Bastien looks at Byerly's furrowed eyebrows, at Alexandrie's wide eyes, and then at the door beyond them both. ]

It must have been everyone. They would not only pick on us.

[ —is important, but also easier than thinking or talking about the more personal aspects, and if they are both going to sit there in silence, he's going to give himself a break.

He would like to sit down. But the nearest place to sit is the bed, so he settles for unwinding the scarf he'd wrapped around his neck for the trek from his tower to the dining hall tower and up to the top of this one. ]

Skyhold, and the Herald?

Mm.

[ A nod. ]

And someone calling themselves Fen'Harel - an old elf god, as I understand it - endeavoring to destroy the Veil? Bringing, by this act, death and destruction and all that.

[ Ah. So that is what the two of them had been looking for.

She places the cover carefully back in its place and busies herself with pouring coffee without looking up. ]

Cannot this Fen'Harel wait until Corypheus is done bringing his death and destruction? It seems rather vulgar to jostle one another so impatiently.

[ Once finished, she will pass each of them a cup— dressed as she knows preferred— only looking up inasmuch is as required to do so. Then, with dainty aplomb, and without bothering to cut it at all, she takes a fork to the cake.

Desperate times, etc. ]

And the Qun.

[ He takes the coffee (black, for him) and holds the cup in his hands to warm them up. ]

They should have to form a—a queue...n.

[ Get it. Queue. Qun. But the he sounds unsure of his own joke, looking between Byerly and Alexandrie again, and feeling suddenly terrible about going easy on himself. ]

I'm sorry. For... for dreaming about abducting you, [ Alexandrie, ] and about threatening to kill you and make sure it wasn't fun, [ Byerly. ]

[ Byerly relaxes infinitesimally as they both crack jokes. ]

And I am sorry for threatening you - [ And then, to Alexandrie, his voice softening - ] And I am sorry for - so very much.

[ He accepts the coffee as well (cream in his), pain in his face. ]

I cannot help but feel the deepest disgust, that my mind would even come up with any of that.

[ Cream and sugar for Alexandrie, given the origin of this particular coffee. She sets down her fork to hold the cup in her hands as Bastien does, wanting the warmth even though her hands are not cold, and looks over at Byerly. ]

I am sorry for how often I have let fear turn me into an animal; that all I have ever done when I am hurt or frightened is lash out cruelly or run. That I ask for things I shall never deserve, [ her gaze flicks over to Bastien, and then down into the cup, ] and that I am jealous of you for deserving them.

I wish I were disgusted, but I am only... I do not know yet.

[ She thumbs along the simple pattern on the cup's side. ]

What does it say of me, do you think, that my most present worries have never been for the world? Should I not be more concerned with this god and the Veil, or Corypheus and whatever the Gates were that caused us to lose this war?

[ Bastien head tilts again, at jealous of you, and in the next moment he lets his puzzlement bleed onto his face instead of keeping it so carefully clear as he would around anyone else—or around Alexandrie, most likely, were she not bare-faced and vulnerable.

He darts a look at Byerly. Whatever they were troubled by before he came in, he hopes it wasn't him. But he doesn't ask; Alexandrie is moving along, to something that he has a better idea what to do with. ]

Well, those are the simpler things to be concerned about, aren't they? They are not in the room with us. We don't have to wonder how to feel about them. Veil up. Gates closed. Easy. [ He brings his coffee up to drink. ] So maybe it says you have courage.

No one is kinder or better for being consumed with thoughts of the world rather than thoughts of people in it.

[ He holds put a hand for some cake. No plate needed. ]

[ When Alexandrie looks up from the cup it is confused, unsure, and, of a sudden, bordering on tears.

What had she wanted? To have them agree that she was as selfish as she had felt herself to be, consumed so with only the upheaval of her little world, only the ache of her single heart, and then turn their talk to the near certainty of this new and present threat to them all? She would have understood that, but this? Whom is it who is good that could look kindly upon a creature that would burn her land at the mere thought it could be invaded and then murder to protect the clutched handful of barren soil that remained? To say courage for such a one?

How long?

How long is it she has hated herself?

The hand was reached for cake, but Alexandrie reaches back for it instead; to hold just the tips of his fingers. To set down her cup so she can bow her head and cover her mouth while she searches for composure. ]

[ Bastien takes a breath, preparing to say something, and then he looks away and lets the breath out in silence. It’s what he would want. To not feel gawked at.

But then, that might make him look like he’s embarrassed for her. Like it’s indecent. Maybe if he’d kept the tray and had something to arrange, so looking away didn’t mean standing there beside the bed with his head turned toward the wall—because he can’t look at Byerly, he would hate that even more than being gawked at, to feel people exchanging looks over his head—

And he thinks of her in the dream, the distant hazy picture of her furious with him for hiding his tears, and he looks back at her. ]

Tu vas bien, Alexandrie.

[ She does surprise him. He'd always assumed that the question of being good or not was, to Alexandrie, largely abstract. That she cared about being good - of course she did; everyone cares about that at some level - but largely in the way that she cared about being fashionable. More for the effect it brought about on others than out of any intrinsic desire. And moreover, Orlesian ideas of goodness - like Orlesian ideas of fashion - are often rather outrageous, as far as others are concerned.

So seeing her, visibly moved by the sentiment, is - disconcerting, to say the least. When is it that he'll understand her?

So - He curls his fingers around hers. ]

If you don't believe in yourself, at least believe in me. You know that I cannot abide evil people.

[ Still consolation comes from them both, and— it isn't about being good, really. Alexandrie has never thought herself to be good, or evil, or thought it useful to think in those terms at all. It is about harm and cruelty and retribution and how quickly she turns to them when she is hurt and frightened and feels alone. To everyone. To people she loves— especially to people she loves, for they are the only ones who can still hurt, frighten, make her feel alone. It is for those whom she blooms as a rose that she has the cruelest thorns, and she cannot make herself stop.

But kindness still. Kindness and soft voices even from those she bleeds. Why? Why? It is all of it unearned, and yet when she reaches for the one she's hurt the most he holds her hand and it is unbearable. It is unbearable to be this, to have been seen being this, and be loved.

She does not want to be crying, because she knows they will look at her with even more concern and try to soothe her and that will make it worse, but she does not want to smother her distress because they will know and still be concerned, and so she holds tighter to the hand in hers and manages to speak with a wavering voice. ]

Bastien, do come sit down. Breakfast will get cold, or soggy, or both, and I refuse to be responsible for rendering your thoughtfulness an atrocity on your birthday.

[ Bastien smiles, amused and appreciative and still a little worried-eyed above it. He has an excuse, put together without any effort the same way all three of them probably know where every room's exits are without deliberately deciding to note them. I need to go write down what I remember, he could say, retreating back into the irreproachable cowardice of thinking of the world instead. Before I forget.

But he won't forget. And he won't leave, because before he begins to say anything he looks at Byerly, whose mind gave him—what? A world where they'd both loved him and both left him, one way or another, and a world where being in a room with both of them meant nothing but pain and cruelty and indifference. Even if he thinks Alexandrie might feel better if he left, even if she hadn't just encouraged him to stay, Bastien couldn't have walked out now.

So. ]

Why don't you sit up next to By, [ he says, taking his unwound scarf all the way off before crouching to unfasten his boots. ] We can make him hold the tray.

[ Between them, where he ought to be—an idea Bastien can't take credit for, and while it's still muted by concern, he gives Alexandrie a shared-secret sort of look. Two cheeks. ]

Work!

[ He sounds affronted, but nevertheless holds out his other hand as well, offering to take up that tray. He...honestly still doesn't fully understand what all of this is all about, but he can understand Lexie's emotions being high. And even if Bastien isn't showing it - or isn't showing it much - he can imagine that his emotions are high, as well. By doesn't know quite so much of Bastien's heart as he does Lexie's; Lexie's heart is a wind-tossed ocean, and that has mysteries enough, but it scarcely compares to the deep cave where Bastien hides his soul. But what spelunking Byerly has done has taught him that Bastien is afraid of abandonment, afraid of isolation, afraid of loving someone who is indifferent to him (fucking Vincent). And so that dream of cold contempt must have been dreadful for him, too.

What a mess.

And so By wiggles over to make room, pulls back the blanket in a clear invitation to Bastien. And, just to make sure that there's absolutely no opportunity to pretend he didn't notice: ]

You can have my warm spot, dear Bastien.

[ And just like that, even with her fingers held, Alexandrie freezes. How can that be all it takes to make her want to snatch back her hand and flee? To go back to the estate, curl into a corner in the dark and tell herself stories of being perfunctory. Held for pity rather than wanted.

It doesn't matter than she herself has made special effort to include and reassure Bastien. It doesn't matter because Bastien need do nothing but seem vaguely hesitant, be silent a moment too long, and Byerly is all reassurance, all consideration, and when she names her fears aloud and all but weeps of them, asks for reassurance, she is met with seeming confusion.

Is it because Bastien is new? Because for some reason Byerly understands him and cannot fathom her? Or is it as she had questioned earlier: because Bastien is real and she... something, perhaps, he only thinks he ought to want.

He had not answered her.

She cannot go to sit with him on Bastien's invitation. How can she go at all? And now he will look at her again like he doesn't understand, or Bastien will think it is because he is here, or they both will, and everything feels impossible and she wants to scream. ]

[ Byerly's wiggling and invitation broaden Bastien's smile, while he's unfastening his boots one-handed. A swell of grateful affection, manifested in eye-crinkles. But when he stands to step out of them, Alexandrie is unmoving, and the smile smooths out.

Perhaps she's uncomfortable; she'd seemed to silently suggest something far saucier than sharing blankets and breakfast, not long ago, but they did just share a dream where Bastien was instrumental in kidnapping her, binding her, and drugging her. It would be fair. Perhaps it's to do with what she said before, that she was jealous, but he can't imagine in the moment what she might be jealous of. Perhaps she feels the way Bastien sometimes feels—the way he spent the whole walk up the stairs trying to convince himself not to feel. That he's the guest here, that Byerly belongs to her, that when she shares she is generous and when he asks he is presumptuous and when he takes outright he is a thief. Or perhaps—

There's no time to consider every option before his pause becomes awkward, and if it becomes awkward then that's one more step toward his inclusion—here now, or in general—becoming a problem for them that seems most easily solved by not including him anymore. So he steps out of the first of his boots and says lightly, ]

Too many blankets for me, Byerly. [ Fully dressed as he is, anyway. It could be true. ] I would melt.

Edited 2021-02-16 01:41 (UTC)

[ And for a moment, By is confused. And then he follows Bastien's gaze, and sees Lexie looking like she wants to die, and - and just a moment before, just a moment before, it had been all right. They'd been lightly joking, and there was talk of sharing a meal, and then this. And maybe it's because he's exhausted, or maybe it's because he's miserable, but he turns to Alexandrie and grates out - ]

Maker's breath, Lexie. You suggested this.

[ There's not real anger behind it. Just frustration. Just desperation, and misery. He just wants to do a single thing that isn't completely wrong. ]

[ She flinches, as if rather than delivering a handful of desperate words he'd struck her, and everything she had been holding in her stillness comes through the crack. Now she snatches her hand back, is on her feet quick enough that the tray rattles in her wake and is moving swiftly for the door heedless of her state of dress, of her feet hitting the stones bare.

Let them eat cake, be happy. What is she but impediment to their better lives. ]

[ If the thought of his role in her dreamed confinement weren’t so fresh in his mind, Bastien might try to block the door—not because he feels it’s essential or kind to force her to stay and explain herself if she’s so desperate to. But it’s very cold outside, and cold in the corridors, and cold on the stairs, and she isn’t wearing any shoes.

But it the thought is fresh, and he’s only wearing one loosened boot that’s liable to trip him if he darts, and it’s happening very fast, so he only turns in her wake and says: ]

Alexandrie, your toes.

[ It speaks well of Bastien, that his response is so sympathetic. Byerly's is a lot sharper. Perhaps it is still the memory of that dream, the way she'd wept about her love as justification for trying to have him killed. Perhaps it's just his short-temperedness over the lack of sleep. But when he speaks, it's snappish, brittle. ]

Stop being so dramatic. Sit down.

[ It takes quite a lot to get a show of real, honest anger from Byerly. Not something cool or facetious, but something hot and harsh. So this is an accomplishment in and of itself. ]

[ It's different than the whipcrack of Loki's temper; the strict, keen-edged Alexandrie. that can so often slice through the brushfire of her anger and drain it. When it doesn't, when she pushes past it, they fight with elemental passion: equal, matched, two dragons rending until they are spent and holding each other in silence, her face pressed tightly against his chest, his in her hair, both of them secure in the absolute knowledge that through all of it and here again is love. Love every bit as fierce and far more enduring than their anger. It is always left, shining, when everything else is burnt away.

She does not know what is left on the other side of this. She does not know what she has, or had, or will have. But his anger gives hers permission. Turns her from flight to round on him with an aspect that could almost make the air that touches her ignite. She opens her mouth and draws breath to scorch the earth to bedrock and—

—how often I have let fear turn me into an animal—

—stops.

It is, perhaps, like watching someone struggle against possession. A rider hauling back on the reins of a horse spooked to full bolt. Her eyes shut tightly. Her fists clench, her teeth, her shoulders; release, then clench again. She hunches, shuddering with the effort of grinding herself to a halt, and finally she sags, exhausted.

They are the same words, but instead of spat with acid vehemence they are only tired. ]

Why. So I may listen to you be impatient with my desperate fear like it is foolish childish nothing and then turn immediately to wrap the very thought of his in cotton and eager attentive warmth if he but hesitates half a breath too long?

[ Bastien's been in the middle of dozens of arguments. Many of them he was paid to cause. And nearly all of them were funny, because he didn't care about the outcome, and because when they were done he'd take his five or twenty crowns and leave.

This isn't funny. This is humiliating.

His pride wants him to buckle back into his boots. Square his shoulders and lift his chin. Refuse to be a silent, largely invisible plot device in whatever story is being told over his head, for the time it takes for him to escape with all his dignity on. As much of it as he can salvage, anyway, given that he can feel himself flushing pink like some sort of amateur. But he looks again at Byerly. He hasn't yet had a moment to ask if he's all right, to touch his hand or kiss his forehead and try to brush any lingering sense of dread or isolation off his shoulders. So Bastien can't bring himself to move, and he stays quiet and still—and lopsided, one foot still in one low-heeled boot. ]

Edited (de-hyperbolizing) 2021-02-16 19:12 (UTC)

When have I ever been impatient with you? When have you ever heard me say, Lexie, I can't deal with this right now? Name me one time I have dismissed you.

[ He sets the coffee aside. By miracle of the Maker, it doesn't topple off his side table. ]

I am sorry I have not turned out to be the - apostate you desired, with the ability to read minds. But you cannot simply giggle and smile and then run weeping from the room because I was not able to divine your needs.

[ By gestures towards Bastien, who's flushing and awkward and visibly miserable. ]

He's told me. I know when he's miserable, because he's made it clear to me. If you want me to tend to you, you need to fucking say what you need.

[ And then he looks to Bastien. ]

I am sorry. I am. You do not need to stay for this.

[ And then back to Lexie. With brimming anger, he demands: ]

Do you want me to work you? Manipulate you to be happy and content? Because I can. I've left scores of women behind who think they loved me because I made them feel warm and comforted and listened to. I can do that for you, too, if that's what you crave.

[ Because perhaps that's the worst part, the most maddening part. His awkward fumbling is all due to the fact that he doesn't want to play her. And now, what, he's too impatient. To imperfect. ]

I told you. I told you even this morning! 'Loving you makes me afraid,' I said. 'I am afraid now you have him I am unnecessary and if I left you would not miss me,' I said. 'I am afraid you made me fight you so hard for this chance because you do not truly want me, you are only allowing me to be with you,' I said. 'Tell me I am wrong.'

And you did not. You said nothing but to make sure I had meant to ask Bastien be included. Offered me no reassurance, did not reach even for my hand. You lift no covers, spread no arms for me to make sure that I know I am welcome. What shall I think but that I am right to have feared?

[ She looks at Bastien with a flash of her own shame, and speaks softly. ]

You have done nothing wrong. Stay. We have all had terrible dreams and you are kinder than I can be, now. Someone should be kind to him.

[ And back to Byerly. ]

Let me go home. I am tired, and hurt, and I wish to weep, and I have had enough of simply being watched at it.

You don't give me any time!

[ He spreads his hands out desperately. Leans forward so that the blankets fall away from his thin, scarred torso. The wounds of many battles he was ill-suited to fight. ]

I need time to think with you. Maker, you always want me to have a response immediately, and it must be the right one. [ And then, with a shake of his head - ] How am I supposed to respond to that? I make you afraid. You're afraid of me. Do you know how it cuts me to hear that? I must be a fucking beast if you're afraid of me. So, what, I'm supposed to just smile and tell you, it's all right, there's nothing to be afraid of? Like a liar? Like a predator? Like him?

[ Sometimes a fellow doesn't even have the ability to truly hear what's being said. ]

Edited 2021-02-16 20:37 (UTC)

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