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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[coquettish_trees]

Do not be so greedy.

[ She rests her chin on her knees. ]

I frightened myself then. You did nothing but love me. It is not your fault that the feeling of vulnerability my realization of the extent of my tenderness towards you evoked was entwined with the memory of unspeakable betrayal, and it is not your fault that I did not give you the barest moment of opportunity to prove it could mean something else.

It was a trap set in me, waiting for the moment I loved again. I do not think it would have sprung, had I not been in earnest.

[ Wry humour joins the tired and sad in her little smile. ]

Is that not truly the most awful way to be sure one loves?

[bouchonne]

[ But he gives a small shake of his head. ]

Come now. If that were true, then you'd have never been able to love anyone at all. [ He forces an unconcerned, easy smile onto his lips. ] You were hardly the first person to see danger coming from me, and nor were you the last. I know there's something sinister in me.

[coquettish_trees]

[ He’s doing it again. It’s as if he can’t hear her at all, as if there is a demon that thrives on misery in his ear translating—

Is—

Is this what she is doing? Not truly listening, but hearing only what she is most afraid to hear every time he speaks?

The frustration melts from her face, replaced by furtive curiosity as she sits up. ]

Can we not hear one another?

[bouchonne]

[ His gaze comes around to her. ]

What do you mean?

[coquettish_trees]

[ She looks absent for a moment, frowning slightly in thought as she touches the new idea on different sides to see what it is, then looks at him again, her head tilting to the side. ]

Do I frustrate you because sometimes when you speak I hear things you do not mean, and am hurt by them?

[bouchonne]

[ He hesitates, then says - ]

Yes.

[coquettish_trees]

[ A slow nod. Her gaze turns inward again, outward again after a moment. ]

You do it as well. Hear things I do not say.

[ She uncurls, lets her knees fall to the side. Rests her hands in her lap. ]

Bastien can hear the both of us, what we mean, but sometimes we cannot hear each other. Often, perhaps.

[bouchonne]

[ In his defense - ]

You often say what you don't mean.

[coquettish_trees]

[ She lifts a shoulder- yes, but- ]

And sometimes I mean what I do not say, yes. But so do you, and that does not explain why when I say “loving you makes me afraid” you hear “I am afraid of you,” and continue to hear that until Bastien says that is not what I mean.

I am not afraid of you, it is not the same thing. But that is what you hear, and it hurts you as if that is what I have said.

[bouchonne]

But it is what you mean.

[ He looks away again. ]

You said it, in the dream. And you say it now - it's just semantics, the difference between loving you makes me afraid and you make me afraid. [ A shake of his head. ] You love Loki, and did not fear him enough to cast him aside.

[ And then, a painful confession - ]

I would have had a great deal more peace if you'd said to me, I never loved you, rather than I loved you and feared you. I think I was much more peaceful before you confessed your true motives to me.

[coquettish_trees]

It is not merely semantics, it is not what I mean, and I was afraid enough. I tried to cast him aside. At a ball in Minrathous. It failed, because I was so distraught, so outside myself with fear of loving him that I had forgotten we had planned just that. For me to spurn him brutally such that a rival of his would approach me as a potential ally and I should be in good position to undermine them. He was ready for it, played directly into it, and I felt trapped, and lost, and...

[ She closes her eyes and breathes so she will stop. So she will not work herself to frenzy. Makes herself quiet again. ]

If I had had time, then. If someone had made me stop. If I had had Genevieve to go to instead of only Emile, who saw it as the perfect chance to steer me back on the course she wished for me— but I did not. Nothing was there to slow me, or to make you believe me still an ally and so speak to me again. By the time I understood what I had done you were gone, and I was so far in my own pain I did not try to stop you.

[ She shakes her head and is softer still. ]

Just earlier, I ran. I was overwhelmed and I ran and you were sharp with me for running, and it made me stop and speak.

That is what he did. I tried again, that night. To break with him and leave, but he gripped me by the arm and would not let me go until I told him why.

[ She’d screamed it at him like a hunting hawk. ]

The difference is not in the fear, and not in the love. It is that all those years ago, I ran and nothing stopped me.

[bouchonne]

[ But he shakes his head. This is a far deeper wound than can be stitched up by any mere tale. Let alone a blow-by-blow of just how she and her detested husband romanced each other. ]

Lexie. Honestly. I am a frightening person. Everyone in the world looks at me and sees malice and evil intent. I cannot be surprised that someone as dreadfully wounded as you were saw the same.

[coquettish_trees]

I am...

[ She pulls her knees back up and rests her head on them again. ]

I love you. I love you and I am so angry with you right now for not believing me and instead telling yourself your own story that hurts you and saying it is mine.

[bouchonne]

[ Frustration bubbling up: ]

You said it. In the dream.

[coquettish_trees]

I said what.

[bouchonne]

That I reminded you of him!

[coquettish_trees]

[ Even from how she sits she’s fast. On her feet in an instant and reaching to hold his face; thumbs slanted across his cheeks, fingers curling into his hair, everything about her taut and intent. ]

You have never reminded me of him. Never.

[bouchonne]

But -

[ He looks at her, slowly lifting his gaze to hers. His beautiful eyes are anguished, narrowed with pain as tightly as they'd have been if it were a physical torture he was enduring. ]

You said as much. And what I did to you -

[ Treated her like he had. Captured her, drugged her, humiliated her - ]

[coquettish_trees]

Never.

[ Her eyes are sharp and fierce in their earnest focus. ]

You are not like him. You are nothing like him.

Tu as compris?

[ Her fingers curl harder. ]

Est-ce que tu m’as compris?

[bouchonne]

[ The muscles in his jaw jump. He presses his eyes shut. ]

Not so different. [ A miserable half-laugh - ] Didn't that confirm it for you? The dream? That the only difference between him and me is that people are able to see me coming.

[coquettish_trees]

Regarde moi, Byerly.

Even in a dream where it may be that we made ourselves out of the pieces of ourselves we think ugliest for the enjoyment of some demon you were not like him.

What was it, in this dream, that caused you to capture me.

[bouchonne]

Some sort of resentment, deep down. I ought to have known that you weren't really involved with any grand force for elven liberation. I likely did know, in truth.

[ He can't quite meet her eyes, despite her command. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ She won’t push any farther. Instead she lets her grip loosen slightly and strokes his cheek once with her thumb. Still here. ]

I imagine the resentment had to do with my having hurt you very deeply and then making an attempt to have you killed.

Do you know why he chose me?

[bouchonne]

[ He shakes his head. But: ]

Pride. He wanted to demean people whose degradation would make him look grander in comparison.

[coquettish_trees]

And I had done nothing to him. He chose me because I was vulnerable: alone, young, inexperienced, overawed that he should even deign to speak with me.

Did you find it a light-hearted diversion to do as you dreamed you did? I cannot recall you laughing at my helplessness.