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]

[ He's not quite ready to let it go yet. His hand comes out to cover her fingers. ]

But many types of love are cruel or destructive. There is love that tears its object to shreds. I - do not wish to love you in a way that hurts you. If it must be temporary, what's between us, then at least I want you to come out the other side better for it.

[coquettish_trees]

Even the kindest love hurts a little sometimes, if there is anything in us that might be hurt, living as it does in the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. Especially if those parts have been injured before, and especially if they have not healed.

[ She lifts her thumb so she can press some small part of his hand between it and her fingers. ]

I imagine there are people for whom love does not hurt, and I wish them all joy. I am not one of them. You must not think the fullness of my agonies are made by you because sometimes I will scream when you touch me. The gentlest touch on raw flesh sears, does it not?

[ A pause while she makes a tiny stroking motion with her thumb, and then she leans in again to set her cheek lightly against his. ]

Perhaps the time we will have together is not forever, but whilst I live I will love you, and I am already the better for it.

[bouchonne]

[ He swallows. Leans back against her. ]

I suppose that I've simply...never known anyone to become better or kinder due to pain. Pain only debases.

[coquettish_trees]

[ He presses, and his breath tickles a little. It is the tiniest movement, and she can feel it because she is still. So still, with a heart like the glass of early morning water. She lets her eyes close, finds with her mind all the places they touch, the little warmth there, and she loves him.

It is all in her voice as much as her extremity was. ]

It pained me so much to love again. So incredibly much. But I am kinder for it; a woman again instead of a creature. A blade.

It pains me to hurt you, and slowly I become better because I do not want to.

[ She breathes long, through her nose. Wonders vaguely if he can feel it. ]

It hurts to take an arrow in the shoulder, and it hurts to take it out. I believe us more surgeons to each other than archers. [ A puff of mirth. ] A pity that an unsure surgeon does more damage than an unsure archer, but... we learn, yes?

[bouchonne]

Perhaps so.

[ It's not a bad metaphor. She always was a better poet than him, though. Those few times he'd tried - Thank the Maker he'd burned them instead of showing them to her. ]

It certainly doesn't mean that pain should be our usual way of doing things, though. I fear we spend rather too long with knife in hand. And I only really want one surgeon operating on me, frankly.

[ His wife, of course. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ But she is still thinking in metaphor, and so she flinches. Only a little, only in breath, but she does. ]

[bouchonne]

[ Uncertainly, his brows drawing down - ]

What?

[coquettish_trees]

[ He has a steadier hand than she does, surely. Bastien. Fair, to say so, but surely he wouldn't so blithely. Yes, Byerly stumbles sometimes into hurting her without meaning to as she does him, but surely not like that. Not here when they are like this.

How little it takes to calm her, how little to fright.

What else could—

She relaxes, head curving down to his shoulder. A startled flock returning to its pond. ]

Lady Rutyer, you mean.

[bouchonne]

Sidony, yes. Because she -

[ He gives a faint cutting gesture with his hand. His brows are still drawn down. ]

Who did you think I meant? - It was intended as a jest. Because surgeons. We certainly aren't having an affair, if you fear that. [ Can you have an affair with your own wife? ]

[coquettish_trees]

I was—

[ She breathes. Then, softly: ]

I know he has gentler hands than I do.

[bouchonne]

[ What - ]

Who? Bastien?

[coquettish_trees]

Yes.

[bouchonne]

Look, I -

[ Byerly lets out an uncomfortable breath. ]

He's just different.

[coquettish_trees]

I do not want to talk about this.

[ She shakes her head a little against his shoulder. ]

I have been gone for six weeks and I missed you, and right now I want to be with you and I want you to be with me.

Please.

[bouchonne]

[ He struggles a moment, then says: ]

I simply do not know how to reassure you.

[coquettish_trees]

I do not know either.

I am afraid all of the time, that there will be a moment you realize you have everything you need in him, and that holding me is nothing but holding a knife by the blade.

It is why I—

[ She sighs, and the hold she has on the hand that covers hers is as firm as it can be for something so bare. ]

I cannot understand why you would ever choose to be with me, and so I am afraid. But if you needed me jealously, possessively, if it made your hands clench with want of saying 'mine' then— if I knew you could not let go, not even of a knife blade—

You think that dangerous, and you are right, and I will try not to want it so badly, try to stop myself from trying to pull it from you, but it—

Passion like that would make me feel I was safe, for it would mean you could not leave me.

[ The quiet huff of her little laugh again, but there is little mirth in it. ]

And so I am the worst person possible for you to love too, no?

[bouchonne]

[ He's quiet a moment. It's an obvious sentiment, and one he suspects won't actually help, but he has to say it - ]

You want me, even though you have your husband.

[coquettish_trees]

Yes.

And do you feel secure in that?

[bouchonne]

Secure enough.

[coquettish_trees]

Why?

Because I say so? Or because sometimes I cling to you as if I can only breathe when you are in my arms and kiss you as if we will hang at sunrise.

[bouchonne]

[ He hesitates a moment, then says: ]

I suspect that, if I tell you, you shall take offense.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Slightly muffled by his shoulder: ]

I shall only take offense if you use this vulnerable moment of mine to disparage my husband.

[bouchonne]

[ Mmhm. ]

As I said.

[coquettish_trees]

Then you shall simply have to imagine what it might be like to share me with someone you regard highly, who you often see and hear and hear of being things you cannot be to me. That you cannot find anything in them to object to. You think them kinder than you. Easier to be with. That they are more healing than harm, and have never hurt me as you have. That they will not one day leave me, as I think you will.

[ All said without raising her head. She pauses. Breathes. ]

Feels it any different when you cannot hate the one I love for anything but seeming so much finer for me?

[bouchonne]

[ He's quiet a moment. And then he says - ]

I suppose what weighs heavily on me - aside from my fear for your heart - is that you trust me so little.