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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[cozen]

[ Bastien settles back down into his shoulder. ]

You don’t have to be bothered by that part. But you—

[ He shrugs. ]

I don’t know. Maybe he used to say things like that to you. That he had reasons or it was for your own good. Did he?

[bouchonne]

No.

[ A dry little laugh at the mere thought. ]

He didn't care about my good. I was irredeemable, remember?

[ He smooths Bastien's hair down. ]

And you're lacking a few key qualities, if you're worried about reminding me of him.

[cozen]

Mmm.

[ He’ll accept that. But— ]

You were upset. We don’t have to talk about it. But I am sorry.

[bouchonne]

No. I -

[ His brows draw down. ]

I meant it. No one else cares enough to ask.

[cozen]

[ The impulse to be pleased with any no one else he can get is pretty evenly balanced against firsthand knowledge of how lonely it can be. So Bastien lifts his head to smile again, comforted, but in a subdued sort of way. ]

All right.

[ He shifts his weight, slipping off to be half- instead of fully-atop Byerly, with one leg still sprawled across him to keep him imprisoned. It gives him space to plant his elbow to hold his head up.

That rearrangement takes enough time for the touch of melancholy to fade, most of the way, and be replaced with a touch of humor. ]

Maybe we could use a safe word.

[bouchonne]

Hm.

[ He reaches out and traces a finger along Bastien's collarbone. ]

A stop prying, this is making me feel too itchy, Byerly-or-Bastien code?

[cozen]

Itchy, [ Bastien echoes, with a little laugh, because it’s funny.

And accurate. ]

Yes. That.

[bouchonne]

I like it.

[ He reaches out for the bottle - it's been too long since they drank any - and takes a swig. ]

How about - what was that name? [ The one they'd giggled over? ]

[cozen]

[ He grins. ]

Walpurgk.

[ He watches Byerly drink. He can feel it—heaviness seeping into the places that felt floppy and silly before, probably with grogginess to follow behind. Drinking more is a good call.

But first, while he still feels grounded enough to to speak in complex sentences, ]

I trust you. [ Okay, that one's not complex. But here's one: ] I decided a while ago, after those dreams, I don't want to hold something back from you. I'm sorry for going back on my word, and I'm sorry if it makes you nervous, but—it's too late. It's done. So we will just have to deal with it. All right?

[bouchonne]

Mm -

[ He licks a little bit of liquor that's escaped from the corner of his mouth and passes the bottle over. ]

All right.

[ But... ]

When did you go back on your word?

[cozen]

When I—

[ He feels childish, in a distant sort of way, to be keeping track of a promise as if he made it with his pinky. Fortunately there's a layer of lingering buzz to keep it from turning into full-blown embarrassment, and a bottle that promises more. ]

I told you I'd keep some of my heart in reserve. That's all.

[ He takes his longest drink yet. ]

[bouchonne]

Oh.

[ That's - Byerly feels flushed and dizzy. ]

Certainly. Yes. That makes sense.

[cozen]

[ Bastien nods, businesslike. Glad that's settled. He sets the bottle back down in both of their reach and brushes By's hair away from his forehead. Then back onto his forehead, for good measure, waiting to feel pleasantly stupid again. ]

Ask my name in the morning, when I'm mad at you because my head hurts. No advantage then. And now tell me... your favorite place in Denerim.

[bouchonne]

Hold on -

[ He can't help but laugh. ]

I thought you were asking all these questions to compensate for the one big question you were going to be answering. Now it turns out I was answering all of them for free?

[cozen]

That's right. [ Very pleased with himself. ] Unless you are willing to turn your back on gentlemanliness and be a scoundrel with me, like old times. Then you can ask whenever you want.

[bouchonne]

Noooo.

[ He moans that. But: ]

But I do get some questions. Just questions that you'd answer anyway.

[cozen]

I'm in charge here.

[ He takes another drink for the road and tries to resume his prisoner-keeping straddle, but if he's less silly-drunk than before, he's also more heavy-drunk. He quickly lies back down. ]

Fine. All right. Because I love you, not because those are the rules.

[bouchonne]

[ He laughs, and rolls over to nuzzle Bastien. ]

I like you being commanding.

[ But - ]

But I don't like you hearing me say that I'm pleased that you care enough to ask questions and then deciding that your job is to ask me questions.

[cozen]

Not a job. A calling.

[ It's a weak joke. He's frowning, even as he worms his arm under Byerly as a silent offer to take his turn as pillow, and trying to make his sludgy brain locate the angle Byerly is looking at this from. ]

I wasn't trying to—to be manipulative.

[bouchonne]

I know.

[ He takes that offer, settling in bonelessly atop that arm. ]

But it gets tiring. Asking, asking, listening, listening. The game of spying. I don't want it to be doing more of that tiring work in time when you should just be relaxing.

[cozen]

I don't get tired of listening to you. You know that song you let me save on my crystal? I don't understand a word of it, but I could sing it now.

[ He curls his arm around By's shoulders and demonstrates a few lines of the Antivan murder ballad, half-decent accent and all, ending obliviously in the middle of a sentence because he doesn't know it's not the end.

It takes care of his frown. ]

You should relax, too. I really will tell you in the morning, you'll see. I can tell you something else now. Or we could play another game. Or we could make out.

[bouchonne]

Mm. I just don't want you to feel like you have to work to please me.

[ Even though the obvious attention and care gone into that song, the way that Bastien has imitated Byerly's occasional idiosyncrasies of phrasing and lyric, pleases him immensely. Me, me, he cares about me. The thought fills him with elation mixed with an undercurrent of horrified repulsion. Maker, why me?

He nuzzles into the side of Bastien's neck. ]

Tell me something else.

[cozen]

[ For a moment he’d like to argue: it isn’t work, he was having fun, and he would really like to know By’s favorite place in Denerim because he needs help imagining it as a place he could live someday, so—

It’s very hard to want to argue when he’s being nuzzled. ]

Mmm.

[ Thinking. ]

I ran away from home—sort of. I was already gone most of the time, but I stopped going back at all because my mother found me a position. A boot boy. She had to beg for it. That would have been hard for her.

[ Subject matter aside, he does sound relaxed, and like maybe he thinks it’s all sort of funny now. ]

But I wouldn’t do it. I didn’t mind working, but… scraping the literal shit off their shoes, By. All those flowers and birds eggs and bells. Every day. [ Orlais. ] Can you imagine?

[bouchonne]

I did that a time or two. Scraping shit off shoes for few copper.

[ If By were sober, he'd be more sympathetic and delicate, rather than bluntly philosophical. ]

But I suppose it is different for nobles. You always have your blood. You can pretend it's irony instead of desperation.

[cozen]

Maybe.

[ He moves his hand to the back of Byerly’s head, to lightly scratch his scalp. He hates thinking of him hungry, desperate, willing to take anything from anyone but ashamed enough to need to be able to laugh about it.

He hates it, but he’s not sure he would have ever let Byerly in, if not for the bouts penniless suffering. He would have been resentful, competitive, waiting for condescension. Wouldn’t have let him near enough to love. It would have been a shame. ]

Maybe I was a proud little idiot. Maybe I’ve been luckier than you. I know I have been, in a lot of ways.

[ That was sincere. But here comes the pleasant stupidity; he doesn’t manage to sound deadpan, already tittering at how annoying he knows he’s being before he says it: ]

For instance, I was born in Val Royeaux. The luckiest.