bouchonne | contact part deux

[ He watches her as she speaks. Puzzlement gives way to gradual understanding, and then to quiet sadness. And then, because it's Byerly, to guilt, and to - ]

I - If I were better at showing kindness, you wouldn't feel that way. If I could just find the right words to soothe, or - I could make it better if I were better.

[ Even though he feels that that's not entirely true. Even though at times, when he wants to be able to sway her emotions, she's beyond him. Even though there are times when her heart is beyond him, even though he wishes he could touch it directly. Make her happy. ]

I feel like I'm just - always failing you.

No, my Byerly.

[ Murmured, as she smooths her skirts again and finally— unsteadily— raises from the ground so she can go to him and touch his hand. ]

It is in me, this fear. Something in me still believes it keeps me safe. It would not matter what you did, I would find a way to feed it.

[ She lifts one of his fingers, puts it down again. ]

I think such things; that I am always failing you.

Then -

[ He looks up, miserable and desperate. His fingers close around hers. ]

If that's true - [ a big if ] how does it get better?

I—

[ Alexandrie closes her eyes, tries to feel only the way his hand folds around hers. Tries to remember it better, brighter, than she remembers every time she reached for him and he would not reach back. ]

I try very hard to stop looking for ways to hurt myself with you.

[ To let go of the very first armor she had to craft in the wretched aftermath of the betrayal that had plotted the course of her life.

She opens her eyes, smiles small and soft beside the tear that tracks down towards her chin to fall. ]

And you try very hard to be patient with me.

No.

[ His voice is soft, unhappy; he shakes his head. His expression is pained. ]

You cannot - It is not your fault alone. It is not your fault. [ It's him. It is him. He knows it is. His failures, his shortcomings, his stupidity, his wretchedness, his evil, his selfishness - She is, after all, a wonder, brave and strong; he's a fucking piece of shit. It's why every time, with every fight, he's sunk further and further into self-loathing, wondering why he can't simply fucking do it right, why he's so hurtful and cruel without ever even trying. ]

You shouldn't try to spare my feelings. I know I'm - not satisfactory.

Stop, Byerly.

[ Her voice is soft to match, and she lifts their hands to her mouth so she can kiss his fingers and whisper there. ]

Stop.

[ She shakes her head, presses another kiss against his hand, and pulls it to her chest to hold it there. ]

Tell me instead everything that you can think of that is true, that you want me to believe. That it hurts you when I doubt.

[ But he shakes his head, says - ]

Maker, Lexie, it doesn't matter if I hurt. Nothing could matter less.

[ Which, of course, is the heart of so many of their problems. He is unwilling, or perhaps outright unable, to see his own unhappiness as being of any sort of consequence. But that doesn't mean it isn't there. ]

What matters is how to make you feel comfortable. I - I know I should try to -

It matters. It matters to me and I am telling you.

[ She strokes the back of his hand with her thumb, tries hard to think that this is honest struggle, not dismissal. That he cannot seem to hear her not because he does not care for her but because he cannot understand the way she cares for him. She tries hard to be patient, to be clear, to not let into her face any bit of her silent war lest he think it means she fights him not herself. ]

I am telling you right now what it is I need for my comfort: to hear what is true. I need for you to tell me what is true of your heart so I may believe it instead of the awful stories I tell myself of it that make me so afraid.

My heart is an ugly creature. Whatever stories you tell of it are likely kinder than the truth.

[ His heart is still a vulnerable, frightened thing. Even with her, he's afraid to show the truth of it. Maybe especially with her.

But: he makes his best effort; he doesn't leave it there. Instead, with difficulty, he says: ]

I think you have - given me too much credit, often. Assumed I knew what I was doing. But after you, there was no one, you know.

[ He does not mean he does not love me, Alexandrie thinks, making a desperate grab for the reins of her heart to try to gentle it before it throws her and runs wild. He does not mean that I should be afraid; be even more afraid than now I am. He takes aim at himself and does not know the arrow goes through clean and hits me too.

She is trying not to curl around herself. She is trying not to shut her eyes. She is trying, trying to believe there's something else he cannot show her because he is afraid of her heart too.

For a mercy he keeps speaking and she manages to only hold his hand to her and nod. ]

[ Her silence nearly makes him flinch. What's he supposed to say into that silence? He wants a drink so badly. He wants to drown all of this in a sea of booze. It fucking hurts.

He swallows. Shrugs. Looks down. ]

I know that what I'm good for is - service. I know that I'm good for being of service. And I want to figure out how to serve you. I'm trying to get better at it.

You do not have to be of service. I do not—

[ She pulls his hand to her lips again to speak against it. ]

I want you. To be held by you because you want to hold me, not because you want to make me happy and think it will. You do not have to be good at this. You do not have to know what you are doing. You do not have to know anything. You do not have to do anything but try to trust me too. Try to trust that I think you are worth loving as you are.

[ Softer, then: ]

To try to believe, if you cannot trust.

[ His eyes press shut. His hand tightens around hers, but his eyes shut, and he swallows hard. ]

I'm not worth that, Lexie.

[ Quiet for a long moment, and when she speaks again she cannot keep her voice from cracking. ]

These are the only things I want. For you to love me, for you to let me love you.

To stop fighting you because I am afraid. For you to stop fighting me because you are.

[ She shakes her head, bows it over where she holds his hand. ]

Or at least to try. Only to try would be enough.

[ He swallows again. Finally, with difficulty: ]

No one has ever loved me honestly. Not till I came here. Not till you two. [ A pause, then: ] One person did, but that was years ago. It's - This just isn't something I know how to do. I - I can try. [ A hand over his face. ] Maker, I am trying; it's just this pathetic.

I am not good at this either.

[ She steps in, to lay her cheek atop his head. ]

If I were, I would be happy instead of jealous that someone else years ago saw and knew enough of you to love you.

[ A brief turn of her face so she can kiss his hair before returning to resting her cheek there. ]

I am trying too.

[ A ripple of embarrassment. ]

Don't be jealous. I'm speaking of my sister.

[ Then it fades, and says - ]

I don't mean to compare or compete. But I've seen your home. Your parents are gentle people. I was born in a cesspit. It...

[ Then a pause, and he reaches up to stroke her arm. ]

Maybe I'm just making excuses.

[ Oh. She is embarrassed then; is always embarrassed when she learns how swift she jumps to hurt where there is none.

But the tension in her releases at the touch; it always does. ]

I want to hear them. It helps me know.

There is no shame in this hardship, it is only—

[ She reaches too. Runs her free hand down the side of his neck, along his shoulder. ]

Anything you do not tell me I will tell myself, and what I tell myself will be something I have crafted just to hurt me.

[ A little huff of breath; her quiet laughter wedded to a sigh. ]

You have heard me do it only now. It did not take me even half a breath to write into my world some lost lover. One you would now realize you had loved in some way truer than you had ever loved me.

No. Not a lover.

[ His mouth twists bitterly. ]

Rumors to the contrary.

[ Anyway. Fucking...anyway. ]

Most of my personal history is humiliating. But I can, at least, speak true on that.

[ She would like to be able to say she'd never thought there could be any truth to those old rumours, but there had been a time before she'd met him, when he was nothing to her but a man she could reach in Rolant's sphere to take apart, that she had been looking for reasons to hate him.

So, instead, it's ]

I know.

[ and a stroke of her thumb on his shoulder. ]

[ He nods a bit. He knows she knows. And that is a lot. That she's heard some of the most vile things that have been said about him - more of those things than most others here - and looks on him with love nevertheless.

And so he fights for a moment. And then forces himself to give voice to this: ]

You hurt me. When you... [ You know. ] I loved you with all my heart. You were the only person I'd given all of myself to.

[ He looks up, his eyes dark and sad. Not angry. Not hateful. Just desperately sad, and just desperate. ]

Maker, when you said to me that I - that I should have gone after you - Lexie, it's eating me away inside.

[ She flinches, drops her eyes, shakes her head. ]

I should not have told you.

There is nothing either of us can do about it now, and I cannot—

[ Another head shake. Her hand picks lightly, uselessly, at the cloth at his shoulder. ]

It is not fair of me— cruel of me— to be hurt that you believed me. You could not have known what I felt. I hardly knew. I—

I am sorry. To have hurt you with it again.

[ He relaxes just a bit at her apology. ]

Not cruel. I understand the desire. But -

[ A twisted little smile. ]

No one ever wanted me around. It was far too much to ask of me, to ask me to see that you secretly did. And you knew that then, too. The only reason you started loving me is because you saw that I was completely broken.

[ She looks up quickly then, startled. ]

That is what you think? That I only began to love you because you were broken?

[ A lift of his eyebrows - of course. ]

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