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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me too me too

[cozen]

[ To an outsider it might look like Bastien has a sixth sense for when Byerly's had a rough day or three, the way he shows up now with his cello, snacks, and a steaming mug of something to share. But actually it is just that he does this frequently. Doing it tonight is even intended selfishly: the weather has been gray and miserable, the sort that normally threatens to make him feel weighed down by everything, and this will cheer him up.

So the particular angles and expressions he observes in Byerly when he slips through the door were not, in fact, expected. But he doesn't pause. He only locks the door behind him when he might otherwise have left it open—who wouldn't want to hear them play, or perhaps even come in to say hello and maybe join in—and approaches with less determinedly cheerful breeziness than he might have otherwise. ]

Bonsoir, mon étoile.

[ The snacks he's brought are a plate of various cheese cuts and crusty bread carried in from a Fereldan establishment in Lowtown. Despite his best attempts at shielding them, the downpour of rain outside has left them a little damp on top. He sets the plate on the desk, and he entertains a two-second fantasy of setting it on fire. ]

[bouchonne]

Bonsoir, mon ciel.

[ It's not hard to see that Byerly is having a miserable time of it. The kindness of that cheese and bread doesn't make him smile, as it normally would; instead it makes him press his eyes shut and breathe out slowly. Sometimes a caress hurts when your skin is raw, after all. ]

If it is not inappropriate, my dear Bastien, and you do not hate the idea, may I lay my head in your lap and have you stroke my hair?

[ The formality is a joke, of course, but it's a joke delivered in a distant sort of voice. ]

[cozen]

[ It's not his immediate instinct to joke back, when By looks so miserable. His immediate instinct—indulged in—is to touch him, a hand grazing over his shoulder and up to give his ear lobe a little tug.

But for the sake of not jostling him about too much with affection, when he sounds like that, Bastien musters up an equally formal, ]

I suppose, if it stays between us, and if I can clear my schedule—

[ A long pause. ]

—ah. Cleared. D'accord.

[ He holds a hand out to pull him up and lead him. The bed in the adjacent room is now an option, and maybe better suited to By's long legs, but he chooses the couch all the same. It's where By kissed him, the first time he was the one to start it. Where he said of course I love you. The desk he might light on fire someday, but Bastien's very fond of the couch. ]

[bouchonne]

[ He settles down with a rather doggish sigh, snuggling his head into that beloved lap, dangling his knees over the arm of the couch. One hand comes up to stroke at Bastien's arm. Once he's situated, he murmurs: ]

My thanks for your prompt response.

[ Then: ]

I hate these people, Bastien.

[cozen]

[ The sigh, the snuggling, the dangling legs, the arm-petting, and the joking formality all prompt a subdued little smile. Precious even when he's miserable. ]

All of them?

[ Clearly not. It's only a prompt, as Bastien sets into the serious business of stroking his hair. ]

[bouchonne]

All of them except you.

[ Closer to the truth. ]

[cozen]

[ His smile widens enough to wrinkle his nose, just for a moment. ]

And Benedict. And Abby—I heard you on the crystals, offering to braid her hair.

[bouchonne]

[ Ugh. Reluctantly, he admits: ]

Her hair turned out gorgeous. I did an incredible job.

[cozen]

I'd never doubt it. Those nimble fingers.

[ His own, somewhat blockier and certainly less nimble, brush By's hair forward onto his forehead so it can be brushed back off of it again. ]

[bouchonne]

[ He hums, appreciating Bastien's appreciation of him. But his mood sours after a moment. ]

Gwenaelle is apparently done with me.

[cozen]

[ Bastien's smile fades along with By's moment of brighter mood. ]

Apparently? What happened?

[bouchonne]

I still don't really know.

[ Eyes closed, By smiles bitterly. ]

She hates the way I talk. Apparently. Everything I say causes her pain. We were just talking about work, and - that apparently was agonizing for her. So she shut off her crystal rather than hear me speak any longer.

[cozen]

[ Bastien does not know Gwenäelle very well, but he admires her work ethic, and he took an interest in the fact that she did seem to like Byerly and be a friend to him when those can be few. One good enough to spend a great deal of time on his Satinalia gift and to include Bastien to some extent as well. With a few seconds' thought he might see the pattern in her tendency to be a bit of an asshole—her actual opinions, unvarnished, all the time—and understand how she might struggle with By's very different sort of thing.

But first, out of instinctive defense of the person in this equation who he loves, he says: ]

That is awfully sensitive for someone who can be so fucking rude.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly lets out a sharper breath - not a laugh, but something adjacent. He's too unhappy to laugh - tears are forming in the corners of his eyes even as he gives that not-a-laugh - but still, there's that grateful huff of air. ]

I suppose that was - also something like what I was thinking. She's so sharp-tongued. And we've spoken with each other, and shared hard honesty, that this - I was just shooting my mouth off, and suddenly she's saying that every word of mine hurts her.

[cozen]

[ A glimpse of those welling tears, and any potential semi-rational analysis of the situation will have to wait. Instead: ]

Oh, sweetheart,

[ with his tongue nowhere near his cheek, the way it usually would be for an endearment like that. ]

I'm sorry. It will be alright.

[bouchonne]

If I had known -

[ Byerly's grip on Bastien's arm tightens. ]

I'd have stopped it. I'd have tried. It was never my intention - It wasn't my intention.

[cozen]

Je sais.

[ It's rarely unwitting instinct, when Bastien chooses Orlesian over Trade, but right now it is. He pets By's hair with a little more force, twice, before running his finger tips up and down his forehead and the length of his nose instead. ]

I know. Of course it wasn't. You care for her. You wouldn't.

[bouchonne]

[ He lets out a shaky breath, and responds in Orlesian as well, his voice thick. Not quite in the careful Royan accent he usually has; instead, when he speaks, it's with a more Southern accent, the Orlesian of his mother's home. ]

But even when she said it, I just kept doing it. And I did realize that it was not my intention she hated. It was, it is, me. My personality, my manner, my voice, my speech. What I am.

[cozen]

You are a thousand things, Byerly, and no one has seen all of them. Not even me.

[ It's not only a semantic quibble. It's important. But it doesn't solve the problem. Perhaps because the problem is unsolvable; the mouthy bullshitter breed is not for everyone. All the things Bastien loves about Byerly—or about his surface, anyway—are things someone else, somewhere, will find unbearable and obnoxious. And those people will just have to find a way to carry on with their thin-skinned and self-serious lives without him.

It doesn't directly address the wound, though, either. Bastien needs another moment for that. ]

Sometimes people cannot handle something for their own reasons. It doesn't mean that they hate you.

[bouchonne]

Maybe not.

[ He switches back to Trade for this - the memory of the conversation, held in Trade, drawing him back to that tongue. ]

But she had said to me that she loved me. [ Orlesian: ] Not romantically. Of course. It feels pathetic to be loved but so tiresome that - You know.

[cozen]

[ A nod. His face-stroking narrows to, specifically, the place where the bridge of By's nose meets his forehead. ]

Do you love her?

[ —feels like a cruel question, almost, given his misery. But it's perfectly possible to feel abandoned and disposable and shamed by someone without loving them. ]

[bouchonne]

Yes.

[ His eyes open very slightly, glinting behind his long lashes. He doesn't blink even when Bastien's fingers come close. ]

Her father saved my life, when I was younger. And duty, debt - it can create love. Like to a sister.

[cozen]

[ Bastien has an underdeveloped sense of obligation at the best of times. Zero interest in owing anyone anything. He had, by the age of twelve, positioned himself as a sporadically present and largely unreliable fun uncle figure to his real blood siblings. So duty, debt—even in this circumstance, it's enough to make him wrinkle his nose, just a little, in silent ugh.

The last sentence distracts him, though, from arguing whether that's love, or maybe needs its own sort of word, like obliged or honor-bound. ]

Mm.

[ Intelligently. But he is thinking, about Gwenäelle—and Madame de Foncé, and Athessa, and Jenny Lou, and (in her distinct sort of way) Alexandrie. ]

Has a man ever troubled you this way?

[bouchonne]

[ The question catches him off-guard. He opens his eyes more fully, looking up at Bastien, grief momentarily displaced by confusion. ]

A man? [ His brows furrow. ] What do you mean?

[cozen]

[ A small shrug. He smooths the furrow with his hand. ]

Whenever you have been so upset about someone saying something to you or being cross with you, it has been a young woman. I have never rubbed your back because you were quarreling with Benedict.

[ Back to Orlesian, ]

I suppose he might not have that in him. But you know what I mean, yeah?