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

Comments

[cozen]

She doesn't want to get you into bed with her.

[bouchonne]

Oh, is that how we do it now? We blow our cover for lust? Am I just another honeypot to you?

[cozen]

You are not just another anything to me, monsier la joie de mon coeur.

[ Endearment aside, his tone isn't simpering. More bickering. Are they arguing? He's determined to be fine and normal about it, if they are. Which means no tripping over himself to make Byerly smile. ]

Has she ever done anything to make you suspect her, aside from not telling you what you want to know?

[bouchonne]

Being a spy?

[ Perhaps there's a little too much emphasis in the way he chops that carrot. But he's cool. He's being cool. ]

We are, by and large, wicked people, my darling.

[cozen]

You are so Fereldan.

[ That’s not a counterargument. Only a fondly exasperated observation.

Bastien slides the remainder of the naked garlic over to Byerly and takes up the onion. ]

And you are not wicked, and she is more like you than she is like me. She has a soldier’s heart. The lies are only a sword.

[bouchonne]

How do you know?

[cozen]

[ He sighs. ]

Because of how we met. Because she has been consistent ever since. She has been here longer than I have, with no sign of betrayal or agenda aside from winning the war. And because of Darras—because of the way she looked when she lost him. Because when we all dreamed together, she dreamed of a world where she was still fighting—with you, with you and your handsome depression beard—and the little flicker of hope that dream gave her was her husband and a baby there with her the swamp.

[ By the end of this he is crying. But it's only because he's literally cutting an onion. ]

[bouchonne]

[ Ugh. Fine. And irritating that the sight of Bastien onion-crying tugs at his heartstrings. ]

I'm just saying. It's truly the move of an asshole not to tell us what her hidden agenda is. We're polite enough to name ours.

[cozen]

[ Bastien looks up at him with BIG WET EYES. ]

I don't think she has one.

[ He wipes his face with his shoulder. ]

Her needing help came up at all because she asked if I missed having a handler. She said she misses it. She doesn't have one anymore. No one is telling her what to do.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly pulls a come on that's obviously what she wants you to think face at Bastien. ]

[cozen]

[ Time to be PETTY.

While crying. ]

Well, I think is a Benedict is reporting on us to Tevinter.

[bouchonne]

[ Even though he knows it's a provocation - ]

Based on what?

[cozen]

I have never seen any conclusive proof he is not.

And he is the scion of a wealthy powerful house, but he chose to be loyal to us despite the indignities of the dungeon? I don’t think so.

He is more competent than he lets on. The rest of it could be an act.

He attached himself to a leader and positioned himself to have a view of everything that went on in the office.

He has a friend he has never mentioned and a fiancée he has never mentioned, and they are both suddenly here at the same time Corypheus is pushing for more power and attacking us where we live.

And, [ setting his knife down, onion successfully chopped, ] he was mean to me.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly stirs the soup with vigor. His mutter is irritable: ]

You're being perverse, and you know it.

[cozen]

Ouaip.

[ Agreeably pointed. ]

[bouchonne]

And you're being perverse to not acknowledge that everyone here has an agenda.

[ Well. ]

Except Benedict.

[cozen]

Including Benedict.

[bouchonne]

All right. The agenda of not dying from an out of control rift shard.

[cozen]

And securing a life for himself when the war is over. He cares about what happens to the mages—he may be with them. And he must care a little about what happens to his country. All those places and people he knew.

[bouchonne]

So we're agreeing that everyone has an agenda. Hm?

[cozen]

Ouais, ouais, everyone has an agenda. But she is not going to say who she worked for—and even if she did, it would not mean she could not be lying, or she could not work for someone else now, or she could not have been a double agent the whole time. So you have to use your beautiful, clever head and look at what information you do have, about how she behaves and what she has and has not done here, the same as with everyone else.

[bouchonne]

[ A low growl of frustration. All of this is correct. But it doesn't address the core of it, which is: ]

I just don't like being asked to trust someone who doesn't trust me. [ Further: ] I don't like your life potentially being in the hands of someone who isn't — It's beyond easy to imagine a situation where you could be alive or dead and she simply won't tell me because the information is too sensitive.

[cozen]

That's—

[ Bastien would like to say she wouldn't do that. But really it's only that it seems unlikely that the knowledge of whether he was alive or dead would ever be very sensitive. It seems perfectly likely that she'd refuse to tell Byerly if it was. ]

That's fair.

[ The fight is fading out of him. He leans closer to take hold of By's hand and hold onto it. ]

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly is a little more stubborn. It takes a full ten seconds before he melts and presses his face into Bastien’s hair. ]

I want to lock you into a guarded vault and never let you out.

[cozen]

They could blow up the vault.

[ Could sound flippant, but doesn’t. He tilts his head into By’s face and rearranges his hand to interlace their fingers and grip tighter.

He’s thinking of Granitefell. Diplomatic outreach. Safe. He hadn’t been worried at all—hadn’t seen the cliff ahead until the voices came over the crystals and he was already falling. ]

What is happening to the Veil. What could happen if he opens the Black City again. There would be nowhere to hide from that. Not here, not Gwaren. Not Kaiten.