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's smile is silent and considering, for a few seconds, as if he could possibly refuse.

(He doesn't care for wearings cosmetics, but that's nothing to do with gender norms, everything to do with the paint he'd been expected to cake onto his face in lieu of a mask around the nobility being itchy and troublesome.

Eyeliner will be different. Plus he's, like, in love and shit, and By doing it for him sounds hot.) ]

Deal.

[ He picks paper and pen off of the desk he's sitting on to start writing the reply then and there, bent crooked to keep his arm low enough. ]

If I tell him you're doing well, will I be lying?

[bouchonne]

Well, I've lines around my eyes and gray at my temples. And there's a war on.

[ His hands come up to squeeze Bastien's knees none-too-innocently. Not, of course, that what he says is really all that lewd - in fact, it's rather sweet. ]

And yet I find myself alarmingly happy.

[cozen]

[ Bastien’s smile stretches wide and pleased, but he doesn’t look up from his letter. ]

Alarmingly… happy… [ as he copies it down, ] and alarmingly… handsome…

[ He extends a leg and hooks the back of his ankle behind Byerly’s neck to draw him in, like a very ungainly arm pulling him down for a kiss, except crotchward. ]

Married—so he owes me five royals. He didn’t want to bet against it, but I bullied him into it.

[ Gently, as he does. ]

[bouchonne]

[ And By, obligingly, plants several sweet, romantic little pecks right on Bastien's crotch. What sexiness there is in the gesture is somewhat undermined by the fact that those kisses are like what you'd deliver to someone's cheek. ]

Married to someone respectable, no less. Did you trick him into any extra money over me having a good marriage?

[cozen]

[ Bastien’s silent chest-trembling laughter at the kisses obscures the length of his pause, but it’s long, before he says with sheepish reluctance: ]

No.

[ He wasn’t so starry-eyed about Byerly back then, as much he adored him. ]

Julia Bachelot— [ a singer of moderate disrepute ] —told me she would bag you eventually. [ When the Lady de la Fontaine won or grew tired of whatever game she was playing, that eventually means. ] I would have bet on her.

[bouchonne]

Hold on -

[ His eyebrows lift. ]

This is a long-standing bet? I thought this was something you just tricked the poor fool into.

[ But, with a tone of remembrance: ]

Julia Bachelot. She'd have made a fine wife.

[cozen]

She would have torn you to ribbons.

[ Said with admiration, not disagreement.

He releases Byerly from the grip of his leg—though he rests his foot on the arm of his desk chair rather than drop it entirely—while he adds to the letter. ]

But I am glad you saved yourself for Lady Rutyer. I like her. [ He likes everyone. But specifically: ] She always seems to have your back. And she helped me catch a runaway goose, a while ago, and she was very kind about how stupid it was.

[bouchonne]

She's a very good lass.

[ He sets his chin on Bastien's thigh, and looks up at him, unintentionally but strongly giving a momentary air of a loyal hound gazing adoringly at his master. ]

And her family is full of fools. And it's so hard to resist adopting those little babies who are just starting to discover their queer little desires, isn't it? You just want to take them in and teach them all about the art of perversion.

[cozen]

There’s nothing perverted about it, monsieur aux beaux yeux, [ Bastien says cheerily with a glance and a smile, just in case that’s twenty years of Fereldan micro-aggressions talking rather than real delight.

But after signing his name to the letter, he relents: ] At least not about the basics. The other night, that was a little perverted.

[ Pen dropped, his hand is free to touch By's face, thumb on his cheekbone and fingertips finding the cherished threads of silver at his temple. ]

Do you think she would like to come out with us sometime?

[bouchonne]

[ It was a bit of both - some real delight, some internalized unhappiness. So there's a flicker of wryness when Bastien strokes his cheek, a sort of oblique gratitude in his face for pushing back. ]

I think so. Especially since she now has a fine lady-companion to decorate her arm.

[cozen]

Does she?

[ The aww is in his eyes. ]

Is it a secret?

[bouchonne]

Something to be treated with discretion. But not a secret.

[ He practically beams with pride. ]

She's grown up.

[cozen]

[ It would be odd to hear a man talk about his wife like a little sister, if Bastien didn't know better already. But he does. So it's not odd. It's sweet. ]

How darling. They have to come, then. We can go to the Belltower. [ The cleanest place he can think of where no one will look twice at who's dancing with whom. ] Can you tell me who her companion is? Or should I ask her.

[bouchonne]

Well - I'm sure you'd like a tiny mystery to solve, wouldn't you?

[cozen]

Yes. I would.

[ He thumbs By's cheekbone, then lets go to trace the length of his nose with one finger. He could get off the desk now that the letter is gone, but he's enjoying feeling so tall. ]

I'll report back with my findings—have you spoken much with Astarion?

[ There's no graceful segue aloud, but his thoughts do follow a path: his future endeavor to find out who Sidony fancies, Astarion's teasing threats about finding out who he does, an on to the man himself. ]

[bouchonne]

A bit.

[ An eyebrow lifted. A chin snuggled in further onto Bastien's knee. ]

Why do you ask?

[cozen]

[ Bastien’s smile doesn’t go entirely away, but it does shrink down to something more serious. ]

Be careful with him. Of him, I mean. He told me he finds killing exciting. That he aims it at villains and our cause is a good excuse, but we’re all animals and he embraces it. All of that.

He might be full of shit. [ Bastien punctuates his possibility by pressing the tip of Byerly’s nose like a button. ] I used to try to swagger like that, to pretend—

But I know how you like to wind people up. Maybe don’t wind him up if you are very alone.

[bouchonne]

[ Ah. By's gaze sharpens. ]

What were the circumstances under which he said all this?

[cozen]

We were talking. I told him I liked that my job didn’t require killing anyone, and he said it sounded boring.

[ He moves his finger to play with the shell of By’s ear. ]

It is probably fine. He lost his temper with Madame Baudin before, did you hear that? She is still alive. And it’s a war, and we need people who can do this, and it probably isn’t fair of me to want other people to do the dirty work and also want them to hate doing it.

[bouchonne]

Hm.

[ His brows draw down, and his lips press into a troubled line. He lifts his chin slightly off of Bastien's leg, posture turning more guarded and pensive. ]

Does he have any sort of magic, do you know? It seems he's close with some of the mages, which - [ Isn't great in and of itself. ]

[cozen]

He says he is a vampire. But it isn’t like the stories.

[ Stories that might be true, in places darker and wilder than Bastien frequents, about people possessed by hunger demons. ]

He said they bite to make more of themselves, and they are very beautiful and they lure people in and then—you know.

[ This all sounds very dire. Bastien pulls his hand away, freeing Byerly to sit up properly and be serious, while he leans back on his hands on the desk and says, ]

I don’t want you yanking on his tail, that’s all.

[bouchonne]

[ By does take a moment away from the seriousness to smile drolly at Bastien and say, innocently: ]

Me?

[cozen]

[ Bastien smiles fondly back. ]

You, monsieur le provocateur.

[ He might be worried about drawing By a map to somewhere he could potentially outsource his self-destruction, should a dark enough mood take hold of him, if there weren’t so many more obvious options to choose from already. ]

I like you with exactly as many holes as you have right now. No more.

[bouchonne]

I'll keep it to my current seventeen. You have my oath.

[ A kindly pinch to Bastien's side. And it's true enough: if By is in a truly dark place, being wrecked by Astarion wouldn't be nearly poetic enough for him. A Rifter? Hardly any drama in that at all. ]

That's not a very Bardly attitude, though, is it?

[cozen]

[ Bastien sways into the pinch instead of away from it, grin at seventeen still lingering. ]

Which part? Not wanting you to provoke him?