[ He won't let that go, not entirely. He shouldn't argue; he should accept it, and say, that's all right, I don't care, you're here now, what does it matter, put your bag anywhere. But he can't quite release that desire to chase down any tiny trace, any hint that Bastien's love is imperiled. That there are conditions on it. Not even because he wants them to be there, but because he needs to seek out all danger.
So his finger traces across his desk, and he says, ]
A fellow doesn't go silent for a week if he isn't cross.
[ Sulking. Being stubborn. Various synonyms for cross. Bastien doesn't choose any of them, partly because Byerly is right, and partly because he's wrestling out of a doublet. ]
—I was. And then you weren't talking to me, either, and I was trying to be more stubborn so you'd let me have my way, because I—
[ He likes some authority, like he said. That's as far as he was able to think it through. Even if he tried, he couldn't explain that he wanted some control over the situation, some sense of ownership to help erase how much he felt like a trespasser the last time he came in here, and inadvertently made probably the only demand in the world that By wouldn't agree to. ]
Well, clearly that failed. And you're right. And I'm sorry.
[ Once various layers of clothing and his shoes are piled neatly on the chair, his presence occupying as little space as possible, he's left in the various inner layers he'd wear to bed. He has half an impulse to go directly there and continue his fit from beneath blankets. But he remembers quite clearly which side of the bed By was on, before, and what is he supposed to do? Take Alexandrie's side? Take By's? Both feel untenable.
He does back to the doorway instead, to stand there in his off-white shirt and hosiery. ]
[ Byerly understands, suddenly, that impulse - tell me you're angry. Because all of this, I'm sorry, I failed, it was my choice and you're right, all of it is so - frustrating. Byerly wants, in some obscure way, to feel the sting of guilt. He wants to have been the rotten one, and he wants Bastien to look at him with disgust, because that feels comforting. To have been the person wronged and to have someone apologizing to him, it's...
He doesn't like it. He brings his hands up to cover his arms in an unconscious little flinch. ]
I should have let you have your way. It was stupid of me.
[ But...He shouldn't have. It's his right to not want to make compromises. It's his right to say no. He wants to go to Bastien and wrap his sleepwear-clad form in a great hug. He wants Bastien to punch him. ]
[ Bastien's frown is somewhat less irritated than before, but no less frowny. His eyes don't flick down to Byerly's self-protecting arm fold, but it's noticed. The few feet of distance between them is awful, but Bastien stays in the doorway—worried, maybe, on some level, that if he lets himself escape from the discomfort of the bedroom before he's fully faced it, he won't be willing to go back in. ]
You were being reasonable. You're allowed to have lines, Byerly. You should have them. Even with me. Especially when it's your room, and your bed. And someday there will be a room that's ours, and bed that's ours, but you can't let me run all over you then, either. It's not like I'm afraid of her or she makes me sneeze. I know you would work with me if it were something like that. But when it's only...
[ He wiggles his shoulders half-heartedly in a way that's meant to suggest frou-frou. ]
You get to have the dogs on the bed. All four of them. And I get to say that if there are fur rugs, they can't have faces. If we stay somewhere where the rug has a face we have to roll it up and put it away. They creep me out.
[ It's an attempt at levity. (And the truth.) Over the course of the speech, he's transitioned from imperious, bossy irritation to something more subdued and watchful. Maybe arguably, in a nearly-forty-year-old-man-with-a-mustache way, pouty. ]
You were angry. You ought to have been. And you're—what are you worried about?
[ He puts his hands down and repositions himself in something approaching insouciance. Yet there's still a stiffness to it. The difference, of course, between a Bard and a normal spy - Byerly can't fully control himself, not like Bastien can, not to a practiced eye.
And so the struggle that follows is visible - in the set of his mouth, in the brush of his fingers on his desk, in the downward slant of his gaze. But the struggle results in this, more truthful: ]
I simply hope that it is not fragile. What's between us. If loosening one's protection on it might lead us to...
[ To fight. To go silent. How could it last, outside of the flush of infatuation, if something like sleeping arrangements can imperil it so horribly? They'd been cold with each other for a week. Over this. Has he been staking all his hopes for happiness on something breakable? ]
[ The last little hardened bit of wall Bastien has up promptly crumbles. The shake of his head is immediate and earnest, and he gives up on forcibly acclimating to the bedroom after all, to step out and come closer and slide his hand up By’s neck and into his hair. ]
Ils mêleront nos cendres.
[ Orlesian because what he’s quoting is in Orlesian—a cliche from overwrought, twistingly dramatic romances bearing no real resemblance to theirs, except for the ashes part. ]
We’re going to argue—we have to be able to argue—but I won’t do it like that again. I promise.
[ For the very first time, as someone quite attached to his space and privacy and being able to accumulate piles of books without apologizing, Bastien feels a significant pang of envy for the couples (and throuple) sharing rooms the Gallows, who might go to bed angry but do it together. Who’d have to put real effort into not seeing one another instead of it being a thing that can happen almost naturally.
But the fact that Alexandrie could come back any month now keeps him from making an impulsive proposal. That and the fact that he’s probably the least impulsive person in the Gallows. ]
[ He raises his eyes to meet Bastien's - his lovely eyes, full of visible anguish, fixed so desperately on him. There's no anger in them now, just grief and fear. He lifts his own hand to grip Bastien's wrist - firmly, with love, with heartbreak. ]
I -
[ He swallows. ]
I do want to be easy for you. I know that I am frequently not easy, and - Ah, it's - [ A grimace. ] It's different, isn't it, when we're struggling with other sorts of things. [ Questions of guilt, questions of grief, where they both know which answer is right. Where they're not fighting each other; they're fighting their weakness. And of the other sorts of arguments they've had - The other sorts of arguments were ones where Byerly was certainly in the wrong, and that, too, was different, and easier. For some reason. Maybe because Bastien is more forgiving, kinder, better, or...He doesn't know. Maybe because it feels so much easier to simply give in and surrender. ]
[ Bastien nods. He feels an urge to break eye contact, because it’s nearly too much—the shame at having caused all this pain over something so silly, the realization of how thoroughly he could ruin the man, the responsibility to never ever do that. But he doesn’t look away. He brushes his thumb over By’s cheek, and he says, first of all, ]
You are easy in the ways I need you to be easy.
[ He chances a little smile. Not too lighthearted, certainly not flippant, but encouraging: it’s going to be alright. ]
I knew I was wrong, and I knew I’d been a bastard, but I didn’t doubt for a second that you would still want me here.
[ Thus the bag. Bastien wouldn’t have risked being turned away. Not with his toothbrush in hand. Too humiliating. ]
And since you first said it, you’ve never let me wonder for a moment if you loved me. I always know you do. That is all the easy I need from you. Okay?
[ Another nod. Bastien doesn’t want that either; he knows he would snap eventually. Fortunately— ]
I don’t. Or, I won’t. It was the silence that was the problem, wasn’t it? If we’d only kept bickering about it, we would have settled it within the hour.
[ Byerly does wrap an arm around him, and then decides - ]
Come on, this is -
[ And grasps his wrist to tug him into the bedroom after all. One thing to recommend this room is that Byerly gets a few perks of his position, one of which is a Fereldan-style rabbit fur blanket (no faces on any of the pelts). Not really a necessity up here in the temperate Free Marches, but just because something isn't needed doesn't mean it isn't nice. He pats the side of the bed, an invitation to sit down on it so By can swaddle them in the warmth. ]
[ Said with the slow caution of a fellow who’s searching his own insides (with some difficulty; it’s dark in there) to be sure he’s being honest. ]
I’ve always been particular about. About beds. But I think mostly I wanted to be bossy about something.
[ Being led into the bedroom is better than marching it alone. He sits; he can sit here. By provides a blanket; he can use the blankets. The uptight and uncomfortable clench in his chest relaxes by degrees as the list of things he can do without worrying he’s overstepping gets that little bit longer. ]
And it was the worst thing to be bossy about, because you love her, and I love her, and we both know she is the boss. Even if you had gone along with it I don’t know if I would have been able to tell her she wasn’t allowed.
[ Bastien winds both arms around By's middle, presses his cheek into his shoulder, and lets a belated shiver escape, the way people do when they walk in from the cold and stop bracing against it and clenching their teeth. Warm, but finally relaxing. ]
You know.
[ He has little reason to know. ]
I'd never really slept in one until I was living with the bards. I mean, every now and then— [ a handful of anecdotes for another time, maybe ] –but at home we had kind of a nest, for all the children, and when I wasn't home it was—wherever. So once I did have one, I was—they had to tell me to stop having the linens washed so often, just because I could.
My parents would have had conniptions if there was ever an animal in their bed. Or in the room at all. My sister sort of had a cat for a little while, outside, but it just wasn't something we did. [ He squashes his cheek in a little harder. ] So in a way you are saving me from becoming my father.
[ Byerly listens a moment - a little puzzled, but listening. He tries to imagine kind of a nest for all the children - what would it be? Blankets on the ground? Everyone tangled together, bumping their heads against one another? He can't decide whether it sounds cozy or stifling - but with the way Bastien is talking, the way he seems to have prized his change in his life station, probably more the latter than the former.
It is odd, running into these little seams where genteel poverty looks so very different from the more honest sort. For Byerly, growing up, a creature providing warmth - well, that would be the pleasure, because no one was putting embers in any bed-warmers. ]
[ Bastien smiles; if it isn’t visible, By can probably still feel it against his shoulder. ]
It’s the best.
[ The same dreamy tone he has applied, most recently, to trying to describe a perfect cinnamon bun he had when he was a teenager, which has never been matched since.
[ Bastien hums. He is not sure he understands, himself. But he tries: ]
I don’t know. I’ve shared a bed with men before.
[ He pulls his cheek away from By’s shoulder to look at him, face a pantomime of someone trying to inspire jealousy. ]
A lot of men. I mean, so many.
[ As if By hasn’t shared with more. ]
But never a dog. Maybe it was reflexive, or—I don’t know. Orlesian snottiness. Kaitenese snottiness? Maybe it was cultural, for my parents. Maybe no one there allows animals in their houses. I don’t know.
[ You never invited me, would be the petty response, if Bastien wanted to try to squirm out of this intimate, cuddly honesty by being combative again, but he knows full well that it would be a technicality. He'd made it so clear he didn't want to be here that asking him to outright would have been begging for rejection or hurtfully transparent excuses. He's glad By didn't.
So instead he sighs. ]
That was—I know you hate this, you don't want us to do this, but it feels like it is hers. Hers and yours. Votre. [ Orlesian is better for some things. ] I need to get over it, because it might be a while before she comes back. And maybe a dragon will attack us tomorrow morning, and I will over there and you will be over here with—with all these people who would not protect you like we would, [ is the kindest way to put Bastien's distrust of the other division heads when it comes to Byerly's safety, ] and I will be so upset you were alone.
But I have been worried that when she comes back, it will be, you know. A whole thing.
[ Also the kindest way he can put that. ]
It's alright, though. Even if it is a thing. That's why I'm here now—to get over it.
[ Paradoxically, there's the slightest relaxation when Bastien broaches that painful topic. One would expect tensing up, but - Well, she's already been in the air, hasn't she? Byerly has been thinking of her as well, obviously enough. ]
If she comes back.
[ A soft sort of correction. Not as miserable as it might have been, but not happy about it, either. Then a breath in, and he says - without aggression, as simply as he can - ]
It was not her bed. It was mine. She was just invited to share it, as I was invited to share hers - as a visitor, nothing more.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ He won't let that go, not entirely. He shouldn't argue; he should accept it, and say, that's all right, I don't care, you're here now, what does it matter, put your bag anywhere. But he can't quite release that desire to chase down any tiny trace, any hint that Bastien's love is imperiled. That there are conditions on it. Not even because he wants them to be there, but because he needs to seek out all danger.
So his finger traces across his desk, and he says, ]
A fellow doesn't go silent for a week if he isn't cross.
no subject
[ Sulking. Being stubborn. Various synonyms for cross. Bastien doesn't choose any of them, partly because Byerly is right, and partly because he's wrestling out of a doublet. ]
—I was. And then you weren't talking to me, either, and I was trying to be more stubborn so you'd let me have my way, because I—
[ He likes some authority, like he said. That's as far as he was able to think it through. Even if he tried, he couldn't explain that he wanted some control over the situation, some sense of ownership to help erase how much he felt like a trespasser the last time he came in here, and inadvertently made probably the only demand in the world that By wouldn't agree to. ]
Well, clearly that failed. And you're right. And I'm sorry.
[ Once various layers of clothing and his shoes are piled neatly on the chair, his presence occupying as little space as possible, he's left in the various inner layers he'd wear to bed. He has half an impulse to go directly there and continue his fit from beneath blankets. But he remembers quite clearly which side of the bed By was on, before, and what is he supposed to do? Take Alexandrie's side? Take By's? Both feel untenable.
He does back to the doorway instead, to stand there in his off-white shirt and hosiery. ]
I'm sure she's a fantastic foot warmer.
no subject
He doesn't like it. He brings his hands up to cover his arms in an unconscious little flinch. ]
I should have let you have your way. It was stupid of me.
[ But...He shouldn't have. It's his right to not want to make compromises. It's his right to say no. He wants to go to Bastien and wrap his sleepwear-clad form in a great hug. He wants Bastien to punch him. ]
I was being difficult.
no subject
[ Bastien's frown is somewhat less irritated than before, but no less frowny. His eyes don't flick down to Byerly's self-protecting arm fold, but it's noticed. The few feet of distance between them is awful, but Bastien stays in the doorway—worried, maybe, on some level, that if he lets himself escape from the discomfort of the bedroom before he's fully faced it, he won't be willing to go back in. ]
You were being reasonable. You're allowed to have lines, Byerly. You should have them. Even with me. Especially when it's your room, and your bed. And someday there will be a room that's ours, and bed that's ours, but you can't let me run all over you then, either. It's not like I'm afraid of her or she makes me sneeze. I know you would work with me if it were something like that. But when it's only...
[ He wiggles his shoulders half-heartedly in a way that's meant to suggest frou-frou. ]
You get to have the dogs on the bed. All four of them. And I get to say that if there are fur rugs, they can't have faces. If we stay somewhere where the rug has a face we have to roll it up and put it away. They creep me out.
[ It's an attempt at levity. (And the truth.) Over the course of the speech, he's transitioned from imperious, bossy irritation to something more subdued and watchful. Maybe arguably, in a nearly-forty-year-old-man-with-a-mustache way, pouty. ]
You were angry. You ought to have been. And you're—what are you worried about?
no subject
[ He puts his hands down and repositions himself in something approaching insouciance. Yet there's still a stiffness to it. The difference, of course, between a Bard and a normal spy - Byerly can't fully control himself, not like Bastien can, not to a practiced eye.
And so the struggle that follows is visible - in the set of his mouth, in the brush of his fingers on his desk, in the downward slant of his gaze. But the struggle results in this, more truthful: ]
I simply hope that it is not fragile. What's between us. If loosening one's protection on it might lead us to...
[ To fight. To go silent. How could it last, outside of the flush of infatuation, if something like sleeping arrangements can imperil it so horribly? They'd been cold with each other for a week. Over this. Has he been staking all his hopes for happiness on something breakable? ]
no subject
Ils mêleront nos cendres.
[ Orlesian because what he’s quoting is in Orlesian—a cliche from overwrought, twistingly dramatic romances bearing no real resemblance to theirs, except for the ashes part. ]
We’re going to argue—we have to be able to argue—but I won’t do it like that again. I promise.
[ For the very first time, as someone quite attached to his space and privacy and being able to accumulate piles of books without apologizing, Bastien feels a significant pang of envy for the couples (and throuple) sharing rooms the Gallows, who might go to bed angry but do it together. Who’d have to put real effort into not seeing one another instead of it being a thing that can happen almost naturally.
But the fact that Alexandrie could come back any month now keeps him from making an impulsive proposal. That and the fact that he’s probably the least impulsive person in the Gallows. ]
no subject
I -
[ He swallows. ]
I do want to be easy for you. I know that I am frequently not easy, and - Ah, it's - [ A grimace. ] It's different, isn't it, when we're struggling with other sorts of things. [ Questions of guilt, questions of grief, where they both know which answer is right. Where they're not fighting each other; they're fighting their weakness. And of the other sorts of arguments they've had - The other sorts of arguments were ones where Byerly was certainly in the wrong, and that, too, was different, and easier. For some reason. Maybe because Bastien is more forgiving, kinder, better, or...He doesn't know. Maybe because it feels so much easier to simply give in and surrender. ]
no subject
You are easy in the ways I need you to be easy.
[ He chances a little smile. Not too lighthearted, certainly not flippant, but encouraging: it’s going to be alright. ]
I knew I was wrong, and I knew I’d been a bastard, but I didn’t doubt for a second that you would still want me here.
[ Thus the bag. Bastien wouldn’t have risked being turned away. Not with his toothbrush in hand. Too humiliating. ]
And since you first said it, you’ve never let me wonder for a moment if you loved me. I always know you do. That is all the easy I need from you. Okay?
no subject
[ Byerly is the one who looks down, now. ]
It’s dreadfully stupid on my part. I’m moody all the time - you should have the freedom to be moody, too.
[ But that’s not as powerful a self-recrimination as he might have given a moment ago. It’s self-conscious rather than miserable. ]
I don’t want you to swallow everything down just because I’m - too bloody sensitive.
no subject
I don’t. Or, I won’t. It was the silence that was the problem, wasn’t it? If we’d only kept bickering about it, we would have settled it within the hour.
no subject
Perhaps. I also didn't really know that you meant it. That also could have gotten in the way.
no subject
It was a silly thing to have meant. And I am hard to read.
no subject
[ Byerly does wrap an arm around him, and then decides - ]
Come on, this is -
[ And grasps his wrist to tug him into the bedroom after all. One thing to recommend this room is that Byerly gets a few perks of his position, one of which is a Fereldan-style rabbit fur blanket (no faces on any of the pelts). Not really a necessity up here in the temperate Free Marches, but just because something isn't needed doesn't mean it isn't nice. He pats the side of the bed, an invitation to sit down on it so By can swaddle them in the warmth. ]
It wasn't silly, though. If you meant it.
no subject
[ Said with the slow caution of a fellow who’s searching his own insides (with some difficulty; it’s dark in there) to be sure he’s being honest. ]
I’ve always been particular about. About beds. But I think mostly I wanted to be bossy about something.
[ Being led into the bedroom is better than marching it alone. He sits; he can sit here. By provides a blanket; he can use the blankets. The uptight and uncomfortable clench in his chest relaxes by degrees as the list of things he can do without worrying he’s overstepping gets that little bit longer. ]
And it was the worst thing to be bossy about, because you love her, and I love her, and we both know she is the boss. Even if you had gone along with it I don’t know if I would have been able to tell her she wasn’t allowed.
no subject
Particular about beds?
no subject
You know.
[ He has little reason to know. ]
I'd never really slept in one until I was living with the bards. I mean, every now and then— [ a handful of anecdotes for another time, maybe ] –but at home we had kind of a nest, for all the children, and when I wasn't home it was—wherever. So once I did have one, I was—they had to tell me to stop having the linens washed so often, just because I could.
My parents would have had conniptions if there was ever an animal in their bed. Or in the room at all. My sister sort of had a cat for a little while, outside, but it just wasn't something we did. [ He squashes his cheek in a little harder. ] So in a way you are saving me from becoming my father.
no subject
It is odd, running into these little seams where genteel poverty looks so very different from the more honest sort. For Byerly, growing up, a creature providing warmth - well, that would be the pleasure, because no one was putting embers in any bed-warmers. ]
But it's all right when I sleep over with you?
no subject
It’s the best.
[ The same dreamy tone he has applied, most recently, to trying to describe a perfect cinnamon bun he had when he was a teenager, which has never been matched since.
no subject
Even when I pile more blankets on, or put my cold feet on you?
no subject
[ He gives a little pinch where his hand is resting on against Byerly’s side, affectionately. ]
Are you trying to make a point at me?
no subject
No. Just trying to understand.
no subject
I don’t know. I’ve shared a bed with men before.
[ He pulls his cheek away from By’s shoulder to look at him, face a pantomime of someone trying to inspire jealousy. ]
A lot of men. I mean, so many.
[ As if By hasn’t shared with more. ]
But never a dog. Maybe it was reflexive, or—I don’t know. Orlesian snottiness. Kaitenese snottiness? Maybe it was cultural, for my parents. Maybe no one there allows animals in their houses. I don’t know.
no subject
It isn’t just Whiskey, though. You weren’t rushing to my bed even before this quarrel.
no subject
So instead he sighs. ]
That was—I know you hate this, you don't want us to do this, but it feels like it is hers. Hers and yours. Votre. [ Orlesian is better for some things. ] I need to get over it, because it might be a while before she comes back. And maybe a dragon will attack us tomorrow morning, and I will over there and you will be over here with—with all these people who would not protect you like we would, [ is the kindest way to put Bastien's distrust of the other division heads when it comes to Byerly's safety, ] and I will be so upset you were alone.
But I have been worried that when she comes back, it will be, you know. A whole thing.
[ Also the kindest way he can put that. ]
It's alright, though. Even if it is a thing. That's why I'm here now—to get over it.
no subject
[ Paradoxically, there's the slightest relaxation when Bastien broaches that painful topic. One would expect tensing up, but - Well, she's already been in the air, hasn't she? Byerly has been thinking of her as well, obviously enough. ]
If she comes back.
[ A soft sort of correction. Not as miserable as it might have been, but not happy about it, either. Then a breath in, and he says - without aggression, as simply as he can - ]
It was not her bed. It was mine. She was just invited to share it, as I was invited to share hers - as a visitor, nothing more.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
little nsfw
hey!!! i was fully capable of modestly cutting to black myself
too bad!!
and another torture. you monster
>)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)