[ 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.
[ He snakes his hand out of the blanket cocoon to touch By's face again, fingertips on his pretty bottom lip. ]
I know that's how you've seen it.
[ It's Alexandrie he's unsure of. Perhaps because the both of them are so horribly Orlesian. It's a country where Josephine Montilyet can destroy a marriage by leaving the proper glove on the proper table, and so Bastien couldn't help but look for meaning in the hairbrush on the vanity or the embroidery left in progress on the bedside table, and he couldn't be certain she didn't mean for him to find it.
He pinches By's lip between his fingers. Half of a fish mouth. It makes Bastien smile. ]
I think, [ with some caution—it's only tangentially related, but while the door is ajar and Byerly doesn't seem too miserable about it— ] that she wanted me to be a gift she was giving to you. Something to console you in her absence. But with her permission, and on her terms. You know? Not that that is—I am not in any position to blame someone for wanting the biggest piece of you they can take.
[ If there's a ripple of tension in response to that characterization, it passes quickly - in favor of, for once, actually voicing his dismay. When he does, though, it is cautious - more probing than skeptical. ]
You make it sound like she sees you as a peasant on her estate, with no rights of your own.
[ - Which - is that what Bastien feels? For all that Byerly is Orlesian, for all that he lived multiple years in Val Royeaux, there are elements of the Orlesian mind and the Orlesian culture that have always escaped him. His mind does not naturally observe some of the castes that are so natural to the Orlesians. He can notice them, and reason through them - but for Orlesians, sometimes it seems as though these differences of status are as obvious a way to classify someone as, say, nationality or sex. A Ferelden will not, at a glance, differentiate a gleaner from a gentleman farmer, or even a merchant from a nobleman. But an Orlesian always will know.
But still. Alexandrie had always been cordial, hadn't she? Kind, even? ]
[ A peasant on her estate receives an upward tic of Bastien’s eyebrows that means yes, it does sound like that, doesn’t it, how odd. She likes you receives a smile. ]
I like her, too.
[ It has the tone of a beginning. Something that’s about to be followed by a but.
But. ]
I don’t want to put you in the middle of anything. That’s only—it’s why I have been so ridiculous about everything, I suppose. I am trying to stop.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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
[ He snakes his hand out of the blanket cocoon to touch By's face again, fingertips on his pretty bottom lip. ]
I know that's how you've seen it.
[ It's Alexandrie he's unsure of. Perhaps because the both of them are so horribly Orlesian. It's a country where Josephine Montilyet can destroy a marriage by leaving the proper glove on the proper table, and so Bastien couldn't help but look for meaning in the hairbrush on the vanity or the embroidery left in progress on the bedside table, and he couldn't be certain she didn't mean for him to find it.
He pinches By's lip between his fingers. Half of a fish mouth. It makes Bastien smile. ]
I think, [ with some caution—it's only tangentially related, but while the door is ajar and Byerly doesn't seem too miserable about it— ] that she wanted me to be a gift she was giving to you. Something to console you in her absence. But with her permission, and on her terms. You know? Not that that is—I am not in any position to blame someone for wanting the biggest piece of you they can take.
no subject
You make it sound like she sees you as a peasant on her estate, with no rights of your own.
[ - Which - is that what Bastien feels? For all that Byerly is Orlesian, for all that he lived multiple years in Val Royeaux, there are elements of the Orlesian mind and the Orlesian culture that have always escaped him. His mind does not naturally observe some of the castes that are so natural to the Orlesians. He can notice them, and reason through them - but for Orlesians, sometimes it seems as though these differences of status are as obvious a way to classify someone as, say, nationality or sex. A Ferelden will not, at a glance, differentiate a gleaner from a gentleman farmer, or even a merchant from a nobleman. But an Orlesian always will know.
But still. Alexandrie had always been cordial, hadn't she? Kind, even? ]
She likes you. I know that she does.
no subject
I like her, too.
[ It has the tone of a beginning. Something that’s about to be followed by a but.
But. ]
I don’t want to put you in the middle of anything. That’s only—it’s why I have been so ridiculous about everything, I suppose. I am trying to stop.
no subject
I don't think you can put me in the middle of my own affaires de coeur, my love.
(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)