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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[coquettish_trees]

Only if we may stay in and have it in bed. I am too exhausted to be beautiful.

[ The idea of launching into her morning preparation is indeed distinctly unappealing, so it's both true and fishing for compliments.

(Bastien's not seen her unready before. It's a rather large show of trust, but then... she has been trying to build a purposeful welcome bit by bit.)

Assuming Byerly will agree, she stretches again— more luxuriously this time— and then slides from the delightful warmth to fetch a dressing gown with a little squeak as the winter air touches her bareness. ]

[bouchonne]

As am I.

[ Best not to underestimate the care Byerly takes to present a very deliberate face to the world as well. The weight of expectation on him might be lower, to be sure, but that doesn't mean he doesn't also take advantage of cosmetics to make himself comely.

So he fishes out his crystal. ]

Bastien, my dear -

[cozen]

[ There's a considerable pause, equal to the length of time it takes Bastien to snap out of his lost-in-throught staring into the fireplace (over which he is also slow-roasting his toes), and notice his crystal glowing on the bedside table, and skip his poor bare feet across the stone floor to retrieve it.

But after that: ]

Byerly, mon cher la lève-tôt.

[ He's aiming for perky morning person with a touch of archness on the domestic endearment, but the effect is dampened somewhat by his morning-gunky, first-words-of-the-day hoarseness. ]

[bouchonne]

I might be coming in for the night. You can't be certain.

[ It is possible, with him. ]

My handsome lad, would you join us in breaking our fast? This is a dreadful question, because it would involve you coming here and also stopping by the kitchens on the way to bring the breakfast with you. But I'll be extra charming to make up for it.

[cozen]

[ It's a kind of trust, that Bastien's hesitation while ehe decides whether that is something he's willing to do is left bare. If his guard were further up he'd hide it behind a joke, or knock something over so he could hiss about it, or begin a syllable and then have a cough.

Instead it's just a silence. But not a long one. ]

Triple charm, or I throw the breakfast out the window.

Any particular requests?

[bouchonne]

A kiss?

[ He sneaks a glance over at Lexie, just checking to make sure that she doesn't bristle or - worse - flinch at that flirtation. But he heard that hesitation. By wants to provide some warmth. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie, now plush and warm in the quilted white velvet of her winter robe, is halfway through braiding her hair over her shoulder.

It’s neither a bristle nor a flinch. It is simply that she continues on as if she’d heard nothing at all. Which, of course, she had, because: ]

And cake.

[ It is a friendly chime, although she doesn’t look over.

See? says the “and”, kisses are fine. (And see? says the way she watches her hands in the mirror, I am trying.) ]

[bouchonne]

And cake.

[ He repeats that into the crystal, and strains to hear Bastien's reaction on the other end. ]

[cozen]

[ The response is a laugh. All air, all through his nose, but still a laugh. That’s a good start toward triple charm, from both of them. ]

All right.

[ All right; he will shake off the clingy ghostly hands of his bad dreams, and get dressed, and find cake, and come upstairs, and knuckle through the way he feels like a guest—better than an intruder, but not within his rights to help himself to the larder or put his feet on the furniture—whenever he enters a space Alexandrie and Byerly are already together in, because they are very charming and he is feeling unsettled and he would like to see them. ]

I will be there in a little while.

[coquettish_trees]

[ The braid is finished, slowly and carefully, while Alexandrie thinks in the quiet after Bastien's voice is gone. The curl of her hair will hold it together enough for her to find the old-new ribbon Byerly had given her and make it fast.

She is always ready enough to introduce the thought. To suggest or encourage or otherwise make known that Bastien is welcome, rather than accepted or endured. That she knows he is loved, and wanted, and sometimes needed, and this is fine. As an abstract idea it is fine, and then when it shares the space with her suddenly it is not, no matter how firmly she tells herself it is. Suddenly it is an uneasy fearful thing; every stitch of intimacy between the two men is made with thread pulled from her cloth and she is alone again, always half a moment away from being, of a sudden, discarded.

It is still the same. Made a little duller by the years, but still the very same. The little voice wild with terror that shrieks Run! Run before it happens! It will kill you if it comes from him.

And what had he done? What had Byerly ever done to warrant her fear? Nothing. Nothing, and still the moment he turns away for a second there is the voice with Now, it is now, we were right. We have always been right.

She ties the ribbon into a careful little bow, and sits on the edge of the bed, and when she speaks it is soft but clear. ]

Loving you makes me fearful. You have never given me reason, but I have always been afraid.

[ She looks over her shoulder at him with a sad little smile. ]

I am sorry for it.

[bouchonne]

[ In the silence, he'd laid himself back down in bed, and closed his eyes to mere slits, and watched her as though asleep as she tended to her curls. He hadn't been able to suppress his thoughts, either. And his thoughts had trended in the same direction. He'd thought of his vision of himself if he'd never come to Riftwatch: impossibly careless with her and with Bastien both. Utterly indifferent to their needs, to their desires - perfectly willing to throw them both to the dogs. And for nothing more than duty.

And his dream of the future - perhaps that was a bit less harsh, in truth. But it was the same thing there, was it not? He remembers - Lexie come down from the north, Bastien improbably returned from death, and what does he do? He goes off on some mission. He leaves them behind.

Is that what he's like? Is he so rough to them? So indifferent?

When she comes, he half expects condemnation from her. That apology is a surprise. He takes a moment to even comprehend what she's apologizing for before opening his eyes fully and saying, with practical bluntness - ]

I hardly think a close association with Rolant counted as nothing.

[coquettish_trees]

[ A little shoulder lift is the response. ]

For then, perhaps, although I knew well enough how he treated you. I believed you hated him as much as I, had only borne him for the sake of necessity. I was not thinking of that, when I fled.

[ She turns, pulling her legs up so she can sit and face him. ]

And what of now? Sometimes I cannot even hear you banter charmingly upon the crystal without feeling of a sudden as if it means I am— [ Am what? ] —unnecessary. That it should do you little injury, were I gone.

And that now you have him, it should do you none at all.

[bouchonne]

Ah.

[ Now, that unnerves him. His brows draw down, and his hands pull back - not quite a flinch, but close to one. ]

It - You did intend for me to invite him. Didn't you? Did I - ? [ Misunderstand? ]

[coquettish_trees]

I did. [ It comes quickly. ] I do intend it, always. I like him, and he cares for you in a way I trust, and you make one another happy, and I should be miserable if you should ever think to limit yourself on my account.

[ She looks miserable now. ]

I do not know what is wrong with me, that you could say you love me a thousand times and we could wake like this a thousand days and I should fear as if I only understand the moments you look away.

[bouchonne]

But I -

[ He feels as though he's in a skiff at high winds and waves. Not out of control, but bordering on it. ]

But you have Loki. I should think that it is - What is different about my relationship with Bastien?

[coquettish_trees]

[ Her eyes cut away at that, finding out where the gold and emerald of her ring sits on her side table waiting patiently to return to her hand.

Alexandrie is waiting patiently for a return too.

The difference is that Bastien is here and when I do not share your bed I sleep with memory.

But even with Loki months gone she has no fear she is unloved, has been forgotten. How can her heart feel so secure in one pair of hands and so brittle in another?

She shakes her head a little. ]

I do not know. Nothing. It is not about Bastien. I do not know what it is about.

[ How long does it take to go to the kitchens? She shouldn’t have said anything at all, but the idea of dissembling was unconscionable. ]

Tell me I am beautiful and that you miss me when I am gone and that cake is a fine breakfast and then I will smile again and be in good humour and later I will... try to learn what it is that is broken in me.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly, so accustomed to recognizing and manipulating others' feelings when the work calls for it, really is at a loss when it comes to real feelings. He's sitting up in bed now, back slightly hunched. It's all - so difficult, because - it's Bastien, he thinks, who allows him to be with her. She's so bloody dangerous and intense that Bastien's ease provides an opportunity to settle back down again. And her attentions are divided, he knows - she was the first one with divided attentions - and so having Bastien makes him feel like there's someone who won't wander away from him. And -

Well, it was like in that dream, wasn't it? When it was the two of them, when Bastien was an indifferent outsider, they tore at each other. He was careless and miserable; she was spiteful; they drove each other on to greater and greater cruelty. If Bastien had been present and kind as he is in truth, then there'd have been none of that. He'd have defused everything between them.

And it was like in the other dream, as well: she'd always return to the north, and leave him behind. ]

Do I not pay you enough attention?

[coquettish_trees]

[ Now she rustles nervously, unhappily. ]

Why will you not let me say I do not know. I do not want to be on my feet pacing, or frowning, or any such thing when Bastien arrives because then he will think that it is him when it is not. If I knew what it was that makes me need to be reassured constantly that I am—

[ Ah. She looks down, silent for a moment as she fidgets with the cloth of the robe, and then begins softly again. ]

Why did you make me fight so hard, for so long? I was desperate for you to love me, begged of you to love me, and now... perhaps I am afraid you have only acquiesced.

You and Bastien found each other and grew something new and precious together and I am a jagged remnant— I— did you not want— [ finally she looks up, and when she continues it is small and plaintive. ] Why would you not fight for me?

[cozen]

[ There is a polite warning knock first, but no wait for an answer before the door opens.

This is mainly because Bastien has spent the eight flights of stairs preparing himself not to be shy about this. He's invited—not only delivering breakfast to his noble lover and noble lover's noble lover, promise the three sets of cups and silver on the tray—and there's no reason for them to have felt obliged.

It's also a little because he successfully balanced the heavy tray aloft on one hand before he knocked, and he wants to sweep through the door and show off. ]

If you happen to talk to anyone from the kitchen, it is my birthday today,

[ is how he came into the cake. It's accompanied by heaps of the dining hall's standard breakfast fare, all hidden under cloches for warmth. He's entering shoulder-first, and it isn't until the door has been shut behind him with his foot that he pivots to look at their faces. ]

[bouchonne]

[ Shit. ]

Ah.

[ Byerly's face looks a little guilty. Like he's been caught doing something naughty - or, more than that, even, because By usually has no self-consciousness whatsoever about naughtiness. So - what does he say? He can't ignore Bastien - Maker, no - to answer Lexie's question. But if he doesn't answer, Lexie will think he's dodging the question. Which, to be altogether fair, he is - because he has no good answer to it whatsoever. So in a way, this interruption is also beyond welcome.

He wants to stay silent and let Lexie handle the situation. No doubt she'll have the perfect, poised welcome for Bastien. But he knows in his heart that that is not the right thing to do: Bastien is his, and he's responsible in some way for mediating the two of them. Even if he'd really prefer that they both just take care of everything and let him simply lay back and enjoy them, he is responsible.

And so he blurts, the joke strained - ]

Happy birthday.

[ And then, even more strained, he says - ]

We're having a bit of a go of it because I think we were both driven mad by bad dreams.

[coquettish_trees]

[ That's not why.

Or... it's only part of why. It's enough of why that Alexandrie will let it be why. They are both exhausted.

Now that she'd found the edge of this particular hurt, knows where its border lies, she doesn't look agitated anymore; just tired. Particularly so because she is fresh-faced, with none of her usual applied cosmetic artistry. Even so she smiles for Bastien and the cake, and sings for him. ]

Bon anniversaire, nos vœux les plus sincères—

[ It is simple, unornamented, and sounds like she just woke up and her vocal warm-up was having a go of it, but it's a song all the same. ]

I will cut it, you ought not do too much hard labour on your birthday.

[cozen]

[ Bastien’s jaunty show-off smile slides into something more subdued, but it doesn’t disappear.

This isn’t what he expected, go-having or not. Alexandrie’s bare face and dressing gown, Byerly’s bare chest above the blankets of the bed he is still thoroughly in. It’s not bad—Bastien’s occasional shyness isn’t prudish, his bouts of jealous nerves never the sort that involve possessive hackle-rising over the thought of anyone seeing anyone else naked. It’s only different. A softer song than he’d been in position for.

And they’ve been having a go.

But he keeps smiling, in a more thoughtful way, and even does a little shoulder shimmy for Alexandrie’s song. ]

Oh, yes, my poor broken back.

[ He still has the tray lofted above his shoulder. He looks around for a table that might be dragged closer, but seeing nothing convenient, slides the tray down onto the bed before her.

He considers offering to leave and come back later, and he doesn’t decide he won’t. Only that he won’t yet. ]

My dreams were strange, too. Maybe someone broke something cursed in the basement again.

[bouchonne]

Maybe.

[ Because it wasn't really glibness that led him to say they're fighting over dreams. He's beginning to suspect that they had the same dream. That plea of Lexie's felt like it came from a place of - of miserably telling a man you loved him, that you betrayed him because you loved him. ]

One in which we were all horrible to one another, and one in which we were all merely miserable?

[coquettish_trees]

[ The very moment the tray slid onto the bed Alexandrie had begun lifting cloches, sorting through the selection with a look of dogged determination.

She stops, one of the domed lids still raised in her hand, and looks at Byerly sharply when he mentions he'd had two, all three of them in both. The look quickly transfers to Bastien as she awaits his answer. ]

[cozen]

[ Bastien tilts his head at Byerly in surprise, and his eyes swivel to Alexandrie before he says, slowly, ]

Yes.

[ The same themes? The same dreams? He hopes not. When he was freshly woken and staring into the fire, he spent a moment feeling sorry for himself about a dream where he was nothing to Byerly and to Alexandrie, watching them carry on their wretched drama like he wasn’t there. Then he moved on to feeling other things, like worried about having to live in a swamp if the war doesn’t end soon.

But if they saw something similar, they were nothing to him, too, and he has much more to be sorry for than his own feelings.

He shrugs, though, in a hopeful sort of way. ]

Or, well—I had one where we were horrible to each other, and one where I made a dramatic return from the dead and a lot of people were very happy to see me. That wasn’t so bad.

[ Joking. Of course it was miserable. ]