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]

[ Alexandrie is quiet too, save for the soft sound of distress she makes when Byerly turns away.

See? Leaving. You are right. Does not want you.

Perhaps if she'd known what Bastien had said before— if he had said it, if Byerly had— but now it is not enough to fill the yawning silence of Byerly's response to the rest. That even when he had told her to say what she needed, and she had, the response was anger. Anger about something she had not even— is that what Bastien meant?

What is he hearing, when she speaks?

She sits down slowly, her back against the door, knees pulled to her chest. How many times will she give him room to drive the stake in a little deeper? One more, it seems. ]

I am not afraid of you. [ Quiet, clear. ] I am afraid you do not want me, and I am afraid I am right because you will not deny it.

[cozen]

[ For a moment, when the silence is broken by Alexandrie addressing Byerly again, Bastien feels small. Because that’s what it always comes around to. Ignored and insignificant in the face of their cymbal-crashing storm of history and feelings.

But there’s no slinking out the door unnoticed now, even if he wanted to, with Alexandrie sitting in front of it. So Bastien shoots another worried look at Byerly, at the curve of his back and turned head. He only narrowly manages to smother the desire to crawl across the bed to straighten him out, since Alexandrie isn’t doing it, but he does manage. Then he steps out of his boot, finally, and crouches to fuss with putting his shoes and his scarf into neat arrangement, for the sake of not just standing there looking as foolish as he feels. ]

[bouchonne]

That's not true.

[ His voice is low and miserable. ]

You said it in the dream, Lexie. That you betrayed me because you were afraid I'd be like him. That I would destroy you.

[ He looks up at her, and his eyes are utterly desolate. ]

The one thing that causes me misery, more than any other, is causing you misery. [ And here, his gaze shifts to Bastien, as well, still awkward and unhappy and tense. ] Either of you. If you cannot feel safe, then - [ Then how could he possibly want to be with her? If he does not bring her happiness, he has no value at all. ]

[coquettish_trees]

What is it you think destroyed me, Byerly.

[ She meets his gaze with her own, helpless and sorrow-weary. ]

It was not his violence. Not the painting. Not the salon. It was that before that, for a year, he sent me letters. A hundred. More. All of them full of ardent declarations of feeling, then of love. Promises to marry me despite my being far below his station, to care for me always. It was that before he did those things, he knelt at my feet and kissed my hand like I awed him. He carried me to bed, touched me with incredible gentleness.

What destroyed me was that I loved him, that I believed with every part of myself that he loved me, and I was nothing to him.

Cruelty is everywhere in Orlais. I could have borne only his cruelty. What I could not bear is the thought that I might love where I thought I was loved, and have it not be so. And so, the moment I loved you...

[ She drops her eyes, picks at the threads in her robe. ]

It— he ruined me. Made it so that any time I feel safe and loved it is a sign that I am neither. Soothing myself into believing that I am, truly believing, is— it is more difficult than anything else I have ever done, and it breaks so easily. I am trying. [ Her eyes raise again, pained and earnest. ] I want so much to not be as I am. To not do this to you. [ to Bastien: ] Or to you.

But this— the three of us— it is new. It is a new affair, and I— I must needs be held as if I am new too, or...

[ She makes a little half-hearted gesture at the room. Or this. ]

[bouchonne]

[ But he shakes his head, still caught up in the thorniness of it. Not that simple desire to be held, but the greater pains. ]

If true villainy was pretending at love when there was none, then all three of us in this room are villains as evil as he. You cannot stand there and tell me his true crime was lying to you, or we are all three damned.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie drops her head and presses her face into her knees. He cannot understand her; the part at the center of everything, and he cannot understand. She looks up, looks like she is fraying at the edges again. ]

He did it for nothing but fun, he not only lied and revealed it but revealed it through public shame and horrors, and I am damned.

[ And her face goes back into her knees. ]

Why must what hurts me make sense to you before you care for it. You tell me to tell you what I need and make me say it and say it and say it and each time I do you fight me instead.

[bouchonne]

[ Why indeed? ]

Because -

[ His voice catches. And he says, roughly: ]

Because I have given you sympathy without guardedness before, Lexie. I am trying, but trust cannot simply appear from the Fade.

[ He shakes his head. His hand fists in the blanket. ]

What you fear from me, you did to me. But I am still here. At least grant me patience.

[coquettish_trees]

No, trust cannot simply appear from the Fade.

[ She nods slowly into her knees. ]

Say that then. Say it is hard, and you are hurt, and you are trying. Do not say you will tend to me if I tell you how when you will not. It makes me mistrust you, and begging to be cared for makes me feel small.

[ A pause, and then ]

Do you want me or not.

[ Another pause. ]

If you do not know, say so.

[bouchonne]

Of course I want you.

[ He grows tenser and tenser with every moment. But he has said it, at least. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ A headshake, now. ]

You cannot say 'of course' if I do not know.

[ She is quiet again, but eventually she will unfold and pad back across the stone floor to climb up and kneel on the bed so she can hold his head to her chest, rest her own atop it, stroke the hair at his temple, and murmur to him. ]

I am sorry. That I did you great harm. That I continue to hurt you. I am trying. I am trying to be a better woman than I was.

[ She angles her head so she can look at Bastien and his truly meticulously arranged scarf and boots. ]

And I am sorry to you, Bastien. I will swear to it that I meant only well by my invitation, but... I did not know. How poorly things were between Byerly and I.

I have ruined breakfast, I think. I shall go and replace it, if the two of you should like something warm.

[cozen]

[ Bastien’s final arrangement involves sliding one rolled-up end of his scarf into one boot and the other into the other so it makes a little bridge between them. In the meantime he’s been watching without watching, mostly pleased for them working their way down to something short of outright catastrophe, like cats out of trees, and a little lonely for himself. At Alexandrie’s apology, he raises his head and smiles, shakes his head: it’s nothing. No need to talk about it.

The offer to fetch more food is what opens his mouth. ]

No, no. I can—

[ He pops up from the ground with honest relief to have something new to occupy himself with. Of course she shouldn’t go out in the cold to fetch more—she’s not nearly dressed enough, to start with—but even if that weren’t a concern, he can’t stand wasting food.

So he swipes the tray off the bed, but only to carry it as far as the fireplace that’s presumably keeping the room tolerable.

The little ash shovel next to the fire poker is too narrow to hold the plates and bowls over the fire, he decides on inspection, but if he flips it and balances carefully, the flat back will do. ]

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly wants to protest Bastien going and tending to their breakfast; it feels, after all, quite uncomfortable, having the two nobles lounging in bed while the commoner fetches and then refreshes their breakfast. But Lexie already lashed out once for - what, for Byerly asking Bastien to join him in bed and giving him the warm spot. And so By knows that if he reaches out and insists that Bastien do nothing of the sort, Lexie will utterly fracture.

Maybe all of this isn't tenable. Maybe he really can't have them both at once. He'd thought - Lexie was so assured that she could have both him and Loki. And he'd thought that the fact that her attentions were split meant that he could split his attentions safely, as well. But maybe that's not the case.

And there is that truth, as well. He can give all of himself to Bastien without fear. Or, well, without much fear - there's always a bit of paranoid chatter in the back of his mind, wondering if perhaps Bastien is just using him, reminding him of what it is that Bards do - but he's largely relaxed with Bastien. But Lexie...It feels dangerous to mouth reassurances with her. Because she has proven herself dangerous. Because the more he allows himself to remember how they were, once, the riskier it feels.

(And always there will be that memory of her saying that she rid herself of him because she thought he'd be like Rolant. That will never leave him.)

Maybe this really won't work.

The thought makes his hands tighten on her. He wants her. But Maker, she tears his soul to ribbons.

He wants to make a joke. What a terrible birthday, he'd crack, to break the tension. But that also doesn't feel especially safe, because again, that's paying Bastien heed in her presence. So he just stays silent. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ She is thinking it too, even as his arms tighten around her and she closes her eyes to better feel it.

My Lexie he had called her, but not his like a lover. His like an old broken home to which he cannot return. Always his, and never.

It is soft, and sad: ]

Do we frighten each other too much to love each other well, my Byerly? Do we hold one another only because we are afraid to let go?

[ Is she the cold forbidding ocean of Ferelden's coast, braved over and over because there is something in him that cannot stop? ]

I love you. I love you so terribly that it makes me wild.

[ It is not like this, in Loki's arms. Even both of them prone to fits of temper, to sweeping dramatics, he quiets her heart. He makes her still. There is nothing of doubt in her, even now. No restlessness, no fear. Perhaps Bastien is the same, for Byerly.

Is it cruel of her, to hold him? She was helpless not to, could not make herself stop, but was it cruel to chase him at all? ]

Can we have this? It will be so much. So hard. We will not be able to paint over the pain of it with laughter and pretend it is not there. It will be speaking with terrible honesty, the slow and careful build of trust, and you do so much already. You work so hard.

[ She strokes his temple still, turns her face to kiss his hair. Patience, he had asked.

A little louder then, to include Bastien: ]

You need say nothing of it now. We may eat twice warmed breakfast and be triple charming— although with twice warmed breakfast perhaps we must be twice that.

But... think upon it. It breaks my heart to hurt you as well, and if that is all I do, if I do not make you happy...

[ She cannot say the rest without falling apart, and so instead it is: ]

I want you to be happy.

[bouchonne]

The first thing -

[ His voice is rough. He clears his throat. ]

Is that you cannot - react like that to how I treat Bastien.

[ Byerly lifts his head to meet Bastien's eyes directly. His expression is concerned. Are you all right? ]

How I feel about each of you - it doesn't interfere with how I feel about the other. [ To Lexie: ] Which is nearly what you said to me about your relationship with Loki. So.

If there is tension between us, he is not the root of it. And I cannot - [ A breath. ] I cannot navigate you doing...that when I actually manage to force out a decently romantic sentiment. It's hard enough to do it as it is.

[ And then, tensely, painfully: ]

I - love you both. All right?

[cozen]

[ Bastien has felt better. Less cold, less uncomfortable, less embarrassed, less minimized, less dreading the prospect of anyone patronizingly forcing themselves to be charming over reheated eggs to humor him. The sole reason he’s holding breakfast over the fire, while they’re entwined on the bed, instead of sneaking out the door to find somewhere less miserable to be is because he hasn’t had a moment to touch Byerly or tell him that he loves him and stupid dreams to the contrary are just that. He can’t leave until he has.

But he turns at his name in time to catch Byerly’s concern, and it’s odd to have someone worry about whether he’s all right. Or, no—it’s odd to have someone worry and for that to make Bastien feel comforted, rather than bothered that his armor cracked. For being defended to make him feel something other than regret that he appeared to need it.

He answers Byerly’s worried look and proclamation with a smile, genuine and surprised and a little confused (at himself, at the solid unfluttery warmth in his chest). ]

I love you, too. [ While he’s been given a chance to say it. And, more cheerfully, before he turns back to the fire: ] That is the only reason I have not thrown the food out the window.

[coquettish_trees]

[ And now she feels—

Judged. Lesser. Thought a poorer love because she cannot be what Bastien is and simply say she loves and make a joke without feeling like she lies because there are still other words she needs to say, more knots to untangle.

For the first time, and knowing it is petty, she resents him. That he can be kind and still and reassuring instead of a storm. That he and Byerly can love simply and warmly and everything hurts her, and that makes her want to leave again but she cannot, and she wants to explain it but she cannot, and that makes her want to scream but she cannot, and she cannot cry, and she cannot even be still because that is too much discomfort expressed.

So what? What else is there to do right now in this moment? ]

And I love you as well.

[ She raises her head, and sinks slowly to sit back against her pillow so that she won't be breaking contact if Byerly does not wish to let her go. To him: ]

I feel as if I cannot speak anymore, that if I do I will be imposing. But I also feel that if I do not speak, I shall either need to go away for a time to collect myself or begin dissembling, and I neither wish to cause you to feel abandoned nor to lie to you.

[ And to Bastien: ]

If I am kind to you now I worry you shall think me patronizing. If I ignore you, I worry you shall think me cold and unwelcoming.

[ She pulls up her knees again, looking a bit lost. ]

And so I do not know what to do at all.

[bouchonne]

[ The slight joke about the food takes some of the tension out of Byerly; the impassioned declaration about her right to speak drives it right back into him. Is it always going to be like this with her? Always so raw and fraught, so that any step feels like it risks dragging one down into the abyss? He cannot dismiss her, or she'll feel abandoned and brokenhearted; he cannot encourage her to just take the time in silence, because she'll feel voiceless. And if she does speak, she's likely going to say something that'll make Byerly just feel even worse.

Well. One of those things is the least bad option, he thinks. ]

Just - have some breakfast. And talk about - something that makes you happy.

[cozen]

[ On his way back with the tray, Bastien considers reassuring her, but he doesn’t. Partly because Byerly is already talking. Partly because Bastien doesn’t quite know what to do, either. If she can wake up beside Byerly, and have Bastien track down cake at breakfast, and be half-dressed and domestic on the bed when he arrives, and have them both take time to try to comfort her, and still consider Byerly’s attempt to be welcoming to him a balance-tipping moment worthy of running barefoot for the door—

He doesn’t know. He’ll figure it out later. In the meantime, his Orlesian(ish) feet are very used to eggshells.

Bastien slides the tray back onto the bed, without flourish, because flourish would make him look like a server at a cafe. Instead he shakes his hands, as if it were heavy, and smiles. ]

The serving plates are hot. Try not to touch them.

[coquettish_trees]

[ Why is she so miserable? Why is kindness making her furious? Why must she be asked to be anything other than what she is in the very moment that she is it?

Alexandrie had strayed from all the exercises Emile had taught her when she'd come. The ones that had made her still, able to breathe again when she could not, let her find and release every single place in her body that her abject misery had clawed into and tensed. All she could think of was that she had used her skills as a Bard to ruin. That her hiding and her lies had only cost.

She'd forgotten that before she had used it to lie, she had used it to live again.

So she closes her eyes, and she breathes her storm away in the old patterns. It's not quite the smooth quick wave through her body it had used to be— if one happened to be a Bard, and one happened to be looking, one might be able to see the individual pieces come together— but at the end of it she is no longer curled into herself, and she has set the bramble of hurt aside. Not locked away. (She thinks of touching it gently to reassure it.) Not forgotten. Just not now.

She picks up a fork again. ]

It makes me happy that I have seen birds taking the hair I put out for them to make their nests with, and that cake is delicious at any temperature at all.

[ The shame in the bramble makes her want to wince when she looks at Bastien, but it is quiet enough off to the side that there is only a small embarrassed smile to accompany the dip of her head she uses in place of curtsies when she is sitting: ]

Thank you.

[bouchonne]

[ And the tension drains away again. He tries not to let it be too dreadfully obvious, but there's an audible little breath that escapes nevertheless. He and Alexandrie are going to have to talk. Clearly. But it seems that they can do it later, when Bastien isn't present. Thank the Maker. ]

I've never tried cake frozen.

[ He forgoes a fork, reaching out to pinch off a piece of it. ]

We could put a slice outside the window and see how it turns out.

[cozen]

[ Bastien smiles and gives a return tip of his head at Alexandrie's thanks, and then—shouldering through the invisible barrier his manners insist exists around them and the bed unless he's explicitly invited, because he was, before, by Alexandrie first and Byerly second, and since Byerly's invitation seemed to the problem he's not going to make him repeat it—sits down on Byerly's other side.

But on the edge, with his feet still on the floor, and not too close. Reaching Byerly's shoulders requires fully extending his arm. The bracing squeeze Bastien gives the back of his neck would look brotherly if not for the two seconds of lingering thumb-stroking, and before he lets go a tap-tap with the finger that signals that nothing is wrong, that everything is all right.

It's barely-conscious habit and not particularly hidden, not an effort to sign-whisper behind Alexandrie's back. He saw her, pulling herself together, and he's not sure whether to be glad or sorry for it. Either way, he doesn't want to give her any additional hurts swallow, if he can avoid it. ]

I think your cake would end up in the birds' curly ginger nests.

[coquettish_trees]

And so the taste of frozen cake shall forever be a mystery to us, and I shall choose to believe it is the finest of all.

Perhaps the second finest, so I am not made too cross by not having had it.

[ Alexandrie reaches for her coffee again, carefully, lest it be too hot now, and sits back such that she can touch her shoulder to Byerly's. ]

Do move over. [ A nudge with that shoulder, pushing him gently toward Bastien. ] I am sure you shall not have noticed this happening, as it was quiet and unobtrusive, but in a passion I stepped all over the cold floor and then sat on it and felt sorry for myself and now I wish your warm spot.

[bouchonne]

I do owe it to you.

[ He moves over easily enough. And this is...very nice, in a supremely self-indulgent kind of way: Bastien's warmth on one side, Lexie's warmth on the other. Luxurious. There's still a lump of pain in his throat, and he dreads what will come later, but this is very nice.

To Bastien, as he licks frosting from his fingertip: ]

And don't say curly ginger nests. It sounds dirty in your accent.

[cozen]

Nnno, it doesn’t, [ Bastien says contemplatively. ] You just have a weird thing for Orlesians.

[ The secret of his lifelong levity: Byerly’s shoulder nudges up against his, and as far as Bastien’s mood is concerned, the last several minutes might as well have never happened. He doesn’t forget them, and later he’ll them back out of their drawer to examine. But the misery that might have lingered and colored things afterwards, in someone else, slides off of him like water off of glass.

He keeps one foot on the floor, but he folds the other up so he doesn’t have to twist his spine too much to lean a little weight against Byerly’s shoulder. ]

It sounds dirty in your accent.

[ He leans his head forward to give Alexandrie a hopeful look around the Fereldan between them. Back him up, please. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ Alexandrie is sipping her coffee with exaggerated primness beneath elegantly arched eyebrows and demurely lowered lashes. ]

Cake in curly ginger nests sounds dirty in any accent, but that may be easily alleviated by cleaning up after oneself once finished.