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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[bouchonne]

Ugh. Mercy is for weaklings.

[ But: ]

Lexie, your verdict? Cooking lessons or right to dismemberment?

[coquettish_trees]

Cooking lessons, but! [ She taps Byerly’s nose for emphasis. ] Not for the sake of mercy.

It is because I am amenable to giving chances to discover I am in fact fresh and spicy and wonderful before I resort to violence.

[cozen]

[ From the weakling corner: snickering and a leg-stretch. ]

[bouchonne]

But then if they fail, summary execution, yes?

[ He sounds positively hopeful. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ Thoughtful humming. Then, definitively: ]

Exile. The Queen of Coriandria shall not suffer even the ashes of detractors in her realm.

They may come back if they pen her an extensive apology for their previously demonstrated poor taste which includes an exhaustive and earnest paean— sheet music included— to her unparalleled beauty and virtue.

[ A pause. ]

Vices may be included, but only if they are cast in the most flattering light.

[cozen]

No executions for you, Monsieur le Piment Sanguinaire.

[ Bastien pats Byerly’s blanket-covered belly consolingly, because it’s easier to reach than his head. ]

Unless you wait at her borders with a garrote.

[bouchonne]

Ooh. That's a brilliant idea.

[ He grins up at Lexie. ]

You'll still get to seem merciful, while I am able to slake my bloodthirst.

[coquettish_trees]

[ She laughs, heartily enough that it will bounce Byerly's head a bit. ]

Mais oui, how could I be responsible in the slightest for what transpires outside my borders?

But I fear that would lead to far fewer exhaustive and earnest paeans being sent me, and so for every misguided fool you garotte, you must write me one.

[cozen]

[ Bastien laughs again (more quietly), and he lifts his head to check the window—the brightness of the light, the length of the shadow—and then collapses it back onto Byerly's torso in a silent ugh before sliding off the bed with as minimal a disturbance as he can manage. ]

To be fair, you should allow for the ones who would never try to return from exile—the greatest fools. And the ones who would be eaten by bears before they could try. Maybe one paean for every two garroted fools.

[bouchonne]

[ A vigorous nod, and a point to Bastien - this guy gets it. But then he lifts his head - ]

Where are you going? I need you here to teach me how to write a paean. You know what my poetry is like.

[coquettish_trees]

[ What time is it. They should all be going, shouldn't they? Or, at least, Byerly.

In here he is a man, outside the door the Lord Ambassador. Alexandrie is surprised the chimes haven't already come, assuming the Fade had reached for them all alike. The Commander, the Scoutmaster, the Provost; they will want him soon, armed with wit and armoured in bright colour and droll looks. Careful careless sprawl. Whiskey glass.

Get up, get out of bed. We are waiting for you to tell us how to save the world.

His hair is a tousled mess, his shoulders thin for what they carry, and she is ashamed. Looks at Bastien until he is looking at her, and then flicks her gaze at Byerly and back with eyes full of concern. Signs not yet when her hand lifts from his hair to stroke it again. Signs please.

And then she is smiling again, so it can be heard when she says ]

Do you? What is it like?

[cozen]

It’s perfect. Authentic. Anything I taught would change it for the worse.

[ Bastien sees the signs, but he doesn’t get back onto the bed, because he doesn’t have the faintest clue what she’s concerned about—it can hardly be that she doesn’t want to be alone with the man—and he doesn’t imagine either of them will be compelled to get up just because he is.

He’s gotten his I love you in, and something close to hugging, and Byerly seems better. They both do. That’s what he’d been sticking around for, the discomfort of feeling like an appendage balanced by being an appendage with a purpose.

He pulls the blankets up further where he’s left Byerly’s side exposed, to try to keep some warmth trapped there, and he goes for his boots. ]

I need to take some letters ashore before the Archer sails. [ A point at the tray. ] Do not waste that cake.

[bouchonne]

[ Ah. This is - Well, this is fine. It's fine. It had been an impossibly tenuous moment anyway, the three of them laying together; the fact that it had occurred at all is something to celebrate. Right. To want that moment to last indefinitely is just greedy to the edge of obscene.

Things don't last forever, he thinks, nothing lasts forever, and the thought it so morose that he nearly feels like a parody of himself. Blame those nasty dreams. Made him sensitive. ]

So responsible.

[ Byerly smiles. And he's no Bard, but it's a decent imitation of merriment. ]

I suppose we do all have duties, don't we?

[ He tilts up his head to look at Alexandrie. She does, too. And how much is left behind in the diplomacy office? How much work to do? The thought of that pile of correspondence and reports pulls at him, feels like a rock lodged firmly in the earth. ]

[coquettish_trees]

Yes.

[ Letters, letters, always letters. Notes. A journal she is three quarters of the way through. There's been nothing relevant to Riftwatch's work in it, although she's come to rather feel for the woman it had been lifted from. But— ]

I am not going to tend to them today. If I make the attempt not only shall I get nothing done, by the end of the day I shall have made more work for myself.

[ She rolls her head back and looks at the slow stretch of the light across the ceiling. ]

It is the most important lesson I ever learned from needlework.

[cozen]

[ A thoughtful head tilt and nod, for that lesson. It's not one Bastien was ever taught. ]

If any of your duties are leaving with the tide, By, I can carry them over for you.

[ He drapes his scarf around his neck but doesn't wind it around, since he'll be stopping by the office below before going outside again. Of course there are other tides—two moons to cause them—and other ships headed for Orlais. But this ship is carrying someone he trusts (relatively speaking). And he'd like to leave. He'd like to go somewhere where he can spread his own feelings out to look at without having to navigate someone else's or control his face. ]

But I think you have some time before anyone who knows you expects you to be awake, ouais?

[bouchonne]

[ Yes. That's true. He could get away with it for a little while. But -

But what would he be left with if he did wiggle out of work? That gnawing fear. Lexie's grief and unhappiness. Unhappiness that he's caused, fear that he's brought about...Maker, they do need to talk of it; he knows that. But oh, he doesn't want to. ]

And maybe I should lay abed a few days. See what it takes to get fired. Better that than the future that lays ahead of us, eh?

[ Much better. Much, much better.

He swallows lightly. ]

If I do go to work - [ To Lexie - ] Will you at least stay with me?

[coquettish_trees]

[ She curls so she can kiss the top of his forehead— easily managed without the restrictions of her customary dress or dreamed bindings. ]

Yes.

[ As it happens, she has some unfinished needlework here, left for the evenings when he returns late. There are thoughts sewn into all of the small flowers and threading vines. There will be some more. ]

I shall sit in the corner and embroider as if I were your lady's maid.

[cozen]

[ Bastien smiles a little, pleased that they seem to have made peace, and then he turns neatly away. He’s not envious of the kissing, exactly. He could have; he didn’t. But he is envious of the ease of it, when he wouldn’t have been able to, himself, without the question of how might Alexandrie feel about it hanging like a veil between his mouth and Byerly’s cheek.

But it’s fine. He’ll kiss him later.

He thinks about trying to say something funny about needlework, or maybe reminding them again not to waste the cake, he means it—but he settles on a quiet, unobtrusive, ] Salut, [ and sliding out the door. ]

[bouchonne]

[ And that leaves just Byerly and Alexandrie.

So: what now? Off to work? With her in the corner, like his lady's maid? That'd be a pleasant thought - simpering at her, gossiping like the princess whose company she keeps - except that that lightness seems impossible, now. He knows that's not what she wants. He knows that if she does that, she'll just be humoring him.

And what of it? Don't I deserve to be humored? The answer to that is, of course, absolutely not; his cowardice should not be indulged, lest it grow fat.

And so, after a moment, his gaze shifts away. And he says, awkwardly - ]

Should we...talk, then? About - all that?

[coquettish_trees]

[ For all she'd demanded it just a few minutes ago, Alexandrie doesn't want to talk about it either. It hurts, and it feels stupid and small. It had felt stupid and small the moment she'd recovered her composure, but before that... inescapable. World-shattering. And she doesn't want to talk about it because she doesn't know why.

Alexandrie lets herself relax backwards onto the bed to watch the light on the ceiling again, because it feels far away. Like she could be far away, as she is when she paints. A watcher outside the world. It's safe there.

Maybe that's why the Maker won't come back until everyone in the entire world sings to him. Maybe if it isn't every single voice, every single heart, there will still be a chance that the ones he loves most will turn their backs on him, and more than anything he is afraid. Alexandrie has never loved the Maker. But she thinks now, as she looks at the light and yearns to be sung for, that she could love him if he were afraid.

Softly: ]

I am frightened to.

[bouchonne]

[ He closes his eyes briefly at that. Takes in a breath. ]

I don't - want to make you afraid.

[ More than that: If he makes her afraid, it will shatter him. If he makes her afraid, he will want to cut out his own fucking tongue. But that's not the sort of thought you speak aloud to someone you're trying to calm, is it?

He turns, pulls himself from the bed. He should, at the very least, put some clothes on. His arms are freezing. ]

We don't have to. Just - you wanted to before.

[coquettish_trees]

[ She stays where she is, and looks at the light, and misses the weight of his head when he leaves. Feels a bit as if she has fallen here, as she had seen the echo of Madame de Cedoux fall, and that she cannot move because she is broken, it's just her body doesn't know it yet.

She folds her hands and rests them in the space he'd left. ]

I do not want to be afraid.

But I am.

[ She closes her eyes. ]

Maybe I am afraid because I am the one who comes to you. Lay my body bare, or my heart, and put myself in your space where you cannot ignore me. I did it then, and now... now I feel as if I pursued you to exhaustion and you... gave up and let me have you.

[ A breath, because she wants to know the answer to what she is asking, and because she does not. ]

Which of you began it. Your affair with Bastien, before we were together again. Did he come to you, or you to him, or did it simply happen to the both of you at once.

[bouchonne]

It was -

[ How did it start? He knows that he should probably have a clearer memory of it, of who really initiated. But the first time they'd really spoken it aloud, defined what it was, was when Byerly came to Bastien and said that things were changing. ]

Something that just happened. We started screwing around. And then later realized that it was something rather larger than that.

[ I am. He stares down at his feet, his hands stilling. I am afraid. One part of his heart screams that he told her, he told her that he was a poor man to have around. He told her that he was difficult and cold and clumsy in the ways of love. That he would be injurious and incapable. He told her that he wasn't worth the trouble; what right has she now to get upset, that he told her the truth? That his promises weren't just coy lies designer to make him a more enticing prey? And the other part of his heart just wants to weep until there's no water left in him and he expires like a dry man in a desert.

He forces himself to resume the progress of pulling on his shirt. ]

Why does it matter?

[coquettish_trees]

[ How can he not understand. How many ways can she say it. ]

Because when I see you together I think you would seek him. I think 'he would go to Bastien with his heart in his hands.' And then I think 'he would not come so to me. He would not ask me, nervously, if I loved him.'

You looked at me once as if I were a precious thing and you could not believe your fortune. Now you look so at him, and... it goes hard.

[ She wants to curl into a ball again, because she can feel the cold fingers of her fear reaching for her again, wanting to grip again, make her do something else she will hate when it is done. She tries to breathe again, instead. ]

Everything else was awful. But for a little while I dreamed that you held me as if there were nothing else in the world that mattered, and I was solace rather than burden and I—

I weep to have woken from that part.

[bouchonne]

[ By's lips press together. For a moment, he struggles to give voice to what's in him. What comes out is: ]

Bastien is fragile. More fragile by far than you or I, when it comes to matters of the heart. He could be easily shattered. So perhaps I pay him more mind, yes, I'll confess it, but it's because he needs it. Truly needs it.

[ Then he runs a hand over his face, and says on a breath out: ]

And if I held you like you were all that mattered, in that dream, it's because you were the only thing I loved left alive. We talked about this. You know that I can't give you all of me. Even if he weren't here, I couldn't.