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]

[ 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.

[coquettish_trees]

[ It makes her flinch. ]

How many times have you watched me fall to pieces. Watched me break, watched me run. Watched me do both again just now, over a mere gesture of comfort and welcome. I ruined my own life and burned swaths of yours for matters of the heart, but I do not need to be paid mind. Not truly.

[bouchonne]

Am I not paying you mind? Am I not here now?

[ Frustration rises. And then, with a puff of breath: ]

And, frankly, no. You're resilient. He's not. I'm not. You are.

[coquettish_trees]

[ That pulls a laugh from her, short and bitter and hollow. ]

Yes, you are here. You are here telling me I do not need what I say I do, as earlier you were here saying you care for his needs because he tells you them.

And then you are confused when I say I am afraid that you do not want me.

[bouchonne]

[ The frustration rises higher. ]

Because I don't trust you, Lexie. [ A noise of taut unhappiness - ] Not yet. And you come at me like a wave, and I don't know how to swim.

[coquettish_trees]

I will try to be less of a wave. [ A breath, long and deep. ] But if I am to be successful then I cannot yet see you with someone you do trust, someone whom you feel free to love in a way we cannot yet have.

[ She looks down and shakes her head slowly. ]

I cannot be here if he is too, not when this is how things are between us. I will go mad.

[bouchonne]

[ A real pain rips through his face. ]

What are you proposing, then?

[coquettish_trees]

That you must keep us separately for a time.

It does not bother me unless I am there to see the both of you. I am happy that you are happy with him, truly, but to see the difference so acutely makes me jealous and despairing, and it is then that I behave wretchedly.

[bouchonne]

Oh.

[ A bit of the tension goes out of him. ]

So - not that I must...choose.

[coquettish_trees]

No. I should not ask that.

[ Another headshake, and she sits up to rest her chin on her knees and manages a smile. It is tired and sad and small but it is a smile. ]

I ask only for the kindness of not being made to witness what I wish for and cannot have.

[bouchonne]

[ A small nod. That's fair. Though: ]

It's never going to be what it was. You know that, right?

[coquettish_trees]

It could not be. Even if things had not happened as they did, we are neither of us what we were. What is ours now is to find out what is left, and if we wish to keep it.

But it was beautiful.

[ She is crying again, but it is slow. And she is still smiling. ]

Thank you for the swing.

[bouchonne]

[ He's quiet a moment. And then, softly: ]

You were the second person who ever loved me. In my life. [ Just his sister, and then Lexie. ] It - was - important to me.

[coquettish_trees]

[ And he had lost them both cruelly.

Softly: ]

You were the second person who ever looked at me like I was something more than I thought myself to be, and the only one who was not lying.

It was important to me too.

I am sorry I repaid you as I did.

[bouchonne]

It doesn't matter.

[ Or maybe it does. He doesn't know. Sometimes it makes him feel righteous and furious, at times when he's backed into a corner, makes him feel like someone who was wronged; sometimes it just makes him feel ashamed, to have drawn that out of her. He still doesn't really understand it, not fully. On an intellectual level, yes; he understands the Game and the moves that one makes, and he understands her fear. But it's still so difficult to comprehend in his heart. He's always scrabbling for what he did wrong, that she thought this was the way of it. ]

I was a fool back then. It would have happened at some point or another.

[ That much, at least, is true. Though it likely would have been less agonizing if it had come from someone else. ]

[coquettish_trees]

It matters. You did not deserve to be hurt so any more than I did. It was Rolant's fault when he hurt me, and it was mine when I hurt you.

It is mine again today.

[bouchonne]

No, it's not.

[ At that, a wave of guilt and shame comes up to choke him. He made her cry. He made her miserable. And why? Because he can't say a few pathetic words? ]

It's mine. I frightened you back then. And now, it's - I'm not deserving of your affections. Truly.

[coquettish_trees]

Do not be so greedy.

[ She rests her chin on her knees. ]

I frightened myself then. You did nothing but love me. It is not your fault that the feeling of vulnerability my realization of the extent of my tenderness towards you evoked was entwined with the memory of unspeakable betrayal, and it is not your fault that I did not give you the barest moment of opportunity to prove it could mean something else.

It was a trap set in me, waiting for the moment I loved again. I do not think it would have sprung, had I not been in earnest.

[ Wry humour joins the tired and sad in her little smile. ]

Is that not truly the most awful way to be sure one loves?

[bouchonne]

[ But he gives a small shake of his head. ]

Come now. If that were true, then you'd have never been able to love anyone at all. [ He forces an unconcerned, easy smile onto his lips. ] You were hardly the first person to see danger coming from me, and nor were you the last. I know there's something sinister in me.

[coquettish_trees]

[ He’s doing it again. It’s as if he can’t hear her at all, as if there is a demon that thrives on misery in his ear translating—

Is—

Is this what she is doing? Not truly listening, but hearing only what she is most afraid to hear every time he speaks?

The frustration melts from her face, replaced by furtive curiosity as she sits up. ]

Can we not hear one another?