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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[cozen]

[ Bastien tucks that smile into his memory for safekeeping, while his own goes a little softer—it’s the post-war, it’s the our. It’s that he’s already decided the next time he is in Val Royeaux he will sell his remaining assets and close his accounts, closing the door for good on Edouard Almary and his suffocating game of pretend. ]

We would be amazing. Hungry, probably, but amazing.

[ He extends his leg again, this time only far enough to put the arch of his foot on By’s kneecap and push it to and fro in a sweeping wobble, like holding hands and swinging arms. ]

Do you like what you do now? [ A little entreating, because he doesn’t think it was his doing, that By agreed to the position, and certainly not his doing that he was offered it. But he did encourage it. ] At all?

[bouchonne]

[ It's a slightly unexpected question, but, well, that's Bastien for you. He clearly has ten thoughts for every individual word he speaks. So By tilts his head very slightly, and leans into the knee-foot sway, and just concentrates on that a moment as he thinks. ]

It comes with its perks.

[ Not a ringing endorsement. He gives a wry little smile and shrugs in acknowledgment of that not-endorsement. ]

I don't think my constitution is well-suited to leadership. I much prefer being told what to do.

[cozen]

[ Bastien's hum sounds close to a purr, and he twitches his eyebrows up once in an abbreviated suggestive wiggle. But that's mostly a thought—a promise—for later. For now: ]

I am sure someone up there would be willing to oblige you, if you told them so.

[ Teasing. ]

[bouchonne]

Mmm.

[ Lips pursed, eyelashes lowered suggestively, wriggling slightly in the water. But then, more seriously: ]

When you doing evil Barding, instead of the virtuous Barding that is in our future - were you able to tell yourself, it's just what someone else wants? Did that help?

[cozen]

The arrow, not the archer. That is what we said. All that makes an arrow good or bad is whether it goes where it is aimed.

But arrows do not choose their archer, so...

[ It isn’t mournful, that last part, or self-loathing. If anything it’s hopeful. He’d rather say he chose wrong than say he didn’t have a choice.

He gives By’s knee a more vigorous little wiggle in parting and puts his foot back down. ]

Is that what you miss?

[bouchonne]

I trusted the hands of my archer.

[ Meanwhile, he holds up his hands, and lets them flop and dangle. ]

I, meanwhile, have weak shoulders and limp wrists and a bit of nearsightedness.

[ Then, letting his hands submerge again - ]

What about you? Do you like it?

[cozen]

I love your limp wrists, [ protectively, ] and I trust your hands, [ to actually begin to answer the question, ] and I am able to go places and talk to people. I haven’t had to kill any of them yet. That’s nice.

[ The number one reason he hasn’t changed divisions since abandoning the hapless tradesman act. Having an excuse to regularly go upstairs and flirt over paperwork is only fourth or fifth. ]

Even being chained to that stupid desk is not so bad now, since Alexandrie is there.

[bouchonne]

Good.

[ And there's something a little fervent and a little vulnerable in that word. Because he doesn't want to have spoiled it between them. He would hate to think that his neediness spoiled it. ]

But yes. No need to deceive any Chantry sisters. And no need to be reminded of your mortality.

[cozen]

[ Things aren’t spoiled. They are a little cracked—but it’s a crack that’s between them, Bastien and Alexandrie, and he isn’t sure it wouldn’t turn into a break if he started whining and inviting Byerly to intervene.

So he smiles, then laughs a little. ]

Except in dreams. Or when there are abominations over for dinner. Or if someone has a tantrum.

[ He can’t quite see Leander’s handiwork through the water, but he looks in its direction. ]

[bouchonne]

[ That look is well understood. By smiles crookedly as he touches his fingers to the wound. ]

Didn't you hear, Bastien? It wasn't a tantrum. He was completely in the right, and I was a monster.

[cozen]

Right, right, of course. That makes sense. The person who is bleeding is usually the one who is to blame.

[ His fingers are turning to raisins, on quick inspection, but he only settles lower into the water. ]

Do you know what happened to him?

[ No one Bastien has heard mention his sudden absence so far seems to have any idea. ]

[bouchonne]

[ By shakes his head. ]

I expect we'll see him across the battlefield before too long. He's a constitution well-suited to the Venatori.

[ But: Byerly does take advantage of that comment to use his toe to poke lightly at Bastien's one proper scar. ]

Are we admitting that perhaps we're not guilty when others attack us?

[cozen]

[ Bastien opens his mouth, then closes it and huffs, equally proud of and oppressed by the turnabout. ]

It’s different. He is—he was supposed to be on your side. You were not trying to cause someone who mattered to him a great deal of trouble. [ And, less relevant but very important, because whatever else Bastien feels about it doesn’t stop it from being funny, ] I assume he was not wearing robes and a wimple.

[bouchonne]

[ With a rueful little smile: ] The whole thing would take on a very different tenor if he had been, wouldn't it?

[cozen]

Very.

[ Bastien does grab Byerly's foot, before it can retreat, but not to tow him closer. Just to twist around, retrieve his set-aside washcloth, and very respectably and platonically scrub between his toes. ]

If he has joined the Venatori, at least whoever sees him next is more likely to be armed and on their guard. But I hope it is not you.

[bouchonne]

[ A little cough of a laugh. ]

Nor do I. I would truly prefer to stay far, far away from any battlefield. No matter what my ever-so-heroic dreams seem to imply.

[cozen]

[ There they are. ]

I have never seen one.

[ He limped around Val Royeaux feigning a bad injury for a whole year to make sure he wouldn’t—he thinks he’s said before, so he doesn’t repeat it.

He lets go of Byerly’s foot, but glances at the door and then makes a gimme gesture for his other. ]

Except in paintings. But I’m sure those do not really capture the feeling.

[bouchonne]

They're dreadful.

[ He sinks down in the water and offers that foot to him. ]

Truly cannot recommend. The smell alone... [ He shakes his head. ]

[cozen]

[ It's difficult to look very serious, when he's scrubbing his funnel-wrapped finger between By's toes, but his good humor gains a gentler edge. ]

Not just sweaty men and horses?

[bouchonne]

I love the smell of sweaty men. You know that. Horses, not so much.

[ He gives a small, droll smile. ]

But - no. People shit themselves when they die, you know, so...

[ A puff of air. ]

Stay away from it. [ And then, with a hint of strange vulnerability: ] You must stay away from it.

[cozen]

[ It would be easy to promise. More than anything because of that vulnerability, and the impulse to say whatever will soothe it, but also because he doesn't have any longing for a battlefield, he would be pointless and wasted on one, and he is not very far removed from being that fellow who would have broken his own legs before he'd have gone along with dying at some general's command. Who packed a bag and thought very hard about vanishing from Riftwatch, only a year ago.

So it'd be easy; he opens his mouth to do it.

But then he thinks about the future, which their dreams have made much easier to imagine. Nearly all of the world lost, battles in every direction. Sitting on a bed in a swamp and watching Byerly walk out to do what needed to be done. ]

I'll try, [ instead, ] if you will.

[bouchonne]

I will try.

[ And he means that. But then he's quiet a moment, in a way where it's clear he's gathering his thoughts. And then he says: ]

It was during the Blight, you know, the first time I saw it. Real fighting. I was in Denerim when they brought down the Archdemon - not near the battlefield, but you didn't have to be near the battlefield; the Darkspawn were everywhere. It was -

[ He pauses. Then shakes his head. ]

I thought up to that point that I surely would have some hidden well of courage that would come out if I ever found myself in a real fight. But I cried and hid.

[ What was the point of that story? He takes a moment to gather his thoughts. ]

No desire for any of it. No.

[cozen]

[ Bastien rubs his thumb along the skin between By’s ankle and tendon, while he talks. The Blight—he would have been twenty? Nineteen? A younger, skinnier version of the young, skinny man Bastien boosted through windows in hunt of ways to pay for food in Val Royeaux. Dozens of acquaintances, Bastien imagines, for a drink or a jaunt, but alone when it mattered. Crying in a city full of monsters.

It’s hard not to say fuck it to propriety and slide over to hold onto more of him than his ankle. But Bastien manages. He’ll make up for it later, the next occasion they have to fall asleep together, without explaining the strength of his grip. ]

I am not sure that says anything about your courage, By. It would take bravery to throw yourself off of a cliff, too, but then what?

[ He squeezes his ankle before releasing it. ]

How did you get that scar, at Ghislain?

[bouchonne]

So stubborn.

[ It's not a lament, or a criticism. If anything, he says it with a little curl of his lip. But he answers, truly enough: ]

I'd been hit in the head, and so I was being taken away to convalesce when the caravan was attacked. A dracolisk - have you ever seen those things? Nasty creatures - came at us. Tore into me.

[ He runs his fingers meditatively over the ragged old wound just above his hip. What isn't said, of course, is that he'd taken that wound after he'd pushed Gwenaelle aside. That sounds, after all, like heroism, and boasting of that is such a vile thought that it might turn a man's stomach. ]

A very disadvantageous scar. No scar is advantageous, of course, because people will so often ask. But you can't pass this one off to a scuffle over gambling debts. Perhaps I might say that a dog attacked me while I was fleeing from some paramour's jealous husband. [ A smile, a shrug - ] What do you say, when people ask about yours?

[cozen]

[ Bastien serenely smiles and nods at stubborn, and at the explanation, he touches his hand to his own body beneath the water, fingers hooked, approximating Byerly’s scar. Imagining it—the smell, the chaos, the terror. Then being told it was very attractive of him to have gone through it.

He sounds somewhat absent when he answers, ]

That I tripped in the way of someone else’s fight, usually.

[ His focus resharpens and he smiles. ]

Or that I was trying to stop it, if I wanted to sound a little less incompetent.