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]

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.

[bouchonne]

Have you told anyone else the truth?

[ He wants the answer to be yes, and he wants the answer to be no. He has no idea which desire is stronger. ]

[cozen]

Ines. [ Readily. ] She had to come haul my bleeding ass out of the hedges.

[ Less readily—not because he doesn’t want to admit it to Byerly, specifically, but because he’s always said the name rarely to anyone, every mention a dart between safe hiding places— ]

And Vincent.

[bouchonne]

[ A little twitch at the corners of his eyes meets that name. As Byerly has come to love Bastien more and more, so too has his dislike of Vincent grown. It's close, now, to a full-bore hatred. But one does not speak ill of a dead love. So, instead: ]

They didn't condemn you for it, I hope.

[cozen]

[ He grins. ]

Only for not getting away with it.

[ Those were the days. The simple, amoral days. ]

You know how you want me to tell you when I’m unhappy or if I need something? [ He floats a hand on top of the water. A little boat. ] You have to tell me if I hurt you, too. Or if I don’t take something seriously enough.

[bouchonne]

[ His response is immediate, bordering on thoughtless. ]

You don't need to worry about that.

[cozen]

[ Instead of skipping straight to yes I do—though he could, it isn’t as if he’ll change his mind—he inclined his head. ]

No?

[bouchonne]

No.

[ Now he hesitates, searching for the right words. ]

I appreciate your lightness. It's probably better to laugh at everything.

[cozen]

[ For a moment his old worries—that Byerly likes him because he's breezy and easy, that the day Alexandrie stops being frightening and complicated is the day he's no longer necessary—slide their fingers around his ankles and give a little tug, to see if he can be pulled back under.

But above them, he's lounging on a raft built out of months of feeling cherished, the quiet nights By has let him examine his old wounds even when it hurt, the way he took time and pains on that fraught morning after the dreams to say how I feel about each of you, it doesn't interfere—and that morning a year ago, when Bastien was miserable and ornery (for him) and By was there anyway, even before he was getting laid out of the bargain. The raft has gotten pretty sturdy. Bastien kicks the grasping little worries away with hardly a pause. ]

Maybe. Sometimes. But it would not have to be a big deal. You could say, [ with air sucked through his teeth in pain, and his awful Fereldan accent, ] You sound like my relatives when you talk like that, and I could say, [ with his free hand rising aghast to his forehead, ] Ah, shit! I'm sorry, and then we could have more or less the same conversation we have just had.

[bouchonne]

Impossible. My relatives would never - [ in an imitation of that dreadful accent - ] sound like this. [ A beat. ] Plus they're humorless.

[ But then By reaches out and taps on Bastien's knee. Bastien might have kicked his worries away with hardly a pause, but there was a pause. So. ]

What were you thinking about, just then?

[cozen]

[ Bastien begins to shake his head, an automatic nothing forming in his throat, but he catches himself before he actually lies, like a hypocrite. A hypocrite liar. ]

It was just, ah. One second of—

[ Stumbling, uncharacteristically, because I'm only worth it when it's effortless is a simple-sounding sentence with deep, sprawling, unexcavated roots. He shifts toward a smaller piece. ]

I wanted to wait until Alexandrie came back, before, because I was afraid you were holding onto me because I was safe and easy, and once you saw she would not stab you in the back and roast you over a fire, you would let go. Or if I were ever not safe and easy, then you would... So one second of that. And then a second second [ ha ] of knowing the first second was ridiculous, because you— [ he pushes his forearm just under the top of the water, sending a little wave toward By ] —are so into me.

[bouchonne]

[ By listens to that. His head is cocked very slightly to the side, and he watches Bastien, his face for once quite serious. A quick smile at that joke; it drops away a moment after, as Byerly carefully considers what to say.

What he goes with is: the truth. The truth, said carefully, said gently, trying to avoid sounding cruel, because it is quite easy to sound cruel when you say this: ]

Bastien, my good little cabbage, what gave you the idea that you're easy? That couldn't be further from the truth. You're impossibly tricky.

[cozen]

What?

[ The gentle tone has done its job. He only sounds perplexed, not remotely hurt. ]

I am not.

[bouchonne]

[ Good. Byerly is a little freer as he goes on. ]

Yes, you are.

[ He reaches down into the water to demand Bastien's foot to rub. ]

I'll agree that you're easy to be selfish with. If a fellow were inclined to take from you, and take, and take, you'd permit that to happen. I expect you'd be miserable, but you'd permit it. [ A cocked eyebrow. ] But giving to you is a difficult thing indeed.

[cozen]

[ Bastien thinks about that. He's thinking hard enough about it that it takes him a second to understand what Byerly's hands are after—but once he does get it, he obliges, pruny toes and all. ]

You do a very good job of it— [ more contemplative than argumentative ] —I think. That hot chocolate alone.

[ Probably not what he means. And not even the best example of the purely material giving he's done. But—lightness. ]

[bouchonne]

It was damned fine. And the coffee. Don't forget that.

[ Light in return. But, a little less so, as he starts to rub: ]

But it's not just about...things. You'll take things.

[cozen]

[ Bastien smiles. The coffee, too. The book, which put a lump in his throat that could only be removed by crying or by dragging Byerly to bed. The song living in his sending crystal, which he's listened to so many times he could sing it nearly perfectly, despite not understanding a bit of it. ]

But not—support?

[ A guess. He'll certainly take this foot rub, at least, shoulders going limp against the wall of the bathing pool. ]

[bouchonne]

[ By shakes his head. No, that's not it. He presses his thumb into one of the points of tension, and says: ]

Not attention. You pull back from being seen. A fine quality in a Bard - [ A lift of his eyebrows. ] But. I think that much of love depends on being able to make oneself seen. You, though, were taught to be as invisible as Serault glass.

[ A pinch on his big toe. ] So you're quite difficult. But once a fellow can discern those little crystalline etchings on that glass, they're magnificently beautiful.

[cozen]

[ Bastien’s quiet for a moment, turning boneless over the massage and warm over the beautiful and thoughtful over the rest. He doesn’t know (because he’s wrong) if he would concede that he was taught to be invisible, rather than his bardmaster harnessing some innate insubstantiality that’s always made it easy for him to slide out of people’s sight and lives and hearts like he was never there at all.

But it doesn’t really matter. The end is the same: ]

I suppose I am very lucky you enjoy a little challenge, then.

[ He smiles and wiggles his erstwhile-pinched toe. ]

Thank you for looking.

[bouchonne]

Thank you for letting me see.

[ He goes down the line and pinches every toe in turn. He lingers for a moment over the pinky toe, gently working it back and forth, as he says: ]

And I don't want you because you're easy, or because you're hard. I just want you.