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]

Nothing, I -

[ But that's not true, is it? Not in the least. Because he needs quite a lot from her. He needs - ]

Vigilance. Perhaps. Mistrust. [ A breath out, and he confesses: ] It's all so tangled up between us, isn't it, that even when we love each other there's still some measure of hate as well. There always will be. And that's where cruelty creeps in, and madness. So I think I need to know that you'll not take any of it from me. That you won't endure it.

[coquettish_trees]

[ She wants to tell him she doesn’t have that measure of hate, but she does. For all that she feels she deserves whatever enmity he carries, for all that she feels she doesn’t deserve to hold any for him, she does.

I spurned him, says the part that wants his cruelty. Abandoned him.

But under it there is a small cry of her own, too. He left me. If he loved me as much as he says he did, why didn’t he come to me. Why didn’t he demand to know why.

She thinks perhaps it was because he never thought she was real. That he is as ready, as expectant, as she is to be thrown aside. It doesn’t matter to the little ghost, who is young and only cares that she is alone. ]

It will be hard for me, for I think that I deserve it.

[ She shakes her head a little. ]

More than that. Sometimes I wish for it, because I know how to be hated for what I have done. I do not know how to have done it and still be loved.

[ A pause for an unsteady breath, and then: ]

I want so much to still be loved.

[bouchonne]

You don't deserve it. You never do.

[ He says that passionately. But then, less passionately, more restrained, he admits: ]

I think that - I don't really know how to love. There's the love I've seen in fairy tales, all sweet and innocent, but we both learned the hard way that that love can't live long. And then there's easy love, where you flirt and laugh and screw, where it's all safe because neither of you tries to be all that romantic. [ What he has with Bastien. ] But to be earnest, and passionate - [ He shakes his head. ] I've never seen any version of that that doesn't turn cruel.

[ His family. All of his family. Even his parents - When his mother was still alert and engaged, and his father still gave a damn, he saw the way they cut at each other. A thousand tiny slices every day.

And then, a breath out through his nose: ]

Which makes me approximately the worst person for you to be in love with, doesn't it?

[coquettish_trees]

[ She breathes out through her nose too, although hers are the little puffs of air that are her silent chuckle. ]

Perhaps. Mais la vie est étrange, et les coeurs plus étrangers, so perhaps not.

Perhaps I will learn that there are other ways I can love besides losing myself, that it is not lesser to not push everything I have into another's hands.

[ She kisses his cheek again, and then pulls back so she can look at him and smile softly. ]

But I think you are wrong. I think you know how to love, if you will let yourself learn instead of thinking it must look like this, or it must look like that. I think there are as many kinds of love as there are lovers, and ours will be our own. We are the only two in the world with our story, yes?

[ There's the sound of a delicate chain moving, a quiet click as she takes up the locket again. ]

Just as they are the only two with theirs.

[bouchonne]

[ He's not quite ready to let it go yet. His hand comes out to cover her fingers. ]

But many types of love are cruel or destructive. There is love that tears its object to shreds. I - do not wish to love you in a way that hurts you. If it must be temporary, what's between us, then at least I want you to come out the other side better for it.

[coquettish_trees]

Even the kindest love hurts a little sometimes, if there is anything in us that might be hurt, living as it does in the most vulnerable parts of ourselves. Especially if those parts have been injured before, and especially if they have not healed.

[ She lifts her thumb so she can press some small part of his hand between it and her fingers. ]

I imagine there are people for whom love does not hurt, and I wish them all joy. I am not one of them. You must not think the fullness of my agonies are made by you because sometimes I will scream when you touch me. The gentlest touch on raw flesh sears, does it not?

[ A pause while she makes a tiny stroking motion with her thumb, and then she leans in again to set her cheek lightly against his. ]

Perhaps the time we will have together is not forever, but whilst I live I will love you, and I am already the better for it.

[bouchonne]

[ He swallows. Leans back against her. ]

I suppose that I've simply...never known anyone to become better or kinder due to pain. Pain only debases.

[coquettish_trees]

[ He presses, and his breath tickles a little. It is the tiniest movement, and she can feel it because she is still. So still, with a heart like the glass of early morning water. She lets her eyes close, finds with her mind all the places they touch, the little warmth there, and she loves him.

It is all in her voice as much as her extremity was. ]

It pained me so much to love again. So incredibly much. But I am kinder for it; a woman again instead of a creature. A blade.

It pains me to hurt you, and slowly I become better because I do not want to.

[ She breathes long, through her nose. Wonders vaguely if he can feel it. ]

It hurts to take an arrow in the shoulder, and it hurts to take it out. I believe us more surgeons to each other than archers. [ A puff of mirth. ] A pity that an unsure surgeon does more damage than an unsure archer, but... we learn, yes?

[bouchonne]

Perhaps so.

[ It's not a bad metaphor. She always was a better poet than him, though. Those few times he'd tried - Thank the Maker he'd burned them instead of showing them to her. ]

It certainly doesn't mean that pain should be our usual way of doing things, though. I fear we spend rather too long with knife in hand. And I only really want one surgeon operating on me, frankly.

[ His wife, of course. ]

[coquettish_trees]

[ But she is still thinking in metaphor, and so she flinches. Only a little, only in breath, but she does. ]

[bouchonne]

[ Uncertainly, his brows drawing down - ]

What?

[coquettish_trees]

[ He has a steadier hand than she does, surely. Bastien. Fair, to say so, but surely he wouldn't so blithely. Yes, Byerly stumbles sometimes into hurting her without meaning to as she does him, but surely not like that. Not here when they are like this.

How little it takes to calm her, how little to fright.

What else could—

She relaxes, head curving down to his shoulder. A startled flock returning to its pond. ]

Lady Rutyer, you mean.

[bouchonne]

Sidony, yes. Because she -

[ He gives a faint cutting gesture with his hand. His brows are still drawn down. ]

Who did you think I meant? - It was intended as a jest. Because surgeons. We certainly aren't having an affair, if you fear that. [ Can you have an affair with your own wife? ]

[coquettish_trees]

I was—

[ She breathes. Then, softly: ]

I know he has gentler hands than I do.

[bouchonne]

[ What - ]

Who? Bastien?

[coquettish_trees]

Yes.

[bouchonne]

Look, I -

[ Byerly lets out an uncomfortable breath. ]

He's just different.

[coquettish_trees]

I do not want to talk about this.

[ She shakes her head a little against his shoulder. ]

I have been gone for six weeks and I missed you, and right now I want to be with you and I want you to be with me.

Please.

[bouchonne]

[ He struggles a moment, then says: ]

I simply do not know how to reassure you.

[coquettish_trees]

I do not know either.

I am afraid all of the time, that there will be a moment you realize you have everything you need in him, and that holding me is nothing but holding a knife by the blade.

It is why I—

[ She sighs, and the hold she has on the hand that covers hers is as firm as it can be for something so bare. ]

I cannot understand why you would ever choose to be with me, and so I am afraid. But if you needed me jealously, possessively, if it made your hands clench with want of saying 'mine' then— if I knew you could not let go, not even of a knife blade—

You think that dangerous, and you are right, and I will try not to want it so badly, try to stop myself from trying to pull it from you, but it—

Passion like that would make me feel I was safe, for it would mean you could not leave me.

[ The quiet huff of her little laugh again, but there is little mirth in it. ]

And so I am the worst person possible for you to love too, no?

[bouchonne]

[ He's quiet a moment. It's an obvious sentiment, and one he suspects won't actually help, but he has to say it - ]

You want me, even though you have your husband.

[coquettish_trees]

Yes.

And do you feel secure in that?

[bouchonne]

Secure enough.

[coquettish_trees]

Why?

Because I say so? Or because sometimes I cling to you as if I can only breathe when you are in my arms and kiss you as if we will hang at sunrise.

[bouchonne]

[ He hesitates a moment, then says: ]

I suspect that, if I tell you, you shall take offense.