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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[elegiaque]

You and half this post. If we lose the war, we can always console ourselves that we looked very pretty trying.

( there was a six foot six opening there and there was a hesitation before she didn't take it. )

[bouchonne]

[ A heavy sigh. ]

Well, thank the Maker you're here to keep me from feeling special or interesting in any way.

[elegiaque]

My lord took all the charm in the family with him at Ghislain, you'll have to take it up with him if there's an afterlife.

( you could ask why she's like this, but the answer probably does have something to do with emery at the end of the day. )

[bouchonne]

[ He sighs even more heavily. ]

Charm is not a gift. It's a muscle. A skill one develops, like archery or magic. Charmlessness isn't a curse; it's a sign of indolence.

[elegiaque]

( her face does several things, as she manages — incredibly — not to snap her first reaction back at him. eventually, pinning her needle back into flint's shirt, )

This was a stupid idea, I'm going to — there's plenty of empty rooms, I'm just going to go find one for the night. I can write Lexie a note or something, you look busy.

( she clicks her tongue and hardie lumbers to his feet, albeit somewhat reluctantly. whiskey's good company. )

[bouchonne]

[ With a shake of his head - ]

Maker's breath, why did you call me?

[elegiaque]

( in the moment, it had made perfect sense — byerly would not ask her questions about things she doesn't know how to answer, would not treat her with kid glove kindness that scrapes excruciatingly against raw skin, but she's so terrible at talking to him. she drifts away for a bit and forgets how frustrated she gets, remembers only: )

I only argue with people that I care about.

( but byerly is quite charming, mostly, with people who aren't gwenaëlle. and they argue every time she talks to him. and possibly, assuming that they were doing it for the same reason made about as much sense as all the other things that have gone so brilliantly for her lately.

she pulls a face, aggrieved, conscious of her own tendency to melodrama; tired of herself, tired of being suspicious of every soft place she could land and reaching for things that only make it worse instead. and then, not even committing to that. what the fuck is she doing.

if she doesn't look directly at him, he won't notice her eyes are wet, probably. )

I don't think that's actually true of everyone else? ( except she sort of did think that. except she has really struggled to learn the lesson that it is not obvious, and she isn't speaking the same language as everyone she speaks to, and the things she thinks she's communicating are half the time not what anyone else is ever hearing. )

[bouchonne]

[ So - what, since she doesn't care for him, she'd come anticipating there'd be no arguments? It speaks to a bizarre lack of self-awareness on her part. The two of them argue often, do they not? So if she was looking for a respite from argument by seeking him out, well, then, she should actually commit to only arguing with those who've won her care.

Still. It does hurt, hearing her frame it that way. Why did you seek me out? Because I only argue with people that I care about. One of these days, Byerly will stop being so pathetically, mewlingly soft and woundable; today isn't that day.

A breath. He squares his shoulders. And he replies, evenly enough: ]

Hardly. Such is true of most people. It is only when there is some emotional investment that argument seems worth it. [ Then, unable to fully swallow all his bitterness, he says with a sardonic little edge: ] I am glad I might be a refuge for you.

[elegiaque]

( it's such a fine needle to thread: that she'd thought he must care for her, because she cares for him, but he'd care in a way that she could bear, in the distance they've never managed to bridge,

and then she'd felt sure, stupidly and suddenly certain of being wrong, and now he says

he says

he says it very sarcastically, but she's too relieved to hear a warning in it and it's an abrupt thing when she drops sewing basket and shirt and needles on the floor and doesn't remember the movement between spaces required that she should collide, full bodied, with his shoulder and burst excruciatingly, awfully into tears that she's stoppered for weeks now and rattle her teeth in her head with their force. she lands mostly in his lap, and slightly hysterically, ) Okay, great, that's what I thought.

[bouchonne]

[ What

The fuck?

It's fortunate, of course, that Byerly has a long-honed instinct for what to do around crying women. He's had decades of experience with sobbing ladies - ladies sobbing truly, ladies sobbing falsely - and so it's like muscle memory at this point: turn, ideally stand (except, Maker's breath, she's nearly sitting in his lap; will Thranduil murder him? is this a trap?) and failing standing make one's breast available for crying into. Work a handkerchief from his pocket. Press it into her grip. Reach up one hand to softly stroke her hair. ]

There, there. You're all right.

[elegiaque]

( funnily enough, she doesn't feel all right, but some of the disjointed rambling into what's probably a quite nice shirt even if she didn't make it may or may not illuminate anything further, )

I thought you wouldn't mind because we care about each other and you don't have to argue with people all of the time and you'd probably be tired and I could, I could, I could,

( she is holding his handkerchief very tightly, )

keep you company.

( but it's hard not to pick at him, it's habit, and what if actually he was just tired of her. )

[bouchonne]

[ We care about each other? That is - Well. That is certainly...a bit of a reversal from - what she'd just said. And a bit of a reversal from what he generally assumes is her position on Byerly Rutyer, the man ever so like her much-maligned father. The man rescued by her much-maligned father. But here she is, blurting out we care about each other like it's a truth self-evident. Like it's not anything new to him. ]

Well, I - don't. Mind.

[ Is this a trap? Some revenge plot? Did Lexie tell Gwenaelle about By's putative joking seduction? Did Gwenaelle somehow hear about the betting pool? Because it does all feel bizarrely close to the way the famed soprano Viola Montagne had attempted to seduce him, once, on a bet, during a period when he'd sworn off women altogether. Maker, if it goes that way - if it's anything like that - he may actually hurl himself from the window. ]

[elegiaque]

( it doesn't seem to be a trap. or at least it doesn't spring, gwenaëlle subsiding into smaller, hiccoughing sobs that come further apart, her knees slung over the side of his chair like a child and her chin tucked down, the top of her head communicating very little at the angle he can see it. ​)

I mean, ( bitterly, ) how hard can it possibly not to pick at someone for half an hour. Ten minutes. If you can argue with someone, can't you also be quiet with them?

( apparently she's found it quite difficult. )

"Isn't that what you're doing", he says. What a cunt. ( what a good observation of the way she is relentlessly smashing through everything that matters to her. )

You care about me so you argue with me and I argue with you and you're never nice to me so you wouldn't be. I don't want to go home to Lexie and be understood.

( and receive kindness she can't bear from someone she can't bear to hurt as well. she didn't mean to hurt byerly, either. she keeps hurting herself. )

[bouchonne]

[ He tries to track all that. ]

Am I the cunt in this situation?

[ The easiest question to start with, to be sure. Who's he? Thranduil, he supposes, if not himself. ]

[elegiaque]

Something Astarion said before I came up here.

( almost immediately before, in fact.

after a while, )

I thought I'd misread it. That you just argue with me because you think I'm lazy and tiresome.

[bouchonne]

[ Lazy and tiresome? ]

Maker - [ What? ] I argue with people who can take it. The people I don't argue with are stupid people and sad people.

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle is quiet a while. eventually, )

Well, good. Me, too.

( but, )

I'd like not to argue for a bit.

[bouchonne]

[ ????

He doesn't really know what to do. ]

All right.

[elegiaque]

( she has crushed his handkerchief, just about, and manages to wipe her eyes with the knuckles of the fist it's trapped in.

all right, she thinks. )

All right. I'm.

( sad, and stupid, and very small. )

- going to go and sleep.

( she slinks off his chair, briefly looking almost surprised to have looked up from her fit and found herself where she did, and manages to gather the mess she's made of her things with some shreds of dignity before taking them with her into his bedroom.

hardie lies back down next to whiskey. bitches crazy, is he right. )

[bouchonne]

[ And Byerly just stares after her.

He wonders, for a moment, who Gwenaelle thinks he is. What she expects of him. What she wants him to be. He has no idea how close that thing is to who he actually is.

But - Well, whatever. If he can bring her some measure of peace tonight, so be it. He's not certain whether he actually has, but...So be it. ]

[elegiaque]

( after a short time, aggrieved: )

Hardie!

( he busses his head against whiskey, rises. regards byerly with the look of one greatly put upon, and then follows dutifully after her.

and then it's just quiet, and eventually they must both be sleeping. she'll leave in the morning. )