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]

Hmmmm.

[ Doesn’t mind if he does. ]

Madly. [ He levers one leg to roll By over, pauses to prevent the blankets from tangling or letting the warm air escape, and props up over him. ] Fiercely. Furiously.

[ Bastien cups his jaw with a firmer hold than usual, with decisive, possessive energy that he’s feigned for people who swoon over that sort of thing. Tips his head to kiss him. But it’s only a peck, not a romance novel mouth-claiming deep-dive, before he’s floppy and smiling again. ]

Honestly? A little.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly is grinning and pleased. Hard not to swoon a little over that.

He loops his arms around Bastien's neck. ]

I have very particular tastes when it comes to falling in love, as it turns out.

[cozen]

[ Bastien smiles, eyes averted to By’s mustache—which he begins combing with only the edge of his thumbnail, as if arranging each hair individually. ]

Orlesian Bards who smile a lot?

[bouchonne]

[ He laughs a little, but then says, with rare earnestness: ]

People with good hearts.

[cozen]

[ Bastien’s smile diminishes to a hint. It doesn’t vanish. A compliment is a compliment. He knows By believes it, but the spectral faces of the people he killed are fresh in his memory. If that’s a good heart—

It’s alright, though. He pretended his way into really being Orlesian, and really being parentless, and really being a printer, so maybe he can pretend his way into this, too, and make it true.

He finishes neatening the second side of Byerly’s mustache in silence, then says, ]

Does he have that effect on everyone? Your spymaster.

[bouchonne]

He does. He's one of those people who's just silent. And who has the most incredible memory. He'll mention something you said four years ago that you've half-forgotten - It's terrible.

[ Don't think for a moment that Byerly hasn't noticed that dimming of that smile. It's obvious even in the dark. And - rather warming, that Bastien lets him see it. So he strokes Bastien's cheek, and says: ]

If you can see me as a good man despite the evil I've done, I can see the same in you, my duck.

[cozen]

Quack.

[ His smile widens, as he lists a bit into By’s hand. A sucker for the face touching—maybe that’s an Orlesian thing, with faces so often masked or intricately painted or both, impossible to casually touch without risking a mess that everyone else will see. Or maybe it’s an everyone thing.

Either way: a sucker, but not distracted. ]

It matters why you do a thing. Don’t you think? Defending yourself, or defending someone else—that is not the same as doing it for money. And maybe you do things for other reasons, too. To be able to eat or to feel good at something or to impress someone. No one ever has just one reason for anything.

But you would not have done it if not for thinking it was right. For you that is a crucial piece. If you thought you were only hurting someone and not helping someone, somewhere, you would go hungry instead.

[bouchonne]

I wish that were true.

[ By's smile turns a little cynical. ]

Now, it would be the case, I think. But - You know how I first came into Alexandrie's orbit, don't you?

[ Bastien might, or he might not. By the time they'd crossed paths, Byerly had drifted away from his cousin Rolant, Alexandrie's tormentor. Found better companionship amongst the lowborn and indecent. But he still kept company now and again with those evil fucking men who were his patrons, of sorts, in Royan society. Depended on them to survive. ]

[cozen]

[ Bastien wobbles his head, equivocally. He knows some. He doesn’t know everything. ]

Tell me.

[ He lowers down off his propped arm to lie down, one arm and one leg thrown over Byerly, head tucking into his neck. ]

Did you know what he’d done?

[ Bastien himself only fully realized the extent of it after coming here, to Riftwatch, when he and Fitcher and Athessa and Coupe stumbled onto Rolant again. Bastien saw the humiliating painting he’d had done of Alexandrie. There wasn’t time or opportunity to set it on fire. ]

[bouchonne]

No.

[ As little as a few months ago, Byerly wouldn't have been able to answer directly. He'd have instead equivocated, avoided giving a direct answer - essentially, tested Bastien's faith in him. Would have made it as easy as possible to think the worst, to dig up secret hatreds and unspoken resentments.

He's come a ways, being able to just answer without blinking. ]

I knew only that they had a rivalry. But I did know that he mistreated others. And I acted as his creature - not using physical violence, but one does not need to be physically violent to hurt someone.

[cozen]

No, [ Bastien agrees. There are a thousand other ways.

He tries to think back to Byerly then, when they met. Tries to hold that young man separately from this older one, whose pulse is beating against the tip of Bastien’s nose, without letting all of his present love bleed into the past.

Not easy. Possibly impossible. ]

What did you think about it at the time?

[bouchonne]

I thought...

[ He tries to remember back. Smiles crookedly when he does. ]

Well. What do you suppose I thought? I'm a monster; might as well act like one.

[cozen]

[ Bastien gives his head a little shake. A silent you weren’t. He thinks By knows—or knows what he would say, at least, if he were to say it—well enough not to derail for it, but he has to register the protest anyway. ]

That’s not your fault, after the way you’d been treated. [ He extracts his face from By’s neck to look at him across the pillow. ] And even so, you wouldn’t have killed for him.

[bouchonne]

[ There's just a small hesitation, a slight delicacy in Byerly's manner as he agrees: ]

No. It wasn't. A chicken will try to swim if it's told all its life it's a duck.

[ And then, because it would have been disingenuous to lie: ]

And you're right; I would not have done so.

[cozen]

[ Bastien smiles, so thoroughly glad to have By agree that something wasn’t his fault that there isn’t much room left for feeling lacking and unsure about himself. ]

Mon étoile qui brille dans le noir. [ He taps his fingers lazily against By’s chest, over his heart, in a pleased little hand-dance. And as a counter to the romantic grandiosity: ] Mon doux poulet détrempé

[bouchonne]

[ He can't help but laugh at that. ]

Cluck cluck.

[ Then, as a counter to the silliness: ]

Sometimes, a hand is taught that it's a fist. But it can open again, mon bien-aimé.

[cozen]

I’m self-taught, [ is said with a smile and self-deprecating smugness, albeit muted by sleepiness and the spreading warmth from mon bien-aimé.

His hand dance segues into traced figure eights. ]

It’s alright. It doesn’t eat at me the way it would eat at you.

[ It nips and nibbles, more and more than it used to. But he still outruns it, most of the time, when ghosts or well-meant compliments don’t trip him.

That might be the problem. But if the guilt ever really gets its teeth into him, it will do worse than dim a smile. ]

And if the Maker won’t have me, in the end, I’ll jump the fence and come find you anyway. You can hide me under your bed.

[bouchonne]

If I am righteous enough to stand at His side - [ hah, what a thought - ] and you aren't, then I'll jump into the Fade. I'm no Andraste. I choose my mortal husband.

[cozen]

[ Of course, of course, if the Maker exists, if it all happens the way the Chantry says it will, if there’s a chance at endless paradisiacal bliss, if it’s physically possible to leave, if it’s possible for two lost souls to find each other in the Void, if if if, and Byerly gives his eternal reward up for him, then Bastien’s wispy Fade-wandering ghost will read him the riot act. And then burst into relieved wispy ghost tears. And then read him a second, wetter riot act.

But that’s a lot of ifs. Right now, non-hypothetically, it’s the best thing By could have possibly said. Bastien says, ]

Oh,

[ calmly, like he’s been told a mildly interesting new fact, and he smiles because it’s funny, but his eyes have melted into gooey adoration. ]

Alright.