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 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.