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]

To draw out the Crows. To be the bait in a trap.

[ Belatedly - with a guilty start - he realizes that that offer was not his to make. Not without asking. Not any longer. His life is no longer just his own. ]

[cozen]

[ This quiet beat is much longer, as fear and reproach and admiration and a Bard's calculation all collide and clog up his brain.

Do they need a trap? It's not a bad idea.

But not Byerly—

But then who would Bastien risk in his place? Whose death could he ask Byerly to live with?

But Byerly isn't making him ask. (Now comes being touched, though at this moment it's just another thing stuck in the pipes.)

But it's for him that Byerly is changing his mind, though—perhaps not only for him, but enough for him that he would know. That he might be doing what he never wants to do, making By be something less than he could be instead of helping him be more.

But he won't be anything if he's dead.

He says something— ]

Without your bodyguard?

[ —only to keep the silence from stretching out too long. His voice sounds like a tired smile. ]

[bouchonne]

[ The anxiety and guilt tightening in his chest eases. He'd expected - what? Anger, he supposes. Which is silly, because anger is not Bastien's way. Or if it is, it's swallowed, kept back. But he'd expected something, some lashing out, not that gentleness.

Why didn't he ask? Why didn't he say anything? Why did he offer? ]

Not without my bodyguard.

[ Even though that hadn't been the deal. Even though he'd offered something far more dangerous. Which triggers suddenly a blurt of: ]

I think I just want to impress her.

[ That comes out as a confession - a little wry, a bit more ashamed. ]

She thinks I'm a complete fool. I want her to loathe me a little less.

[cozen]

[ A quiet huff. It falls short of a laugh, but it's close. He's not done with his two hundred questions and concerns, but he's grateful for the confession, for the vulnerability of it and for the chance to step back from that tangle of uncertainty for a minute or two. ]

She has that effect.

[ Bastien broke a contract to help her, after all. He broke a contract, for the first time ever, and then he put rocks in a sock and gave himself some significant bruising to back up the excuses he had to make to avoid being murdered for the failure. ]

Her face, you know? She always looks like she knows everything about you, and she's deciding what to do about it.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly lets out a grateful sigh. That Bastien doesn't deny it, that he doesn't make excuses for her, that he doesn't make excuses for Byerly - It makes him feel like less of a fool. ]

Yes.

[ And, more wryly now: ]

And I've always had a weakness for cold women.

[cozen]

[ This huff is definitely a laugh. ]

Queen Anora. I knew it.

[ He hesitates before he adds, ]

I haven't really talked to her about us. To Yseult, I mean, not the queen. About us, or about you. [ They used to talk about Darras quite a bit, before Yseult and Darras worked things out and she could talk to Darras about Darras instead. It would have been fair to confide in her. But, ] I have a hunch she disapproves, and I suppose I haven't wanted her to say so out loud.

[ Because he only has so many friends; because he's a coward, a little, when it comes to the approval of people he cares about. ]

And that's awful of me. I'm sorry. I should have been telling her how great you are for the last year. The last two years.

[bouchonne]

No.

[ That's said very, very quickly. Fast enough that By doesn't even really consider it before it comes out of his mouth. ]

That's really - There's no need for that.

[cozen]

[ Way too quick.

Bastien's pace is more deliberative. ]

I think that there is. Love of my life, [ in his childhood tongue, closest to his heart, and, ] le mari de mon âme, [ in Byerly's. ] What would you do in my place?

[bouchonne]

[ Oh. Byerly melts at those sweet endearments. He sits with them a moment, then confesses: ]

I'd either see her convinced of your worth - or know her for an unworthy lost cause if she continued to be so blind.

[cozen]

Mmhm.

[ The answer he expected. And that settles it. Of course they're different; Byerly plays the game by other rules than he does, winds people up for a purpose or for fun, picks fights where Bastien smiles and dodges. Bastien can't follow along behind him making liking Byerly a prerequisite for his being friendly with anyone.

But someone he's close to (by his standards), who he confides in, and who already knows Byerly is more than he pretends to be—that's another matter. ]

I'll do better.

[bouchonne]

[ But Byerly continues to protest. ]

No. I -

[ He struggles with it a moment, and then lets out a raw huff of breath. He know that Bastien won't be particularly sympathetic to this argument, but with Bastien he must be honest. ]

She argues. She'll question all this and make you think about it. And I don't...want you having to think too hard about it.

[ Which he's embarrassed by. Which he knows is foolish. But still, that fear: if Bastien has to examine what they have here in the cold hard light of logic, that he'll think twice about it. ]

[cozen]

Byerly.

[ Chiding. Affectionately chiding, though, and perhaps not entirely understanding his meaning: ]

I think about this all the time.

[bouchonne]

[ And he tries to articulate: ]

Not in the way she'd make you think about it. She strips all sentimentality away.

[ And without sentimentality...Why would Bastien tolerate all his nonsense? ]

that icon has bonus hot points. extra hotness credit.

[cozen]

It is welded on.

[ Flippant, maybe, but it's only a prelude. ]

By, I—those weeks I made you wait, before I said yes? Do you know what I was thinking about then? I was thinking I would be your fuck buddy, [ he hates saying now, ] and your reliable friend, and you would never love me back. I was deciding whether or not I could stand it. To be that, and to watch you love Alexandrie and let you talk to me about it and.

And now I feel so stupid even saying it. [ He also feels wide awake. The creaking sound is him sitting up, putting his feet on the floor. All the better to make quiet dramatic speeches into a little blue rock. ] Because you've been so wonderful, at every turn, it seems absurd that I ever thought like that. It's absurd that I didn't know I could have something like this. That I could deserve it. It's the most absurd that I ever thought you might treat me that way, if you had even a faint suspicion of how I felt. It's...

[ A moment to find the thread he has lost. ]

What I am trying to say is, the very worst things anyone could ever suggest to me about what we have, I have already thought them, and you have already proven that they are ridiculous. Complete fucking nonsense.

jrm has some good angles. And some very bad ones

[bouchonne]

I love you.

[ Words he says often, in a hundred different tones. Most often, the words are playful or idly fond - because acts as simple as bringing him a coffee at just the right time or playing an arpeggio with expressive beauty get an I love you. In this instance, I love you is quiet and raw and earnest. Scraped out of somewhere deep in him.

Every person wants safety in love. Byerly is no exception to that; he wants to feel steady and sure that there'll be no harm coming to him. But more than that is a hunger to know that he is safe. That he can make mistakes without doing indelible harm. ]

And I'm glad. I'm - glad that you protected yourself. [ Rawer still: ] If I'd hurt you, especially in those early days, I'd have run away. I hate the thought that I could do it now, but back then - Maker.

[cozen]

You never would have. I was—

[ A pause, struggling to compress into words a lifetime of being unloved and left behind, and of not loving and leaving behind, until anything else felt too strange to believe. He doesn’t quite manage. ]

—doing it to myself.

[ And this isn’t what he meant to be talking about, and he shouldn’t have said it. But it’s something, isn’t it, that he can say something he shouldn’t have said, accidentally scrape Byerly that raw, and By is meeting him with an I love you, not pulling back or turning his face away. (Metaphorically, because crystal.) ]

And I don’t do it anymore, [ at least on so large a scale, ] because you love me, and I trust you. But you need to trust me, too.

[bouchonne]

[ That gives him just a bit of pause. ]

I do trust you.

[cozen]

To love you.

[ Insistent. ]

To love you in a way someone isn’t going to somehow talk me out of.

[bouchonne]

I -

[ Oh. That...is a sort of trust, isn't it? Trust isn't just believing that someone won't do evil things. It's also this. ]

Well. It's not a lack of faith in you, you know. If I struggle. It's...Well, you know.

[ An awareness - no, a belief - that Bastien deserves better than this miserable fool. ]

[cozen]

[ A pause, and the tension—the feisty overreaction, maybe, to the implication he might not know his own mind—bleeds out. ]

I know.

[ Gentler now. ]

I know. It’s alright.

I love you. And it’s not a splinter in my heart that someone can pull out with pliers. It is my heart. And the rest of me. [ Brightening a little, holding the cheesiness out like a hand: ] I love you with all my heart and all my teeth and all my toenails.

[bouchonne]

[ And By grasps that offering, letting loose a breathy little laugh. ]

The same from me. Even my farts love you. All the rancid bits of me.

[ Then: ]

Is that why you asked me that question? About - me believing that you'd grieve me?

[cozen]

[ Bastien snickers, and the smile lingers in his voice even as he says, ]

I don’t know. I suppose.

Yseult chastised me a little bit, for not sounding like I took Antiva seriously. And we joke so much and carry on, and I know I don’t always show things the way other people do.

[bouchonne]

Maker, I'd probably lay down weeping all day every day if you didn't.

[ There, at least, he has an honest, uncomplicated answer. ]

[cozen]

If I didn’t joke with you?

[ Rhetorical, mostly. He sounds pleased. Nice to be useful to the war effort in such a pleasant way. ]

I don’t want to change how we are. I only wanted to make sure you knew—I would keep living, you know, and try to do something with myself that would make you proud, but I would keep your urn on your pillow. My neighbors would wonder who that weird old man who lived alone was always talking to. It would be pathetic. And I hate to be pathetic, so… Don’t die.

[bouchonne]

And you know I'd be the same.

[ His voice is soft. Fond, but a little sad, too. ]

So you're not allowed to die, either.