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]

[ By laughs. ]

What shall we wager?

brief nsfw comment warning 🚨

[cozen]

[ He thinks briefly about it before proposing, ]

Blow jobs.

[ Orlesian, for the delicate Marcher ears around them. ]

Three of them. In the outfits of the winner’s choice.

[ As if they need the excuse. That’s not the point. ]

[bouchonne]

Rare currency indeed.

[ It's not. ]

You're on.

[cozen]

[ Bastien smooths his own mustache with thumb and forefinger, eyes a cocky challenge above the gesture. But then he gets distracted by looking up at the line of By's neck and stubbly jaw—no subtlety, because there's no cause for it—and looks smitten instead. ]

Maybe Suzette knows, [ as he returns his eyes to the road to avoid walking into anyone. ] He talks to Suzette. But I suppose if she is a good person she will not tell us.

[bouchonne]

[ He catches that look of adoration out of the corner of his eye - and he turns back, and meets Bastien's gaze, and, overwhelmed, leans in to kiss him lovingly. On the lips, because to hell with the people around them and to hell with rudeness.

There will doubtless be a day when the infatuation ends and transitions into something a bit more modest and steady and low-key. Doubtless. Surely it'll happen sometime soon. ]

Eurgh. Good people. [ He wrinkles his nose. ] Surely she isn't. If she were, what would she be doing hanging around Percy? Or us?

[cozen]

[ Over the brief span of that kiss, Bastien goes through a short journey: startled happiness, fretful awareness of the river of people parting around them, and finally resolve to not give a damn. An attitude absorbed through osmosis, perhaps, from By's mouth. After, he grins and doesn't duck his head or curl in his shoulders, not even to make a show of propriety for the rest of the street.

So bolstered, he curls his hand around By's upper arm for a few paces while they resume their stroll in the vague direction of coffee. Good, probably, to practice not-hiding among the Kirkwallers—cranky but less fussed by this sort of thing, not counting the Fereldan Blight refugees still among them—before he has to not-hide in Ferelden. ]

I'm, [ a good person, he almost says, but ha, so there is only a pause before, ] very convincing.

[bouchonne]

You are.

[ There's a look from someone off to their right, a pinch-faced woman, and By looks back until she breaks eye contact. There's a pleasure in this - in knowing that he is, at the end of the day, the Ambassador, a political force, with far more weight than any pinch-faced rube, and so anyone who disapproves of him just - well, has to deal with it. Maybe when the war is over he'll lose his courage, or maybe if (when?) he's unceremoniously dumped out of his position, but right now, there's a real pleasure in being able to tell yourself that anyone else can get fucked. ]

Here?

[ This is a spot with, if he remembers, decent coffee - or, more accurately, cheap coffee, slopped out strong. (By's tastes are not so fine as Bastien's.) ]

[cozen]

[ Catching the edges of that stare down makes Bastien tighten his grip. Nerves—but at least they're not nerves that make him let go. ]

Here?

[ Full Orlesian snob, that word. He looks at the establishment before them. It is not the one he was aiming for. But the one he was aiming for is still a decent walk away, and the pastries aren't getting any fresher, and if they stay in this area they'll be able to see the sea and the ships instead of becoming fully enveloped by Lowtown's towering walls.

So he manages a mincingly diplomatic, ]

I suppose it will do the job.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly laughs, charmed enough by Full Snob to banish the last vestiges of the defiant anger from his heart. He gestures to the sign above the shop, bearing a stylized green mermaid wearing a crown. ]

What, do you have an objection to coffee that's scorched and bitter?

[cozen]

We only have so many days of life, Byerly. Only so many cups of coffee we will drink—and then it is over. Nothing but Fade juice. Every bad cup of coffee takes the place of a good one.

But—

[ His puffed-up offense deflates a touch. ]

—there are also only so many days we can sit there, [ with a gesture to a small mountain of crates, three deep and unattended, high enough that they can lord over the passers by in the street but hopefully not so high as to trigger anyone’s acrophobia, ] and watch Kirkwall’s harbor over breakfast.

If you can stand to do that to your poor tongue.

[bouchonne]

[ He's nodding mock-solemnly through Bastien's sermon, clasping his hands over his heart at fade juice - yes, yes, so tragic, yes - then finally breaks into a grin at getting permission to be tacky. ]

I can stand it. And I think you don't need more coffee today.

[cozen]

I don’t know what you’re implying.

[ He does. He’s fully aware of the unnecessary energy level he’s bringing to foisting his basket into Byerly’s hands, with, ]

I’ll buy it. My treat—sort of. Can we call it a treat? Don’t peek.

[ In the basket, because he’s leaving it behind to dive into the small crowd attempting to obtain their Medieval Fantasy Starbucks—which btw how DARE you hahahaha. He manages to go right to the front of the disorganized little line without seeming to cut at all.

(The basket, if peeked into, really doesn’t contain anything more exciting than pastries. Only Whiskey’s promised link of sausage and his other morning market buys: two books, good ink, the kind of oil he puts in his hair and the kind of oil he keeps in his bedside table.)

He returns promptly with a wooden cup. Bows low to hold it out. ]

Your shit.

[bouchonne]

My shit!

[ He's taken the time Bastien was gone to arrange a proper perch for them - boxes set upon a not-too-high height, some burlap arranged to provide scratchy cushioning, a smaller crate to serve as a makeshift table. He reaches down to accept the cup joyously, then offers Bastien a hand up into their little crow's nest. ]

Oh, it smells rancid. Thank you.

[ And, proud of himself, because he's telling the truth - ]

I didn't peek.

[ Like a child reporting a rare instance of good behavior. ]

[cozen]

You didn't peek?

[ Still on his knees from his ascent up the crates, Bastien leans forward to examine By's eyes for lies (the mischievous kind, fully permissible) and feel his forehead for fever. He finds neither, and he smiles. ]

You didn't peek. And you built us a castle.

[bouchonne]

I did.

[ He grins, even as he also reaches up to feel his own head for illness. ]

Am I not the best lover you've ever had?

[cozen]

No competition.

[ He sits on his burlap cushion throne and pulls his basket onto his lap to begin unpacking its contents onto the crate-table. The promised pain au chocolat, of course, but also a half-dozen others, each different, three herbed and savory and three sweet.

Ten altogether, and generously portioned. He surveys this collection, once it’s laid out, with the look of someone who’s just now realizing he went overboard. ]

Some can keep until tomorrow.

[ Better. Back on board. ]

And I will tell you my second best lover if you tell me your third.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly's lips part in appreciation of the variety. More than anything, his weakness is that variety: he has no love for eating the same thing time and again. Instead, having little nibbles of something different, a mouthful here and a mouthful there that's never the same - it's his favorite thing. These may keep, but they'll be keeping in bits and pieces, with chunks taken out here and there. ]

My third.

[ He hums in thought. ]

Are we talking skill in bed, or general interest?

[cozen]

General. Both. Either.

[ He sits at an angle that lets his ankle touch By's leg, companionably, while he looks out at the street. On the crates, they're only half above it. A good view, with no risk of jostling or having their pockets picked, without feeling detached from the people. Best castle. Best company. He couldn't be happier. ]

Was there ever anyone who almost worked? Who was almost enough?

[bouchonne]

No.

[ Maybe two years ago, he'd have hemmed and hawed. Two years ago, there were a few who he'd have thought might have been enough.

That was before he'd known what it was like to be loved. ]

But - Don't laugh about this one. I think, of everyone, I enjoyed the Comtesse de Bayard - [ A woman who Bastien might remember as having been fifty years their senior when they were in Val Royeaux - ] the most.

[cozen]

[ Bastien doesn't laugh, obediently, but his eyebrows do go a full half inch. ]

Really.

[ He tries to remember her clearly, through the fog of at least nine years, since he might have seen her at a dinner or a wedding somewhere. There's no face to go with the memory; like most nobles', he never saw it. ]

Why?

[bouchonne]

I don't know.

[ He nibbles at one of the savory buns, and gives a little Hm! of approval. Then: ]

Maybe it was a matter of expectations. I'd anticipated it being excruciating, something to be endured, but then - She had the most interesting mind. She'd lived a different life, and so the assumptions she made always surprised me. And she loved to tell me stories, and she was an incredible storyteller. She was funny.

[ His smile is deeply fond. ]

So many of my lovers over the years have been - Well, there's been so little to them. They've endeavored to show me so little. But she was a complete person.

[cozen]

[ Bastien's incredulity softens around the edges until his smile is a little fond, too. ]

That is a dangerous thing for a noble in Orlais to be, with handsome young men. She must have really liked you.

[bouchonne]

She must have. I could have been taking advantage of her. But - [ He rolls his shoulders and gives an easy shrug. ] It wasn't love, of course, but it was a pleasant time when I needed something pleasant.

[ He tears off a piece of the roll and places it on Bastien's lips. ]

Now you. Second-best.

[cozen]

[ The flick of his tongue against Byerly's fingers, as he pulls the bread into his mouth, is entirely unnecessary. Or maybe actually it is entirely necessary. Depends on how one looks at these things. He makes an ooh, good face while he chews and swallows, which hasn't completely faded by the time he says, ] Jaquet Geiger. He's a bookseller.

[ No one By would have met, except by chance encounter. ]

He's... I don't know. He was sweet. And funny. [ A nod to mark their mutual preference for laughing. ] Kind of fussy—he would go around unfolding all the dog ears in my books. He held the record, though, until you. We lasted almost a whole year.

[bouchonne]

[ Such a strange thought - anyone ever allowing Bastien to slip away. Who would be the fool who'd break up with him, or allow him to break up with them? Absurd. ]

And you weren't just using him to get at those books?

[ Because there's something so charmingly right about Bastien falling in love with a bookseller. ]