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]

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. ]

[cozen]

Oh, at first? Absolutely.

[ He leans in to pinch a second bite off the roll. ]

I told him so. I was very upfront, about that. Pretty much only that. That's what happened. We were coming up on a year, he was going to ask me to live with him. He thought he was going to surprise me, but, you know. [ He wiggles his fingers at his perceptive face. ] And I thought, I can't be Edouard all the time, forever. So if I love him, if I want this, I have to tell him the truth.

And then I stood him up.

[bouchonne]

[ Ah. A twist of pain in his heart - for Bastien, for his unrequited love. For this choice, poorly-made, self-defeating. Byerly reaches out and caresses the back of Bastien's neck - fond, sympathetic.

But his words are light. ]

Thank the Maker you did.

[cozen]

[ Bastien begins to nod, then gives a hedging head wobble instead. ]

I could have been less of a dick about it. But that is the only part I regret. I did like it—you know I like it. Having lie-ins and eating toast and reading. But that is all he wanted.

[ And it’s only half of what Bastien wants. He nudges By, who is funnier and sweeter, but who’s also exciting, mischievous, adventurous, restless, endlessly reaching. Who knows what it’s like to be hungry. ]

He never would have broken into a house with me.

[bouchonne]

[ Why does that make Byerly feel better? He wasn't aware of the little twist of anxiety till it relaxed. What, is he so jealous that he'll scowl in the direction of a bookseller that Bastien left years ago? What a fool he is - but a fool who feels that intoxicating swell of adoration and loves every moment of it. ]

You need someone dangerous, eh?

[ He puffs out his chest. This is silly and mocking - not his real anxiety over being dangerous, the madness in his family, but an ironically swaggering sort of thing. ]

[cozen]

[ Bastien grins, but his familiarity with that anxiety makes him pause, searching By's silly expression for the seams of a mask.

Seems genuine. Still: ]

Dangerous and safe. Ma chère contradiction.

[ He can't resist his pinch of bread anymore, so he puts it in his mouth, over to one side, and talks around it. ]

Someone who will burgle and blackmail the wicked and save imperiled innocents, and then come home and snuggle— [ no avoiding that absurd word, might as well lean into it with relish ] —with me and our forty-seven dogs. What a rare gem.

[bouchonne]

Forty-seven!

[ The number does go up every time. By bumps Bastien's shoulder fondly, delighted at that little idyll.

Then, thoughtfully: ]

I think it's not dissimilar. Why I love you so - intensely. [ A little smile at the inadequacy of language. ] That marriage of kindness and care with the wisdom of a life lived.

[cozen]

[ Bastien's smile stretches out slowly, while the pleasure of that seeps in. Things he is not always sure he is, but that he hopes to be. He's trying. He's learning to trust Byerly's good opinion of him, too.

He leans his head over against By's shoulder. He's still too hyped on coffee for it to be a rest; it's pure affection, permitted by some of that borrowed boldness and the safety of their crate fort. ]

Are you calling me old?

[bouchonne]

Ancient.

[ By grins. ]

It's so odd, dating a man so much older than I am.

[cozen]

You only love me for my grey hair—do I have any?

[ He nudges his head forward, without removing it from By's shoulder, for inspection. ]

Grey hair and wrinkles. It is good it was not love, with Comtesse de Bayard, or we would be fighting over you with our canes by now.

[bouchonne]

Let's see -

[ By twists, then picks through Bastien's hair like a monkey searching for lice. After a moment, a delighted gasp - ]

I found one!

[ And a little pinch as By pulls it out and brings it around to Bastien for his inspection. ]

[cozen]

Wh—oh no.

[ He's not distressed enough to move from Byerly's shoulder. ]

That was half your attraction to me. You have to put it back.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly laughs, and then mashes the hair against Bastien's scalp. In mock-distress: ]

It won't go in!

[cozen]

Well, shit.

[ A smile tries to surface with his exhale. He's relaxed enough that it almost escapes. Makes it halfway over the fence before it's pulled back. ]

Until I manage to grow another, you will have to just close your eyes and think of grandparents.

[bouchonne]

[ He laughs. ]

Don't torment me. You promised not to laugh about my aged paramour.