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]

Yes.

[ He caresses his wrist again, this time tenderly. ]

I know. One wants to be both beloved, rationally, and also intoxicatingly desired, animalistically. Two paths to intertwined results.

[ A beat, and then a little rueful smile. ]

I'd have jumped into bed with you much sooner if I hadn't been falling for you so hard, you know.

[cozen]

[ A nod, with some relief, at having what he was struggling to describe laid out and understood, and then Bastien raises his eyebrows and looks away from By’s fingers on his wrist to smile at him. ]

Really?

[ He didn’t know. But his tone isn’t coy or smug; he’s not fishing for flirtation. Just frank interest in what By thinks, why he does what he does. ]

[bouchonne]

[ His nod is a little awkward. The way he glances at Bastien, then away again, the way he starts shredding one of the buns - there's something nearly shy about it. ]

Mm. For a number of years, it's been a tool for manipulation. For working a target. I didn't want that to be what it was between us.

[ A hesitation - another glance over - and then a careful: ]

Alexandrie, too. I avoided anything physical for quite some time. Though I made quite a muddle of explaining that to her.

[cozen]

[ Bastien’s smile goes soft. ]

Mon bon coeur.

[ He takes Byerly’s hand and holds on, obscured but not fully hidden from the street by their elevation and crate table. He’s read more than one story about hulking warriors so used to violence that they were afraid they wouldn’t know how to be gentle—but they were always wrong. That they were afraid in the first place was the proof they were wrong. ]

It would never have been like that with us. The worst it could ever have been was friendly and fun and over quickly.

[bouchonne]

[ A laugh - merry enough on the surface, but with an element of - something else. Anxiety? Sorrow? ]

Precisely my fear.

[cozen]

[ Bastien answers his laugh with a grin and collects one of the croissants to begin eating in its entirety, one pinched bite at a time. He's dextrous enough to do it one-handed. ]

You were afraid it would be meaningless? Or you would afraid you would become Spyerly, maître de la séduction— [ ridiculous, but that's his instinctive way of reaching a hand into the shadowy undercurrents of By's laugh: swirling it around, silly, it's not so bad ] —to make us linger?

[bouchonne]

Spyerly.

[ Terrible! He leans his head against Bastien's, and says more ruefully. ]

That I'd be unable to hold onto it. That it'd become meaningless because - Because it always has to. So that I do not ruin myself when I ruin others.

[cozen]

[ Bastien hums, grin receding into content thoughtfulness. A moment silence for the people who fell for Byerly, after (between?) Alexandrie, before Bastien, but didn't get this. ]

Is that why no one was an almost, for you?

[bouchonne]

No one save Lady Ferelden.

[ Though...Ah, he would struggle to say it aloud. He has not left his loyalty behind. Maker, no. But he has found - it must be said - that love of country, which previously he'd taken as the grandest of all sustenance, is rather weak gruel compared to love of Bastien. And again, he knows he's in the first flush of infatuation, that it will all turn less floaty and perfect later...But. ]

My love for her, after all, was chaste.

[cozen]

[ Bastien isn't finished being serious, but a brief interlude: ]

That could be our first threesome. I am sure I could find a map big enough. You could bury your face in her mountains—

[bouchonne]

[ A laugh. ]

Alas - she's frigid down south.

[cozen]

[ Bastien choke-cough-laughs with an absence of dignity that can only mean he is genuinely started (and delighted) by the punchline.

Good interlude. ]

Do you still worry? That it will stop meaning something.

[bouchonne]

[ He's quiet for a moment. Pensively: ]

No. I don't think I do.

[cozen]

Mmm.

[ In self-doubting-Byerly-speak, that’s practically confidence. ]

Good. I don’t think you should. And if it ever does start to slip away, tell me— [ it will sting; he’ll live ] —and I will seduce you all over again, from the beginning. Like a stranger.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly smiles over at Bastien, and shakes his head. ]

Don't mistake me. I'll never stop loving you. It's just the worry that sometimes unsettles me.

[cozen]

[ There’s a twitch and startled blink from Bastien—both rare—because he had not even realized they might be talking about losing love, rather the particular piece of it that makes the sex so great. He might have panicked, otherwise. Briefly. Quietly. Unfairly, with everything he knows and trusts about By, but abandonment issues die hard.

Instead he realizes and is reassured in the same breath. He finds steady ground without needing any time to flail around for it. He smiles. ]

Then tell me when you worry, and I will tell you, ils mélangeront nos cendres.

[ An old cliche. Silly, but sincere. ]

Did you ever try? With others, I mean, before. Did you want to hold onto them?

[bouchonne]

[ He catches onto that miscommunication and winces in apology for it. But no harm done, it seems - or the harm is concealed. (Maker, it's the danger of being in love a Bard; By could break Bastien's heart and Bastien could choose never to make it known. But - But. But Bastien wouldn't conceal it from him, not now. He hopes.) ]

Ah.

[ He gathers his wits, and says - ]

No. I'd always thought that - Well. [ With the air of something practiced: ] That, as the Maker did not shape nugs to fly, he did not shape me to love.

[cozen]

[ Bastien squeezes By’s hand and says, with firm warmth, ]

Absurd.

[ A seagull lands on one of their adjacent crates, eyeing their little feast with its dark eyes. Bastien wiggles a foot to scare it away, but it only hops to a higher crate, just as close. ]

No one has ever loved me as well as you have. And they have tried.

[ A little smug, a little regretful. There might have been something fucked up about the way he let go of Vincent and then became him, but worse. In six years he found a dozen people who treated him like the first greenery of spring, and he didn’t love one of them back. Even his interest in Byerly was first sparked by the way By looked at him, that evening of the drinking competition. By the way he seemed susceptible to Bastien’s charm.

He doesn’t look directly at it. ]

You decided to try for us. [ Holding on. ] Our two-pronged assault must have worn you down.

[bouchonne]

It did.

[ His voice is quiet. His eyes fall on that seagull - ratty old thing, with dark smears on its feathers and shit on its feet. He feels a curious little swell of affection for the dirty, bold little monster. Tosses it a little piece of bread, which it gobbles down with horrifying swiftness.

A little smile. ]

Though as I recall...I was the one who came begging for you. You don't have to say yes, but I need you in my life, dearest Bastien.

[cozen]

[ Bastien half-smiles, looks up at By’s profile, and smiles the rest of the way. ]

In your sash.

[ For all Bastien prides himself on thinking about other people’s perspectives, this might be the first time he’s thought about that evening from Byerly’s, free of what clouded his vision at the time. No sickening certainty he was there to be let down gently, coloring everything even after it had been disproven. No stubborn irrational fixation on a few scattered signs Byerly didn’t love him, no ignoring the flood of evidence that he did.

Just By setting his sweet, bruised heart on the table, nervous and brave in the face Bastien’s inscrutable breeziness. ]

Please never get rid of that sash.

[bouchonne]

Ha.

[ If Byerly were someone to blush, he'd be blushing. As it stands, he just lifts his eyebrows and tilts down his chin and smiles a funny little smile. ]

I do look incredibly dashing with it, don't I?

[cozen]

Like someone out of a story.

[ His grip on By’s hand turns into a massage, thumb knuckle kneading into his palm. ]

You know when I really should have realized I could have you, though?

[ Byerly’s bedraggled seagull friend, emboldened, hops a crate closer, and this time Bastien doesn’t try to scare it. For By’s sake. ]

When you let me kiss you with my jungle breath.

[bouchonne]

[ A laugh. By tosses another little bit of bread to the seagull, then takes a corresponding bite from the roll's filling. ]

I believe that you'll find that you let me kiss you with my jungle breath.

[cozen]

Pff. You tasted like cream and sugar.

[ He takes By’s wrist and pilots his hand down so Bastien can steal a bite of the filling, too. While he chews, a second seagull arrives, feathers in puffed-up disarray, like it heard there was food and rushed over without getting dressed. Bastien laughs at them. ]

Thank you, [ is unrelated to the laughter— ] for being so brave for me. I’m sorry I didn’t see it as well at the time.

[bouchonne]

I - Hardly. [ He compensates for his self-consciousness by throwing another crumb of bread. The second seagull lunges for it; then the first seagull lunges for him; and the two of them have a squawking, screeching fight with spread wings. It's a charming little diversion until the first one establishes his dominance.

Once they settle down - ]

I was just greedy. You were the brave one - Risking someone who could have been awful.