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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[armd]

(Abby is silent for all of this and then says, with a twist of hesitation in her voice,)

... And we aren't talking about Sidony.

(like she's pretty certain this is about alexandrie but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

[bouchonne]

[ With a noise of disapproval: ]

Of course not. Sidony is my wife.

[armd]

But not the woman you love??

[bouchonne]

Absolutely not.

[ He winces, then, as the potion compels him to say: ]

She doesn't like men.

[armd]

... What?

(HOLD ON) She told me she loves you!

[bouchonne]

[ Honestly. ]

And I love her. There's a difference between loving someone and them being the woman you love.

[armd]

(The sound of Abby opening and closing her mouth. Then, she says,) I guess? (Like a question. And adds, compulsively,) I wouldn't know. -- Damnit.

(Why did she come to talk to him about this during soup hours again... oh, right,) Did he know that she was your lover too?

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly purses his lips. ]

Of course. Alexandrie told him of our situation - of her, and me, and Bastien.

[armd]

... And Bastien. (Echoed. Wait,) Okay.

(No, she doesn't want to get into that right now, she is focusing on this thing!! In a second. Also Loki... this is all fairly damning evidence and she's starting to feel like an idiot, but) You should talk to her about it. If she wants to be with him it's not like she needs your permission.

(Especially when she thinks about how much Loki cares about her, how deep the fear that he might hurt or lose her runs.) I know it's none of my fucking business, (and would have said this unsouped,) but he's my friend, and you're being an asshole. Just avoid him. (He's barely been in the Gallows as it is.)

[bouchonne]

[ Clipped: ]

I see. So your takeaway from all of this is that I'm some grand bully beating up on him. Is that it?

[armd]

(Shortly, truthfully,) No. He's being a fucking idiot.

And I wish he told me earlier. (NO. byerly you unhear that right now,) He doesn't tell me anything.

[bouchonne]

[ It's good that she said that; it eases some of the fury he's feeling. And so, reluctantly, he says: ]

Look. Alexandrie and I have - It has been a complicated love. A painful love. Much of what I loathe about myself grew out of the wounds we inflicted upon one another. And then, when after decades we've found some happiness, this man comes in, wearing her husband's face but with few of her husband's foibles, acting so virtuous and princely, and she swoons over him, and he clasps her in his arms, and it's such perfect bliss, and I have to watch. And then when I'm spiteful towards him, which should be my one solace in all this, he tears his hair about what a beast I am, about what a fool I am that I can't see the goodness in him, and that wretched woman Sylvie simpers about how we're all such idiots here in Thedas and he sighs over her and scolds me for being so cruel to her - And I feel half-mad with all of it. And am told, now, to stop being so wretched and horrid to this poor man.

It makes me feel like I'm being drowned while told to take deep breaths, it's all air, stop being so dramatic.

[ - That's more than he intended to say. ]

[armd]

(Abby listens, brooding, and hates that she can hear some of her own feelings in his explanation. It's not the same as her own failings when she's not sure if she ever actually loved Owen in the first place as much as she perpetuated to, a stray thought that strikes her out of nowhere with all the force of a lightning bolt. She has no idea if it was soup influenced or not. She doesn't want to find out.)

I don't think you're a beast. (She has to say it, but she would have said it anyway.) I think you're really nice. And I get it. My ex went off with my friend who had a 'secret' crush on him for years, and he got her pregnant, so I had to smile at them every single fucking time I saw them and ask when they were moving in together and if they were excited about the baby and all that other shit, so.

(A big breath in.

Cool. First time she's ever told anybody that. Exhaled,) Yeah.

[bouchonne]

Maker.

[ Half-sympathetic, half-wry. What a nightmare. (But how glad he is, that her story gave him time to pull back from his own anger and grief.) ]

Exes ought to be off-limits. That ought to be a rule for all friends everywhere. Can't date friends' exes.

[armd]

Yeah. It's bullshit, (she mutters, and drops her face into her hands.)

Sorry, (is muffled, as a result. Shortly,) I feel like an asshole. I am an asshole.

[bouchonne]

No, it's -

[ Well, no. It's not okay. It makes him feel like shit. But: ]

I am a bastard. And you were sticking up for your friend. I mean - half of what I was saying there, it was the truth, sure enough, but I was saying it because I wanted you to feel like an asshole.

[armd]

I always feel like an asshole. (Sooooooo) And I only messaged you about it in the first place because I knew you'd have to tell me the truth.

(Christ.

Do you see her point.)

[bouchonne]

[ A little snort. ]

Don't say that like you think I'll condemn you for it. That's just resourcefulness.

[armd]

(And a little scoff,) Thanks, Byerly.

(She knows this is a bold ask but,) Can you not tell anybody what I said. About my ex.

[bouchonne]

Of course not. If you wish me not to.

[ He frowns a little. ]

But - Why hide it? It's not shameful.

[armd]

Because they both got killed right before I came here and I don't know how to handle still being mad at them for stupid shit that doesn't matter any more.

And I don't want to talk about it.

(All of this is, unfortunately, true.)

[bouchonne]

Ah.

[ He's quiet a moment. Then, a breath in. Someone who's not a bastard might let her be, especially after that confession, but: ]

Truth for truth. What's between you and Ellie?

[armd]

(Fuck.

Abby struggles against it but it has to be said, there's no holding back. When she speaks it's through gritted teeth, spat out like poison.) She's the one who killed them.

(... And?) I tortured somebody she loved to death, so she came after me and my friends. I'm the only one left.

[bouchonne]

[ Well.

Fuck.

All right. ]

I -

[ He'd expected something like, oh, she's so annoying, or - Certainly not this. ]

I...see.

[ He can't think of anything else to say to that. So instead, he asks - ]

How...old are you?

[armd]

(YOU ASKED, MAN)

Twenty-two. (Far too young to have experienced all that. Abby feels numb. It doesn't even occur to her to throw the fucking crystal out the window and end the whole conversation, she's just frozen in place.)