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]

[ He picks the blanket up and wraps it around them both, then tucks it in. ]

Particular about beds?

[cozen]

[ Bastien winds both arms around By's middle, presses his cheek into his shoulder, and lets a belated shiver escape, the way people do when they walk in from the cold and stop bracing against it and clenching their teeth. Warm, but finally relaxing. ]

You know.

[ He has little reason to know. ]

I'd never really slept in one until I was living with the bards. I mean, every now and then— [ a handful of anecdotes for another time, maybe ] –but at home we had kind of a nest, for all the children, and when I wasn't home it was—wherever. So once I did have one, I was—they had to tell me to stop having the linens washed so often, just because I could.

My parents would have had conniptions if there was ever an animal in their bed. Or in the room at all. My sister sort of had a cat for a little while, outside, but it just wasn't something we did. [ He squashes his cheek in a little harder. ] So in a way you are saving me from becoming my father.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly listens a moment - a little puzzled, but listening. He tries to imagine kind of a nest for all the children - what would it be? Blankets on the ground? Everyone tangled together, bumping their heads against one another? He can't decide whether it sounds cozy or stifling - but with the way Bastien is talking, the way he seems to have prized his change in his life station, probably more the latter than the former.

It is odd, running into these little seams where genteel poverty looks so very different from the more honest sort. For Byerly, growing up, a creature providing warmth - well, that would be the pleasure, because no one was putting embers in any bed-warmers. ]

But it's all right when I sleep over with you?

[cozen]

[ Bastien smiles; if it isn’t visible, By can probably still feel it against his shoulder. ]

It’s the best.

[ The same dreamy tone he has applied, most recently, to trying to describe a perfect cinnamon bun he had when he was a teenager, which has never been matched since.

[bouchonne]

[ That difference - especially when laid out with hesitation or uncertainty - is a little hard to wrap his head around. ]

Even when I pile more blankets on, or put my cold feet on you?

[cozen]

And when I wake up with your armpit in my face, and when you come to bed only a few hours before dawn and ruin my very favorite dream. Even then.

[ He gives a little pinch where his hand is resting on against Byerly’s side, affectionately. ]

Are you trying to make a point at me?

[bouchonne]

[ A little squirm. ]

No. Just trying to understand.

[cozen]

[ Bastien hums. He is not sure he understands, himself. But he tries: ]

I don’t know. I’ve shared a bed with men before.

[ He pulls his cheek away from By’s shoulder to look at him, face a pantomime of someone trying to inspire jealousy. ]

A lot of men. I mean, so many.

[ As if By hasn’t shared with more. ]

But never a dog. Maybe it was reflexive, or—I don’t know. Orlesian snottiness. Kaitenese snottiness? Maybe it was cultural, for my parents. Maybe no one there allows animals in their houses. I don’t know.

[bouchonne]

[ A pantomime of prudish shock for the requisite moment. ]

It isn’t just Whiskey, though. You weren’t rushing to my bed even before this quarrel.

[cozen]

[ You never invited me, would be the petty response, if Bastien wanted to try to squirm out of this intimate, cuddly honesty by being combative again, but he knows full well that it would be a technicality. He'd made it so clear he didn't want to be here that asking him to outright would have been begging for rejection or hurtfully transparent excuses. He's glad By didn't.

So instead he sighs. ]

That was—I know you hate this, you don't want us to do this, but it feels like it is hers. Hers and yours. Votre. [ Orlesian is better for some things. ] I need to get over it, because it might be a while before she comes back. And maybe a dragon will attack us tomorrow morning, and I will over there and you will be over here with—with all these people who would not protect you like we would, [ is the kindest way to put Bastien's distrust of the other division heads when it comes to Byerly's safety, ] and I will be so upset you were alone.

But I have been worried that when she comes back, it will be, you know. A whole thing.

[ Also the kindest way he can put that. ]

It's alright, though. Even if it is a thing. That's why I'm here now—to get over it.

[bouchonne]

Mm.

[ Paradoxically, there's the slightest relaxation when Bastien broaches that painful topic. One would expect tensing up, but - Well, she's already been in the air, hasn't she? Byerly has been thinking of her as well, obviously enough. ]

If she comes back.

[ A soft sort of correction. Not as miserable as it might have been, but not happy about it, either. Then a breath in, and he says - without aggression, as simply as he can - ]

It was not her bed. It was mine. She was just invited to share it, as I was invited to share hers - as a visitor, nothing more.

[cozen]

I know.

[ He snakes his hand out of the blanket cocoon to touch By's face again, fingertips on his pretty bottom lip. ]

I know that's how you've seen it.

[ It's Alexandrie he's unsure of. Perhaps because the both of them are so horribly Orlesian. It's a country where Josephine Montilyet can destroy a marriage by leaving the proper glove on the proper table, and so Bastien couldn't help but look for meaning in the hairbrush on the vanity or the embroidery left in progress on the bedside table, and he couldn't be certain she didn't mean for him to find it.

He pinches By's lip between his fingers. Half of a fish mouth. It makes Bastien smile. ]

I think, [ with some caution—it's only tangentially related, but while the door is ajar and Byerly doesn't seem too miserable about it— ] that she wanted me to be a gift she was giving to you. Something to console you in her absence. But with her permission, and on her terms. You know? Not that that is—I am not in any position to blame someone for wanting the biggest piece of you they can take.

[bouchonne]

[ If there's a ripple of tension in response to that characterization, it passes quickly - in favor of, for once, actually voicing his dismay. When he does, though, it is cautious - more probing than skeptical. ]

You make it sound like she sees you as a peasant on her estate, with no rights of your own.

[ - Which - is that what Bastien feels? For all that Byerly is Orlesian, for all that he lived multiple years in Val Royeaux, there are elements of the Orlesian mind and the Orlesian culture that have always escaped him. His mind does not naturally observe some of the castes that are so natural to the Orlesians. He can notice them, and reason through them - but for Orlesians, sometimes it seems as though these differences of status are as obvious a way to classify someone as, say, nationality or sex. A Ferelden will not, at a glance, differentiate a gleaner from a gentleman farmer, or even a merchant from a nobleman. But an Orlesian always will know.

But still. Alexandrie had always been cordial, hadn't she? Kind, even? ]

She likes you. I know that she does.

[cozen]

[ A peasant on her estate receives an upward tic of Bastien’s eyebrows that means yes, it does sound like that, doesn’t it, how odd. She likes you receives a smile. ]

I like her, too.

[ It has the tone of a beginning. Something that’s about to be followed by a but.

But. ]

I don’t want to put you in the middle of anything. That’s only—it’s why I have been so ridiculous about everything, I suppose. I am trying to stop.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly shakes his head at that absurdity, trying to cut it off as quickly as possible. ]

I don't think you can put me in the middle of my own affaires de coeur, my love.

[cozen]

[ A quiet heh. It’s a fair point. But there’s still a reluctant pause before he says, ]

I am a commoner. And she does think that makes me her lesser. We can be friends, but—that is how it is.

[bouchonne]

[ He listens, trying not to show that he wants desperately to argue against this. ]

Has she said that to you?

[cozen]

No. I’m sure she never would. She likes me.

[ He considers Byerly’s face, watching for any sign he might be exhausting his restraint. ]

It just, ah. It comes out, you know? The way she thinks things ought to go, the way she can stop seeing me at all. And she said she wanted Rolant de Ezoire to hang like a common dog.

[ He’d meant to leave it at that, but it feels so small in his mouth, compared to how large it is in his chest, that he has to explain. ]

She was upset, of course she was upset, but—the worst punishment she could imagine for the worst man she’s known was the insult of dying like we do. Like I would if I were caught stealing the wrong jewels.

[bouchonne]

[ He wants to protest that - that it's an idiom and nothing more and she wasn't thinking about the implications when she said it - that the point was that she wanted him to die, it wasn't really about how he died...But does Byerly know for sure? And what would it accomplish, to voice those protests? The only thing that would happen would be that he'd make Bastien feel embarrassed and uncertain of his perception of things. So he bites his tongue.

Instead: ]

People like - [ Her? No. More accurate to say: ] Us. Do end up having certain attitudes drilled into our heads, I suspect. It doesn't reflect what someone's character would have been - or beliefs would have been - if they hadn't been surrounded by that way of thinking.

[cozen]

[ Bastien expected more of a protest, half-consciously. Which is conscious enough that the absence of one makes him faintly smile, pleased to have been listened to. To have been offered an explanation instead of a denial. It’s enough. ]

Yes. I wouldn’t think it was cruelty.

[ Only, as he said, the way things are.

But he knows he’s asking a lot. By, who comes to the defense of the people he loves with sneers and interminable grudges, having to listen to one say something even mildly critical of another—miserable, Bastien imagines. He strokes his goatee with his thumb and tries to make up for it: ]

And it is a small thing. She is also fun, witty, terrifyingly clever, beautiful, passionate, charming company, and she loves you so much.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly leans his head against Bastien's, grateful beyond measure for that respite. Because, yes - to admit fault in a loved one is agony.

So. He takes a moment, considering, then says: ]

When it comes down to it, dearest Bastien, I am yours. Alexandrie has her husband, and she will always choose her husband. [ His voice is steady, but there's a little squeeze at Bastien's hand that hints at how agonizing that is. The pain that still lingers from her embrace not just of her husband, but of a dream that wore his face. ] I have no love for speaking of claims, but - Well. Yours is the stronger claim by far.

[cozen]

[ Bastien squeezes his hand back, and for a few moments doesn’t relent. He’d like to be a good enough person to not be pleased about this or, barring that, a cool enough person not to need it.

But he’s neither. He smiles. Soothed at first, peaceable and content, but then it slides by degrees into something just a little wolfish, while his hand slips down By’s neck to curl fingers into his shirt collar. ]

You are mine. You’ll go to visit Alexandrie, and you’ll check in on your wife, and you’ll have adventures without me—sometimes—rarely— [ teasing ] —and do all the things you were born to do. I want you to have everything. But when you say you are going home, you’ll mean that you’re coming to me. Promise.

[bouchonne]

I promise.

[ Unhesitating. There might, once, have been some uncertainty. But there's none now. ]

No matter where you are. You'll always be my safe haven.

[ And he kisses his neck to seal the oath. ]

[cozen]

[ A heavy, happy breath. ]

I’m yours, too.

[ He’s said it before—but they were talking about sex, mostly. About whether Bastien might continue sleeping with other people. Less important than what he’s trying to say now: ]

And there is nothing fragile about it. Not anymore. I promise.

[bouchonne]

[ Nose still buried against the crook of his shoulder: ]

It's all right. If there is. [ A nuzzle. ] I want you to trust me, of course. But I do like fussing over you.