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 lets out a shaky breath, and responds in Orlesian as well, his voice thick. Not quite in the careful Royan accent he usually has; instead, when he speaks, it's with a more Southern accent, the Orlesian of his mother's home. ]

But even when she said it, I just kept doing it. And I did realize that it was not my intention she hated. It was, it is, me. My personality, my manner, my voice, my speech. What I am.

[cozen]

You are a thousand things, Byerly, and no one has seen all of them. Not even me.

[ It's not only a semantic quibble. It's important. But it doesn't solve the problem. Perhaps because the problem is unsolvable; the mouthy bullshitter breed is not for everyone. All the things Bastien loves about Byerly—or about his surface, anyway—are things someone else, somewhere, will find unbearable and obnoxious. And those people will just have to find a way to carry on with their thin-skinned and self-serious lives without him.

It doesn't directly address the wound, though, either. Bastien needs another moment for that. ]

Sometimes people cannot handle something for their own reasons. It doesn't mean that they hate you.

[bouchonne]

Maybe not.

[ He switches back to Trade for this - the memory of the conversation, held in Trade, drawing him back to that tongue. ]

But she had said to me that she loved me. [ Orlesian: ] Not romantically. Of course. It feels pathetic to be loved but so tiresome that - You know.

[cozen]

[ A nod. His face-stroking narrows to, specifically, the place where the bridge of By's nose meets his forehead. ]

Do you love her?

[ —feels like a cruel question, almost, given his misery. But it's perfectly possible to feel abandoned and disposable and shamed by someone without loving them. ]

[bouchonne]

Yes.

[ His eyes open very slightly, glinting behind his long lashes. He doesn't blink even when Bastien's fingers come close. ]

Her father saved my life, when I was younger. And duty, debt - it can create love. Like to a sister.

[cozen]

[ Bastien has an underdeveloped sense of obligation at the best of times. Zero interest in owing anyone anything. He had, by the age of twelve, positioned himself as a sporadically present and largely unreliable fun uncle figure to his real blood siblings. So duty, debt—even in this circumstance, it's enough to make him wrinkle his nose, just a little, in silent ugh.

The last sentence distracts him, though, from arguing whether that's love, or maybe needs its own sort of word, like obliged or honor-bound. ]

Mm.

[ Intelligently. But he is thinking, about Gwenäelle—and Madame de Foncé, and Athessa, and Jenny Lou, and (in her distinct sort of way) Alexandrie. ]

Has a man ever troubled you this way?

[bouchonne]

[ The question catches him off-guard. He opens his eyes more fully, looking up at Bastien, grief momentarily displaced by confusion. ]

A man? [ His brows furrow. ] What do you mean?

[cozen]

[ A small shrug. He smooths the furrow with his hand. ]

Whenever you have been so upset about someone saying something to you or being cross with you, it has been a young woman. I have never rubbed your back because you were quarreling with Benedict.

[ Back to Orlesian, ]

I suppose he might not have that in him. But you know what I mean, yeah?

[bouchonne]

[ A moment as he thinks that over. And then a choked little laugh. ]

Maker. I think you're right. How ridiculous. "Like a sister" indeed.

[ At least, when he's prompted, he's able to find a little bit of insight into his own soul. That's a relatively new development. ]

[cozen]

[ Bastien smiles, faintly pleased despite the general awfulness of the situation. Maybe he ought to push harder for them to go see Nadine sooner rather than later, or to invite her here if By can't be spared that long. Maybe a few days with her would give Byerly a bit more of a shield, where sister-shaped people were concerned, if it didn't fill the hole entirely.

Or maybe that is too optimistic. But it would be nice, surely, regardless.

He'll bring it up later. Now, cautiously hopeful they'll be able to get through it now that By is thinking and laughing a little: ]

What happened exactly? Was it about that— [ little spat? not even that ] —conversation you had over the crystals?

[bouchonne]

Yes.

[ Now fully in Trade: ]

I followed up afterwards. I tried to invite her to play cards with me - She said no. Then she explained that I was being hurtful to her, and then I said that I hadn't meant to, that that's...just how we talk. You and I talk that way all the time. I insult you, you insult me - And she said that it was hurtful, and that speaking to me hurt, and that she would prefer not to. And did not allow me to respond.

[cozen]

[ Smoothing eyebrows with his thumb, ]

That's all? Had she ever said anything about not wanting to carry on like that before?

[bouchonne]

Speaking with her has...rarely gone smoothly.

[ He lets his eyes close again, enjoying Bastien's caresses. ]

But I've usually expected it, at least. It's been in moments of charged emotion. Not something like this.

[cozen]

[ A hum. ]

Maybe she wanted you to say you were sorry it hurt her, [ is a casual proposal, with little basis, ] and you would stop—instead of that that is just how we talk. But she might have given you more time.

[ Byerly, in his experience, isn't not someone who says he is sorry to his friends, so much as he is not someone who does it lightly. Bastien will say he is sorry to anyone, for anything, without much thought—maybe because most of the time the sorriness isn't a particularly deep sort. Like little seedlings that have barely grown roots and slip cleanly out of the earth when tugged. Meanwhile Byerly wrenches out fully-grown apology-shrubs that bring up chunks of dirt and stone and other plant's roots along with them. ]

[bouchonne]

But that would be a lie, wouldn't it?

[ For a liar, Byerly has an odd sense of honesty. The thought of being dishonest when it comes to this - Out of the question. He might delude himself, but he won't knowingly deceive others. Not when he cares about them. ]

I likely won't stop. We can't just - be different, like flipping a switch. The way we walk in the world, the way we speak and thing, is habit. Old mabari don't take to new commands.

[cozen]

[ It is an odd thing for a liar. But it's not an odd one for Byerly. ]

You are not a mabari, [ is accompanied by a smile and the obvious, teasing withholding of any similar assurances that he is not old, before he repeats: ] You are a thousand things.

You are gentle and kind and serious, when I need you to be. If something bothers me, you don't joke about it. You listen.

[ He listens to Bastien in a way he does not listen to everyone—even to Alexandrie, Bastien knows, from his experience as an unhappy observer. There's something to chew on there. Some similarity between this and when Alexandrie was sitting on the floor, miserable about being denied the specific comfort she asked for, and he'd said do you want me to manipulate you? because I can—

or something. It has been enough years for even Bastien's memory to fail on the specifics.

In the meantime, while he's trying to chew, he taps the tip of By's nose. ]

It would be awful and exhausting if we had to carry on like that forever, I know—so, alright, we won't invite any people who don't like the teasing to live with us. But that part of you is not a lie.

[bouchonne]

It is - not.

[ He admits that, because Bastien is looking at him so kindly. Even though in this moment he wants nothing more than to bury himself in shit and deny every decent part of himself, he can't. Not to Bastien. ]

But it's when I know that you need it of me. This wasn't - It wasn't anything like that. It was just silliness, from beginning to end, but even so it sparked some flame in her.

[cozen]

The part that I heard, she seemed embarrassed.

[ A questing tone, not one of finality; he doesn't know if that's right, or if that's all of it. Maybe it's a bit of projection, from a man who's thrown handwritten manuscripts out of windows and knocked Towers-age vases off of their pedestals because their owners made him feel stupid or small, but it's easy for him to imagine embarrassment setting someone off. ]

[bouchonne]

[ His brows furrow. ]

I'm not sure if she's capable of embarrassment. I've never seen any sign of such a thing from her before.

[cozen]

Maybe you have now.

[ Rather than smoothing the furrows out, this time, he traces them, preemptively fond of the future wrinkles.

Another moment, and he's finished chewing. ]

I don't think it's lying, Byerly—to behave a little differently for people, if that is what they need.

[bouchonne]

[ He looks up at Bastien, a bit of frustration bubbling through his manner. Accelerated, perhaps, by this talk of embarrassment. Byerly, who's survived by licking boots and abasing himself endlessly, doesn't entirely understand what's so bad about being embarrassed. It's simply a way of life. If someone blew up every time it happened, then how would they make it this far in life?

But, the more relevant topic: ]

It's not that it's a lie. It's that it is who I am. I can't turn it off. Not without knowing that I need to, and it's not like she gives me any signal that's what she needs. She communicates like a cipher.

[cozen]

[ Bastien holds an answer in his mouth: that in his experience her issue has been more than she's exceedingly direct, and if he is understanding the shape of their disagreement correctly then she did tell him, but he—

and then he swallows it, in the face of that bubbling frustration, and resumes hair-stroking, fingers hooked to scratch By's scalp as he goes. ]

Well, if you are not suited to being friends, that is her loss. Sometimes that is how it is, you know? Oil and water. It doesn't mean anything is wrong with the oil or the water—whichever you want to be in this metaphor. I think you should be the water.

And she is not Thedas' definitive authority on what makes a man fun to talk to. [ He tugs a lock of hair. ] I am.

[bouchonne]

[ But he sees that hesitation. He doesn't allow them to move on so quickly: ]

What were you going to say?

[cozen]

[ A smile, for the fact that By can read him so well. For the fact that he has stopped trying not to be read. Even though it leaves him having to say, after all: ]

That you know now. If you want to try again sometime. I don't know that I would, but you— [ another pause, before he compromises with that dreary concept of dutiful love ] —care about her.

She should have told you that first, instead of deciding she was done. Especially when she had been giving as good as she got five minutes before. But your conversations have usually been difficult, you said, and she was embarrassed,

[ with confidence in that fact, only not in whether her response can be attributed to it, ]

so—I don't know.

[bouchonne]

[ Yes. He's quiet a moment, though. And then - ]

I don't know if I can.

[ A breath out. ]

I fought with the other division heads. I know, what else is new. But in a meeting, I provoked Derrica - you know I've had my doubts as to whether or not she's fit for this position, and she quite confirmed that she wasn't - and afterwards, they all but told me to quit because I was so dreadfully offensive. It just - I don't feel like I can change it any more than I can change my gait. Or my accent. When I think about it, yes, but as soon as my attention slips it's gone and I'm back to it.