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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[cozen]

It is not an accurate or useful one.

[ For the moment he is a bard, not a paramour. ]

They took a chance on you when you had no experience. They could do the same for someone new. You have to—

[ A bard with someone he loves wrapped around his middle, red-eyed and hurt. He stops. ]

We should talk about this more tomorrow.

[bouchonne]

[ It's a good call. Byerly, after all, isn't really capable of that kind of clinical detachment, and so new anxiety and insecurity is bubbling up in him in response to even these few words. His heart is wild by nature, and even wilder tonight. ]

I want a drink.

[ It's an apology. A confession. ]

We should go out. Just so I can get away from that bloody liquor cabinet.

[cozen]

[ Bastien accepts that information with an exhale and little surprise. He didn't expect it to be easy, for By to give up the drinking. That's why he's so grateful he's done it. ]

We should.

[ To get away from the liquor cabinet, sure. To get away from the Gallows. To remind Byerly they have friends ashore even if they have very few here, and the world is much bigger than what the people on this speck of rock think about him, and there are things they are better at than anyone, like— ]

We can find somewhere to dance.

[ He wiggles his legs again. Get up. ]

[bouchonne]

[ All right. He blows out a breath, and hoists himself up off the couch. ]

Till our feet bleed.

[ He needs a little suffering in this. ]

[cozen]

Sure, if you are prepared to carry me home tomorrow.

[ Because it will be tomorrow. It's late enough there's no time to go ashore for any length of time and still catch a ferry back to the Gallows. They will have to sleep in their clothes in the stables, or something—as the Maker intended.

But first they'll dance. They do find somewhere, a hall with its chairs and tables pressed along the perimeter to give its Lowtown crowd somewhere to entertain themselves while the weather's so awful. For half an hour they're caught up in the tail end of a series of country dances. After that, though, it's late enough for no one to have the energy for choreographed lines or spinning quartets, half of the musicians retire and leave only two stubbornly carrying the music onward, and the dancers who linger do so in lazily waltzing pairs.

Bastien's not lazy. Footwork still crisp. Not bothered if they stand out or look like show-offs. He's leading, this go-around, and he has to stand on his toes to give By a little twirl. ]

[bouchonne]

[ By lets himself be twirled. He's happier out here. He's forgotten some of it, dancing with Bastien, letting himself get absorbed into just loving this man. There is life outside of the Gallows, after all.

As he twirls, he murmurs into Bastien's good ear: ]

I love you.

[cozen]

[ Words that make Bastien glow, without his face changing much at all, like the sun's just come out. ]

I love you, too.

[ A pivot, and he hitches Byerly in closer. ]

I told Alexandrie once—when she was going to Antiva, you know, and she thought you'd said no, and she was half-destroyed. I told her nothing is the end of the world except the end of the world. Everything short of that, we mend it or we get through it or we turn it into something new.

[bouchonne]

I wish I had...

[ The music changes, something slower. Something that allows Byerly to drape his arms over Bastien's shoulders and sigh into the crook of his neck. ]

I wish I had your calm. Sometimes I feel like a flighty little bird resting on an oak.

[cozen]

[ Bastien's grin is wide enough By can probably feel his cheek, even if he can't see it. Metaphor. ]

Am I the oak?

[bouchonne]

You are.

[cozen]

With a nice thick trunk and sturdy branches.

[ He taps his head over against By's. ]

You'd be a lovely bird. And you can rest on me any time. But it's—I learned it. Maybe I was disposed toward learning it, I don't know, but it is something that I do. Not something that I am.

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly hums. ]

Is there a difference, now? If something is done so often and so well that it becomes second nature, is there a difference between that and one's true nature?

[cozen]

I don't know. Maybe not.

[ It had been an offer, or at least a prelude to an offer, to try to pass some of it along. But does he want to, really? Like he said before: he loves Byerly as he is, stormy and sensitive. And the way he learned wasn't painless. He couldn't actually put Byerly through it.

Instead: ]

You've lost everything before, By. More than once. I am not saying that because I expect you to lose it again. I only want you to try to remember it. You don't have to be afraid. You can try to think about it without panic, because you have already shown yourself you can survive worse. The worst things that will ever happen to you—until we die, of course, at the ages of a hundred and a hundred and one—they have already happened. And if anything like it happens again, I will be there, [ with his head tilted back to let By see his cheeky smile, ] so it won't be so bad.

[bouchonne]

[ Bastien is right. ]

I've never had pride before, though.

[ That, he supposes, is one key difference. ]

That's one thing I've never lost before.

[ Still, he winds his arms a little tighter around Bastien. He's also never had Bastien before, and that's something that won't go away. And perhaps that will counterbalance all that he has now to lose. ]

[cozen]

[ For a few seconds Bastien has no counter to that—after every awful thing he's done to keep his own, to not be someone who scrapes shit off of anyone's boots for a living, he can hardly say it doesn't matter. ]

You have a lot of things you should be proud of.

[ But isn't, always, the way Bastien thinks he ought to be. Losing one of the few things he is proud of would be a shame. ]

And you can handle this in a way that you can be proud of later. Don't scramble. Keep your head. Listen to people when they talk, don't move too quickly to answer. If you're impatient or you want to show your misery, [ whether through tears or pettiness, ] save it and bring it to me afterwards. They see less of you than I do, but you can make sure what they do see is dignified.

[bouchonne]

Be a Bard.

[ His voice is somewhere between rueful and dry. ]

[cozen]

[ This succinct and accurate summary of his advice causes Bastien’s dance steps to slow and then stop altogether, so he is only standing in the middle of the floor holding Byerly around the waist.

He’s not quite tall enough to press his face into By’s neck. He has to settle for his collarbone. ]

[bouchonne]

Bastien -

[ Oh. Byerly stops too, and feels a pang of guilt. He’s not sure he’s ever gotten a reaction this strong out of Bastien before - And he’s not sure whether he wants to take it back or double down. Make Bastien comfortable again or tease out a bit more of this honesty. ]

I was joking. A bit. [ He runs his hand through Bastien’s hair, and pulls a face at one of the other dancers who’s making a judgmental little noise at them not moving on the dance floor. ]

[cozen]

[ Bastien nods. By was joking; By was right. In any other situation, Bastien would be appalled to catch himself trying to turn Byerly into him. In this one—he is still appalled, in a more helpless way.

Like he said. He doesn't want By to change. He thinks he might have to anyway.

He resumes some movement. Little steps. Face still pressed to shirt. He can't hear where everyone else is in relation to them, the way he used to, and if he were here with anyone else at all, the disorganized sounds of footsteps nearer and closer would bother him. But Byerly he trusts to watch his back. ]

Do you remember when you made Lord Jauquin so mad he passed out?

[ A cardiac event that is only funny because Jauquin survived (for the time being; fifteen years later, he is the late Jauquin). And because he was an asshole. ]

[bouchonne]

Yes.

[ He laughs a little laugh at the memory. He might be a bit kinder - the man is dead, after all - save that the man was also a real shithead. ]

Though really, I like to think he made himself pass out. An animal can avoid a hunter’s trap if it is clever, after all.

[ And he rubs up and down Bastien’s back - unsure what has caused this turn in the conversation, but quite willing to talk him through it. ]

[cozen]

Or at least avoid running into it four times in a row.

[ He turns his head so it's his cheek pressed close instead. He's smiling; it's audible, even if By can't quite see at this angle. The laugh and the back rubs have pulled him back from the precipice of dire. ]

It was great. It was—I like you, you know. You're funny and you're clever and you make everything interesting. Every time we talk for more than a few minutes it becomes a little adventure. What's over that hill, what's in that cave.

[bouchonne]

I like you too.

[ Even if he doesn't quite follow the reason for all this, this odd sentimentality, he answers it; his voice is warm and soft. ]

Sometimes it feels a bit like we're lads together. Not that either of us actually were able to really live out that sort of boyhood. It's being lads in the way we'd have wanted it to be.

[cozen]

[ A grin, now. ]

I can certainly think of a few people who'd agree that we're acting like children.

[ For example: everyone who's ever had to listen to them carry on over the crystals. ]

But I intend to carry on until we die.

[bouchonne]

Mm.

[ By scratches Bastien's scalp, and then asks, gently: ]

Are you doing all right, mon amour?

[cozen]

Mhm.

[ He smiles. He is all right. On the whole. But, fine, it's kind of a sad smile. ]

I just want you to know that I like you. I don't want you to be me. I don't want you be anything but yourself. It's only—what I want, it's not all that matters.