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]

[ With an air of dictation - ]

Dear Madame - Who is the author?

[cozen]

[ Bastien's grin widens, preemptively delighted. ]

Prudencia Gauthier.

[ He raises the book again to display the title: Trouver l'amour dans un donjon, with an image of manacles stamped onto the cover.

The contents are in fact even trashier than these two things imply. ]

[bouchonne]

[ Byerly laughs delightedly at that. He adores Bastien; he adores trashiness; his favorite thing is when these two things are combined. ]

Dear Madame Gauthier: First, thank you for your utter and salacious lack of taste. - Is our heroine in the dungeon?

[cozen]

Of course. Chained to the wall. And chained next to her: her sworn enemy, scion of the house that destroyed her family. They have both been captured by the same villain. Sometimes one is torture, sometimes they other. Sometimes they are forced to help. She always imagined she would enjoy making her rival bleed, and she does—but something like pity stirs, too.

[ His tone changes as he ends this salacious recapping. ]

This is as far as I got before this memory nonsense.

[ Rat Red, on Byerly's shoulder, is trying to sniff inside his ear. Whiskey shifts into a position that causes her to snore. ]

[bouchonne]

Rascal.

[ He says this fondly to Rat Red, and then removes her from his shoulder to tuck her into the crook of his elbow. The striptease becomes something a bit more urgent as clothes come off and the cold hits him, and he shimmies out of his last few garments more quickly. ]

Anyway, that's all very kinky, isn't it? I'm actually rather impressed. Maybe impressed enough to forgive the memory nonsense. Did the rival murder her family? Perhaps as a particularly deadly baby himself?

[cozen]

[ Bastien lolls his head to the side and grins. From one side of that grin the tip of his tongue briefly appears to rest thoughtfully against the corner of his mouth.

He's not thinking about the book. But there are too many dogs in the room for him to do more than think about not-the-book—and briefly—so he says, ]

His father did. Or did he? It all depends on the memory formed by a two-year-old.

[bouchonne]

Hmmmm.

[ He deposits Rat Red back on the bed, then slips in under the wonderfully pre-warmed blankets. He thinks about the fight they'd had, over animals in the bedroom, and feels such gratitude that Bastien let him have his way on this, and he kisses his neck in unspoken gratitude.

Then, back to the smut - ]

He better have. It's cowardice to make the evil love interest actually simply misunderstood. Make him evil, make her evil. No noble suffering, only ignoble suffering.

[ Byerly, it should be noted, always finds some reason to complain about stories where evil prevails. He never complains about that directly - of course not - but there's always some other flaw in the story that keeps him from enjoying it. And by some odd little coincidence, he doesn't tend to find those faults in stories where good wins (though he does heartily complain about the cheesy ending). ]

[cozen]

[ Bastien accepts the neck kiss with a hum, pleasantly oblivious to its motivation. ]

Let's find out.

[ He slides an arm around to keep Byerly against his side, holding the book open with one hand while he starts reading the relevant part aloud, interspersed with paraphrases of some of the unnecessarily long parts.

He's not the only one in the room who wants a cuddle. Here comes Rat Red in search of a lap (and fingers to bite) (and perhaps also the cover of the book? please?) (or sleeves!). A moment later, Whiskey sighs from her place nearer the fire place, heaves her big bones and sea of skin off the floor, and clambers onto the foot of the bed to snuggle into the valley between their legs with her head on By's thigh and her great sad eyes fixed on her attention-hog of a little sister.

Bastien rubs her shoulder with his knee, pausing to huff— ]

She's not going to tell us here. Tease.

[ —and flip ahead in unrepentant search of the answer. ]