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]

Well —

[ Relief isn't instant. Belief is — belief and a little irritation at himself for being too close and tangled-up in his own mess to have understood that sooner — but it will take more than a couple of seconds to enter his marrow. Still, he sounds cheered, despite a touch of melancholy lingering underneath it. ]

— I hope by now I have fucked up enough to change your mind about that.

[ He's joking. Or he's not joking at all, and he means it, but not in a sad way. He pecks a kiss against Byerly's temple. ]

Okay. Say I was waiting for you every day you came to the Gallows last week. The first day I would have been embarrassed, I think, about what happened here, so when I chose something to try to convince you, I would want to balance the scales a little. I would try to tell you something to convince you that I knew you, but one that was a little embarrassing for you.

[bouchonne]

Hmm.

[ Byerly settles in even more deeply. He considers this particular scenario. ]

That might be disarming. I thought you were an agent of sabotage - obviously - [ What else would he think - ] And so hearing something unflattering would undermine what I would be expecting.

[cozen]

A crack.

[ Silly, to rewrite the past — but not so different from what he used to do with Inès, with his bardmaster, dissecting how things might have gone better. Instructive. He'll feel better, if he can see the outline of the way he might have won Byerly over again. ]

I'd lead with the torte incident, then, but then I think I would want to just talk to you. I wanted to talk to you about everything. You know I had Barrow thinking I was here from the Chantry to investigate him?

[ Comeuppance is coming-uppanceing. ]

[bouchonne]

Ha!

[ He turns around so he can look Bastien fully in the face. ]

You absolute fucker!

[ But he's grinning out of admiration for the discord-sowing monstrosity of it. ]

He's going to punch your lights out, and you'll deserve it.

[cozen]

Yeah.

[ Proudly. He's not sorry; if people didn't want him to ruin their days, maybe they shouldn't have forgotten about him. ]

If I had told you that, when you didn't have any real loyalty to me — would you have gone to tell him?

[bouchonne]

Hm.

[ He settles back in, still grinning, though a little more subdued now. ]

Probably. I like the man. Though I would have been very curious about why you had decided to torment him. Probably would have made me sniff around you a bit more.

[cozen]

[ Exaggerated sniffing against Byerly's hair. So exaggerated it turns into snorting. Then he admits, ]

If I knew I had your attention, I might be a little more coy. You love a mystery.

[bouchonne]

I love a mystery.

[ Rueful; it’s a weakness. ]

And I’m surprised you think you didn’t already have my attention. Why do you think I didn’t want to let you leave here?

[cozen]

Because I was pathetic and you have a soft heart.

[ Teasing, though he does think that was more than half of it. ]

Being intrigued by the situation is not the same as being intrigued by me.

[bouchonne]

You were the situation.

[cozen]

And I was pathetic, and you have a soft heart.

[bouchonne]

[ With a gentle slap on his thigh - ]

I drugged you. Stop saying you were pathetic like it was some choice of yours.

[cozen]

[ Bastien takes the slap in good humor, doing his best to nudge Byerly with his knee in equally gentle retaliation. ]

I drugged myself at your invitation. I thought it might make you believe me,

[ said lightly, but there's something serious underneath it: he'd rather humiliated himself believing in the childish solution, and he cares a great deal about his dignity — enough so to count their year of pretty mutual flirtation as throwing himself at Byerly — so of course he withdrew to the Gallows and refused to act like he cared about anything at all afterwards. ]

[bouchonne]

[ Hmm. Byerly turns enough to throw a measured glance at Bastien's face. ]

When you say I was pathetic - what part are you talking about, exactly?

[cozen]

The entire episode.

[ Byerly's turned head means Bastien can kiss his forehead. ]

Coming here — that was forgivable. Trying to charm you, drinking your horrible concoction knowing I was no one to you, flopping around and holding your hand, being jealous of Benedict. I could have done better.

[bouchonne]

Hm.

[ He leans into the kiss, but his tone is dry when he says: ]

If our positions had been reversed, what sorts of things do you think I would have done?

[ Things far less dignified than anything Bastien had just listed off. ]

[cozen]

You would have fallen on your knees and cried into my stomach.

[ Dryness heard, dryness acknowledged. He knocks his nose against Byerly's. ]

But you'd have looked like a painting while you did it.

[bouchonne]

Oh, so my good looks would keep me from being pathetic? Shall I point out how good-looking you are?

[cozen]

[ There's a brief pause, serious in character, because he does see it. The hypocrisy of it. Of what he considers beneath him not being beneath Byerly — when all the love stories about nobles and commoners promised it would be the other way around.

But he comes out of the pause with some cheek: ]

Yes.

[bouchonne]

[ All right, then: ]

I would devour you from nose to toes.

[ His wriggle against Bastien is a little less snuggly and a little more lascivious. ]

And if we weren't in front of our children, I'd say more about what it does to me when I see you on your knees.

[cozen]

You can tell me later,

[ is a promise, half-laughed.

The mirth lingers even as he grows more serious, ducking his head and pressing the remnants of his smile into Byerly's neck, just below his ear, so he's talking against his skin. ]

I'm sorry, mon cher. If I knew it was happening — if a spirit stood here and told me I could keep you or I could keep my pride — I would choose you. But I don't always see it so clearly.

[bouchonne]

I'm hardly one to scold you for being too proud.

[ Though their pride is of very different sorts, isn't it? Part of what makes this all so complicated. Byerly is cursed by his perverse spirit of rebellion - his refusal to bow to propriety, his need to show that he's better than the standards of decency and morality that govern others' lives. Bastien, though...He wants to win the game. If, under pain of death, they were commanded to dance, Bastien would likely try to perform a jig that would put everyone else to shame; Byerly would look for a rock he could use to smash his own foot.

Funny, isn't it? How the Marcher became so ludicrously Orlesian, and the Orlesian became so very Fereldan? ]

I suppose all I can ask for would be that you would see it. Even if it took some time. But that eventually, you'd realize that perhaps it's worth it to be pathetic.

[cozen]

[ Bastien's nod is pressed into Byerly's neck, too. His arms tighten around him. He's never wanted Byerly to settle for all he can ask. He's wanted to be everything — or if he couldn't, to be cool about Byerly getting anything he wasn't elsewhere —

It is what it is. He is what he is. He can only try. ]

Maybe I should tattoo it on my hand.

[ He does not sound especially amused by his own joke. ]

[bouchonne]

Absolutely not.

[ Byerly laces his fingers through Bastien's, as though to protect those hands. ]

These are far too comely to be marred in that way. And I trust that it's not needed.

[ He hopes that it's not needed. ]

[cozen]

[ Is it true? Should it be?

He smiles anyway. ]

You are too good for me sometimes.