[ By's response is to widen his eyes, then turn his face back and push it into Bastien's space - way, way too close, smooshing their noses and foreheads together, so that there's nothing but eyeblob filling Bastien's entire field of vision. ]
[ His laugh splutters in his throat before pulling fully free, and he’s still laughing when he tries to give Byerly an approving kiss on his very-close mouth. It’s half successful at best. ]
Sacré chant, such wondrous pools of beauty, right there in your face. How did I never notice before?
[ He gets enough distance to put his chin in one hand and lovingly stroke the rim of Byerly's left nostril with a finger of the other. ]
You had some, uh, debris in there that night the mountains, you know. And I was enchanted anyway. Maybe even more enchanted. I should have realized I was in trouble then.
[ He pinches the tip of Byerly's nose between two fingers, not unlike a cigarette, and gives it a wiggle that's meant to be apologetic, in lieu of a spoken apology for bringing it up that might only prolong his embarrassment. ]
And honestly, I don't think the odds were ever close enough for some snot to tip them one way or the other. You could have hawked something up right there, and I might have needed another few minutes to work up to it, but I still would have kissed you.
We became fortunate, [ Bastien says, taking his kiss and contentedly settling back onto the pillow, ] because the Maker is partial to mustaches and breaks his silence to do favors for people who grow good ones. That's my theory.
[ A laugh. For a moment, he thinks of adding, and don't forget the women who grow magnificent curls, but - well, Bastien probably doesn't want to talk about Alexandrie, either. ]
So true. It's why we had bad luck as young men. Insufficient mustache.
[ Bastien's not opposed, for the record, but he doesn't think of her as someone in need to divine assistance. So he grins and nods and doesn't really notice her absence from his theory. And then the grin fades—because his bad luck makes him think of Vincent, and then he thinks (stupidly, a little addled from the warmth and ease and safety and beginnings of drowsiness) that perhaps Vincent should have grown a mustache, and then maybe he wouldn't have been caught, and—
He stops thinking about it.
But since his grin has faded anyway, that's as good a time as any to end the detour. ]
Does it bother you, that you— [ how did he put it ] —screwed your way into meals and beds?
[ He answers that at once. But then he hesitates and admits: ]
It was difficult sometimes, though. Not knowing whether you were romancing someone because you liked them, or whether it was just desperation. It makes you doubt yourself.
[ He rubs his cheek against it, like it's the height of luxury instead of a thin pallet intended for miserable prisoners of the dreadful Circle. Then, less facetiously: ]
And the latter, I suppose. It wasn't just what I did then, of course - Truthfully, it's probably less about screwing my way to a meal and more about what I've done since that. Screwing my way to that sensitive cache of letters, or that key rumor, or that bit of blackmail. But there's always this undercurrent of calculation, in the back of my head, where I'm thinking, what are the advantages here?
[ And he sneaks a look up at Bastien - nervous, uncertain. That's a nasty little thing to confess, after all. I'm thinking about what you can do for me. ]
[ Until Byerly looks, Bastien’s thinking, face serious in the dim light. But he’s watching By’s face while he thinks, and when he looks Bastien smiles.
Maybe he should be bothered. But if it’s a relatable fear, if not one Bastien walks around with day to day. And he’s not really worried in the least—or maybe in the least, but only in the least—that Byerly would ever use him in any way he wasn’t eager to be used. ]
Ah, joke’s on you, By. If you only wanted something like that, you could have skipped all of this.
[ This: Bastien wraps an arm around him, and he swiftly wedges and wriggles and wrangles to get half-under him, like a body pillow. ]
[ He relaxes when he sees that lack of concern. A few months ago, he wouldn't have been assuaged, certain instead that Bastien was simply hiding his displeasure. But now, he knows that Bastien makes an effort to show him. To share his thoughts. ]
[ Give you a discount, he nearly says, but Vincent’s name flickers at the edge of his mind again, and Bastien shifts course with barely a hiccup of a pause. ]
—send the bill to Ferelden.
[ There are a number of benefits to having an armful of Byerly. One of them is easier access to his back, which Bastien resumes searching one-handed for lingering strain and tension. ]
It must be hard to, uh... I have thought the same of Alexandrie. The nobles, they are playing the Game for something that never stops mattering. Their names, their families. It is all one game. Every move matters. Every piece you lose stays lost for the rest of your life.
For us—the bards like I was, I mean—it is more like a tournament. We play one game, then we get a fresh board and a new opponent, so as long as we win it doesn’t matter what pieces we have left.
We had our own problems, of course, but I think that part of it must be easier for us. To not be playing one single unending game.
[ Anyway, ]
Your work seems more like that. Everything always matters. You don’t get to say that you protected your country from this or that like you were told to, so you are done and you will worry about it again when they give you something new to do.
[ By reaches out and traces the line of Bastien's cheekbone as he thinks. A moment, and then he agrees - ]
Yes.
[ But: ]
But...If Ferelden fell, or if it swept away all other nations in the world and become like the Tevinter of old, there'd still be work to do. I was hungry for this before I was ever recruited. Because it's not fully about her. [ A little shrug of one shoulder. ] Even if all threats to Ferelden were defeated, this game would continue on.
[ A little wry. A little—not regretful, but something like it, because that’s it for him too. He’s not ready to say so, and maybe he’ll never say it plainly, because the last thing he wants, if that dream had any real prophecy to it and he does go off and get himself stupidly shot in the throat with an arrow sometime, is for Byerly to have anything to use as evidence that it was his fault.
But he thinks it. That as long as By will have him, he’s not going anywhere without him. That Alexandrie, in their private dream, was right.
He turns his head to nudge his mouth against Byerly’s wrist, not quite a kiss, and brightens. ]
Well. I will love you just the same if you grow a beard or if you don’t, but if you do, you have to promise to do it while I can watch it happen. No surprising me with it. And if you want to be a leader or don’t want to be a leader—that’s all fine. Practically chaste... you would have to allow me a mourning period, but we would be alright.
But if you ever start wearing such dull colors, we will have to have a conversation. I don’t care if you are living in a swamp. That’s no excuse.
[ And By smiles, grateful for the jokes, and even more grateful for the understanding. A thumb comes up to smooth his eyebrow. ]
Well, I certainly wouldn't be chaste if you were around. You're irresistible. [ And then, lightly teasing: ] Did you enjoy it a bit, at least? That I was still mooning over you, even years later? Obviously it was all miserable, but it must have been a little flattering to see how bereft I was.
[ Bastien doesn’t stop smiling; he’s just had his eyebrow smoothed and been called irresistible, so how could he. (With acting, that’s how. But he doesn’t want to.)
He shakes his head, though. ]
I didn’t enjoy it.
[ Dreamed or not, it will take more time for the memory of Byerly’s shoulders hitching while he cried to feel unreal and hazy enough not to tighten something in his chest.
And if it’s a compliment, he could peel it apart. It was a dream. It was Byerly imagining how it might feel to lose him after a couple of years, not how he’d feel now. Not how he’d really feel if it happened, with real time to heal.
But he doesn’t want to do that, either. He grins and kneads his thumb knuckle into the muscle of Byerly’s lower back. ]
But now that you mention it, you were pretty hung up on me, weren’t you? How utterly out of character.
[ Bastien hasn’t been keeping account, so he doesn’t realize until the moment after he hears Byerly says it that it’s a first. Not the first I love you, but the first one that isn’t accompanied by fears and doubts about whether it’s love at all, or said in a dream, or shared with someone else. The first one that’s simple.
It feels like a fist unclenching, at least partway, so the thing that was hidden safe and crushed inside it can spread out a bit further in his chest. ]
Thank you.
[ —which is a stupid thing to say, but he means it, and he needs half of his wits just to resist a series of impulses: to pull back into the safety of a joke, like a coward; to say like you said when exactly and pry more words out of Byerly, get everything in me in writing, to make him go first into the dark room (again), also like a coward; and to crash forward, to say I’m breaking my promise, here’s my whole heart, do whatever you like with it—
Not like a coward. But possibly like someone who’s made a life out of being what people want. Who gets tangled in it sometimes. He can’t trust it not to be a lie until he knows he still feels it when he’s alone.
So he nestles closer, and he says what he is sure of, mumbly because his mouth is pressed against Byerly’s forehead: ]
[ And maybe that's silly. Who has a friend - a lover - say they're proud? Those are words that come from a mother or a father. Aren't they?
And yet...By finds that he cares, very deeply, what Bastien thinks. No, Bastien isn't exactly the most morally upright person By knows; he's a Bard, after all. But that doesn't mean that Bastien doesn't have an eye for goodness. He certainly has an eye for skill, for wit, for cleverness. ]
Yeah? What are you proud of?
[ By traces little patterns on Bastien's chest, and tries to pretend his fingertips are beyond fascinating, because he doesn't know what emotion his face is showing right now. ]
[ Bastien doesn’t mind the way Byerly has always squirmed against praise, like an animal covered in burrs and thorns resisting efforts to pull them out. Sad, but charming, too. If tomorrow—or ten seconds from now—he has to be pinned down to be told he’s wonderful, that will be all right.
But it feels like something, that he’s asking instead of ducking away. Holding out one thorny paw. For a moment Bastien is too touched to smile, his chest very still under Byerly’s fidgeting fingers. Then he does smile, faintly, and proceeds with confident fluidity that comes from not needing any time to think about it at all. ]
I’m proud that you are so much yourself, when it might have been easier for you to put your head down and be more of what everyone expected from you. And I’m proud that people without power, who can’t do anything for you, can come to you for help and find it. And when a problem is too big—when it’s the end of the world, or if the problem is the world—I would like to give up, you know. Find a sunny island and let the world do whatever it likes with itself. But you take whatever piece you can get your arms around and you do something about it, and then you pick up another. It makes me want to be more like you.
[ There’s more. But it might be asking a lot from Byerly, to make him listen to all of that in one go, so he lands on something he hopes is easier. ]
And you are one of the finest musicians I have ever heard. Whenever you play or sing I want to tug on everyone’s sleeves and say that’s—
[ my, would be the next word, but he doesn’t know what word would come after it, so instead: ]
—you know he lets me kiss that mouth? Those very fingers.
[ It feels like a poultice on a wound. Because poultices hurt like hell when they're first put on, stinging and throbbing and agonizing, and this is, too. Or perhaps it's not a poultice, perhaps that's not right - perhaps, more accurately, it's a surgery, with Bastien examining those wounds, holding them up to the light and finding all the little bits of shrapnel that need pulling out.
But it's healing. It won't cure anything; infection could still set in quite easily. But his regard maybe makes it easier. Him and Alexandrie both just - they cut away things that fester. Or perhaps point out healthy flesh that he'd mistaken as gangrenous.
Maker, no, he's not a poet. Bad metaphors, all of them. ]
You are - [ He presses those very fingers against Bastien's chest. His heart. ] It is miraculous, I think, that you were born with eyes this keen, and trained to use them to see human weaknesses, and yet you turn them instead to strengths. [ A slight pause as he looks for the words. ] You've remained kind. A hero's labor.
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Sacré chant, such wondrous pools of beauty, right there in your face. How did I never notice before?
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[ And now he tilts back his head illustratively to position his nose correctly as he suggests - ]
Perhaps you were too enchanted by the eroticism...of my nostrils.
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[ He gets enough distance to put his chin in one hand and lovingly stroke the rim of Byerly's left nostril with a finger of the other. ]
You had some, uh, debris in there that night the mountains, you know. And I was enchanted anyway. Maybe even more enchanted. I should have realized I was in trouble then.
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I - Maker, how decidedly uncharming. I could have blown it there and then.
[ And he actually does seem genuine in that sentiment, and in his dismay over maybe-possibly-blowing-it with Bastien. ]
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No. No, you were perfect.
[ He pinches the tip of Byerly's nose between two fingers, not unlike a cigarette, and gives it a wiggle that's meant to be apologetic, in lieu of a spoken apology for bringing it up that might only prolong his embarrassment. ]
And honestly, I don't think the odds were ever close enough for some snot to tip them one way or the other. You could have hawked something up right there, and I might have needed another few minutes to work up to it, but I still would have kissed you.
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Maker, how did I become this fortunate?
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So true. It's why we had bad luck as young men. Insufficient mustache.
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He stops thinking about it.
But since his grin has faded anyway, that's as good a time as any to end the detour. ]
Does it bother you, that you— [ how did he put it ] —screwed your way into meals and beds?
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[ He answers that at once. But then he hesitates and admits: ]
It was difficult sometimes, though. Not knowing whether you were romancing someone because you liked them, or whether it was just desperation. It makes you doubt yourself.
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[ He nudges his shoulder into the mattress, which doesn't have springs and can't bounce. ]
I couldn't blame you. This mattress is much better than yours.
[ It isn't. ]
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[ He rubs his cheek against it, like it's the height of luxury instead of a thin pallet intended for miserable prisoners of the dreadful Circle. Then, less facetiously: ]
And the latter, I suppose. It wasn't just what I did then, of course - Truthfully, it's probably less about screwing my way to a meal and more about what I've done since that. Screwing my way to that sensitive cache of letters, or that key rumor, or that bit of blackmail. But there's always this undercurrent of calculation, in the back of my head, where I'm thinking, what are the advantages here?
[ And he sneaks a look up at Bastien - nervous, uncertain. That's a nasty little thing to confess, after all. I'm thinking about what you can do for me. ]
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Maybe he should be bothered. But if it’s a relatable fear, if not one Bastien walks around with day to day. And he’s not really worried in the least—or maybe in the least, but only in the least—that Byerly would ever use him in any way he wasn’t eager to be used. ]
Ah, joke’s on you, By. If you only wanted something like that, you could have skipped all of this.
[ This: Bastien wraps an arm around him, and he swiftly wedges and wriggles and wrangles to get half-under him, like a body pillow. ]
All you had to do was pay me.
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Don't be ridiculous.
[ By obligingly squirms into his arms. ]
You know I don't have any money.
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[ Give you a discount, he nearly says, but Vincent’s name flickers at the edge of his mind again, and Bastien shifts course with barely a hiccup of a pause. ]
—send the bill to Ferelden.
[ There are a number of benefits to having an armful of Byerly. One of them is easier access to his back, which Bastien resumes searching one-handed for lingering strain and tension. ]
It must be hard to, uh... I have thought the same of Alexandrie. The nobles, they are playing the Game for something that never stops mattering. Their names, their families. It is all one game. Every move matters. Every piece you lose stays lost for the rest of your life.
For us—the bards like I was, I mean—it is more like a tournament. We play one game, then we get a fresh board and a new opponent, so as long as we win it doesn’t matter what pieces we have left.
We had our own problems, of course, but I think that part of it must be easier for us. To not be playing one single unending game.
[ Anyway, ]
Your work seems more like that. Everything always matters. You don’t get to say that you protected your country from this or that like you were told to, so you are done and you will worry about it again when they give you something new to do.
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Yes.
[ But: ]
But...If Ferelden fell, or if it swept away all other nations in the world and become like the Tevinter of old, there'd still be work to do. I was hungry for this before I was ever recruited. Because it's not fully about her. [ A little shrug of one shoulder. ] Even if all threats to Ferelden were defeated, this game would continue on.
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[ A little wry. A little—not regretful, but something like it, because that’s it for him too. He’s not ready to say so, and maybe he’ll never say it plainly, because the last thing he wants, if that dream had any real prophecy to it and he does go off and get himself stupidly shot in the throat with an arrow sometime, is for Byerly to have anything to use as evidence that it was his fault.
But he thinks it. That as long as By will have him, he’s not going anywhere without him. That Alexandrie, in their private dream, was right.
He turns his head to nudge his mouth against Byerly’s wrist, not quite a kiss, and brightens. ]
Well. I will love you just the same if you grow a beard or if you don’t, but if you do, you have to promise to do it while I can watch it happen. No surprising me with it. And if you want to be a leader or don’t want to be a leader—that’s all fine. Practically chaste... you would have to allow me a mourning period, but we would be alright.
But if you ever start wearing such dull colors, we will have to have a conversation. I don’t care if you are living in a swamp. That’s no excuse.
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Well, I certainly wouldn't be chaste if you were around. You're irresistible. [ And then, lightly teasing: ] Did you enjoy it a bit, at least? That I was still mooning over you, even years later? Obviously it was all miserable, but it must have been a little flattering to see how bereft I was.
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He shakes his head, though. ]
I didn’t enjoy it.
[ Dreamed or not, it will take more time for the memory of Byerly’s shoulders hitching while he cried to feel unreal and hazy enough not to tighten something in his chest.
And if it’s a compliment, he could peel it apart. It was a dream. It was Byerly imagining how it might feel to lose him after a couple of years, not how he’d feel now. Not how he’d really feel if it happened, with real time to heal.
But he doesn’t want to do that, either. He grins and kneads his thumb knuckle into the muscle of Byerly’s lower back. ]
But now that you mention it, you were pretty hung up on me, weren’t you? How utterly out of character.
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[ The smile gentles from Byerly. He tips his head down. He seems awkward. And yet he permits this: ]
Like I said. I love you.
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It feels like a fist unclenching, at least partway, so the thing that was hidden safe and crushed inside it can spread out a bit further in his chest. ]
Thank you.
[ —which is a stupid thing to say, but he means it, and he needs half of his wits just to resist a series of impulses: to pull back into the safety of a joke, like a coward; to say like you said when exactly and pry more words out of Byerly, get everything in me in writing, to make him go first into the dark room (again), also like a coward; and to crash forward, to say I’m breaking my promise, here’s my whole heart, do whatever you like with it—
Not like a coward. But possibly like someone who’s made a life out of being what people want. Who gets tangled in it sometimes. He can’t trust it not to be a lie until he knows he still feels it when he’s alone.
So he nestles closer, and he says what he is sure of, mumbly because his mouth is pressed against Byerly’s forehead: ]
I love you, too. And I’m proud of you.
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And yet...By finds that he cares, very deeply, what Bastien thinks. No, Bastien isn't exactly the most morally upright person By knows; he's a Bard, after all. But that doesn't mean that Bastien doesn't have an eye for goodness. He certainly has an eye for skill, for wit, for cleverness. ]
Yeah? What are you proud of?
[ By traces little patterns on Bastien's chest, and tries to pretend his fingertips are beyond fascinating, because he doesn't know what emotion his face is showing right now. ]
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But it feels like something, that he’s asking instead of ducking away. Holding out one thorny paw. For a moment Bastien is too touched to smile, his chest very still under Byerly’s fidgeting fingers. Then he does smile, faintly, and proceeds with confident fluidity that comes from not needing any time to think about it at all. ]
I’m proud that you are so much yourself, when it might have been easier for you to put your head down and be more of what everyone expected from you. And I’m proud that people without power, who can’t do anything for you, can come to you for help and find it. And when a problem is too big—when it’s the end of the world, or if the problem is the world—I would like to give up, you know. Find a sunny island and let the world do whatever it likes with itself. But you take whatever piece you can get your arms around and you do something about it, and then you pick up another. It makes me want to be more like you.
[ There’s more. But it might be asking a lot from Byerly, to make him listen to all of that in one go, so he lands on something he hopes is easier. ]
And you are one of the finest musicians I have ever heard. Whenever you play or sing I want to tug on everyone’s sleeves and say that’s—
[ my, would be the next word, but he doesn’t know what word would come after it, so instead: ]
—you know he lets me kiss that mouth? Those very fingers.
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But it's healing. It won't cure anything; infection could still set in quite easily. But his regard maybe makes it easier. Him and Alexandrie both just - they cut away things that fester. Or perhaps point out healthy flesh that he'd mistaken as gangrenous.
Maker, no, he's not a poet. Bad metaphors, all of them. ]
You are - [ He presses those very fingers against Bastien's chest. His heart. ] It is miraculous, I think, that you were born with eyes this keen, and trained to use them to see human weaknesses, and yet you turn them instead to strengths. [ A slight pause as he looks for the words. ] You've remained kind. A hero's labor.
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