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"Toying..." somehow it stung worse hearing it said like that, an act had a different connotation from a mask, people who wore masks could still be authentic at least. Michel had to turn his gaze to the floor to make sure the stinging in his eyes wasn't any more than that. There was no point to such a display even though he knew he could scarcely help it.

"It's not what I wish," Michel said, clearing his voice as he did, "it is what I have to do for the both of us. Can you claim that you would want to hold me knowing how I feel about you? No more than I can stop these feelings, it will just get harder. I can spend years of my life chasing you for just a taste of it, but if you do not feel it...how much love would go to waste?"

Michel exhaled slowly, knowing that Zevran would not want for him with his dance card as full as it undoubtedly was. It was a source of jealousy, but there was nothing for it, "it doesn't mean you will never be able to reach me if you need to, the sending crystals...you can always contact me if you wish it."

That sounded final enough for him and with that he tucked the parcel under his arm again and offered Zevran a nod, not quite able to look at him, but doing his level best.

A mask he would not believe, bu an act? Perhaps he should have said that from the start- he was a terribly good actor when given cause in such things, and in this? He could be quite masterful. He'd needed to be to survive the Crows. To survive Taliesin. Apparently now, again, to survive Michel.

But did Michel require surviving?

There were too many variables, too many possibilities where things went wrong, where Michel became bored, where he was granted clemency-

There would be no future for them. Not with the world as it was. That- that wasn't an excuse. That simply was how the way the world worked, a reason to protect himself above all else. He hardened his heart against the damp of Michel's eyes, the catch in his throat. Last time he'd given one last kiss. Now? He could not possibly offer the same. Not with Michel's heart in his eyes.

"If all you expect is a taste, that is yours to have. But wanting me to feel the same- that cannot happen." Will not happen. But he would offer his flesh for that was easier to barter his body than it was his mind, his heart. "And should you wish for that- you know where to find me."

"I know..." Michel said almost bracingly, pinching the bridge of his nose with his unoccupied hand, "...and I cannot do that to you, I realize it is what I have already been doing to you, but I was fooling myself at the time. It was entertainment, it was pleasure, it is casual sex...and then I couldn't convince myself anymore...so I stifled it and I thought your body could be enough. I could sate my physical desires at the expense of my emotional needs...and then it just began to feel wrong, it felt like I was debasing you. Buying your body to satisfy what I wanted and then it hurt."

"If you think sharing my bed debases me, clearly you neither know me nor what it is to be debased." Offence made it easier to square his shoulders and remain unmoved at this display. Words, words, words and all of them hollow. Condescending. "If this is how you truly feel, perhaps I ought to write a bill for services rendered, yes? How should I break it down? One sovereign per orgasm? Most charge by the hour but I am certain I can find a price that is agreeable."

Michel's head snapped up and he looked at Zevran as though he'd just spit on his cheek, a difficult look to describe, shock, confusion, hurt, "that is not what I meant. There is a distinct difference between sharing your bed and sharing your bed with feelings such as these."

"And what difference would that be? Have your expectations changed? Do you want something I cannot give you?" This was not on him. He was not in the wrong; all he'd done was taken a lover. Michel had made it complicated.

"My expectations have changed, more for myself than for you, I didn't expect you to change...I did not expect anything...well this is not entirely true. I expected this on some level," not that he expected Zevran to drive the knife quite so deep, he did not expect him to turn the knife counter-clockwise either. He expected a no or a simpler rejection of his feelings and for it to be left at that, but this was even more unbearable.

"So long as you did not expect me to drop everything, swoon in your arms and confess the same." Zevran leaned back against the wall, arms crossed- and he had managed to ignore the thing in Michel's hands for quite some time now, but curiosity was getting the better of him. "What is that you've brought- a token of affection?"

"Is everything an ulterior motive? I only expected you to be honest and you've been quite honest," though it had gone from being a dialogue to being a defensive attack and that was not what Michel wanted. It was not the reason he'd come here after all, that and...Michel looked at his cargo, his arm had almost gone numb from it, but this entire conversation could explain this numbness, "it is...it is nothing."

"I am an assassin- there is almost always an ulterior motive- and you yourself are Orlesian. We have already discussed this." He waved the question off with a dismissive flick of his hand, eyes flitting from the package to Michel's face and back again. "If it was nothing you would not have brought it."

"And it suddenly matters to you when it didn't seem to matter before, that I am Orlesian. You were once so quick to defend me against people who threatened me for being Orlesian, for being a Chevalier, and for those who saw me as a traitor," it was certainly a question that deserved examining, especially since not long ago he said he would have a talk with one of his companions about this very thing, "you would not want it now, what does it matter?"

"It is easy not to care when time spent together means nothing. Now you come to me and say it had weight, it has meaning, with your heart in your hands." Everything became suspect in that light. How could it not? "Gifts among friends are not so strange. But this was to be more than that, yes? A token of affection. A declaration."

Michel was not one to weep openly, nor was he one to do so very often, but to say that the time that they spent together meant nothing when it had meant something to him? Well, it stung undeniably, not one to burst into hysteric, he felt it more than registered the dampness rolling down the side of his face, like one might with sweat. Was it numbness, or was the lack of acknowledgement just one more way for Michel to keep his dignity in check? Whatever it was it didn't stop the indignity from creeping it's way along his neck and face, this was a different kind of heat, the kind of heat you keep buried in your chest and he knew he had to leave this room before he was overwhelmed by it.

"I did not come here to fight with you...I..." Michel pinched the bridge of his nose again and shook his head trying to clear it. He wasn't even going to deign to acknowledge the package, there was enough humiliation to be had in this moment, why give Zevran something he'd crafted himself only to be told it was meant nothing in the same way their time spent together meant nothing, "...I should go, stay safe in Antiva."

He couldn't endure it another moment and while his feet felt like lead, he still willed them to move.

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