𝒍𝒆 𝒇𝒍𝒆𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆 𝒆𝒕 𝒍𝒆 𝒑𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆 —𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑜

[demainvient]

 
𝐔𝐧 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐣𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐢 𝐝𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐞̀𝐬 𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐢
𝑈𝑛 𝑗𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑗𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑖 𝑡𝑜𝑢𝑡, 𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑒̂𝑡𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑐 𝑡𝑜𝑖
 

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[demainvient]

[ Verso's cheek is wet beneath his lips, and Gustave pulls back enough to cup his cheek in his hand, thumb smoothing over the track of those tears.

(...Why does that feel familiar, why does all of this feel familiar, the two of them sitting like this with voices low and desolate and the taste of Verso's tears on his lips, those words echoing in his ears: you will see me again, I swear it.)

There's so much he wants to know, so much he needs to know — a hundred years! Verso was here, somehow, when this world fractured, when Lumière broke off into the sea... how, why? ]

Mon Monsieur le pianiste.

[ His voice is low, dark eyes searching Verso's face as his thumb so carefully wipes away those tears. ]

No wonder your songs sound so sad.

[ He hardly knows what else to say, what else he can do, and he's still not sure why he can't tell the others, aside from how it sounds like utter impossibility. His eyes narrow as he thinks it over, trying to put the few pieces of information he has together. ]

Is that why you don't want me to tell the others? You think they... they won't understand?

[versorecto]

[ Verso can tell he must have questions, and he's holding them back for now -- he appreciates that. He's still shivering slightly, leaning into his touch, grounding and comforting. He understands, or at least is able to gesture at understanding, the pain of still being alive while it everyone else fades. Verso can't help but remember dragging bodies to the grove near the old battlefield, one at a time, each one cold and stiff and petrified and twisted into some awful shape, remembers burying each one as well as he could, murmuring their names.

And then Gustave calls him his Monsieur le pianiste, again, and something washes through him that's almost like relief. He wants nothing more than to be that, just that, Gustave's Monsieur le pianiste, not this miserable wretched thing that he is, empty and hollow and filled with lies, and there's something absurdly comforting and aching all at once that Gustave would call him that again without hesitation. That feeling escapes from him in a laugh, breathless and cathartic, as he turns his head to press a kiss against Gustave's hand, lifting a trembling hand of his own to catch his wrist and keep it there. ]

Its hard to play songs about things other than loss.

[ He's just seen so much of it. Over and over again.

As for that question... His eyes flicker down, uncertain. The Expedition as a whole, he understands, means well. He was part of the team that laid the foundation of it, after all, even if what it was in those days has changed over the century that Lumiere has soldiered on under the monolith. He trusts the Expedition's mission. But Expeditioners?

He can't trust them as a whole. He has to be careful, take on that risk slowly and in parts and only when it makes sense. The memory of Julie, painful as it is, is important for him to have. A lesson. A reminder. And then what another Expedition tried to do with Alicia -- ]

-- Yeah.

And -- the man on the beach.

[ He's old. Thats the first thing most Expeditioners notice about him, before he cuts them down. ]

I don't want them to think I'm like him.

[ The pain and loneliness in his voice gives way to something genuinely bitter, almost venomous. Whoever that man is to him, Verso clearly doesn't care for him at all. ]

[demainvient]

The white-haired man.

[ He can't stop the cold ripple of fear that moves through him, for a moment bringing with it a shadow of that paralysis that had locked him away from himself for so long after the beach, until Lune found him and brought him back to himself. The man had killed so many of them, so easily; he terrifies Gustave. Night after night he wakes from dreams where that man appears out of nowhere and attacks— not him, but Maelle. Lune. Sciel. Destroying them all in the blink of an eye while Gustave is frozen, motionless.

He swallows, feeling his heart rate pick up and stumble. The palpitations have calmed since finding Lune, finding Maelle, but every now and then they strike without warning, awkward hitches in his usually steady heart beat; the lasting remnants of the panic and strain and fear from the beach, the muffling shock of after.

His glance goes to those white streaks in Verso's hair, the way they stand out against the black. He hadn't thought about it much before, had assumed it was some early sign of aging — it happens, even with the ever-younger population of Lumière. Occasionally someone's hair will go white, someone else will go bald. But now, knowing what he knows, and remembering what Alan had said... ]

Who is he?

[ With that much bitterness, that much viciousness in his voice, Verso must have had run-ins with him before. He must have, must have...

Gustave frowns, again, mind running back over those words. ]

Wait, how do you know he attacked us at the beach?

[versorecto]

[ He's said a little too much. That's -- fine. Knowing that Verso was at the beach isn't too incriminating for anything. He'd been there to keep an eye on Maelle and Gustave both, but lying his way out of that is easy enough. If anything, it might be a bit more worrying if Gustave starts to put together that he has no real memory of how he got from the beach to the fields.

But that's fine. He'll deal with it if it comes.

Verso sighs, leaning into him a little more. At least partially because he's a genuine comfort, and -- another part in hope to distract him at least a little from chasing this thread too far. He hates it already, how the lies have to lead into more lies. Small and harmless as these are by comparison. Gustave has given him nothing but his heart, and this is how he repays him. ]

His name is Renoir.

[ He doesn't want to mention the Expedition just yet, only because that in itself would invite more questions than he wants to deal with, right now. Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow. Verso takes Gustave's hand in his own, slowly lacing their fingers together, squeezing. ]

The Gommage doesn't affect him, either. I try to keep track of him, because -- [ Verso shakes his head, his gaze shifting away. Because he kills every damn Expeditioner in his path. ] By the time I reached the beach, there was no one to save.

[ A blatant lie. But one he'll keep. No good can come out of Gustave revisiting those memories -- or even worse, if he connects that to Maelle. ]

[demainvient]

[ Renoir. A name, now, to put to the face he'll never forget, white-haired and scarred almost like Verso himself is, and... immortal, apparently. Unaging, perhaps.

There's not enough information, he needs so much more if they're going to survive, if they're going to make it across this continent and all the way to the Monolith. His glance goes to the lumina converter, considering, thoughtful. Will it be enough? Could they get strong enough to fight this man, the one who murdered so many of their friends, if they had to?

He himself is already so much stronger than he used to be. And yet he still believes what he told Maelle is true: if they see him, they need to run. He's too strong, and if he can't be killed...

No. Stop. Focus.

First things first: Verso, here and leaning into him. Gustave shifts to put his arm more fully around him, coaxing Verso to lean against his chest, to let Gustave surround him. He lets Verso thread their fingers together and lifts their laced hands to brush a kiss over Verso's knuckles, those strong fingers that had so entranced him so long ago in Lumière's opera house. ]

All right.

[ He has so many questions, all of them piling up one on top of the other and threatening to cascade: what was it like, before the Fracture? What did Verso do, who was he? What Expedition is his uniform from, what happened to them all? Who else does the Gommage not touch, what are his theories about why?

It takes some effort to swallow them back, but he does. No part of this makes him comfortable, but he has to admit Verso has a point. Lune, Sciel, Maelle; they all fear and hate the white-haired man — Renoir — as much as he does, and if they think Verso is connected, somehow.

He sighs, a long resigned breath lowering his chest, his shoulders. ]

I'll keep your secret for tonight.

[ Implicit in that statement is something else: that there will be a tomorrow, just like Verso promises. He doesn't know how to trust it, completely, is still mostly certain that when he does make his way from the camp he'll simply be alone, but there seems to still be some small part of him that's hopeful enough to give it a shot. ]

But tomorrow... Tomorrow, I'll want more answers. And if any part of this is going to, going to work, I need you to give them to me. This whole thing, all of it, it's about information, and we just don't have enough.

[versorecto]

[ Verso lets himself be coaxed down easily, his eyes briefly sliding shut as he leans against his chest, Gustave's arms around him, their fingers laced together, sighing at that kiss Gustave brushes over his fingers. He's warm and solid and real, something that his mind is starting to really come around to only to reel back again and marvel at what a miracle it really is.

He can tell Gustave is thinking through their options, when it comes to Renoir. Verso's seen them get stronger and stronger, has seen some of what that lumina converter of theirs can do, but . . . Renoir is more powerful and can reach much further than any of them can likely imagine.

Gustave agrees to keep the secrets, for now, and Verso noticeably relaxes with a quiet sigh. At the end of the day, after he'd chosen to trust Gustave with even this little bit of information, he can't actually stop him from sharing it ( not unless he takes extreme steps, anyway ). But it would be messy, difficult to wrangle, complicate everything when all Verso wants to do is keep to the plans he's laid over the years and try and spend what time he an with Gustave along the way. And even if Gustave changes his mind, tomorrow . . .

He lifts his head from his chest looking him in the eye, pressing his own kiss against Gustave's hand held in his own. ]

Thank you.

[ For keeping the secret. For trusting him. With this, and with the idea of tomorrow, he's sorry, he's so sorry, for leaving and hurting him and for everything and all the lies he's just told and all the lies he still needs to tell. He doesn't deserve this, or deserve him, and he's sorry for taking what he can, anyway. ]

I'll tell you what I know.

[ A pause, for a moment, and -- a small, sad smile. A look coming across his gaze that's almost a little wistful, a bit faraway. ]

I'm -- Sorry. I know I've been selfish. [ To not say any of this earlier, among other things. ] But, mon Monsieur le fleuriste, since I first met you . . .

I just wanted to be what you called me. Your Monsieur le pianiste. Nothing more. No one else.

[ No lies. No shadows. No memories of fire and blood and nightmares waking up tasting ink and ash. Just them, the empty opera house, and the garden after. He knew it wouldn't last, but wanted it to, for as long as he could make it stay. ]

[demainvient]

[ Verso's lips brush over his hand, and for a moment he's back there in the opera house, befuddled and on the back foot, wholly unprepared for the way a mysterious piano player charmed him so easily and so quickly.

And maybe he can understand it, a little. He, too, had wanted to keep this, keep Verso, something sweet and separate from his real life, from the reality of the coming Expedition, the Gommage. Gustave leans his head against Verso's, breathing in the scent of him, trying to memorize the feel of him in his arms. ]

Whatever else, whoever else you are, you're still mon Monsieur le pianiste. And if you'll play for me again...

[ He frowns, a little, some half-unheard memory whispering in his head. I will play for you again, if only you will bring me flowers. It's nothing Verso has actually said to him, not today and not back then in the garden, so why can he hear it, why does it sound so familiar?

How he would love to hear Verso play again, to watch those clever fingers of his move so gracefully over the keys, coaxing the most beautiful sounds from them. He's longed for it, listened to so many records of piano concertos before they left that Maelle complained about his new and terrible taste in music.

They were all masters of the form, but none of them had been Verso. ]

...I will still bring you flowers.

[ A little shake of his head, trying to clear from it the strange not-a-memory, and he gives Verso a small, rueful smile, his thumb running over his knuckles in a light caress. ]

I've been selfish, too. I wanted to keep you only for myself.

[versorecto]

[ Gustave's voice trails off, a slightly faraway and confused look coming across his eyes, and Verso takes a moment to register why. But once he does -- they're there. In the cave. He can smell the blood and the stench of lingering death, feel it lapping at his feet. Gustave is smiling and he'd look almost at peace except for how Verso remembers his smiles so well from the garden, remembers how they light up his face, how they'd crinkle his eyes -- but there, in that awful place, his eyes were still hollow and sunken. Looking out at him from behind splattered blood caked across his skin. Nestled neatly in his hair amongst all those gentle curls, gleaming cold metal, the barrel of a gun.

Verso remembers the taste of salt of his own tears, mingling with the warm-copper blood in the air. the sound of his voice, so achingly gentle, like he was the one trying to reassure him. He remembers going from a quieter voice, calm and soothing, to realizing there was no convincing him, to pleading, begging, anything he could think of.

He leans in to catch Gustave's mouth in a kiss even as he shakes off that almost-memory. Its better forgotten, surely. Gustave has enough to worry about already. The kiss is light, for a moment, until he leans in and deepens it for a few moments more -- a soft sound at the back of his throat, low and just a bit wanting, before he breaks away. ]

You can keep me.

[ Verso might still have to leave, for the night -- or Gustave does. But tomorrow. He will see him tomorrow. And Gustave has him, whether he believes it or not, whether he knows it or not: he's never far, has stayed close by his side ever since he arrived on the Continent, has saved his life more than once without him even knowing. And he won't leave. He'll not be leaving him again. ]

[demainvient]

[ He leans into the kiss, shifting Verso's hand in his so he can press the back of that hand to his chest, over his beating heart, Verso's knuckles warm against his bared skin. You can keep me, he murmurs, and despite the cold of the wind that flutters around them, Gustave warms again. ]

All of you?

[ Lightly teased, as he presses another kiss to those lips, bites lightly at the bottom one. He's still not... quite right in the head, he thinks, from the shock of everything that's happened, but right now all he wants is to give into the warm, giddy gladness of having Verso here in his arms once again; Verso promising to see him tomorrow, Verso swearing he won't leave.

If it is a dream, he doesn't want to wake up, not for a long time. ]

So you've come to join your heart, which you left in my safekeeping?

[ And which he has no intention of giving back, now that he knows he's had it all this time. But this, too, only makes him think of how lonely he'd been, surrounded by people in Lumière, his family and friends around him, and how much worse it must have been for Verso. What friends does he have here, aside from Esquie? Has he been alone all this time?

His next kiss is a little gentler, his hand pressing Verso's to his heart, a cage built of adoring touches and caresses. ]

I let you go too many times before. I won't again, mon cher. I don't know how it's even possible we've found each other again, it's like some kind of miracle.

[versorecto]

[ It is a miracle. Its a bit less of a cosmic coincidence when Verso is aware of what he's done and what he's been doing, that he's been keeping tabs on Maelle this whole time, following all of them from afar. But it'd still been chance that had led Gustave to the opera house that night, that had Verso in Lumiere at all when he'd fallen from the rooftop nine months after. Some kind of miracle that the Alicia has managed to find the life she has, that her newfound brother does so much for her, and that that happens to be the same man who has so thoroughly captured his attention, and his heart.

More lies than he'd like. But still enough that he feels fortunate in a way he can't possibly deserve, especially with the way Gustave looks at him, with how sweet his kisses are, how achingly romantic his words are. He has no doubt that if he'd stayed in Lumiere, Gustave really would have plied him with wine and roses and anything he thought his heart desired, maybe while tripping over his own words all along the way.

He curves a hand gently through Gustave's hair, the softest sigh falling from his lips just from that alone -- he loves the way the strands part between his fingers, how the curls fall around his touch. His other arm winds around him, just to feel him, fingers tracing the line of his spine under his shirt as he kisses him back. ]

-- All of me.

[ Come to join the piece of him he left in Gustave's care without even understanding. Verso has been so desperately lonely -- the past two Expeditions have been difficult for him to interact with, to keep his distance from, especially when he knows he heard the name Gustave from the 34th at least once -- and they're always fleeting. Monoco is at his station, and Esquie he'd pulled away from for months at a time. His company had been the mountains, the fields of flowers, the wistful memories he carried with him, and the aching emptiness in his heart, touched with the hollow pang of regret.

He leans in a little to that hand against his chest. His heart beats, slow, powerful, strong -- and fluttering just a little under his kisses, enough to be noticeable. ]

It's a miracle I won't question and will be happy to just enjoy, mon chou.

[ In the terrible, fleeting time that Gustave has left . . . God, he doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve any of this. He's so sweet, so loving, so willing to trust and adore him for how little he knows. Verso's been too cowardly to leave him, so maybe the only mercy he has left to give is -- to hope that he dies or reaches his Gommage before he learns too much of the truth.

Something stirs in his stomach. Guilt and pain and regret for even thinking it. ]

-- But I think you've been letting yourself go. Off of the edges of perilous cliffs and buildings. [ A bit of a laugh, his hand stroking fondly through his hair. ] I'm going to have to ask you to stop doing that.

[demainvient]

[ Verso runs his fingers through his hair, and he can feel it all the way through his body, rippling down his spine like he's stepping under a stream of warm water. He makes a small sound, his hand warm on Verso's chest, and kisses him again, a little more deeply. ]

I needed some way to bring you out quickly.

[ Before he left again. Before Gustave lost his chance. And he hadn't even been sure it would work, hadn't be certain Verso had been watching, where he was. It had been a complete gamble, much too risky.

He'd do it again in a heartbeat, he knows. ]

I would have caught myself if you hadn't shown up, you know.

[ Probably. Almost certainly. His reflexes are good and he'd been planning on utilizing this very same grapple point. It's not like... not like back in the cave, when he'd thought there was no other path to take, of course it isn't. It had simply been a means to an end.

He arches up lightly against the fingers that run along his spine, and it's bewildering, really, the fact that Verso is still here, that he hasn't tried to pull himself away, to make excuses. Maybe he really does mean it, that he'll stay, that Gustave can keep him, maybe—

Gustave stiffens, pulling away a little as his glance goes over Verso's shoulder and to the side, his hands stilling on Verso's body. ]

...Do you hear something?

[versorecto]

[ There is something maybe a little charming in there that the first thing that Gustave could think of was also what he'd immediately thrown himself into. Just based on memory, maybe of how his Monsieur le pianiste had saved him from crashing from the rooftops two years ago, but it also has to come from some belief that Verso cared enough to save him, that keeping him safe would matter more than whatever it was that was keeping him hidden. He was right, of course. But that Gustave would think that so immediately, and be willing to stake himself on it . . . ]

I thought you might try something like calling my name, first.

[ It wouldn't have worked. But the determination that Gustave had climbing up this entire way -- he'd known what he was going to do before he started getting up here. Verso would like to think that at the end of the day, Gustave just believed that he would save him.

Its nice, almost as much as it breaks his heart. He doesn't deserve any of this. ]

I know you're not incapable, but -- It was a risk, a gamble, and all just to try and get my attention. [ That anger he'd had in that moment was genuine, white-hot and blazing. Gustave is a good man, beautiful and lovely, with people who love him, and the idea that he would even chance at throwing it all away just to get his eye -- it isn't worth it, he wasn't worth it. The anger has dissipated a little in everything they've done since, but some of it slides back here, if in a more teasing tone, chiding. ] Just -- please don't.

[ Even if Gustave had always thought he'd catch himself, always planned on it -- Verso can't know that. Verso can't help the way his heart leapt into his throat and how he'd dived for him like nothing else mattered, the fear that ran through him, the awful dread. He can't help the shadow of a memory of Gustave pressing a pistol to his own temple, smiling, his fingers on the trigger.

It feels a little too vulnerable to admit just how much that scared him. So he won't. ]

Next time I see you hurtle yourself off something, I'm letting you fall.

[ A blatant lie, but an obvious one, just a joke. Of course he wouldn't. He never could.

His fingers keep running up over Gustave's spine, counting every notch he can feel through his skin -- until the other man stiffens, glancing up. He pauses, turning his head slightly to the side, listening out: He's lived all these years out here, is well-tuned to the environment, its usual sounds, the calls and shifts of nevrons.

That's something different. Distant. A voice. Maybe even the ripple of chroma that he can sense, if he tries hard enough, echoes from a fight, or, no. Just a light in the dark. ]

-- I think we're out of time for tonight, Gustave.

[ He doesn't know each of your friends enough to exactly put a name to the voice, but that sure sounds like someone looking for you. It's unlikely they're coming up this way right now, but. They sure are looking. ]

[demainvient]

[ What he'd prefer not to admit to Verso — what he doesn't even want to admit to himself — is that there had been a moment, maybe a few, when he'd looked out over that height and thought: it would work.

Thoughts he's kept to himself, since those terrible moments in the cave when Lune berated him, bullied him into surviving. They found Maelle, they found Sciel, the mission continues, he has something to live for, even moments of real happiness, but sometimes... sometimes the weight of it all slips back over him, slow and insidious, and his heart stutters, it gets hard to breathe. Everyone they've lost, how far they still have to go, and there's only four of them now, what happens if they lose somebody?

(When they lose somebody. It'll happen. They all know it. They just don't know who, or how, or when.)

He doesn't think he wants to die, exactly, but there have been moments — not many, since the cave, but a few — where he's caught himself looking at a cliff, or feeling the weight of his pistol or considering the depth of some river or lake with a little too much quiet focus. He tries not to think about what more he might do than consider if Maelle weren't here, if they hadn't found her.

Verso... Verso doesn't need to know any of that. He's worried enough already, had been furious with it before, and they only just found one another. It's something else to live for, isn't it? The way it feels when he slowly runs his fingers up Gustave's spine, the warmth of him tucked against his chest, the way Gustave wants to hold on and never let go.

But, as usual, the choice is taken from him, never really his to begin with. Verso might not recognize that voice, but he does: it's Lune, by far the most awkward of the team to potentially find him entangled with a mysterious man who says he's over a hundred years old. He leans his head back against the rock, eyes closing with a sigh, then pushes forward to kiss Verso, long and deep. ]

For tonight.

[ He'd promised, and maybe... maybe it's a promise Gustave can actually hold onto. It turns out, in the end, he never had been all that good at protecting his heart. Not from Sophie, not from Verso.

It's with deep reluctance that he finally gets up, disentangling them, and puts himself back together as hurriedly as he can without accidentally slowing himself down by buttoning or buckling things wrong. He runs his hands through his hair, knowing it must be an impossible mess, and looks back at Verso. It feels strange to be the one leaving this time: like he had back at the opera house. And just like then, there had been a promise of tomorrow.

He doesn't know if he can trust it. All he can do is trust it, and hope that this time, his heart will go unbruised a little longer. ]

See you soon.