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Apr. 30th, 2025 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
demainvient
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Date: 2025-05-02 04:20 pm (UTC)MAELLE'S DREAM
Date: 2025-05-08 06:46 pm (UTC)Her room.
Her room. Her room, not the cold dark of the camp. Her bed is made, soft and plush, so different from her thin bedroll. Her wardrobe is ajar, uniform peering out at her from the dark. It's clean. She's clean, when she looks down at her hands, and she can smell coffee and bread rather than sweat and blood and dirt.
She can hear movement. The familiar creak of the floorboards. She's not alone.
For a terrible moment the hope in her heart is so much it hurts like a knife. Like her heart might break. It's a fire.
Maelle hops to her feet and throws open her door, frantic as she rushes out.
Please, please.]
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Date: 2025-05-08 07:18 pm (UTC)And there, at the little table with a book open before him and a cup of coffee held, forgotten and steaming, in his hand, her brother sits with one leg crossed easily over the other. The clatter she makes rouses him from the text he'd been poring over, and he turns to look over at her, eyes crinkling with his smile. ]
You're up early.
[ And, because he'll never miss an opportunity to tease her, he adds: ]
Some special occasion I'm not aware of?
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Date: 2025-05-08 07:29 pm (UTC)The tears roll down her cheeks, unbidden.]
Gustave?
[She's missed him. Terribly.]
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Date: 2025-05-08 07:39 pm (UTC)His smile falters and vanishes as he looks at her, brow furrowing slightly in dismay. She says his name in a choked voice and the sun gleams off the tears that stream down her cheeks, and he sets his coffee down and is on his feet in the same instant, moving with all the graceful speed of a trained swordsman. ]
Heyโ
[ A few steps of his long legs and he's there, arms going around her, pulling her against him as he curves down to meet her, his voice gentle. ]
Hey, hey, heyโ Maelle. It's all right. Whatever it is, it's all right.
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Date: 2025-05-08 08:07 pm (UTC)Oh, but maybe for now she can simply pretend. That this remains as infinitely long as her nightmares and that no one tries to wake her. That morning never comes. That she has Gustave and he's alive and trying to comfort her like he always did.
Her hands curl into fists at the back of his shirt and she allows herself to simply weep like the child she is, because he'll hold her, and she's selfish.
She doesn't care.]
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Date: 2025-05-08 08:33 pm (UTC)And so he holds her, arms tight around her, letting her sob into his chest in a grief that seems threatening to wholly overwhelm her. ]
Maelle.
[ He lowers his head to press against hers, surrounding her as well as he can, and stays that way for a long time before he moves once more, ducking his head to try and meet her eyes, his flesh and blood human hand lifting to gently cup her flushed cheek, thumb smoothing away the tears that have smeared there. ]
What's wrong? Can you tell me?
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Date: 2025-05-08 08:52 pm (UTC)You were--[dead. Killed right in front of her, hot blood on her skin. No. She can't say it. Her cheek presses into his hand as she squeezes her eyes shut, tears slipping out beneath her lashes.]
I, um. I just. I missed you.
[It's all she can manage to say around the lump in her throat. There's so much she didn't get to say. It's suffocating.]
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Date: 2025-05-09 12:42 am (UTC)He sweeps moisture off her cheek and brushes his hand back over her hair, curving his fingers gently at the back of her head to cradle her close to his chest once more. ]
I'm here.
[ (And this is her dream, so maybe he knows, already, without her having to say; maybe it's something more than memory and less than life. ]
I'm here with you.
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Date: 2025-05-09 01:19 am (UTC)She struggles to breathe, to speak, but she manages. She keeps her face buried against Gustave.]
I wish--I wish we had more time together. It's not enough. There are so many things I've--I should have asked, or said...
[The Gommage was always the sword over his neck, and then the Paintress and the continent, but she always thought they would have more time.]
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Date: 2025-05-09 02:05 am (UTC)What did you want to say to me?
[ He will always listen, has always listened: to her weepy fears and worries when she was a child and newly brought home to him and Emma; to her plans, bright and delighted as she detailed them, drawing castles in the air for them both to wander through. All her little joys and defeats, the times she was angry or the times she was sad: whenever she needed someone to listen, he was there.
And he's here again now, and even if it isn't real maybe it's real enough. He's warm against her, breathing; no haunted, haunted shell of a man, faceless and faded. Perhaps it really is him, in all the ways that matter most. Except one. ]
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Date: 2025-05-09 02:29 am (UTC)--you were the best thing in my life. [The words blurt out before she's ready to say them, a tremble in her voice. Once the dam is open, she can't stop, pained expression on her face. This hurts. She waited too long.] That I love you and I was so happy with you and Emma. You're my father and my brother and I'm so grateful for that. You know, don't you? Please. Please, tell me you know.
[Maelle was plenty affectionate, tactile and sweet with Gustave and Emma, but she was also young. The words didn't come easily, and so often it was easier to hide what vulnerability she could. And she thinks Gustave knew--there wouldn't be such warmth in his eyes when he looked at her if he didn't, she reasons. Maybe it didn't need to be said.
But he deserved to hear it from her more than he did. That, she can never fix.]
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Date: 2025-05-09 02:45 am (UTC)I know, [ he promises, meeting her wet, miserable eyes with his own steady ones. Kindness had always come easily to him, but he'd found it easiest of all with Maelle, sweet and bright and vibrant as candle flame. Her spark brought warmth and light to all their lives.
Now he searches her eyes, his voice low but firm, wanting her to believe him. ]
I always knew, Maelle. And we always felt the same way. You're the best thing that ever happened to us. To me.
[ The smile he gives her is a little lopsided, sadness keeping it from being more than a flicker it even as it warms for her. ]
I love you so much. I always will. I've only ever wanted you to be happy.
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Date: 2025-05-09 03:00 am (UTC)I was happy with you. [The tears are there, in her eyes, but she can still breathe.] So happy. You saved me. And I, I couldn't...
[Save him. She will kill Renoir and she will find pleasure in it. She'll run him through and discard him on the floor and look into his lifeless eyes and feel justified. Again, Maelle squeezes her eyes shut. When she chases away the sickening anger, there's something wounded there. Something small, when she next manages to speak, looking to Gustave with exasperated sadness.]
You promised me you would run.
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Date: 2025-05-09 04:37 pm (UTC)Let's sit down.
[ He shifts his wrist in her grip enough to twist his hand and take hers, fingers curling gently around her smaller ones as he steps back, drawing her towards the little table with his still-steaming cup of coffee. There are two chairs; he keeps one hand in hers and uses the other, the artificial left hand, to draw one out for her in an invitation. ]
Have some breakfast while we talk.
[ His smile is crooked, a little wry. ]
The bread is fresh, and there's some of that cheese you like.
[ Is it her desire, or some small part of him that's still alive in her, trying to take care of her even now? Impossible to say. ]
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Date: 2025-05-09 05:50 pm (UTC)She has no appetite, but reluctantly uncurls her fingers from Gustave's hand and reaches for the bread. Soft and warm when nothing on the continent offers that. Even the vibrant parts of the land have been dull since Gustave's death. Only here do things have color again.
With a sniffle, her gaze returns to Gustave. There's no need to memorize everything about him because it's already committed to memory.]
I don't think you want this back.
[Her other hand holds his handkerchief. It's damp.
Above all, she misses his open heart and his silly nature. He could always make her smile, and she tries so hard to muster one up for him. To joke, even as her heart aches.]
It's moist.
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Date: 2025-05-09 06:15 pm (UTC)He comes to set both glass and a plate of soft, spreadable cheese in front of her, then takes his own seat again. His glance falls to the damp, rumpled mess of his handkerchief, and he chuckles. ]
Keep it.
[ She might need it, with how many tears she still has to weep.
His expression goes more serious in the next moment, head tilting slightly as he studies her. ]
You know why I couldn't keep my promise.
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Date: 2025-05-09 06:59 pm (UTC)She almost succeeds.]
You... were never going to keep that promise, were you? Not as long as I was there. You knew it when we talked about it at camp.
[She can't be upset with him for it. All her rage and anger is for Renoir. And the Paintress, for being an obstacle. Gustave only ever did his best. He was good. Nothing will ever tarnish her opinion of him.
Her eyes fall to the glass, to the bread in her hand. She puts it down on the small plate before her and takes a slow breath before looking to him again.]
I don't know what to do without you.
[Such would have always been the case. Gommage or otherwise, he was so ingrained in her every day, thought, view of the world.]
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Date: 2025-05-09 10:40 pm (UTC)If there had been a way to keep it and still make sure you were safe, I would have tried.
[ He'd been full of cold anger toward the white-haired man, still grieving their friends on the beach, the vast majority of their expedition slaughtered only seconds after their boots hit the sand, but he'd wanted to live, himself.
So: yes. she's right. He'd known even then that he'd never be able to keep that promise if she was there, too. He leans towards her, the warm brown eyes that always had a smile for her full of sympathy and her own pain, mirrored back to her. He never wanted to leave her. ]
You'll... find a way. To move forward. I know you will.
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Date: 2025-05-09 11:19 pm (UTC)She doesn't know what to say. So little helps the pain. After a quiet that feels too long, hands twisting the handkerchief in her lap, she swallows around the heavy lump in her throat.]
You miss Sophie. I try to... remember that. Maybe you'll figure out how to make it work by the time I see you again, yeah?
[While she doesn't know exactly why they broke up, she's sure he fumbled. Somehow. Probably. That thought gives her some solace. The next life.]
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Date: 2025-05-09 11:48 pm (UTC)Yeah. Maybe.
[ He looks back up again, then shifts his chair out from the table and a little closer to her, reaching to carefully cup his hands around the ones she has twisting that scrap of cloth. His voice is gentle, even with the faintest edge of brotherly teasing that had once laced so much of what he told her. ]
But don't rush, please. Live. Be happy.
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Date: 2025-05-10 12:43 am (UTC)I'll stop her. I'll stop the Paintress, and I'll kill him for what he did to us. To everyone. Just...
[Glassy eyes meet his, serious, even if she sounds childish to her own ears.]
Make me a new promise. Don't forget me. I promise to live as long as you wait for me this time.
[Living is easy. Being happy is another matter.]
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Date: 2025-05-10 02:09 am (UTC)[ It comes out on the breath of a laugh, his fingers squeezing hers, warm and familiar. ]
I'm more likely to forget myself than I am to forget you. It'll never happen.
[ Clinging to memory has its own dangers... could he become a shattered, fading remnant of himself, hardly able to even remember words, let alone names or faces, like those strange, ashen figures they found throughout the continent? Perhaps. He has no more answers here than she does.
But this is a promise he can make, and keep, and he nods to her. ]
I promise. And I'll wait for you. I'll be there with you wherever you go... just out of sight, maybe.
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Date: 2025-05-10 02:23 am (UTC)Verso may feel like a possibility on paper, a man missing a sister while she's missing a brother and how convenient that is, but he is not Gustave.]
A real promise, this time.
[She holds up her pinky.]
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Date: 2025-05-10 11:32 am (UTC)She has so much life left to live. All he can hope is that she gets the chance to live it. ]
I should probably try to tell you something trite about forgiveness being the better path.
[ He lifts his eyebrows at her, then shakes his head, shoulders and chest lifting with a long, deep breath. ]
But I won't. When you're ready, when you're strong enoughโ
[ His pinky finger tightens a little on hers as he gives her hand a little shake. ]
Bring him hell.
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Date: 2025-05-10 02:09 pm (UTC)[That day haunted them all, but Gustave, especially. Maelle drops her hand back down to her lap, watching him. She has so many questions, so many conversations to have yet, but she knows she could spend a lifetime with him and still not be done.
One does manage to come to the forefront and make it out of her mouth, however.]
Were you there? Beneath that tree in the forest. Where we laid you to rest. Could you hear us?
[She hopes so. For Lune and Sciel's sake, too.]
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Date: 2025-05-11 05:25 pm (UTC)It was a nice place. Peaceful.
[ And peace has eluded them all for such a long time. ]
Sciel and Lune will want to take care of you. I think you should let them.
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Date: 2025-05-11 05:42 pm (UTC)[They're dear to her, but they're not Gustave. He was supposed to be her final one. Try as they might, she knows that bond between her and Gustave was something unique. They simply fit well, hearts or souls or natures aligned.]
You set the bar too high, I guess.
I have finished the game.... time 2 cry....
Date: 2025-05-11 07:12 pm (UTC)[ He watches her, hands loosely clasped in his lap, before taking a quick breath in and straightening, visibly trying to shift her mood to something a little more lighthearted. ]
You're never this nice... You really must miss me.
the crying never stops.... this game!!!!!!
Date: 2025-05-11 07:27 pm (UTC)I do. I really, really do.
[A single tear rolls down her round cheek, falling off her chin.]
I was so desperate to see the world before my Gommage. So determined to go with you on the expedition. But, I think... no. I know, a part of me didn't want to face what the world would be like without you. If you died on the expedition, what were the chances I'd survive?
[Higher than she realized, apparently.]
I didn't want this.
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Date: 2025-05-11 07:59 pm (UTC)Not so Maelle, though she has to have known this would always be his choice, if they were forced into this particular corner. She's still so young; she'd only expected to say goodbye to him with the Gommage. It can be hard for the people of Lumiรจre to remember that there are other, more abrupt ways to die. ]
I know.
[ Sciel hadn't expected to lose Pierre the way she had, either. He hadn't expected to lose Sophie, in a less final but no less complete way all those years ago. ]
If it helps, I'm not that thrilled about it, either.
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Date: 2025-05-11 08:07 pm (UTC)[She's a teenager. Inevitably, they had their spats, her silent treatments and little acts of rebellion here and there over the years. But he died for her. She knew, always, he would never let harm come to her if he had any say in the matter.
She just never thought she'd watch him go to the slaughter before her very eyes. She can still recall the heat of his blood on her face.]
I know you'd rather be with us.
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Date: 2025-05-11 08:14 pm (UTC)It would be all right, if you were mad at me. I'd understand.
[ A promise broken, a brother destroyed, the life she could almost touch with the tips of her fingers shattered in the blink of an eye. How could he blame her for being angry when she has lost so much, and so much of it at his own hands? ]
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Date: 2025-05-11 08:41 pm (UTC)[Her love and respect and understanding of him is too great. If she hated him, she wouldn't carry so many beautiful memories in her heart that felt like handling shards of glass when she looked back on them. Afternoons at the Hanging Gardens. Peering over his shoulder at whatever he was working on in the early light of morning. Pestering him for a stroll to the harbor when the skies were clear. Making him laugh over a meal right when he took a drink. So many little moments, kept close to her heart, but all so important. Reminders of how much he loved her, and how safe he made her feel. In the end, that was his final gift.]
I'm only mad at the person that did this.
[She'll make him feel it. Her pain, her rage, her sorrow.]
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Date: 2025-05-12 01:18 am (UTC)Don't let him bait you into confronting him before you're ready, [ he warns. Don't get cocky, Maelle. ]
You saw what happened. I barely touched him.
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Date: 2025-05-12 01:27 am (UTC)The Paintress makes him immortal. Once we kill her, I'll kill him.
[Gustave would have been able to kill him if he were a normal man. But a normal man wouldn't have been able to nearly wipe them out at the beach.]
I miss you terribly, but I promise to finish this for you.
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Date: 2025-05-12 02:20 am (UTC)You can do this, Maelle.
[ It's so quiet in this dream of their old home that his voice could be just barely more than a murmur and still clear enough for her to hear. ]
You can break the cycle.
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Date: 2025-05-12 02:31 am (UTC)When I do... I hope you'll visit me. Just like this.
[But she doesn't ask him to promise her that.]
I could stay here forever.
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Date: 2025-05-12 02:39 am (UTC)Don't worry about that. I'll always find you, right?
[ And here, in this strange liminal space where he is and is not the Gustave who loved her, protected her, laughed with her, comforted her, some paths are easier to find than others. Hers will always be clearly lit for him.
Gently: ]
You have to wake up sometime. Don't waste your life in a dream.
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Date: 2025-05-12 02:55 am (UTC)[For better or for worse--a thing she would joke about, normally, but they haven't had normal in a very long time. Sniffling, she rallies, taking a deep breath. She can be strong in hopes of seeing him smile at her. That's what she wants to remember and carry with her.]
I think you did pretty good.
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Date: 2025-05-12 03:33 pm (UTC)You made it easy. I only wish I could get to see the person you'll become.
[ They've been robbed of so much: his future, theirs together. But he hopes she can still live hers. ]
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Date: 2025-05-12 04:19 pm (UTC)[Their chances of him seeing her grow into adulthood were always slim. Just as she would never see him actually become an old man. He would be ageless, stuck frozen in time for her. They didn't talk about it as much as they should have, hopes and dreams put into the expedition, but maybe they should have.]
I wish you'd taken me in sooner.
[The only way they would have had more time together is from the start. She smiles, amused by the idea of a Gustave in his early twenties, trying to manage her.]
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Date: 2025-05-12 10:19 pm (UTC)[ They could spend hours, days mourning the what-ifs and the could-have-beens. It's a distraction she can't afford, not now. She'll have to carry her grief along with her in a pocket for a while; her focus needs to be on other things.
He sets one arm on the table, leaning toward her. ]
I wish we had longer, too. But nothing can ever take away the time we did have. Nothing. You will always have that.
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Date: 2025-05-13 01:23 am (UTC)I'll tell you my favorite thing we would do together if you tell me yours.
[She thinks she knows. The smile comes with a sniffle. Maybe she shouldn't let herself sink into the past. Maybe she should only look forward, at least until their expedition is finished. But she tells herself she needs this. This will keep her going when the despair tries to choke her.]
So when we meet again, some day, we can do them right away.
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Date: 2025-05-13 03:38 pm (UTC)[ She steadies herself, his brave Maelle, and he knows she'll find a way to push forward, whether it's rage or pain or love or determination driving her. At that sniff, he reaches gently for the crumpled handkerchief, shaking it out to find a dry spot, then refolds it and offers it back to her. ]
You go first.
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Date: 2025-05-13 07:18 pm (UTC)She misses when he would take care of her, be it scraped knees or wiping away tears after a nightmare, but that was never her favorite thing.]
The Hanging Gardens. We could see so much of the city. Be nosy. We would just... talk. About everything. I loved spending time with you, but there, especially.
[Deep talks about that year's Gommage. But more often, just about themselves. Their lives. Silly things, too. They would so often go home smiling.]
I would do anything to sit up there with you one more time. To listen to you talk about how your apprentices are doing, or the weather. Or anything at all.
[Her eyes wander to their home, still and warm and familiar. This is as close as they can get, for now.]
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Date: 2025-05-13 09:31 pm (UTC)And Maelle had loved it. Though the Gardens were open to everyone, it had become their special place; had been that way since the first time he brought her there, hiked up on his back, her too-young legs not quite strong enough to make the climb. He'd brushed over her cheeks and eyes and lips with soft flowers until she giggled, and showered her with petals. They'd stuck in her hair, lending her a sweet scent all the way home, until Emma washed them out again ]
That was my favorite, too.
[ He reaches to gently brush her wet and straggling bangs back, fingers warm and solid against her forehead here in this dream. ]
So that will be our pact. The next time we meet... it'll be in the Hanging Gardens. All right?
Maybe I'll even let you challenge me again. But you'll be stronger than me by then... I'm sure you'll learn a few new tricks to take me down.
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Date: 2025-05-13 10:51 pm (UTC)[The Hanging Gardens it is. She can't tease him for copying her answer when it only makes her heart swell with affection for him. He cherished their time together there as much as she did. She knew. She's always known.
Maelle catches his hand before she can drop it to bring it to her cheek, pressing into his palm.
She doesn't want to ever fight him, even in her dreams, even if it's a playful spar. Not after watching him fall before her very eyes.]
I think I'd just want to sit with you. If that's okay.
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Date: 2025-05-14 01:59 am (UTC)More than okay, [ he promises, voice soft. ]
We'll sit as long as you want. You'll have an awful lot to tell me by then.
[ He hopesโ he hopes. He'd spend an eternity waiting there among those flowers, if it meant she had a lifetime to live and love, with all the tears and joy and wonder that comes with it.
If he is a dream, he wonders how it is he can feel his heart breaking. He wets his lips with the tip of his tongue; swallows. This whole time, his voice has stayed steady, gentle, but now it cracks, just a little, as a sore, sorrowful expression shifts over his face in the flickers of eyebrows pulling together, lips pressing together. ]
I have loved you so much, Maelle. Never forget that.
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Date: 2025-05-14 02:27 am (UTC)Never. I could never forget. That's... what you left me. So many memories of what it is to be loved. [And loved unconditionally. She wasn't his blood, but he never cared. She was his daughter. She was his sister. How fortunate she was to be that for him, and to have known someone so painfully good.
She is less good, she thinks, because of the hatred in her heart towards Renoir. It's a stain. The Paintress is now simply an obstacle between the old man's throat and her blade. She'll take his life as he took Gustave's.]
I'll love you forever. In this life and the ones that follow.
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Date: 2025-05-14 03:09 am (UTC)In the next life, huh?
[ His voice feels thick, and his lips tug into a quick, heartbroken smile. ]
We didn't get to say goodbye, before.
[ He'd been calm, then, in the face of her despair and his own doom. A small shake of his head, slow. He'd been dying then already, his lifeblood spilling down the front of the uniform on which Sophie and the boys had worked so diligently. This, too, is a legacy. He huffs a small, sad breath that's nothing really like a laugh. ]
I still don't want to say it, even now. But I'm glad we got the chance.
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Date: 2025-05-14 03:24 am (UTC)It would hurt like this does. Losing him would always shatter her heart in a way that could never be put right. Like the Gestrals, she thinks--they can return, but not completely. Not as they were before.
They never had enough time. He could be like Verso, immortal, and a century would never be enough for her.]
Then we don't say it, because we'll see each other again.
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Date: 2025-05-14 10:40 pm (UTC)He's always been just a little bit too selfish for that. ]
Okay.
[ He runs his thumb lightly over her cheek again, nodding. ]
We won't say goodbye.
[ His smile tugs, almost into a real curve, before it trun rueful once more. ]
Tell the others I say hi, okay?
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Date: 2025-05-15 12:48 am (UTC)[It's said with her own wry smile. She's very much still sane, fueled by a desire to avenge the person she loves most. If she starts telling the girls she's been visited by him in her dreams, they'll look at her with those sorrowful looks that make her want to break down and weep.]
Lune and Sciel miss you, too.
[Yet they were quicker to move on. The mission still remained, and they had less time to waste. She understands. Gustave was her father, her brother. The cut is deeper for her.]
You're the reason why we have a chance. A real chance.
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Date: 2025-05-15 02:07 am (UTC)[ Lune might think it's nothing but a dream, but Sciel... Sciel might understand. He knows how much she wanted to see Pierre again, any way she could.
His glance slides away from her at her comment, landing on the fingers she has wrapped at his wrist. ]
The Lumina tech will help. But I...
[ He'd felt the blade of light go through his chest; he'd seen the explosion of chroma around him, and knew he'd failed. ]
I couldn't... stop him. Maelle, I'm sorry.
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Date: 2025-05-15 02:28 am (UTC)[The grip on his wrist tightens, keeping his hand against her face even as she shakes her head. Her eyes are clear when she meets his, unblinking in their certainty.]
You don't apologize. You were--you did everything right. Everything. With me, the expedition, the... that day. [Even if he didn't keep his promise. Even if he didn't run. So often the dead were looked upon with a kindness they may not have deserved in life, as if being dead washed away their shortcomings and sins and ugly parts. But Gustave had none of that. His only flaw was that he was mortal.
It all happened so fast. No goodbyes, as he said. Renoir took that from them. Renoir took him from her in the worst possible way.]
Nothing is your fault.
alexa find the 'try not to cry' meme
Date: 2025-05-15 02:38 am (UTC)[ And he tried. Even with no hope left, he'd tried, sword in his weakening hand as his eyesight failed and his legs faltered, his uniform saturated with his own blood. He'd asked questions, seeking out information even as his breath labored. He'd stood there, between her and the white-haired man who meant death, and looked his doom in the face, and tried.
But all he'd managed to do was to leave her alone with him. ]
All I wanted was for you to be safe and happy.
just when i thought i was done crying over this thread
Date: 2025-05-15 02:51 am (UTC)You did. Please, don't think you didn't. You did.
[Verso stepped in once Gustave fell, but would he have been there in time had Gustave not challenged Renoir? She thinks about the cliff regularly. How powerless she felt and how she begged and screamed to no avail and how Gustave's corpse was left so indignantly on the rock, the light behind his eyes gone. It was so much worse than the Gommage. It was a nightmare she hoped to wake from, but couldn't.]
You've never let me down. Not ever. That's still true.
[It will remain forever true, now.]
just weeping forever over them
Date: 2025-05-15 03:13 am (UTC)He'd known he had no chance, but what else could he do? He couldn't leave her there. He couldn't turn away from the man who had slaughtered his friends. He'd gone to his death knowing it would give her seconds, only. He'd bought each one of them so dearly. ]
You got away. You're safe. That's all I care about.
[ The shell of him that was left behind, slowly turning to stone like all the other expeditioners who fall along the path... maybe it will stay there forever, the sea breeze tugging lightly at the waves of his hair, the hem of his uniform, the only motion now left to the body that lies crumpled there. The rest of him, the part that mattered, Maelle laid to rest there beneath the tree in that calm, peaceful valley. ]
i need to hydrate after threading with you, you monster ๐๐ญ
Date: 2025-05-15 03:34 am (UTC)[That part of him, that protectiveness and selflessness, is what a good father should be, she thinks. She looks at him with a watery smile. There's some morbid comedy about Verso's father taking away her father, but she can't think of that monster when she's looking at Gustave's face. Here, he seems less tired. Less burdened. Even when sad, there's a peace to him, and she hopes to remember it forever along with his goodness and love.]
I'm the luckiest person in all the world. Not everyone got you as a brother and a father.
[Sorry, Emma.]
I was put here to torment you, specifically
Date: 2025-05-15 10:57 pm (UTC)[ He laughs, ducking his head before looking back up at her. ]
That's true. Only you can boast that particular unique relationship with me.
[ Father, brother โ does it matter which? In the end, he was her family when she needed one. And she was his. ]
That makes me pretty lucky, too, I think.
#blessed
Date: 2025-05-16 01:37 am (UTC)[It's fine. Everyone has broken, cobbled together families. They were simply one another's family, and how special that is.]
I could tell you were happy. I never once doubted if you regretted taking me in.
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Date: 2025-05-16 11:32 pm (UTC)[ He had been happy, being there with Maelle as she grew up, having evenings and weekends and holidays with her and Emma, the little family he'd loved so much. It's one of the reasons he'd decided he wanted children after all, after helping her negotiate her way from childhood into teendom.
He wishes he could see the woman she'll become. ]
Do you remember when you first came to stay with us, and I would come read by your bedside to help you fall asleep?
[ His voice, as low and soothing as he could make it as he read from whatever was on hand: storybooks, sometimes; newspapers at others. Once in a while he'd even use some of his engineering texts: a surefire way to put her to sleep quickly. ]
Those were some of my favorite moments.
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Date: 2025-05-17 04:22 am (UTC)[Previous families had tried to read to her, but Gustave made it feel comfortable and safe. Even if the threat of nightmares frightened her, she would look forward to whatever bedtime story he would have. Eventually, it felt like his constant and consistent presence before sleep took her chased the worst of the nightmares away.]
Those were some of my favorite moments, too. Even if I would dream of thermodynamics.
[The textbooks were sometimes the best because he was so invested in them.]
You read to me like you'd been doing it my whole life.
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Date: 2025-05-17 03:00 pm (UTC)[ He squints thoughtfully, exaggerated. ]
Slightly better, anyway.
Emma would come and find me dozing in that chair at your bedside.
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Date: 2025-05-18 04:28 pm (UTC)[They were both younger, then, but she noticed. It's a memory that makes her feel warm, like the blanket he'd tuck around her before settling in to read. If she ever lived to have children of her own, she would do the same for them. She would want to be everything Gustave was, because in her eyes, he was perfect.]
You never complained.
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Date: 2025-05-18 11:42 pm (UTC)[ But he's teasing, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. ]
I liked being there with you.
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Date: 2025-05-19 12:11 am (UTC)I liked you being there. You kept me safe, even back then. I think that's when you felt most like a father to me. You were always so patient.
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Date: 2025-05-20 12:51 am (UTC)[ It was what drove him on the continent, a need to keep Maelle safe, to get her home, somewhere all the terrors of that place couldn't threaten her any longer. ]
You'll have to do that for yourself, now.
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Date: 2025-05-20 01:04 am (UTC)Oh, you did. You kept me safer than anyone else ever could. You taught me how...
[Her voice cracks. Traitor. She clears her throat.]
I wish it was still you, but I can do it. All the things I've learned from you will keep me safe.
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Date: 2025-05-20 02:05 am (UTC)Remember your promise.
[ To live, as long and as happily as she can. ]
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Date: 2025-05-21 03:33 am (UTC)Yeah. You'd better recognize me still, Gustave.
[A year, nine, eighty. He'll forever be 32 while time passes for her.
The hand he kissed reaches out to brush her fingers over his cheek, the scruff of his beard. She has a hundred memories of her cheek against his, her hair getting caught. So many hugs and embraces and moments she'll continue to miss terribly.]
Did you know? I used to hate my red hair. I always wished it was brown, like yours. It made it obvious we weren't related.
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Date: 2025-05-21 07:08 pm (UTC)You'd look cute as a brunette. But I like the red. Suits you.
[ She brushes her fingers against his beard and he smiles, turning his head a little into her touch. ]
Remember the time I shaved? First time you ever saw me without a beard, I think.
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Date: 2025-05-22 12:20 am (UTC)[Her eyes are bright from tears, and now amusement. She runs her thumb against the scruff. The memory is as clear as yesterday. He had looked like a completely different man. And not in a good way.]
Oof. You walked down the stairs and scared me. Surprised I didn't start bawling, really.
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Date: 2025-05-22 02:00 am (UTC)[ He's laughing now, for real, happy to play the fool and coax her into smiles and happier memories. He remembers it, too โ how he remembers it, he doesn't know, but perhaps they're just her memories sifting in through the mind she's created for this dream โ the way her eyes had locked onto him, startled, and then widened in horror. ]
It wasn't that bad.
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Date: 2025-05-23 03:04 am (UTC)[Maybe, maybe not, but she laughs. The childhood he gave her made up for the years that came before. Her other hand lifts to press to Gustave's other cheek--sandwiching his face between her hands.]
Yeah. This is what I want to remember. You're always so... silly, despite everything. I think you made me laugh every single day we had together.
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Date: 2025-05-23 03:24 am (UTC)It was easy. You could always find the fun in anything. All I did was... open the door for you, a little.
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Date: 2025-05-24 01:46 am (UTC)More than a little. Give yourself some credit.
[Without him, she knows she would be a sorry shadow of the person she is now. She worries, somewhat, about what she'll become without him, but maybe if she keeps the memory of moments like these close to her heart, she'll be okay.]
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Date: 2025-05-24 12:33 pm (UTC)Oh, don't worry, I give myself plenty of credit. Clearly it was me and not Emma who was the better role model.
[ Absolutely not. ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 11:24 pm (UTC)All those times I was supposed to be helping her with the chores and you would sneak me off to your workshop.
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Date: 2025-05-26 11:04 pm (UTC)[ She hadn't, but he took her with him anyway, simply because he knew she loved to be with him, even if she didn't understand and wasn't interested in what he was doing. ]
Showing you sketches for new designs... trying to teach you about mass balance...
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Date: 2025-05-26 11:17 pm (UTC)A smile stays on her face as she looks at him, though it's soft around the edges.]
I know. I wish I got into it, too. I hope I didn't disappoint you too much.
[He didn't lack for apprentices.]
I'm glad we spent all that time together.
[Never enough, especially looking back, but she loved being with him and he loved being with her.]
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Date: 2025-05-27 08:58 pm (UTC)[ The very idea feels like an utter impossibility. How could he be disappointed in Maelle simply being Maelle, when he loves her so much? ]
I only wish we'd taken you in sooner. But we got a lot of time together, didn't we? And I'm glad you came on the Expedition, in the end.
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Date: 2025-05-29 07:08 pm (UTC)[He didn't need to try. Simply sitting quietly together, or listening to him talk to Emma about his day over dinner, or a walk down to the harbor on a sunny day--how loved she felt, how safe, even if Lumiere itself never felt right. He did.]
You'd never looked so unhappy with me as you did the day I told you I was going with. But... it was worth it. Every extra moment was worth it.
[No matter how horrific the end. She got more time with him. That's all that matters.]
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Date: 2025-05-30 03:33 pm (UTC)[ He remembers it, or thinks he does. Maybe it's more that Maelle remembers it, and so he does, too: that afternoon in the Hanging Gardens, his shock, their argument. One corner of his lips flickers up into a small smile, and he reaches to put a hand on her arm, warm and firm and supportive. ]
But you have to go make some new memories now. The others, they need you. Just like I did.
โ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
Date: 2025-05-11 07:48 pm (UTC)[ The effect those words, from this man, has on him is abrupt and alarming. Heat flushes through him like sheets of fire; his heart pounds. It's an insultโ it's mockery. ]
And who do you imagine will come after, when you're killing those who would give them a chance to live? To exist in a world free of the Gommage, free to have families of their own and to live to see their children grow?
awww yeah time to lock in
Date: 2025-05-11 08:54 pm (UTC)Imagination cannot protect our children. You cannot speak of the future when you know nothing about the world. You cannot understand why I do what I do. But for all my word is worth, those who come after are those I am protecting at all costs.
[Does this man not think he has a family of his own? Because if saving his loved ones means others must lose their own, then so be it.]
hell yeah love this for us
Date: 2025-05-11 09:41 pm (UTC)[ The word of a murderer, one who claims to be working for the greater good, means nothing to him. He can't comprehend a world in which Alan, Lucien, Catherine, all the others living, thriving, releasing themselves from the Paintress' yoke is somehow an evil. To live with a heart this cold, this man has become as implacable as winter.
He will never let his own heart wither this way. ]
How can you blame me, any of us, for not understanding the world when you slaughter us just as we begin to see it? Is it you keeping us in the dark as much as the Paintress?
time to equip la baguette
Date: 2025-05-11 10:52 pm (UTC)What you see you feel you understand. But like we warn our children, the world is dangerous and vastly different to what you know. You should consider being kept in the dark a kindness.
[And if anyone understands living in the dark it's his children.]
whap him right on the nose
Date: 2025-05-11 11:20 pm (UTC)The children of Lumiรจre are few and far between and fewer every year. And of those few, so many are orphans, with no one there to warn them of anything, let alone the dangers of a world they have never seen and cannot comprehend. Perhaps you would consider it a greater kindness that they never be born, too.
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Date: 2025-05-11 11:56 pm (UTC)Life is a gift to be cherished. No matter how difficult our struggles, we receive the blessing of wonderful memories, the warmest of dreams. You should be painting lives for yourselves instead of leaving Lumiere's shores to witness death. Return home. Spend your final years at peace.
[Ignore the fact he caused a good portion of that death, please.]
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Date: 2025-05-12 01:29 pm (UTC)The only chance for the people I care about to live their lives they way you suggest they ought is for the expeditions to succeed. I would give my own life before I'd go back and tell them I gave up and doomed them to the Gommage forever. The life you describe is one lived in complacency and apathy. We deserve better. They deserve better.
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Date: 2025-05-12 02:17 pm (UTC)RENOIR โ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
Date: 2025-05-13 08:57 pm (UTC)Also an incredible headache to try and navigate.
He and Lune had gotten lost more times than he'd ever care to admit those first days in Spring Meadows, finding themselves going down the same winding valleys over and over again, finding the same remnants of Nevrons and expeditions past, so turned around he'd been starting to despair of ever finding their way out. Stubbornly sticking to north hadn't helped: a wall of stone with no handholds would rise up abruptly before them, or a ravine with no way across, and they'd have to start moving east or west instead, and then inevitably south once more. Late nights at the campfire grew tense with frustration.
The man changes everything.
He moves through this place like a native, sure in every step, the sharp and humming brain beneath the white hair that Gustave hasn't seen in so long an instrument of incredible power. Even with his cane, he manages the path as well as or better than either him or Lune, and he offers a wealth of knowledge neither of them would ever have found in a lifetime's worth of research. For the first time since the beach, Gustave begins to feel that maybe, maybe, a little bit of fortune is finally smiling on them.
(He wasn't the one who left the message, he claims; he wasn't the one who brought Maelle to safety. But he can help them find her.)
He sits now, near the fire, the warm light and soft shadows sinking into the lines of his face as Gustave watches him from under his brows, his head still bent as he carefully scribes the happenings of the day into his journal. We have met someone, he writes to his apprentices. A man who lived through the Gommage. His name is Renoir... ]
We know so little about Expedition Zero, [ he says, finally, voice quiet so as to keep from disturbing Lune. He glances at her, a quiet figure on her side, and looks back to the older man as he closes his journal. ]
Lune worked out where you landed, but so much information from that time was lost long ago.
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Date: 2025-05-13 09:36 pm (UTC)Renoir bows his head rather than study the younger man, having studied him enough already to catch glimpses of his character. Intelligent. Dedicated to family. Dedicated to his community.
It is a community he has little desire to walk amongst these days.]
It's not good to worry about what happened during that time. It is better for your team that you focus on your mission.
[Says the man who has to be at least a century. His head turns to watch Lune, sleeing peacefully and unawares on the floor, ad he regards her with a thoughtful expression. He really cannot have her discovering too much.]
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Date: 2025-05-15 12:23 am (UTC)Every expedition helped pave the path for those to follow. To them, we are the ones who came afterโ learning more about them, about what they experienced here... how could it be anything but helpful to us?
[ The truth is his focus is, for perhaps the first time in his life, split. He no longer wants to rail against duty and protocol, to yell fuck the mission and abandon every plan they've ever made, but neither can he move forward without first finding Maelle, making sure she's safe.
If she's hurt, if she's... He has to find her. He will find her. And then they can all move on together, the last ragged band of what was once Expedition 33. ]
Even the journals we've found are just fragments. There's too much we don't understand. Perhaps... perhaps one of the other expeditions managed to find the answers we need.
[ He looks back over at Renoir, the warmth of the fire bringing color and life back into his face after the bruises and weariness of the day. ]
Have you traveled with other expeditions since then?
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Date: 2025-05-15 01:56 am (UTC)Why do you always seem to be there?
So he continues staring, pressuring, intimidating with the pressure his presence brings. Perhaps he doesn't want to share (he doesn't). Perhaps he has lost good friends (he didn't). Perhaps he just wants to enjoy the warmth of the fire (he does).]
Once or twice. [Three. Four. Five.] But you are approaching this from the wrong perspective. Do you understand what the first expedition was for?
[It wasn't about stopping the Gommage. It was about finding loved ones. Only he had found his far too late.]
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Date: 2025-05-15 10:45 pm (UTC)Were they still trying to reach the Paintress? Did they even know about the Gommage then?
[ How many of them could it have taken, back then? He knows people used to live to a ripe old age โ their new companion here is proof of that โ but how long was it before the Gommage began to eat away at their population, before they knew just how close to extinction they were coming? ]
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Date: 2025-05-16 12:53 am (UTC)[He lines his words with enough truth they become real. But not enough truth they become personal. Perhaps he cannot blame his son for being who he is beneath it all.]
People were dying from starvation. We were surrounded by saltwater. [An engineer will understand the importance of needing to remove salt from water.] The one spark keeping us all together was the thought of finding our families.
[He pauses to look at the campfire. There had been enough flames during those years.]
We knew barely anything except they were not here. The Paintress was the last thing on our minds.
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Date: 2025-05-16 11:06 pm (UTC)And there's another thing. That we, there, shifting Renoir from observer in Gustave's mind to ancestor.
The older man gazes into the fire, seeing who knows what memories, and Gustave leaves him to them for a long moment before he speaks again. When he does, his voice is gentle. ]
Who did you lose?
[ Who had been ripped away from him, that he was desperate to find? Is that why he's willing to help them find Maelle, to reunite Gustave with the only family member here on this continent with him?
And had he ever managed to find the ones he'd sought so many years ago? ]
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Date: 2025-05-17 07:23 am (UTC)Aline.
[He refers to her by name. Because she is more than his wife. She is graceful, loving, his mentor, his protector.
His saviour.]
I thought myself grateful for being fortunate I was still survived by my children.
[Except the Gommage now looms across everyone. One would think that is the reason he returns to being silent.]
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Date: 2025-05-17 03:15 pm (UTC)[ The name drifts quietly, respectfully, from his lips. He's well-versed in the tone and timbre of grief; he knows long sorrow, still as sore as the day the cut was first received. It's as familiar a sound as the report of his own pistol, the way the air moves around the blade of his sword.
Andโ
His own gaze lifts from the fire, following the trails of sparks up into the sky where they disappear among the stars that are laid so thickly here. ]
How many children did you have?
[ However many it was, they too must have been lost long ago, and yet there's a layer beneath the understanding in his voice that even now he can't quite entirely cut out of himself: longing.
Another life, another future. It's a dream he had to let go of long ago. That he still cherishes part of it, held close to his heart like a secret, is his own fault and no one else's. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-17 05:48 pm (UTC)Or too similar for comfort.]
Two daughters and a son.
[Three children and their mother. Four experinces of loss. One is enough for several lifetimes, four is unbearable. He looks at Gustave from the corner of his eye]
Do you want children?
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Date: 2025-05-17 09:04 pm (UTC)I...
[ He'd spent years trying to reconcile with the loss of what never was. There was never going to be a soft-haired, blue-eyed baby for Maelle to coo over; he was never going to look into a brand-new face and try to find the ways his features and Sophie's blended together. He lifts his hand to rub his temple for a moment, head shaking slightly to the side, submitting to the truth. ]
...Yes. Very much.
[ Two daughters and a son; treasures beyond his wildest imagining. And lost, all lost. He wonders if any of them are still here, tucked gently into the landscape, their bodies smooth stone. ]
But my... the woman I was with...
Sophie.
[ Still said softly. The bruise of this grief is still blooming. ]
She... disagreed on the... morality of bringing a child into this world.
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Date: 2025-05-17 09:54 pm (UTC)Perhaps the most respectful path to choose now is to listen. His gaze hardens for a moment. Does he want to listen when his children are alive and suffering? His next question is aimed less at learning about mortality and more about motivation.]
You would prefer children yourself?
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Date: 2025-05-17 10:05 pm (UTC)Yes. I did. I... would, yes.
[ Though how it could happen now, he doesn't know. The very thought of finding someone now that Sophie's gone, of creating a life and a family with them feels so alien, strange. And that's assuming he manages to make it back home after all of this, that they win through, that the Gommage never comes again. ]
My family is very small.
[ It has the feeling of an explanation to it, more so as he goes on. ]
Just me and my two sisters, for a long time. I always wanted to see it grow. And I had apprentices but... I still wanted children of my own.
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Date: 2025-05-17 11:17 pm (UTC)[Your family. This man clearly wants the memories and experience of being a father. But the word apprentice rouses his interest. Children working on themselves. Building the future. He remembers doing the same before the frature shattered that dream.]
What do they study?
[Your apprentices.]
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Date: 2025-05-17 11:53 pm (UTC)And if they wanted to follow in my footsteps.
[ Not every child does, he knows, and the ones who follow that path against their own wishes, well...
He knows it weighs on Lune. The pressure.
But he brightens visibly at the change of topic, at the mention of his apprentices. ]
Engineering. Mechanical, largely, though I've taught them a few disciplines. They'll be looking after the Shield Dome while I'm away, making sure it continues to run smoothly.
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Date: 2025-05-18 09:02 am (UTC)I remember building it with my son.
[Just slide in a nugget of information, a treat for someone with an engineer's mind.]
I am relieved to hear it has been maintained so diligently.
[Nailed it. Verso would be proud.]
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Date: 2025-05-18 08:35 pm (UTC)[ It's a shock, but only for a moment: the Shield Dome, its maintenance and upkeep and the way it keeps all of Lumiรจre safe, has been such a large part of his life that he can hardly remember a time when its inner workings weren't as familiar to him as the abilities of his own hands. Most of the information about the men and women who designed and built it was lost long ago, he'd never in a thousand lifetimes have dreamed he'd one day sit next to the man who had dreamed it into reality.
There's a flash of brightness in Gustave's eyes, his face, that has been missing since the beach: the light of academic fascination. ]
That's... it's incredible. Your work is... is... it's extraordinary. Studying it helped me reverse-engineer some of the elements I needed for the Lumina Converter.
look at that goddamn NERD
Date: 2025-05-18 09:15 pm (UTC)Then he stops studying Gustave. He looks into the fire and begins studying something that happened decades ago.]
It's been a while since I heard anyone say something positive.
[People complained about not seeing the skies above. People complained about living behind a wall. People complained about being alive. He is more than a little jaded. That might be why he finds the other man's enthusiasm rather offputting.]
Renoir out here making his day!!!
Date: 2025-05-18 09:22 pm (UTC)[ He's animated in his excitement, hands up and skating through the air, flesh and blood and metal alike as he sketches out the arc of the dome, recalls all the fiddliest bits of its design. ]
How you even managed to get it up and running โ and so soon after the Fracture โ has always been incredible to me. If I can create one thing that's even the slightest bit as effective and innovative and useful as the Shield Dome, that could help Lumiรจre just a fragment as much as your invention did, I could call my work good.
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Date: 2025-05-18 09:50 pm (UTC)Perhaps you might. Necessity is the mother of invention. [He doesn't have it inside himself to be too critical, but with the Gommage ticking down...] But anybody's work is a waste of time so close to the end. I would think yours is best spent finding some kind of peace.
[Go home. Don't waste your lives. Appreciate what time you have.]
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Date: 2025-05-18 10:40 pm (UTC)I will find no peace until we find Maelle.
[ She's his focus now; finding her, keeping her safe. Part of him still wants to try to bring her back to Lumiรจre, where she can be safe behind Renoir's Shield Dome. He could... come back after that. Finish the mission once he knows she'll be all right. ]
But the Lumina Converter... that, that really might be my legacy, in the end. I spent so many hours... days, really, weeks... working out every detail of its design, and it works, Renoir.
[ There's a flash of pleasure, of satisfaction; the almost disbelieving joy of an inventor who has flicked a switch and brought his creation to life. ]
It'll give us the edge we need.
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Date: 2025-05-18 11:20 pm (UTC)But it had become one. The same barrier protecting his wife from those who would deliver harm. And now he finds his interest piqued but for reasons other than what this man might assume.]
Really? Would you offer a demonstration?
[He has been avoiding Luminare these past years. It does sound like something new and dangeorus. But dangerous for the wrong people.]
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Date: 2025-05-18 11:57 pm (UTC)He can feel the slight weight of the Lumina Converter where it hangs from his backpack, swinging gently with his every movement. He hadn't known, not really, not until he and Lune were crouched beside that Nevron and he pulled the converter out for its first ever run in real conditions. ]
But the basic idea is that it draws the chroma from the Nevrons and converts it into usable lumina for us. With every fight and every Nevron we kill, we'll get stronger.
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Date: 2025-05-19 12:26 am (UTC)The promise of a new solution to an old problem. He could never exist every place all at once, not even with his gifts, especially now he must endure this alone. His posture suggests a heightened interest.]
It takes intelligence to construct a device like this.
[Did he just offer fatherly praise to this man to get his trust? Like father, like son.] Innovation.
no subject
Date: 2025-05-19 02:01 am (UTC)[ He's not being falsely modest, and he's not immune to the thrill of Renoir's compliment. It nestles deep in his chest, a warm coal of approval. ]
But considering the direction we were moving with our Pictos and the sheer amount of chroma locked up in the Nevs, I thought it could work. And it does. Already we're getting stronger, more able to do things we never could before.
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Date: 2025-05-19 03:53 am (UTC)Which he does. Father to father.
Except each must put his own family first. So he reads between the lines, about what happens to all that chroma that should be redirected towards his wife.]
And this strength can only improve the further you push on. [Making it a problem best handled swiftly.] You should be proud of such an achievement.
[Should. His emphasis just isn't there.]
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Date: 2025-05-20 12:22 am (UTC)[ Quick, thoughtless words that stumble to a halt. The rest of the expedition doesn't exist anymore. There is him, and Lune, and โ please, please โ Maelle, and...
And that may be all. The 33rd expedition over before it starts.
He swallows, shakes his head like he's shaking away a buzzing insect, and takes a quick, steadying breath. ]
If it helps us stay alive.
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Date: 2025-05-20 04:16 am (UTC)He thinks of Expedition Zero and how their journey had come to an untimely end. Killed by the truth much as by a stranger who resembled his daughter. It had been a peculiar situation, and the thought redirects his focus back towards the fire. The embers and sparks are both a grounding and disturbing sight.
For a moment, he looks empathatic.
Keeping people alive. Keeping his family alive. He is willing to be scorned and hated, so long as his children are alive to hate him.]
You truly love that girl, don't you?
[Maelle.]
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Date: 2025-05-20 04:41 pm (UTC)[ It doesn't feel like enough. Maelle is the flickering candle flame that's lit his life and Emma's ever since she came to them. She was his little shadow, following him to the Hanging Gardens, around the house, around Lumiere, always happy to chatter about her day or his, always willing to tease him out of any blue moods gathering like storm clouds about his head. He'd lost Sophie and the life they might have had, but he still had Maelle.
Still has Maelle. He has to believe she's somewhere out there, safe and alive, that his failure to protect her hadn't cost her the rest of her already too-short life. ]
She's my sister. [ His expression flickers, scrunches: that's not quite right. ] My daughter.
...Both, sort of. I can't...
[ His head tilts to the side, glance sliding away. It's always been difficult for him to find the words he needs when he's trying to talk about someone, something, that really matters. His hands lift, moving back and forth through the air, as if he could more accurately illustrate the words that are escaping him. ]
She'sโ well, my sister and I, we, uhโ
[ He grimaces at himself and lets his hands drop to hand loosely over his knees. ]
Yes, I do. I have to find her.
no subject
Date: 2025-05-21 12:18 am (UTC)[His voice has an authorative tone, pushing the limits until he discovers when this man will cede his authority. Because he needs to get ahead of this small team, ensure he can lead them down the right path, if not the correct one.
He frowns at the fire and remembers the team he had before. The other teams he had guided before. All towards that same fatal end. It always happened that they would be lost.
Always]
You should focus on your rest.
[He doesn't explain why he is willing to stay away overnight to mind the camp. His immortality is a... rather sore point.]
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Date: 2025-05-21 12:51 am (UTC)Tomorrow. You're sure?
[ He's like a hunting dog that's caught a scent, tense even in this outwardly relaxed position. It's in the line of his shoulders, the way he twitches his thumb, anxious. Maelle's been on her own now for days. Has she had food? Water? Shelter? What if she's been threatened by Nevrons? She's wickedly skilled with her blade, but she's still used to training against other expeditioners, not the things themselves. ]
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Date: 2025-05-21 08:45 pm (UTC)He continues staring into the fire. All the fires he has set over the years, all the journals he had destroyed, all the evidence he has dismantled and picked apart until everything was hidden and nothing was recognisable.]
You might not find her tomorrow. But you will if she knows how to stay out of danger.
[Or how to stay put.]
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Date: 2025-05-22 04:16 pm (UTC)Maelle? Not much chance of that.
[ His fearless sister? The one who ran over rooftops as lightly as a bird in flight? Who took to the rapier like she was born to it? Who would rather duel for dominance than settle an argument with words? ]
...I should never have agreed to let her come. I should have tried harder to get her to stay in Lumiere.
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Date: 2025-05-22 04:51 pm (UTC)[Sons too. But when he considers the challenges one faces daily, he cannot deny he has a fondness in his heart for one of his daughters.]
Of course, it's better that she stays around you. That way you can keep your eye on her.
[If you can't lock her inside a manor for most of her life, at least have her nearby. Right?]
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Date: 2025-05-22 06:35 pm (UTC)[ Maelle's always been just as protective of him as he is of her. If she really is all right, safe, then she's probably just as worried as he's been. What would her last glimpse of him have been? A slumped, motionless figure on the beach? ]
But you're right. Of course, you're right. I'm sure you know exactly how I feel.
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Date: 2025-05-22 06:56 pm (UTC)He will fall silent after the last words he has to share, but share them he will.]
Nothing is more important than family.
[Relationship level increased to 1!]
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Date: 2025-05-17 08:46 pm (UTC)Death seemed to haunt every stretch of the continent; Nevrons prowling around each corner, petrified expeditioners lying forgotten where they'd been struck down years ago. Bewildered and traumatized, the two of them forged their way through the glittering meadows and blue trees, awe of discovery dampened by crippling loss and impotent anger held at bay only by primal need to focus on surviving. The Indigo Tree had yielded no survivors nor answers, only a cryptic, concerning message about Maelle.
Once they'd made camp for the night, they'd had time to take a breath and think and feelโ and argue, the levies breaking as their fears and the trauma of seeing their friends die at the hands of an unknown assailant rushed to the surface. That had been a while ago. The fight's been punched out of her for now, leaving behind only grief and worry.
Lune shifts now, huddling closer to Gustave by the fire, seeking his warmth and the comfort of his presence. They only have each other to lean on, now. Though some part of her hates being this needy and shaky, her hand finds his organic one regardless and clutches it firmly, as if reassuring herself he's actually here with her and not some figment. A tiny tremble moves over her cool skin, but no words come. Nothing useful, anyway.
What's left to say that either of them didn't already, earlier? ]
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Date: 2025-05-17 10:33 pm (UTC)Merdeโ
[ Lurching into awareness is uncomfortable, but he's afforded some small distraction from the horrors that lurk in his mind and memory by the very real problem now before him. ]
Lune, you're freezingโ! Come here, comeโ
[ He slips his hand out of hers to put his warm right arm around her, drawing her close to his side as he holds his left hand out to the fire, the metal glinting in the light. When it's warm from the flames, without being burning hot, he curls towards her to set his hand on her forearm, rubbing up and down along her bare arm to try and warm her up. ]
I should find you a blanket, I wasn't... I wasn't thinking.
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Date: 2025-05-17 11:47 pm (UTC)Don't worryโ [ she bites out, shaking her head slightly where it rests against Gustave's shoulder. Though of course he will worry. She just doesn't want to add another thing onto his plate when he's already so worried about Maelle. He warms his artificial hand by the flames โ smart, very smart โ and the heat it spreads across her tattooed limb, rubbing up and down, is blissful. A shuddering little breath escapes her, the chills subsiding some. ]
It's fine. I'll be fine. [ It's not your fault. It's mine. The comfort is helping as much as the body heat. She knows she has a reputation of being distant, but she's not so removed she can take the death of her friends โ and Tristan was more like a brother โ with no impact. Shit. Tristan. ]
Just... sit here with me for a bit.
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Date: 2025-05-18 01:04 am (UTC)[ All they have is each other, and Lune has already borne so much tonight. He'd added to her grief and shock by taking out his fears on her, and so this... this is his fault. That cool, practical Lune is huddled against him, trembling, feeling so much smaller than he ever thought possible.
He bends his head as he continues to work his warmed hand over the bare skin of her arm, mouth brushing her hair as he does his best to gather her closely to him, to the warmth and solidity of his body.
And maybe he needs this, too, the warmth of human companionship; physical closeness with one of the few friends โ maybe the only friend โ he has left. His voice is soft, murmuring into the mussed sleekness of her hair. ]
I'm here.
I miss them, too.
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Date: 2025-05-18 09:00 am (UTC)[ Both of those things. Her forearm closest to him settles to lay over his thigh as she curls her fingers around his knee, as if no anchor herself further into the spot against his side in this tide of sorrow and misery. To think Gustave might not have been here, either; a small shiver of dread snakes down her spine at the thought, her fingers tightening against his knee. ]
I'm sorry. If we'd made landfall anywhere else, then maybeโ
[ She bites her lip so hard it hurts. The words don't come to her easy, but she can't stop thinking about it, either. If she hadn't insisted to Alan they land on that beach, maybe that man wouldn't have been there, maybe their expedition wouldn't now be in ashes, Maelle missing and their friends dead. ]
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Date: 2025-05-18 06:47 pm (UTC)[ He tightens the arm around her, giving her a little shake. ]
None of this is your fault. That man found us because it made sense to land there, not because you somehow fell into his trap. He knew we were coming. He'd have found us no matter where we landed.
[ It's the only thing he's certain of, deep in his still-shattered, barely working brain. Every thought seems to be filtering through molasses, its so slow, but this one crystallizes quickly. ]
You can't think that way. It's a death sentence.
[ A truth he knows far, far more intimately than he'd ever have believed himself capable. He can still feel the cold press of his pistol against his temple. ]
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Date: 2025-05-18 07:50 pm (UTC)I wish I didn't think at all now.
[ But she can't stop. If his mind moves slowly then hers races too quickly, a relentless susurrus of speculation and questioning with everything circling back just to begin all over again, maddening. A death sentence, he says, and it sticks like a burr. ]
Would you haveโ would you really haveโ [ Dismay follows swiftly. What possessed her? She doesn't actually want to know. She squeezes his knee like a lifeline, an apology and something else. ] Fuck. No. Don't say anything.
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Date: 2025-05-18 09:09 pm (UTC)He doesn't know how long it might have taken him. He doesn't know how long he sat there before Lune spoke and he realized she'd arrived, somehow, without him knowing or hearing. All he knows, the only thing he knows for certain, is that he'd never felt such immense despair and loss in his whole life, all of it so sudden and so shocking that it emptied his whole world in a moment. The expedition, gone, wiped out. Maelle gone... dead, for all he knew. The mission over before it even began, another Gommage now locked into the calendar. All of his friends were dead. Why shouldn't he die, too?
His metal fingers lift to find Lune's chin, turning her head so he can look down into her face and meet her eyes. His own lack the terrible emptiness of before, but they still aren't... right, he's somewhere in a backseat to his own thoughts, his own words. But still: ]
You saved me.
[ It's an answer and it isn't, all at once. Her face is pale, cold, and her eyes are weirdly dilated, and he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to think, either. He doesn't want to remember, to smell the blood and heat the screams of everyone now left cold and silent. He leans down to press his mouth to her forehead, a motion that's more reflex than design. ]
You saved me, Lune.
[ He shifts; places another kiss to her cheek, trying to warm her, trying to distract her from her thoughts, trying to bring them both some semblance of comfort. When his lips lift from her skin, he stays where he is, leaning down to her, and now there finally is something else he feels: a little frisson of warmth. His breath puffs against her cheek.
There's no one else here, but his voice is a murmur. ]
Lune...
no subject
Date: 2025-05-19 07:44 am (UTC)...I'm here with you.
[ It's Lune's turn to reassure him, her voice a low and carried on the back of a shuddering breath. She's not sure it's entirely true, though. They're both physically present, but maybe not mentallyโ not entirely. No matter. All she knows now is that his touch and closeness is helping to ground her wildly whirling thoughts, silencing the doubts and fears clawing at her if even for a moment. Her eyes close and she tips her head a fraction, enough to gently press her face into his. Something tugs low in her belly, and she just needs to feel warm again, aliveโ they both do. ]
Gustave.
[ She whispers it against his skin, turning her head enough to press her lips against the corner of his mouth firmly; one cool palm comes up to cradle the side of his face, slender fingers delving into his hair.
The wisdom of this decision would be revealed later. Right now she doesn't care about anything that isn't grasping onto this small piece of comfort with both hands. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-20 02:39 am (UTC)Sophie had teased him about Lune only the other day. Sophie hadโ Sophieโ
An anguished sound tears from his chest and he shifts more to face her, his arm moving from around her back to drive his fingers into the slippery, mussed waves of her hair. It isn't romantic, the way he might have been if they'd sidled along a winding path to this point over cups of coffee and glasses of wine and lingering glances and touches that smolder in memoryโ it's needy and, he thinks (with what's left enough of him to think at all) needed. Maybe she'll take some comfort in the solidity of his body, his beating pulse, the way his breath scrapes in his chest.
He kisses her again, and again, lips parting to lavish kisses over her mouth, his fabricated hand gripping the cloth of her uniform as he holds her to him. His head is still fuzzy and strange, but it's emptying now into clouds of steam. If she wants this distraction, if she needs this closeness, he's more than happy to provide. He needs it, too. ]
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Date: 2025-05-20 08:46 am (UTC)She manages to snake her other arm around Gustave, clutching his shoulder hard and clinging on like a drowning sailor to a lifeline. Their bodies press together tightly and she thinks she can feel the frantic beat of his heart against her own ribcage as she returns each urgent kiss without hesitation, each point of contact between them limned with desperation to feel anything else but misery.
Part of her recognizes distantly that they're both hurting and reeling from recent events, moral considerations of doing this briefly flickering somewhere in the back of her mindโ but how wrong can it be to seek this comfort in each other if it helps them carry on?
She gasps for air once they break apart long enough to breathe, tasting him still on kiss-swollen lips while her forehead presses against his, as if pulling further back would break this wordless understanding between them. But she has to after a moment, just enough to meet his eyes again, her own hooded and dilated and almost black in the gloom, her hand drifting from his shoulder to his chest. There's hesitation in her movements there, a questionโ because kissing is one thing, but more than that, well... she's not so far gone she'll assume consent, no matter how urgent the need. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-20 10:11 pm (UTC)Even when she pulls back, her eyes huge and dark in the flickering firelight, he feels caught in her gravity, her kisses still burning on his mouth, in his blood. He feels as drunk on her touch as he's ever been on a bottle of wine, with the same fuzzy, numbed heat of alcohol flushing color into his pale cheeks.
There's a question in her eyes, in the way she slides her hand to his chest to spread her fingers over his racing heart, and he slides his left arm from around her to place his cool fabricated hand over hers. Despite the rising flood of need, his touch is gentle when he curls metal fingers around hers.
He swallows; nods. ]
Yes.
[ His eyes, too, are wide and dark, nearly black with dilated pupils, but he has just enough of a slipping fingerhold on his own sanity to try and catch his breath, to ask her the same question. ]
Yes?
no subject
Date: 2025-05-21 07:41 am (UTC)Yes. [ Lune nods her agreement, voice a ragged whisper. ] Yes.
[ Empathic now, encroaching on needy once more; evidenced by the way she surges like a storm front and hungrily claims Gustave's mouth with hers again, a little groan muffled against his lips as she kisses him with mounting urgency, over and over, a taste of electricity on her tongue. In contrast, trembling fingers comb a bit shakily through his hair, gentler now than a moment ago. ]
Gustave... I need youโ [ She entreats in between kisses and shaky breaths of air gasped against his lips and cheek, voice so soft it's barely audible; her hands have now slipped down to frantically tug open buttons and fastenings of his uniform. ]
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Date: 2025-05-21 06:10 pm (UTC)I'm here.
[ He twists his shoulders to give her room, letting go of her only long enough to reach up and shove the straps of his backpack off himself, followed by the jacket Sophie and his apprentices had worked so hard on.
That thought yawns in front of him like a deep, jagged ravine, and he shies from it in the next second. He can't think about Sophie, about his apprentices, about how proud they all were to wear their uniforms together for the first time โ
Her fingers work loose the buttons of his waistcoat, and he shucks that off, too, before reaching for the fastenings of her own uniform, fingers shaking with urgency even as he leans in to kiss her again, deep and drowning. ]
I'm here.
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Date: 2025-05-22 01:48 pm (UTC)[ She agrees breathlessly even as she helps him push off the fabric from his shoulders, catching her breath from his urgent kisses, confirmation as much as it is a reassurance right back at him. He's here with her in this moment, alive, surviving however they can.
We continue.
Lune shrugs off her own coat, squirming a little to tug the short sleeves down and away; buckles and buttons are worked loose by shaking fingers, his or hers, it hardly matters. The buttons of her overshirt give away, but there's more still in the white vest underneath โtoo fucking many buttons.
She doesn't entirely realize she's mumbling the complaint against Gustave's lips, a half-formed thought before she's kissing him again hungrily, with teeth and tongue and a low moan at the back of her throat. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-23 04:43 am (UTC)It leaves him bare from the waist up, moonlight glimmering on his pale skin and off the metal of his left arm, the gold lines of pictos traced through the metal gleaming in the wash of cool light. His chest heaves with every breath, and he leaves off pressing kisses against her mouth to let his lips find the slender column of her throat, moving against the pulse he can feel there.
He has just enough presence of mind left to straighten after a moment, reaching for her right hand to begin loosening the fingers of her glove. His own right hand slips up along her arm and gently works the glove free where it's tugged right up over her biceps. Slowly, carefully, he drags the glove all the way off ofer arm, leaving it bare to him before he lowers his head and presses warm kisses on the newly bared skin: first on her forearm, then up over the delicate warm crux of her elbow, along her upper arm to her shoulder. ]
Lune.
no subject
Date: 2025-05-23 02:34 pm (UTC)Where every movement was only a moment ago cast in such urgency, now time seems to slow to a crawl as Gustave removes her glove, careful and deliberate; Lune's still for a moment and simply watches, mesmerized, her breaths shortening slightly with every soft kiss he trails up her bare arm once he's done.
The flickering firelight catches and glints on the golden patterns of her pictos etched straight into the skin of her left arm and shoulder, her expedition sash still wrapped about her bicep as she brings her hand to cradle Gustave's face gently, wordlessly guiding him up from the slope of her shoulder to meet her eyes. There's heat and yearning in them, but also something softerโ a shared understanding. Her free hand finds his bare chest, sliding reverently over skin and muscle. ]
Gustave. [ She leans in slowly and presses her lips to his in a soft kiss, then another and anotherโ the hand on his chest strokes up, over his shoulder and ends up wrapping loosely around his neck, pressing herself closer until their bare fronts brush and meld intimately. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-24 12:13 pm (UTC)The air is cool against his bare skin, except for where heat licks over it from the fire and from Lune's scalding touch. He doesn't think it's her abilities that make her fingers feel like flames sheeting over him, but it's always a possibility โ not that he can care at all. If he wakes up tomorrow with burn marks pinking his skin, so be it; he needs this too much, her hands on him, her bared front pressing to his one, her mouth plush and sharp all at the same time, driving him insane.
He has just enough presence of mind to reach blindly behind himself, fingers scrabbling in the grass until he finds his discarded jacket. He drags it around them, spreading it behind her as well as he can with only one hand and no eyes on his work and a great deal of impatience truncating any attempt at smoothing it out or making it perfect. It just needs to be what barrier he can manage between her bare back and the cool grass as he shifts his weight forward, left arm going around her to support her as he coaxes her back and follows her down, mouth pressed hungrily to hers. ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 09:03 pm (UTC)She breathes a fervid little noise against his mouth at the change of position, the way their bodies press together more firmly with gravity playing its part, skin to skin. Now she kisses him more intensely again with probing tongue and nipping teeth, matching his hunger with her own, one hand buried in the tousled waves of his soft hair whilst the other strokes greedily up and down his back, enjoying the play of shifting muscle beneath her palm. She feels like she could happily drown in this closeness, this visceral comfort of another's warm body, and blissfully forget about everything that came before. She wants that more than anything now, wants to gorge herself on this mounting physical pleasure until it burns her out from within. ]
Yes, [ she gasps once more against his jaw when she tears her mouth from his to catch her breath, her hot, heaving breaths puffing against his skin for a moment as she tips her head back and bares her throat to him in the process, smooth and pale like marble in the cool wash of moonlight. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-27 12:10 am (UTC)And he will take care of her, he promises himself. She lets her head fall back and he takes the invitation to kiss along the curve of her pale, perfect throat, stubble brushing over skin before he laves it with his tongue.
He doesn't stop when he gets to the curve where her neck meets her shoulder, but spends a long moment there adoring the muscle that keeps her shoulders so straight and her head so high, grazing his teeth over skin before he soothes it with a kiss. And then he ducks his head, back shifting under her hands as he leans on an elbow and pushes himself downward, kissing over the plane of her chest to the soft curve of one perfect breast. She's so soft beneath his mouth, soft and yielding as he pulls gently at skin. He tries not to rush, but impatience and need lash at him, and he lifts his head to set his mouth over her nipple, drawing up on the tight bud of flesh and running his tongue warmly over her.
A sound rolls out of him, a groan that rumbles in his chest, and he shifts his weight to his left side so he can run the palm of his right hand up her bare belly to her other breast, curving his fingers over her, stroking, wanting to drive everything but pleasure out of her mind entirely. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-27 06:12 pm (UTC)She matches his groan with a low moan of her own when his mouth finds her tight nipple, his hand palming her opposite breast. Her back arches off the ground a little and her fingers grasp at his back, blunt nails digging into his flesh as she writhes beneath his touches. Blood rushes in her ears, and she's no longer thinking. Just feeling, every kiss and caress and brush of skin against skin, scalding and heady. The more attention he pays to her chest, the more inflamed and impatient she feels. Her hands begin to drift restlessly, stroking over his back and shoulders, brushing over the nape of his neck and slipping down along his sides, nails scraping lightly here and there, her breaths coming in trembling little huffs.
She bites her lip on a groan as his fingers roll her hardened nipple just so, and her hands suddenly snake down to scrabble with the fastenings of her own trousers, evidently intent of being rid of those too soon enough. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-28 09:50 pm (UTC)He can feel her heart pounding as he kisses over her chest, before he lifts just enough to settle back on his knees and reach trembling, impatient fingers for the fastening of her trousers, his fingers winding with hers as they both try to loosen the damn things. And then they are loose, and he's got his fingers curled into the waistband to drag them down over her hips, along the beautiful long lines of her legs, and off her body completely, and then there'sโ nothing between his eyes and her bared skin, and for a moment all he can do is stare.
She's gorgeous, creamy and perfect in the moonlight, and he can feel the ache in his own groin as he looks at her, before he's leaning back down again, running his right hand up her leg, fingers curving around her thigh as he presses his mouth to the rise of her hip, following the angled line down below her belly until he's settling himself between her legs, arms beneath her thighs, coaxing them apart with one warm hand and one cool metal one, scattering kisses over the soft skin of her inner thigh. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-29 09:30 am (UTC)But Gustave moves first, and she isn't expecting him to begin inching downward, surprised into stillness for a second. A ragged little whimper escapes her when his mouth descends further down from her hip and she catches onto what's about to happen, her thoughts moving slowly from the heady onslaught of arousal. She jolts a little, a dash of uncertainty licking through her even as she shudders at the way the backs of her thighs pillow against his arms and shoulders, swallowing dryly as his lips love the sensitive inside of one thigh. It's intimate and vulnerable being this blatantly exposed, things that Lune isn't well-versed in, and yet a quiver of helpless excitement ripples across her skin regardless. ]
Gustave... y-you don't have toโ
[ But if she really wanted to put a stop to it, she would have already. And when his mouth finds the hot center of her, the moan that gets dragged out of her is loud and filled with relief-soaked pleasure, her head dropping back to the rumpled uniform beneath her, eyes squeezed shut and fingers clawing at the grass as sheer sensation punches through her, relentless as a tidal wave. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-06-08 02:52 am (UTC)She dragged him back into life, bullying and shoving. This, doing everything he can to bring her back into her body the way she did for him, can't even begin to touch the debt he owes to her, the apologies he owes to her. He'd been cruel, thoughtlessly, in his temper, and she hadn't deserved it, no matter if she'd accepted his apologies.
That bright moon is dark overhead now, cast behind some clouds, and some part of him is almost glad to have the excuse not to be able to push forward, to be able to offer her this for just a little while. The little cry she gives arrows straight through him, hot and sharp, and he responds by pressing his mouth more firmly to her, sucking and licking at that hard bud of nerves between her legs, pressing kiss after kiss to her core.
He shifts just enough to put his weight more on his right elbow, slipping his metal left hand from under her thigh and sliding his fingers, cool against slick, heated flesh, between her legs to rub over her, to push her gently apart so he can lave her with the flat of his tongue in long, firm licks before he draws up on that sensitive flesh with his mouth. He's always been single-minded and focused in his work, and now he turns all that focus on her, ignoring for the moment the way his own trousers strain, the heat between his own legs. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-06-09 03:16 pm (UTC)She cries out again at the feel of his artificial fingers stroking her, the shock of coolness against the wet heat of her making her entire frame shudder, trembling thighs opening wide to invite more of his touch, everything else driven from her head that isn't a hunger for more, more, more. Her breath comes in heaving, heavy pants, loud in the quiet of the night, every exhale tinged with a faint moan as he edges her steadily ever higher, every lick and suck to the most sensitive parts of her driving her insane with pure wanting. Her heart hammers against her ribs and her thighs tremor harder, her hips squirming restlessly now; she sinks the fingers of one hand into Gustave's hair and holds on for dear life while the other finds her own breast, trapping a hard nipple between her thumb and forefinger. ]
Merdeโ please... [ She barely realizes she's pleading amidst her sighs and moans, so close now she can almost taste it. ]
resurrecting this like yen performing necromancy!!!
Date: 2025-08-09 02:04 am (UTC)Gustave hums against her as he works her over with lips and tongue and mouth and that slender finger inside her, pushing her recklessly onward. As much as he wants to push himself up, to let her shove the rest of his clothing away and sink into her, he wants this more: Lune, helpless and unfettered, moaning at every lick of his tongue, one hand wound into his hair and the other hard on her own body.
She's begging now, and he only hums again and redoubles his efforts, sliding a second finger into her now, pressing both deeply into her and sliding them back out again, almost to the tip, fucking her with hand and mouth and doing his best to bring her all the way to the peak of her pleasure. ]
heck yesss
Date: 2025-08-11 11:58 am (UTC)Which seems to be objective; Lune groans and shudders all over when he adds a second finger, the stretch an incredible pain-pleasure that has her seeing starsโ behind her lids as her eyes squeeze shut, not the ones literally hanging overhead. Her insides are drawing up tighter and tighter after every moment, already climbing toward her peak. Her skin feels hot and too tight for her body, pleasure ravaging her, making her shake and shudder as she lifts her hips and meets his mouth and fingers harder, chasing the high that's just out of reach.
Until suddenly it isn't.
She breathes a curse that morphs into a sharp cry of relief when she breaks, her spine bowing and heated body squeezing eagerly around his fingers as she comes, the pent up tension and frustration expelled in the form of an intense orgasm. She doesn't bother muffling her noises of enjoyment as she rides out her climax, desperately trying not to snap her tremoring thighs around Gustave's head. ]
lumiere meeting things
Date: 2025-05-21 05:31 pm (UTC)With every passing year, Lumiere only grows emptier, more and more of a shell of what it used to be -- and the less people there are, the harder it is to get away with being just one strange face in a crowd. He's already come close to being caught before, lingering a bit too long as he watched Maelle pick herself up from a fall as she ran through the streets, almost reflexively thinking he should go to her, and then. He knew better, at least, managed to slip away.
But now, he's taking risks again. Fingers running over a piano, tracing through a slight gathering of dust. Sometimes he can tell himself that Lumiere doesn't feel much like home anymore, with everything he's left behind and had to cut away from himself, with how long he's been away, with how he's learned to live out on the Continent -- but then this. Lingering memories, echoing of a place he once thought he belonged, and a pull deep in his chest to the feel of the keys under his fingers as he plays to a waiting crowd. He can still play, away from here, but its just not -- the same. A different sound, a different feel. A different time. A life he used to have.
He really, really can't be here. But since he is, since no one's here, since the air in the concert hall is still and quiet in a way that almost, almost makes him think of the way a crowd would as one hold their breaths in anticipation for the first note . . .
He sits down, straightens, lifts a hand above the keys. A single sound, clear and high, ringing through the space -- almost involuntarily his eyes fall shut, breath caught a little in his throat. One single note and the echoes of memories are in his mind, and before he can even think to stop himself his fingers are already moving, just one phrase of a gentle, familiar melody. Papa and maman are watching in the crowd, Clea with them, but Alicia is beside him, a familiar weight on the bench, leaning in and eager to watch him play -- and.
His eyes snap open, a tension immediately winding through his body. The moment disappears. Someone -- is here. And its a little too late to try to shrink into a shadow and pretend he was never there. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-21 08:57 pm (UTC)He'd been there in the next moment, kneeling to examine the poor scraped knee and telling her silly jokes until she could blink away the surprised dampness in her eyes and laugh, but there had been a moment, just before he moved to her assistance, when he thought he saw a shifting, abortive motion in the shadows of a nearby building. A man...?
Maelle's distress had taken precedence, though, and when he'd looked again, the figure in the shadows had gone, if indeed he had ever been there at all. For a moment he thinks he sees someone — an expedition uniform, dark hair — but then there's nothing but the shift of the usual marketplace crowd, flowing into place like schools of fish. Gustave shakes it out of his head and turns his focus back to Maelle, fondly scolding her for rushing about and hurting herself while she smiles at his lack of sternness. A pain au chocolat later, he watches her already back to running full-tilt through the crowd, ponytail swaying, on her way home to Emma with a bag of fresh viennoiseries.
The evening is too fine for him to rush along with her, though, and he takes his time, wandering along a few of Lumiere's quieter streets, up towards the garden and the cracked tower.
It's as he's passing the opera house — closed for the season and with that strange, almost expectant feeling of an unused building — that he hears it: a clear, ringing note, chasing through the air like a bird in flight.
Others follow: lingering chords and triplets that flow into one another like water bubbling around rocks in a stream, and he's heading to the opera house before he can stop himself. The door is cracked open, the building cool and quiet and dim inside. It feels strange to be here on an evening with no performance and no crowd of chattering people, but he knows the way in, quietly pushing open one of the heavy, intricately carved doors to the theatre itself, following the lilting notes as if each one were a breadcrumb scattered along a path.
There's a man on the stage, sitting at the piano like he's been there all along, a gleam of white tracing through dark waves of hair. Gustave watches for a moment, listening. The song is lovely, it's—
The man stops abruptly, stiffens, all the relaxed ease draining out of him, and Gustave grimaces at himself before lifting a hand in an awkward greeting as he steps out from the shadow of the balcony above. ]
Sorry— sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.
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Date: 2025-05-22 12:01 am (UTC)Gustave. Verso knows his name. How could he not, when Maelle calls him so often, laughing, taunting, often with a roll of her eyes. These past thirteen years since Clea had entrusted him with yet another painful truth of the world he cannot choose to unknow, entrusted him with another quiet task -- he's come back to Lumiere. Not too often, never for too long. Just enough to make sure the girl is well. Not enough to know when her parents gommaged except that it was clearly far too soon, not enough to know how many doors she'd been through in the orphanage except it'd clearly been too many. Just enough to know how much she clearly seemed to like being apart from most of the people in her city -- enough to know when someone else started stepping in to watch over her, to take care of her, and to notice how much more she seemed to smile.
And Gustave might've seen him earlier, just watching her, merde --
Breathe. Think. It was a brief moment of carelessness ( much like this was a greater moment of carelessness ), could easily have not been enough for the man to get a good look at him. Right now, he needs to be just -- a stranger, a sentimental one, who couldn't help himself with an unattended piano. Which has just enough truth to it. Slowly, muscle by muscle, he forces himself to relax, his shoulders rolling slightly to shake some of that stiffness out of him. He drops his head slightly, sheepish, embarrassed, again, all true feelings in the moment, pivoting slightly on the piano bench to face his surprise audience fully. ]
No, no. [ Putain, its been yet another long while since he's just talked to someone. He manages a smile, still sheepish. Light. ] I'm flattered, for my playing to draw someone's attention.
Sorry. I -- Couldn't quite help myself. [ He lifts a hand, a gesture towards the piano. The kind of man who felt such a call to an untouched instrument he couldn't help but sound a few notes: again, not at all untrue. That weakness was real. ]
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Date: 2025-05-22 01:58 am (UTC)[ Both hands come up, now โ one flesh and blood, the other dark metal laced with gold, glimmering in the dim light โ as Gustave walks forward, down the sloping aisle between empty seats. ]
Please, don't apologize. I've always found it a bit sad that when this place closes down, empties out. It always seems like it's just... waiting. You know? For the lights to come back on. People to come back in.
[ He gestures at the piano, there in the middle of the stage. ]
Someone to get up there and... play.
[ He doesn't recognize this man, who almost seems to have materialized out of the shadows backstage. It's strange, but not impossible: Lumiรจre is such a small island that most people know one another, but not everyone. And he would have remembered meeting this man before. The pale eyes that glance his way are so startlingly clear, he doubts he'd ever have been able to forget them. ]
Have you performed here before? I don't think I remember seeing you.
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Date: 2025-05-22 02:26 am (UTC)-- But a few things. Its been a long, long while since he's had an honest to god conversation with someone that wasn't already weighted down by a burden too heavy for any one man to bear. Its been a while since he's talked to anyone, too. And all these years, watching Maelle, trying to look out for her. It's this man who's really been looking out for her. Who's seemed nothing but kind and selfless with her, in the brief glimpses he's always seen, and surely it would do no harm to talk with him a while. Maybe it would even be a benefit, to learn more about this man who's clearly become important to her.
Gustave has a kindness to his eyes. A genuine curiosity to his expression, and his voice, it rings true, earnest. He means that when he says it, Verso thinks to himself. That he feels a bit sadly for the hall, empty and waiting to be filled with music again. Verso realizes he's just been staring back at him for maybe a second too long, forces his gaze to break, looking back to the keyboard, one hand still positioned delicately over the keys. ]
It does seem lonely, doesn't it?
[ the opera house. the hall. the piano. he's thought about trying to sneak back into the back when some opera was playing before, but it always seemed a bit too -- ]
But no, I've not. [ Anyone who'd have ever remembered him performing here is already long gone, washed away in dust and flower petals. ] Just a personal hobby, one I don't get to indulge in very often.
[ He can't let Gustave lead in asking too many questions. ]
Are you much of an opera lover?
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Date: 2025-05-22 02:52 am (UTC)Not opera, especially, but I do enjoy music.
[ He sets a hand on the curving back of the nearest seat, thumb running over the textured fabric. The man at the piano watches him with those fog-colored eyes, almost unblinking, but he doesn't seem annoyed. If anything, he seems willing enough to have this conversation, strange as it is, though it'sโ it's strange. The melody he'd been playing had been simple but wistful, so full of some emotion Gustave couldn't quite name, but the man himself is almost reserved.
Or maybe he just feels awkward. If so, that's a sensation they share.
Gustave lifts his hand and gives the top of the seat a few pats, unsure if he should simply leave the piano player to his music and the empty hall, if the man is just politely waiting for him to go.
But he speaks about playing, his hobby, he calls it, and Gustave's brow flickers into a quick frown that clears up again almost instantly. Hobby it might be, but it means something to the man, he can tell. A little of that wistfulness from the melody that had led him here was there, just now, in his voice. ]
I'm not exactly a connoisseur, but if you'd like an audience, I promise to be both attentive and appreciative.
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Date: 2025-05-22 03:14 am (UTC)His fingers move, almost involuntarily -- a brief snippet of the melody from before, unaccompanied, just a few notes on his right hand. Even that brief string has a yearning wistfulness to it, aching, pained. For all the masks he tries to wear, when it comes to music. Its hard for the notes to do anything but sing true. ]
Only if I'm not keeping you from anything important, monsieur. I promise I've not enough of an ego to demand a captive audience.
[ A smile, a bit warmer now, trying to be friendly. Surely just because learning about him is a good idea, might earn him a foot in the door somewhere down the road -- surely. ]
You can come up here too, if you like. [ That seems like a bad idea. But its already said. He tilts his head slightly, lifting his eyes across the rows of empty seats, to the cracked open door. ] Its not actually a show. Acoustics might be better down there, though.
[ A simple invitation to close that distance a little. Literally, but maybe figuratively, too. Down there, it seems like all Gustave can do is watch and listen to a man on a stage -- that barrier crossed, they could simply talk. If he likes. ]
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Date: 2025-05-22 12:53 pm (UTC)[ Stumbling over his words again. He wets his lip and ducks his head, half-smiling, half-grimacing at himself, before he looks up with a shrug. ]
Nothing terribly important. And I don't mind being a little late for dinner if it means a private concert. I think my sisters would understand.
[ Emma would, anyway. In the year since ending things with Sophie, he'd largely kept his head down, focusing on his work, his family, his friends, without too much deviation from routine. She'd be pleased, he thinks, that he's easing out of the norm, meeting someone new.
The suggestion that he come up on stage himself... well, this whole thing is strangely intimate, considering it's a passing interaction with a stranger. They are the only two souls in this whole huge building, and without the murmurs of many other voices, the muffling effect of many other bodies, their words carry through the theatre as clearly as if they were standing next to one another. Gustave's lips part; he plans to demur, to take his seat down here as any polite member of the audience might, until a thought strikes him and he lifts a finger in the air, shaking it as he turns around and away: one moment.
His steps are brisk as he walks back up the aisle to the door that had been left ajar and that he now reaches to pull closed, effectively sealing them off from any other curious passers-by. It isn't locked, anyone could come in, but as the door slides closed, he can't help feeling a sense of having slipped into some bubble no one else can enter or even see, like the impossible, elusive worlds in pocket universes that populate so many of the books he's read with Maelle.
It's just a closed door. Nothing more. He turns and comes back down the aisle again, and this time he doesn't stop at the bottom, goes around the pit and up the stairs at the side to walk up onto the stage, every step sounding impossibly loud. ]
Who am I to pass up a chance to watch an artist at work?
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Date: 2025-05-22 01:32 pm (UTC)Something in him relaxes a little more, when Gustave pulls the door shut, a quiet relief -- he'd like to play more, would like to have less chance of the music drawing any more attention from any curious passerby, god forbid, from Maelle coming to look for her guardian. And as the sliver of light that pours in from Lumiere beyond vanishes, it feels almost like the space in the hall doubles in size. The silence that much more profound, a building designed to ensure even whispers on stage can echo out to the furthest seats and the balconies, but not beyond them, to keep it all in. But its just them here. Anyone could open that door, but there's something that makes this feel -- private. Intimate.
Still a bad idea, probably. Something he'll berate himself for later. But like Gustave can't pass up a private show, maybe he genuinely can't pass up a private audience, a rare chance to just have someone hear him, for however long this moment lasts. Every footfall echoes throughout the opera house, every step louder and louder, suddenly giving Verso plenty of time to ponder how he's invited the man closer.
Verso watches Gustave move up, his gaze lingering briefly on his face, his frame, a curious flick towards his arm before his eyes turn back to the keys. After a moment of pause, wordlessly he shifts slightly along the piano bench, a silent invitation to sit beside him. ]
Now I have to make this private show worthy of your time, and your sisters'?
[ A quiet, amused sound. he flexes his fingers over the keys, and even the quiet crack of his knuckles sounds a little too loud, in the space. ]
I hope I'm up to the task.
[ Part of him feels almost -- nervous. Absurd. Not like he hasn't lied to expeditioners before. ... Maybe its the opera house, being on stage again. But as Gustave's footsteps sound louder and louder, approaching from behind him on the stage, that feeling only heightens, and Verso just does what comes naturally: he plays. A little slow to start, a gentle hesitancy to the notes falling slightly behind their own rhythm, like he's a little unsure. But only for the first phrase, before Gustave even gets too close. The music is so natural, to him, flows from his fingertips like nothing. He knows a thousand songs by heart, but the tune that comes first is always the same, the one that Gustave heard briefly before, too: what he used to play for his sister, what feels like a lifetime ago.
When was the last time he played for someone? When was the last time he let himself play at all? There's a moment where the thought occurs to him that this instinct he has, to hide behind music instead of conversation when he's invited the man up here himself -- that he can't hide behind it at all, that it's more honest and intimate than any words he ever chooses to say. But the thoughts fade the more he plays, the more his hands remember what they've always loved to do. The music rings out, slowly filling that vast echoing emptiness in the opera house with a sweet and wistful yearning for a time long gone -- until a few minutes later as the melody finally resolves, his fingers lingering on those last notes as they echo and echo and echo, the quiet starting to return. ]
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Date: 2025-05-22 03:23 pm (UTC)[ And not even then, really. Their young minds are too lively for him to want to shutter them in any way with criticism, and so he chooses instead to lead, to discuss, to encourage. In return they've bloomed for him; open to a world of possibility, they see options instead of problems, opportunities instead of roadblocks. He couldn't be prouder than if they'd been the children he'd one day hoped to have.
His footsteps echo through the open space around them, floorboards creaking beneath his weight, the only sound in this enormous and empty place, until it isn't anymore. The man has shifted along the bench but turned back to the keys, and the first phrase โ he recognizes it, the one that had floated through the open door and compelled him to follow โ drifting gently into the waiting hush.
It's not a grand concerto, or a lush, layered classical piece of the kinds he recalls hearing in this place in the past. As Gustave sits down on the bench โ towards the edge, to give the man as much polite room as he can manage โ the melody expands, fills out, but it stays gentle and wistful and almost heartbreakingly beautiful in its simplicity.
Gustave keeps his own hands in his laps, but his eyes are fixed on the way the other man's hands move over the keys, as graceful as a dance. It feels like watching someone pen a love letter, sitting so close as the man plays this song. The theatre is vast around them, but he feels that sensation of being in a bubble again, more intensely still. In all this space, his focus is caught by the drift of clever fingers as they coax impossible beauty from something as prosaic as carved keys, padded hammers striking strings. He can't remember the last time he'd experienced something so captivating.
When the song ends, the last notes drifting slowly into silence, he takes a deep breath, like a man waking from a dream. ]
See?
[ He glances over his shoulder to look at the stranger, now only inches away. As the gentle clinging haze of transportation lifts away from him, Gustave smiles, warm and artless. It crinkles the corners of his eyes. ]
Worth it.
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Date: 2025-05-22 04:21 pm (UTC)-- Until it breaks. Interrupted just by Gustave's voice. Jarred back to reality, and as he lets go of a breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding, Verso might have been unhappy about being snapped back, except his head turns, and well. Gustave's smile is warm, painfully earnest, clearly genuinely appreciate of what he's just heard and witnessed, but the combination of that smile, those words.
Verso laughs, a quiet sound, half to himself but unquestionably genuine, twisting slightly to face Gustave properly and flourishing an arm in front of him. A performer's bow, or at least gesturing towards one without standing. But as the music fades -- everything else begins to settle back in. Not quite fully held at bay by the silence of the hall, the now-closed doors. Part of Verso's mind reeling back and taking careful stock of what he can and can't say, of the utter absurdity of this man's earnest appreciation next to someone who's been secretly watching him and Maelle for a while, now.
An idle trill sounds out from the piano, reflexive and involuntary, from his hand still on the keys. He doesn't quite want that reality to set back in, just yet. Those few notes aren't enough to hold it at bay. ]
-- Thanks. [ He means it. He tilts his head to the side, wayward hair falling slightly into his face in a way that frames his quiet smile, his tone dry but in obvious good humor. ] Should I ever headline my own show, worth it will grace the cover every brochure.
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Date: 2025-05-22 05:07 pm (UTC)And yet the silence fills, anyway, with a ripple of notes beneath the man's fingers, his dryly sardonic words. He's close, very close, but with the way he's turned towards the keys, Gustave can still only catch glimpses of his face from behind the dark wave of his hair. He can see the straight line of a strong nose, expressive lips that twitch into tiny, self-effacing smiles; the glint of those strange pale eyes.
A mystery, but a beguiling one. ]
It may shock you to learn my opinion on musical ability might not be enough to sway the general populace. You should probably seek out a more distinguished reviewer. Or sometime a degree more skilled with words.
[ He leans forward a little, trying to get a better look at the man's face, his own inquisitive. That smile still plays around his mouth, quirking one corner more than the the other but never disappearing entirely. ]
What's your name?
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Date: 2025-05-22 05:35 pm (UTC)No use, of course. And why does he even try.
He notes the clear curiosity in Gustave's expression as he leans forward ever so slightly, and Verso himself doesn't lean back or away in turn, but he matches that curiosity with his own. He's caught quite a few glimpses of this man over his years of returning to Lumiere, but Verso's focus has always been on -- Alicia, on Maelle. Watching from afar, a distant guardian, but could never be as impactful as someone actually standing by her side like Gustave. He seems a good man, from the way he treats her.
And here, up close? Verso finds his eyes following the line of the other man's jaw, the shape of his lips as he holds his smile -- his eyes, bright, how his smile reaches the corners of them. A beat passes, a breath that's yet again a bit too loud in the silence. Staring for just a beat too long, or measuring out what to say. A bit of both. ]
You mean the words of a man drawn to strangers playing piano alone in the shadows aren't to be trusted, when it comes to musical quality? [ Another amused sound, a huff through his nose. Inwardly, Verso wonders how many would even be left in Lumiere by now who would consider musical critique a primary profession or necessity. With the way things are, with how few people remain . . . ] I happen to think the people might find an outsider review more compelling.
[ A pause. He finds his voice instinctively quieting the more he talks, especially with Gustave beside him now rather than standing in the aisles, less need to project to catch his ear -- but also every word, every breath still rings a little too loud. Especially when he answers; ]
Verso.
[ With a smile, a nod in greeting. ]
And who can I thank for my glowing review?
[ And so the lies begin again. Perhaps one day, Gustave might be one of those who might hear an apology. Right now, Verso thinks he probably won't. ]
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Date: 2025-05-22 05:55 pm (UTC)I'm Gustave.
[ Introductions complete, it now feels as though something has slid into place. They're no longer two strangers sharing a piano bench and a song; not entirely. It's strange, now that he's getting a better look at the man: Verso's eyes are as clear as water, but though Gustave spends a few long seconds studying them, the deepest parts remain unreadable.
He thinks Verso doesn't mind the company, but there is something here, isn't there? Some reluctance, some reticence. It could be that he's used to performing for large audiences that nevertheless feel so much more anonymous, shrouded in shadow while the stage lights paint only the piano into existence. Even Gustave knows the audience isn't supposed to join the artist on the stage, at the instrument, so close their shoulders almost brush with every movement.
His glance falls away from Verso's face, to the fingers that linger on the keys, light and expectant. When he glances back up, the corner of his mouth flickers upward again. ]
You might not be able to tell, since I'm being so subtle, but I'm hoping you'll decide to play another song.
Would it help I promise to be just as effusive in my praise when you finish?
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Date: 2025-05-22 06:27 pm (UTC)But its also just -- nice. Even through through the mask. ]
Gustave. [ He echoes back, acknowledging, like it's unfamiliar -- but he's never said the name before, at least, has only really heard it from Maelle. And whatever Verso's expecting, somehow it isn't the way Gustave looks down towards his hands, almost expectant, and back up. Smiling, even brighter somehow in a way that again just lights up those eyes, bold enough to just ask.
Merde, how utterly, worryingly disarming. The man is adorable. Verso laughs to himself again, playing another idle trill across the keys, a running scale that has him leaning further up the keyboard, enough for his shoulder to not just brush but press slightly against Gustave's, for him to lean cross his body slightly to reach the highest keys. Definitely on purpose, especially with how he takes the opportunity to let his voice lower just a little more, and answer him -- ]
How did you know I'm starved for praise?
[ The lot of artists and creatives and performers, he supposes, following the idle scale back down, pulling back away from him again. Still close. ]
Any requests? I'll take specific songs, if you have any in mind, but you can just give me -- a mood. A feeling. Anything.
[ Its been a long time since he performed. Its been even longer since he sat at a piano and played, in the sense of someone playing with his skills, with what he can do, having fun with the instrument, the music, the sounds. There's no lies in the music, for better and for worse. ]
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Date: 2025-05-22 08:05 pm (UTC)He's only human. He'd dare anyone in his position not to feel... something at the contact, at the question that's almost but not quite a murmur, as though he and Verso are sitting in two of those seats down below and the man has had to lean close to speak low into his ear so as not to disturb the performance. ]
I assume all artists are some variety of starving. Besides that...?
[ He pretends to mull it over, give it some thought, before giving a small shrug that pushes his shoulder against the other man's. ]
Lucky guess.
[ And then the pressure is gone, inches of space between them once again, and he feels strangely untethered and conscious of the coolness of the air where only a moment ago there had been solid warmth.
This question deserves real consideration, and he gives it, thinking for a long moment as his glance drifts back toward the hands on the keys. Surgeon's hands, artist's hands; his own are dexterous and used to precision work, and the things he creates are beautiful in their own way, but he has no idea how someone can coax so much emotion from such mundane elements. Music, he supposes, is its own kind of magic. ]
Can you play me a happy memory?
[ Something to offset the wistful melancholy of the piece he'd chosen before, maybe. Or maybe Gustave would just like to see him smile again. ]
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Date: 2025-05-22 11:45 pm (UTC)And when Gustave decides . . . A happy memory, huh. He acknowledges request a thoughtful hum, another slightly amused smile when he turns his gaze back to the keys again. Something happy. Music is a language all of its own, and Gustave may have called himself no connoisseur, but how much did he hear in what Verso had played before? How much of that longing, how much of that -- pain?
Happy memories are few, now. Tinged with bitterness, with regrets, with the weight of the awful truth of everything. Often in the lonely nights he tries to see if he can tell which memories are his own, and which -- aren't. A futile exercise, a miserable one. Even papa, even Renoir, would tell him not to, that it only led to misery. But he can't help but wonder just where the seams are, where he was stitched together, where things were made -- and between all that. What happiness was there?
He starts to play. Like before, the first notes seem to come a little slowly, but this time its not quite because of nerves, but because he's finding te melody itself. No specific song, something improvisational, and happy or not there's something bittersweet to that first line or two as he settles in. Couldn't he just make something up, just play something generically playful, make up a story if he's asked to talk about it? Yes. Of course he can. But he's learning today just how much music will pull the truth from him compared to words, and he remembers family. Remembers Lumiere, before the Fracture. Taking off Alicia's mask, distracting her from her uncertainty but convincing her to dance with him a while, watching a smile form on her lips through the scars, Clea rolling her eyes nearby but not hiding her own little smile, too. He remembers this, remembers music, remembers playing for some of his family, or for people, for Julie, for others, a welcome sliver of happiness before he going back to the pressures of his family. And even after so much pain, out on the continent, desperate, alone -- he remembers things like having Monoco, playing games with him, blatantly cheating. Esquie not even minding.
The song is a little more technically complex than the one before -- perhaps in improvisation he can't resist the urge to show off just a bit to his audience. Its not quite purely bright and joyful and sounds more like finding those happy memories where he can. Clawing what joy he can manage from the jaws of something painful. The melody is bright, playful, sometimes dragged under by something but always soaring back. Pushing forward. Somehow. Somehow. Again, the last notes linger, defiant even as they strike out into the waiting silence.
Verso isn't quite smiling when he plays. But when he looks up from the keys and turns to Gustave, waiting for his promised praise, eyebrows lifted -- there's the smile, a little playful, expectant. ]
-- I was promised effusive.
[ Pay up, bucko. ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 01:24 am (UTC)And then he begins to play.
Slowly, at first, picking his way along as if trying to recall an old and overgrown path. The notes sound as individual clear tones, a little uncertain. They pick up, though, and soon enough Verso is playing with both hands widespread and rapid, fingers flitting over the keys with what seems to Gustave to be impossible speed and skill, and the music follows in his wake like a river released from a dam.
It seems to fill this whole auditorium, this single piano with its dedicated soloist, and as Verso plays, Gustave can almost feel his own happiest memories come flooding back. The day he and Emma brought Maelle home. The day he first kissed Sophie. The day he and his apprentices perfected the first iteration of the left arm he now wears.
But joy and grief are inextricably intertwined in Lumiรจre, and he hears that, feels it, too, as Verso's song rises and falls; sometimes settling low into a minor chord before brightening back up again, andโ
Who is this man?
The last notes ring out and fade away back into the silence, and it's less that Gustave waits until Verso lifts his hands from the keys than that he's struck almost speechless until the man turns to him and that mischievous smile shiunes out again, like they're already sharing a joke only they know. Maybe they are. ]
So you were.
[ He takes a breath and clears his throat, then brings his hands up to applaud once more, shifting on the piano bench until he can get to his feet to give a standing ovation. After the piano's waterfall of sound, his applause sounds tiny even to his ears, but he only has the two hands. ]
Marvelous, monsieur le pianiste. Exquisite. I was transported, delighted. Truly you are the most brilliant jewel in this theatre's crown.
[ Bombastic, a little. Ridiculous: certainly. But there's sincerity, too; he means it, even if the words themselves aren't what would come most naturally to him. That was beautiful, he might have said, were he only speaking for himself and not in pursuit of a joke they're both in on. And it was beautiful, and playful... and sad. He doesn't think he'll ever hear anything else like it ever again. He doubts he'll ever forget it. ]
Effusive enough?
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Date: 2025-05-23 02:17 am (UTC)Its nice to be -- heard.
Verso isn't expecting Gustave to literally rise to his feet, but, he supposes he did say effusive. The applause, so small and singular in the echoing opera house, might seem almost unintentionally sarcastic, especially with the overwrought praise, except for how there's so clearly a sincerity to it, an earnestness, how he'd seen in the moments before he asked for his praise that Gustave had been struck genuinely speechless.
Perhaps he was wrong, before. There is clearly part of him that might like a captive audience.
Verso stands to take his bow, a grand flourish, overexaggerated, and there's a moment somewhere there in that movement where he pauses. Considers. Makes a decision. And in that same movement of a bow, in the way of a stately gentleman at court ( a little comical given his rough-around-the-edges appearance ) -- he extends his hand, palm up. Offering it for Gustave to take, his head tipped up just enough to be looking up at him, meeting his eyes. Curious, letting it linger, though its clear he'll simply pull back if not taken, awkward as it may be. ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 02:35 am (UTC)What a strange end to an otherwise mundane day. Gustave ceases his applause, smiling, and tips his head just a little to the side, preparing to speak the words that would call an end to their impromptu concertโ
Only Verso isn't rising, and this... isn't the ending Gustave had anticipated. He blinks, brows flickering together in a bemused frown that shifts across his face and is gone again, and โ it feels like finally, though in reality it can't be more than a handful of seconds after Verso had first offered his hand โ he lifts his right hand โ flesh and blood, human, warm โ and sets it into the other man's palm.
It's a little uncertain, the movement. He doesn't know what Verso's doing, what he might be planning. Is this still a joke, something for them both to laugh over? If it is, why do the man's eyes seem so intent?
Still, he's here now, his hand relaxed even as a bewildered smile follows that frown to flit across his face. He lifts his eyebrows, questioning. Now what? ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 03:00 am (UTC)But he fails, doesn't he? He fails all the time at keeping himself distant, keeping away. That moment stretches just enough where Verso is about to maybe pull back, but then Gustave's hand settles in his own. Warm, solid, and immediately Verso realizes how goddamn long it's been since he's had any kind of contact with another person, his own fingers briefly twitching instinctively against Gustave's.
This clearly wasn't super well thought through, given how after he takes his hand, there's yet another beat, a hesitation hanging in the air. But then he moves, his hand squeezing gently over Gustave's, drawing it close as he drops his gaze. Its so light that it might even be scarcely called a kiss, his lips brushing against the back of his palm, dusting over his knuckles. ]
-- I am glad to play something worthy of my audience, monsieur.
[ There's humor in the words, but it's softer, quieter, a bit above a murmur that would be lost against his skin, just loud enough to be heard.
Its just nice to be heard. This could be useful, later. Maybe he'll never see him again. Maybe he just can't help himself with someone so earnest and eager to listen to him, in his appreciation of his music. Maybe its nice to have someone refer to him as a musician and not know him as anything else, as anyone else. Maybe, maybe --
-- In that same movement he straightens back to his full height. His thumb (rough, calloused, decades of living out in the Continent outside the mansion, of fighting with a sword and dagger) brushing against the side of Gustave's hand, fingers curling lightly into his palm before he lets his hand fall away completely. ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 03:51 am (UTC)Maybe they're both a little unsure of what's happening here. There's a long second where Verso does nothing, his hand warm and curling just barely around Gustave's, and he's about to lift his hand away with a self-conscious laugh when suddenly Verso does the lifting for him and ducks his head at the same time to brush the ghost of a kiss over his knuckles.
It's barely a touch at all, just enough for Gustave to feel the barest pressure of soft lips and the sensation of a mustache brushing against his skin and a puff of warm breath as the man speaks. He feels himself grow still.
How long has it been since he's felt anything like this? Not since Sophie, and that was a year ago now; long enough that he doesn't wake up every day to refreshed heartbreak, but not so long that he's been able to even think about attempting anything like romance with someone else. If that's even what this is, and he's by no means sure it is. Verso has exaggerated and embellished so many gestures and words in only these few moments that he's known the man; this could easily be more of the same.
But his hand is so warm, and when his fingers curl just barely around Gustave's before letting go, Gustave's press back. Careful and quick, almost something that could be mistaken for a twitch of muscle, a reflex. ]
Any audience would be fortunate to listen to you, I think.
[ He's dropped his own act, and now he's studying the other man curiously, a little unsure. A moment ago, he'd been thinking without enthusiasm that this chance meeting was coming to an end. Now he's not so sure that's really what he wants. ]
...where were you going, after this?
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Date: 2025-05-23 04:21 am (UTC)That's it, at the end of the day. Gustave was there next to him, his eyes bright and earnest in his appreciation of what he'd just seen and heard. The out-of-season opera house is hardly well lit, but the bare shafts of light catch against the soft curls of his hair, the frame of his shoulders, the line of his nose. He likes the way he smiles.
The way Gustave's fingers had pressed against his own was featherlight and quick, could've been almost accidental. But they're standing there now, looking at each other, and Gustave's clearly not trying to leave. ]
Home.
[ Not a lie. Not a truth. The Continent is home in a way, and he's already been on Lumiere a bit too long this time. He leans his hip slightly against the piano behind him, not stepping away, just -- almost grounding himself slightly. His tongue wets his bottom lip as he looks back at Gustave. ]
-- Don't you have your sisters to attend to?
[ Its not meant to urge him away. A reminder and an actual question, both. ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 04:37 am (UTC)[ Dinner on the table, and chatting with Maelle and Emma, and maybe a glass of wine with Emma once Maelle has gone to bed, over which he could tell her the slightly bewildering story of this chance meeting. ]
Although I think they'd forgive me if I told them I'd encountered a fascinating stranger, and hadn't just fallen into a ditch somewhere.
[ Verso leans easily against the piano, and the slope of his shoulders, the shift of his weight onto one hip, the way the shadows of this empty building darken those remarkable eyes is almost as appealing a song as the music he'd played earlier. There's something about the way he moves that's almost lupine in its grace, and a little niggling voice at the back of Gustave's head murmurs: dangerous.
But how, in what way, he isn't sure. Dangerous to Gustave's self-control, at the very least, because the next thing he knows he's opening his mouth and: ]
... but if not tonight, maybe I can see you tomorrow.
[ Did he justโ
It's his turn to wet his lip, face scrunching into a self-conscious grimace, and his metal left hand lifts into the air, gesturing aimlessly as he tries to marshal his thoughts, his words. They keep piling up, tripping his tongue, and it's all, wellโ ]
If you want, that is. I mean... if you aren't...
If it wouldn't be too... I was just thinking, you know, maybe...
[ Awful. He grimaces again, head ducking, and glances up with a chastened expression. ]
Sorry.
dork
Date: 2025-05-23 05:00 am (UTC)Fascinating stranger? He liked just being monsieur le pianiste, but that's an additional role he's played before -- and admittedly, likes playing, even if it's usually in different circumstances. Gustave was always watching him closely, but he can see the slight shift in his eyes, uncertain but definitely interested, and Verso wonders just how the hell he can live with himself ( because he has to, because he has no choice ). What is he going to do? He should just leave. Make an excuse. He knows the opera house's backstage area, the back door, Gustave probably wouldn't, he could slip away before the other man has a chance to follow him.
But then Gustave keeps talking, asks about maybe tomorrow. His face scrunches up, that metal hand grasping at the air as if trying to find something for his words to hold purchase to, but it clearly doesn't work, because the man just keeps talking. And trailing off. And talking. And trailing off. And ... Suddenly that spiral is torn from him before Verso even realizes it, because he's laughing, again. Quiet, not mocking, just amused and almost fond. He looks like a puppy, it's adorable, it's disarming, it's --
Dangerous, his mind supplies. Absolutely dangerous.
He nods. His voice soft, except for that gravelly rumble in his chest. ]
I'll be here.
[ Putain de merde, if he's going to do this, he has to make sure the man doesn't at least accidentally invite him to a cafe in the middle of the city. ]
if the shoe fits
Date: 2025-05-23 02:31 pm (UTC)And all it is, really, is an understanding that there's another opportunity to meet, but this time it would be deliberate. He'll have to choose to come here, to believe that Verso is telling the truth. And then...
And then he doesn't know. It doesn't feel like making plans with his friends, easy and casual. There's something else at work here, an energy that has him rubbing his fingers together at his side, awkward and uncertain. ]
Then I hope I'll see you tomorrow.
[ Hope, he adds. It gives them both a sense of plausible deniability. Things come up, plans change, intentions shift, courage wavers. He isn't even sure he'll turn back down the street that led him here again tomorrow, despite being the one to suggest it.
But maybe he won't be able to get the music out of his head. So maybe he will. ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 03:06 pm (UTC)Just two words: ]
I'm sorry.
[ But a little more: in the corner, off-kilter enough to be clearly hand drawn: musical staves, a treble clef. A simple melody, just over two bars. Its based in something from the improvisation he'd played for Gustave: something bright that seems to almost get pulled under by some dour notes, but then pulls free again. ]
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Date: 2025-05-22 01:21 am (UTC)I'm surprised you haven't used all the pages yet.
[Maelle doesn't wait for an invitation before she sits beside him, feet dangling over the edge of the cliffside. She leans over into his space, purposely obnoxious and very aware of how her ponytail must be going right up his nose, as if she's trying to peep at the pages.]
Your apprentices are going to eat each other alive to be the first to read this.
[If he makes it back. If they defeat the Paintress. If any of them make it back. If any of those boys grow up, come here on their own expedition, and find a thoughtfully penned journal by their mentor. But Maelle keeps the if at bay. Gustave has such hope for the future, and here, in this place, she can't bring herself to be contrary.]
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Date: 2025-05-22 01:49 am (UTC)I have small handwriting. Tiny.
[ He illustrates with a hand held up and a finger and thumb pressed so close together they might as well be touching. ]
And there's a lot of pages. They were pretty optimistic that I'd have a lot to say. Wellโ
[ A moue as he tips his head and glances up at her. ]
And that I wouldn't die right away to some Nevron or other. So really it's a vote of confidence, this journal.
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Date: 2025-05-22 02:00 am (UTC)You've killed Nevrons, actually. A fair amount of them. I hope you put that in there and underlined it.
[And nearly lost his life to that man at the beach as their companions were slaughtered. She wonders how detailed his account is, in there. She doesn't have the heart to ask.]
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Date: 2025-05-22 02:23 am (UTC)[ He closes the journal, keeping his place with a finger between the pages, and gives her a dubious glance. Things have been... better... since finding Maelle in that strange, empty manor, but he can still feel that razor-thin edge of himself, buried down deep; keeps cutting himself on it when he least expects it.
It's difficult to keep from hovering around her, making sure she's always within reach, always close enough that he would be able to get between her and danger. Writing in his apprentices' journal is a good way to make sure he gives her a little space.
And yet here she is, swinging down to sit next to him, cheery and pert as ever. ]
What, did you get bored? Lune making you write down all the different kinds of rocks and trees we saw today?
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Date: 2025-05-22 02:36 am (UTC)Can't I just come over to say hi?
[Of course she can. She grins at him, bumping him with her shoulder.]
... and I was dismissed from that task the third time I described a rock as rocky. Alas, my vocabulary is insufficient.
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Date: 2025-05-22 02:56 am (UTC)Should get you through at least a few more.
[ Just coming to say hi. The same way she'd come by his workshop back in Lumiรจre; the same way she'd come tap on the door of his room when he'd been up for too many hours trying to figure out some small problem with the latest iteration of the Lumina Converter.
He smiles at her, expression and voice both softening, and leans to nudge her shoulder right back. ]
Hi.
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Date: 2025-05-22 03:02 am (UTC)[Always clever, this Gustave. Maelle stretches out her legs, leaning back on her palms as she looks up at the monolith. It's beautiful, in a way. She wishes she could remember how young she was when she fully understood what the numbers meant. It's simply always been. A part of their lives, their deaths.
To possibly be the ones to put an end to it all...
It's a nice thought. The thought of what comes after, though--that's almost incomprehensible.
She sighs.]
Can I ask you something?
[He's never denied her the opportunity to ask him anything. Still, she has manners.]
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Date: 2025-05-22 05:20 pm (UTC)[ But Maelle's shoulders lift and fall with a sigh, and his demeanor shifts in almost the same moment as he half-turns to face her, journal still in his lap. ]
Yeah, of course.
[ They've always had the kind of relationship โ he thinks, he hopes โ where Maelle could be comfortable talking to him about anything at all: her worries, her fears, her hopes. He's always tried to listen to her with an open ear and to offer what advice or comfort he can.
He's not sure what might have sparked it this time, but there's only one way to know for sure. ]
What is it?
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Date: 2025-05-22 06:03 pm (UTC)This question, however, is a personal one. She tips her head to the side, red hair slipping over her shoulder.]
So... did you ever want children of your own, or did I kill that desire?
[It's said jokingly, as if Sophie hadn't stopped to talk to her on her way to the harbor. It's said as of Maelle doesn't know for a fact that Gustave wanted children, and that's why he and Sophie went their separate ways.]
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Date: 2025-05-22 11:57 pm (UTC)Uhโ
[ He licks his lips, gives her a bemused half-smile, half-frown. ]
Why do you ask? Did you lose some kind of bet with Sciel?
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Date: 2025-05-23 12:21 am (UTC)I was just wondering. [Thinking about the Gommage, the time left to him, if they take too long to reach the Paintress--] You would have been the best father.
[A thing Maelle can say without hesitation. She would know best.]
Maybe [if] when we get back. You'll be famous, after all.
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Date: 2025-05-23 12:31 am (UTC)[ He's chuckling, not realizing the way he's folded his arms over his chest, having finally set aside the journal. ]
Maelle, what are you talking about?
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Date: 2025-05-23 12:37 am (UTC)You wanted them, didn't you? Children. It just... didn't happen?
[For the best, the cynical side of her whispers. Even she would orphan them, eventually. Still, the hopeful part of her, the part Gustave has planted whether he knows it or not, mourns. He would have been a wonderful, loving father. He would raise bright, goofy children. The world would be better for it.]
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Date: 2025-05-23 02:26 am (UTC)Yes. I wanted them.
[ More than almost anything he can ever remember wanting for himself. He'd dreamed of a life with Sophie, with their children, with Maelle and Emma, all of them creating a little family, a world all their own. He remembers fondly imagining placing a tiny warm bundle of humanity into Maelle's arms and telling her she was an aunt.
But that had been years ago, and that dream, too, had vanished, drifting away like the flowers and ash of the Gommage. His glance falls away, and his head lowers. ]
But Sophie felt it was irresponsible... or worse... to bring a child into this world when it could only end in grief.
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Date: 2025-05-23 02:43 am (UTC)Do you still want them? [Wanted, he said. Maelle glances over at him, giving him a small, sad smile. He had to give up on a dream then, but if they stop the Paintress, it doesn't have to remain lost. He could have the family he wanted. Somewhat. ] Like I said, you'll be famous. Gustave, inventor of the Lumina Converter that allowed Expedition 33 to do what no one else could. All the ladies will want to get to know you. Maybe...?
[Sophie will be gone, still, but there's no returning those they've already lost.]
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Date: 2025-05-23 03:31 am (UTC)It's a long moment before he answers, and he's still not even sure he has an answer. ]
I don't know. Maybe.
[ Is that a dream he could brush off and bring back up into the light? He'd buried it so deeply inside himself, he's not sure he can even find it anymore. But that doesn't mean it's gone. ]
But, you know... Sophie. And it isn't like I've spent much time in the last few years trying to meet people who weren't coming on the expedition.
[ He glances sidelong at her, mouth tugging into a rueful curve. ]
And I think you might be overestimating the effect of the Lumina Converter on women.
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Date: 2025-05-23 03:42 am (UTC)Yeah. I'm just saying... [Her words hang for a moment. What is she saying? It feels strange to think about a future, because that implies a win, here. A win, and they both survive to make it home. It seems daunting to think about a life without an expiry date. At least not anytime soon.
She's not prodding a bruised part of his heart just for fun.]
I'm just saying that if it's something you still want, I hope you get it. You would have some lucky children. And--I'm sorry it didn't happen with Sophie.
[... even if Maelle agrees with her.]
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Date: 2025-05-23 04:08 pm (UTC)[ He hadn't ever talked to Maelle about this before, first because she was too young and then... he hadn't wanted to talk about it to anybody. A few quiet conversations with Emma had been the bulk of his discussions; most others he'd allowed to think what they wanted about why he and Sophie had broken up.
But he remembers how sweetly Maelle had tried to cheer him up in his heartbreak, and that memory conjures another, softer smile. ]
But I'll be okay even if it doesn't happen. I already have you, don't I?
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Date: 2025-05-23 04:40 pm (UTC)It's... different when it's your own blood, isn't it?
[Right? She can only assume. The jealousy threatens to bubble up again. The bond Gustave would have with his flesh and blood would fulfill something he's longed for. She thinks he deserves to have it. He deserves everything he wants.]
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Date: 2025-05-23 04:53 pm (UTC)I wouldn't know.
Maelle, are you... worried about this?
[ The second it passes his lips, he's certain of it. ]
Do you really think there's anything or anyone in this world that could make me love you any less?
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Date: 2025-05-23 05:00 pm (UTC)[The word comes out quickly, as does the red to her cheeks. Called out, Maelle. She shakes her head and looks out at the expanse before them, impossibly long and dark in the night.
Love her less? No, never. Would he love his own children more? Would that hurt? Probably. Maelle shifts in her spot, uncomfortable.]
It's just. Natural, I think. And I'm essentially grown up, anyway.
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Date: 2025-05-23 05:07 pm (UTC)He taps his fingers against the rock of the ledge, thoughtful, then tips his face up to cast his glance up to the stars, giving her a little privacy. ]
Back before Sophie and I broke up, when it was still a possibility, you know what I was most excited for?
[ A casual sidelong glance before he looks away again. ]
Introducing your new baby brother or sister to you, and getting to see you holding them in your arms. Knowing how lucky they'd be to have you there to follow around and imitate and rely on.
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Date: 2025-05-23 05:24 pm (UTC)[The word is a laugh, embarrassed still, but pleased to hear it. Even if he may just be saying it to make her feel better. It's silly.]ย
I'm a terrible role model. Your children would end up calling you an old man before they ever called you papa.
[Papa. The word alone feels strange to say, stirring up some other emotion Maelle doesn't want to dwell upon for too long.]
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Date: 2025-05-23 05:42 pm (UTC)I could think of worse fates. More of you could never be a bad thing.
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Date: 2025-05-23 05:45 pm (UTC)[She takes a breath, cheeks cooled, and glances over to Gustave with a sheepish smile.]
Sorry. Probably not the conversation you wanted to have... ever.
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Date: 2025-05-23 06:23 pm (UTC)No, it's okay. I probably should have talked to you about it before, I just...
But I don't mind.
[ He glances over again, checking to see if her shoulders have relaxed, if she's still worried. ]
How did you even guess?
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Date: 2025-05-23 06:30 pm (UTC)... it wasn't really a guess. I mean, it would make sense. [He's loving and enjoys teaching and mentoring and simply having a family. One day, Maelle would realize that likely meant he hoped for kids of his own some day.]
But... Sophie said as much. At the harbor.
[It's amazing she sat on it this long.]
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Date: 2025-05-23 06:39 pm (UTC)[ Of course she had. Sophie was always painfully honest, and if the topic had come up, she surely would have told the truth.
His mouth firms into a line that quirks up into something that isn't really a smile. ]
Well, I'm glad you got to talk with her, a little.
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Date: 2025-05-23 06:53 pm (UTC)[It feels important to know this part about him. Maelle falls quiet as she tries to envision what that would have looked like. A little chubby bundle in Gustave's arms, and the light in his eyes as he'd invite her over and introduce her. And then, one day, sitting her down to make sure his wishes for his child were outlined. Maybe he would leave her a notebook of wise words and hopes that she could share with them. Fond things in their father's own words, his own hand, so they would know how much he loved them. And Maelle would do her best. Maybe, maybe.
She sighs again, letting that particular image go. They're past that point. She looks to Gustave again, and smiles. She doesn't want him to be sad.]
... you are the best father.
[A minor correction of her earlier words. Not would be. He already is.]
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Date: 2025-05-24 12:40 pm (UTC)He watches her think, and decide, and look over at him, and the deliberate way she makes her smile warm and bright, and thinks: how could he have ever been this lucky, so lucky, to have found her?
Gustave smiles back, leans to nudge his shoulder against hers โ carefully, seeing as they're still only inches away from a long fall to a quick death. ]
Thanks.
It's easy when you have the best daughter.
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Date: 2025-05-24 11:12 pm (UTC)Thanks.
[Ultimately, it's probably for the best that he didn't have children without knowing whether he'll be around or not. But, if they win...]
We'll see what happens down the road.
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Date: 2025-05-26 11:23 pm (UTC)[ And the chances of them, all of them, living to see what new world the others might create through defeating the Paintress are... well, they can't be high.
But Maelle will be one of the ones who makes it. He'll do anything to ensure it.
He gives her a look, askance, putting on a show of wariness for her. ]
You don't have any other big questions for me right now, do you? Am I going to have to explain where babies come from?
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Date: 2025-05-26 11:41 pm (UTC)Nooo. Your sister took care of that, thank you.
[Maelle makes a face. It's a genuine one, but a little exaggerated, because she's not surrendering her chance to make him uncomfortable.]
That, and how to make sure there aren't any unexpected additions to the household...
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Date: 2025-05-27 09:00 pm (UTC)Yeah. Better her than me, that's for sure. That wouldn't have been a conversation either of us enjoyed.
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Date: 2025-05-27 09:19 pm (UTC)That would have made me gommage well before my time.
[They're allowed to make that joke.]
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Date: 2025-05-28 10:26 pm (UTC)[ Her laugh is worth it, as is the sparkle in her eyes. Better: he prefers to see Maelle smiling and happy than worried over something that never ended up happening, and probably will never happen. ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 07:51 pm (UTC)[Maelle still wanted to jump into the sea as Emma decided to leave no stone left unturned in her explanations. But she only did it so she would be prepared, and now, a little older, Maelle appreciates it.]
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Date: 2025-05-30 03:39 pm (UTC)[ He misses Emma, more than he thought he would. They'd always been close, but over the last few years, between her work and his, they'd seen less and less of each other. Their adult lives had taken them in different directions.
Still, he wishes he could talk to her, seek the practical advice she was always so adept at offering. She loves them both, he knows. If he has any regrets, it's that he and Maelle had left Emma back there in Lumiere, alone. ]
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Date: 2025-05-31 02:35 am (UTC)You are.
[Save for the fact that he's up next for the Gommage, and lost four years with the woman he loves because of their views that didn't quite align. It's sad, but some people have so much less than that, and Gustave is okay. Sad, surely, but he's not lacking love.]
I think I'm pretty lucky, too.
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Date: 2025-06-07 01:41 pm (UTC)And in return he'd been given more love than he could ever have expected or known what to do with. His life, he thinks, has been a rich one.
He arches his eyebrows at her, purposeful and teasing. ]
Does that mean you'll stop making fun of me all the time?
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Date: 2025-06-08 02:10 am (UTC)[One of them, anyway. There are so many things she treasures, even the times they would sit in silence while he worked on one project or another and she flipped through a book. Time together was time together, and Maelle didn't need to be actively terrorizing him to be happy. The calm and peace was always just as good as the laughter.]
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Date: 2025-06-11 12:16 am (UTC)[ He leans toward her, incredulous eyebrows pushing up before he settles back again, grinning out at the continent spread dark and shattered before them. ]
And here I thought your favorite thing was trying to beat me in a duel.
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Date: 2025-06-11 01:25 am (UTC)[A girl can have many, no? She laughs, knowing he doesn't take offense to her teasing. There's too much love here. Her ease around him and the warmth in her eyes when she looks at him gives her away. Maelle adores Gustave, but that doesn't mean she can't bully him a little bit. It's fun.]
And excuse you, what do you mean trying? I've beaten you plenty of times.
[Just maybe not that last time before they departed to the continent.]
Perhaps your memory is going, old man.
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Date: 2025-06-18 01:05 pm (UTC)[ It's light and teasing but there's a level of seriousness to it all the same: he has nightmares about Maelle leaping to an attack, giving him that brilliant, mischievous smile of hers, and then—
There's so much here that could hurt her. Kill her. His worry is a constant low-level hum under every thought and action. He's stopped noticing the times when he's stepped in front of her, a protective hand reaching out to push her back. If anything tries to get to her, it'll have to go through him, first, but... she's quick, and he's not sure he can always reach her in time. ]
Maybe your memory needs a refresher. I've been slacking on making you train while we've been here, but you could always use a real challenge, make sure you're not losing your edge.
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Date: 2025-06-19 04:17 am (UTC)[And she keeps an eye on him. The others, too, but it's Gustave she looks to first of all. He's smart and strong but she worries that may not be enough. The beach was--bad. She thought she lost him, there, and ever since she's been determined to make sure that never happens again. She stays near. Fights harder. Right for the kill, no playing around, no theatrics. The less time something is alive, the less time Gustave is in danger. She worries less for herself.
The worst thing that could happen here is that she loses him. Really loses him.]
... but if you'd like to get revenge for my intrusive question, I'll allow a duel.
[She smiles at him, sweet as honey.]
๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ โ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
Date: 2025-05-23 04:03 pm (UTC)Gustave chooses to funnel his grief into work. The lumina tech is coming along, and there are other expeditions to supply and prepare for, and even without either of those, Lumiere is a shattered city with a limping infrastructure. It isn't hard to find projects and repairs enough to keep him busy and focused for days at a time, his grief a quiet, constant background hum, a reminder to do the best work he can, to expend every ounce of his creativity and expertise in pursuit of a way to break the cycle.
(Two years until Sophie's Gommage, and the expedition he already plans to join. It's not enough time.)
His work today sends him high above the city, fixing one of the emitters they'd rigged up to bolster the Shield Dome. It's too high for his apprentices and he'd forbidden Maelle from joining him, so he's alone as he finishes the climb to the roof of what must have once been a grand building. There are handholds, at least, and grapple points, and he doesn't mind being up so high, really. The wind tousles his hair and the collar of hist shirt — no suit today, he's wearing workaday clothes of a loose white shirt and comfortable trousers — and he feels as though it's washing him clean, in a way.
He's less fond of the heights when he goes to make his way back, and the grapple point crumbles and breaks off just as he's about to land on the next building down. Gravity swoops in, instant, and before he can do more than reach for the edge of the roof with his metal left hand hand, he's falling.
The only sound that leaves his lips is a sharp gasp of surprise. ]
no subject
Date: 2025-05-23 04:49 pm (UTC)This time, he's here after, when the city is still in a mix of quiet mourning and vain hope for the Expedition just gone. Most of the petals have been swept from the streets, but they still linger in the corners, on less-walked paths. He needs to be careful, he always does, but its the awful, sentimental man in him that can't help but want to spend a passing moment at some of the lonelier looking makeshift memorials, scattered around street corners still stacked with unclaimed furniture, across the rooftops. Like he hasn't seen so many deaths, like he hasn't just stood by and watched so many die, and die, and die.
He means this to be a quick visit. He'd told Esquie to hold him to it, after the -- unexpected detour, last time. Maelle is getting harder for him to find each time, moves quick and fleet-footed through the city she knows so well, but when he catches sight of her moving past, this time, she's alone. He doesn't know how old the man was -- is. Is he -- gone? Has he left with the new Expedition? Is he just now arriving on whatever shores this crew had chosen to land on? Dead, gone, or about to die, and for the instinctive twisting feeling that moves through his gut, Verso just shoves it down. What right does he to feel that way? Besides, Maelle seems fine, so maybe, maybe. He's just elsewhere.
Verso doesn't mean to go looking for him. But he often likes to take a look at what the locals are doing to the dome that he and Renoir helped build with their own hands, and keeping to the rooftops seems a good way to keep a lower profile, for this visit. And somehow it doesn't take long at all for him to see a figure climbing across the rooftops, to notice the gleam of light coming off a metallic arm.
Alive after all. He -- does his best to ignore the rush of relief, but he does let himself pick his way closer across some of the various rooftop gardens. Is he working on something for the dome? An engineer, he should've guessed, from the arm. It's fine. He can just get a look at what he's working on, satisfy some curiosity, watch him for a while, perhaps, and move on. Gustave grapples across the rooftops with obvious skill, and Verso watches, quiet, until --
Verso is moving before he even realizes it, sprinting across the rooftops, chroma surging through him. There's another grapple point nearby, and he hurtles through the air, reaching out, just barely makes it in time to catch Gustave by his outstretched metal arm, cursing under his breath as he hauls them both through the air. The landing isn't the most graceful with how he's had to interrupt the trajectory (it was messy, the leap of a man who knows he doesn't have anything to fear but pain if he did fall), but it's a landing. He almost throws himself across floor of the rooftop garden he's managed to swing them into, managing to pull Gustave with him until they've both spilled messily across the dirty and concrete.
Fuck. Merde. Is Gustave okay? He's fine, he can pick himself up from a spill like that. He should leave. No, what's wrong with him, he needs to at least check on the man, no, this is stupid, he knows better than this. He scrambles to gathers himself, pushes himself upright, head snapping around. Where can he go? Staying hidden on the rooftops only works from people down below, and as his gaze settles on Gustave as he realizes its too damn late. ]
You. [ Catch your breath. Breathe. ] -- You okay?
[ He's glad. He's glad, really. Don't mind how his eyes are still darting around slightly, still looking for a way out. ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 05:22 pm (UTC)The shock of something catching his arm is so unexpected that he can't prepare for it, and he yells in pain and surprise and fear as the metal tugs at the stump of his arm. Fuck, what if it detaches? It was never meant for this kind of strain—
But then he's arcing up and over the edge of another roof, one filled with green plants and the yellow and pink and orange flowers that no one picks or buys for the Gommage. Gravity kicks in again, but it's a much shorter drop this time. He lands heavily in a mess of limbs, some other body half-wrapped around him as they both go rolling over brick and crashing into flower pots. And then, abruptly, everything is still.
His chest works like a bellows, trying to get enough air in his shock. Everything hurts. He lifts a shaking hand to run it over his own head and is vaguely relieved not to come away with blood or any evidence of a traumatic hit, but his shoulder hurts, his left arm where the metal prosthetic attaches is on fire, and his right hip feels very much as though he'd cracked or deeply bruised something important. He groans, rolling onto his side, coughing, and hears his rescuer get unsteadily to their feet. ]
I'm alive.
[ It's as much as he can say truthfully, because he certainly doesn't feel okay. Gustave sets his scraped, bloodied right hand on the brick, pushing himself up on his shaking right arm. Only now does he lift his head, blinking, and look to see who had swept in at the last second. He owes his life to them, to—
A moment of stillness, as he takes in a face he thought he'd never see again. ]
...You?
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Date: 2025-05-23 05:41 pm (UTC)He really, really never meant for Gustave to meet him again -- Leaving it there, with that note, would've been . . . Not the right thing to do, but certainly the kindest with the circumstance he'd managed to get himself into, mistake after mistake. It'd been a good moment of connection, something Verso would like to pretend he didn't think back to in the months since, but he absolutely has, and if they'd never met again then it would've just been that. A blip in each other's lives.
But now he's here ( and picking himself up surprisingly easily, when his own landing hadn't been any more graceful than Gustave's ), eyes briefly scanning the horizon. There's no easy way out, but he could simply leave, the man's hardly in a state to chase him down across Lumiere's rooftops -- putain, what was he supposed to do, just let him fall? Of course he couldn't do that, except he has, just sat by and watched and made the choice to not act when so many died.
He's made this choice now. And he's glad, he really is. Gustave's a good enough man, deserves a better death, and the less tragedy in Maelle's life the better, except what does he even say.
Verso steps over, scans over Gustave quickly. He seems hurt, but not too badly, the metal arm is still attached but he doesn't know enough about it to see if its damaged. He offers a hand to pull him up, if he wants it, head tilting to the side in a silent question -- can you stand? Do you want to? ]
I think you should be thanking me.
[ Humor, relief, still a bit breathless. All real enough. ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 06:05 pm (UTC)Gustave doesn't bat the hand away, but he doesn't take it either, leaning instead on his own knee to push himself up to standing. Verso seems to have taken the hit a little better; he's already up and moving almost as easily as if they hadn't just slammed into a brick roof. ]
I suppose I should.
[ There are other things he remembers, too, like the way he'd turned toward the flower stalls on his way to the opera house that day only to chastise himself for a fool and turn away again. He'd only made it a few steps before he'd returned, conscious of the absurdity of it all but unable to stop himself. The flowers he'd selected had been a lot like the ones that surround them now: bright yellows and soft pinks and a few deep violet — colors not of the Gommage but of possibility. A new beginning. A bouquet for a performer, to congratulate them on a concert.
And he remembers the sound the door had made when it creaked open into a totally silent building, how his footsteps had echoed. He remembers the note, reading it, the way the ink smeared. If he hadn't stopped for flowers, maybe he would have made it in time. I'm sorry. A cluster of musical notation Gustave has no idea how to play and can't begin to understand.
The note has spent the better part of a year tucked away into a drawer in his study at home. The flowers he'd left behind to gather dust and wilt where they lay, alone on the piano bench they'd shared.
A little stiffly: ]
Thank you. You saved my life.
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Date: 2025-05-23 06:29 pm (UTC)Not just to avoid a painfully awkward encounter with a man he'd stood up on a . . . meeting.
The hurt from that has clearly reached deeper than Verso thought it might. He'd sat in the front row seats in the opera hall, hours earlier than Gustave could've ever thought to arrive, soaking in the quiet. His mind going back and forth between staying just for a while, staying another night, leaving now, waiting a bit longer, leaving something, leaving nothing. What he'd arrived at, with the note, the music, seemed the best way out. But that was -- how long? Eight, nine months ago. Seeing Gustave up close now, for the first time full light, he remembers with startling clarity how brightly his eyes shone when he'd urged Verso for another song, the light pink dusting his cheeks when he'd asked him about the next night, stumbling on his words over and over. A night he'd genuinely thought of fondly, in the months since, even if he'd often kick himself for letting it happen at all whenever the memory surfaced.
None of that light is here.
Verso drops his hand awkwardly, instead taking a step back to give the man space -- watching as Gustave manages to push himself to his feet. He does seem well enough. Good. That's -- good. ]
You're welcome.
[ The teasing tone is gone now. Clearly not the mood. ]
Just -- stay careful, Gustave.
[ Verso takes another step back. There's some uncertainty in it ( ridiculous, he'd already been looking for a way out, why hesitate now when there's an even better reason for it? ), but the man isn't happy to see him again, and that had never been the plan, anyway. Maybe for the best to just leave now, happy enough to give him a few more years of life, let him go back to forgetting that they'd ever met. ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 06:49 pm (UTC)And yet it had felt like a door slamming in his face, and now the man is back again — and where had he even been? In nine months, Gustave hadn't caught even a glimpse of him — and his features are as expressive as Gustave recalls, that teasing light bleeding away, shifting into something closed off and unreadable.
But when he steps back, Gustave steps forward, his right arm belted across himself so his fingers can curl around the sore place where his prosthesis connects to the stump of his left arm. For every step away Verso takes, Gustave takes one forward, closing the gap between them again, a confused frown flirting between his brows before it settles there for good. ]
How did you even manage to catch me? Where were you?
[ None of this makes sense, least of all Verso himself. For a while, Gustave had thought perhaps the man had backed away from their meeting because his number was coming up and nine months would be just enough time to build up a truly crippling heartbreak. Then he'd thought maybe Verso was a member of the expedition, too busy training and too focused on their goal, and, again, too close to his number being painted onto the Monolith.
But it turns out he wasn't either of those things, and, even stranger, had somehow managed to be right in the perfect spot to leap into action the moment Gustave fell. ]
Did you know I was up here, somehow?
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Date: 2025-05-23 07:08 pm (UTC)Verso's answered questions before. He's practiced, even, different Expeditions, gotten to try different variations on what truths to tell, which ones to conveniently omit, what outright lies to say. Sometimes he's paid for the lies. Other times he's paid for the truth. Every time, it ends up not mattering, because all of them die, bodies cold and preserved forever unless they managed to reach the mercy of the Gommage ( or fell to someone else ). But they're not on the Continent, they're in Lumiere, and anything he says has a chance of going straight to the Expedition. Truths, out of the question. The wrong lies, could almost be just as disastrous.
What can he do? Dodge. Distract. Never come back again. He lifts his hands in an almost surrendering gesture, offering truce -- he's not an enemy, this isn't an interrogation, right? No need to be so aggressive with the questions. Calm down, Gustave. ]
I just like it up here, sometimes.
[ The gardens are nice. Lumiere's learned to use the structures it has left in any way it can. People visit the rooftops and make use of them from time to time, but it's still often quieter, easier to stay out of sight -- believable for a man who clearly keeps to himself, right? ]
I saw someone climbing, I didn't know if it was you. [ but he might've thought it was. ] And once I saw you start to fall --
[ And had rushed over there, lightning fast. Trained, clearly. But that's fine, plenty of people train with the Expedition, drift in and out of the Academy all the time as their priorities change, as they figure out how their last years are best spent. He's just picked up something, at some point. That's all.
He frowns, lets his gaze drop from Gustave's face over his body, to his hip, his legs. Is he really not hurt? Is he really okay? Lets talk about that instead for a bit, hopefully. ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 07:24 pm (UTC)Another commonality. It's almost amusing, after nine months of wondering what had happened, if he'd said the wrong thing, read the wrong tone. But it does make a kind of sense, doesn't it? He knows he's not the only one to enjoy the space and freedom up here. His jaw works, a small motion, and he glances away to take in the flowers, the view of the arcing dome overhead. When he looks back, it's to find Verso frowning, glancing over him with narrowed eyes, and Gustave sighs, just a little. ]
I'm okay.
[ Mostly, anyway. He lifts his right hand from the joint of his left arm and turns his palm up to study it and his forearm. Both are scraped to hell and back, bright smears of blood marring pale skin, and there's some gravel caught in the abrasions. It's his turn to look himself over, cataloging the injuries, the places where he feels stiff and bruised. It's nothing compared to what would have happened if Verso hadn't caught him, but it certainly doesn't feel great. There's a crimson splotch dampening his shirt at his side; another scrape, shallow but stinging.
He looks up from his self-assessment, frowning right back at Verso. ]
Are you all right?
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Date: 2025-05-23 07:47 pm (UTC)And when Gustave asks? Verso glances down briefly, but he only takes a brief check of his arms, shifts his weight from foot to foot -- making too much of a show of it would only make it seem more suspicious, in hid mind. Verso is entirely capable of not healing his wounds immediately, and now and then he's realized that he should do that sometimes, keep some scrapes and bruises. Unfortunately, he tends to forget in the moment, his body taking over to mend itself a new. ]
Not too bad.
[ He immediately moves on. ]
I hope I didn't damage your arm.
[ Verso gestures vaguely in the direction of Gustave's metallic arm, on the socket, lips briefly thinning into a line as he studies it for a few seconds, trying to ascertain how its attached and how much strain he'd put on it by forcing it to bear the man's whole weight. But its nothing he can tell on sight. He has to ask some questions, push the conversation in an actual direction. Get Gustave talking. The arm seems like a good bet -- and Verso is curious. ]
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Date: 2025-05-23 08:00 pm (UTC)That's a problem for later. For now, he follows Verso's gesture and looks back down at his arm, which definitely doesn't feel quite right. He rotates his shoulder, testing the weight and response of it, and grimaces. ]
I'll check it later.
[ His sleeve covers the joint where it meets his stump, and he's not exactly thrilled about the idea of taking off his shirt just now to examine the arm and connection point more carefully. It can wait until he's home.
... There is one thing he can do, and he slaps at his back for the pack that holds his tools, dropping it down to the ground so he can rummage through and retrieve the thing he needs: a delicate probing instrument, not unlike a screwdriver. Straightening, he lifts his left hand and starts prodding carefully into the wrist joint with the tool, looking for loose connections.
It gives him a little bit of a reprieve from looking up at Verso, though he does flick a glance up from beneath his brows now and then. Like he's worried the man will vanish in the seconds where Gustave isn't watching him. ]
I was hoping you'd show up, you know.
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Date: 2025-05-23 08:21 pm (UTC)Once Gustave is working a little on his arm, it gives Verso a bit more breathing room, too -- studying his actions with genuine interest and curiosity ( the machinery looks complex, delicate, but clearly robust enough to take a hell of a beating given everything he's just seen -- well built to purpose ), but also just. Studying him. Without that distinct stiffness in him that was very clearly cast in his direction, Verso can see more of what he remembers. The kindness in his eyes, crinkling slightly at the corners. Light catching against the the soft curls of his hair.
The statement catches him a bit off guard. Naively hoping they might just quietly agree to not talk about it. A pang of guilt -- he may not have fully wanted to lead him on, but he still absolutely did, and with full knowledge of what he was doing. But in the moment, he'd just wanted to act. To seize on that connection they clearly had, in that fleeting moment, that had somehow felt like it could actually mean something even when Verso already knew that it simply never could.
Verso lowers his gaze, uncertain. What's useful now? Maybe playing into things a bit would actually help the situation. Maybe it's awful that he's even thinking about things that way at all. Maybe he just needs to get the fuck over his guilt, because he's already told a thousand lies and will tell a thousand more to get the people around him where he needs them, and he should just be used to it, shouldn't he. ]
I -- [ he wets his lower lip with his tongue. ]
-- I did leave an apology.
[ He knew he would hurt him, but also hoped it would be forgotten in a few months. A blip in another man's life. Perhaps he should feel a bit flattered that it lingered longer, except that emotion doesn't make it through all the layers of guilt. He was already lying to him then, in a dozen different ways Gustave has no way of even knowing, and -- he's still lying to him now. That's all he ever does. All he can do. ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 12:17 am (UTC)[ And it hadn't even been all that surprising, not really. He'd given them both an out, hadn't he? They hadn't made solid plans. No one twisted his arm and made him buy those flowers.
But... ]
I meant... after.
[ After. When despite his bruised pride Gustave had wandered past the opera house every now and again, first in the weeks when it was closed, and then again once it opened once more. He'd gone with Emma and Maelle to concerts there and cast a searching glance over the performers, the audience, but the white-streaked hair he'd been looking for remained elusive.
It wasn't exactly that he'd been looking, searching. He hadn't asked around to see if anyone else had met the mysterious and all-too charming Verso, hadn't let it color his days, his weeks. It had been a chance meeting of moments only. A spark of possibility, not a promise made and broken.
His glance flickers back down again, to where he's probing deep inside the joint of his wrist, tightening a connection that had pulled loose, and it's a little easier when he's not looking directly into those startling eyes. ]
I hoped you would show up... again.
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Date: 2025-05-24 01:19 am (UTC)There are ways to play this. He's not directly answered Gustave's question of where he's even been, and the man hasn't chased after that too much -- Lumiere is even smaller now than it was nine months ago, but not quite so small and desperate that not seeing a certain stranger in that time is unthinkable. If all Verso wants is a clean escape, then it seems like he has one, find a graceful way to exit this conversation, or maybe even just excuse himself for a meeting that doesn't exist.
But, it seems he's fucking learned nothing, because instead. ]
I don't think you needed to go as far as to hurtle yourself off a roof to try and meet me.
[ . . . Not a great joke. Everyone's learned to be a bit laisseiz-faire about death in Lumiere, but Verso's even worse about that than most. He grimaces, looking away, sheepish -- not nearly as devastatingly embarrassed as Gustave had seemed that night, not even fully breaking eye contact -- looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Even if it was just a chance meeting, a fleeting moment, a not-quite-promise, that connection had felt real enough that he couldn't help himself but act on it. That there was something there he wanted. Something he might still want.
He rolls his shoulders back slightly, tilting his head back, hair falling slightly out of his face as he looks back at him, a question in his eyes. ]
But it worked.
[ You found him.
Now what? ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 02:23 am (UTC)I think an old grapple point is more to blame for that than my desire to see you.
[ Which... does it still exist? He looks at the man, taking in details he hadn't been able to easily see that night in the dim, empty opera house: the scar over his eye, the way the waves of his hair flow together, the lazy grace in every movement. Even his self-conscious wince at a joke that's a little darker and a little more blunt than might be considered polite is fascinating to watch; the way his expression shifts and smooths.
He isn't surprised to feel that same tug, deep in his gut, that had prompted him to ask for more of Verso's time all those months ago. The man is just as beautiful as he remembered, and just as distant, and just as impossible to read. ]
But I guess it did.
[ And now here they are, standing a few feet from one another with a fresh wind from the harbor tugging at Verso's hair, at the hem of his jacket, at the collar of Gustave's shirt. Is this what he had wanted? What had he imagined might happen, if he ever saw this man again? ]
Why?
[ His voice is quieter now, his head lifted and his gaze steady on the other man. There's a question here, too, but at least he'll be brave โ or stupid โ enough to voice it aloud. ]
Why didn't you stay, that night? Why'd you leave?
Did I...
[ His hand lifts, helpless, palm up in the air, and falls back to his side. ]
Did I do something wrong? Or was it not about me at all?
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Date: 2025-05-24 02:52 am (UTC)The earnestness in Gustave's expression when he asks is familiar. A different emotion, now, but just as honest, vulnerable, open. Verso reaches out, again without thinking, already regretting the movement partway through but its too late to change his mind, fingers curving over Gustave's wrist before his hand falls back to his side completely. He's warm, solid, his own touch light but firm, and -- putain, the last time he's touched a nother person was this, wasn't it. His moment of weakness with this same man, nine months ago. ]
No. [ He shakes his head -- the corner of his mouth quirking upward ever so slightly, not wanting to make fun of him but definitely a little amused. How could Gustave had done anything wrong? All they'd done was talk for a while, all Gustave had done was ask for another song, ask to see him again. A beat, and he lets his fingers shift against his hand, calloused ragging against skin, thumb slipping over his pulse. A gesture that's -- intimate. That makes it clear the touch is intentional. ] I hope you didn't get that impression, from me.
[ But now comes the problem. He needs to pick a lie. Or at least gesture at the right kind of lie. ]
It was only that . . .
[ Verso lets his voice trail into quiet. Lets his eyes drift away from Gustave's. Over the other man's shoulder, across the rooftops of shattered Lumiere, over the horizon, ad the Monolith. His heart aches whenever he looks at it, but for -- a different reason, than most of Lumiere. The Paintress form', or a version of her, cured up and sobbing, always sobbing, her shoulders shaking with a sorrow too deep for any of them to understand.
He could mean he's close to his Gommage. He could mean leading in to an Expedition. He could mean that, just like some find it best to throw themselves into what pleasures they can as their life dwindles down, others find it only painful, futile, pointless. Whichever one it might be, or something else, Verso doesn't seem to want to give voice to it, except to assure Gustave that it wasn't him.
That part, at least, isn't a lie. Even if everything else is. ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 03:36 am (UTC)He doesn't try to pull his hand away, but nor does he turn it in Verso's grasp. He simply... lets the man hold on, and tries to ignore the way his heart gives a strange lopsided thump in his chest at the brush of that thumb over the pulse point in his wrist, calloused skin running gently over a thinner, much more delicate spot than the man had touched before.
Does it help, hearing that whatever the problem was, it wasn't him? A little, but then he'd never really thought it had been. Not without Verso being... far from whatever it was Gustave had thought he might be. Complicated, yes. A mystery. But there had been kindness in him, too.
He studies the man for a long moment, thoughtful, then cuts his glance to the side, turning his head and leaning to the left while he allows his right hand to stay relaxed in Verso's grip. His eyes shift from side to side, searchingโ ah. There.
Another, deeper lean and a quick motion of his hand, and then he's straightening, a freshly plucked flower held carefully in the metal fingers of his left hand. It's deep purple, the petals velvety and soft and fluttering gently in the breeze as he holds it out, offering. His head tilts a little to one side, lips pursing thoughtfully and his glance on the flower before it lifts back to Verso's face. ]
The others were nicer. But I think you've forfeited your right to an entire bouquet, no matter how deserving your performance might have been.
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Date: 2025-05-24 04:15 am (UTC)Verso keeps making these damn decisions with this man, pressing things here and there, chasing after something he isn't quite sure he really wants. He keeps thinking he can just step out of it, if it goes too wrong or out of hand. What he was hoping for or was expecting here was maybe just a quiet acknowledgment, and then just -- moving on, maybe pressing a little further just for a moment, depending on how he felt, how Gustave responded to his hand over his wrist.
He isn't expecting this. And it's such a simple thing, a single flower, freshly plucked. ( Julie brought him flowers, once, a bouquet for one of his first performances. They'd been red, for love, association with the Gommage not a horror they needed to think of back then, but now whenever he thinks of her, the red, it just blends, and bleeds, and -- ) In the moment, blinking at the offered gift, he dimly realizes that Gustave is saying he had gotten him more flowers, that night. A bouquet. His fingers twitch slightly against Gustave's wrist. How --
Disarming. That's what he'd thought that night, too. His smile, the kindness in his eyes, earnest and eager, his stumbling over his own words. Like something reaches in to the part of Verso that's always holding a sword and dagger at the ready, that's always listening and watching for the right things to do and say to get what he wants and needs, always looking for the right mask slip behind, the opportune shadows to slip away -- and maybe it doesn't rip them from him, but its almost like he can feel a hand on his arm, forcing his sword down.
A blink. And a laugh, quiet and rumbling. At the situation, at Gustave's charm, at -- himself. He's awful. Doesn't fucking know how to interact with people anymore, especially someone earnest as Gustave, and he really should stop fucking with him before he regrets all of this more than he already does. But Verso knows, he already knows, that he can't help himself. ]
I don't think I have anywhere to put it.
[ His thumb circles ever so slightly against the pulse point in Gustave's wrist. Following the vein, his voice sliding just ever so slightly lower, softer. ]
-- My collar, maybe?
[ Tuck it in there, for him, will you? ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 11:47 am (UTC)Or perhaps it's just been a long time since someone offered him flowers, which would be a shame. They shouldn't only be for the grief of the Gommage. Either way, it seems he likes it: there's a brightness to those incredible clear eyes of his that had been missing before. ]
Mm.
[ Hummed in consideration as he twirls the flower for a moment between metal finger and metal thumb (a good test of his remaining fine motor control as much as it is fiddling, his nerves all cautiously alight). He shifts his weight to his other leg, tipping his head as he gives the other man a considering look: true, not many places for a flower, and he hadn't happened to be carrying a pin of any kind. His gaze flickers up for a moment to Verso's face, to the dark waves of hair that frame one side and the streaks of white marking the other. An image floats unbidden into his mind, of putting this flower not somewhere safely into a pocket or buttonhole, but of stepping close, pushing those thick waves gently out of the way, and slipping the green stem into the soft mass of Verso's dark hair, tucked snugly behind his ear.
No part of that thought escapes his mind and becomes real except for the way his eyes soften, his lips quirk momentarily into the ghost of a smile, and in the next moment he's lifting his hand out of Verso's gentle grasp and taking a step closer so he can use it to help slip the flower neatly into the buttonhole of the man's lapel, eyes dropping to watch his own work.
And then it's there, as secure as he can make it without a pin, soft and lush against the fabric, a light scent lifting on the breeze, and Gustave doesn't let his fingers linger for longer than a heartbeat before he's lifting them away and stepping back again. ]
It suits you.
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Date: 2025-05-24 01:37 pm (UTC)Gustave's head is lowered to watch himself work, and Verso finds himself studying him. Eyes soft, brow ever so slightly creased as he focuses on the simple task, the lingering traces of that private smile still tugging at the corners of his lips. He's dressed plainer, today, comfortably and practically for the work he was doing, and the shirt's slightly loose but still enough for him to see the frame of his shoulders. Verso's thought of that night in the opera house over the past months -- misremembered a few things, or changed over time.
Verso's fingers twitch at his side. The flower stem is neatly threaded into place, a soft purple against his lapel. As Gustave pulls way, he breathes, the faintest curse muttered curse under his breath, he should know better than this --
The movement is more sure than he actually feels, Verso's hand coming up between them, fingers skipping over Gustave's shirt, two fingers neatly curling into his collar. Just enough to pull him forward, for him to lean down -- and like that night, the brush of his lips is light, but this time, more purposeful. Ghosting against Gustave's mouth, his lower lip, leaning into him and turning his head until his lips are pressed against the corner of Gustave's mouth, a murmur against his skin. ]
-- So it does.
[ And he starts to lean back. ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 03:11 pm (UTC)But this time the man keeps moving, tipping forward, and then his mouth is there, warm and gentle, almost the idea of a kiss more than the actual thing, but it still feels like Gustave has been jolted back into mid-air and into gravity's clutches again. The feeling in his stomach when Verso kisses the corner of his mouth and murmurs a few quiet words there can't be all that dissimilar to the sudden and inexorable thud of hitting the pavement. The one is almost equally shocking to the other, and for a moment it leaves him almost as incapacitated.
And then his own hands are coming up, too fast and more than a little awkward, reaching for Verso before the man can step away again. His right hand comes to the side of his head, fingers sinking into dark waves of hair and sliding against the curve of his skull; his left hand... can't quite reach that high that quickly and instead lands on Verso's upper arm, fingers gripping there, and now it's Gustave's turn to pull: Verso toward him or himself toward Verso, he's not sure.
What is sure is how he's tipping his head just slightly to meet Verso's mouth again, a kiss that's no longer just the idea of the thing but the thing itself, firm and warm and just a little awkward, the way he himself is.
He had a chance before and missed it. He's not missing it again. ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 03:49 pm (UTC)He tends to think he can get away with it, has been surprised when he can't, but this time, well. This time he's waiting for it. He pulls back deliberately slowly, lingering in that moment when Gustave seems caught completely off guard, giving him time to respond -- and he pulls back on purpose. Forcing Gustave to have to reach for him if he wants to keep him there.
And he does. Hurried, a little awkward, but very clear in intention. Verso lets him, leans into it, his breath catching slightly when he feels the other man's fingers twist through his hair, slightly cool metal as he Gustave grips his arm, as Gustave clearly, unambiguously, kisses him.
And just like that, there's a shift in Verso's demeanor. Immediate, like a switch being flipped: it seems all he needed was permission. He winds an arm around Gustave's waist, hand pressed to the small of his back, lifting the other man's body against his own. His other hand lifts to his cheek, cradling his jaw. Where his touches before were fleeting and featherlight, this is a firm, warm weight. Where everything before was more of a gentle question, this starts to edge into a hint of demand -- most of all in the way Verso kisses him back. Thumb soothing through scruff and against his beard to press into the hinge of his jaw, urging his lips to part further so he can tongue into his mouth, teeth catching against his lower lip. Warmth edging into heat, a quiet rumble in his throat, sounding in his chest like the gravel in his voice. ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 04:10 pm (UTC)It feels like falling into a fire. Verso isโ everywhere, hands and mouth and tongue and teeth, and the sound he makes feels like someone shoveled coal into the flames now licking up the inside of Gustaveโs chest. He groans, the sound tugging out of him, and his lips part until heโs meeting Versoโs open mouth with his own, wet and hot and needy. Itโs been so long since anyoneโs kissed him this way, like oxygen is a thing that happens to other people. He could breath Verso in and drown and barely care at all.
His fingers fist, gripping into the manโs hair, into the cloth of his jacket, and he should really be careful not to tear it, but heโs been careful for so long, really, and just for this moment he wants to forget that itโs necessary, that careful people live longer. He runs the edge of his teeth over Versoโs bottom lip, nips not quite gently; presses another kiss to the corner of his mouth, stubble and soft warm skin and hot breath all combining to fill his head like champagne. ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 04:38 pm (UTC)He'll still regret this later, probably. But he'd have regretted not doing anything just as much, and Verso's hardly above indulgence.
The more Gustave gives him, the more Verso takes. Gustave leans into him, and that hand Verso has pressed against the small of his back all but hauls him against his chest, sliding down to the base of his spine. He groans against his mouth, and Verso answers it with a sound that's more like a growl, wanting to hear more as much as he wants to make it so Gustave can't make any sound at all. His other hand drops from Gustave's cheek to his shoulder, squeezing, feeling -- and getting a bit more leverage. Easier to move him, taking one step, another, until he's pushing him against -- something, some metallic trellis frame, decorative, grown over. Verso barely registers what it is and doesn't care, only that he's using it to make it easier to crowd Gustave completely, pinning him there with his weight.
That hand lifts from his shoulders to fist through his hair, fingers carding through those soft waves and curls. When Gustave nips at his lip, Verso answers with something that's bordering on a bite, and when his lungs finally burn enough that it forces him to actually pull back to breathe, he uses his grip in his hair to push his head back, baring the curve of his throat, mouthing down over his neck.
The bit of air he's getting there does seem to clear his head enough where he slows down slightly -- another question, somewhere in there. His eyes flickering open, eyes half-lidded, a hunger and absolute focus in them that borders on predatory. All he needs is permission -- and if Gustave hasn't already started to realizing it, he might quickly learn that Verso really will keep taking, as much as Gustave keeps giving. ]
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Date: 2025-05-24 05:23 pm (UTC)His back slams into something hard, smacking what little air heโd managed to get right back out of him again, and when Versoโs mouth finds his throat the sound he makes is charred around the edges, singing the breath he manages to drag in right before he loses it again. He doesnโt think anyone has ever wanted him this way, rough, hunting, taking and taking and painting every nerve and vein into life with the sweep of hands and sharp grazing teeth and a body thatโs pressed irrevocably against his, covering him like a landslide. He doesnโt think heโs ever wanted anyone else this way before, where his hands canโt grip hard enough or touch enough; the hand in Versoโs hair releases to run a palm roughly over his neck, blunt fingernails scraping against skin. He smells something crushed and green and fresh behind him, feels plants and leaves break between his back and the thing Verso has him pinned against. The back of his shirt is going to be stained indelibly green. He doesnโt care.
His own eyes are huge and black, widely dilated when Verso looks up at him; his mouth is flushed and pink and a little sore from where the man had bit him, from the force of his kisses. Gustave swallows, curves his hand around the back of Versoโs neck, thumb running along skin, and nods. Once, twice, again and again. ]
Yeah. Yeah.
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Date: 2025-05-24 05:51 pm (UTC)Gustave's responses are everything. He's reactive, vocal, a live wire under his fingers and tongue. Verso looks at him like he's drinking in the sight of him, his hair already a mess, pupils wide and dilated, lips kiss-bruised, and just seeing the effect he has on the other man is in itself intoxicating. He leans into Gustave's touch, fingers at the back of his neck, thumb along his skin -- waits for the nods. The halting, but very clear affirmation. Keep going.
He lets his teeth catch against the pulse in Gustave's throat, soothing over the slight nick he leaves in his skin immediately with his tongue, keeps moving upwards until he's pressing another kiss to his lips. This one a bit lighter, sweet, a vehicle for the answer; ]
-- Okay.
[ His voice is breathy, rumbling deeper. Answering him with actual words, just so Gustave understands he's listening, he can tell him to slow down, keep going, stop. Right now, though, Gustave's message is clear, and Verso doesn't feel like talking. He actually does peel back from him, for just a moment, straightening back up to his full height, taking a moment to start to shrug his own jacket off of his shoulders, pausing somewhere in that movement to glance down at the flower tucked against his lapel. It's still there, barely, half of its petals crushed down, some purple stained against his jacket. His gaze flickers up to Gustave's almost apologetic, the corner of his mouth quirking up in a smile. Oops.
The jacket gets shrugged off completely, falling to the ground behind him -- the rest of the flower might well survive. But Verso's moving back in again almost before the jacket even hits the floor, this time going straight for the side of his neck, heated open-mouth kisses trailing down over his skin. One hand tangles back through Gustave's hair, the other finding his waist, keeping him still against the frame behind him as he fits their hips together. ]
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Date: 2025-05-26 01:52 am (UTC)Or maybe it's more like he's a fresh steak, and Verso is a man who hasn't eaten in a month. There's something undeniably wolfish in the way the man studies him, like he's determining the best course of action to take him apart, piece by piece. There's something of the satisfied artist in his expression, too, reminiscent of the smile he'd had when Gustave applauded his performance all those months ago, like he's already pleased with his work.
He should be. Gustave swallows, his throat tight and his chest rising and falling rapidly as he pulls what air he can into himself before Verso's there again with a bright scrape of teeth against his throat and an actual, quick sting of pain that's immediately soothed by the flat of his tongue. This time, the sound Gustave makes comes from his throat, not his chest, more a cry then a groan, cut off and caught against the back of his tongue. ]
Ahโ
[ But then the kiss that lands on his lips is almost gentle and even Verso's rough voice is as soft as the puff of breath it's carried on. Okay. A question no longer forgotten but asked and answered and acknowledged. ]
Okay.
[ His own voice is low, almost a whisper, and Gustave's hand relaxes in the material of Verso's jacket as he leans to press another, gentler, lingering kiss to Verso's mouth. His fingers let go of cloth and spread instead over his chest. He thinks he can feel the man's heart beating even through the metal of his palm.
Somehow, he manages to force himself to let go of the man when Verso backs away, leaving him bereft and weirdly cool in the breeze that sweeps over the roof and tugs at his mussed hair, the collar of his shirt, the vines and flowers behind him. They rustle and shift, but his eyes stay locked on Verso, watching the way his jacket shifts off his shoulders. Verso glances down, then up again with that slanted smile, and Gustave laughs, breathless, heady. There's so much he doesn't know and more he doesn't understand โ where has Verso been all this time, if this is what he wanted why did he leave that night? โ but right now all he can focus on is that little shrug and the apologetic tip to the man's head. ]
I can always get you more flowers.
[ He'd like to get Verso more flowers, he thinks, and not only to see that look on his face again, the one that crossed his features seemingly unbidden and made him look for a moment so much younger, surprised and a little bemused. A bouquet for a concert, a boutonniere for his jacket, petals strewn in the thick, richly dark and stark white waves of his hair.
The jacket hits the rooftop with finality, and Verso's already in his arms again, body one long perfect line pressed to his as his mouth finds Gustave's throat, roaming over skin like the space Gustave bares with a tip of his head belongs to him, has always belongs to him. Gustave closes his eyes to the attack, another low sound punching out of him as he runs both hands, fingers spread possessively, over the cloth of Verso's revealed shirt from back to ribs to the lean slopes of his side. He palms the man's trim hips with firm hands, dragging him closer, slotting them against each other until they're pressed to one another from knee to chest. ]
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Date: 2025-05-26 02:56 am (UTC)That, and he's by nature focused, intent. Cautious to a fault until the moment is right, and then throwing himself into it with reckless abandon after. Flirting around the edges, seeing what Gustave might let him do, and the moment its clear the man wants him -- he likes getting out of his head, and where better else to go than just narrowing in on making someone feel good. And Gustave, earnest and expressive as he is, seems like an especially potent drug for this, his every catch of breath something Verso drinks down with hunger and want, that quiet cry, the way he's breathless around his words, the taste of him under his tongue, warm and sweet.
He shudders appreciatively from Gustave's touch, his hands over his shirt, over his hip, the way the other man drags him closer. Without the jacket it feels that much easier to fit their bodies together, to feel how the other man's angles and lines mesh against his own, and he kisses his way over beard and scruff. He nips at the shell of his ear, murmuring against it; ]
-- For my performance?
[ Low, with a laugh. The piano, or this? He chases the question with another kiss, open-mouthed and wet and needy just under his ear, back down the side of his neck, latching onto the join of his neck and shoulder, sucking hard enough to start to leave the hints of a bruise -- considerate enough to do that where it's reasonably easily hidden, at least. Reasonably.
He rolls his hips forward against Gustave's, shoving his thigh between the other man's legs, pushing his knee against that metal frame behind him, pressing up. One hand pressed against Gustave's side starts to tug a little at the material of his shirt, freeing the hem enough for him to push his hand underneath it, fingers dipping past the fabric to reach bare skin. ]
I hope it's still deserving.
[ He wouldn't mind more flowers. Wouldn't mind seeing him again. He knows he can't, he really fucking can't, but right now what he should know just fades back to what he wants and needs, and right now he thinks he'd like to see this man again tomorrow, and the day after, just as much to taste him more, just as much to see him breathless in wonder as the night he'd played for him on that lonely stage. ]
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Date: 2025-05-26 01:11 pm (UTC)He groans again, left hand gripping Verso's hip, rocking his own hips reflexively into the pressure. It's impossible to miss the effect the man's having on him, the heat and strain between his legs. His blood is at a hard simmer at the multi-pronged attack on his senses, mouth and body and leg and hands all working in tandem to play him as easily as Verso had played those melodies all those months ago. ]
Heyโ
[ Laughed, breathless, as his right hand comes skating up Verso's back to fist fingers into his hair, drawing firmly to guide his head back up from where the man's dedicatedly trying to drive him crazy, mouth moving over the curve where his neck meets his shoulder and lighting every nerve there into fizzy life. Gustave tips his head to kiss the angle of his jaw, lips brushing over the soft roughness of beard and scruff, coaxing Verso back into meeting his mouth again. ]
Don't make me have to explain bruises like that to my sister unless you want her to invite you over for dinner.
[ Not that he precisely wants to think about Emma in this moment, but there's never a time when she and Maelle aren't always somewhere there in the back of his head, two constants within every equation he calculates. No life in Lumiรจre belongs only to the person living it, and he's no different: every choice he makes affects not just him but the two people dearest to him in the entirety of this shrinking world.
It doesn't stop him from releasing his fingers from Verso's hair to slide them over his shoulder, folding back his loose collar to bare more of the man's skin, even as he shivers at the touch of Verso's fingers against his side. He ducks his own head to run his mouth over warm skin, following the graceful line of his throat down to the rise of his collarbone, tracing angles and curves with mouth and tongue and the edge of his teeth. ]
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Date: 2025-05-26 01:41 pm (UTC)But that's not the world they're in. The world they're in is Verso once again vanishing without a word, and maybe Gustave might be alive the next time he comes to Lumiere or maybe he'll be gone, and Verso will simply press on, watching Expeditioner after Expeditioner hurl themselves into certain death --
-- Refocus. Not this, not now. It's selfish, and Gustave may not forgive him for this ( if he lives long enough for it to be an option ), but for as long as this lasts Verso would like to pretend to be his monsieur le pianiste in a world where nothing matters but the breathless groans he can draw from his throat when he touches him just right. The moment passes, helped along by the heat of Gustave's mouth against his shoulder, his collarbone, his throat. He groans appreciatively, tucking his lips against Gustave's ear, the edge of a growl in his voice; ]
-- Maybe I want someone to see it.
[ Not just Gustave's sister, of course. And in the end, that slight bruise he'd managed to leave before Gustave urged him away is still somewhere hidden enough. But there is truth to that, a hint of a possessive heat under his words, a desire that many in Lumeire could probably empathize with: the want to leave a mark, that says after. And Verso knows, he knows he will have to leave Gustave again, and while its better for the man to simply forget him and move on, he can't help but want part of this to linger with him.
That edge of possessiveness is there when he twists his fingers back through his hair. Pulling his head up, gentle but firm, until he can crush their mouths together again. The kiss starts off a little lighter but then just like before starts to deepen, growing into something hungry, devouring. his hand sliding up further under the material of Gustave's shirt. The way he palms over his chest, calloused fingers tracing over lean muscle and skin, almost like he's learning him, mapping out his body with his fingers. His hand eases back down, over the muscle of Gustave's stomach, further down to pluck pointedly at the front of his pants, punctuated with that thigh still pressed between Gustave's legs, pressing up against him. The question is there, not verbalized, though this time, with the way he's tonguing into his mouth, Verso seems distinctly impatient for a response. ]
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Date: 2025-05-26 03:51 pm (UTC)As if there were any way Gustave would be able to forget him now, even without any visible reminders. The fresh green summer-hot scent of crushed plants that wafts through the air now will always carry a little of the taste of Verso's kisses on it. It'll be a long while before he'll be able to see a purple flower and not remember the one that was smashed between their bodies, how it looked, tucked snugly into Verso's lapel, in the moment before he kissed him. ]
You think you haven't marked me already?
[ Not visibly so, but it's there, drawn along the inside of his chest in lines of fire, a little uncomfortably similar to the way he can tag a target with pictos for an attack. Verso is there already, bruises and the pink flush of a bite mark just superficial remnants of his touch, his mouth, the path he's taking along Gustave's body. They will fade far sooner than the true mark he's leaving behind.
Verso's hand runs over his skin, traveling beneath the light material of his shirt, not hard but firm and it feels so good that it's an enormous shock when those fingers slide over a section of his body and are met with a surprised flinch of pain instead of pleasure. The side he'd landed on when they crashed onto this roof is scraped and sore, bruises blooming beneath the surface of his skin; he'd forgotten about it, lost in the heat and sensation of Verso's mouth against his and Verso's leg pressing between his and his own hands desperate to feel more of the man beneath his fingers.
It's a jolt, enough of one to feel for a moment like he's stuck his head into a bucket of cool water, clearing his steam-filled mind for long enough to lift his own hand away from Verso for the moment, lay it over the one the man has working at the front of his trousers. ]
โwait. Wait.
[ It's almost the last thing he wants to do โ wait โ but he pulls his head back from Verso's devouring kiss, enough to take a breath, to try and calm his wildly sprinting heart. His fingers curl around the hand he's stopped, and all he wants is to let go, to urge him onward, to take that hand and guide it lower to where he's so desperate for the man's touch, but this is all so sudden. He justโ needs a moment.
Gustave licks at his lip, sore and bruised with kisses, and smiles, searching Verso's expression, wanting to know what he's thinking beyond the need that's driving them both; if he's thinking at all. ]
Are all musicians this passionate?
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Date: 2025-05-26 04:23 pm (UTC)Then Gustave says to wait, and he does. His hand is still curled into the front of his trousers, but he settles his fingers against the hem, thumb running just underneath it against and soothing against heated skin, running over a button but not actually popping it open. The other man breaks away from his kisses, catching his breath, and Gustave might be able to see it in the way he almost but not quite sways back forward, in that burning hunger in his still half-lidded eyes. He has to actively push down the impulse to kiss him again anyway, to drown any protests on his mouth and tongue, to devour him whole.
But he does give him the space. His other hand, still tangled through his hair, slowly starts to relax, Verso forcing himself to do so, one finger at a time, until its just a gentle touch carding through those dark curls. And as Verso himself gets to breathe again, it's like his lungs only just remembered how much they were burning, there's a certain halting, hesitant quality to his response. Its not anything bad -- its more like being jarred, woken from a dream. If it weren't for that sharp, almost predatory hunger still lurking in his eyes, the distinct want with which his gaze briefly drops down to Gustave's lips, tracing the curve of his throat, it'd almost be like they're back in the opera house and Gustave had just interrupted him in the middle of his playing. Reality, unwelcome, seeping back in.
His fingers twitch. He wets his own lower lip with his tongue without realizing it, has to force himself to meet Gustave's actual gaze again rather than just keep staring at his mouth and thinking about how he just wants to keep kissing him. ]
-- I think. [ Breathe. And a bit of a laugh, as if at himself for realizing how out of breath he actually is. ] I think all artists are, monsieur.
Especially when struck by -- something inspiring.
[ Or someone inspiring, as it were. His hand shifts through Gustave's hair, watching some of those mussed curls fall back against his face. ]
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Date: 2025-05-26 05:54 pm (UTC)His own lips tug into another, smaller smile, one that isn't so wide and laughing but which seeps into his eyes and warms them, crinkling them up into fond half-moons. It's a little bit of an effort with his shoulder and arm joint still wrenched and awkward, but he lifts his left hand to curve it at the side of Verso's neck, running a cool metal thumb over warm, flushed skin. ]
Monsieur le pianiste. You play me like a song.
[ And like a song, he finds himself coming alive under Verso's touch, under the skill and passion in those fingers. His other fingers curl around the hand Verso has low against his belly, gently coaxing Verso to let go and let Gustave take his hand and lift it between them. He lowers his head to meet it, pressing a kiss to the tips of the fingers that had been driving him so mad with need. Another follows, gentle against calloused skin before Gustave parts his lips to slip the tips of those two fingers shallowly into his mouth, tasting the salt and warmth of them against his tongue, gently nipping at them with the lightest possible edge of his teeth.
He lingers a moment there, then turns Verso's hand over so he can press a kiss into his palm, against the thin delicate skin just over the pulse point at his wrist. ]
Are we in some kind of rush?
[ His voice low and still more than a little rough with lack of air, and despite his gentleness, there's heat in the way he presses his mouth to Verso's skin. ]
Must I take what I can now?
Will it be another nine months before I see you again?
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Date: 2025-05-26 06:26 pm (UTC)It always was, but its easier to forget and let that slip away when he's just carried by the moment, by heat and want and the desire to pull someone apart beneath him. Having space to breathe and think means his mind can't help but latch back on to the reality of things, who he is, where they are, who Gustave is, how much of a fucking idiot and a terrible person he's being for letting anything get this far -- and how he couldn't help himself, not nine months ago and not now. He doesn't know this man. He knows him more than Gustave thinks he does, with the time he's spent watching him from afar, but he still doesn't know him. But the immediate connection he'd felt that night was unmistakable. In the months since, he's thought back on it. Was it just music, was it just being able to play for someone again after literal decades? Yes, at least in part, he thought. But not entirely.
Because there's also this. That smile and how it stirs something in him, a faint fluttering that makes him feel almost a bit absurd when moments before he'd been kissing him like he needed the air from Gustave's own lungs more than his own. His touch, gentle and earnest even after Verso had distinctly tried to flood him out with something much more heated and raw. And just like before, the only word that Verso can find for it in the haze of his thoughts is -- disarming. And dangerous, for it.
For the incredible effort it clearly took for him to stop, Verso's easily coaxed into letting Gustave take his hand. He watches, pupils blown under half-lowered lids, as Gustave kisses delicately at the tips of his fingers ( the calluses there maybe a bit more coarse and rough than might be expected, for a pianist, not to mention spread across his palms ). His eyes widen noticeably when he takes those fingers into his mouth, his fingers twitching, pressing slightly down against his tongue. Watching him take them in so gently with those lips, kiss-bruised as they are, has a little almost-growl sounding in his throat, a reflexive tension through his shoulders before he pushes it down. Putain de merde, he just wants to push him down to the ground, right here on the rooftop.
There's that question, though. And again, a bit of a stillness in answering it. A flicker of something across his eyes that isn't just want. He keeps his hand relaxes in Gustave's grip, letting him do as he will -- only turning it only just enough to lightly trail his thumb against his lower lip. The gesture soft, affectionate -- and delaying the answer yet another moment more. ]
The only rush is mine.
You can forgive me, I hope, for being so -- inspired. [ The corner of his mouth twitches upward, something that's a bit more of a smirk than just a smile. Surely he can be forgiven for the great sin of finding Gustave so infuriatingly tempting that he's just desperate to get a taste of him, get a feel of him, to take what he can, before.
He wishes he could be honest. He wants to be. But especially when they're here on Lumiere, when Verso doesn't have the additional safety net of the sheer impossibility of Expeditioners making it home -- he can't afford the risk. But as always, while he'll lie through his teeth when it comes to it, if he can simply -- evade. Then that's better. ]
I can't tell you when you might see me again.
[ There's a sadness in his words, thats at least partially performance -- but its performance that comes from something true. It sounds like a man that could be talking about his own Gommage, or anything else that might be in his future that might take him away from this, from the world. Verso doesn't know how old Gustave is, and will not ask, because it invites the question in turn, invites a necessary lie. So he genuinely doesn't know if he might see him again. And when life in Lumiere is what it is, desperately clawing something for itself out of the dark . . . His fingers curve slightly to gently press under Gustave's jaw, guiding his head up ever so slightly, to look at each other full in the eyes. ]
-- But I think we're all always taking what we can.
[ In the time they have. ]
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Date: 2025-05-26 07:40 pm (UTC)He presses a last kiss to warm skin, then allows Verso to tip his head up so their eyes meet, and Verso is... wistful, maybe. The ripple of sorrow underlying every note he'd played those months ago now seeps into his eyes, the line of his mouth, the timbre of his voice. ]
I don't understand.
[ It's a kneejerk reaction to that sadness, not the words that come after — Gustave is plenty familiar with those in Lumiere who choose to grab hold of anything they can, savoring it, lingering in it, indulging in the physical and whatever small delight they can. He doesn't think they're wrong — they all do that here, to a greater or lesser extent — but Verso hasn't struck him as that sort of person. If he were, wouldn't he have shown up that night at the opera house? Wouldn't he have coaxed Gustave to stay longer during their very first meeting?
His metal hand isn't as desirable for touch as his flesh and blood right hand, maybe, but Gustave shifts it a little up the line of Verso's throat anyway, thumb rubbing through scruff along the angle of his jaw. ]
If you want to see me, you can.
[ So there must be some other element to all this. Maybe he's married; maybe he's spoken for in some other way. Maybe he's throwing himself into training for the next Expedition. Maybe he has some disease which will steal him away even before the next Gommage.
Gustave shifts the way he's holding the man's hand and guides it back towards himself again, to his chest, settling Verso's palm back on his belly. If you want to see me, you can. If you want to touch me, you can. ]
I'd like to see you again. But I think you know that already.
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Date: 2025-05-26 08:40 pm (UTC)But in this, for a fleeting moment, he feels something twist in his chest. He wishes someone could, wishes Gustave could, but no -- no. With the weight of what he knows . . . He wouldn't wish it on anyone.
He leans into Gustave's touch, grounding himself back in this, in him -- the metal is cooler than his other hand, yes, but its a touch all the same, still has his warmth and intention to it, still has comfort. He can tell Gustave is trying to understand, to figure out what is holding him back, what keeps him away. And Verso will have to let him keep wondering. He'll never know. He turns his head slightly against his hand, metal as it is, brushing a kiss against his fingers, and his eyes flicker noticeably when Gustave guides his hand back down.
That's something he can focus on again. He thumbs over his navel, fingers curving back into the hem of his trousers. ]
I know. [ He knows now, though he's still at least a little surprised, had hoped that their encounter from nine months ago would be the last, unfortunate but forgotten in Gustave's mind. But now, after this, after learning he'd turned up that night with a bouquet in hand, after hearing Gustave's breathless voice tell him about how he's left a mark already. He knows. And feels awful for it, as much as he savors it, and feels awful for that in turn. Push that aside, swallow it down. Back to this, now. More -- urgent, matters. ] I can't promise that.
But I can give you something else.
[ Similar to before, his demeanor shifts. It isn't quite as instantaneous, not like a light switch, but an easing from one stance into another, almost the way one would shift in a fight, aligning his body to a different purpose. That hunger in his eyes never went away, but it did quieten down, patient enough, waiting -- and now it it surges back as he ducks his head. His other hand moves up to Gustave's hair, again, he does love how it feels between his fingers, tightening hard through the curls and yanking his head back to bare his throat so he can mouth hungrily over his pulse, pushing him up against the grown-over frame behind him as he kisses even further down towards the dip of his throat.
He shifts his knee again, pressing up between his thighs, rocking purposefully against him. His thumb plucks at the button of his trousers, pops it open -- but doesn't work on them past that. Instead he lingers there, fingers resting against him through the material, and it'd be easy to slip his fingers under the material to touch him, or even just palm at him over his trousers -- but he doesn't. His hand is just there, fingers resting over him but applying no pressure. All the while his kisses only get more heated, his body molding itself to Gustave's again, pinning him bodily to that trellis behind him. He kisses his way back up to his ear, his voice a murmur; ]
-- If you ask for it.
[ There's a hint of something teasing there, but there's also something else under the heat, an air of authority, a demand. With Gustave teasing him before, he might like to extract a little bit of petty revenge -- you told him to wait. Now you want him to touch you? He wants to hear you say it. ]
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Date: 2025-05-27 01:16 am (UTC)His fingers curl hard around Verso's wrist as the man undoes with a flick the button at the waist of his trousers but makes no other move aside from to press his thigh back up until Gustave groans, the sound falling off his lips as thick as tar, heat shooting dully up into his gut. All he can do is hold on, his left hand leaving Verso's neck for fear of tangling his hair in metal fingers and instead goes to his back, fisting in the material of his shirt. Hot breath scuds across his ear, carrying a growled order, and Gustave makes a sound that's half laugh, half groan before he turns his head to try and crush their mouths together. ]
Show me.
[ The hand at Verso's wrist loosens, runs warm fingers up his forearm, leaving Verso's hand where it is, teasing and warm and not close enough. Gustave pulls against the fingers in his hair, wanting more: more of Verso's mouth against his, more of that growled voice, more of his touch, more. If he can't be promised more tomorrow, or the day after that, then he wants it now.
But his own voice, though it's rougher around the edges now, tight with desire, is still warmer, softer than the other man's, murmuring his name against his mouth before Gustave kisses him again. ]
Verso.
Show me, please.
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Date: 2025-05-27 01:45 am (UTC)Putain. The things he wants to do to this man. A breathless laugh; ]
And how am I to resist?
[ He draws him into another kiss, just as hungry, just as raw -- but maybe a little elss edge, now. Dialing back a bit on pure instinct, on that drive he has deep in his chest to just take and take and take, more trying to meet Gustave where he is. Like an instrument, tuning himself to Gustave so better to pluck at his strings and drive him wild. Its no less passionate, tonguing deeply into his mouth to taste him, teeth catching against his lower lip in nips and bites.
Now, he doesn't hesitate. He lets his hand palm down, over the top of his trousers, just to drag it out for a few seconds more, finding the shape of him, an easy but firm pressure. And then back up, callused fingers teasing back over the flat of his stomach, tracing the muscles there and feeling the way his belly quivers under his touch -- before finally dipping down, past the fabric, following hot and bare skin. His fingers are firm, taking him into his hand, making some quiet appreciate sound into their kiss.
He lingers in that, just feeling him, merde its been a while, a long, long time. He breaks from their kiss briefly, catching his breath -- and just watching him, for a moment. Wanting to drink in Gustave's every response. The way he touches him and starts to slowly work his hand over him, the way his eyes are dark and focused in entirely on Gustave -- there is nothing else in the world, for the moment, other than this heat, nothing that matters more other than making him feel good. ]
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Date: 2025-05-27 02:13 am (UTC)His touch. That hand sliding down over the front of his trousers, making Gustave's hips rock reflexively into his palm, wanting more even as Verso teases him, slips his hand back up again along his belly, leaving Gustave shaking and almost crazed with want before finally, finally, dipping his fingers back under the band of his trousers, andโ ]
Merde.
[ A strangled curse as Verso's elegant, callused fingers close around him, hot and firm and perfect, and Gustave's head pushes back again, eyes sliding half-closed and his brows drawing inward into a furrow like he's in pain. It might look that way, if it weren't for how blown dark his eyes are, drugged and hazy with pleasure as Verso moves his hand against him, strong fingers and a rough hot palm against sensitive skin.
It's been almost two years since Sophie, and longer still since he was with anyone who looked, felt, anything like Verso, and all he can do is shudder against the metal trellis, both hands running feverishly over whatever part of Verso he can reach, gripping, holding on, while his hips try to push further, harder, into that mind-melting touch. His lips part, breath coming hard, and his heart has not slowed since the moment that grapple point crumbled and gravity took over.
He feels like he's still falling even now, as he forces his eyes open to meet Verso's, watching as the man watches him, how he can't keep everything he's feeling from scudding across his face like light over water. ]
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Date: 2025-05-27 02:39 am (UTC)He leans forward to brush a is against his mouth, catching Gustave's lower lip in his teeth, tugging on it slightly. Chasing it with his tongue, swaying back again so he can see him. ]
Gustave.
[ Its not even necessarily to say anything. Just a heated echo of his name, half-lost against his lips. Appreciative as much as it is wanting. ]
I thought you looked good before. [ Punctuating it with another squeeze, nimble fingers letting pressure ripple along the length of him. That thigh pressed between Gustave's legs stays where it is, warm, solid, a steady pressure to add to everything else. His other hand lifts to Gustave's cheek, cradling it against his palm, touching him just to touch him -- but also distinctly keep his head in place. So he can just keep -- watching him. ] Merde, you look better like this.
[ He wants to do more. He wants to push him down and spread him out across the grass and concrete. Wants to pick him up and sweep him away. Wants to sink to his knees, take him in his mouth -- and its there, in his eyes, just how much more he seems to want to do. But he's not pushing. Not pressing, at least not yet. Taking what he can, in the time they have. ]
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Date: 2025-05-27 03:13 am (UTC)But he can't stop watching Verso, his eyes heavy and half-lidded but steady on the man's face. Offered a little bit of control and Verso has already taken the bit in his mouth, ready to run wild. There's a promise in his eyes, in his voice, in the way he squeezes his hand and punches another low moan from Gustave's chest. And this promise, at least, looks far more reliable than the half-answers and evasion of earlier. Whatever else might happen, he thinks he can take Verso at his word when it comes to the things he's planning to do, wants to do to him.
Gustave, he murmurs, sending a hard, sidelong lurch through Gustave's chest, his already sprinting hard tripping and falling all over itself against his ribs. He wants to hear Verso say it again, wants to pull it off Verso's lips when it falls from them like a reflex. ]
I thought you looked beautiful.
[ Earnest, even now, even as he's being systematically burned into ash, just as completely as the Gommage itself. His eyes are dark, wide black pupils surrounded by a thin ring of color, but they're hazy and affection, as he reaches with his right hand to palm the man's cheek in return, fingers sliding through scruff, thumb brushing the scar that mars the skin beneath his eye. Fuck, but he had been beautiful, impossibly so, sitting there at that piano in front of a crowd of empty chairs, eyes downcast and fingers moving gracefully over the keys.
Here in the sunlight, in reality, he's almost painfully, heart-wrenchingly beautiful, every part of him like one of the tumbling measures of notes in his music. Beautiful and untouchable, warm and generous all at once. An impossible, infuriating dream of a person, somehow real and here and wanting Gustave just as much in return. ]
I still do.
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Date: 2025-05-27 03:45 am (UTC)It makes something ache and twist in his lungs, in the pit of his stomach, distinct even through the haze of lust and want. Maybe Verso just wants what he can't have. What he can't be. ]
I feel like -- [ He turns his head into Gustave's hand, letting him thumb along that scar ( old, but prominent, somehow not healed over enough to fade ), pressing a kiss to his palm. ] -- I feel like you're going to be the death of me.
[ He won't be. But in the moment, at least figuratively, it feels true. Gustave is beautiful, too, and he'd seen it that night, a stranger framed in the shaft of light from the opera house door, stepping haltingly towards the stage. Light catching in his hair, on the lapel of his suit, in those brown eyes that were so eager and curious to hear more. Beautiful in how he didn't just hear the music, but was listening, really listening, opened himself up to it, let it carry him away. Verso has spent so much of his long, long life behind a dozen different walls, and to have one man so effectively, disarmingly pull them down, even for moments at a time. It's devastating, leaves him clinging to the other dozen walls he still has, equal parts desperate to hold them in place and desperate to have them all torn down.
Verso suddenly feels a bit in over his head. Probably what he deserves, when he'd went into this wanting to flood Gustave out, to make him feel like he'd gotten into something he couldn't control and get swept up in heat and want under his mouth and tongue, but with just a few words . . A little shudder runs down his spine. His hand works over him just a little harder, a little more firmly. ]
Gustave. [ He leans in again. A kiss to Gustave's neck, up to his jawline, to the corner of his mouth. ] I want you.
I want more of you.
[ Simple. Direct. It doesn't have the ring of aching earnestness that Gustave does -- Verso simply can't do that. But it's raw, real, not lowering his voice to make it sound a certain way, not dancing around anything, just those words and the gravel of his voice, the heat and weight of his hand as he keeps touching him. But it is, intentionally, nonspecific. He wants to see what it does to him, what his face might look like as he imagines and wonders what Verso might want, what he might mean -- because he does want more. He wants more than this. But only as much as Gustave will actually give him, as much as Gustave himself might want. ]
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Date: 2025-05-27 09:55 pm (UTC)His own laugh, a breathless, burned-out groan chasing the tail end of the sound. ]
I hope not.
[ But right now it certainly feels like Verso might be the death of him. His heart is pounding, his breath too shallow and rapid to clear the steam of desire from his head. His hips push helplessly into the man's touch as his fingers curl into Verso's shirt. More.
A hot mouth chasing up his neck as he moans, head tipping back into the metal trellis, the leaves and vines there tangling in his hair just like Verso's fingers. I want more of you.
Merde, but what else can he say other than I want all of you in return? They're entwined just like these climbing vines, here in the sun, and he's almost as desperate to get his hands on Verso as he is for the man to never stop touching him. ]
I wantโ
[ So much more. Verso's body, and his smiles, and the way his eyes light up. More songs, drifting through the air. He wants time. To sit at a cafรฉ table with him and drink wine and let his warm, gravelly voice wash over him. He wants to run his mouth over every inch of the man's skin, here in the sunlight and again in the dark, sheets and shadows muddled around them.
His fingers slide into Verso's hair, curving around his skull, blunt nails running lightly over his scalp. ]
Yes. I want more of you, too.
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Date: 2025-05-27 10:23 pm (UTC)Putain, but he does love this. He answers him with another kiss, full on the lips, drowning a pleased sound against the other man's tongue from the feel of his fingers in his hair. When he breaks away its again to start to kiss down his neck, his other hand working firmly and languidly over him stilling in its rhythm. He pulls back, just enough to catch his gaze, his eyes lowered, pupils completely blown out -- and a smirk tugging at his lips. ]
-- Good.
[ Just the one word. Nothing more, and then Vero starts to ease down. Squeezing around him, fingers rippling pressure along his length, his free hand shifting between them to press against the flat of his stomach, to roll his shirt up until more of his skin is exposed to the air. Verso kisses at his neck, his collarbone, mouths lightly over his shirt and hotly over the muscle of his stomach, tracing hard lines, kissing near his navel, easing down to his knees. His hand moves to his trousers, pulling them down until they're tangled around his thighs.
He lingers there for a moment, turning his head away to trail his mouth along one inner thigh, roughness of his beard and scruff scratching lightly at his skin -- but he won't drag it out for too long. Flicking his eyes up to look at him, as hungry to watch him respond as he is for this, tongue wetting his lips before his mouth falls open and he starts to swallow him down. ]
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Date: 2025-05-27 10:49 pm (UTC)What are youโ
[ But the question is answered before he can even finish the words, as Verso pushes at the material of his shirt and starts working his way down the shaking line of Gustave's body, trailing fire in his wake. All Gustave can do is watch, his throat working, going dry, and thread the metal fingers of his left hand into the trellis behind him like he's bracing himself.
Cool air scuds over bared skin, kissing the tops of his thighs with an even more teasing touch than Verso himself, and Gustave shivers at the brush of his beard, rough and soft all at once, over flushed, sensitive skin, only to shudder hard as Verso ceases his mischief and turns to the task at hand, leaning in to slide him along the hot wet warmth of his tongue and into his mouth. ]
Verso.
[ His eyes squeeze shut involuntarily, metal fingers gripping the trellis so hard the wire bends. His other hand, shaking, palms the side of Verso's head, runs down his neck to his shoulder as Gustave marshals every last bit of control he has left to keep from simply rocking his hips mindlessly into that perfect wet heat.
It's an effort to open his eyes even halfway, pupils blown huge and dark and drugged with desire, but he wants to see, to watch, as much as Verso wants to watch him, even as the sight of Verso's mouth wrapped around him threatens to shove him over the cliff edge without even another moment's pause. A breathless curse falls from his lips as his breath catches, as melting heat threatens to overwhelm him. It's been so long and it feels so goodโ ]
Putainโ
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Date: 2025-05-27 11:13 pm (UTC)Verso lets his eyes slip shut for moment -- its been a while, but he knows what he's doing. Sinking down further, inch by inch, making a low pleased sound that Gustasve would be able to feel rumble in his throat. He likes the taste of him, the weight of him on his tongue, the way he can feel him hot and throbbing, likes his desperation. He's been trying to get really overwhelm him this entire time, push him out of his head, away from his thoughts, make it so he can't think or do anything but feel, and feel good -- and this seems to have finally gotten them there. He'll savor it.
He winds an arm around one of Gustave's legs, hand sliding up the back of his thigh -- and not at all helping Gustave hold himself back as his hand palms roughly over his ass, pulling him closer, almost urging him to move. His other hand moves instinctively to brace himself against the metal frame through crushed and broken vines, blindly brushing against Gustave's metallic hand and immediately moving so he can cover it with his own, holding onto him. Verso breathes in, smells crushed grass and greenery and dirt, smells him and his eyes flicker open again to look up at him as he shifts slightly where he's knelt on the ground.
He pulls back. Slowly, deliberately, letting his tongue drag against him in his mouth, all the way back along the length of him until Gustave is leaving his mouth with a wet pop. One fleeting second where he'd be without that heat, without any pressure and touch, before he's pressing his tongue to him and immediately starting to swallow him down again. Faster, this time, closing his eyes again on another muffled pleased groan, finding and settling into his an easy rhythm. ]
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Date: 2025-05-27 11:41 pm (UTC)His lips part as he watches Verso pull slowly back, as he feels it in his gut, like the man has reached a hand into him and is now dragging his stomach, his lungs, his heart right out of his body. The sweet suction and the feeling of the man's tongue sliding along the underside of his length is almost enough to drive him mad, cool air brushing over hard wet skin and making him shiver again.
And then Verso's there again, dragging another groan out of Gustave's chest and filling his world with heat, with the softness of his tongue and the slick hot perfect pressure of his mouth, and this time Gustave can't stop himself, pushes his hips forward to rock more firmly into that mouth, tiny movements to match Verso's rhythm for the moment. If Verso doesn't stop him, though, they'll speed up, little by little, and the rolling motion of his hips will push a little harder, a little deeper, as he pants for breath, as he watches Verso's face, his closed eyes and the smudged line of his lashes against his skin.
He's beautiful. Again, again. As beautiful here on his knees, making that indulgent, pleased sound that rumbles in his throat and straight into Gustave's gut, making his hips jerk and a flash of white heat run right up his spine, as he was there at the piano, idly picking out a melody. Beautiful. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 12:12 am (UTC)Verso himself doesn't stop either, not content to let Gustave just move against him, keeps building his own rhythm with him, working his tongue and his throat around him as much as he can. Verso's hand shifts over Gustave's left hand on the frame, his own fingers fitting between the gaps of Gustave's metallic ones, gripping onto him tightly.
His other hand palms hard over his ass, back down to the back of one thigh, gripping hard enough to leave some bruises in his skin alongside everything else -- and then falling away. It's a bit clumsy, compared to how he touches Gustave, its clear where his focus and attention really is, his mouth and tongue never faltering as he bobs against him and he pops open the front of his own trousers. He starts to work a hand over himself, languid, unhurried, almost an afterthought compared to his focus elsewhere but doing it all the same, groaning appreciatively around his mouthful, eyes flickering open to look up at Gustave again.
This is nice. This is good. No need to think about anything other than this, Gustave in his mouth and under his hands and under his tongue and above him and under him and everywhere else, Gustave and his breathless gasps and moans, Gustave and his hips rolling deep and hard against his mouth, his grip tight over his neck and shoulder, anchoring him close. If Gustave wants to stop, he'll have to summon self-control himself, because Verso isn't stopping him, hungry to keep pushing him on and on and on until he hurtles over the edge. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 12:38 am (UTC)He's watching when Verso slides his own hand down between his legs, opening his trousers with casual ease to take himself into a curl of fingers, and it sends another wave of heat boiling through him, tightening low in his belly. The thought that Verso is doing this to him, enjoying it that much, that he's touching himself at the same time, and Gustave wants to feel it, too. Verso hard and hot and wanting in his hand, his mouth, against his body. He wants to hear the sounds the man might make, see his expression cracked open and bared.
And then, suddenly, it's all overwhelming. Too much, too fast, it feels too good and his hand is tightening against Verso's cheek. ]
Versoโ
[ He doesn't know if it's a warning or simply another helpless reflex, unable to say anything but that name that comes hard off his tongue, chased by a long, low groan and a stumbling, fraying collection of curses. ]
Putain, Versoโ my godโ
[ Everything tightening and tightening, coiling hard until his hips judder and the pleasure peaks almost painfully, punching out of him in sharp bursts, his body shaking like he's been hit with round after round of chroma shots as he comes hard into the man's mouth. He groans again, rough, as his hips jerk a last time, a dull, blooming ache following the wave of sensation as it crests through him and slowly settles again. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 01:01 am (UTC)And fuck, he loves it when he says his name. Especially like that, when it doesn't even sound like he's calling him, when it just sounds like the only thing he can think to say, when he tumbles on over and in the mess of his thoughts as he's overwhelmed by the heat and pleasure the only thing he can do is curse and call his name.
When that tension builds, when he knows he's right on the edge, Verso shifts. He lets go of himself, lets go of Gustave's metal hand, instead running his hands along his thighs, gripping his hips tight, bracing himself, bracing him, relaxing his throat and sinking down and taking him as deep as he can, all the way, lips stretched around his base even as Gustave's hips continue to jerk and try to push himself deeper -- and fuck, when he comes. He shudders with it, leaning in, sinking down, swallowing him easily and readily. His throat burns, just a little, still out of practice, but he doesn't even care or mind, thumbs pressing into the line of his hips, kneading into skin and muscle as he rides it out.
He stays there, suckling and swallowing down, until he feels him soften, until he knows he's completely spent and even then lingers just a while more, sweeping his tongue over him in his mouth just to savor it that much more. Verso shifts his weight back slightly on his calves, finally leaning back, letting him slip from his mouth and immediately turning his head to press a kiss to one thigh. Still with that smirk, looking quite self-satisfied.
He'll wait. You take your time and catch your breath. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 01:35 am (UTC)Well, he's earned it. Little aftershocks ripple their way through Gustave's veins, trembling and twitching in his muscles. His body feels heavy, sated in a way he hasn't been in... longer than he'd like to recall, and his head is only just beginning to clear of the smoke that had filled it, driving out every thought but how good it felt and how impossibly beautiful Verso is and how his every touch seemed to coax Gustave's body back to life.
One by one, he carefully uncurls his fingers from the trellis, where they've dented the wire beyond hope of repair, until the only thing keeping him upright is the metal behind him and his own dazed and trembling legs. Slowly, Gustave shifts down, knees bending, keeping his weight back until he can finally come to his knees in front of Verso, and he's smiling, wide and white and laughing, his eyes pressed into cheerful half-moons. ]
What a mess you've made of me.
[ His pants around his knees, his shirt a stained and wrinkled mess, his body bruised and scraped and aching and still feeling as though he's flying, even now, as he reaches for Verso with both hands, curving his palms at either side of his jaw to drag the man in for a lazy, heated kiss. He can taste himself on Verson's tongue, sex and musk and salt, and it jolts into him again. The edge is gone, but he still has wants, and they still involve the man kneeling here with him. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 01:53 am (UTC)Which, ah. There it is. That sinking feeling, the reminder of who he is and where they are. His eyes flicking briefly from Gustave's to the sky behind him, still bright, the shards of the Continent and the monolith suspended between clouds stretched across the sky. But before he can even start to think about what kind of excuse he could try to make to leave -- Gustave is there, sinking down beside him. Instinctively Verso reaches to his waist, the tiniest flicker of a frown creasing at his brow, watching how he holds his weight, remembering he's still hurt, but he seems well enough. Not just smiling, but laughing, reaching close.
Some part of him thinks, now. Now he should pull away. But the thought never materializes beyond that, not when it's so easy to just lean back into him, to wind both his arms around his waist and let himself be pulled in. He kisses him back easily, that heat and want still present even if some of the urgency has edged back.
This has gone poorly, technically. But it feels good. He breaks from the kiss, sitting back a bit to look at him, pupils still blown. Gustave is still beautiful. Maybe more beautiful, like this, all freshly taken apart. One hand stays around his waist, sliding up a bit under his shirt, following the notches of his spine -- the other reaches for his face, tucking some messy hair back. Its futile, it falls back forward, Gustave's hair is a mess with how much he's been gripping it. ]
My finest work.
[ A smile. And -- ]
I -- shouldn't stay.
[ Even to his own ears it sounds half-hearted. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 02:37 am (UTC)He'd kept everything so neat and tidy and closed-off until then. Until this. And now he feels a lot like this ruined rooftop garden: a mess of color and life and damaged goods. He leans his head into Verso's touch and chuckles, rumbling low in his chest as his own right hand runs down along the line of the man's neck to that rumpled collar, starts working at the buttons of his shirt. Fingers patiently slipping each out of their buttonhole, one by one. ]
You think I'd let you go right now? Really?
[ He has no intention of letting Verso disappear again so soon, not when he can't extract a promise of tomorrow, of another day, an evening, a night. Gustave angles his left hand at Verso's jaw, tipping his head so he can lean forward and taste the flushed skin at his throat, mouth working slow and warm over the pulse point there as his fingers drift lazily down his chest, working his shirt open. ]
When I haven't even had the chance to get my hands on you yet?
[ His burning need has been sated, little ripples of it still coursing through him, but his desire still burns. And it's his turn. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 02:54 am (UTC)But his protests are half-hearted. He wants to be convinced. Spend a bit more time as this man's monsieur le pianiste. So while he does look up, again, at the sun moving through the sky, at the shattered Continent beyond -- he does not move to stop him when Gustave's hands start to run along his shirt, working at each button, one at a time. ]
Perhaps I thought -- [ his voice breaks off quietly on a quiet sigh, the heat of the other man's mouth in his throat, his jaw. Those fingers continuing to wind their way down his body, that coiled-tight heat still burning in his own stomach, between his legs. Would it be so terrible? Does he have to be so above everything? That sigh edges into a laugh. ] -- I thought you might want to get me more flowers.
[ For his performance, obviously. This one is just as deserving. Merde, he really is awful, and it's a good thing its unlikely Gustave will ever have to learn any of the thousand truths that Verso has to hide, a good thing that he'll likely never even have to try to hear Verso apologize. He shouldn't have come back to Lumiere at all, not so soon.
But now that he's here, well. He lets his arm stay around around Gustave, hand sliding up the long line of his spine, tangling back through his hair. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 03:15 am (UTC)But Verso doesn't do any of those things, and in fact his arm stays around Gustave, coaxing him even a little closer, his fingers carding gently through the hair he'd mussed so thoroughly, and he doesn't look all that unhappy about it. His throat moves beneath Gustave's mouth, a sigh lowering his chest, and Gustave wants to drink every part of it in: the sounds he makes, the way he tastes, the feeling of his skin beneath the tips of Gustave's fingers as he works at the buttons of his shirt, methodical. And he laughsโ merde, Gustave could go drunk on that laugh. He wants to pour it into himself like wine. ]
I do want to get you more flowers.
[ For this performance. For the last one. Simply to try and spark that surprise and that smile again. Or maybe because he has known Verso for less than two hours but the man is already doing his best to run off with a significant chunk of Gustave's heart and attention. He's... irresistible.
The last button parts easily from its buttonhole and Verso's shirt swings open, baring a wide swath of pale skin and firm muscle, the lines of him as beautiful as any of the statues gracing the streets and galleries and museums of Lumiรจre. Gustave pulls back just enough to lean his forehead against Verso's shoulder, eyes hooded as he watches his own hand palm over his exposed chest and stomach. Slipping up over the muscle of his abdomen to rub the pad of his thumb over a nipple before his fingers drift lower again, to his side, the angle of his hip, the loosened waist of his trousers. ]
Would you like more?
Flowers, I mean?
[ And not just flowers, he means. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 03:31 am (UTC)Verso tucks his face against Gustave's, kissing at his cheek and jaw, his breath catching noticeably when that thumb moves over his nipple. And down, to his already loosened trousers, still just barely staying slung around his hips.
It's intoxicating. He wishes he could stay, that he could just -- forget everything else, for longer than this.
He haind cards through his hair, slipping down to Gustave's jaw, tipping his head up -- getting briefly distracted just looking at him, how fucking beautiful he looks with those lips bruised with his kisses and cheeks still flushed from everything he's done to him before now -- before kissing him on the mouth again. ]
You make that sound hard to resist, monsieur le fleuriste. [ A laugh there. The guilt wallowing in his chest is still a bit distant, hasn't fully hit him yet. Maybe he'd like to keep it at bay just a little longer, even if it's going to make the regret that much work. ] I think I would like more flowers.
You have me here now.
[ And later, he'll still have to leave. Time to make the most of it, Gustave. His other arm wraps around him again, keeping him close, his hand palming up over the back of his thigh, squeezing over toned muscle. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 03:58 am (UTC)Do you think I'm a florist?
[ It's cute, a mirror to his own monsieur le pianiste, a title that might be more playful than wholly accurate, and he finds himself not caring at all if Verso calls him monsieur le fleuriste. What do they know about each other, really? One of them plays the piano, the other brought flowers. Perhaps it's enough.
He meets that laughing mouth again for another kiss, then works his way across cheek and the angle of his jaw to the other side of his throat, mindfully attentive to all the patches of skin he'd neglected kissing earlier. He mouths down along Verso's neck, paying particular attention to this spot or the next, whichever the man seems to like best, sweeping his tongue against warm, salt-spiked skin, nipping at the curve of his shoulder.
Verso had seduced him like a hunter, predatory intent in every touch, every kiss, burning him down to the ground. Gustave is warmer, sweeter, less taking and more giving, offering the adoration of his mouth and fingers to this man he has not been able to forget in nine long months. He shifts a little to give himself room, dips his fingers into the open front of Verso's pants to wrap warm, firm fingers around him. His own breath shudders out of him at the touch, lust curling back into his gut in a slow hot coil. He moves his hand firm and slow, long languid strokes as he lifts his head to watch Verso's face, studying his reactions, wanting to learn what makes him feel best. ]
Good.
[ A rough edge to his own voice as he savors the sensation of Verso in his hand: the weight and shape and length of him, soft hot skin hard against his fingers. He runs the pad of his thumb over the ridge of flesh, gently over his head. ]
I want you here.
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Date: 2025-05-28 04:31 am (UTC)I think you can be my florist.
[ Already a bit breathless, a bit of emphasis when he says my -- a dangerous amount of it, maybe, like everything else about this is. Much like how he can be Gustave's pianist. Verso knows that Gustave couldn't hope to understand that, really, how much it makes Verso's heart ache for someone to know him just as that. Still a few lies, they are a loadbearing pillar of Verso's entire existence, now, but few enough that it doesn't matter, that Verso could almost convince himself they're harmless. Someone who knows him for music played to an empty concert hall for no one else's ears, someone who knows him for the heat of their bodies tangled together. No shadows. No memories of fire and waking up to lungs that feel like they're full of ash and soot. No staring down the face of death and never reaching it, knowing the blood he tastes is just ink. No staring past the veil and wondering if any of him is real or it's all just an echo, resounding miserably into nothing. No lies. Or at least, almost no lies. Just -- monsieur le pianiste.
It might register as nonsense to Gustave. And that's fine.
He sinks into Gustave's attentions, his kisses. It's easy to be swept away by his own aggression, by the predatory intent which which he zones in on people, but Gustave's lavished adoration is intoxicating all on its own, even if -- subtly, but distinctly, there's part of him that's almost uncomfortable with it, holding himself back from relaxing into it completely. Little shivers and groans when Gustave finds the right places in his neck, his shoulder, holding himself back, just slightly. Gustave is painfully earnest and disarming as always, even here, maybe especially here, and right now Verso is still thinking enough to remember he shouldn't be here. To feel like he can't possibly deserve even half of Gustave's gentle adoration.
But then Gustave's fingers are wrapping around him, and that goes a good way to a suitable distraction. He's been hard and aching this entire time, just tends to give himself over to focus on another person, but that doesn't mean he didn't feel that strain and want and having it finally met by a touch that isn't his own, is enough to make his head spin, his eyes briefly falling shut on a groan.
Verso shifts against the grass until he's not just on his knees, but seated down, propping his back against the edge of some raised flowerbed, using that arm still wrapped around Gustave's waist to pull him in between his thighs, keeping him close, lifting his hips slightly against his touch, leaning up to press another kiss to the corner his mouth, mouthing hot and hungry down over his neck. There's something in him, for a moment, that clearly just wants to push Gustave down again, to roll him beneath him on the ground --
-- But he'll hold back. This once. Leaning back again to look at him through lidded eyes, pulling his hands back so he can palm up over Gustave's chest and then start plucking at the buttons of his shirt in turn. ]
-- Yeah.
[ Breathless, encouraging, his hips rolling once to press against Gustave's palm. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 01:23 pm (UTC)Verso shifts back, sprawled against the edge of a raised bed, looking like a dream of desire with his shirt awry, baring the expanse of a pale, perfect chest and his trousers hanging loose on his hips. Sunlight pours down over him like molten gold, kissing the white streaks in his hair and tracing loving fingers over his skin, and beautiful doesn't even seem like enough for the way he looks, open and inviting and half debauched already.
Gustave shifts, too, moving forward to brace himself on the wooden edge of the flower bed with his metal left hand as Verso trails his mouth over his neck, meeting those heavy, half-lidded eyes so full of promise and desire with his own intent and flickering with heat. Verso's hands start working at the buttons of his shirt and Gustave lets him, bending his head to catch the man's mouth with his again, harder now and deeper as he works his own hand lower, caressing soft, heavy pouches of skin, cradling him in his palm as he traces the pad of a finger in a firm, deliberate line between the man's legs.
It's been a while since he's done any of this to anyone but himself, but he has never been anything but dedicated and intent in his work, focused on every small detail. He listens to the way Verso breathes, the sounds he makes, and focuses on the way he moves, when he moves into Gustave's hand, wanting more, or not, and adjusts accordingly, hand moving with him, running back up to curl fingers around him again in a firm caress, following the rise and fall of his hips, never letting him escape sensation for even a second. He wants to surround him with it, like he's sinking into a warm bath, fill Verso's whole world, just for these moments, with him alone. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 02:00 pm (UTC)And there's his touch. Its been so long that Verso can't even really remember what the last time he let someone do this with him was like, likely some flickering moment of heat and and comfort with an Expeditioner a world away from their home -- and Gustave is a great deal more attentive and sweet than any touch Verso remembers, especially his own. It's different, but good, groaning low and quiet against the other man's mouth as Gustave cradles him against his palm, feeling those by now familiar calluses against him -- from a grip of a sword, he knows. And he wonders what how he fights. How long he's been with the Academy. If he has an Expedition in mind, how far away he might be.
He keeps one hand pressed against his chest, his other hand reaching up, tangling back through Gustave's hair again ( he does love the feel of those curls parting through his fingers ), tugging gently to pull him closer into their kiss, down to this nape and over his back, just -- feeling him, the shape of him, his muscles and angles and lines. Gustave's touch seems to move with him, every slight instinctive twitch of his hips or an upward press into a certain touch or pressure, the other man responding attentively to his every breath, every twitch of muscle, every pulse of heat under his fingers to chase after just what he likes. It's good, makes him think of wine, sinking into it deeper, more.
And it's -- subtle, but present. Not impossible to notice, especially for someone who's currently trying to pore attention over every part of him. A bit of tension that he seems to be carrying everywhere, in his shoulders, the pit of his stomach, in his chest. Gustave is beautiful and his hand and his mouth feel so fucking good, drawing a breathless curse from him that's completely lost against the other man's mouth and tongue, in their kiss. He's so attentive, feels like he's set on lavishing him with adoring attention. And Verso can't quite -- relax into it. Not completely. Not as much as he wants to. Not because there's anything wrong, or because Gustave is doing anything wrong.
But when Gustave is as painfully earnest as he is, especially now, he can't help but think -- whoever might deserve something as perfect as this, this man's focus and attentions and touch and his hands and mouth and tongue -- it's not him. He doesn't deserve this. Couldn't deserve anything even half as good. He can only pretend to and leave Gustave to wonder why when he vanishes, yet again.
He breaks from the kiss, ducking his head to kiss over his neck again, over the bruise he'd left at the join of his shoulder, even darker now than it was before. Pulling Gustave over him a bit more, like he just wants Gustave to really surround him, everywhere, pulling him a bit further down so he can mouth hotly from the jumping pulse in his throat down to his clavicle, over his chest, tonguing languidly over a nipple, his gaze still lustful and with that hunter's focus as he watches him through lidded eyes. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 04:14 pm (UTC)Verso's thumb rubs over his nipple, which tightens at the touch, sending a flare of electricity through him that's dragged deep into his gut by the fingers that sink into his hair again. It's impossibly mussed, and he can't care. He can't remember the last time anything felt so good as Verso's fingers sifting through those soft waves.
So yes: it's very nearly perfect, as Verso coaxes him even closer, shifting below Gustave to trail a path of heated kisses over his throat, his collarbone, down to his chest, but... it's not, quite. Something's wrong. The man is warm and languid beneath him, a gleam of wolfish desire in his eyes, and he's letting Gustave touch him however he likes, hips rolling up into each stroke of his fingers, butโ
Something's wrong. However much Gustave tries to coax him from his thoughts, from that last inch of reservation, of distance between them, Verso stays just slightly out of reach. An absurd thought, maybe, when the man is dragging him close and arching into his hand and his mouth, drinking down everything Gustave can offer him and seemingly wanting more, but it's there, he can feel it. A slight stiffness, something still withheld.
It hadn't been there when Verso had been so utterly focused on burning him to the ground, and now there's a slight hesitation in the way Gustave touches him, too, his mind worrying over the problem like a dog gnawing on a bone. Maybe Verso wants something faster, harder, more like what he'd done to Gustave himself; maybe he regrets staying, after all. Maybe he's already thinking about leaving. Maybe there's something wrong in the way Gustave is touching him, something he doesn't like but is too polite to mention.
He doesn't understand, and now something new curls into his stomach: frustration with himself, with the way he's not getting it quite right, not offering whatever it is Verso needs. Verso's tongue slides warm and wet over the taut bud of his nipple and he groans, the sound singed at the edges, and redoubles his efforts, hand firmer now around him, stroking faster, more deliberately as Gustave shifts his weight and winds his metal arm around Verso's waist, his knees spreading between the man's legs, pushing them further apart. Taking room that he needs to tighten his left arm around the man and lift as he himself twists, aiming to lay him back down again on the grass beside the flowerbed and following him down with his mouth chasing hard kisses along Verso's neck. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 04:56 pm (UTC)He wants this, wants Gustave, wants to lose himself in his touch. Earlier it'd just been easier, when he was just acting, taking, raw and aggressive, still chasing and hunting even when he'd started to slow down to match himself better to what Gustave seemed to want. He's just -- good. Earnest, sweet, wanting to make him feel appreciated and wanted and just awash in pleasure, but Verso's thoughts just can't help but linger a while on all the ways in which he's already lied to him and remind himself he doesn't deserve it at all.
Verso's surprised when he starts feeling that hesitation in Gustave's touch. Slight flickers of hesitation, uncertainty, worry. At first he just keeps leaning into him, drawing the nub of his nipple briefly into his mouth and sucking, a hand urging him closer, trying to be encouraging, assumes that like Verso himself it has just been a while. It takes him a few moments, his mind hazed by easy pleasure, to realize that Gustave is probably noticing, and, ah.
A twist of guilt through his stomach. He isn't lying in this. This isn't performance. Gustave above him with the sun in his hair and his shirt pieced apart looks like he might as well be an angel, and the way he works his hand over him feels incredible, every bit of friction making him feel like he's sinking deeper and deeper into some warm, intoxicating bath. He doesn't want the man to think he's doing anything wrong, but how does he even say anything to assure him?
Gustave takes care of part of that, at least. ]
Gustave -- [ breathed on a moan, saying his name because that's what's in his mind and on his tongue when he feels Gustave's hand work over him even faster, firmer, harder. Even feeling that arm braced around him he simply wasn't expecting for Gustave to literally lift him, even just partially, and lay him down. He's already breathless and so muddled with heat and want that the movement is enough to make his head spin, and again when he looks up the other man is already bearing down and Gustave is all he can see.
He wants to let go. Wants to give him this. Wants to be able to give himself over completely, even if just for this moment before reality sweeps him back to the Continent and beyond. And if anyone can quieten that last quiet tension that Verso is carrying -- it has to be this man, who'd been so captivatingly disarming even the first time they met with nothing more than a look and a smile. Verso arches slightly into his touch with a low groan, tilting his head to the side to give Gustave better access to his neck, throwing an arm back around him, sliding up over his back to twist once more through his hair and pull him down. He doesn't know how to put this into words, and so doesn't try, but in the way his hands roam hungrily over Gustave's body, his fingers pressing into the notches of his spine, the way he pulls him down to try and fit their bodies together, he hopes something gets through:
More. More of him. Gustave doesn't need to change anything, to try and chase after what Verso himself did or whatever else he thinks might "work" -- he wants the man himself, the same man who's been the most intoxicating wine he's had in what feels like a decade. So more, more of him, whatever he wants to give, until Verso stops thinking. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 06:03 pm (UTC)Yes.
[ His own voice is rough, more of a rumble than Verso's growl, but low and sandpapered with desire all the same.
His hand is pressed between them, working hard and relentless against Verso, wanting to feel him arch up again, and his knuckles brush against himself, too, sending showers of sparks through his own system once more, and it's his turn to groan against Verso's skin, head dropping for a moment to press his forehead against Verso's chest, trying to catch his own breath before he pushes onward. Verso's fingers are in his hair, running up his back, and he wants so much more of that touch, wants to feel it skating over every inch of bare skin, firm and gentle and burning and sweet, however the man wants to touch him.
And he wants this, too: to work his way down Verso's chest, setting his mouth over a nipple and drawing up tender flesh up into his mouth, hard and intent, before sweeping over it with the flat of his tongue. But even now, even as he works to set the man alight any way he can, thumb running over his head and fingers stroking, dedicatedly adoring him with mouth and tongue and touch, the edge that had been everywhere in Verso's touch, in his seduction, is missing, replaced instead by a stubborn, persistent sweetness.
He can try to emulate the other man, and it's true that there's another side to him, something harder and stronger than the kind and slightly awkward engineer who offered that purple flower what feels like an eternity and yet only seconds ago. There's something in him that's resilient, marked on his body in the calluses on his own hand, the strength of his shoulders, the intent way he moves. And yet, in the end, he can only be himself, and that self is a mix of both: the engineer and the expeditioner. A man whose broken heart is finally starting to beat again, and remembers what it is to want to lavish all the affection and warmth in him on someone else.
He kisses Verso's chest again and lifts his head to look up along the man's body, his shoulder moving with the rhythm of his hand. ]
Be with me.
[ Let him draw Verso out of his head. Let him coax apart those last lingering hesitations, until there's nothing left between them but the heat of their own bodies. ]
Here, now. Right here with me.
[ The last words muddled into Verso's skin as he lowers his head and presses kisses there, beginning to shift his way down the man's body, deliberate and determined. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 07:29 pm (UTC)Again his body arches up into his mouth when Gustave's tongue lathes over his nipple, and again Verso's hand clutching at the expanse of his back for something to hold onto finds itself moving to his hair, twisting, tangling -- holding on a bit too tight, pulling him in, keeping him close. This feels good, feels maddeningly good, but the walls he's built in himself in his heart and in his mind have been built over decades and will never crumble. And that's fine. That's fine. That's what the walls are for, and he never expected them to fall away for anyone, and that's for his own good, for Gustave's, too. The lies will come back eventually, and there are only more to come.
-- Then there's Gustave's voice. It breaks through everything, has his eyes flickering open, Verso only just now realizing he's been squeezing his eyes shut tight enough that he sees stars. He sounds a little rougher, but its otherwise clear and sweet, cutting through the fog like a bell, and Verso can feel the way it gives him something to anchor onto as he was lost adrift and drowning in that sea of pleasure. He looks down, sees Gustave looking up at him with those kiss-bruised lips and dark eyes, sees how the muscle of his shoulder works as he keeps touching him.
Be with me, he says, and Verso isn't sure if he actually manages to nod or if the little breathless yeah he thinks actually leaves his mouth as a sound at all or if it's just something that gets formed by his lips that's immediately stolen away by a groan. Gustave's attention and touches are so distinctly adoring, almost worshipful, still has something in his mind wanting to push away because he's not fucking worthy of it, but he keeps talking and somehow it becomes clear that -- it doesn't matter. Right now, it doesn't matter. It feels like Gustave not tearing any wall down but somehow just turning a corner and finding a door that was always there and pushing it open, immediately finding his way past any lingering defenses, pouring himself in like he means to stay there forever. Like he's somehow heard that Verso keeps thinking that he doesn't deserve this, that there are things he can never say or never tell that would change Gustave's mind about him forever, and the other man had simply pushed them away. Right now, here with him, Gustave seems to say, he can deserve it.
Another shudder moves through him, his hips rolling against Gustave's hand, his head tipping back against the grass and the sun-warmed earth. That last tension in him melts away. His fingers scramble through his hair, to the back of his neck. Gustave had said earlier that he played him like a song, and Verso feels like Gustave is hearing him like one. The man couldn't possibly know anything that's in his head, but just like sitting at that piano drags truths from his fingers that he could never bring himself to tell, it feels like Gustave just -- heard him, somehow, just like how he'd seemed to hear everything that night nine months ago, and with nothing but his continued insistence on his adoration, wore it down. ]
Putain -- [ he can feel himself getting closer. His fingers drag through Gustave's hair to the back of his neck, his other hand reaching out for something to hold onto and finding his arm, gripping onto him tight enough to almost leave bruises in his skin. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 08:06 pm (UTC)If he's going to be here, then be here. Let just this hour they've carved out from the world exist. If Gustave can't let himself wonder about the past or worry about the future, Verso can't either.
And it works, Verso's hands roaming even more desperately over him, carding through his hair, blunt fingers and nails digging into his back as Gustave continues to push himself lower. He follows the graceful slant from Verso's ribs to his stomach, kisses along firm muscle, the rough-soft scratch of his beard dragging over skin that's flushed and pink with heat and need. He can feel Verso's movements growing jerky, needy, his hips pushing helplessly up into Gustave's hand with every stroke as he curses into the warm air.
It makes Gustave smile, pleased, and press another kiss low along Verso's belly before he braces himself on his left elbow and strokes his right hand down along Verso's length, following it with his mouth, taking the man in just like had with his fingers, earlier.
It's not deep and drowning, the way Verso had attacked him, but it's dedicated all the same, Gustave sliding him against his tongue, lips wrapped around him, sucking as he moves his head and hand in tandem, stroking Verso with mouth and tongue and fingers all. He can't look up along the man's body to see the effect, but he's attuned to it anyway, listening, following every buck and shift of his hips, relentlessly surrounding him with friction and firm wet warmth. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 08:51 pm (UTC)His head falls back against the soft grass on a low moan, and its incredible how even though Gustave isn't blanketing him with his whole body anymore he still thinks he can feel him everywhere. And he is everywhere, wet and hot around him, suction and friction flooding through him and setting his nerves on fire.
Earlier when he's sunken down onto his knees to take Gustave into his mouth, Verso had been able to feel the tension wound up in him, how he had to stop himself from immediately moving and rutting against him. Right now, especially with the way he can barely hear himself think -- Verso is less concerned with stopping himself. His fingers fist through his hair once more, instinctively pushing his head down even as he lifts his hips into that sweet slick perfect heat of his mouth. He does get some hold of himself a moment or two later, breathing heavy, grip relaxing to card lightly through the strands almost in brief apology, but that thought can't last long in his mind either, not with Gustave's tongue and hand and mouth still on him.
Again, his fingers relax and then tighten, finding their grip just against the nape of his neck, but instead of forcing him down he's just working with the rhythm that Gustave finds, urging him up, urging him down. His body arches as he rocks his hips into his mouth, body arching along with it. He's already so close, Gustave already driven him there as he'd managed to finally lock him down into the hear and now and away from thoughts of the past or future. and it shows in how the rhythm of his movements starts to quicken and quicken. ]
Gustave -- [ His name, again. Verso's beginning to love how it feels falling from his lips. Its in part a warning, in part just the first thing to come to mind to say, and it does seem like he was going to have more words to follow, but they die and vanish in his throat. Instead he urges his head down again, hips shuddering and snapping up into that slick heat, an almost violent shudder running through his spine as he comes. ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 01:46 am (UTC)Merde, but he almost never wants to hear his name said another way again, the way that it falls from Verso's desperate lips, breathless and hapless and with that air of warning that Gustave ignores in favor of taking him deeper once more, running his tongue up against him as he draws firmly on him. And when Verso comes, hard and shaking, he stays there, swallowing him down, ignoring the burn at the back of his throat and the ache in his jaw until the man's shudders subside and he starts to soften against his tongue.
Carefully, Gustave draws back, uncurling his fingers as the skin beneath them softens, and gently lays him down before turning his head to press a kiss to the rise of his hip, the V of his groin. Every kiss is gentle, his touch light and warm, taking as much care as he can.
It's his turn now to smile, self-satisfied, when he tips his head back to look up at the man, wanting to see the effect he'd had on him, and he needs a moment to catch his breath, too, before he can reach down to drag his own pants back up to hang loosely from his hips and press himself up on his fabricated left hand to crawl up along Verso's side until he can lie there next to him, pressing lazy kisses to his shoulder, his right hand languid on Verso's belly. ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 02:08 am (UTC)He feels the weight of his hand against his stomach, the weight at his side of Gustave laying beside him. He turns, slowly, like his body needs a moment to remember how to move, rolling onto his side so he can look at him when he opens his eyes. Dimly, he imagines that there's a version of this happening where somehow he'd be stirring to life in a bed, sheets warm and tussled around them, that he'd be seeing Gustave's face nestled against a pillow -- but this. With a shaft of sunlight cut down through some of the ivy growing overhead, drawing a perfect lines that follow the lines of his neck and throat down towards his bare chest. another burst of light catching against his hair, shining in those eyes. The scent of crushed grass and leaves, and the flowers that in his mind almost seem to arrange themselves around him, purples and yellows and pinks and whites. This is good, too. Maybe better. This is real.
( There is no question or thought about how real this really is. The moment lasting a bit longer, stretching on. He'll savor it. )
Verso is there just looking at him for a few seconds too long before he reaches out, a hand lazily drifting against Gustave's chest before catching at his chin and drawing him in for another kiss. Languid, warm, quietly satisfied but still with the glow of heat and want beneath -- he can taste himself on his tongue. They can taste each other.
He presses their foreheads together when he breaks from the kiss, a breathless laugh falling from his lips. ]
You're beautiful too, you know.
[ He didn't actually return that compliment earlier. But merde he is, just look at him, in so many ways that he Verso doesn't even begin to understand, that he wishes he could take the time to twist his fingers into and unravel thread by thread. His fingers, again, try to push some mussed lock of hair out of Gustave's face, only for it to fall back, his mouth quirking in amusement and fondness from it both. ]
Infuriatingly so. [ His fingers play a little with that lock of hair, idle. ] Mon chou.
[ That too, falls from his mouth without much actual thought behind it. Just letting himself be carried by the warmth until it might inevitably ebb back with the tide. ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 02:53 am (UTC)Watching him at the piano had been compelling enough. But here, now, with fingers of sunlight idly playing over his bared chest and stomach, his hair mussed and wild around his face, his lips pink and swollen and a few red marks just beginning to show on his throat and at the curve of his neck, he's utterly impossible.
He reaches out, lazy fingers catching Gustave's chin, and Gustave leans willingly into this kiss, savoring it, letting it linger, sweet and deep and feeling like taking a long breath after waking from a dream. When their lips part and Verso nudges their foreheads together, he slides his hand across the man's stomach, under the edge of his shirt to curve his fingers at his side, and smiles, the same smile he's given him so many times now: warm and sweet and creasing his eyes, a smile that lets Verso look directly into his heart. It's open, if cautiously so, even knowing, even remembering what Verso said before. That there are no promises.
But he's never been able to make his heart follow any kind of logic. If he could, he would have stopped loving Sophie all those months ago, right?
For now he smiles, and turns his head slightly into Verso's fingers as the man plays with that wayward lock of hair, loving the feeling of it, wanting this bubble around them to stay solid and unbreachable for as long as possible. His thumb smoothes over Verso's side as he chuckles, turning his head to press a lazy, affectionate kiss to Verso's palm. ]
What's infuriating about it?
[ Mon chou. Dropping from Verso's lips like an afterthought, and it's sweet, another tiny golden nugget of a memory for him to tuck deep into his chest and keep for himself. It's sweet, just like monsieur le fleuriste, and he's happy to be this, just for a little while. His florist. His cabbage. His sweetheart.
How he would like to be this beautiful man's sweetheart, to win these smiles over and over and over again, to try and understand what it is when Verso looks at him to have his expression soften this way. How he would like to stroll along the harbor, and bring him a real bouquet, and fall into a bed of muddled sheets that they could wreck together.
Maybe just tomorrow. He could be satisfied with just tomorrow, surely. It could... it could be enough. ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 03:10 am (UTC)But that, well. None of that is real, and none of it can be. Slowly, inevitably, Verso can feel himself -- waking up, and hating himself for it.
He lets his fingers slip up to cradle his cheek against his palm, tender and affectionate, thumb sweeping Gustave's lower lip. ]
Just makes it hard to believe.
[ Someone that beautiful, someone that perfect -- and especially in that smile. Earnest and open in the same way that'd utterly captivated him nine months ago, that draw him in now but also remind him of what he is, and what he isn't. His gaze drops briefly, his other hand moving to settle against Gustave's waist. Gentle, cautious, remembering where he'd been hurt before. ]
Almost like a dream.
[ Maybe he doesn't have to go just yet. Maybe they can just -- spend some time. What for? To invite questions that would only make everything worse? Knowing that if there will ever be a time when this man learns more of the truth, that it'd likely come with him hating everything he stands for -- is it cruel or kind, to keep it away?
It's about time to wake up. ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 03:25 am (UTC)Still, he doesn't flinch away, only makes a wry face when Verso's fingers run over a newly swollen lump welling over his ribs, the aggravated result of how he'd hit the ground. His hip, too, hurts, and so does his left arm, but he can't bring himself to care yet. He can be sore and stiff tomorrow. For now, he just lies here, studying Verso's face, the shifting expression of those impossibly clear eyes, and only after a long moment there does he move at all.
Even then, it isn't away, just slipping his hand from beneath Verso's shirt to stretch across him, fingers brushing clumsily through the grass and vines and leaves until he finds what he's looking for, plucks it with a quick snap of the slender stem.
He rolls back, bringing his hand with him, and another flower โ as promised. This one is a paler violet, with a white heart, and Gustave twirls it for a moment in the air before deciding he might as well indulge himself, once more. Pushing up on his left arm, he leans over Verso, bending down to press his mouth to the other man's in a kiss once more before he lifts his head and carefully reaches to tuck the flower into those dark waves of hair. His fingers are gentle, placing it amid coarse, mussed strands, and again as they ghost over the shell of Verso's ear, making sure the stem is neatly tucked behind it. ]
It doesn't have to just be a dream, you know.
[ It could be like this again. They could have dinner together and talk over wine; he could find some excuse for Emma and Maelle and find some bed and fall into it with his fingers sinking into this hair and his arm wrapped around that waist. Maybe it doesn't have to only be this. Why should it be? ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 04:01 am (UTC)He laughs a little into the kiss with that realization, but doesn't move to pull away or stop him, eyes still shut and languidly dipping his tongue past his lips to taste him a little deeper. Its only when Gustave breaks away from that kiss when he opens his eyes again, and -- well, he can't see himself. But he can just about feel where that flower is tucked into his hair behind his ear, a soft pale purple in the middle of mussed dark waves. ]
Mon monsieur le floriste. [ Another laugh, warm, genuine -- even as the end of it starts to rail off into something quieter. ] I hope it looks good.
[ But then, that statement. The smile freezing on his lips for a few moments, starting to edge away, the quiet yearning in his eyes self-evident, unusually honest on Verso's face. He'd really like to. But it is a dream. Worse than a dream. It's someone else's dream, all of them bound in a pain that runs so deep through the very fabric of their world that most of them could never hope to understand. And he's already been here far too long. ]
It might have to be. [ He wishes he could explain. Slowly he starts to push himself up on one elbow, reaching up to touch callused fingertips to Gustave's face, tracing over his cheekbone. Affectionate and fond. It's absurd for him to feel like this for a man he may have watched for so long but -- that he doesn't know. But when he smiles, when he sees into his eyes, into his heart . . . ] But maybe you can convince me. To dream a little longer.
[ It won't ever feel like enough. ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 12:58 pm (UTC)I'm not sure you'd be able to look anything but good. But yes.
Yes, it looks good.
[ Good, and something more than good that squeezes his heart the same way watching that smile slowly fade into something else as Verso reaches for him feels. He turns his head a little into that touch, focusing on the feeling of rough fingers brushing over his skin, and wonders again what sort of life his monsieur le pianiste leads that his hands are strong and callused and he gazes out at Gustave from behind a scar that could only have come from a fight.
Again and again he wonders: who is Verso? Where has he been all this time, where is he going? Lumiere isn't a big island. It doesn't make sense, none of it.
He reaches to gently catch Verso's hand in his, bringing those fingers back to his lips to press soft, languid kisses against them again, lashes lowered. It still seems like a miracle to him, the things Verso can do with these fingers, strong and elegant and skilled at coaxing what he wants both from a piano and from Gustave himself. ]
I'd like to. I don't know why you say it can't be this way... I don't know what to say to change your mind. But how I feel... how you make me feel...
[ Like a book opening. A few notes of music poured into a long-abandoned concert hall. A door cracking, sunlight and fresh air beyond. ]
Isn't the time we have limited enough already, without taking even more away?
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Date: 2025-05-29 03:44 pm (UTC)This loss will hurt. Whenever it happens. He still hasn't asked how old Gustave is, and he doesn't want to know. He lets his fingers linger on Gustave's lips as he brushes those kisses against them, turns his hand against Gustave's until he's threading their fingers together, holding him tight for a moment, keeping Gustave there, keeping himself here. A little bit of both. He draws their hands to his mouth in turn, kissing lightly over Gustave's knuckles. ]
You barely know me.
[ It's gentle and teasing in tone, but there's a quiet edge to it -- because it's true. They don't know much about each other. And that's what's so powerfully dangerous about this in amongst everything else, that just from that one night in the opera house nine whole months ago, just from this that would never have happened if Gustave hadn't nearly fallen from a rooftop -- that Verso can feel his chest ache. The comment is meant for Gustave as much as it meant for Verso himself. He barely knows the man -- but also knows so much. The taste of him on his mouth and tongue, feels like its burned into his memory, now. The heat of his skin under his fingers. The way his eyes crinkle when he smiles.
He feels it. He thinks Gustave feels it, too, just from the way the man is looking at him. That there's something of him that's already been wound up inextricably with him, and he won't ever get it back.
It just doesn't change anything.
He unlaces his fingers from Gustave's, his touch lingering briefly against his cheek, tracing down the curve of his throat -- and drawing away, fixing his own trousers, pushing himself up a little more so he can rest an elbow over the raised flowerbed behind him. ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 05:49 pm (UTC)Gustave lets him claim his hand, running his thumb fondly over Verso's cheek, through the thick scruff there, unwilling to stop touching him for more than a moment. Even when Verso's hand drops and he shifts to sit up a little more, Gustave only pushes himself up on his left arm, letting his right hand rest warmly on the man's stomach. ]
Wouldn't it be nice to change that?
[ Wouldn't it be nice for Gustave to ask him to dinner, to share a bottle of wine and talk long into the night over it, the way people do when they've been struck this way? C'รฉtait peut-รชtre le coup de foudreโ it feels like he's been struck by a bolt of his own lightning. And all it is, really, is possibility. Potential.
He's never been able to abide lost potential, and to have this stolen from his fingers before he can even have an idea of what it is, what it could be, sparks a familiar frustrated helplessness deep in his chest. ]
I'd like to get to know you. Mon mystรฉrieux monsieur le pianiste.
[ A small smile, the words falling fondly from his tongue, low and murmured in his own softer, warmer voice. ]
I'd like to have that chance.
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Date: 2025-05-29 06:22 pm (UTC)His eyes fall shut a little with a quiet half-laugh when he calls him that. He'd really, really like to be his mystรฉrieux monsieur le pianiste, but when the dream ends, he simply isn't. Maybe this way, when he finally gathers the will to leave like he's keeps saying he should, he can stay the mystรฉrieux monsieur le pianiste -- instead of everything else. The things that Gustave would no doubt fight him for and hate him for, if he knew. ]
It would be nice, mon chou.
[ It really would be.
He shifts, properly seated down, now -- and reaches for him again, callused fingers spreading across his shoulder, his nape. Pulling him close until he can press another kiss to his neck, mouthing over scruff, up to his ear. Warm, heated, still quietly wanting. ]
-- And what would you have us do? If you did have that chance?
[ Lie to him a little. ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 07:47 pm (UTC)Take you out? Is that what people do?
[ As if he really were the old man Maelle teases him about being, out of touch and too rusty to remember what a man who has found someone who makes his heart speed and skip and yearn might do. As if it had been more than not-quite-two years since Sophie, as though he hadn't been on any dates since then.
He has, it's just that none of them... Well. None of them were anything like this, and none of the people anything like Verso. ]
First I would have to ascertain your likes and dislikes vis-ร -vis dinner, yes? And try to find someplace suitably up to standards that also allows for a dark, quiet corner where I could attempt โ and probably fail โ to romance you over a bottle of wine.
[ It's the same kind of humorous story he might spin for Maelle, one that casts him in the role of earnest but ultimately ineffectual hero. Maybe it'll make Verso smile, too.
He turns his own head into the other man, ghosting light kisses over his cheek, his ear, whatever part of him he can reach as he goes on, a chuckle in his voice. ]
Tragically, at some point, I would have to admit to you my true occupation... that I am not a florist after all, only an engineer. Extremely prosaic, I know. And hopelessly ignorant in the matters of music and art, so I imagine you would quickly lose interest, perhaps even before the dessert was brought out.
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Date: 2025-05-29 10:50 pm (UTC)But he can picture it. Half-remembers, half-imagines the kind of place Gustave might've taken him to dinner for. Sat across from each other at an open-air table, the night sky filled with stars overhead, the hum of Lumiere fading away from their little bubble until its just them, Gustave pouring them a glass of wine. Eager, nervous, maybe a bit awkward. Some flowers resting neatly on the table, that he'd brought for him that night.
Gustave describes himself as failing, and that does earn him a bit of a laugh, from Verso. Dryly amused -- and continuing to do a terrible job at actually disentangling himself from Gustave at all. Pulling him a bit closer, trailing heated kisses back down his neck, his hand settling against the small of the other man's back. ]
Ah, but your utterly pedestrian tastes for music and art might only romance me more. Imagine what good it would do my starving artist's ego when I could hum you a simple tune and have you doubling over in praise. [ With a smile, too, of course. Playing up himself as the artist, Gustave as someone hapless in the face of that. ] Or maybe you could seduce me with stories of your work. Tell me how much Lumiere itself lives and breathes on the work of your very own two hands.
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Date: 2025-05-29 11:12 pm (UTC)I must have been doing something wrong, all this time... I've been reliably informed that stories about my work are deeply boring, not sexy and seductive.
[ True, most of that criticism comes from Maelle, who is still young enough to be horrified by any mention of romance or physical attraction, and who seems to consider it her sacred sisterly duty to ensure Gustave's ego is regularly cut down to size.
Verso coaxes him even closer, a summons Gustave is nothing if not willing to obey. He pushes up onto his knees and turns to face the other man completely, lifting one leg over Verso's and sliding his knee between his thighs as he leans to bracket the man with his arms, one to either side of his body, hands braced on the wooden edge of the flowerbed Verso leans against.
It leaves him looking down into Verso's face for a moment before he leans down to answer those kisses Verso had been trailing along his neck with kisses of his own, warm and deliberate at the curve of his neck and shoulder. ]
Fortunately, I think I'd be happy enough listening to you talk about music and art. No need to get into the minutiae of everyday mechanical engineering.
[ He'd enjoy it enough just seeing the expression on Verso's face as he talks about something he loves, he thinks. There is certainly more to his monsieur le pianist than his music, but it's easy to recognize how much of his heart lies in it.
He presses another kiss to Verso's neck, lips lingering, breath warm. ]
And then, perhaps โ if I am feeling very bold โ I might take your hand on the walk back after dinner has finally ended, well after everything else in Lumiรจre has closed down and the staff has finally told us we really must leave.
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Date: 2025-05-29 11:38 pm (UTC)[ The self-effacing humor is charming -- and Verso does wonder how much truth there is to that, at all. Part of his surprise about all of this had been that Gustave had remembered him so strongly even all this time after. He's an attractive man, with a good heart, would likely make someone else in Lumiere very happy for all the time they had left together. Whatever it is has seemed to keep him like this, he doubts its the work stories.
Besides, verso really does think he'd like to hear them. He remembers Gustave's bright-eyed enthusiasm for hearing him play at the opera house, endearing, adorable -- he can imagine him just as eager over some mechanical contraption. He remembers earlier after they'd picked themselves up from their spill across the rooftops, when he'd fished that device out and worked away at something in his mechanical arm as they talked, easy, effortless, second nature. He's not actually seen the man work. He thinks he might like to.
Gustave's knee slides between his thighs, his arms on either side of him again. Taking the chances that Verso is continuing to give him even if he keeps thinking he shouldn't. He really does know better, but when Gustave is braced over him like that again, and then his mouth is back on his neck -- he can't help but let his head hall back on a low, pleased sigh.
He tucks his head against Gustave's for a moment, face against his hair, just breathing him in -- the scent of him is warm and sweet, lingering with everything else in the air, crushed flowers and fresh grass and the still-lingering smell of sweat and sex. ]
Hand-holding? [ A little nip to his ear, muffling a laugh against his skin. Verso's other hand sliding just under his shirt, fingertips pressing into the notches of his spine. ] After a first date? Mon ingรฉnieur really is more bold than I realized.
Next thing you'd tell me that you wouldn't just walk me home for the night, gentleman as you are.
[ utterly scandalous!! ]
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Date: 2025-05-30 12:34 am (UTC)[ As many as Verso wants. He can picture himself buying a nosegay or little bouquet of fresh-cut flowers, how he would ask the server for a glass of water to set them in so they don't wilt through the evening. And then, maybe, when they're alone again, setting one in Verso's lapel once more, or in the buttonhole of his shirt, or slipped behind his ear, like this pale purple blossom Gustave is careful not to disturb with his kisses.
He chuckles too, and leans back just enough to give Verso a mock-innocent look, eyebrows raised and his hand lifting to his chest. ]
But of course I would walk you home. The streets are dangerous, who knows what terrors you might encounter?
And once we're at your door...
[ He lowers his hand to palm Verso's side, leaning in to press his mouth against the man's in a deep, drowning kiss. He doesn't mean for it to linger, but he finds it difficult to pull away once he's there, coaxes Verso's lips apart so he can tongue into his mouth, a little sound tugging unbidden from deep in his chest before he finally pulls away just enough to rest his forehead against Verso's, his eyes lidded. ]
Maybe a kiss goodnight. If I've earned it.
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Date: 2025-05-30 01:45 am (UTC)There's part of him that thinks to break from the kiss, but it simply drowns and flickers away the moment Gustave's tongue is in his mouth, his fingers idly circling over the small of his back as he sinks into it. When Gustave thinks to pull away, Verso's other hand lifts to his neck, preventing him from it -- but just for a few moments more. Enough to get a slightly longer taste, to catch his teeth against his lower lip and tug on it slightly when he does break it himself.
With their foreheads pressed together, he smiles, lidded eyes gazing straight into Gustave's. He feels like he can see everything, so much warmth and gentle adoration. He knows it wouldn't be the same for him. ]
And if you did earn it?
Would you leave for the night?
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Date: 2025-05-30 02:07 am (UTC)At the question, he huffs out a breath that's not quite a chuckle and shakes his head, rolling his forehead gently against Verso's. The little breeze that puffs around them tugs idly at the waves of Verso's hair, ruffling the petals of the flower he'd tucked there. ]
How could I?
Just like now, I wouldn't want to let you go.
[ Verso has been saying almost since they first landed on this rooftop that he needs to go, that he should leave, and Gustave... hasn't been stopping him so very obviously, but he knows he keeps interrupting the man's plans. Verso being willing to let them be interrupted doesn't change that fact.
His lips press into a rueful half-smile as he looks into those startling eyes, knowing his own will betray him more thoroughly than any words he could offer. ]
I would stay as long as you wanted me.
So I think the real question is: would you invite me in?
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Date: 2025-05-30 02:24 am (UTC)He'll still regret it later, when he's far away enough from this. When he doesn't have Gustave right here in front of him, when he can't still taste him lingering on his tongue. But when he is here, for as long as Verso lets him, he's just going to keep tangling him up more, and he leans back in, brushing another sweet kiss to his mouth. ]
Not that night.
[ He has to draw the line. As much as he hates to do so. For your own sake, he thinks to himself, but that justification really doesn't matter when Gustave couldn't possibly know it, and it barely does anything to make himself feel any better. ]
I would if I could.
[ If he was less of a coward maybe he'd be able to let that rest instead of trying to soften it, trying to add caveats. He is telling the truth here, at least, even if he's hiding a thousand things by omission -- he does regret that. He wishes he could. The gentle yearning in his voice for a simpler answer and a simpler time is as real as anything else. He draws a deep breath, and for the first time in a while, purposefully breaks his gaze from Gustave's to look away -- just at the garden. Where they are. The sun, starting to sink down. ]
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Date: 2025-05-30 02:55 am (UTC)If I asked you, would you tell me why you can't?
[ None of this seems like an impossible dream to him, but Verso acts like it is, somehow. A dinner date, flowers, a slow stroll to someone's home, a kiss at the door โ even in Lumiรจre, these are still things people do. They meet, feel a spark, fall in love; all this despite the grief that is the inevitable reward for their optimism, their hopes. So why shouldn't they do the same? What makes this so impossible, why can't they see each other tomorrow, and the next day, and again the day after that?
Where has he been for the last nine months?
He hasn't pushed, but it hasn't been because he isn't curious. He's been biding his time, waiting for the right moment, trying to figure out a way to ask that won't lead to Verso simply saying something vague and drifting off like he had before.
But this really is absurd, isn't it? It shouldn't be this difficult for them to meet again, not if they both want to. So where, exactly, does the problem lie? ]
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Date: 2025-05-30 03:09 am (UTC)This feels like something of the same magnitude, something in him shattering when he looks back at Gustave to see smile fades away. Verso knows he's a coward, because he wishes he'd found it in him to leave earlier, just so he wouldn't have had to see it with his own eyes.
He could lie, of course. There are a number of reasons he could make up that would at least seem plausible, if maybe not enough to entirely dissuade him, or at least give him something else to hold onto other than the emptiness of never knowing. But, selfishly, Verso just -- doesn't want to. He doens't want to lie to him.
Someday, if they do meet again, he might have to. But right now.
He sways forward, catches himself in the movement, clearly hesitant where everything up til now had been easy and languid and effortless -- but the last pieces of that moment are breaking apart. After a moment of hesitation, he eases forward again, this time to just press a gentle kiss against the corner of his temples. ]
I think you know the answer to that.
[ Why else would he ask it in that way? ]
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Date: 2025-05-30 03:28 am (UTC)He does know the answer; of course he does. He would simply have asked if he'd thought some other answer would be forthcoming.
Gustave leans forward before Verso can sway away again, catching his mouth in a warm, gentle kiss, unwilling to let reality seep fully between them. His voice, when he speaks, is a low murmur, brushed against the man's lips. ]
Come back. Let me take you to dinner, and... and tell you my stories, and listen to you talk about music, or whatever you want.
[ His lips part, but he has just enough pride left still that it doesn't come out: please. ]
I just... I would really like to... It's been a long time since...
If there's any way things could be different, you know, I'd like... I'd like....
[ But he's made himself clear, even if his words are failing him now. He shakes his head at himself again and curves his hand at the corner of Verso's jaw. ]
You know what I'd like.
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Date: 2025-05-30 03:51 am (UTC)Gustave's not quite begging but it's almost there, pleading and desperate in his tone, in his eyes, in the way he immediately tries to pull him back into a kiss. Verso lets him do it, even kissing him back. But the words come tumbling out from his mouth, sound almost involuntary, him stumbling his own words -- Its like the night at the opera house, him standing there with his heart on his sleeve and the concert hall echoing around him.
Except that had been full of hope, anticipation, eager nervous excitement for a new possibility. Nervous and sheepish but still with a smile. And this, well.
He lifts both his hands, this time, one hand twisting back through his hair, fingers carding through the mussed curls with a distinct familiarity. His other hand, too, settles against his cheek with a certain familiarity, like he already knows the shape of him, like his touch belongs there. Verso pulls him in for another kiss, full but bittersweet. When he pulls, away, eyes still shut, his lungs burning a little from lack of air and a sweet ache both, keeping their foreheads pressed together, his voice soft. ]
Gustave. [ Low and quiet, his breath warm against Gustave's skin. ] There is nothing you can do.
[ There is nothing he could have done. It isn't his fault.
And slowly, as gently as he can bear, like he's afraid that if he says much more or does too much these newfound cracks will just shatter -- he starts to pull away. Pushing his weight up to perch on the edge of that flower bed. Getting himself a bit more space.
That care is as much for himself as it is for Gustave, but. It is what it is. ]
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Date: 2025-05-30 09:45 am (UTC)But there is nothing he can do here, and he doesn't know what else to try without losing what little dignity he has left. Verso kisses him, long and sweet and sad, and his own fingers curl into the loose fabric of the man's shirt, only to let it slip from his grasp when Verso finally begins to move away. He has to shift, letting Verso move his leg out from beneath him, until he's left kneeling there, his hands loose on his thighs, watching as Verso slowly closes this door between them.
Maybe if he understood why, this wouldn't be so frustrating, he wouldn't feel so utterly powerless, but he doesn't. Nothing he can think of, no obstacle that he knows of, makes this decision make sense. Perhaps Verso will Gommage in a year โ but he'd already murmured soft words about taking what they could in the time they have, so wouldn't that make him more rather than less likely to want to grasp this thing, the potential of it, in both hands?
Maybe he needs to focus on an Expedition; that's more likely, but if that's the case Gustave will see him at the Academy, surely.
No, the only thing that makes sense is that he simply doesn't want to try, to see him again, and even that... he doesn't think he's been misreading the looks in those eyes, the tenderness in those touches. But it's the sole possibility that fills in all the blanks.
It's not a big island. He's managed to avoid Sophie, for the most part, but he still sees her everywhere. Won't that be true of Verso, too?
He sits back on his heels, looking up at Verso sitting there on the edge of the flowerbed, fingers curling into his palms there on his thighs, and wets his lip. It feels a little sore, swollen, kiss-bruised and maybe split there from their first clash, and he's going to have to explain this to Emma, he knows. After a long moment, he forces his hands to uncurl and lifts them to start buttoning his shirt back up. This โ whatever stolen moments they'd managed to glean โ is over, and one thing everyone in Lumiรจre is familiar with is an ending. ]
I could always try throwing myself off a rooftop again.
[ As a joke, it falls a little flat. But he tries anyway. He doesn't know how to do anything else. ]
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Date: 2025-05-30 10:17 am (UTC)Verso feels his lungs tighten, an awful ache in his own heart, but -- its harder to see. The walls that Gustave had so effortlessly managed to pull down and move past, nine months ago at the opera house, earlier with the a flower plucked from the garden, just before with heated words murmured against his ear and his hand on him and the earnest plea to be with him, here, now -- they've already built themselves back in place. Its for the best. Its for the best. For Gustave. For both of them.
He reaches over to retrieve his jacket where he'd shrugged it off his shoulders and left it forgotten, his gaze falling to that gentle purple bloom still tucked into his lapel. Partially crushed between their bodies, crushed a little more since he cast it off -- they'd likely accidentally stepped on it at least once in all of this. Gently, Verso's takes a moment to make sure the flower stem is secure enough in the buttonhole, fingers brushing over the single delicate petal still left intact.
Verso looks back up at the sound of his voice. Its a joke, clearly, however dark it may be. But; ]
You're worth more than that. [ Even as a joke. ]
[ Surely there are other people? Surely Gustave has no shortage of suitors, whether they're the kind looking for a few nights of indulgence in the fleeting lives they live or the kind that wants to find someone to stay with until the inevitable end. Verso doesn't know him, but he feels like he can say he knows he's a good man, and with those eyes, that smile. Maybe Gustave's number is up soon, he thinks. Maybe there's just no time. He wants to ask, but he's a little uncertain, and -- clearly, now, that might be a bit too personal to ask. Gustave's life is his own. Verso has no part in it. ]
-- You should forget me. [ I thought you would before, he thinks. ] There must be someone more deserving of your flowers, monsieur le fleuriste.
[ Maybe calling him that right now is the wrong thing to do. He looks away, back down to his jacket -- moves to shrug it back on. He can't help himself, though, still quietly fond, just. He can't stay. ]
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Date: 2025-05-30 01:51 pm (UTC)He looks down again before he has to actively avoid meeting the man's eyes, unwilling to let him see any more of the confusion and disappointment and frustration and bewildered longing he needs to just... he needs to find a way to tamp down on. It's absurd to feel hurt, it's absurd to have let himself indulge this way. Passionate interludes with handsome, mysterious strangers aren't something he engages in; he has more practical matters which require his time and focus and energy.
His head dips a little more at Verso's voice, that comment. Forget me. Find someone else. ]
Yeah.
[ More just to say something, anything, than to agree. Maybe it would be best if he just... forgot all this, turned his mind back to Emma and Maelle and the lumina tech, to his apprentices and his training. He could, he supposes, see if there's someone else here in Lumiere who would like a flower from him, who would want to go to dinner and talk late into the night over glasses of wine. They might even make him feel this way, like he's come alive again for the first time since Sophie. ]
Right.
[ It's sensible, of course. Forget the man he can't have, for whatever reason that for some other mysterious reason cannot be detailed. Seek out someone else more inclined.
He thinks he probably won't. Two heartbreaks in as many years is enough for him, surely.
He gets a little stiffly to his feet, wincing slightly at the aches and soreness of every abused muscle and joint as he goes to pick up his bag of tools, forgotten on this rooftop what feels like so long ago but had to have been less than an hour. It seems deeply unfair that he should also be injured and sore right now, as well as romantically frustrated, but when has life in Lumiere ever been fair? ]
I hope...
[ But he trails off with an awkward, forlorn lift of his hand. He has no idea what to hope for, for Verso. He knows almost nothing and it seems that's as much as he'll ever know. He presses his lips together and shakes his head before finally letting his glance flicker back over to the other man. ]
I hope you'll be well.
Try not to... hurt yourself falling onto any more roofs. If possible.
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Date: 2025-05-30 02:31 pm (UTC)He can assure him of how much this -- mattered, how much he enjoyed this, how it feels like something of Gustave has slipped through the cracks and will stay nestled in his chest, how different that is for Verso in all of his decades. But it seems like to him, the more he says, the worse this will be. Its not like he was subtle, knows that Gustave must've felt that spark and connection just as strongly as he did, but that just leads him down a path of not understanding why Verso has to leave.
So this is probably for the best. Quiet, silence, awkward and uncomfortable as it is, a unmistakable tension, empty and bitter. It feels almost unthinkable that moments before they were tangled all up in each other, that Gustave was laughing, pressing soft kisses to his neck and shoulder.
He puts fixes his shirt as he puts on his jacket -- takes a moment to check for the flower still tucked in his hair. ]
I'll take that to heart.
Stay well. [ A beat, as he just -- looks at him. Dressed back up, but his hair still mussed, shirt in disarray, kiss-bruised lips, eyes that still say too much even if all the adoring light is gone from them now. Beautiful, right in front of him, and out of reach.
He closes his eyes. ]
I'm sorry.
[ Verso's gaze goes straight to the horizon, the setting sun, the monolith beyond. He wills himself to not look back, moving forward, brushing past Gustave a little closer than he means to, their shoulders barely brushing -- the sound of chroma grappling, and he's gone. ]
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Date: 2025-05-30 03:24 pm (UTC)Yeah. Me too.
[ Said low and almost only to himself as Verso brushes past him. He sees that flower, pale purple and still fresh, tucked into dark waves of hair, and sees the man silhouetted for a moment against the glowing evening sky, the setting sun, and then Verso lifts his hand and is gone in a flicker of chroma and a brief breeze that stirs the broken plants at his feet. Gustave watches for a moment, eyes following the figure as he grapples rapidly away, but he loses sight after only a few seconds, and then he really is alone again, here in this garden they'd ruined.
He looks around, taking in the broken flowerpots and crushed plants, goes to the trellis to examine the spot where he'd gripped the metal grid too hard and bent it. The place is a mess, and he's a mess, but he can at least start fixing one of those things, even if the other will... well. Be harder.
He spends some time working the bent metal back into shape, collecting shattered pieces of pottery and depositing them into a mostly-intact pot he can carry back with him for disposal, then sweeps up the scattered dirt and pebbles and tips it back into the raised beds. The grass they'd landed on is more difficult, smashed flat in places and ripped in others, and the flowers have taken a beating.
He does what he can to clean them up and promises himself he'll do more, making it up to whichever poor citizen of Lumiere had their garden destroyed by a man who simply... should have known better. By the time he finishes, evening has settled in, blue and clear violet, the same colors as the petals of the flower he'd tucked into Verso's lapel, into his hair, and the man is surely long gone. Gustave won't need to worry about accidentally catching up with him, seeing him, trying not to see him.
His own walk to the roof's edge is slower, less intent, and he lingers there for a long moment before finally lifting his arm and letting the chroma carry him through the air to the next building down and over.
Time to let it go. Time to go home. ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 01:03 am (UTC)Lumiere is where she allows herself to be creative and she tries to emulate what she thinks came before her parents inflicted so much damage upon Verso's canvas. The sun shines brighter, and people are happy. The harbor is full of laughter and festivities every day and every night, and Maelle practices more and more. Families. Large ones. There are grandparents and parents and children and grandchildren and no one is a sad, lonely orphan.
No one, except for her. There's a loneliness that creeps into her chest when she doesn't expect it. It's not Papa or Maman that she misses. She'll see them again, eventually.
It's Gustave. But she can't be impatient. She must do this to the best of her ability.
She loses track of time until one day, she feels ready. She's made everything perfect. Their home is as it was, but the sun shines brighter through the windows of Gustave's bedroom. The nerves Maelle feels gives her the last push of encouragement--oh, she's missed him, but it's that longing that will bring him back to her. Through two sets of memories, he's always been vibrant and clear. The brother she needed when she had lost hers. The father she needed when hers wasn't there. Gustave gave her a family she could have only ever dreamed of, and for that, she wants to give him everything he could have ever wanted.
That begins with life.
It takes longer than she'd like, and the concentration threatens to make her temples pound, but she paints him. Slowly but surely, he returns to their painted world, expedition uniform clean and intact despite her memory of blood, so much blood on the fabric and her face and the warmth and the scent of it. By the end, the finishing touches take the last of her energy, and she stops both because she's done and because her eyes are tired. Her palms press into them for a moment before she drops her hands and looks at her masterpiece, heart rabbiting against her ribs.]
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Date: 2025-05-28 01:59 am (UTC)It slows down; all of it. The sounds of the waves crashing against the implacable black rock of the cliffs. The sound of his own breath, harsh in his damaged lungs. The pounding of his heart as it limped its way onward, stubbornly beating despite the terrible damage it had sustained. The warmth of his own blood as it wells from the hole in his breast, soaking his uniform, the uniform Sophie and his apprentices had gifted him. This, too, is your legacy, she'd murmured, and he hears her voice so clearly that he could almost imagine her here next to him, lending him her quiet strength, her belief. Even now his sleeves don't fall from their secure rolls at his elbows. The boys had done such a superlative job fixing them. He knows they'll do the same with every project they undertake. They'll keep Lumiรจre safe.
That, too, is his legacy. Engineers to fix and rebuild, using the skills he taught them. He never had children, but something of him will carry on even after he's gone all the same.
All this is so clear, and something else, too: Maelle, there behind him. She sobs and begs, fists pounding ineffectually on the barrier between them, and he could tell her it won't work, that if she even could break free she would need to run and leave him behind, but there's no time. All he can do is turn to her with all the love he's ever felt for her there in his eyes, the tiniest soft tug at the corner of his mouth. He's not afraid, when he looks at her. He wants her to see the truth, the bedrock of him, how he would do anything for her, even this. How he would always have done this, if it was what was needed so she could live.
For those who come after. For Maelle.
The fear creeps back in as he turns to face the white-haired man, as he realizes, again and again and over again, that he is going to die here, that his life will be snuffed out. But he still has to try. A flick of his hand; the familiar grip of his sword materializing in his palm. He lifts his arm, his sword flashing. He pushes himself forward into a run.
He dies.
Unexpectedly, some time later, he breathes, lips parting soft and sudden, his chest lifting with the first breath after an infinite, extended pause. His eyes flutter and open, blinking, bewildered, in the sunlight. He's...
Alive? ]
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Date: 2025-05-28 02:13 am (UTC)Some of the worry leaves her expression as she's reassured that she did this right: this is her Gustave. She just knows it.]
Gustave.
[She says his name with a smile. There. Now everything is as it should be.]
Hi.
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Date: 2025-05-28 02:30 am (UTC)There's movement, and he glances up at the shifting body that leans over him, eyes widening for a heartbeat before he's pushing up onto his left hand (how, some quiet, ignored part of his mind asks; how can he lean on his left hand, he'd lost the hand, the arm, it had fallen to the ground, spent, destroyed) and reaching for her with his right arm, clutching to her as his heart jerks into a sprint in his chest. He buries his face against the side of her head, another quiet part of him noting the change in her hair, the largest part of him unable to see anything but her. Alive and smiling and here. Alive. ]
Maelle.
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Date: 2025-05-28 02:48 am (UTC)He was worth waiting for. Like Verso, he'll never be taken from her because no one is strong enough to do it. As long as she's here, they're safe.]
You're okay. It's okay, Gustave.
[They will always be okay. She hugs him tighter, for both their sakes. This is real. He has his second chance, and it won't be full of heartache and struggle. He'll never lose another drop of blood. He'll never shed a tear unless it's of happiness. He'll never need to fight unless he wants to lose a duel with her.]
I've missed you so much.
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Date: 2025-05-28 03:04 am (UTC)I don't understand.
[ His voice judders in his chest; it feels weirdly rusty, but that might be only to be expected for a man recently come back from the dead.
Because he had died. He knows he had. He'd felt the chroma spear through him and he'd seen the blizzard of petals and ash. But Maelle is cheery, delighted, saying she'd missed him and he doesn't understand, not any of it, not how he's here in what he realizes, pulling back from her with his hands on her shoulders, is his own bedroom back in Lumiรจre; not how he's breathing and speaking. And notโ
He frowns, looking harder at her. ]
Maelle, your hair... what...
[ Still can't finish your sentences? teases Sophie in his mind. ]
I don't, I... are we really...? But, howโ
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Date: 2025-05-28 03:15 am (UTC)Yeah. Yeah, we're home. [This is home. Their modest home was so much kinder to her than the sprawling manor.] It's a long story.
[They have all the time in the world for details. Maelle lifts a hand to rest on his forearm, giving it a reassuring rub.]
There's nothing to be afraid of anymore.
[Not even death.]
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Date: 2025-05-28 03:10 pm (UTC)But the room is brighter now than it was then, sunlight flooding through the open window along with a light, playful breeze that slips through the curls of his hair, lifting them from his forehead. He can smell flowers, grass, other green growing things; he can hear the lifted, laughing voices of children. Somewhere past all that, music drifts through the city, someone playing a harp, accompanied by a flute.
He looks back at Maelle, and everything he's feeling is shunted aside in a moment when he sees the way her eyes shine. I missed you, she'd said, and he doesn't know what that means, how any of this happened, but he's never been able to bear making her sad, even if she's smiling now.
Gently, he lifts his right hand to her face, thumb running over the delicate arch of her cheek as he studies her, his own eyes so full of feeling, sympathy and love and regret. ]
Maelle. I'm sorry I made you cry.
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Date: 2025-05-28 08:36 pm (UTC)[No more expeditions. No more gommage. Maelle turns her face into his touch, cheeks round from the size of her smile.]
We get to live this life together. There's nothing to be sad about. It's okay.
[She knows him. He'll always worry about her regardless of what's happened to him. Finally, she can repay him for all the consideration and love he's given her when no one else would. He's been her world, and now she can give him one, too. She's so excited to do so, but she knows she has to take it slow. He's in shock.
She covers his hand at her cheek with her own.]
You don't need to apologize for anything, Gustave.
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Date: 2025-05-28 09:37 pm (UTC)How can that be true? This world, this life, it's full of grief. She knows that as well as he does. His brows flicker toward each other, a divot appearing for a moment between them, and he slides his hand out from under hers so he can get up, testing his legs, pacing across the little room he'd once known so well. ] How is that possible?
[ How is he here?
His hands lift, palms up, an unconscious gesture of bewilderment as he tries to force his shocked brain into working, into thinking. ]
I remember... I remember the cliffs. The white-haired man. [ He turns to her, the frown still digging between his brows as he tries to wrench memories from somewhere beneath the muffling veil of shock. ]
We, we fought. You were there. [ Her voice, horrified and screaming. Gustave! ]
But now we're... we're here, and I don't... [ A hand lifts, gestures at the side of his head, moving in and then out again with his fingers expanding. ] None of it makes any senseโ
[ He turns back to her, hand lowering halfway back down to his side, still suspended in the air. ] Maelle... what happened? What do you mean, everything's okay?
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Date: 2025-05-28 10:38 pm (UTC)Verso's been unhappy, but she knows he just needs time. Gustave will be grateful once he has answers for his many questions.]
Do you want to pace around for this or sit? It's... a lot. [She says with a small laugh. One day, he'll look back and find this silly, too.] I don't really know where to start.
[The beginning? Even that's confusing. She remains where she sits, looking to the window, as if the sunlight might give her an answer.]
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Date: 2025-05-28 11:21 pm (UTC)I died.
[ His voice is gentle, but firm. He can feel too many words bubbling up again, threatening to choke themselves off in his mouth, and takes a deep breath, licks his lips, pauses until he's sure he knows what he's going to say. ]
You should probably start there.
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Date: 2025-05-29 12:41 am (UTC)She reaches out to put her hand over his, slender and pale against his warm skin. A reminder to herself: he's here.
(In a way his death was so much worse than Verso's. The ash and smoke and pain blinded her, the flames took her eye along with her skin, leaving only his screams to burn her ears. She didn't see the life leave his body, his corpse, she didn't kneel beside it and--)
Maelle purses her lips together for a long moment.]
You died. That man was Renoir, and... he. He was trying to protect his family.
[Despite that flawed portrait, that was true between Renoir and her father. He just wanted to protect what was his. Gustave had been a threat. Verso saw him as one, too, but in a different manner.]
He's gone. There's no more Paintress. No Gommage. It wasn't what anyone thought. But... we're safe. We'll never need to send another expedition and no one will ever need to die for another.
[She smiles a little, hoping to see some sort of relief on Gustave's face.]
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Date: 2025-05-29 02:18 pm (UTC)But there's no wound there, and his uniform is as perfect as the arm. His breath comes quicker, a little too fast, and he feels it again, like he had when he first woke by that waterfall what feels like a lifetime ago: his heart fluttering, unable to pick up its normal rhythm. He died.
Through the low hum of burgeoning panic โ he died, how can he panic about dying again? but he can feel it just like he's back on that cliff looking at the man who killed him, cold terror gripping his heart and making it stumble and skip and forget how it's supposed to beat โ he hears her go on, telling him that they succeeded, that the man โ Renoir โ is gone. The Paintress is gone.
He breathes, fast and too light, through his nose, and tries to find something to hang onto. ]
It's over?
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Date: 2025-05-29 03:04 pm (UTC)[Because of his Lumina Converter, and how much she loved him and wanted to save the people he loved. That's all still true. Not the whole truth, but... one thing at a time.
Maelle watches him with concern, but warmth. She wanted him to know everything. She could have removed the memory of the expedition, left it out of her draft, but he wouldn't feel right. She wanted Gustave as he was, even if that meant some uncomfortable conversations.]
It's okay, Gustave. [As if she could sense the erratic beat of his heart, she puts her hand over it. A hand that can paint life, now.] We get to grow old together, now. I mean, you'll always be older.
[She gives him an encouraging smile.]
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Date: 2025-05-29 03:47 pm (UTC)He lifts his hand to cover hers, hard, and turns toward her with his eyes and limping, stumbling heart so full he doesn't know how he'll be able to stand it. ]
It's over. No more Gommage, no more... you're safe.
[ She's safe, she gets a chance to live after all, his dearest wish granted, and he can't stop the disbelieving smile that takes over, a smile that looks almost like he could burst into tears at any moment. He can't tell if he's happy, it's too big and too overwhelming a feeling for happiness, but there's relief, too, the same way there was when he came through that door and found her sitting alone in the manor room. ]
You're safe. You'll... you have a future.
[ Lumiere will have a future, but in the end, his goal had simply been to find a way for Maelle to live. And now she will.
He reaches again to put his arm around her, his left hand covering the one she has on his chest, and pulls her against him, lowering his head to press a kiss to her hair, letting this aching relief wash through him. ]
You're safe.
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Date: 2025-05-29 04:44 pm (UTC)We will have a future.
[He was always her beacon, her anchor. And now he will live a full, long life. He'll create because he wants to, not because he's trying to save them. He'll no longer have the weight of Lumiere upon his shoulders.
He hugs her and she wraps her arms around him as tightly as she's able. The kiss to her hair is a balm she didn't realize she needed--it makes that serene surface crack, a stifled sob escaping on an exhale. Oh, she's missed him terribly. No matter what new memories she has, he's still a part of her. All the parts she loves most feel like they exist because of his care.
She's so happy, and doesn't want him to worry, and so she shifts to hook her chin over his shoulder. After a moment she presses a kiss to his cheek, over the scruff that would tickle hers when he scooped her up in his arms. He's okay and no one will take him away from her again.]
It's okay. It's all okay, now. It's okay.
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Date: 2025-05-29 05:30 pm (UTC)He leans his head against hers and just lets himself linger there for a long moment, everything he'd ever wanted suddenly here in his arms, suddenly real, before his voice comes again in a murmur, rumbling low in his chest. ]
But I don't understand how I'm... How am I back? How am I.... alive?
[ Destroying death was never going to bring back all the people they've lost, all those Expeditioners they passed on their long trek through the continent. And if he really had died, and not simply been gone, unreachable but still clinging to life, then how can he be here now, feeling Maelle in his arms, feeling the air as he pulls it into his lungs?
And where had he been in all the time in between? ]
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Date: 2025-05-29 08:59 pm (UTC)No way forward but through.]
I brought you back. I can bring back everyone. [She'll get around to it, eventually. She thinks she could even bring his parents back, if he so desires. Wouldn't that be nice? An extended family for them all. No need to get ahead of herself, though.] This world was painted. The Fracture occurred when there was a fight over it, and that's when everything became... so cruel, so unforgiving.
I can't fix everything that happened to this Canvas, but I can fix the rest. Our home. The people we love.
[Like him.]
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Date: 2025-05-30 03:57 pm (UTC)Painted?
[ Maybe he's still in shock. Probably he's still in shock. It doesn't stop his mind from turning her words over and over, trying to find sense in them. ]
You mean... by the Paintress?
[ But then how could Maelle... she's his sister, a sixteen year old girl who always said she was never good at anything but swords and running across the city. He studies her, uncertain, wondering if maybe this is some sort of joke. It would be in poor taste even for Maelle, though. ]
How can you fix it? How can... how can you bring people back?
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Date: 2025-05-31 02:51 am (UTC)[Maelle's brow creases, more at the fact that she doesn't like how there's no easy way to explain this without sounding absolutely insane to Gustave. She gives no thought to her mother and what she might be doing in this very moment. She's not here. She doesn't concern her. Everything is fine as long as she herself remains in this canvas.]
I was never very good at it, but Maman taught me enough. And I've been practicing. I made sure I was ready before I brought you back, Gustave, because... I wanted you to be just as I remembered. And you are.
[So everything else that's left should be easy. She gives Gustave a hopeful smile, but there's a reluctance to it.]
I know it sounds mad, but it's the truth. Maman wasn't the one behind the Gommage. It was Papa, trying to get her to leave. Trying to destroy this place. But everything is okay now. That will never happen.
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Date: 2025-06-07 12:54 am (UTC)But... your mother....
[ He shakes his head like a dog with water in its ear, agitated. ]
No... no. That's not right. Your mother and father were here, in Lumiรจre. I know you don't remember them, but plenty of other people do... did... even now.
Why are you saying this?
[ It's some kind of story, it has to be, because how could it be the truth? But then... if it isn't the truth, how is he here?
Gustave looks away from her, around the room, his glance more intent and critical, looking for any small flaws, any changes to the familiar setting. This... it must be some illusion, or the afterlife, maybe. It can't possibly be real. ]
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Date: 2025-06-07 01:26 am (UTC)They were. It's... very complicated. I can show it to you, some day. What life beyond here looks like, where I'm really from. [She owes it to Lune, too.] There's the life I lived here, and the life I lived there.
[She smiles, a little sad.]
The one here is so much better. [She can breathe. Speak. See, with both her eyes. She can run and laugh and live and no one recoils in horror and no one blames her anything and no one dies anymore.] So much of that is because of you. You were... everything I could ever want in a father, in a brother. I had so much love.
[How could anyone expect her to leave this all behind? And for what? A life of cruelty and suffering.]
no subject
Date: 2025-06-08 01:47 pm (UTC)Something does cut through the clinging, claustrophobic blanket of confusion, though: the tinge of sorrow to her smile, the things she's saying. She wasn't... happy, in this other life, and he doesn't understand any of that but he understands Maelle.
(Doesn't he? Does he still?) ]
Maelle, I...
[ His glance lifts to that familiar ponytail, the way the loose strands frame her face: now pure white instead of red. But she's still familiar. ]
I wanted you to have everything you could ever need. Whatever... whatever else is true, you're my family. You're still my family.
[ His mouth opens, but he doesn't say what rises to the tip of his tongue: it would only hurt her. Aren't you?
He swallows it, finds some tiny smile for her instead, wanting to shake that sadness off the corners of her own. ]
At least, I think the paperwork would still agree.
now I can unleash this journal with icons
Date: 2025-06-08 03:46 pm (UTC)I am. You raised me.
[Just as much as Maman or Papa. Maybe even more, now that she thinks of it. He never pushed her to be anything she wasn't. He encouraged her to be herself, whatever that may be. He loved her fully, and she knows he'll love her fully know, even if he doesn't quite understand. Maelle and Alicia's memories run parallel, two childhoods, two families, but she finds herself favoring one over the other. Gustave is so small part of why.]
Nothing will change between us. Not ever.
[The paperwork doesn't matter at all.]
And now we have forever. You won't be going anywhere. [No Gommage. No death.] You can live whatever life you want, Gustave.
I HAVE REGRETS
Date: 2025-06-14 12:49 am (UTC)[ He reaches for her hand, realizing again that his arm is shining and new, moving as easily as if it had only just been fabricated and lubricated. It's not a smoking heap of metal on a cave floor, useless, burned out. He's notโ
Gustave clamps down on that thought in a hurry, curling his metal fingers gently around hers as he looks around the room, to the door. ]
Emmaโ isโ
[ He looks back to Maelle, the possibilities yawning in front of him. ]
Is Emma here? She must be worried out of her mind, if sheโ if you told herโ
โIs she here?
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Date: 2025-06-14 12:59 am (UTC)She's not here. Not yet. I wanted to make sure you were okay before bringing her back.
[Gustave would be a greater comfort. Maelle tips her head thoughtfully, smile widening. He thinks of Emma, of course. But there's more possible.]
Are you going to ask about Sophie, next?
[She was actually next on Maelle's list. To give Gustave his happiness, his life. To give him a second chance. He and Sophie would never have to worry about losing one another again, and what wonderful doors that would open for them.]
no subject
Date: 2025-06-14 02:08 am (UTC)[ No. She... she wouldn't. She couldn't.
(The day he'd said goodbye to Sophie, how she'd looked at him with tears streaming down her face as the realization that it was going to happen, that there was no escaping it, that the end really had come for her, is locked away tight in his heart. If he closes his eyes right now, he'd be able to see every detail of her face: every lash, every freckle.)
His brow rucks up and he shakes his head at her, uncomprehending. The pain blooms in his chest, as bloody and raw as the moment he fell to his knee there on the pier, all that time ago. ]
Maelle... Sophie's gone.
[ His voice is soft, like she's small and he's trying to explain the Gommage, the Expeditions. Death... death is just as final.
And it still is. Isn't it? ]
She's gone.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-14 02:23 am (UTC)The only person that needs to stay gone is Papa.]
Gustave. You're here again. So can she.
[Finding her chroma was difficult, considering the time that had passed since they left with Expedition 33. But it still remained, carried away in the winds and by the sea, and she thinks with Gustave's help she can bring her back and they can all go from there.
She thinks she would prefer to be an aunt rather than a big sister, but there's still time to figure that out. Not every big sister needed to be as cutting as Clea.]
You'd like that, wouldn't you? A chance to see her again and be happy together. Things are better now.
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Date: 2025-06-18 01:26 pm (UTC)It's the first thought that blooms quietly in his mind when she says what she does. Maybe he shouldn't be here again. He doesn't understand how any of this works, how... if he's painted, what does that mean? If the Paintress created him and all the others, how could Maelle bring them back? How could she bring them back the same?
Would he even realize it, if he were different from before? Would she? ]
I...
[ This, at least, isn't different. He's sure of that. He remembers wishing with all his poor broken heart for even one more moment with Sophie, to see her smiling and sweet and mischievous in the sunlight. He'd longed for a chance at... at another future. Another life.
And here is Maelle, offering it to him on a silver platter. ]
Yes. Yes, of course I would.
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Date: 2025-06-20 01:34 am (UTC)[Time to simply have him back. Time to paint Sophie properly. Time is all they have, now, and so she doesn't really feel the need to rush into anything at all. Surely he'll understand, be patient. She'll bring back Sophie and Emma and whoever he wants. Eventually.]
I want to make sure you're okay. It's... it's a lot, I know. You've been through so much and now it's time for us to be a family that never has to worry about breaking apart. We've earned it. This is--the least I can do for you. You took such good care of me. [Ah, and here she thought she was beyond her voice cracking. She clears her throat.] You're still the best family I've ever had.
[Funny, that.]