Maybe Dark Writer!Gustave/Clea. I love morally questionable baddies who hate each other's guts but will always walk back to each other's arms because they understand sacrificing everything for their families. With a gun.
She stays where she is, stretched out under soft sheets, watching with cold eyes as he begins to pick his clothes up from the floor and piece himself back together.
Like this, Clea has an unimpeded view as Gustave crafts the version of himself that he shows to the world: wrinkled shirts and gentle smiles; heâs ever-so-reasonable at all times. Her eyes drift to the stump of his arm as he straps his prosthetic back into place. In the hazy strips of light coming through the half-closed blinds, she can see the darkness threaded through his marks all the better. Black ink mixes with white scars, telling their own story, making their own promises.
God, sheâd love to paint him - as if heâd ever let her.
A Writer like Gustave knows better than that.
By the time he turns to face her again, itâs as if the past few hours never happened. Round glasses are perched on the edge of his nose, and his hair is mussed in a deliberately careless way rather than through the hungry raking of Cleaâs fingers.
He doesnât walk straight out; he sits on the edge of the bed, ever the gentleman. Soft words and a hard heart.
âTell me again,â she demands without getting up. âI need to hear it.â
She doesnât blink. He doesnât either.
âI didnât have anything to do with that fire,â he vows.
Is it naivety if she believes him? Is it self-delusion?
Does Clea want to believe him only because she wants this to keep going: is it selfish to guard the one messy comfort she has left in the ruined ashes the other Writers left behind?
She looks into his eyes as if she might be able to find the shape of the truth somewhere hidden inside - but, deep in his pupils, thereâs nothing but swirling ink.
He pats her knee through the covers: itâs something that could be comforting, could be sweet, and it makes her want to laugh in the shadow of all the ways theyâve taken each other apart, in the damning red marks of her nails across his shoulders. No, not laugh. It makes her want to scream.
âIf I find anything, Iâll let you know,â he promises.
âIâll burn you,â she vows in return. âIf you had anything to do with it - Iâll burn every one of you to the ground.â
That smile might be soft if she hadnât already been aware of what he was capable of. âIâd expect nothing less,â he says softly. His hand only lingers for a moment, warmth leeching through the sheets.
When heâs gone, she hates the carved absence he leaves behind.
When heâs gone, she thinks to herself - about tactics, about investigations, about vengeance.Â
She thinks about anything it takes to block out the ink-smudged fire already devouring the corners of her mind.
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
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romaincrisis
