Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
will byers stan first human second
NASA
styofa doing anything
cherry valley forever
titsay
Misplaced Lens Cap
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Cosmic Funnies
Kiana Khansmith
almost home
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
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Cosimo Galluzzi
Product Placement
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Claire Keane
occasionally subtle
izzy's playlists!
seen from Mexico
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@ihopeido
It wasn't all bad.
Unwritten Futures. & Pasts Undone.
Gustave of Lumiere, Member of Expedition 33. Partially Canon Divergent & Various Headcanons I'm Mattie / Ardent. 21+ About / FAQ and Rules Schedule what Schedule. Still a bit WIP.
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
There it was, that familiar chill. The same mask he had put on time and time again, the very same one the real Verso would wear to appease the aristocrats of Paris. One he was very familiar with, and one he knew was incredibly difficult to remove when stuck in one's own head. He'd worn it for years, put it on every time he was asked to do a concert at the opera house, every time he wanted to shout about how meaningless this all was, every time Sciel smiled at him and told him he was looking better now that he'd settled in Lumière.
"I spoke out of turn, and I was rude. You're a guest and I was taught better than that, I shouldn't have assumed." His own voice was somewhat distant, his mind clinging to memories that didn't belong to him. Of tight-lipped smiles and polite bows of His head as He apologized for speaking without thinking.
"My... Info's a bit out of date, I guess." He huffed, the sound humorless and dry even as he tried to smile a bit. Though that very may well sooner upset the man than comfort him, and it faded just as quick as that thought settled in his mind. "Coffee's the least I could do to make up for my thoughtlessness, right?" Hesitantly he raised a hand, resting it against the door as he turned toward it himself.
Gustave just had to last long enough to get back to his apartment; he could rebuild himself there in the welcoming darkness. He starts toward the exit, not waiting for a reply he wasn’t even sure he’d get. What he does get is something unexpected, enough to stop him a few feet from Verso. As a hazel gaze sweeps over the pale-haired man, something in them shifts against his will, and his hand unintentionally curls into a fist, knuckles matching against the white of the bandages. Verso's tone had shifted.
“‘Out of turn’?” Gustave repeats, unable to hide the furrowing of his brow. “No, you just asked a question, and I answered, nothing more, Verso. That’s all. And now I can leave you in peace,” He resumes his walk to the door, adding much quieter as he stands by it: “You won’t have to put up with me much longer.”
With any luck, he’d get home soon and just sleep how he's been sleeping—he has nowhere to be; part of the reason he was outside last night in the first place was that he’d begged off a get-together today. He had a few ways to turn off his brain for a while, to stop thinking of how fucked up he was. Of what a poor, fractured reflection of the man he’s supposed to be. He could go over the lines on his forearm, or on his thighs, let the blood carry it away, consciousness and thoughts both...
"I'm not putting up with you." His brow drew together at the statement, alarm bells going off in his head in a way that had him stopping in his tracks, hand planted against the door, and turning back to Gustave again even as he drew closer. He understood, God did he understand the irrational spiral better than anyone else in this canvas. He knew that look, he knew that tone, and he had a pretty solid guess about what might be going on behind those now vacant-looking eyes that had been so thoughtful and warm mere minutes ago.
He took a deep breath, his fingers pressing against the wood as part of him tried to reign him in. Stay out of it, it's none of your business. He doesn't want your help. He shook the thought off.
"Look—if you don't have plans, if you're really just going to go back home and not do anything why not stay?" He was being forward. Extremely forward, and also possibly very rude, but that need to protect people—the very same urge that killed the Real Verso—surged up with a vengeance he couldn't quite suppress. It wasn't his place, far from it in fact. Gustave was a grown man, and a very capable one, but even Verso knew that sometimes things just weren't easy to handle alone. As much as he hated admitting it when it came to his own struggles. "Like I said, I'm probably going to train at some point. We could do some those sword drills."
“You implied it, then,” Gustave mutters in response, head bowing under the weight of his tumultuous thoughts. He was weak; he knows he’s weak, unable or maybe uncaring enough to keep his own damn mind from turning on him. All it ever took was a dark whisper creeping forward, a reminder for him to falter, to break. He’s just that fucking pathetic now, a far cry from the brilliant engineer everyone always claims him to still be. He was, is an imposter. He could never be the real Gustave again.
The taste of iron blooms on his tongue. He bit down hard enough into it to draw blood this time. You’re nothing, his own voice tells him, singsong. You’ll never be that man, you will never be me. Everyone sees it, even this one; you’re too broken to see it. “Nh...” Gustave presses his fist to the side of his head; he can’t look at Verso anymore, at those eyes, that face, and see himself reflected. Why was Verso making this harder than it had to be? He himself said they should part ways, right? He could go back to his place, pull himself together and… do whatever he had to do to get through the rest of the day. As he’s been doing for weeks. Nothing's changed there.
“No, I really shouldn’t. I… want to be alone for a while, alright.” Gustave’s voice is only partially audible now, lips barely moving around the shape of the words. He closes his eyes tightly, prying open his hand long enough to reach toward the door, laying it flat against the surface and searching for the handle blind. “We can spar next time, I have to go.”
Verso knew he's going to do something stupid and damn him if he upsets Gustave more, but he knew that look in his eyes and the mere thought of him experiencing even some of what he himself had gone through for the past seven decades made Verso's stomach turn uncomfortably. Bringing his hand up from the door, Verso's hand quickly shot up to grab Gustave's forearm. Not in a tight grip by any means, certainly loose enough to shake him off but enough to try to get him to at least stop and listen to him.
"I didn't mean it like that," He insisted, his eyes lingering on his own fingers curled around Gustave's wrist. "If you want to go, I have no right to keep you but... You don't have to go, not on my account." He knew not to directly bring up his concerns. Adress the misunderstanding, that came first, he needed to fix that before he could touch anything else and they were clearly both still a bit raw from everything they'd shared already thus far. "I just wanted to give you the option in case you wanted to go, I wasn't trying to get you to leave..."
His eyes fell from his hand back to the floor, not entirely sure how clear he could make his feelings or if it would even matter or have any kind of effect. "The conversation we were having; the Continent, the trains, going back... That made me happy, happier than I've been in a while if I'm being honest and I just— Putain. I don't want to stop if I don't have to, because it made me feel... Normal again. Like I'm me and not Him."
Every inch of Gustave goes still, his arm freezing as fingers wrap around it; everything shifted back into focus. Blood drains from his face as his eyes snap open; Verso has no idea what lay beneath those fingers, but surely enough, for him at least, he can feel the warmth of the hand even under his clothes, under the rolls of stained cloth wrapped around his forearm to his wrist, and to the cold bony limb below that. The terror strikes him fast, irrational and all-consuming. He stares mutely at the pale hand on him for a long pause before lifting his eyes to Verso’s.
If Verso wanted him to listen, he certainly succeeded. “Oh. I… didn’t, I thought—” Gustave has to swallow a few times to speak again, blood oozing from his pierced tongue to the floor of his mouth, “I assumed the conversation was over with.” And assumed it would be his chance to leave without issues arising, but he read the words wrong, because of course he did. He needs another way out of here. Think, think. “Sorry.”
“It…” Gustave’s eyes fall, his voice small; while he still does not move his arm, “I enjoyed it too, believe me. All of it. But I need some time, time to… think.” He winces at the lame excuse he offers, though it was as close as he could go to the truth. He did enjoy it, those couple of minutes where the world beyond this room ceased to be a factor in the equation, where he could pretend all was well, that he could be like Verso said too: Normal, unbroken, lively. Happily conversing about a trip to the Station. With a path forward, something to look to in the future. “You are you, I am me. I’m just tired, that's all. I don't mean to be rude.”
Verso let out a soft breath through his nose, his shoulders falling as the panicked tension in them faded. Gustave wanted out, clearly, and Verso knew better than to push too far when it wasn't the time. "Just, wanted to clear up the misunderstanding..." He shrugged, his fingers slipping from the other's wrist so he could open the door and turn to head out ahead of him. After all, he may have lived on the Continent for nearly seven decades, but he had enough manners to walk Gustave to the door.
The hallway beyond the bedroom was, of course, dark until his hand found a switch as he passed by it and the small passage leading to the entry way to the small apartment. A hall he very quickly headed down while both hands slipped into his pockets. Around him, the walls were bare; no photos, no paintings, nothing like the maps and sketches Verso had around his desk. No extra shelves with anymore hand carved trinkets, nothing personalized.
Even the entry, living area, and kitchen were almost concerningly neat as compared to the freshly lived-in space that was his bedroom. Even little furniture existed in the pace outside of a dining table, chairs, a couch, and a grand piano that sat tucked into the far corner of the living area. The whole space seeming to serve only the most basic purpose he needed it for. Like he had never intended to stay long.
"You're welcome anytime. Like I said, I don't really go out myself either unless I have a concert..." His voice was still quiet when he finally spoke again, coming to a stop near the door as he leaned against the wall that partially divided the space that transitioned from the living room to the entry. "And I'm sorry again." He added, his eyes finally lifting from the floor to find Gustave again. That deeply unsure look flickering in his eyes for a moment before it was gone once more, like it hadn't been there in the first place. Better not to let his concern show, he had managed to collect a few of the pieces he had displaced. He just needed time. "Before you tell me it's not necessary, I'm not doing it because I feel I have to, it's because I want to."
Already, Gustave had been thinking of other excuses he could offer when his wrist was released. The moment Verso lets him go, he pulls the arm flush with his chest. Quickening panic slowly begins to fade, and he is able to breathe again. “Okay.” He is thankful beyond belief when Verso accepts his half-assed explanation without calling him out on the blatant deflection. The door opens without much delay; the man doesn’t appear to look at him as he leaves ahead of Gustave, into a dark hallway. He stays where he is until the light flicks on, then he slowly follows in the wake, raising his head and facing forward.
He’s not entirely sure what he would’ve expected from the rest of Verso’s home; he thinks to himself, eyes tracing along plain walls, a sharp contrast to the controlled chaos of the bedroom behind them. Whereas in there it was more obviously lived in, out here was its polar opposite—neat to the point of little being out of place, empty of personal effects or even the models he’d handled. Gustave wasn’t too surprised; Verso had given him the impression of being a very private person. Though the modest home gave him the thought of something like temporary housing, a place that’s not meant to remain a home for very long.
He watches Verso’s back, the pale hair spilling across thin shoulders. Gustave wets his lips, and hazel eyes find the piano pushed off to the side as he sweeps through the front room, and they linger there; and he stops in his tracks even as Verso continues along the way to the exit. He’s not been this close to one since… his eyes dart to what's left of his left arm. Even whenever he was pulled along to one of Verso’s concerts, he weaseled his way into being the furthest one from the stage. Em’s violin, which she’d all but shoved at him years ago and which he played all the way until he left with 33, was back with her at his insistence. His apartment now was quiet as a grave.
Verso’s voice got him to look up, and toward the door, and at the one leaning against the wall just before; something in those silver eyes flicker when their eyes meet, but he didn’t know what. Pity? Regret? “…Thanks, Verso.” Gustave tries to pull off a half-smile for the other man’s sake, “I’ll remember that, I swear. I really don’t need an apology right now though.” He shrugs a shoulder and shuffles onward until he is in front of Verso again, as well as his way out of the man’s home. “I’ll… I guess I’ll see you then, yeah?”
"No problem." The corners of Verso's mouth lifted into a faint smile, never quite reaching his eyes. Whatever warmth had managed to surface disappeared just as quickly beneath the all too familiar mask he had worn throughout the Expedition. Calm. Collected. Difficult to read. It was easier to slip back into that version of himself, far better than the sad reality that was the real him.
The silence settled between them for another moment before Verso finally straightened. The movement unhurried as he moved to pull the door open with practiced ease. An almost mechanical gesture.
Exactly as He had been taught to treat His guests.
His fingers tightened around the brass handle as the thought presented itself. He forced himself to loosen his grip a moment later, careful not to let any of that tension creep into his expression as every memory, every familiar mannerism he'd unconsciously borrowed from his Real World counterpart, every carefully rehearsed gesture that had slipped from him since Gustave had woken up now lingered in the back of his mind.
Verso drew in a quiet breath before turning his attention back to Gustave. He gave a small nod, another smile finding its way onto his face as he rested some of his weight against the open door. "Take care of yourself, Gustave." The words left him softer than he'd intended. There was no practiced politeness behind them, no carefully maintained persona. Just a simple, genuine request as his somber gaze lingered on Gustave's face for another moment, almost like he was reluctant to look away, before he managed to glance down and clear his throat.
He wonders, as he looks upon Verso’s own mask—for what else it could be—if this is what he looked like when he tried to project the air of ‘everything’s fine, nothing’s wrong’. If his own eyes had the same tendency to betray him. Gustave is reminded again of the similarities they shared, especially now, in the present. Though the practiced grace Verso exuded was definitely only his, a remnant of the times before maybe, something so ingrained it’s never forgotten? That’s not for him to know, anyhow.
The door opens quietly, revealing the early morning light. Time to go.
Gustave doesn’t speak; he only tilts his head at Verso’s appeal—not a nod, not an affirmation—smile falling into something sad at the earnest ask. He could not promise anything; after all, he knows exactly what he’s got on his mind while the one before him does not. He stares up at the slightly taller man for a long moment, the two of them just looking at the other; he had a feeling they both were being rather honest in their responses. When Verso breaks that contact, only then does Gustave move sluggishly past him. He whispers a final parting word as he passes: “Thank you, again, for patching my hand.”
He leaves the threshold and walks into the daylight beyond, feeling the sun’s warmth, pausing to let it wash over him. There was only one destination in mind—he continues.
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
"Good to hear. You were a pretty good fighter from what I noticed, and we both use swords so maybe I could teach you a thing or two as well." That casual lopsided grin returned as he offered, his pale eyes raising from the map to settle once more on Gustave's face. "I can't imagine we'll run into anything too strong, we took care of a lot of the worst of them before we returned to Lumière." It had been a lot of him going out to hunt Nevrons, but still—they'd made a good team regardless.
"Old Lumière isn't too far from Monoco's Station." He nodded, glancing down at its spot on the map. He was sure the Engineer would certainly have a lot of questions about the state of the city; the massive Chroma filled weapons, the Hauler, the empty estate near the edge of the city where his family had once lived their lives. Oblivious to their painted existence.
"My favorites?" His eyes shot back up to Gustave, slightly wide from the surprise of the statement. "Ah... Right— Hm... The Gestral River is a nice place to visit, there's Yellow Harvest, there's a beautiful valley just past the mountains on the eastern portion of the Continent that I love traveling through..." He trailed off a bit, thinking about anything more as his mind slowly drifted to probably his absolute favorite place... Maybe even more than Frozen Hearts. Of candy caverns, and color splotched skies, of the waterfalls and the otters, and the only functioning trains on the whole Continent... "Verso's Drafts." He added softly, his expression finally settling into something that could only be considered longing.
The place he had finally gotten to experience something like childish wonder for himself, for the first time in his long life. A place that, in a way, made him feel... Closer to Verso. The other Verso.
From what you noticed, right. “You mean when you skulked? Or are you referring to your visits to the city—?” His mouth falls into a lazy smirk, hazel eyes reflecting mirth. He rests his hand on his hip, head tilted in Verso’s direction. The engineer couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at his new… friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? Fellow disliker of this life? Doesn’t entirely matter, but still a bit funny in retrospect, learning of Verso’s stalking tendencies.
“—But! I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill or two.” Gustave’s smirk gave way to a small smile, open, not teasing this time. Verso had a nice smile. The other man had been around a while; he could learn a great deal from the immortal swordsman. He wouldn’t mind some new tricks. "Especially if we're going somewhere beyond what I've already seen, the nevrons would be different too..."
Hm. So going passed the Station, is where Old Lumiere lies? What would he find… forgotten homes and places, abandoned streets and possessions? The engineer thinks for a moment, with a quick glance at the map then back up at Verso. They—Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and himself—had been to a yellow forest, filled with nevrons with weaknesses to fire. And an odd ‘chromatic’ one at the end that he sketched.
“Verso’s Drafts…?” Gustave tries to remember if Maelle or the others had told him about it, and his mind turns to his sister's retelling of visiting a place her brother had made as a young boy. A child's playground. Not the canvas itself, of course, but a small portion away from everything else. It had to be a special place, for Verso to yearn to return—that much was plain to see on the man’s face. “Where would that be?”
"Hey, I needed to make sure you guys were going to be able to handle yourselves in fights and I wasn't ready to reveal myself just yet. You can't exactly be a dashing hero without an interesting entrance." He unfolded his arms with a shrug, straightening up so he was no longer leaned against his desk as he turned to properly face Gustave once again. "You tell me if you would've trusted me if I had been in the Manor with Maelle when you and Lune showed up, because I had a feeling that gun of yours would've been in my face faster than I could blink."
"I've got plenty I could teach you though; sword work. stances, gradient attacks. You'll definitely need gradient parries at the very least for where we'll be going. Just in case we run into some particularly nasty Nevrons in Frozen Hearts and Old Lumière." He tilted his head, thinking a bit about the process. It had taken the girls a bit of time to get a handle on gradient attacks, but they had at least managed to develop a handful of them before their confrontation with the Painter Renoir. So long as they just kept traveling and fighting nevrons, Verso was sure Gustave would pick them up fairly easily.
For a moment, he blinked before it clicked in his head that he had mentioned Verso's Drafts out loud. His face flushing a bit as he realized it must seem strange, an over a century-old-man's favorite place in their painted world being a child's hidden paradise. "Ah... Not all that far from Lumière, actually." His head then tilted forward slightly as he looked away, as if attempting to hide the pink that taken over his face. "He painted it a long time ago. Just for himself." and maybe a handful of special people but that was beside the point. "It's a lot of candy, half-finished Gestrals, and more Esquie than you'd know how to deal with. It's a lot."
Gustave just shakes his head, but doesn’t make a move to tell Verso otherwise. He would’ve pulled his gun on him, after all. Odd young man following them? After what happened at the beach, he had been a little trigger-happy, all the way up to… all along the way. “With the Converter, we had an advantage.” He pauses, making a considering hum, “After what happened at 33’s landing, I was very much a shoot first, questions after, kind of guy — ‘Least when it came to nevrons… Probably still would’ve shot you though, so fair enough on that.” He gives Verso a one-shoulder shrug.
As for learning, Gustave was always a quick study with his sword; he always approached it with the same gusto he did with tinkering. The engineer did have to admit some curiosity about what Verso could teach; he’d yet to see the other man fight. He’d heard, and read, about the gradients, however. ‘Twas something the nevrons he had faced didn’t have… perhaps the proximity to the Monolith had something to do with it or—? Dammit, he doesn’t have paper. "I’m going to need another journal…"
“Not far…” Gustave’s eyes wander out the window, to the city awakening. Verso’s Drafts… a reflection of a young boy’s desire for a space of his own, to create and exist in, away from whatever was going on Outside. He could see why Verso would like it, a place to just be—far from the wider world. Childish, maybe, but it fulfills the same premise as a sanctuary would. “I think… I’d like to see that, all the same. At least once.”
As he thought about it, something occurred to him. And Gustave has to suppress a laugh, though the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes squinting. “Really now. Dashing hero, Verso? You certainly have the hair for it, at least, the roguish stubble too.” Wait.
Shit. Stop flirting, you idiot. Not the time, especially—oh, whatever, fuck it, it’s already out.
The seemingly reluctant assent that he was correct only served to draw a soft chuckle from Verso, amusement flickering in his pale eyes despite his own slightly flushed face. "I'd have healed just fine, probably would've been a pain to deal with if your ammunition got stuck somewhere instead of passing straight through..." He shook off any further thoughts of any past experiences that involved being shot from his mind, granted it hadn't happened often. Expeditioners hardly picked up firearms as compared to traditional weaponry.
"Seriously? You'd want to go?" There was genuine surprise in the man's voice and face as his eyes instinctively searched Gustave's face and posture for some kind of deception, like he was trying to access if this was merely an attempt to get into his head. "You're sure?" With a slight forward tilt of his head, Verso almost seemed to be taking the suggestion quite seriously before trying to reign himself in once more. The Drafts were important to him and sharing it with other people had been a big change for him with the 33s. To bring another person to a place so close to his heart, even if it didn't truly belong to him...
When Gustave circled back to his "dashing hero" comment, he almost wanted to laugh. The sound almost bubbling up in his chest but only managing to escape as a soft snort as his grin widened. "Charming and Roguish? Also bringing up my hair again?" He teased, planting a hand on his desk so he could lean slightly closer. "Careful Gustave, I might think you actually like me if you keep that up."
“…Absolutely, I would like to see the Drafts. If that’s not a problem…?” The question posed provided a suitable deflection, at least, and he makes himself actually look at Verso rather than anywhere but. The engineer hadn’t needed to think about the answer either; every word had been said in earnest, betraying nothing but sincerity. He very much does want to see this place; he’s not sure why Verso needs him to clarify. (Unless, perhaps, it was also more than a sanctuary for him.)
...Dammit. “It…That may have slipped out.” Gustave quickly insists, his voice a bit higher than he would have liked, while pressing his hand to the side of his burning face, the skin warm even through the bandage. It really, really didn’t help him here. He’s known for a long time that he finds both women and men attractive, but it’s been a while since he started blurting out his captivation with someone. Putain de Merde. Did he hit his head when he passed out? His head hurts. Maybe it’s that? No, no, it’s not. It’s Verso. Fuck.
“Can—” Gustave scrambles for a coherent sentence, rooted in place as Verso leans forward and continues to poke at him for his blunder. “Can you—” Shit. “Could—Could you just pretend you didn’t hear that?” He asks at last, then keeps going because he can't stop, apparently. “I like you fine. I’m just… lo—er, admiring from here?”
Yes, Verso’s handsome—He would have to be blind to not see it. Now can he stop fucking letting it slip at the worst of times??
"Mm, right." The pianist hummed, the word soft and low as he leaned back again before pushing off of his desk to wander away from it a with a few lazy steps. "I could pretend, but where's the fun in that?" He added, glancing over his shoulder with that same lazy grin. He knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. Nor was he so stupid that he didn't recognize that Gustave was charming in his own right. The thoughtful look in his eyes, the way the color shifted in the light, his inquisitiveness. Even if those smarts and that questioning nature of his would have been the absolute bane of Verso's existence on the Expedition, they weren't bad features by any means. In fact he found those aspects of him very fascinating.
"I'm used to the attention. Granted, getting it with the white hair is certainly new since people seem to think it makes me look old." As it was mentioned, a hand came up to run through the silvery-white length of hair. Brushing it from his face as he turned around to walk backward a couple steps, tilting his head toward the door.
"We should probably get ready for the day though, yeah? Before we look too suspicious." He raised a brow, his eyes briefly flickering down to Gustave's injured hand before returning to his face. "Especially with your hand the way it is if you still don't want that tint still." As content as Verso would be to reminisce and plan to run off to the Continent all day, he was quite sure Gustave had important work. At least that's what he'd picked up in passing from Maelle as of late whenever she'd talk about him. "Unless you want to come up with an excuse to spend the day with the local recluse."
Gustave groans, still faintly flushed, still regretting every choice he made that led him to end up here. He wipes his hand across his face, as if to push away the color dusting it. This man will be the death of him—him and that ‘charm’ of his. “Fun for you, maybe.” He grumbles in Verso’s general direction as the man gracefully gives him some room, swaggering all the while. He scrubs the side of his neck, forcefully loosening his shoulders and spine as he looks at the journal resting on the desk rather than at the other. He blinks in surprise a beat after, “Huh? Color doesn’t automatically equate to age, so that assumption is incorrect. …Don’t let it get to your head, alright.”
In the moment, it had been all too easy to believe that there hadn’t been much of anything hanging over his head. It made it all the simpler to dredge up parts of his old self lying dead across the sea. A more lively man. Someone who wanted life, wanted to see all the land had left to offer freely and without prompting. Gustave looks at Verso’s map still lain across the wood, at the places he didn’t get to see, the world beyond Stone Wave Cliffs. He wonders in the comfort of his own mind about what that man could look like, if he had lived to see it all; and with that thought, he feels himself curl inward, though he tries masking it.
Gustave worries at his lip, nipping at the dry cracks. He moves his gaze to just past Verso’s ear. “We’re both recluses, Verso.” He corrects him, sighing, holding his hand out in front of him, “I'm fine. I’ve rarely gone out, since… well, unless I’m being dragged out by Em or Maelle, and Sciel occasionally now. Nor is it the first time I’ve gone home wounded.” He waves the hand. “Nevertheless, I can go. I could… work on being normal, in the meantime.”
"Then we're more alike than I thought." He tried to keep it light, that grin still lingering on his face as he reached to open the door to the room. Though his eyes hadn't yet left Gustave again as he picked up on the withdraw, the way he seemed to retreat into himself in that all too familiar way, and for just a moment his eyes darted across his face as he tried to think.
"You work on a lot of the technical stuff throughout the city, yeah?" He asked, tilting his head just slightly as his grin faded into a more thoughtful expression. He didn't look like he was fully ready to return to the world they had been forced to live in, their new lives, the least Verso would do was at least ease him back into it. Right? Do for Gustave what no one had ever done for him. "I helped create the dome. I wouldn't really call myself an engineer, but I have some technical knowledge." He motioned his hand toward the journal Gustave now had in his possession. "Maybe I could walk with you a bit. Listen about your work."
It was a simple offer, to simply be a person to be there. A role he was used to taking on for others, one he had learned people needed from time to time. "I don't have plans today besides practicing, working on my new composition, maybe sketching a bit, and doing some training. As long as I don't get dragged around by my metaphorical leash by Sciel." As he spoke, his hands fell to his sides. His thumbs hooking into the pockets of his slacks like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with them. He was sure Gustave would probably turn him down, which was entirely fair, but still... He wanted to at least put the offer out there.
So we are, Verso, so we are. He turns his attention to the door, his way out. Fuck, he can already tell it’s not going to be a good day. Thinking about who Gustave is now versus who he used to be tends to be one of the couple of things that wipe away the chances of a nicer one. He knows all too well he’s barely holding it together, that he’s not their Gustave anymore. The man he is now is but a shadow of the one that died—no longer enjoying life, no longer holding onto hope, and no longer creating. He knows they whisper behind his back, for they treat him gently, but their eyes search.
Technical stuff, he scoffs internally, lips pressed together in a white line. That was before—before this! Gustave wants to tell him, wants to shout. But he doesn’t. He can’t. They might be on a similar page, but all Verso seems to know about him comes from what others have said or from what he saw when he came this way years ago. Thus, he has to wonder just who Verso sees in front of him—the one that is, or the one that was? Both? He’d sure acted more like the one who came before, thinking back. There’s no regret in it. He said what he said, and he’d say it again. (Minus when he put his foot in his mouth)
“…I see.” Gustave wraps his arm around himself again, stepping away from the desk and its contents. His eyes strayed back to the journal at Verso’s motion, and went right back to where they’d been. “And worked. Past tense. I meant what I said: I don’t go out unless I have to make an appearance, or I’d —” He bites his tongue to stop himself, closing his eyes and breathing slowly through his nose. “…just drop it, please. We can find another time and place to speak, then I'll go back to my apartment.”
The moment Gustave stressed that he no longer held that job, Verso grimaced. Yeah, right, that makes sense... After all, Verso himself had adamantly refused to take on a proper job when he settled in Lumière. Never wanted to let himself sink too deep into the fantasy of it all, the hollow existence he knew was waiting for him with his immortality still looming over his head compared to the finite lives around him.
He didn't respond much more except to nod when Gustave asked him to drop it, his eyes falling to the floor like the grain pattern was very interesting to him all of the sudden. Within his own head, he was already scolding himself. They'd been doing well, and he had to go and fuck it up by opening his mouth and bringing reality back in. He already knew what this plan of theirs was, maybe that's why he'd been so... Open about certain things, so eager to jump into this with a man who by all counts should hate his guts.
This was an escape, for the both of them. This wasn't about the trains, or seeing parts of the Continent Gustave never could, or reliving memories. They were trying to find a way out of the lives that they'd been given, the roles they've been assigned. Nothing was the same anymore, for either of them.
"Can I at least make you some kind of breakfast... As an apology, even if its just coffee?" He asked softly, silver irises finally flickering back up to Gustave's face almost cautiously before darting away again. The confidence and easy flirting from before was gone, replaced instead with the real Verso that now haunted the Canvas; a tired, passive, subdued man that had failed to protect his sister.
He hadn’t been able to work, much less do much else aside from existing, since his return. They’d offered him his job a couple of weeks ago, having given him time to adjust, he’d guessed, but he turned it down that same day. Gustave didn’t trust his hands not to shake, couldn’t trust that he could wear the prosthetic he’d been painted with every day. That he could somehow still hide under constant scrutiny of others as his chosen field oft demanded.
And he only had himself to blame, just him and his messed-up head. It was nice to pretend to believe he could be that person again, even for just a conversation's worth of time. He wasn’t worth anything like this; he knew that, even if others did not. His body told the story well enough from the outside. Already the joy of learning the extent of the continent's scattered locomotives is dying in his chest, along with his desire to stay here a moment longer than he had to.
He doesn’t trust himself not to do or say something that might come back to haunt him later—along with everything else already clawing its way back. Verso had enough to deal with.
“No.” Gustave’s already shaking his head by the time Verso finishes, opening his eyes to the man staring at the floor, his arm now hanging limp at his side as he turns bodily toward the door. He makes his expression a careful mask of neutrality, yet even he can admit it’s fragile. “Why bother? There’s naught to apologize for.”
There it was, that familiar chill. The same mask he had put on time and time again, the very same one the real Verso would wear to appease the aristocrats of Paris. One he was very familiar with, and one he knew was incredibly difficult to remove when stuck in one's own head. He'd worn it for years, put it on every time he was asked to do a concert at the opera house, every time he wanted to shout about how meaningless this all was, every time Sciel smiled at him and told him he was looking better now that he'd settled in Lumière.
"I spoke out of turn, and I was rude. You're a guest and I was taught better than that, I shouldn't have assumed." His own voice was somewhat distant, his mind clinging to memories that didn't belong to him. Of tight-lipped smiles and polite bows of His head as He apologized for speaking without thinking.
"My... Info's a bit out of date, I guess." He huffed, the sound humorless and dry even as he tried to smile a bit. Though that very may well sooner upset the man than comfort him, and it faded just as quick as that thought settled in his mind. "Coffee's the least I could do to make up for my thoughtlessness, right?" Hesitantly he raised a hand, resting it against the door as he turned toward it himself.
Gustave just had to last long enough to get back to his apartment; he could rebuild himself there in the welcoming darkness. He starts toward the exit, not waiting for a reply he wasn’t even sure he’d get. What he does get is something unexpected, enough to stop him a few feet from Verso. As a hazel gaze sweeps over the pale-haired man, something in them shifts against his will, and his hand unintentionally curls into a fist, knuckles matching against the white of the bandages. Verso's tone had shifted.
“‘Out of turn’?” Gustave repeats, unable to hide the furrowing of his brow. “No, you just asked a question, and I answered, nothing more, Verso. That’s all. And now I can leave you in peace,” He resumes his walk to the door, adding much quieter as he stands by it: “You won’t have to put up with me much longer.”
With any luck, he’d get home soon and just sleep how he's been sleeping—he has nowhere to be; part of the reason he was outside last night in the first place was that he’d begged off a get-together today. He had a few ways to turn off his brain for a while, to stop thinking of how fucked up he was. Of what a poor, fractured reflection of the man he’s supposed to be. He could go over the lines on his forearm, or on his thighs, let the blood carry it away, consciousness and thoughts both...
"I'm not putting up with you." His brow drew together at the statement, alarm bells going off in his head in a way that had him stopping in his tracks, hand planted against the door, and turning back to Gustave again even as he drew closer. He understood, God did he understand the irrational spiral better than anyone else in this canvas. He knew that look, he knew that tone, and he had a pretty solid guess about what might be going on behind those now vacant-looking eyes that had been so thoughtful and warm mere minutes ago.
He took a deep breath, his fingers pressing against the wood as part of him tried to reign him in. Stay out of it, it's none of your business. He doesn't want your help. He shook the thought off.
"Look—if you don't have plans, if you're really just going to go back home and not do anything why not stay?" He was being forward. Extremely forward, and also possibly very rude, but that need to protect people—the very same urge that killed the Real Verso—surged up with a vengeance he couldn't quite suppress. It wasn't his place, far from it in fact. Gustave was a grown man, and a very capable one, but even Verso knew that sometimes things just weren't easy to handle alone. As much as he hated admitting it when it came to his own struggles. "Like I said, I'm probably going to train at some point. We could do some those sword drills."
“You implied it, then,” Gustave mutters in response, head bowing under the weight of his tumultuous thoughts. He was weak; he knows he’s weak, unable or maybe uncaring enough to keep his own damn mind from turning on him. All it ever took was a dark whisper creeping forward, a reminder for him to falter, to break. He’s just that fucking pathetic now, a far cry from the brilliant engineer everyone always claims him to still be. He was, is an imposter. He could never be the real Gustave again.
The taste of iron blooms on his tongue. He bit down hard enough into it to draw blood this time. You’re nothing, his own voice tells him, singsong. You’ll never be that man, you will never be me. Everyone sees it, even this one; you’re too broken to see it. “Nh...” Gustave presses his fist to the side of his head; he can’t look at Verso anymore, at those eyes, that face, and see himself reflected. Why was Verso making this harder than it had to be? He himself said they should part ways, right? He could go back to his place, pull himself together and… do whatever he had to do to get through the rest of the day. As he’s been doing for weeks. Nothing's changed there.
“No, I really shouldn’t. I… want to be alone for a while, alright.” Gustave’s voice is only partially audible now, lips barely moving around the shape of the words. He closes his eyes tightly, prying open his hand long enough to reach toward the door, laying it flat against the surface and searching for the handle blind. “We can spar next time, I have to go.”
Verso knew he's going to do something stupid and damn him if he upsets Gustave more, but he knew that look in his eyes and the mere thought of him experiencing even some of what he himself had gone through for the past seven decades made Verso's stomach turn uncomfortably. Bringing his hand up from the door, Verso's hand quickly shot up to grab Gustave's forearm. Not in a tight grip by any means, certainly loose enough to shake him off but enough to try to get him to at least stop and listen to him.
"I didn't mean it like that," He insisted, his eyes lingering on his own fingers curled around Gustave's wrist. "If you want to go, I have no right to keep you but... You don't have to go, not on my account." He knew not to directly bring up his concerns. Adress the misunderstanding, that came first, he needed to fix that before he could touch anything else and they were clearly both still a bit raw from everything they'd shared already thus far. "I just wanted to give you the option in case you wanted to go, I wasn't trying to get you to leave..."
His eyes fell from his hand back to the floor, not entirely sure how clear he could make his feelings or if it would even matter or have any kind of effect. "The conversation we were having; the Continent, the trains, going back... That made me happy, happier than I've been in a while if I'm being honest and I just— Putain. I don't want to stop if I don't have to, because it made me feel... Normal again. Like I'm me and not Him."
Every inch of Gustave goes still, his arm freezing as fingers wrap around it; everything shifted back into focus. Blood drains from his face as his eyes snap open; Verso has no idea what lay beneath those fingers, but surely enough, for him at least, he can feel the warmth of the hand even under his clothes, under the rolls of stained cloth wrapped around his forearm to his wrist, and to the cold bony limb below that. The terror strikes him fast, irrational and all-consuming. He stares mutely at the pale hand on him for a long pause before lifting his eyes to Verso’s.
If Verso wanted him to listen, he certainly succeeded. “Oh. I… didn’t, I thought—” Gustave has to swallow a few times to speak again, blood oozing from his pierced tongue to the floor of his mouth, “I assumed the conversation was over with.” And assumed it would be his chance to leave without issues arising, but he read the words wrong, because of course he did. He needs another way out of here. Think, think. “Sorry.”
“It…” Gustave’s eyes fall, his voice small; while he still does not move his arm, “I enjoyed it too, believe me. All of it. But I need some time, time to… think.” He winces at the lame excuse he offers, though it was as close as he could go to the truth. He did enjoy it, those couple of minutes where the world beyond this room ceased to be a factor in the equation, where he could pretend all was well, that he could be like Verso said too: Normal, unbroken, lively. Happily conversing about a trip to the Station. With a path forward, something to look to in the future. “You are you, I am me. I’m just tired, that's all. I don't mean to be rude.”
Verso let out a soft breath through his nose, his shoulders falling as the panicked tension in them faded. Gustave wanted out, clearly, and Verso knew better than to push too far when it wasn't the time. "Just, wanted to clear up the misunderstanding..." He shrugged, his fingers slipping from the other's wrist so he could open the door and turn to head out ahead of him. After all, he may have lived on the Continent for nearly seven decades, but he had enough manners to walk Gustave to the door.
The hallway beyond the bedroom was, of course, dark until his hand found a switch as he passed by it and the small passage leading to the entry way to the small apartment. A hall he very quickly headed down while both hands slipped into his pockets. Around him, the walls were bare; no photos, no paintings, nothing like the maps and sketches Verso had around his desk. No extra shelves with anymore hand carved trinkets, nothing personalized.
Even the entry, living area, and kitchen were almost concerningly neat as compared to the freshly lived-in space that was his bedroom. Even little furniture existed in the pace outside of a dining table, chairs, a couch, and a grand piano that sat tucked into the far corner of the living area. The whole space seeming to serve only the most basic purpose he needed it for. Like he had never intended to stay long.
"You're welcome anytime. Like I said, I don't really go out myself either unless I have a concert..." His voice was still quiet when he finally spoke again, coming to a stop near the door as he leaned against the wall that partially divided the space that transitioned from the living room to the entry. "And I'm sorry again." He added, his eyes finally lifting from the floor to find Gustave again. That deeply unsure look flickering in his eyes for a moment before it was gone once more, like it hadn't been there in the first place. Better not to let his concern show, he had managed to collect a few of the pieces he had displaced. He just needed time. "Before you tell me it's not necessary, I'm not doing it because I feel I have to, it's because I want to."
Already, Gustave had been thinking of other excuses he could offer when his wrist was released. The moment Verso lets him go, he pulls the arm flush with his chest. Quickening panic slowly begins to fade, and he is able to breathe again. “Okay.” He is thankful beyond belief when Verso accepts his half-assed explanation without calling him out on the blatant deflection. The door opens without much delay; the man doesn’t appear to look at him as he leaves ahead of Gustave, into a dark hallway. He stays where he is until the light flicks on, then he slowly follows in the wake, raising his head and facing forward.
He’s not entirely sure what he would’ve expected from the rest of Verso’s home; he thinks to himself, eyes tracing along plain walls, a sharp contrast to the controlled chaos of the bedroom behind them. Whereas in there it was more obviously lived in, out here was its polar opposite—neat to the point of little being out of place, empty of personal effects or even the models he’d handled. Gustave wasn’t too surprised; Verso had given him the impression of being a very private person. Though the modest home gave him the thought of something like temporary housing, a place that’s not meant to remain a home for very long.
He watches Verso’s back, the pale hair spilling across thin shoulders. Gustave wets his lips, and hazel eyes find the piano pushed off to the side as he sweeps through the front room, and they linger there; and he stops in his tracks even as Verso continues along the way to the exit. He’s not been this close to one since… his eyes dart to what's left of his left arm. Even whenever he was pulled along to one of Verso’s concerts, he weaseled his way into being the furthest one from the stage. Em’s violin, which she’d all but shoved at him years ago and which he played all the way until he left with 33, was back with her at his insistence. His apartment now was quiet as a grave.
Verso’s voice got him to look up, and toward the door, and at the one leaning against the wall just before; something in those silver eyes flicker when their eyes meet, but he didn’t know what. Pity? Regret? “…Thanks, Verso.” Gustave tries to pull off a half-smile for the other man’s sake, “I’ll remember that, I swear. I really don’t need an apology right now though.” He shrugs a shoulder and shuffles onward until he is in front of Verso again, as well as his way out of the man’s home. “I’ll… I guess I’ll see you then, yeah?”
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
"Good to hear. You were a pretty good fighter from what I noticed, and we both use swords so maybe I could teach you a thing or two as well." That casual lopsided grin returned as he offered, his pale eyes raising from the map to settle once more on Gustave's face. "I can't imagine we'll run into anything too strong, we took care of a lot of the worst of them before we returned to Lumière." It had been a lot of him going out to hunt Nevrons, but still—they'd made a good team regardless.
"Old Lumière isn't too far from Monoco's Station." He nodded, glancing down at its spot on the map. He was sure the Engineer would certainly have a lot of questions about the state of the city; the massive Chroma filled weapons, the Hauler, the empty estate near the edge of the city where his family had once lived their lives. Oblivious to their painted existence.
"My favorites?" His eyes shot back up to Gustave, slightly wide from the surprise of the statement. "Ah... Right— Hm... The Gestral River is a nice place to visit, there's Yellow Harvest, there's a beautiful valley just past the mountains on the eastern portion of the Continent that I love traveling through..." He trailed off a bit, thinking about anything more as his mind slowly drifted to probably his absolute favorite place... Maybe even more than Frozen Hearts. Of candy caverns, and color splotched skies, of the waterfalls and the otters, and the only functioning trains on the whole Continent... "Verso's Drafts." He added softly, his expression finally settling into something that could only be considered longing.
The place he had finally gotten to experience something like childish wonder for himself, for the first time in his long life. A place that, in a way, made him feel... Closer to Verso. The other Verso.
From what you noticed, right. “You mean when you skulked? Or are you referring to your visits to the city—?” His mouth falls into a lazy smirk, hazel eyes reflecting mirth. He rests his hand on his hip, head tilted in Verso’s direction. The engineer couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at his new… friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? Fellow disliker of this life? Doesn’t entirely matter, but still a bit funny in retrospect, learning of Verso’s stalking tendencies.
“—But! I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill or two.” Gustave’s smirk gave way to a small smile, open, not teasing this time. Verso had a nice smile. The other man had been around a while; he could learn a great deal from the immortal swordsman. He wouldn’t mind some new tricks. "Especially if we're going somewhere beyond what I've already seen, the nevrons would be different too..."
Hm. So going passed the Station, is where Old Lumiere lies? What would he find… forgotten homes and places, abandoned streets and possessions? The engineer thinks for a moment, with a quick glance at the map then back up at Verso. They—Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and himself—had been to a yellow forest, filled with nevrons with weaknesses to fire. And an odd ‘chromatic’ one at the end that he sketched.
“Verso’s Drafts…?” Gustave tries to remember if Maelle or the others had told him about it, and his mind turns to his sister's retelling of visiting a place her brother had made as a young boy. A child's playground. Not the canvas itself, of course, but a small portion away from everything else. It had to be a special place, for Verso to yearn to return—that much was plain to see on the man’s face. “Where would that be?”
"Hey, I needed to make sure you guys were going to be able to handle yourselves in fights and I wasn't ready to reveal myself just yet. You can't exactly be a dashing hero without an interesting entrance." He unfolded his arms with a shrug, straightening up so he was no longer leaned against his desk as he turned to properly face Gustave once again. "You tell me if you would've trusted me if I had been in the Manor with Maelle when you and Lune showed up, because I had a feeling that gun of yours would've been in my face faster than I could blink."
"I've got plenty I could teach you though; sword work. stances, gradient attacks. You'll definitely need gradient parries at the very least for where we'll be going. Just in case we run into some particularly nasty Nevrons in Frozen Hearts and Old Lumière." He tilted his head, thinking a bit about the process. It had taken the girls a bit of time to get a handle on gradient attacks, but they had at least managed to develop a handful of them before their confrontation with the Painter Renoir. So long as they just kept traveling and fighting nevrons, Verso was sure Gustave would pick them up fairly easily.
For a moment, he blinked before it clicked in his head that he had mentioned Verso's Drafts out loud. His face flushing a bit as he realized it must seem strange, an over a century-old-man's favorite place in their painted world being a child's hidden paradise. "Ah... Not all that far from Lumière, actually." His head then tilted forward slightly as he looked away, as if attempting to hide the pink that taken over his face. "He painted it a long time ago. Just for himself." and maybe a handful of special people but that was beside the point. "It's a lot of candy, half-finished Gestrals, and more Esquie than you'd know how to deal with. It's a lot."
Gustave just shakes his head, but doesn’t make a move to tell Verso otherwise. He would’ve pulled his gun on him, after all. Odd young man following them? After what happened at the beach, he had been a little trigger-happy, all the way up to… all along the way. “With the Converter, we had an advantage.” He pauses, making a considering hum, “After what happened at 33’s landing, I was very much a shoot first, questions after, kind of guy — ‘Least when it came to nevrons… Probably still would’ve shot you though, so fair enough on that.” He gives Verso a one-shoulder shrug.
As for learning, Gustave was always a quick study with his sword; he always approached it with the same gusto he did with tinkering. The engineer did have to admit some curiosity about what Verso could teach; he’d yet to see the other man fight. He’d heard, and read, about the gradients, however. ‘Twas something the nevrons he had faced didn’t have… perhaps the proximity to the Monolith had something to do with it or—? Dammit, he doesn’t have paper. "I’m going to need another journal…"
“Not far…” Gustave’s eyes wander out the window, to the city awakening. Verso’s Drafts… a reflection of a young boy’s desire for a space of his own, to create and exist in, away from whatever was going on Outside. He could see why Verso would like it, a place to just be—far from the wider world. Childish, maybe, but it fulfills the same premise as a sanctuary would. “I think… I’d like to see that, all the same. At least once.”
As he thought about it, something occurred to him. And Gustave has to suppress a laugh, though the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes squinting. “Really now. Dashing hero, Verso? You certainly have the hair for it, at least, the roguish stubble too.” Wait.
Shit. Stop flirting, you idiot. Not the time, especially—oh, whatever, fuck it, it’s already out.
The seemingly reluctant assent that he was correct only served to draw a soft chuckle from Verso, amusement flickering in his pale eyes despite his own slightly flushed face. "I'd have healed just fine, probably would've been a pain to deal with if your ammunition got stuck somewhere instead of passing straight through..." He shook off any further thoughts of any past experiences that involved being shot from his mind, granted it hadn't happened often. Expeditioners hardly picked up firearms as compared to traditional weaponry.
"Seriously? You'd want to go?" There was genuine surprise in the man's voice and face as his eyes instinctively searched Gustave's face and posture for some kind of deception, like he was trying to access if this was merely an attempt to get into his head. "You're sure?" With a slight forward tilt of his head, Verso almost seemed to be taking the suggestion quite seriously before trying to reign himself in once more. The Drafts were important to him and sharing it with other people had been a big change for him with the 33s. To bring another person to a place so close to his heart, even if it didn't truly belong to him...
When Gustave circled back to his "dashing hero" comment, he almost wanted to laugh. The sound almost bubbling up in his chest but only managing to escape as a soft snort as his grin widened. "Charming and Roguish? Also bringing up my hair again?" He teased, planting a hand on his desk so he could lean slightly closer. "Careful Gustave, I might think you actually like me if you keep that up."
“…Absolutely, I would like to see the Drafts. If that’s not a problem…?” The question posed provided a suitable deflection, at least, and he makes himself actually look at Verso rather than anywhere but. The engineer hadn’t needed to think about the answer either; every word had been said in earnest, betraying nothing but sincerity. He very much does want to see this place; he’s not sure why Verso needs him to clarify. (Unless, perhaps, it was also more than a sanctuary for him.)
...Dammit. “It…That may have slipped out.” Gustave quickly insists, his voice a bit higher than he would have liked, while pressing his hand to the side of his burning face, the skin warm even through the bandage. It really, really didn’t help him here. He’s known for a long time that he finds both women and men attractive, but it’s been a while since he started blurting out his captivation with someone. Putain de Merde. Did he hit his head when he passed out? His head hurts. Maybe it’s that? No, no, it’s not. It’s Verso. Fuck.
“Can—” Gustave scrambles for a coherent sentence, rooted in place as Verso leans forward and continues to poke at him for his blunder. “Can you—” Shit. “Could—Could you just pretend you didn’t hear that?” He asks at last, then keeps going because he can't stop, apparently. “I like you fine. I’m just… lo—er, admiring from here?”
Yes, Verso’s handsome—He would have to be blind to not see it. Now can he stop fucking letting it slip at the worst of times??
"Mm, right." The pianist hummed, the word soft and low as he leaned back again before pushing off of his desk to wander away from it a with a few lazy steps. "I could pretend, but where's the fun in that?" He added, glancing over his shoulder with that same lazy grin. He knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. Nor was he so stupid that he didn't recognize that Gustave was charming in his own right. The thoughtful look in his eyes, the way the color shifted in the light, his inquisitiveness. Even if those smarts and that questioning nature of his would have been the absolute bane of Verso's existence on the Expedition, they weren't bad features by any means. In fact he found those aspects of him very fascinating.
"I'm used to the attention. Granted, getting it with the white hair is certainly new since people seem to think it makes me look old." As it was mentioned, a hand came up to run through the silvery-white length of hair. Brushing it from his face as he turned around to walk backward a couple steps, tilting his head toward the door.
"We should probably get ready for the day though, yeah? Before we look too suspicious." He raised a brow, his eyes briefly flickering down to Gustave's injured hand before returning to his face. "Especially with your hand the way it is if you still don't want that tint still." As content as Verso would be to reminisce and plan to run off to the Continent all day, he was quite sure Gustave had important work. At least that's what he'd picked up in passing from Maelle as of late whenever she'd talk about him. "Unless you want to come up with an excuse to spend the day with the local recluse."
Gustave groans, still faintly flushed, still regretting every choice he made that led him to end up here. He wipes his hand across his face, as if to push away the color dusting it. This man will be the death of him—him and that ‘charm’ of his. “Fun for you, maybe.” He grumbles in Verso’s general direction as the man gracefully gives him some room, swaggering all the while. He scrubs the side of his neck, forcefully loosening his shoulders and spine as he looks at the journal resting on the desk rather than at the other. He blinks in surprise a beat after, “Huh? Color doesn’t automatically equate to age, so that assumption is incorrect. …Don’t let it get to your head, alright.”
In the moment, it had been all too easy to believe that there hadn’t been much of anything hanging over his head. It made it all the simpler to dredge up parts of his old self lying dead across the sea. A more lively man. Someone who wanted life, wanted to see all the land had left to offer freely and without prompting. Gustave looks at Verso’s map still lain across the wood, at the places he didn’t get to see, the world beyond Stone Wave Cliffs. He wonders in the comfort of his own mind about what that man could look like, if he had lived to see it all; and with that thought, he feels himself curl inward, though he tries masking it.
Gustave worries at his lip, nipping at the dry cracks. He moves his gaze to just past Verso’s ear. “We’re both recluses, Verso.” He corrects him, sighing, holding his hand out in front of him, “I'm fine. I’ve rarely gone out, since… well, unless I’m being dragged out by Em or Maelle, and Sciel occasionally now. Nor is it the first time I’ve gone home wounded.” He waves the hand. “Nevertheless, I can go. I could… work on being normal, in the meantime.”
"Then we're more alike than I thought." He tried to keep it light, that grin still lingering on his face as he reached to open the door to the room. Though his eyes hadn't yet left Gustave again as he picked up on the withdraw, the way he seemed to retreat into himself in that all too familiar way, and for just a moment his eyes darted across his face as he tried to think.
"You work on a lot of the technical stuff throughout the city, yeah?" He asked, tilting his head just slightly as his grin faded into a more thoughtful expression. He didn't look like he was fully ready to return to the world they had been forced to live in, their new lives, the least Verso would do was at least ease him back into it. Right? Do for Gustave what no one had ever done for him. "I helped create the dome. I wouldn't really call myself an engineer, but I have some technical knowledge." He motioned his hand toward the journal Gustave now had in his possession. "Maybe I could walk with you a bit. Listen about your work."
It was a simple offer, to simply be a person to be there. A role he was used to taking on for others, one he had learned people needed from time to time. "I don't have plans today besides practicing, working on my new composition, maybe sketching a bit, and doing some training. As long as I don't get dragged around by my metaphorical leash by Sciel." As he spoke, his hands fell to his sides. His thumbs hooking into the pockets of his slacks like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with them. He was sure Gustave would probably turn him down, which was entirely fair, but still... He wanted to at least put the offer out there.
So we are, Verso, so we are. He turns his attention to the door, his way out. Fuck, he can already tell it’s not going to be a good day. Thinking about who Gustave is now versus who he used to be tends to be one of the couple of things that wipe away the chances of a nicer one. He knows all too well he’s barely holding it together, that he’s not their Gustave anymore. The man he is now is but a shadow of the one that died—no longer enjoying life, no longer holding onto hope, and no longer creating. He knows they whisper behind his back, for they treat him gently, but their eyes search.
Technical stuff, he scoffs internally, lips pressed together in a white line. That was before—before this! Gustave wants to tell him, wants to shout. But he doesn’t. He can’t. They might be on a similar page, but all Verso seems to know about him comes from what others have said or from what he saw when he came this way years ago. Thus, he has to wonder just who Verso sees in front of him—the one that is, or the one that was? Both? He’d sure acted more like the one who came before, thinking back. There’s no regret in it. He said what he said, and he’d say it again. (Minus when he put his foot in his mouth)
“…I see.” Gustave wraps his arm around himself again, stepping away from the desk and its contents. His eyes strayed back to the journal at Verso’s motion, and went right back to where they’d been. “And worked. Past tense. I meant what I said: I don’t go out unless I have to make an appearance, or I’d —” He bites his tongue to stop himself, closing his eyes and breathing slowly through his nose. “…just drop it, please. We can find another time and place to speak, then I'll go back to my apartment.”
The moment Gustave stressed that he no longer held that job, Verso grimaced. Yeah, right, that makes sense... After all, Verso himself had adamantly refused to take on a proper job when he settled in Lumière. Never wanted to let himself sink too deep into the fantasy of it all, the hollow existence he knew was waiting for him with his immortality still looming over his head compared to the finite lives around him.
He didn't respond much more except to nod when Gustave asked him to drop it, his eyes falling to the floor like the grain pattern was very interesting to him all of the sudden. Within his own head, he was already scolding himself. They'd been doing well, and he had to go and fuck it up by opening his mouth and bringing reality back in. He already knew what this plan of theirs was, maybe that's why he'd been so... Open about certain things, so eager to jump into this with a man who by all counts should hate his guts.
This was an escape, for the both of them. This wasn't about the trains, or seeing parts of the Continent Gustave never could, or reliving memories. They were trying to find a way out of the lives that they'd been given, the roles they've been assigned. Nothing was the same anymore, for either of them.
"Can I at least make you some kind of breakfast... As an apology, even if its just coffee?" He asked softly, silver irises finally flickering back up to Gustave's face almost cautiously before darting away again. The confidence and easy flirting from before was gone, replaced instead with the real Verso that now haunted the Canvas; a tired, passive, subdued man that had failed to protect his sister.
He hadn’t been able to work, much less do much else aside from existing, since his return. They’d offered him his job a couple of weeks ago, having given him time to adjust, he’d guessed, but he turned it down that same day. Gustave didn’t trust his hands not to shake, couldn’t trust that he could wear the prosthetic he’d been painted with every day. That he could somehow still hide under constant scrutiny of others as his chosen field oft demanded.
And he only had himself to blame, just him and his messed-up head. It was nice to pretend to believe he could be that person again, even for just a conversation's worth of time. He wasn’t worth anything like this; he knew that, even if others did not. His body told the story well enough from the outside. Already the joy of learning the extent of the continent's scattered locomotives is dying in his chest, along with his desire to stay here a moment longer than he had to.
He doesn’t trust himself not to do or say something that might come back to haunt him later—along with everything else already clawing its way back. Verso had enough to deal with.
“No.” Gustave’s already shaking his head by the time Verso finishes, opening his eyes to the man staring at the floor, his arm now hanging limp at his side as he turns bodily toward the door. He makes his expression a careful mask of neutrality, yet even he can admit it’s fragile. “Why bother? There’s naught to apologize for.”
There it was, that familiar chill. The same mask he had put on time and time again, the very same one the real Verso would wear to appease the aristocrats of Paris. One he was very familiar with, and one he knew was incredibly difficult to remove when stuck in one's own head. He'd worn it for years, put it on every time he was asked to do a concert at the opera house, every time he wanted to shout about how meaningless this all was, every time Sciel smiled at him and told him he was looking better now that he'd settled in Lumière.
"I spoke out of turn, and I was rude. You're a guest and I was taught better than that, I shouldn't have assumed." His own voice was somewhat distant, his mind clinging to memories that didn't belong to him. Of tight-lipped smiles and polite bows of His head as He apologized for speaking without thinking.
"My... Info's a bit out of date, I guess." He huffed, the sound humorless and dry even as he tried to smile a bit. Though that very may well sooner upset the man than comfort him, and it faded just as quick as that thought settled in his mind. "Coffee's the least I could do to make up for my thoughtlessness, right?" Hesitantly he raised a hand, resting it against the door as he turned toward it himself.
Gustave just had to last long enough to get back to his apartment; he could rebuild himself there in the welcoming darkness. He starts toward the exit, not waiting for a reply he wasn’t even sure he’d get. What he does get is something unexpected, enough to stop him a few feet from Verso. As a hazel gaze sweeps over the pale-haired man, something in them shifts against his will, and his hand unintentionally curls into a fist, knuckles matching against the white of the bandages. Verso's tone had shifted.
“‘Out of turn’?” Gustave repeats, unable to hide the furrowing of his brow. “No, you just asked a question, and I answered, nothing more, Verso. That’s all. And now I can leave you in peace,” He resumes his walk to the door, adding much quieter as he stands by it: “You won’t have to put up with me much longer.”
With any luck, he’d get home soon and just sleep how he's been sleeping—he has nowhere to be; part of the reason he was outside last night in the first place was that he’d begged off a get-together today. He had a few ways to turn off his brain for a while, to stop thinking of how fucked up he was. Of what a poor, fractured reflection of the man he’s supposed to be. He could go over the lines on his forearm, or on his thighs, let the blood carry it away, consciousness and thoughts both...
"I'm not putting up with you." His brow drew together at the statement, alarm bells going off in his head in a way that had him stopping in his tracks, hand planted against the door, and turning back to Gustave again even as he drew closer. He understood, God did he understand the irrational spiral better than anyone else in this canvas. He knew that look, he knew that tone, and he had a pretty solid guess about what might be going on behind those now vacant-looking eyes that had been so thoughtful and warm mere minutes ago.
He took a deep breath, his fingers pressing against the wood as part of him tried to reign him in. Stay out of it, it's none of your business. He doesn't want your help. He shook the thought off.
"Look—if you don't have plans, if you're really just going to go back home and not do anything why not stay?" He was being forward. Extremely forward, and also possibly very rude, but that need to protect people—the very same urge that killed the Real Verso—surged up with a vengeance he couldn't quite suppress. It wasn't his place, far from it in fact. Gustave was a grown man, and a very capable one, but even Verso knew that sometimes things just weren't easy to handle alone. As much as he hated admitting it when it came to his own struggles. "Like I said, I'm probably going to train at some point. We could do some those sword drills."
“You implied it, then,” Gustave mutters in response, head bowing under the weight of his tumultuous thoughts. He was weak; he knows he’s weak, unable or maybe uncaring enough to keep his own damn mind from turning on him. All it ever took was a dark whisper creeping forward, a reminder for him to falter, to break. He’s just that fucking pathetic now, a far cry from the brilliant engineer everyone always claims him to still be. He was, is an imposter. He could never be the real Gustave again.
The taste of iron blooms on his tongue. He bit down hard enough into it to draw blood this time. You’re nothing, his own voice tells him, singsong. You’ll never be that man, you will never be me. Everyone sees it, even this one; you’re too broken to see it. “Nh...” Gustave presses his fist to the side of his head; he can’t look at Verso anymore, at those eyes, that face, and see himself reflected. Why was Verso making this harder than it had to be? He himself said they should part ways, right? He could go back to his place, pull himself together and… do whatever he had to do to get through the rest of the day. As he’s been doing for weeks. Nothing's changed there.
“No, I really shouldn’t. I… want to be alone for a while, alright.” Gustave’s voice is only partially audible now, lips barely moving around the shape of the words. He closes his eyes tightly, prying open his hand long enough to reach toward the door, laying it flat against the surface and searching for the handle blind. “We can spar next time, I have to go.”
Verso knew he's going to do something stupid and damn him if he upsets Gustave more, but he knew that look in his eyes and the mere thought of him experiencing even some of what he himself had gone through for the past seven decades made Verso's stomach turn uncomfortably. Bringing his hand up from the door, Verso's hand quickly shot up to grab Gustave's forearm. Not in a tight grip by any means, certainly loose enough to shake him off but enough to try to get him to at least stop and listen to him.
"I didn't mean it like that," He insisted, his eyes lingering on his own fingers curled around Gustave's wrist. "If you want to go, I have no right to keep you but... You don't have to go, not on my account." He knew not to directly bring up his concerns. Adress the misunderstanding, that came first, he needed to fix that before he could touch anything else and they were clearly both still a bit raw from everything they'd shared already thus far. "I just wanted to give you the option in case you wanted to go, I wasn't trying to get you to leave..."
His eyes fell from his hand back to the floor, not entirely sure how clear he could make his feelings or if it would even matter or have any kind of effect. "The conversation we were having; the Continent, the trains, going back... That made me happy, happier than I've been in a while if I'm being honest and I just— Putain. I don't want to stop if I don't have to, because it made me feel... Normal again. Like I'm me and not Him."
Every inch of Gustave goes still, his arm freezing as fingers wrap around it; everything shifted back into focus. Blood drains from his face as his eyes snap open; Verso has no idea what lay beneath those fingers, but surely enough, for him at least, he can feel the warmth of the hand even under his clothes, under the rolls of stained cloth wrapped around his forearm to his wrist, and to the cold bony limb below that. The terror strikes him fast, irrational and all-consuming. He stares mutely at the pale hand on him for a long pause before lifting his eyes to Verso’s.
If Verso wanted him to listen, he certainly succeeded. “Oh. I… didn’t, I thought—” Gustave has to swallow a few times to speak again, blood oozing from his pierced tongue to the floor of his mouth, “I assumed the conversation was over with.” And assumed it would be his chance to leave without issues arising, but he read the words wrong, because of course he did. He needs another way out of here. Think, think. “Sorry.”
“It…” Gustave’s eyes fall, his voice small; while he still does not move his arm, “I enjoyed it too, believe me. All of it. But I need some time, time to… think.” He winces at the lame excuse he offers, though it was as close as he could go to the truth. He did enjoy it, those couple of minutes where the world beyond this room ceased to be a factor in the equation, where he could pretend all was well, that he could be like Verso said too: Normal, unbroken, lively. Happily conversing about a trip to the Station. With a path forward, something to look to in the future. “You are you, I am me. I’m just tired, that's all. I don't mean to be rude.”
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
"Good to hear. You were a pretty good fighter from what I noticed, and we both use swords so maybe I could teach you a thing or two as well." That casual lopsided grin returned as he offered, his pale eyes raising from the map to settle once more on Gustave's face. "I can't imagine we'll run into anything too strong, we took care of a lot of the worst of them before we returned to Lumière." It had been a lot of him going out to hunt Nevrons, but still—they'd made a good team regardless.
"Old Lumière isn't too far from Monoco's Station." He nodded, glancing down at its spot on the map. He was sure the Engineer would certainly have a lot of questions about the state of the city; the massive Chroma filled weapons, the Hauler, the empty estate near the edge of the city where his family had once lived their lives. Oblivious to their painted existence.
"My favorites?" His eyes shot back up to Gustave, slightly wide from the surprise of the statement. "Ah... Right— Hm... The Gestral River is a nice place to visit, there's Yellow Harvest, there's a beautiful valley just past the mountains on the eastern portion of the Continent that I love traveling through..." He trailed off a bit, thinking about anything more as his mind slowly drifted to probably his absolute favorite place... Maybe even more than Frozen Hearts. Of candy caverns, and color splotched skies, of the waterfalls and the otters, and the only functioning trains on the whole Continent... "Verso's Drafts." He added softly, his expression finally settling into something that could only be considered longing.
The place he had finally gotten to experience something like childish wonder for himself, for the first time in his long life. A place that, in a way, made him feel... Closer to Verso. The other Verso.
From what you noticed, right. “You mean when you skulked? Or are you referring to your visits to the city—?” His mouth falls into a lazy smirk, hazel eyes reflecting mirth. He rests his hand on his hip, head tilted in Verso’s direction. The engineer couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at his new… friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? Fellow disliker of this life? Doesn’t entirely matter, but still a bit funny in retrospect, learning of Verso’s stalking tendencies.
“—But! I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill or two.” Gustave’s smirk gave way to a small smile, open, not teasing this time. Verso had a nice smile. The other man had been around a while; he could learn a great deal from the immortal swordsman. He wouldn’t mind some new tricks. "Especially if we're going somewhere beyond what I've already seen, the nevrons would be different too..."
Hm. So going passed the Station, is where Old Lumiere lies? What would he find… forgotten homes and places, abandoned streets and possessions? The engineer thinks for a moment, with a quick glance at the map then back up at Verso. They—Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and himself—had been to a yellow forest, filled with nevrons with weaknesses to fire. And an odd ‘chromatic’ one at the end that he sketched.
“Verso’s Drafts…?” Gustave tries to remember if Maelle or the others had told him about it, and his mind turns to his sister's retelling of visiting a place her brother had made as a young boy. A child's playground. Not the canvas itself, of course, but a small portion away from everything else. It had to be a special place, for Verso to yearn to return—that much was plain to see on the man’s face. “Where would that be?”
"Hey, I needed to make sure you guys were going to be able to handle yourselves in fights and I wasn't ready to reveal myself just yet. You can't exactly be a dashing hero without an interesting entrance." He unfolded his arms with a shrug, straightening up so he was no longer leaned against his desk as he turned to properly face Gustave once again. "You tell me if you would've trusted me if I had been in the Manor with Maelle when you and Lune showed up, because I had a feeling that gun of yours would've been in my face faster than I could blink."
"I've got plenty I could teach you though; sword work. stances, gradient attacks. You'll definitely need gradient parries at the very least for where we'll be going. Just in case we run into some particularly nasty Nevrons in Frozen Hearts and Old Lumière." He tilted his head, thinking a bit about the process. It had taken the girls a bit of time to get a handle on gradient attacks, but they had at least managed to develop a handful of them before their confrontation with the Painter Renoir. So long as they just kept traveling and fighting nevrons, Verso was sure Gustave would pick them up fairly easily.
For a moment, he blinked before it clicked in his head that he had mentioned Verso's Drafts out loud. His face flushing a bit as he realized it must seem strange, an over a century-old-man's favorite place in their painted world being a child's hidden paradise. "Ah... Not all that far from Lumière, actually." His head then tilted forward slightly as he looked away, as if attempting to hide the pink that taken over his face. "He painted it a long time ago. Just for himself." and maybe a handful of special people but that was beside the point. "It's a lot of candy, half-finished Gestrals, and more Esquie than you'd know how to deal with. It's a lot."
Gustave just shakes his head, but doesn’t make a move to tell Verso otherwise. He would’ve pulled his gun on him, after all. Odd young man following them? After what happened at the beach, he had been a little trigger-happy, all the way up to… all along the way. “With the Converter, we had an advantage.” He pauses, making a considering hum, “After what happened at 33’s landing, I was very much a shoot first, questions after, kind of guy — ‘Least when it came to nevrons… Probably still would’ve shot you though, so fair enough on that.” He gives Verso a one-shoulder shrug.
As for learning, Gustave was always a quick study with his sword; he always approached it with the same gusto he did with tinkering. The engineer did have to admit some curiosity about what Verso could teach; he’d yet to see the other man fight. He’d heard, and read, about the gradients, however. ‘Twas something the nevrons he had faced didn’t have… perhaps the proximity to the Monolith had something to do with it or—? Dammit, he doesn’t have paper. "I’m going to need another journal…"
“Not far…” Gustave’s eyes wander out the window, to the city awakening. Verso’s Drafts… a reflection of a young boy’s desire for a space of his own, to create and exist in, away from whatever was going on Outside. He could see why Verso would like it, a place to just be—far from the wider world. Childish, maybe, but it fulfills the same premise as a sanctuary would. “I think… I’d like to see that, all the same. At least once.”
As he thought about it, something occurred to him. And Gustave has to suppress a laugh, though the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes squinting. “Really now. Dashing hero, Verso? You certainly have the hair for it, at least, the roguish stubble too.” Wait.
Shit. Stop flirting, you idiot. Not the time, especially—oh, whatever, fuck it, it’s already out.
The seemingly reluctant assent that he was correct only served to draw a soft chuckle from Verso, amusement flickering in his pale eyes despite his own slightly flushed face. "I'd have healed just fine, probably would've been a pain to deal with if your ammunition got stuck somewhere instead of passing straight through..." He shook off any further thoughts of any past experiences that involved being shot from his mind, granted it hadn't happened often. Expeditioners hardly picked up firearms as compared to traditional weaponry.
"Seriously? You'd want to go?" There was genuine surprise in the man's voice and face as his eyes instinctively searched Gustave's face and posture for some kind of deception, like he was trying to access if this was merely an attempt to get into his head. "You're sure?" With a slight forward tilt of his head, Verso almost seemed to be taking the suggestion quite seriously before trying to reign himself in once more. The Drafts were important to him and sharing it with other people had been a big change for him with the 33s. To bring another person to a place so close to his heart, even if it didn't truly belong to him...
When Gustave circled back to his "dashing hero" comment, he almost wanted to laugh. The sound almost bubbling up in his chest but only managing to escape as a soft snort as his grin widened. "Charming and Roguish? Also bringing up my hair again?" He teased, planting a hand on his desk so he could lean slightly closer. "Careful Gustave, I might think you actually like me if you keep that up."
“…Absolutely, I would like to see the Drafts. If that’s not a problem…?” The question posed provided a suitable deflection, at least, and he makes himself actually look at Verso rather than anywhere but. The engineer hadn’t needed to think about the answer either; every word had been said in earnest, betraying nothing but sincerity. He very much does want to see this place; he’s not sure why Verso needs him to clarify. (Unless, perhaps, it was also more than a sanctuary for him.)
...Dammit. “It…That may have slipped out.” Gustave quickly insists, his voice a bit higher than he would have liked, while pressing his hand to the side of his burning face, the skin warm even through the bandage. It really, really didn’t help him here. He’s known for a long time that he finds both women and men attractive, but it’s been a while since he started blurting out his captivation with someone. Putain de Merde. Did he hit his head when he passed out? His head hurts. Maybe it’s that? No, no, it’s not. It’s Verso. Fuck.
“Can—” Gustave scrambles for a coherent sentence, rooted in place as Verso leans forward and continues to poke at him for his blunder. “Can you—” Shit. “Could—Could you just pretend you didn’t hear that?” He asks at last, then keeps going because he can't stop, apparently. “I like you fine. I’m just… lo—er, admiring from here?”
Yes, Verso’s handsome—He would have to be blind to not see it. Now can he stop fucking letting it slip at the worst of times??
"Mm, right." The pianist hummed, the word soft and low as he leaned back again before pushing off of his desk to wander away from it a with a few lazy steps. "I could pretend, but where's the fun in that?" He added, glancing over his shoulder with that same lazy grin. He knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. Nor was he so stupid that he didn't recognize that Gustave was charming in his own right. The thoughtful look in his eyes, the way the color shifted in the light, his inquisitiveness. Even if those smarts and that questioning nature of his would have been the absolute bane of Verso's existence on the Expedition, they weren't bad features by any means. In fact he found those aspects of him very fascinating.
"I'm used to the attention. Granted, getting it with the white hair is certainly new since people seem to think it makes me look old." As it was mentioned, a hand came up to run through the silvery-white length of hair. Brushing it from his face as he turned around to walk backward a couple steps, tilting his head toward the door.
"We should probably get ready for the day though, yeah? Before we look too suspicious." He raised a brow, his eyes briefly flickering down to Gustave's injured hand before returning to his face. "Especially with your hand the way it is if you still don't want that tint still." As content as Verso would be to reminisce and plan to run off to the Continent all day, he was quite sure Gustave had important work. At least that's what he'd picked up in passing from Maelle as of late whenever she'd talk about him. "Unless you want to come up with an excuse to spend the day with the local recluse."
Gustave groans, still faintly flushed, still regretting every choice he made that led him to end up here. He wipes his hand across his face, as if to push away the color dusting it. This man will be the death of him—him and that ‘charm’ of his. “Fun for you, maybe.” He grumbles in Verso’s general direction as the man gracefully gives him some room, swaggering all the while. He scrubs the side of his neck, forcefully loosening his shoulders and spine as he looks at the journal resting on the desk rather than at the other. He blinks in surprise a beat after, “Huh? Color doesn’t automatically equate to age, so that assumption is incorrect. …Don’t let it get to your head, alright.”
In the moment, it had been all too easy to believe that there hadn’t been much of anything hanging over his head. It made it all the simpler to dredge up parts of his old self lying dead across the sea. A more lively man. Someone who wanted life, wanted to see all the land had left to offer freely and without prompting. Gustave looks at Verso’s map still lain across the wood, at the places he didn’t get to see, the world beyond Stone Wave Cliffs. He wonders in the comfort of his own mind about what that man could look like, if he had lived to see it all; and with that thought, he feels himself curl inward, though he tries masking it.
Gustave worries at his lip, nipping at the dry cracks. He moves his gaze to just past Verso’s ear. “We’re both recluses, Verso.” He corrects him, sighing, holding his hand out in front of him, “I'm fine. I’ve rarely gone out, since… well, unless I’m being dragged out by Em or Maelle, and Sciel occasionally now. Nor is it the first time I’ve gone home wounded.” He waves the hand. “Nevertheless, I can go. I could… work on being normal, in the meantime.”
"Then we're more alike than I thought." He tried to keep it light, that grin still lingering on his face as he reached to open the door to the room. Though his eyes hadn't yet left Gustave again as he picked up on the withdraw, the way he seemed to retreat into himself in that all too familiar way, and for just a moment his eyes darted across his face as he tried to think.
"You work on a lot of the technical stuff throughout the city, yeah?" He asked, tilting his head just slightly as his grin faded into a more thoughtful expression. He didn't look like he was fully ready to return to the world they had been forced to live in, their new lives, the least Verso would do was at least ease him back into it. Right? Do for Gustave what no one had ever done for him. "I helped create the dome. I wouldn't really call myself an engineer, but I have some technical knowledge." He motioned his hand toward the journal Gustave now had in his possession. "Maybe I could walk with you a bit. Listen about your work."
It was a simple offer, to simply be a person to be there. A role he was used to taking on for others, one he had learned people needed from time to time. "I don't have plans today besides practicing, working on my new composition, maybe sketching a bit, and doing some training. As long as I don't get dragged around by my metaphorical leash by Sciel." As he spoke, his hands fell to his sides. His thumbs hooking into the pockets of his slacks like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with them. He was sure Gustave would probably turn him down, which was entirely fair, but still... He wanted to at least put the offer out there.
So we are, Verso, so we are. He turns his attention to the door, his way out. Fuck, he can already tell it’s not going to be a good day. Thinking about who Gustave is now versus who he used to be tends to be one of the couple of things that wipe away the chances of a nicer one. He knows all too well he’s barely holding it together, that he’s not their Gustave anymore. The man he is now is but a shadow of the one that died—no longer enjoying life, no longer holding onto hope, and no longer creating. He knows they whisper behind his back, for they treat him gently, but their eyes search.
Technical stuff, he scoffs internally, lips pressed together in a white line. That was before—before this! Gustave wants to tell him, wants to shout. But he doesn’t. He can’t. They might be on a similar page, but all Verso seems to know about him comes from what others have said or from what he saw when he came this way years ago. Thus, he has to wonder just who Verso sees in front of him—the one that is, or the one that was? Both? He’d sure acted more like the one who came before, thinking back. There’s no regret in it. He said what he said, and he’d say it again. (Minus when he put his foot in his mouth)
“…I see.” Gustave wraps his arm around himself again, stepping away from the desk and its contents. His eyes strayed back to the journal at Verso’s motion, and went right back to where they’d been. “And worked. Past tense. I meant what I said: I don’t go out unless I have to make an appearance, or I’d —” He bites his tongue to stop himself, closing his eyes and breathing slowly through his nose. “…just drop it, please. We can find another time and place to speak, then I'll go back to my apartment.”
The moment Gustave stressed that he no longer held that job, Verso grimaced. Yeah, right, that makes sense... After all, Verso himself had adamantly refused to take on a proper job when he settled in Lumière. Never wanted to let himself sink too deep into the fantasy of it all, the hollow existence he knew was waiting for him with his immortality still looming over his head compared to the finite lives around him.
He didn't respond much more except to nod when Gustave asked him to drop it, his eyes falling to the floor like the grain pattern was very interesting to him all of the sudden. Within his own head, he was already scolding himself. They'd been doing well, and he had to go and fuck it up by opening his mouth and bringing reality back in. He already knew what this plan of theirs was, maybe that's why he'd been so... Open about certain things, so eager to jump into this with a man who by all counts should hate his guts.
This was an escape, for the both of them. This wasn't about the trains, or seeing parts of the Continent Gustave never could, or reliving memories. They were trying to find a way out of the lives that they'd been given, the roles they've been assigned. Nothing was the same anymore, for either of them.
"Can I at least make you some kind of breakfast... As an apology, even if its just coffee?" He asked softly, silver irises finally flickering back up to Gustave's face almost cautiously before darting away again. The confidence and easy flirting from before was gone, replaced instead with the real Verso that now haunted the Canvas; a tired, passive, subdued man that had failed to protect his sister.
He hadn’t been able to work, much less do much else aside from existing, since his return. They’d offered him his job a couple of weeks ago, having given him time to adjust, he’d guessed, but he turned it down that same day. Gustave didn’t trust his hands not to shake, couldn’t trust that he could wear the prosthetic he’d been painted with every day. That he could somehow still hide under constant scrutiny of others as his chosen field oft demanded.
And he only had himself to blame, just him and his messed-up head. It was nice to pretend to believe he could be that person again, even for just a conversation's worth of time. He wasn’t worth anything like this; he knew that, even if others did not. His body told the story well enough from the outside. Already the joy of learning the extent of the continent's scattered locomotives is dying in his chest, along with his desire to stay here a moment longer than he had to.
He doesn’t trust himself not to do or say something that might come back to haunt him later—along with everything else already clawing its way back. Verso had enough to deal with.
“No.” Gustave’s already shaking his head by the time Verso finishes, opening his eyes to the man staring at the floor, his arm now hanging limp at his side as he turns bodily toward the door. He makes his expression a careful mask of neutrality, yet even he can admit it’s fragile. “Why bother? There’s naught to apologize for.”
There it was, that familiar chill. The same mask he had put on time and time again, the very same one the real Verso would wear to appease the aristocrats of Paris. One he was very familiar with, and one he knew was incredibly difficult to remove when stuck in one's own head. He'd worn it for years, put it on every time he was asked to do a concert at the opera house, every time he wanted to shout about how meaningless this all was, every time Sciel smiled at him and told him he was looking better now that he'd settled in Lumière.
"I spoke out of turn, and I was rude. You're a guest and I was taught better than that, I shouldn't have assumed." His own voice was somewhat distant, his mind clinging to memories that didn't belong to him. Of tight-lipped smiles and polite bows of His head as He apologized for speaking without thinking.
"My... Info's a bit out of date, I guess." He huffed, the sound humorless and dry even as he tried to smile a bit. Though that very may well sooner upset the man than comfort him, and it faded just as quick as that thought settled in his mind. "Coffee's the least I could do to make up for my thoughtlessness, right?" Hesitantly he raised a hand, resting it against the door as he turned toward it himself.
Gustave just had to last long enough to get back to his apartment; he could rebuild himself there in the welcoming darkness. He starts toward the exit, not waiting for a reply he wasn’t even sure he’d get. What he does get is something unexpected, enough to stop him a few feet from Verso. As a hazel gaze sweeps over the pale-haired man, something in them shifts against his will, and his hand unintentionally curls into a fist, knuckles matching against the white of the bandages. Verso's tone had shifted.
“‘Out of turn’?” Gustave repeats, unable to hide the furrowing of his brow. “No, you just asked a question, and I answered, nothing more, Verso. That’s all. And now I can leave you in peace,” He resumes his walk to the door, adding much quieter as he stands by it: “You won’t have to put up with me much longer.”
With any luck, he’d get home soon and just sleep how he's been sleeping—he has nowhere to be; part of the reason he was outside last night in the first place was that he’d begged off a get-together today. He had a few ways to turn off his brain for a while, to stop thinking of how fucked up he was. Of what a poor, fractured reflection of the man he’s supposed to be. He could go over the lines on his forearm, or on his thighs, let the blood carry it away, consciousness and thoughts both...
"I'm not putting up with you." His brow drew together at the statement, alarm bells going off in his head in a way that had him stopping in his tracks, hand planted against the door, and turning back to Gustave again even as he drew closer. He understood, God did he understand the irrational spiral better than anyone else in this canvas. He knew that look, he knew that tone, and he had a pretty solid guess about what might be going on behind those now vacant-looking eyes that had been so thoughtful and warm mere minutes ago.
He took a deep breath, his fingers pressing against the wood as part of him tried to reign him in. Stay out of it, it's none of your business. He doesn't want your help. He shook the thought off.
"Look—if you don't have plans, if you're really just going to go back home and not do anything why not stay?" He was being forward. Extremely forward, and also possibly very rude, but that need to protect people—the very same urge that killed the Real Verso—surged up with a vengeance he couldn't quite suppress. It wasn't his place, far from it in fact. Gustave was a grown man, and a very capable one, but even Verso knew that sometimes things just weren't easy to handle alone. As much as he hated admitting it when it came to his own struggles. "Like I said, I'm probably going to train at some point. We could do some those sword drills."
“You implied it, then,” Gustave mutters in response, head bowing under the weight of his tumultuous thoughts. He was weak; he knows he’s weak, unable or maybe uncaring enough to keep his own damn mind from turning on him. All it ever took was a dark whisper creeping forward, a reminder for him to falter, to break. He’s just that fucking pathetic now, a far cry from the brilliant engineer everyone always claims him to still be. He was, is an imposter. He could never be the real Gustave again.
The taste of iron blooms on his tongue. He bit down hard enough into it to draw blood this time. You’re nothing, his own voice tells him, singsong. You’ll never be that man, you will never be me. Everyone sees it, even this one; you’re too broken to see it. “Nh...” Gustave presses his fist to the side of his head; he can’t look at Verso anymore, at those eyes, that face, and see himself reflected. Why was Verso making this harder than it had to be? He himself said they should part ways, right? He could go back to his place, pull himself together and… do whatever he had to do to get through the rest of the day. As he’s been doing for weeks. Nothing's changed there.
“No, I really shouldn’t. I… want to be alone for a while, alright.” Gustave’s voice is only partially audible now, lips barely moving around the shape of the words. He closes his eyes tightly, prying open his hand long enough to reach toward the door, laying it flat against the surface and searching for the handle blind. “We can spar next time, I have to go.”
New Verse Added!
[ A Warrior of Light ; FFXIV ]
Self-indulgent Final Fanstay 14 AU.
Gustave(Arden in Eorzea) was born somewhere under the thumb of the Garlean Empire, where, like in canon E33, his aptitude for technology and science put him above the rest of his peers. He doesn’t remember much about where he originally hailed from; he was taken young once his teachers took note of his skill, after which he learned of Magitek and studied it and worked with it for years after until he saw the Empire for what it was and, upon seizing an opportunity, he fled to Eorzea, losing his left arm in the process. He was assumed dead from blood loss.
He fashioned a prosthetic from the knowledge he had at the time, around the time of the end of 1.0, in Coerthas.
As the primal Bahamut’s wrath crashed over Eorzea, his new home, his eyes were unable to look away from the shower of meteors raining from the heavens. That dark sky awoke something within him that slumbered until 5 years had passed… into a Realm Reborn 2.0. Where he’s taken up both blade and aether to fight for a future free from Garlean oppression, and a future free from darkness.
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
"Good to hear. You were a pretty good fighter from what I noticed, and we both use swords so maybe I could teach you a thing or two as well." That casual lopsided grin returned as he offered, his pale eyes raising from the map to settle once more on Gustave's face. "I can't imagine we'll run into anything too strong, we took care of a lot of the worst of them before we returned to Lumière." It had been a lot of him going out to hunt Nevrons, but still—they'd made a good team regardless.
"Old Lumière isn't too far from Monoco's Station." He nodded, glancing down at its spot on the map. He was sure the Engineer would certainly have a lot of questions about the state of the city; the massive Chroma filled weapons, the Hauler, the empty estate near the edge of the city where his family had once lived their lives. Oblivious to their painted existence.
"My favorites?" His eyes shot back up to Gustave, slightly wide from the surprise of the statement. "Ah... Right— Hm... The Gestral River is a nice place to visit, there's Yellow Harvest, there's a beautiful valley just past the mountains on the eastern portion of the Continent that I love traveling through..." He trailed off a bit, thinking about anything more as his mind slowly drifted to probably his absolute favorite place... Maybe even more than Frozen Hearts. Of candy caverns, and color splotched skies, of the waterfalls and the otters, and the only functioning trains on the whole Continent... "Verso's Drafts." He added softly, his expression finally settling into something that could only be considered longing.
The place he had finally gotten to experience something like childish wonder for himself, for the first time in his long life. A place that, in a way, made him feel... Closer to Verso. The other Verso.
From what you noticed, right. “You mean when you skulked? Or are you referring to your visits to the city—?” His mouth falls into a lazy smirk, hazel eyes reflecting mirth. He rests his hand on his hip, head tilted in Verso’s direction. The engineer couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at his new… friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? Fellow disliker of this life? Doesn’t entirely matter, but still a bit funny in retrospect, learning of Verso’s stalking tendencies.
“—But! I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill or two.” Gustave’s smirk gave way to a small smile, open, not teasing this time. Verso had a nice smile. The other man had been around a while; he could learn a great deal from the immortal swordsman. He wouldn’t mind some new tricks. "Especially if we're going somewhere beyond what I've already seen, the nevrons would be different too..."
Hm. So going passed the Station, is where Old Lumiere lies? What would he find… forgotten homes and places, abandoned streets and possessions? The engineer thinks for a moment, with a quick glance at the map then back up at Verso. They—Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and himself—had been to a yellow forest, filled with nevrons with weaknesses to fire. And an odd ‘chromatic’ one at the end that he sketched.
“Verso’s Drafts…?” Gustave tries to remember if Maelle or the others had told him about it, and his mind turns to his sister's retelling of visiting a place her brother had made as a young boy. A child's playground. Not the canvas itself, of course, but a small portion away from everything else. It had to be a special place, for Verso to yearn to return—that much was plain to see on the man’s face. “Where would that be?”
"Hey, I needed to make sure you guys were going to be able to handle yourselves in fights and I wasn't ready to reveal myself just yet. You can't exactly be a dashing hero without an interesting entrance." He unfolded his arms with a shrug, straightening up so he was no longer leaned against his desk as he turned to properly face Gustave once again. "You tell me if you would've trusted me if I had been in the Manor with Maelle when you and Lune showed up, because I had a feeling that gun of yours would've been in my face faster than I could blink."
"I've got plenty I could teach you though; sword work. stances, gradient attacks. You'll definitely need gradient parries at the very least for where we'll be going. Just in case we run into some particularly nasty Nevrons in Frozen Hearts and Old Lumière." He tilted his head, thinking a bit about the process. It had taken the girls a bit of time to get a handle on gradient attacks, but they had at least managed to develop a handful of them before their confrontation with the Painter Renoir. So long as they just kept traveling and fighting nevrons, Verso was sure Gustave would pick them up fairly easily.
For a moment, he blinked before it clicked in his head that he had mentioned Verso's Drafts out loud. His face flushing a bit as he realized it must seem strange, an over a century-old-man's favorite place in their painted world being a child's hidden paradise. "Ah... Not all that far from Lumière, actually." His head then tilted forward slightly as he looked away, as if attempting to hide the pink that taken over his face. "He painted it a long time ago. Just for himself." and maybe a handful of special people but that was beside the point. "It's a lot of candy, half-finished Gestrals, and more Esquie than you'd know how to deal with. It's a lot."
Gustave just shakes his head, but doesn’t make a move to tell Verso otherwise. He would’ve pulled his gun on him, after all. Odd young man following them? After what happened at the beach, he had been a little trigger-happy, all the way up to… all along the way. “With the Converter, we had an advantage.” He pauses, making a considering hum, “After what happened at 33’s landing, I was very much a shoot first, questions after, kind of guy — ‘Least when it came to nevrons… Probably still would’ve shot you though, so fair enough on that.” He gives Verso a one-shoulder shrug.
As for learning, Gustave was always a quick study with his sword; he always approached it with the same gusto he did with tinkering. The engineer did have to admit some curiosity about what Verso could teach; he’d yet to see the other man fight. He’d heard, and read, about the gradients, however. ‘Twas something the nevrons he had faced didn’t have… perhaps the proximity to the Monolith had something to do with it or—? Dammit, he doesn’t have paper. "I’m going to need another journal…"
“Not far…” Gustave’s eyes wander out the window, to the city awakening. Verso’s Drafts… a reflection of a young boy’s desire for a space of his own, to create and exist in, away from whatever was going on Outside. He could see why Verso would like it, a place to just be—far from the wider world. Childish, maybe, but it fulfills the same premise as a sanctuary would. “I think… I’d like to see that, all the same. At least once.”
As he thought about it, something occurred to him. And Gustave has to suppress a laugh, though the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes squinting. “Really now. Dashing hero, Verso? You certainly have the hair for it, at least, the roguish stubble too.” Wait.
Shit. Stop flirting, you idiot. Not the time, especially—oh, whatever, fuck it, it’s already out.
The seemingly reluctant assent that he was correct only served to draw a soft chuckle from Verso, amusement flickering in his pale eyes despite his own slightly flushed face. "I'd have healed just fine, probably would've been a pain to deal with if your ammunition got stuck somewhere instead of passing straight through..." He shook off any further thoughts of any past experiences that involved being shot from his mind, granted it hadn't happened often. Expeditioners hardly picked up firearms as compared to traditional weaponry.
"Seriously? You'd want to go?" There was genuine surprise in the man's voice and face as his eyes instinctively searched Gustave's face and posture for some kind of deception, like he was trying to access if this was merely an attempt to get into his head. "You're sure?" With a slight forward tilt of his head, Verso almost seemed to be taking the suggestion quite seriously before trying to reign himself in once more. The Drafts were important to him and sharing it with other people had been a big change for him with the 33s. To bring another person to a place so close to his heart, even if it didn't truly belong to him...
When Gustave circled back to his "dashing hero" comment, he almost wanted to laugh. The sound almost bubbling up in his chest but only managing to escape as a soft snort as his grin widened. "Charming and Roguish? Also bringing up my hair again?" He teased, planting a hand on his desk so he could lean slightly closer. "Careful Gustave, I might think you actually like me if you keep that up."
“…Absolutely, I would like to see the Drafts. If that’s not a problem…?” The question posed provided a suitable deflection, at least, and he makes himself actually look at Verso rather than anywhere but. The engineer hadn’t needed to think about the answer either; every word had been said in earnest, betraying nothing but sincerity. He very much does want to see this place; he’s not sure why Verso needs him to clarify. (Unless, perhaps, it was also more than a sanctuary for him.)
...Dammit. “It…That may have slipped out.” Gustave quickly insists, his voice a bit higher than he would have liked, while pressing his hand to the side of his burning face, the skin warm even through the bandage. It really, really didn’t help him here. He’s known for a long time that he finds both women and men attractive, but it’s been a while since he started blurting out his captivation with someone. Putain de Merde. Did he hit his head when he passed out? His head hurts. Maybe it’s that? No, no, it’s not. It’s Verso. Fuck.
“Can—” Gustave scrambles for a coherent sentence, rooted in place as Verso leans forward and continues to poke at him for his blunder. “Can you—” Shit. “Could—Could you just pretend you didn’t hear that?” He asks at last, then keeps going because he can't stop, apparently. “I like you fine. I’m just… lo—er, admiring from here?”
Yes, Verso’s handsome—He would have to be blind to not see it. Now can he stop fucking letting it slip at the worst of times??
"Mm, right." The pianist hummed, the word soft and low as he leaned back again before pushing off of his desk to wander away from it a with a few lazy steps. "I could pretend, but where's the fun in that?" He added, glancing over his shoulder with that same lazy grin. He knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. Nor was he so stupid that he didn't recognize that Gustave was charming in his own right. The thoughtful look in his eyes, the way the color shifted in the light, his inquisitiveness. Even if those smarts and that questioning nature of his would have been the absolute bane of Verso's existence on the Expedition, they weren't bad features by any means. In fact he found those aspects of him very fascinating.
"I'm used to the attention. Granted, getting it with the white hair is certainly new since people seem to think it makes me look old." As it was mentioned, a hand came up to run through the silvery-white length of hair. Brushing it from his face as he turned around to walk backward a couple steps, tilting his head toward the door.
"We should probably get ready for the day though, yeah? Before we look too suspicious." He raised a brow, his eyes briefly flickering down to Gustave's injured hand before returning to his face. "Especially with your hand the way it is if you still don't want that tint still." As content as Verso would be to reminisce and plan to run off to the Continent all day, he was quite sure Gustave had important work. At least that's what he'd picked up in passing from Maelle as of late whenever she'd talk about him. "Unless you want to come up with an excuse to spend the day with the local recluse."
Gustave groans, still faintly flushed, still regretting every choice he made that led him to end up here. He wipes his hand across his face, as if to push away the color dusting it. This man will be the death of him—him and that ‘charm’ of his. “Fun for you, maybe.” He grumbles in Verso’s general direction as the man gracefully gives him some room, swaggering all the while. He scrubs the side of his neck, forcefully loosening his shoulders and spine as he looks at the journal resting on the desk rather than at the other. He blinks in surprise a beat after, “Huh? Color doesn’t automatically equate to age, so that assumption is incorrect. …Don’t let it get to your head, alright.”
In the moment, it had been all too easy to believe that there hadn’t been much of anything hanging over his head. It made it all the simpler to dredge up parts of his old self lying dead across the sea. A more lively man. Someone who wanted life, wanted to see all the land had left to offer freely and without prompting. Gustave looks at Verso’s map still lain across the wood, at the places he didn’t get to see, the world beyond Stone Wave Cliffs. He wonders in the comfort of his own mind about what that man could look like, if he had lived to see it all; and with that thought, he feels himself curl inward, though he tries masking it.
Gustave worries at his lip, nipping at the dry cracks. He moves his gaze to just past Verso’s ear. “We’re both recluses, Verso.” He corrects him, sighing, holding his hand out in front of him, “I'm fine. I’ve rarely gone out, since… well, unless I’m being dragged out by Em or Maelle, and Sciel occasionally now. Nor is it the first time I’ve gone home wounded.” He waves the hand. “Nevertheless, I can go. I could… work on being normal, in the meantime.”
"Then we're more alike than I thought." He tried to keep it light, that grin still lingering on his face as he reached to open the door to the room. Though his eyes hadn't yet left Gustave again as he picked up on the withdraw, the way he seemed to retreat into himself in that all too familiar way, and for just a moment his eyes darted across his face as he tried to think.
"You work on a lot of the technical stuff throughout the city, yeah?" He asked, tilting his head just slightly as his grin faded into a more thoughtful expression. He didn't look like he was fully ready to return to the world they had been forced to live in, their new lives, the least Verso would do was at least ease him back into it. Right? Do for Gustave what no one had ever done for him. "I helped create the dome. I wouldn't really call myself an engineer, but I have some technical knowledge." He motioned his hand toward the journal Gustave now had in his possession. "Maybe I could walk with you a bit. Listen about your work."
It was a simple offer, to simply be a person to be there. A role he was used to taking on for others, one he had learned people needed from time to time. "I don't have plans today besides practicing, working on my new composition, maybe sketching a bit, and doing some training. As long as I don't get dragged around by my metaphorical leash by Sciel." As he spoke, his hands fell to his sides. His thumbs hooking into the pockets of his slacks like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with them. He was sure Gustave would probably turn him down, which was entirely fair, but still... He wanted to at least put the offer out there.
So we are, Verso, so we are. He turns his attention to the door, his way out. Fuck, he can already tell it’s not going to be a good day. Thinking about who Gustave is now versus who he used to be tends to be one of the couple of things that wipe away the chances of a nicer one. He knows all too well he’s barely holding it together, that he’s not their Gustave anymore. The man he is now is but a shadow of the one that died—no longer enjoying life, no longer holding onto hope, and no longer creating. He knows they whisper behind his back, for they treat him gently, but their eyes search.
Technical stuff, he scoffs internally, lips pressed together in a white line. That was before—before this! Gustave wants to tell him, wants to shout. But he doesn’t. He can’t. They might be on a similar page, but all Verso seems to know about him comes from what others have said or from what he saw when he came this way years ago. Thus, he has to wonder just who Verso sees in front of him—the one that is, or the one that was? Both? He’d sure acted more like the one who came before, thinking back. There’s no regret in it. He said what he said, and he’d say it again. (Minus when he put his foot in his mouth)
“…I see.” Gustave wraps his arm around himself again, stepping away from the desk and its contents. His eyes strayed back to the journal at Verso’s motion, and went right back to where they’d been. “And worked. Past tense. I meant what I said: I don’t go out unless I have to make an appearance, or I’d —” He bites his tongue to stop himself, closing his eyes and breathing slowly through his nose. “…just drop it, please. We can find another time and place to speak, then I'll go back to my apartment.”
The moment Gustave stressed that he no longer held that job, Verso grimaced. Yeah, right, that makes sense... After all, Verso himself had adamantly refused to take on a proper job when he settled in Lumière. Never wanted to let himself sink too deep into the fantasy of it all, the hollow existence he knew was waiting for him with his immortality still looming over his head compared to the finite lives around him.
He didn't respond much more except to nod when Gustave asked him to drop it, his eyes falling to the floor like the grain pattern was very interesting to him all of the sudden. Within his own head, he was already scolding himself. They'd been doing well, and he had to go and fuck it up by opening his mouth and bringing reality back in. He already knew what this plan of theirs was, maybe that's why he'd been so... Open about certain things, so eager to jump into this with a man who by all counts should hate his guts.
This was an escape, for the both of them. This wasn't about the trains, or seeing parts of the Continent Gustave never could, or reliving memories. They were trying to find a way out of the lives that they'd been given, the roles they've been assigned. Nothing was the same anymore, for either of them.
"Can I at least make you some kind of breakfast... As an apology, even if its just coffee?" He asked softly, silver irises finally flickering back up to Gustave's face almost cautiously before darting away again. The confidence and easy flirting from before was gone, replaced instead with the real Verso that now haunted the Canvas; a tired, passive, subdued man that had failed to protect his sister.
He hadn’t been able to work, much less do much else aside from existing, since his return. They’d offered him his job a couple of weeks ago, having given him time to adjust, he’d guessed, but he turned it down that same day. Gustave didn’t trust his hands not to shake, couldn’t trust that he could wear the prosthetic he’d been painted with every day. That he could somehow still hide under constant scrutiny of others as his chosen field oft demanded.
And he only had himself to blame, just him and his messed-up head. It was nice to pretend to believe he could be that person again, even for just a conversation's worth of time. He wasn’t worth anything like this; he knew that, even if others did not. His body told the story well enough from the outside. Already the joy of learning the extent of the continent's scattered locomotives is dying in his chest, along with his desire to stay here a moment longer than he had to.
He doesn’t trust himself not to do or say something that might come back to haunt him later—along with everything else already clawing its way back. Verso had enough to deal with.
“No.” Gustave’s already shaking his head by the time Verso finishes, opening his eyes to the man staring at the floor, his arm now hanging limp at his side as he turns bodily toward the door. He makes his expression a careful mask of neutrality, yet even he can admit it’s fragile. “Why bother? There’s naught to apologize for.”
There it was, that familiar chill. The same mask he had put on time and time again, the very same one the real Verso would wear to appease the aristocrats of Paris. One he was very familiar with, and one he knew was incredibly difficult to remove when stuck in one's own head. He'd worn it for years, put it on every time he was asked to do a concert at the opera house, every time he wanted to shout about how meaningless this all was, every time Sciel smiled at him and told him he was looking better now that he'd settled in Lumière.
"I spoke out of turn, and I was rude. You're a guest and I was taught better than that, I shouldn't have assumed." His own voice was somewhat distant, his mind clinging to memories that didn't belong to him. Of tight-lipped smiles and polite bows of His head as He apologized for speaking without thinking.
"My... Info's a bit out of date, I guess." He huffed, the sound humorless and dry even as he tried to smile a bit. Though that very may well sooner upset the man than comfort him, and it faded just as quick as that thought settled in his mind. "Coffee's the least I could do to make up for my thoughtlessness, right?" Hesitantly he raised a hand, resting it against the door as he turned toward it himself.
Gustave just had to last long enough to get back to his apartment; he could rebuild himself there in the welcoming darkness. He starts toward the exit, not waiting for a reply he wasn’t even sure he’d get. What he does get is something unexpected, enough to stop him a few feet from Verso. As a hazel gaze sweeps over the pale-haired man, something in them shifts against his will, and his hand unintentionally curls into a fist, knuckles matching against the white of the bandages. Verso's tone had shifted.
“‘Out of turn’?” Gustave repeats, unable to hide the furrowing of his brow. “No, you just asked a question, and I answered, nothing more, Verso. That’s all. And now I can leave you in peace,” He resumes his walk to the door, adding much quieter as he stands by it: “You won’t have to put up with me much longer.”
With any luck, he’d get home soon and just sleep how he's been sleeping—he has nowhere to be; part of the reason he was outside last night in the first place was that he’d begged off a get-together today. He had a few ways to turn off his brain for a while, to stop thinking of how fucked up he was. Of what a poor, fractured reflection of the man he’s supposed to be. He could go over the lines on his forearm, or on his thighs, let the blood carry it away, consciousness and thoughts both...
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
"Good to hear. You were a pretty good fighter from what I noticed, and we both use swords so maybe I could teach you a thing or two as well." That casual lopsided grin returned as he offered, his pale eyes raising from the map to settle once more on Gustave's face. "I can't imagine we'll run into anything too strong, we took care of a lot of the worst of them before we returned to Lumière." It had been a lot of him going out to hunt Nevrons, but still—they'd made a good team regardless.
"Old Lumière isn't too far from Monoco's Station." He nodded, glancing down at its spot on the map. He was sure the Engineer would certainly have a lot of questions about the state of the city; the massive Chroma filled weapons, the Hauler, the empty estate near the edge of the city where his family had once lived their lives. Oblivious to their painted existence.
"My favorites?" His eyes shot back up to Gustave, slightly wide from the surprise of the statement. "Ah... Right— Hm... The Gestral River is a nice place to visit, there's Yellow Harvest, there's a beautiful valley just past the mountains on the eastern portion of the Continent that I love traveling through..." He trailed off a bit, thinking about anything more as his mind slowly drifted to probably his absolute favorite place... Maybe even more than Frozen Hearts. Of candy caverns, and color splotched skies, of the waterfalls and the otters, and the only functioning trains on the whole Continent... "Verso's Drafts." He added softly, his expression finally settling into something that could only be considered longing.
The place he had finally gotten to experience something like childish wonder for himself, for the first time in his long life. A place that, in a way, made him feel... Closer to Verso. The other Verso.
From what you noticed, right. “You mean when you skulked? Or are you referring to your visits to the city—?” His mouth falls into a lazy smirk, hazel eyes reflecting mirth. He rests his hand on his hip, head tilted in Verso’s direction. The engineer couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at his new… friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? Fellow disliker of this life? Doesn’t entirely matter, but still a bit funny in retrospect, learning of Verso’s stalking tendencies.
“—But! I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill or two.” Gustave’s smirk gave way to a small smile, open, not teasing this time. Verso had a nice smile. The other man had been around a while; he could learn a great deal from the immortal swordsman. He wouldn’t mind some new tricks. "Especially if we're going somewhere beyond what I've already seen, the nevrons would be different too..."
Hm. So going passed the Station, is where Old Lumiere lies? What would he find… forgotten homes and places, abandoned streets and possessions? The engineer thinks for a moment, with a quick glance at the map then back up at Verso. They—Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and himself—had been to a yellow forest, filled with nevrons with weaknesses to fire. And an odd ‘chromatic’ one at the end that he sketched.
“Verso’s Drafts…?” Gustave tries to remember if Maelle or the others had told him about it, and his mind turns to his sister's retelling of visiting a place her brother had made as a young boy. A child's playground. Not the canvas itself, of course, but a small portion away from everything else. It had to be a special place, for Verso to yearn to return—that much was plain to see on the man’s face. “Where would that be?”
"Hey, I needed to make sure you guys were going to be able to handle yourselves in fights and I wasn't ready to reveal myself just yet. You can't exactly be a dashing hero without an interesting entrance." He unfolded his arms with a shrug, straightening up so he was no longer leaned against his desk as he turned to properly face Gustave once again. "You tell me if you would've trusted me if I had been in the Manor with Maelle when you and Lune showed up, because I had a feeling that gun of yours would've been in my face faster than I could blink."
"I've got plenty I could teach you though; sword work. stances, gradient attacks. You'll definitely need gradient parries at the very least for where we'll be going. Just in case we run into some particularly nasty Nevrons in Frozen Hearts and Old Lumière." He tilted his head, thinking a bit about the process. It had taken the girls a bit of time to get a handle on gradient attacks, but they had at least managed to develop a handful of them before their confrontation with the Painter Renoir. So long as they just kept traveling and fighting nevrons, Verso was sure Gustave would pick them up fairly easily.
For a moment, he blinked before it clicked in his head that he had mentioned Verso's Drafts out loud. His face flushing a bit as he realized it must seem strange, an over a century-old-man's favorite place in their painted world being a child's hidden paradise. "Ah... Not all that far from Lumière, actually." His head then tilted forward slightly as he looked away, as if attempting to hide the pink that taken over his face. "He painted it a long time ago. Just for himself." and maybe a handful of special people but that was beside the point. "It's a lot of candy, half-finished Gestrals, and more Esquie than you'd know how to deal with. It's a lot."
Gustave just shakes his head, but doesn’t make a move to tell Verso otherwise. He would’ve pulled his gun on him, after all. Odd young man following them? After what happened at the beach, he had been a little trigger-happy, all the way up to… all along the way. “With the Converter, we had an advantage.” He pauses, making a considering hum, “After what happened at 33’s landing, I was very much a shoot first, questions after, kind of guy — ‘Least when it came to nevrons… Probably still would’ve shot you though, so fair enough on that.” He gives Verso a one-shoulder shrug.
As for learning, Gustave was always a quick study with his sword; he always approached it with the same gusto he did with tinkering. The engineer did have to admit some curiosity about what Verso could teach; he’d yet to see the other man fight. He’d heard, and read, about the gradients, however. ‘Twas something the nevrons he had faced didn’t have… perhaps the proximity to the Monolith had something to do with it or—? Dammit, he doesn’t have paper. "I’m going to need another journal…"
“Not far…” Gustave’s eyes wander out the window, to the city awakening. Verso’s Drafts… a reflection of a young boy’s desire for a space of his own, to create and exist in, away from whatever was going on Outside. He could see why Verso would like it, a place to just be—far from the wider world. Childish, maybe, but it fulfills the same premise as a sanctuary would. “I think… I’d like to see that, all the same. At least once.”
As he thought about it, something occurred to him. And Gustave has to suppress a laugh, though the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes squinting. “Really now. Dashing hero, Verso? You certainly have the hair for it, at least, the roguish stubble too.” Wait.
Shit. Stop flirting, you idiot. Not the time, especially—oh, whatever, fuck it, it’s already out.
The seemingly reluctant assent that he was correct only served to draw a soft chuckle from Verso, amusement flickering in his pale eyes despite his own slightly flushed face. "I'd have healed just fine, probably would've been a pain to deal with if your ammunition got stuck somewhere instead of passing straight through..." He shook off any further thoughts of any past experiences that involved being shot from his mind, granted it hadn't happened often. Expeditioners hardly picked up firearms as compared to traditional weaponry.
"Seriously? You'd want to go?" There was genuine surprise in the man's voice and face as his eyes instinctively searched Gustave's face and posture for some kind of deception, like he was trying to access if this was merely an attempt to get into his head. "You're sure?" With a slight forward tilt of his head, Verso almost seemed to be taking the suggestion quite seriously before trying to reign himself in once more. The Drafts were important to him and sharing it with other people had been a big change for him with the 33s. To bring another person to a place so close to his heart, even if it didn't truly belong to him...
When Gustave circled back to his "dashing hero" comment, he almost wanted to laugh. The sound almost bubbling up in his chest but only managing to escape as a soft snort as his grin widened. "Charming and Roguish? Also bringing up my hair again?" He teased, planting a hand on his desk so he could lean slightly closer. "Careful Gustave, I might think you actually like me if you keep that up."
“…Absolutely, I would like to see the Drafts. If that’s not a problem…?” The question posed provided a suitable deflection, at least, and he makes himself actually look at Verso rather than anywhere but. The engineer hadn’t needed to think about the answer either; every word had been said in earnest, betraying nothing but sincerity. He very much does want to see this place; he’s not sure why Verso needs him to clarify. (Unless, perhaps, it was also more than a sanctuary for him.)
...Dammit. “It…That may have slipped out.” Gustave quickly insists, his voice a bit higher than he would have liked, while pressing his hand to the side of his burning face, the skin warm even through the bandage. It really, really didn’t help him here. He’s known for a long time that he finds both women and men attractive, but it’s been a while since he started blurting out his captivation with someone. Putain de Merde. Did he hit his head when he passed out? His head hurts. Maybe it’s that? No, no, it’s not. It’s Verso. Fuck.
“Can—” Gustave scrambles for a coherent sentence, rooted in place as Verso leans forward and continues to poke at him for his blunder. “Can you—” Shit. “Could—Could you just pretend you didn’t hear that?” He asks at last, then keeps going because he can't stop, apparently. “I like you fine. I’m just… lo—er, admiring from here?”
Yes, Verso’s handsome—He would have to be blind to not see it. Now can he stop fucking letting it slip at the worst of times??
"Mm, right." The pianist hummed, the word soft and low as he leaned back again before pushing off of his desk to wander away from it a with a few lazy steps. "I could pretend, but where's the fun in that?" He added, glancing over his shoulder with that same lazy grin. He knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. Nor was he so stupid that he didn't recognize that Gustave was charming in his own right. The thoughtful look in his eyes, the way the color shifted in the light, his inquisitiveness. Even if those smarts and that questioning nature of his would have been the absolute bane of Verso's existence on the Expedition, they weren't bad features by any means. In fact he found those aspects of him very fascinating.
"I'm used to the attention. Granted, getting it with the white hair is certainly new since people seem to think it makes me look old." As it was mentioned, a hand came up to run through the silvery-white length of hair. Brushing it from his face as he turned around to walk backward a couple steps, tilting his head toward the door.
"We should probably get ready for the day though, yeah? Before we look too suspicious." He raised a brow, his eyes briefly flickering down to Gustave's injured hand before returning to his face. "Especially with your hand the way it is if you still don't want that tint still." As content as Verso would be to reminisce and plan to run off to the Continent all day, he was quite sure Gustave had important work. At least that's what he'd picked up in passing from Maelle as of late whenever she'd talk about him. "Unless you want to come up with an excuse to spend the day with the local recluse."
Gustave groans, still faintly flushed, still regretting every choice he made that led him to end up here. He wipes his hand across his face, as if to push away the color dusting it. This man will be the death of him—him and that ‘charm’ of his. “Fun for you, maybe.” He grumbles in Verso’s general direction as the man gracefully gives him some room, swaggering all the while. He scrubs the side of his neck, forcefully loosening his shoulders and spine as he looks at the journal resting on the desk rather than at the other. He blinks in surprise a beat after, “Huh? Color doesn’t automatically equate to age, so that assumption is incorrect. …Don’t let it get to your head, alright.”
In the moment, it had been all too easy to believe that there hadn’t been much of anything hanging over his head. It made it all the simpler to dredge up parts of his old self lying dead across the sea. A more lively man. Someone who wanted life, wanted to see all the land had left to offer freely and without prompting. Gustave looks at Verso’s map still lain across the wood, at the places he didn’t get to see, the world beyond Stone Wave Cliffs. He wonders in the comfort of his own mind about what that man could look like, if he had lived to see it all; and with that thought, he feels himself curl inward, though he tries masking it.
Gustave worries at his lip, nipping at the dry cracks. He moves his gaze to just past Verso’s ear. “We’re both recluses, Verso.” He corrects him, sighing, holding his hand out in front of him, “I'm fine. I’ve rarely gone out, since… well, unless I’m being dragged out by Em or Maelle, and Sciel occasionally now. Nor is it the first time I’ve gone home wounded.” He waves the hand. “Nevertheless, I can go. I could… work on being normal, in the meantime.”
"Then we're more alike than I thought." He tried to keep it light, that grin still lingering on his face as he reached to open the door to the room. Though his eyes hadn't yet left Gustave again as he picked up on the withdraw, the way he seemed to retreat into himself in that all too familiar way, and for just a moment his eyes darted across his face as he tried to think.
"You work on a lot of the technical stuff throughout the city, yeah?" He asked, tilting his head just slightly as his grin faded into a more thoughtful expression. He didn't look like he was fully ready to return to the world they had been forced to live in, their new lives, the least Verso would do was at least ease him back into it. Right? Do for Gustave what no one had ever done for him. "I helped create the dome. I wouldn't really call myself an engineer, but I have some technical knowledge." He motioned his hand toward the journal Gustave now had in his possession. "Maybe I could walk with you a bit. Listen about your work."
It was a simple offer, to simply be a person to be there. A role he was used to taking on for others, one he had learned people needed from time to time. "I don't have plans today besides practicing, working on my new composition, maybe sketching a bit, and doing some training. As long as I don't get dragged around by my metaphorical leash by Sciel." As he spoke, his hands fell to his sides. His thumbs hooking into the pockets of his slacks like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with them. He was sure Gustave would probably turn him down, which was entirely fair, but still... He wanted to at least put the offer out there.
So we are, Verso, so we are. He turns his attention to the door, his way out. Fuck, he can already tell it’s not going to be a good day. Thinking about who Gustave is now versus who he used to be tends to be one of the couple of things that wipe away the chances of a nicer one. He knows all too well he’s barely holding it together, that he’s not their Gustave anymore. The man he is now is but a shadow of the one that died—no longer enjoying life, no longer holding onto hope, and no longer creating. He knows they whisper behind his back, for they treat him gently, but their eyes search.
Technical stuff, he scoffs internally, lips pressed together in a white line. That was before—before this! Gustave wants to tell him, wants to shout. But he doesn’t. He can’t. They might be on a similar page, but all Verso seems to know about him comes from what others have said or from what he saw when he came this way years ago. Thus, he has to wonder just who Verso sees in front of him—the one that is, or the one that was? Both? He’d sure acted more like the one who came before, thinking back. There’s no regret in it. He said what he said, and he’d say it again. (Minus when he put his foot in his mouth)
“…I see.” Gustave wraps his arm around himself again, stepping away from the desk and its contents. His eyes strayed back to the journal at Verso’s motion, and went right back to where they’d been. “And worked. Past tense. I meant what I said: I don’t go out unless I have to make an appearance, or I’d —” He bites his tongue to stop himself, closing his eyes and breathing slowly through his nose. “…just drop it, please. We can find another time and place to speak, then I'll go back to my apartment.”
The moment Gustave stressed that he no longer held that job, Verso grimaced. Yeah, right, that makes sense... After all, Verso himself had adamantly refused to take on a proper job when he settled in Lumière. Never wanted to let himself sink too deep into the fantasy of it all, the hollow existence he knew was waiting for him with his immortality still looming over his head compared to the finite lives around him.
He didn't respond much more except to nod when Gustave asked him to drop it, his eyes falling to the floor like the grain pattern was very interesting to him all of the sudden. Within his own head, he was already scolding himself. They'd been doing well, and he had to go and fuck it up by opening his mouth and bringing reality back in. He already knew what this plan of theirs was, maybe that's why he'd been so... Open about certain things, so eager to jump into this with a man who by all counts should hate his guts.
This was an escape, for the both of them. This wasn't about the trains, or seeing parts of the Continent Gustave never could, or reliving memories. They were trying to find a way out of the lives that they'd been given, the roles they've been assigned. Nothing was the same anymore, for either of them.
"Can I at least make you some kind of breakfast... As an apology, even if its just coffee?" He asked softly, silver irises finally flickering back up to Gustave's face almost cautiously before darting away again. The confidence and easy flirting from before was gone, replaced instead with the real Verso that now haunted the Canvas; a tired, passive, subdued man that had failed to protect his sister.
He hadn’t been able to work, much less do much else aside from existing, since his return. They’d offered him his job a couple of weeks ago, having given him time to adjust, he’d guessed, but he turned it down that same day. Gustave didn’t trust his hands not to shake, couldn’t trust that he could wear the prosthetic he’d been painted with every day. That he could somehow still hide under constant scrutiny of others as his chosen field oft demanded.
And he only had himself to blame, just him and his messed-up head. It was nice to pretend to believe he could be that person again, even for just a conversation's worth of time. He wasn’t worth anything like this; he knew that, even if others did not. His body told the story well enough from the outside. Already the joy of learning the extent of the continent's scattered locomotives is dying in his chest, along with his desire to stay here a moment longer than he had to.
He doesn’t trust himself not to do or say something that might come back to haunt him later—along with everything else already clawing its way back. Verso had enough to deal with.
“No.” Gustave’s already shaking his head by the time Verso finishes, opening his eyes to the man staring at the floor, his arm now hanging limp at his side as he turns bodily toward the door. He makes his expression a careful mask of neutrality, yet even he can admit it’s fragile. “Why bother? There’s naught to apologize for.”
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
"Good to hear. You were a pretty good fighter from what I noticed, and we both use swords so maybe I could teach you a thing or two as well." That casual lopsided grin returned as he offered, his pale eyes raising from the map to settle once more on Gustave's face. "I can't imagine we'll run into anything too strong, we took care of a lot of the worst of them before we returned to Lumière." It had been a lot of him going out to hunt Nevrons, but still—they'd made a good team regardless.
"Old Lumière isn't too far from Monoco's Station." He nodded, glancing down at its spot on the map. He was sure the Engineer would certainly have a lot of questions about the state of the city; the massive Chroma filled weapons, the Hauler, the empty estate near the edge of the city where his family had once lived their lives. Oblivious to their painted existence.
"My favorites?" His eyes shot back up to Gustave, slightly wide from the surprise of the statement. "Ah... Right— Hm... The Gestral River is a nice place to visit, there's Yellow Harvest, there's a beautiful valley just past the mountains on the eastern portion of the Continent that I love traveling through..." He trailed off a bit, thinking about anything more as his mind slowly drifted to probably his absolute favorite place... Maybe even more than Frozen Hearts. Of candy caverns, and color splotched skies, of the waterfalls and the otters, and the only functioning trains on the whole Continent... "Verso's Drafts." He added softly, his expression finally settling into something that could only be considered longing.
The place he had finally gotten to experience something like childish wonder for himself, for the first time in his long life. A place that, in a way, made him feel... Closer to Verso. The other Verso.
From what you noticed, right. “You mean when you skulked? Or are you referring to your visits to the city—?” His mouth falls into a lazy smirk, hazel eyes reflecting mirth. He rests his hand on his hip, head tilted in Verso’s direction. The engineer couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at his new… friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? Fellow disliker of this life? Doesn’t entirely matter, but still a bit funny in retrospect, learning of Verso’s stalking tendencies.
“—But! I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill or two.” Gustave’s smirk gave way to a small smile, open, not teasing this time. Verso had a nice smile. The other man had been around a while; he could learn a great deal from the immortal swordsman. He wouldn’t mind some new tricks. "Especially if we're going somewhere beyond what I've already seen, the nevrons would be different too..."
Hm. So going passed the Station, is where Old Lumiere lies? What would he find… forgotten homes and places, abandoned streets and possessions? The engineer thinks for a moment, with a quick glance at the map then back up at Verso. They—Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and himself—had been to a yellow forest, filled with nevrons with weaknesses to fire. And an odd ‘chromatic’ one at the end that he sketched.
“Verso’s Drafts…?” Gustave tries to remember if Maelle or the others had told him about it, and his mind turns to his sister's retelling of visiting a place her brother had made as a young boy. A child's playground. Not the canvas itself, of course, but a small portion away from everything else. It had to be a special place, for Verso to yearn to return—that much was plain to see on the man’s face. “Where would that be?”
"Hey, I needed to make sure you guys were going to be able to handle yourselves in fights and I wasn't ready to reveal myself just yet. You can't exactly be a dashing hero without an interesting entrance." He unfolded his arms with a shrug, straightening up so he was no longer leaned against his desk as he turned to properly face Gustave once again. "You tell me if you would've trusted me if I had been in the Manor with Maelle when you and Lune showed up, because I had a feeling that gun of yours would've been in my face faster than I could blink."
"I've got plenty I could teach you though; sword work. stances, gradient attacks. You'll definitely need gradient parries at the very least for where we'll be going. Just in case we run into some particularly nasty Nevrons in Frozen Hearts and Old Lumière." He tilted his head, thinking a bit about the process. It had taken the girls a bit of time to get a handle on gradient attacks, but they had at least managed to develop a handful of them before their confrontation with the Painter Renoir. So long as they just kept traveling and fighting nevrons, Verso was sure Gustave would pick them up fairly easily.
For a moment, he blinked before it clicked in his head that he had mentioned Verso's Drafts out loud. His face flushing a bit as he realized it must seem strange, an over a century-old-man's favorite place in their painted world being a child's hidden paradise. "Ah... Not all that far from Lumière, actually." His head then tilted forward slightly as he looked away, as if attempting to hide the pink that taken over his face. "He painted it a long time ago. Just for himself." and maybe a handful of special people but that was beside the point. "It's a lot of candy, half-finished Gestrals, and more Esquie than you'd know how to deal with. It's a lot."
Gustave just shakes his head, but doesn’t make a move to tell Verso otherwise. He would’ve pulled his gun on him, after all. Odd young man following them? After what happened at the beach, he had been a little trigger-happy, all the way up to… all along the way. “With the Converter, we had an advantage.” He pauses, making a considering hum, “After what happened at 33’s landing, I was very much a shoot first, questions after, kind of guy — ‘Least when it came to nevrons… Probably still would’ve shot you though, so fair enough on that.” He gives Verso a one-shoulder shrug.
As for learning, Gustave was always a quick study with his sword; he always approached it with the same gusto he did with tinkering. The engineer did have to admit some curiosity about what Verso could teach; he’d yet to see the other man fight. He’d heard, and read, about the gradients, however. ‘Twas something the nevrons he had faced didn’t have… perhaps the proximity to the Monolith had something to do with it or—? Dammit, he doesn’t have paper. "I’m going to need another journal…"
“Not far…” Gustave’s eyes wander out the window, to the city awakening. Verso’s Drafts… a reflection of a young boy’s desire for a space of his own, to create and exist in, away from whatever was going on Outside. He could see why Verso would like it, a place to just be—far from the wider world. Childish, maybe, but it fulfills the same premise as a sanctuary would. “I think… I’d like to see that, all the same. At least once.”
As he thought about it, something occurred to him. And Gustave has to suppress a laugh, though the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes squinting. “Really now. Dashing hero, Verso? You certainly have the hair for it, at least, the roguish stubble too.” Wait.
Shit. Stop flirting, you idiot. Not the time, especially—oh, whatever, fuck it, it’s already out.
The seemingly reluctant assent that he was correct only served to draw a soft chuckle from Verso, amusement flickering in his pale eyes despite his own slightly flushed face. "I'd have healed just fine, probably would've been a pain to deal with if your ammunition got stuck somewhere instead of passing straight through..." He shook off any further thoughts of any past experiences that involved being shot from his mind, granted it hadn't happened often. Expeditioners hardly picked up firearms as compared to traditional weaponry.
"Seriously? You'd want to go?" There was genuine surprise in the man's voice and face as his eyes instinctively searched Gustave's face and posture for some kind of deception, like he was trying to access if this was merely an attempt to get into his head. "You're sure?" With a slight forward tilt of his head, Verso almost seemed to be taking the suggestion quite seriously before trying to reign himself in once more. The Drafts were important to him and sharing it with other people had been a big change for him with the 33s. To bring another person to a place so close to his heart, even if it didn't truly belong to him...
When Gustave circled back to his "dashing hero" comment, he almost wanted to laugh. The sound almost bubbling up in his chest but only managing to escape as a soft snort as his grin widened. "Charming and Roguish? Also bringing up my hair again?" He teased, planting a hand on his desk so he could lean slightly closer. "Careful Gustave, I might think you actually like me if you keep that up."
“…Absolutely, I would like to see the Drafts. If that’s not a problem…?” The question posed provided a suitable deflection, at least, and he makes himself actually look at Verso rather than anywhere but. The engineer hadn’t needed to think about the answer either; every word had been said in earnest, betraying nothing but sincerity. He very much does want to see this place; he’s not sure why Verso needs him to clarify. (Unless, perhaps, it was also more than a sanctuary for him.)
...Dammit. “It…That may have slipped out.” Gustave quickly insists, his voice a bit higher than he would have liked, while pressing his hand to the side of his burning face, the skin warm even through the bandage. It really, really didn’t help him here. He’s known for a long time that he finds both women and men attractive, but it’s been a while since he started blurting out his captivation with someone. Putain de Merde. Did he hit his head when he passed out? His head hurts. Maybe it’s that? No, no, it’s not. It’s Verso. Fuck.
“Can—” Gustave scrambles for a coherent sentence, rooted in place as Verso leans forward and continues to poke at him for his blunder. “Can you—” Shit. “Could—Could you just pretend you didn’t hear that?” He asks at last, then keeps going because he can't stop, apparently. “I like you fine. I’m just… lo—er, admiring from here?”
Yes, Verso’s handsome—He would have to be blind to not see it. Now can he stop fucking letting it slip at the worst of times??
"Mm, right." The pianist hummed, the word soft and low as he leaned back again before pushing off of his desk to wander away from it a with a few lazy steps. "I could pretend, but where's the fun in that?" He added, glancing over his shoulder with that same lazy grin. He knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. Nor was he so stupid that he didn't recognize that Gustave was charming in his own right. The thoughtful look in his eyes, the way the color shifted in the light, his inquisitiveness. Even if those smarts and that questioning nature of his would have been the absolute bane of Verso's existence on the Expedition, they weren't bad features by any means. In fact he found those aspects of him very fascinating.
"I'm used to the attention. Granted, getting it with the white hair is certainly new since people seem to think it makes me look old." As it was mentioned, a hand came up to run through the silvery-white length of hair. Brushing it from his face as he turned around to walk backward a couple steps, tilting his head toward the door.
"We should probably get ready for the day though, yeah? Before we look too suspicious." He raised a brow, his eyes briefly flickering down to Gustave's injured hand before returning to his face. "Especially with your hand the way it is if you still don't want that tint still." As content as Verso would be to reminisce and plan to run off to the Continent all day, he was quite sure Gustave had important work. At least that's what he'd picked up in passing from Maelle as of late whenever she'd talk about him. "Unless you want to come up with an excuse to spend the day with the local recluse."
Gustave groans, still faintly flushed, still regretting every choice he made that led him to end up here. He wipes his hand across his face, as if to push away the color dusting it. This man will be the death of him—him and that ‘charm’ of his. “Fun for you, maybe.” He grumbles in Verso’s general direction as the man gracefully gives him some room, swaggering all the while. He scrubs the side of his neck, forcefully loosening his shoulders and spine as he looks at the journal resting on the desk rather than at the other. He blinks in surprise a beat after, “Huh? Color doesn’t automatically equate to age, so that assumption is incorrect. …Don’t let it get to your head, alright.”
In the moment, it had been all too easy to believe that there hadn’t been much of anything hanging over his head. It made it all the simpler to dredge up parts of his old self lying dead across the sea. A more lively man. Someone who wanted life, wanted to see all the land had left to offer freely and without prompting. Gustave looks at Verso’s map still lain across the wood, at the places he didn’t get to see, the world beyond Stone Wave Cliffs. He wonders in the comfort of his own mind about what that man could look like, if he had lived to see it all; and with that thought, he feels himself curl inward, though he tries masking it.
Gustave worries at his lip, nipping at the dry cracks. He moves his gaze to just past Verso’s ear. “We’re both recluses, Verso.” He corrects him, sighing, holding his hand out in front of him, “I'm fine. I’ve rarely gone out, since… well, unless I’m being dragged out by Em or Maelle, and Sciel occasionally now. Nor is it the first time I’ve gone home wounded.” He waves the hand. “Nevertheless, I can go. I could… work on being normal, in the meantime.”
"Then we're more alike than I thought." He tried to keep it light, that grin still lingering on his face as he reached to open the door to the room. Though his eyes hadn't yet left Gustave again as he picked up on the withdraw, the way he seemed to retreat into himself in that all too familiar way, and for just a moment his eyes darted across his face as he tried to think.
"You work on a lot of the technical stuff throughout the city, yeah?" He asked, tilting his head just slightly as his grin faded into a more thoughtful expression. He didn't look like he was fully ready to return to the world they had been forced to live in, their new lives, the least Verso would do was at least ease him back into it. Right? Do for Gustave what no one had ever done for him. "I helped create the dome. I wouldn't really call myself an engineer, but I have some technical knowledge." He motioned his hand toward the journal Gustave now had in his possession. "Maybe I could walk with you a bit. Listen about your work."
It was a simple offer, to simply be a person to be there. A role he was used to taking on for others, one he had learned people needed from time to time. "I don't have plans today besides practicing, working on my new composition, maybe sketching a bit, and doing some training. As long as I don't get dragged around by my metaphorical leash by Sciel." As he spoke, his hands fell to his sides. His thumbs hooking into the pockets of his slacks like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with them. He was sure Gustave would probably turn him down, which was entirely fair, but still... He wanted to at least put the offer out there.
So we are, Verso, so we are. He turns his attention to the door, his way out. Fuck, he can already tell it’s not going to be a good day. Thinking about who Gustave is now versus who he used to be tends to be one of the couple of things that wipe away the chances of a nicer one. He knows all too well he’s barely holding it together, that he’s not their Gustave anymore. The man he is now is but a shadow of the one that died—no longer enjoying life, no longer holding onto hope, and no longer creating. He knows they whisper behind his back, for they treat him gently, but their eyes search.
Technical stuff, he scoffs internally, lips pressed together in a white line. That was before—before this! Gustave wants to tell him, wants to shout. But he doesn’t. He can’t. They might be on a similar page, but all Verso seems to know about him comes from what others have said or from what he saw when he came this way years ago. Thus, he has to wonder just who Verso sees in front of him—the one that is, or the one that was? Both? He’d sure acted more like the one who came before, thinking back. There’s no regret in it. He said what he said, and he’d say it again. (Minus when he put his foot in his mouth)
“…I see.” Gustave wraps his arm around himself again, stepping away from the desk and its contents. His eyes strayed back to the journal at Verso’s motion, and went right back to where they’d been. “And worked. Past tense. I meant what I said: I don’t go out unless I have to make an appearance, or I’d —” He bites his tongue to stop himself, closing his eyes and breathing slowly through his nose. “…just drop it, please. We can find another time and place to speak, then I'll go back to my apartment.”
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
"Good to hear. You were a pretty good fighter from what I noticed, and we both use swords so maybe I could teach you a thing or two as well." That casual lopsided grin returned as he offered, his pale eyes raising from the map to settle once more on Gustave's face. "I can't imagine we'll run into anything too strong, we took care of a lot of the worst of them before we returned to Lumière." It had been a lot of him going out to hunt Nevrons, but still—they'd made a good team regardless.
"Old Lumière isn't too far from Monoco's Station." He nodded, glancing down at its spot on the map. He was sure the Engineer would certainly have a lot of questions about the state of the city; the massive Chroma filled weapons, the Hauler, the empty estate near the edge of the city where his family had once lived their lives. Oblivious to their painted existence.
"My favorites?" His eyes shot back up to Gustave, slightly wide from the surprise of the statement. "Ah... Right— Hm... The Gestral River is a nice place to visit, there's Yellow Harvest, there's a beautiful valley just past the mountains on the eastern portion of the Continent that I love traveling through..." He trailed off a bit, thinking about anything more as his mind slowly drifted to probably his absolute favorite place... Maybe even more than Frozen Hearts. Of candy caverns, and color splotched skies, of the waterfalls and the otters, and the only functioning trains on the whole Continent... "Verso's Drafts." He added softly, his expression finally settling into something that could only be considered longing.
The place he had finally gotten to experience something like childish wonder for himself, for the first time in his long life. A place that, in a way, made him feel... Closer to Verso. The other Verso.
From what you noticed, right. “You mean when you skulked? Or are you referring to your visits to the city—?” His mouth falls into a lazy smirk, hazel eyes reflecting mirth. He rests his hand on his hip, head tilted in Verso’s direction. The engineer couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at his new… friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? Fellow disliker of this life? Doesn’t entirely matter, but still a bit funny in retrospect, learning of Verso’s stalking tendencies.
“—But! I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill or two.” Gustave’s smirk gave way to a small smile, open, not teasing this time. Verso had a nice smile. The other man had been around a while; he could learn a great deal from the immortal swordsman. He wouldn’t mind some new tricks. "Especially if we're going somewhere beyond what I've already seen, the nevrons would be different too..."
Hm. So going passed the Station, is where Old Lumiere lies? What would he find… forgotten homes and places, abandoned streets and possessions? The engineer thinks for a moment, with a quick glance at the map then back up at Verso. They—Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and himself—had been to a yellow forest, filled with nevrons with weaknesses to fire. And an odd ‘chromatic’ one at the end that he sketched.
“Verso’s Drafts…?” Gustave tries to remember if Maelle or the others had told him about it, and his mind turns to his sister's retelling of visiting a place her brother had made as a young boy. A child's playground. Not the canvas itself, of course, but a small portion away from everything else. It had to be a special place, for Verso to yearn to return—that much was plain to see on the man’s face. “Where would that be?”
"Hey, I needed to make sure you guys were going to be able to handle yourselves in fights and I wasn't ready to reveal myself just yet. You can't exactly be a dashing hero without an interesting entrance." He unfolded his arms with a shrug, straightening up so he was no longer leaned against his desk as he turned to properly face Gustave once again. "You tell me if you would've trusted me if I had been in the Manor with Maelle when you and Lune showed up, because I had a feeling that gun of yours would've been in my face faster than I could blink."
"I've got plenty I could teach you though; sword work. stances, gradient attacks. You'll definitely need gradient parries at the very least for where we'll be going. Just in case we run into some particularly nasty Nevrons in Frozen Hearts and Old Lumière." He tilted his head, thinking a bit about the process. It had taken the girls a bit of time to get a handle on gradient attacks, but they had at least managed to develop a handful of them before their confrontation with the Painter Renoir. So long as they just kept traveling and fighting nevrons, Verso was sure Gustave would pick them up fairly easily.
For a moment, he blinked before it clicked in his head that he had mentioned Verso's Drafts out loud. His face flushing a bit as he realized it must seem strange, an over a century-old-man's favorite place in their painted world being a child's hidden paradise. "Ah... Not all that far from Lumière, actually." His head then tilted forward slightly as he looked away, as if attempting to hide the pink that taken over his face. "He painted it a long time ago. Just for himself." and maybe a handful of special people but that was beside the point. "It's a lot of candy, half-finished Gestrals, and more Esquie than you'd know how to deal with. It's a lot."
Gustave just shakes his head, but doesn’t make a move to tell Verso otherwise. He would’ve pulled his gun on him, after all. Odd young man following them? After what happened at the beach, he had been a little trigger-happy, all the way up to… all along the way. “With the Converter, we had an advantage.” He pauses, making a considering hum, “After what happened at 33’s landing, I was very much a shoot first, questions after, kind of guy — ‘Least when it came to nevrons… Probably still would’ve shot you though, so fair enough on that.” He gives Verso a one-shoulder shrug.
As for learning, Gustave was always a quick study with his sword; he always approached it with the same gusto he did with tinkering. The engineer did have to admit some curiosity about what Verso could teach; he’d yet to see the other man fight. He’d heard, and read, about the gradients, however. ‘Twas something the nevrons he had faced didn’t have… perhaps the proximity to the Monolith had something to do with it or—? Dammit, he doesn’t have paper. "I’m going to need another journal…"
“Not far…” Gustave’s eyes wander out the window, to the city awakening. Verso’s Drafts… a reflection of a young boy’s desire for a space of his own, to create and exist in, away from whatever was going on Outside. He could see why Verso would like it, a place to just be—far from the wider world. Childish, maybe, but it fulfills the same premise as a sanctuary would. “I think… I’d like to see that, all the same. At least once.”
As he thought about it, something occurred to him. And Gustave has to suppress a laugh, though the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes squinting. “Really now. Dashing hero, Verso? You certainly have the hair for it, at least, the roguish stubble too.” Wait.
Shit. Stop flirting, you idiot. Not the time, especially—oh, whatever, fuck it, it’s already out.
The seemingly reluctant assent that he was correct only served to draw a soft chuckle from Verso, amusement flickering in his pale eyes despite his own slightly flushed face. "I'd have healed just fine, probably would've been a pain to deal with if your ammunition got stuck somewhere instead of passing straight through..." He shook off any further thoughts of any past experiences that involved being shot from his mind, granted it hadn't happened often. Expeditioners hardly picked up firearms as compared to traditional weaponry.
"Seriously? You'd want to go?" There was genuine surprise in the man's voice and face as his eyes instinctively searched Gustave's face and posture for some kind of deception, like he was trying to access if this was merely an attempt to get into his head. "You're sure?" With a slight forward tilt of his head, Verso almost seemed to be taking the suggestion quite seriously before trying to reign himself in once more. The Drafts were important to him and sharing it with other people had been a big change for him with the 33s. To bring another person to a place so close to his heart, even if it didn't truly belong to him...
When Gustave circled back to his "dashing hero" comment, he almost wanted to laugh. The sound almost bubbling up in his chest but only managing to escape as a soft snort as his grin widened. "Charming and Roguish? Also bringing up my hair again?" He teased, planting a hand on his desk so he could lean slightly closer. "Careful Gustave, I might think you actually like me if you keep that up."
“…Absolutely, I would like to see the Drafts. If that’s not a problem…?” The question posed provided a suitable deflection, at least, and he makes himself actually look at Verso rather than anywhere but. The engineer hadn’t needed to think about the answer either; every word had been said in earnest, betraying nothing but sincerity. He very much does want to see this place; he’s not sure why Verso needs him to clarify. (Unless, perhaps, it was also more than a sanctuary for him.)
...Dammit. “It…That may have slipped out.” Gustave quickly insists, his voice a bit higher than he would have liked, while pressing his hand to the side of his burning face, the skin warm even through the bandage. It really, really didn’t help him here. He’s known for a long time that he finds both women and men attractive, but it’s been a while since he started blurting out his captivation with someone. Putain de Merde. Did he hit his head when he passed out? His head hurts. Maybe it’s that? No, no, it’s not. It’s Verso. Fuck.
“Can—” Gustave scrambles for a coherent sentence, rooted in place as Verso leans forward and continues to poke at him for his blunder. “Can you—” Shit. “Could—Could you just pretend you didn’t hear that?” He asks at last, then keeps going because he can't stop, apparently. “I like you fine. I’m just… lo—er, admiring from here?”
Yes, Verso’s handsome—He would have to be blind to not see it. Now can he stop fucking letting it slip at the worst of times??
"Mm, right." The pianist hummed, the word soft and low as he leaned back again before pushing off of his desk to wander away from it a with a few lazy steps. "I could pretend, but where's the fun in that?" He added, glancing over his shoulder with that same lazy grin. He knew exactly what he was doing, he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. Nor was he so stupid that he didn't recognize that Gustave was charming in his own right. The thoughtful look in his eyes, the way the color shifted in the light, his inquisitiveness. Even if those smarts and that questioning nature of his would have been the absolute bane of Verso's existence on the Expedition, they weren't bad features by any means. In fact he found those aspects of him very fascinating.
"I'm used to the attention. Granted, getting it with the white hair is certainly new since people seem to think it makes me look old." As it was mentioned, a hand came up to run through the silvery-white length of hair. Brushing it from his face as he turned around to walk backward a couple steps, tilting his head toward the door.
"We should probably get ready for the day though, yeah? Before we look too suspicious." He raised a brow, his eyes briefly flickering down to Gustave's injured hand before returning to his face. "Especially with your hand the way it is if you still don't want that tint still." As content as Verso would be to reminisce and plan to run off to the Continent all day, he was quite sure Gustave had important work. At least that's what he'd picked up in passing from Maelle as of late whenever she'd talk about him. "Unless you want to come up with an excuse to spend the day with the local recluse."
Gustave groans, still faintly flushed, still regretting every choice he made that led him to end up here. He wipes his hand across his face, as if to push away the color dusting it. This man will be the death of him—him and that ‘charm’ of his. “Fun for you, maybe.” He grumbles in Verso’s general direction as the man gracefully gives him some room, swaggering all the while. He scrubs the side of his neck, forcefully loosening his shoulders and spine as he looks at the journal resting on the desk rather than at the other. He blinks in surprise a beat after, “Huh? Color doesn’t automatically equate to age, so that assumption is incorrect. …Don’t let it get to your head, alright.”
In the moment, it had been all too easy to believe that there hadn’t been much of anything hanging over his head. It made it all the simpler to dredge up parts of his old self lying dead across the sea. A more lively man. Someone who wanted life, wanted to see all the land had left to offer freely and without prompting. Gustave looks at Verso’s map still lain across the wood, at the places he didn’t get to see, the world beyond Stone Wave Cliffs. He wonders in the comfort of his own mind about what that man could look like, if he had lived to see it all; and with that thought, he feels himself curl inward, though he tries masking it.
Gustave worries at his lip, nipping at the dry cracks. He moves his gaze to just past Verso’s ear. “We’re both recluses, Verso.” He corrects him, sighing, holding his hand out in front of him, “I'm fine. I’ve rarely gone out, since… well, unless I’m being dragged out by Em or Maelle, and Sciel occasionally now. Nor is it the first time I’ve gone home wounded.” He waves the hand. “Nevertheless, I can go. I could… work on being normal, in the meantime.”
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
"Good to hear. You were a pretty good fighter from what I noticed, and we both use swords so maybe I could teach you a thing or two as well." That casual lopsided grin returned as he offered, his pale eyes raising from the map to settle once more on Gustave's face. "I can't imagine we'll run into anything too strong, we took care of a lot of the worst of them before we returned to Lumière." It had been a lot of him going out to hunt Nevrons, but still—they'd made a good team regardless.
"Old Lumière isn't too far from Monoco's Station." He nodded, glancing down at its spot on the map. He was sure the Engineer would certainly have a lot of questions about the state of the city; the massive Chroma filled weapons, the Hauler, the empty estate near the edge of the city where his family had once lived their lives. Oblivious to their painted existence.
"My favorites?" His eyes shot back up to Gustave, slightly wide from the surprise of the statement. "Ah... Right— Hm... The Gestral River is a nice place to visit, there's Yellow Harvest, there's a beautiful valley just past the mountains on the eastern portion of the Continent that I love traveling through..." He trailed off a bit, thinking about anything more as his mind slowly drifted to probably his absolute favorite place... Maybe even more than Frozen Hearts. Of candy caverns, and color splotched skies, of the waterfalls and the otters, and the only functioning trains on the whole Continent... "Verso's Drafts." He added softly, his expression finally settling into something that could only be considered longing.
The place he had finally gotten to experience something like childish wonder for himself, for the first time in his long life. A place that, in a way, made him feel... Closer to Verso. The other Verso.
From what you noticed, right. “You mean when you skulked? Or are you referring to your visits to the city—?” His mouth falls into a lazy smirk, hazel eyes reflecting mirth. He rests his hand on his hip, head tilted in Verso’s direction. The engineer couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at his new… friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? Fellow disliker of this life? Doesn’t entirely matter, but still a bit funny in retrospect, learning of Verso’s stalking tendencies.
“—But! I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill or two.” Gustave’s smirk gave way to a small smile, open, not teasing this time. Verso had a nice smile. The other man had been around a while; he could learn a great deal from the immortal swordsman. He wouldn’t mind some new tricks. "Especially if we're going somewhere beyond what I've already seen, the nevrons would be different too..."
Hm. So going passed the Station, is where Old Lumiere lies? What would he find… forgotten homes and places, abandoned streets and possessions? The engineer thinks for a moment, with a quick glance at the map then back up at Verso. They—Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and himself—had been to a yellow forest, filled with nevrons with weaknesses to fire. And an odd ‘chromatic’ one at the end that he sketched.
“Verso’s Drafts…?” Gustave tries to remember if Maelle or the others had told him about it, and his mind turns to his sister's retelling of visiting a place her brother had made as a young boy. A child's playground. Not the canvas itself, of course, but a small portion away from everything else. It had to be a special place, for Verso to yearn to return—that much was plain to see on the man’s face. “Where would that be?”
"Hey, I needed to make sure you guys were going to be able to handle yourselves in fights and I wasn't ready to reveal myself just yet. You can't exactly be a dashing hero without an interesting entrance." He unfolded his arms with a shrug, straightening up so he was no longer leaned against his desk as he turned to properly face Gustave once again. "You tell me if you would've trusted me if I had been in the Manor with Maelle when you and Lune showed up, because I had a feeling that gun of yours would've been in my face faster than I could blink."
"I've got plenty I could teach you though; sword work. stances, gradient attacks. You'll definitely need gradient parries at the very least for where we'll be going. Just in case we run into some particularly nasty Nevrons in Frozen Hearts and Old Lumière." He tilted his head, thinking a bit about the process. It had taken the girls a bit of time to get a handle on gradient attacks, but they had at least managed to develop a handful of them before their confrontation with the Painter Renoir. So long as they just kept traveling and fighting nevrons, Verso was sure Gustave would pick them up fairly easily.
For a moment, he blinked before it clicked in his head that he had mentioned Verso's Drafts out loud. His face flushing a bit as he realized it must seem strange, an over a century-old-man's favorite place in their painted world being a child's hidden paradise. "Ah... Not all that far from Lumière, actually." His head then tilted forward slightly as he looked away, as if attempting to hide the pink that taken over his face. "He painted it a long time ago. Just for himself." and maybe a handful of special people but that was beside the point. "It's a lot of candy, half-finished Gestrals, and more Esquie than you'd know how to deal with. It's a lot."
Gustave just shakes his head, but doesn’t make a move to tell Verso otherwise. He would’ve pulled his gun on him, after all. Odd young man following them? After what happened at the beach, he had been a little trigger-happy, all the way up to… all along the way. “With the Converter, we had an advantage.” He pauses, making a considering hum, “After what happened at 33’s landing, I was very much a shoot first, questions after, kind of guy — ‘Least when it came to nevrons… Probably still would’ve shot you though, so fair enough on that.” He gives Verso a one-shoulder shrug.
As for learning, Gustave was always a quick study with his sword; he always approached it with the same gusto he did with tinkering. The engineer did have to admit some curiosity about what Verso could teach; he’d yet to see the other man fight. He’d heard, and read, about the gradients, however. ‘Twas something the nevrons he had faced didn’t have… perhaps the proximity to the Monolith had something to do with it or—? Dammit, he doesn’t have paper. "I’m going to need another journal…"
“Not far…” Gustave’s eyes wander out the window, to the city awakening. Verso’s Drafts… a reflection of a young boy’s desire for a space of his own, to create and exist in, away from whatever was going on Outside. He could see why Verso would like it, a place to just be—far from the wider world. Childish, maybe, but it fulfills the same premise as a sanctuary would. “I think… I’d like to see that, all the same. At least once.”
As he thought about it, something occurred to him. And Gustave has to suppress a laugh, though the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes squinting. “Really now. Dashing hero, Verso? You certainly have the hair for it, at least, the roguish stubble too.” Wait.
Shit. Stop flirting, you idiot. Not the time, especially—oh, whatever, fuck it, it’s already out.
The seemingly reluctant assent that he was correct only served to draw a soft chuckle from Verso, amusement flickering in his pale eyes despite his own slightly flushed face. "I'd have healed just fine, probably would've been a pain to deal with if your ammunition got stuck somewhere instead of passing straight through..." He shook off any further thoughts of any past experiences that involved being shot from his mind, granted it hadn't happened often. Expeditioners hardly picked up firearms as compared to traditional weaponry.
"Seriously? You'd want to go?" There was genuine surprise in the man's voice and face as his eyes instinctively searched Gustave's face and posture for some kind of deception, like he was trying to access if this was merely an attempt to get into his head. "You're sure?" With a slight forward tilt of his head, Verso almost seemed to be taking the suggestion quite seriously before trying to reign himself in once more. The Drafts were important to him and sharing it with other people had been a big change for him with the 33s. To bring another person to a place so close to his heart, even if it didn't truly belong to him...
When Gustave circled back to his "dashing hero" comment, he almost wanted to laugh. The sound almost bubbling up in his chest but only managing to escape as a soft snort as his grin widened. "Charming and Roguish? Also bringing up my hair again?" He teased, planting a hand on his desk so he could lean slightly closer. "Careful Gustave, I might think you actually like me if you keep that up."
“…Absolutely, I would like to see the Drafts. If that’s not a problem…?” The question posed provided a suitable deflection, at least, and he makes himself actually look at Verso rather than anywhere but. The engineer hadn’t needed to think about the answer either; every word had been said in earnest, betraying nothing but sincerity. He very much does want to see this place; he’s not sure why Verso needs him to clarify. (Unless, perhaps, it was also more than a sanctuary for him.)
...Dammit. “It…That may have slipped out.” Gustave quickly insists, his voice a bit higher than he would have liked, while pressing his hand to the side of his burning face, the skin warm even through the bandage. It really, really didn’t help him here. He’s known for a long time that he finds both women and men attractive, but it’s been a while since he started blurting out his captivation with someone. Putain de Merde. Did he hit his head when he passed out? His head hurts. Maybe it’s that? No, no, it’s not. It’s Verso. Fuck.
“Can—” Gustave scrambles for a coherent sentence, rooted in place as Verso leans forward and continues to poke at him for his blunder. “Can you—” Shit. “Could—Could you just pretend you didn’t hear that?” He asks at last, then keeps going because he can't stop, apparently. “I like you fine. I’m just… lo—er, admiring from here?”
Yes, Verso’s handsome—He would have to be blind to not see it. Now can he stop fucking letting it slip at the worst of times??
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
"Good to hear. You were a pretty good fighter from what I noticed, and we both use swords so maybe I could teach you a thing or two as well." That casual lopsided grin returned as he offered, his pale eyes raising from the map to settle once more on Gustave's face. "I can't imagine we'll run into anything too strong, we took care of a lot of the worst of them before we returned to Lumière." It had been a lot of him going out to hunt Nevrons, but still—they'd made a good team regardless.
"Old Lumière isn't too far from Monoco's Station." He nodded, glancing down at its spot on the map. He was sure the Engineer would certainly have a lot of questions about the state of the city; the massive Chroma filled weapons, the Hauler, the empty estate near the edge of the city where his family had once lived their lives. Oblivious to their painted existence.
"My favorites?" His eyes shot back up to Gustave, slightly wide from the surprise of the statement. "Ah... Right— Hm... The Gestral River is a nice place to visit, there's Yellow Harvest, there's a beautiful valley just past the mountains on the eastern portion of the Continent that I love traveling through..." He trailed off a bit, thinking about anything more as his mind slowly drifted to probably his absolute favorite place... Maybe even more than Frozen Hearts. Of candy caverns, and color splotched skies, of the waterfalls and the otters, and the only functioning trains on the whole Continent... "Verso's Drafts." He added softly, his expression finally settling into something that could only be considered longing.
The place he had finally gotten to experience something like childish wonder for himself, for the first time in his long life. A place that, in a way, made him feel... Closer to Verso. The other Verso.
From what you noticed, right. “You mean when you skulked? Or are you referring to your visits to the city—?” His mouth falls into a lazy smirk, hazel eyes reflecting mirth. He rests his hand on his hip, head tilted in Verso’s direction. The engineer couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at his new… friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? Fellow disliker of this life? Doesn’t entirely matter, but still a bit funny in retrospect, learning of Verso’s stalking tendencies.
“—But! I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill or two.” Gustave’s smirk gave way to a small smile, open, not teasing this time. Verso had a nice smile. The other man had been around a while; he could learn a great deal from the immortal swordsman. He wouldn’t mind some new tricks. "Especially if we're going somewhere beyond what I've already seen, the nevrons would be different too..."
Hm. So going passed the Station, is where Old Lumiere lies? What would he find… forgotten homes and places, abandoned streets and possessions? The engineer thinks for a moment, with a quick glance at the map then back up at Verso. They—Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and himself—had been to a yellow forest, filled with nevrons with weaknesses to fire. And an odd ‘chromatic’ one at the end that he sketched.
“Verso’s Drafts…?” Gustave tries to remember if Maelle or the others had told him about it, and his mind turns to his sister's retelling of visiting a place her brother had made as a young boy. A child's playground. Not the canvas itself, of course, but a small portion away from everything else. It had to be a special place, for Verso to yearn to return—that much was plain to see on the man’s face. “Where would that be?”
"Hey, I needed to make sure you guys were going to be able to handle yourselves in fights and I wasn't ready to reveal myself just yet. You can't exactly be a dashing hero without an interesting entrance." He unfolded his arms with a shrug, straightening up so he was no longer leaned against his desk as he turned to properly face Gustave once again. "You tell me if you would've trusted me if I had been in the Manor with Maelle when you and Lune showed up, because I had a feeling that gun of yours would've been in my face faster than I could blink."
"I've got plenty I could teach you though; sword work. stances, gradient attacks. You'll definitely need gradient parries at the very least for where we'll be going. Just in case we run into some particularly nasty Nevrons in Frozen Hearts and Old Lumière." He tilted his head, thinking a bit about the process. It had taken the girls a bit of time to get a handle on gradient attacks, but they had at least managed to develop a handful of them before their confrontation with the Painter Renoir. So long as they just kept traveling and fighting nevrons, Verso was sure Gustave would pick them up fairly easily.
For a moment, he blinked before it clicked in his head that he had mentioned Verso's Drafts out loud. His face flushing a bit as he realized it must seem strange, an over a century-old-man's favorite place in their painted world being a child's hidden paradise. "Ah... Not all that far from Lumière, actually." His head then tilted forward slightly as he looked away, as if attempting to hide the pink that taken over his face. "He painted it a long time ago. Just for himself." and maybe a handful of special people but that was beside the point. "It's a lot of candy, half-finished Gestrals, and more Esquie than you'd know how to deal with. It's a lot."
Gustave just shakes his head, but doesn’t make a move to tell Verso otherwise. He would’ve pulled his gun on him, after all. Odd young man following them? After what happened at the beach, he had been a little trigger-happy, all the way up to… all along the way. “With the Converter, we had an advantage.” He pauses, making a considering hum, “After what happened at 33’s landing, I was very much a shoot first, questions after, kind of guy — ‘Least when it came to nevrons… Probably still would’ve shot you though, so fair enough on that.” He gives Verso a one-shoulder shrug.
As for learning, Gustave was always a quick study with his sword; he always approached it with the same gusto he did with tinkering. The engineer did have to admit some curiosity about what Verso could teach; he’d yet to see the other man fight. He’d heard, and read, about the gradients, however. ‘Twas something the nevrons he had faced didn’t have… perhaps the proximity to the Monolith had something to do with it or—? Dammit, he doesn’t have paper. "I’m going to need another journal…"
“Not far…” Gustave’s eyes wander out the window, to the city awakening. Verso’s Drafts… a reflection of a young boy’s desire for a space of his own, to create and exist in, away from whatever was going on Outside. He could see why Verso would like it, a place to just be—far from the wider world. Childish, maybe, but it fulfills the same premise as a sanctuary would. “I think… I’d like to see that, all the same. At least once.”
As he thought about it, something occurred to him. And Gustave has to suppress a laugh, though the corners of his mouth twitch, his eyes squinting. “Really now. Dashing hero, Verso? You certainly have the hair for it, at least, the roguish stubble too.” Wait.
Shit. Stop flirting, you idiot. Not the time, especially—oh, whatever, fuck it, it’s already out.
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"She's pretty deep into Frozen Hearts, up in the mountains near Monoco's Station—" He pressed his lips together when he realized that Gustave didn't exactly have a reference point for what he was talking about... He turned around to move a few things on his desk before grabbing a piece of rolled up paper in a leather sheath, and with the ease of someone who had clearly done this for a long time, pulled the paper free and unrolled it to lay it out against the desk to show Gustave a hand-drawn map of the Continent.
"See, the area you saw was here." He circled the familiar land of the Continent closest to Lumière, before sliding his finger further North, to another large landmass past the Sea Gustave had almost crossed himself. His eyebrows twitched for just a moment, a blink and you'd miss it moment, but enough for that brief flicker of regret to cross his features again before he attempted to smother it in thoughts of trains and Frozen Hearts. "This large island here is where the coldest part of the Continent is, Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts." He tapped a stretch of mountains in the northern stretch of the landmass. "There's all kinds of Engines all over the place, but my favorite is hidden pretty high up, one of the bigger Engines. She pulled luxury cars, and I would take trips just to ride along and stare out the windows..."
For a moment he just let himself linger on a memory of Clea, Alicia, and him on one such trips. Alicia tucked against his arm as she dozed off while Clea rolled her arms across from them. When he pulled himself out of it, he nodded quickly in response to the question.
"Yeah, I'm less of a sculptor than Clea, but try and I think my passion for trains carries me through the medium. Was always more of a painter when it came to visual mediums." He chuckled, slightly awkward as he picked up one of the rougher models. One he had worked on with just his dagger and a handful of supplies he could get his hands on back on the Continent thanks to the Gestrals.
At the Engineer's comment about slipping away from Lumière, to go to the Continent themselves, and have Verso show him the engines in person. The Pianist prayed to the Fragment of Verso's soul that his face wasn't visibly flushed as he stared at him, slightly wide-eyed. "Right— Right, yes of course. It'd only make sense; out of everyone I do know the Continent the best, I'm familiar with where the Engines are located, and I'm a good fighter so—" He cleared his throat, setting down the model in his hands. "Yeah. I could see that working out..."
Monoco’s Station, so… further north? Gustave’s head tilts, and he takes a step closer when Verso shuffles around and pulls out a roll of parchment from a sheath. The question on his lips is answered as a map of the Continent is unwraps, clearly hand-mad, across the desk. His eyes flit between the various markers, then back to Verso before following the man’s finger. Spring Meadows, Flying Waters—where he found Maelle—the ancient sanctuary, and the gestral village within. Esquie’s Nest… And Stone Wave Cliffs. He has to close his eyes for a few seconds. Thus, he completely misses Verso’s flicker of regret.
“Right…” An entire section of the Continent that he hadn’t gotten to see.
He studies the map as Verso continues, curiously eyeing the depiction of a mountain. Maybe they’d see snow there, given the elevation? They never got it here in Lumiere, only paintings and stories to tell the tale. Station must be referring to a train station; he could smack himself for not seeing that sooner. Did the rail lines survive in some state? Was there a map of the routes? “I wonder just how many variations there are…” He mumbles, mostly to himself. “Size, shape, power…” To have ridden in one, though… maybe Verso describes it in his notes?
Clea had been a sculptor, like her Outside counterpart? Gustave looks at Verso’s early attempts with a soft smile. “I have some drawings, myself, from childhood scribbling to adult scrawls. I can build, but miniatures are a bit out of my skill set.” He hadn’t had much free time either, what with his apprenticeship and later his actual work. Everything else had taken center stage.
“See? The perfect guide! We just have to… Verso—?” The engineer lifts his head, facing the man. He can’t help the red that blooms when Verso’s stare lands squarely on him; was he blushing? He makes to gesture with his left hand, but he forgets that he doesn’t have one right now. What’s left of the upper arm makes the motion, “—Um. Yeah. Plans. We should make one...” Good save, Gustave. He dryly says to himself. But putain, physical, inspectable trains.
“It’s mostly passenger transit, Maman painted Lumière to have everything it would ever need so there was never really any need for things like freight and shipping like the Outside. My personal favorite was the Calais-Mediterranée Express, she was a luxury night express train.” He nodded toward the journal, silently doing his best to will away the warmth in his face as he tried to focus on the trains. That was the topic, he could focus. No problem—
The smile Gustave’s face only made something in his chest ache, something he refused to acknowledge as his eyes snapped up at the sound of his name with only a slightly alarmed look before he nodded again.
“It should be simple enough, I can’t imagine they’d question or hound us too badly if we tell them it’s about trains and we could also pick up Monoco for extra protection if they don’t trust me to keep you safe on my own. Even though I’ve been just fine in the past.” He rolled his eyes slightly on the last part, but shook it head after. “Not important.”
“Important things is the cold. You’re going to need something thicker than your old uniform with you if we go to the mountains. I’ll be honest those rolled up sleeves were going to be rough on you.” His face briefly pinched into a scowl as he thought for a moment. “I might have a spare of my jacket. They’re old and pretty beat up, but it would keep you warm that I can tell you for sure.”
The only other hurdle really was transportation. Sure they could get a boat to the Continent, but between the islands? That was a whole other matter, and Esquie hadn’t responded to his calls to him in a few weeks… “We could try calling for Esquie, but I haven’t heard from him or seen him since he and Monoco left. Otherwise a boat is really a one-way trip and we’d have to risk swimming to the island.” Admitting to Esquie’s lack of response brought back an all too familiar sting at the reminder that two of his only friends had left him. Returned to the Continent without him, and left him without much more than their farewells, and a smack in the head in Monoco’s case. Yet another reminder of his failure and how he was confident they would rather not speak to him… “I’m sure we’ll figure it out. Esquie would be happy to see you again, I’m sure of that at least.”
Gustave’s very, very much trying to suppress the urge to plop down and page through Verso’s journal right then and there. Calais-Mediterranée Express. He makes a mental note. The engineer in him is buzzing with questions, questions that would in all likelihood be answered by reading. Shit, he’s going to have to push his bed from the wall, or unstick a chair from wherever he flung it back home. He can’t just sit on the floor to peruse this! ... Focus.
“I know the Sciel and Lune wouldn’t give us, or at least me, too much pushback,” Gustave replies, head tilted in thought. “Maelle might give more, but I can just start explaining intricacies, and eventually she’d let off.”
Wait, merde. He hadn’t thought of the cold. His old uniform—the one he died in came back with was a perfect recreation, down to the additions made by his apprentices with Sophie’s help so long ago. Gustave couldn’t look at it much now, but he refused to do away with it, and so in a corner it rested. Gustave’s smile gives way to something considering, “The one sleeve had been an alteration by my former apprentices. Longer-sleeved garments tend to snag on the arm, and that wouldn’t have gone over well on the Continent.” He explains, and not to mention it was annoying. “But you are right, it wasn’t made for the cold all that well. If you are offering your spare, I could use it.” That’d be one thing solved.
Gustave’s face morphs into an expression of shock. What? Esquie wasn’t? What about Monoco, or had he also left Lumiere? “Esquie hasn’t answered you? His best friend Verso?” He repeats, rather incredulously. Setting aside the matter of getting across the seas, he continues, eyebrows pinched, “One of the first things he told us when we went to ask him for help was just that. I can’t imagine a reason as to why he wouldn’t…” He tries to think of a reason but comes up blank.
What was going on? Was he missing something?
Verso’s face visibly twisted into a grimace when Gustave addressed Esquie’s lacking response to him calling, salt in the wound especially when he reminded him of how Esquie has always referred to Verso as his best friend. Esquie had always come to him when he needed him, but this time he’d been on his own. Shifting away from the map now rolled out across his desk, Verso’s arms quickly came up to fold across his chest in a seemingly more guarded posture not unlike he had been when Gustave initially woke him up.
“Esquie can hear practically across the Continent, I’ve always been able to call out and he’d be there. Verso Painted him to be able to sense dark thoughts plaguing the minds of the Canvas’ inhabitants as well…” Running a hand up and down his own arm, almost in a subtle self-soothing motion, Verso’s pale gaze dropped to the floor with a return of that mournful look.
“When I betrayed the Thirty-Third, he was… So disappointed in me. It was like being scolded when we managed to get back to the Continent after escaping Renoir… He wasn’t mad, “Bad things happen when we get mad.” he told me… Said he could never be mad at me.” He closed his eyes, remembering Esquie looming over him and doing his best to be comforting. How much his old friend’s presence and belief in him had meant despite what he had done. “But I knew he was disappointed in my choice…”
Only for him to do it again to Maelle after their battle with her father…
Esquie and Monoco both had barely spoken to him after Maelle repainted his displaced Chroma back into the upper layers of the Canvas. Back into Lumière. He’d hardly spoken to anyone in those first few days, and he had tried to go back to the Continent with them when all was said and done but…
They told him he should stay. That it would probably be for the better that he stay in Lumière, a claim that it was “for his own good because he’d be stupid and reckless all over again” if he went with them. It had crushed him. Standing there in the harbor, the day they’d left. He remembered giving Monoco a tight hug before the Gestral smacked him upside the back of his head that day, and demanded he try to life the life that had been given to him.
“I haven’t seen either of them since they left Lumière. I just chalked it up to them being upset with me…”
Able to sense dark thoughts… a part of him wonders why the Outside Verso, the painter Verso, would create such a thing. From what he knows of Maelle’s brother, perhaps the man needed such a friend like Esquie in his corner.
He’s alone here, the thought dawns on Gustave as his Verso replies, getting smaller with every sentence he speaks. Sisters gone, father gone. And now his oldest friends having left. Everything he’s ever heard of both Esquie, and later Monoco would’ve led him to believe otherwise, that regardless of the circumstances those two wouldn’t stay away entirely. The engineer frowns, quietly lowering Verso’s journal onto the wood desk.
Verso was almost an inverse of himself at this point in time. Alone with no one really at his side, and Gustave who was alone by choice — with friends and family that he kept at a distance. He doesn’t—can’t—know what it’s like, to lose something like that. A family, he’d have known for decades, and friends that same amount of time. Gustave hasn’t really lost family, though. Family he remembers at least.
(In retrospect the girl he and Em raised was now further away from what he remembers. Regaining her memories accounted for some of that change, but this new side to her exposed today was enough of a step away.)
“It’s been weeks, actual months even. Having Esquie of all beings disappointed in you…” Gustave tucks a stray curl behind his ear, and he sighs, suddenly tired. “Betrayal or no, I wouldn’t have thought he’d stay upset long enough to refuse completely. Esquie at least, I don’t know Monoco.” The gestral had already departed, along with Esquie, before Gustave had even been… repainted. He wraps his arm around his midsection. “I… suppose you’ll get the chance to ask, at least? When we go. Esquie’s nest is just beyond Flying Waters.” He nods at the map.
Unless... someone had something to do with it?
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
"Good to hear. You were a pretty good fighter from what I noticed, and we both use swords so maybe I could teach you a thing or two as well." That casual lopsided grin returned as he offered, his pale eyes raising from the map to settle once more on Gustave's face. "I can't imagine we'll run into anything too strong, we took care of a lot of the worst of them before we returned to Lumière." It had been a lot of him going out to hunt Nevrons, but still—they'd made a good team regardless.
"Old Lumière isn't too far from Monoco's Station." He nodded, glancing down at its spot on the map. He was sure the Engineer would certainly have a lot of questions about the state of the city; the massive Chroma filled weapons, the Hauler, the empty estate near the edge of the city where his family had once lived their lives. Oblivious to their painted existence.
"My favorites?" His eyes shot back up to Gustave, slightly wide from the surprise of the statement. "Ah... Right— Hm... The Gestral River is a nice place to visit, there's Yellow Harvest, there's a beautiful valley just past the mountains on the eastern portion of the Continent that I love traveling through..." He trailed off a bit, thinking about anything more as his mind slowly drifted to probably his absolute favorite place... Maybe even more than Frozen Hearts. Of candy caverns, and color splotched skies, of the waterfalls and the otters, and the only functioning trains on the whole Continent... "Verso's Drafts." He added softly, his expression finally settling into something that could only be considered longing.
The place he had finally gotten to experience something like childish wonder for himself, for the first time in his long life. A place that, in a way, made him feel... Closer to Verso. The other Verso.
From what you noticed, right. “You mean when you skulked? Or are you referring to your visits to the city—?” His mouth falls into a lazy smirk, hazel eyes reflecting mirth. He rests his hand on his hip, head tilted in Verso’s direction. The engineer couldn’t resist the chance to poke fun at his new… friend? Acquaintance? Colleague? Fellow disliker of this life? Doesn’t entirely matter, but still a bit funny in retrospect, learning of Verso’s stalking tendencies.
“—But! I wouldn’t mind picking up a new skill or two.” Gustave’s smirk gave way to a small smile, open, not teasing this time. Verso had a nice smile. The other man had been around a while; he could learn a great deal from the immortal swordsman. He wouldn’t mind some new tricks. "Especially if we're going somewhere beyond what I've already seen, the nevrons would be different too..."
Hm. So going passed the Station, is where Old Lumiere lies? What would he find… forgotten homes and places, abandoned streets and possessions? The engineer thinks for a moment, with a quick glance at the map then back up at Verso. They—Maelle, Lune, Sciel, and himself—had been to a yellow forest, filled with nevrons with weaknesses to fire. And an odd ‘chromatic’ one at the end that he sketched.
“Verso’s Drafts…?” Gustave tries to remember if Maelle or the others had told him about it, and his mind turns to his sister's retelling of visiting a place her brother had made as a young boy. A child's playground. Not the canvas itself, of course, but a small portion away from everything else. It had to be a special place, for Verso to yearn to return—that much was plain to see on the man’s face. “Where would that be?”
He has to wonder what that looked like. A people unburdened by the certain end that came. A time where gestrals were not just stories. "It's been about 67 years, so I'm not quite astonished to hear that everything was turned on its head. It's... a long time to be out here, too." He looks around their camp, at what's left of them. The hope and future of Lumiere rests on them.
Gustave's eyebrows rise, then fall with an obvious expression of surprise; thus, he couldn't stop the scoff that left him: "Wait, of all the things, corsages? In a time when there were feats of engineering marvels still dotted around the Continent?"
"It wasn't just corsages." Verso's grin grew a little sheepish, and he ran a hand through the back of his hair. "There were all kinds of rules that the tout Lumiere had to follow to be acceptable in society. For instance, it was considered the height of impropriety to ever leave the house without a hat. And the type of hat had to correspond to the event.
"If there is one thing that I'm thankful the Fracture did, it was wash away all of that stupid nonsense." He gestured back towards the ladies. "Before the Fracture, all three of them would have had to have a chaperone to be around the two of us. And the scandal that would have erupted from their trousers would have filled the gossip rags for months."
Gustave tries to visualize the picture Verso was painting. Sure, some of the more powerful members of the council still had those ideas of propriety, or those with older families, but for the most part, Lumiere was a lot more relaxed. He glances at the girls still chatting among themselves. Including gender roles. Well, mostly on that one.
He pinches his nose, equal parts amused and exasperated, "That's one thing that hasn't changed. Gossip." He huffs, more amused now, "Even in my little corner of the city, if work wasn't being done, the people were talking."
Whenever Gustave needed to think or just let off steam, he tended to go to the hanging gardens to throw rocks. But today, even that seems too much. Too much had changed. Weeks later, after his... resurrection, he still has trouble wrapping his head around it all. But it was so, so fantastical. Terrifying? Impossible?
They won. It is supposed to be joyous. No gommage, and a future ahead of them. And yet here he was, discontented. So much of their lives was just... paint? But they lived. They breathed, laughed, and cried. He wanted to say that he was adjusting, but well...
Lumiere was quiet at midnight; at least most of its citizens, returned or not, were either home in bed or working late. He takes the long way around toward the docks, where he turns left rather than going further. There's a little nook, a little ways off to the side, which doesn't face the empty Monolith. Gustave found it in his youth, needing a place to hide away to stew in his thoughts.
Gustave lowers himself to sit at the edge of the tiny offshoot, letting his legs dangle above the surf. The ocean breeze a comfort against his skin. Dressed only in casual clothes, a simple white shirt, and black pants plus boots, he welcomes the night chill.
"The more I learn..." He sighs to himself, pulling up a leg and hugging it against his chest, resting his chin on the knee. In the comfort of his own mind, he lets the walls he built fall. "The less I want to." Dying changes someone, he thinks bitterly out at the ocean.
@versoimparfait
"She's pretty deep into Frozen Hearts, up in the mountains near Monoco's Station—" He pressed his lips together when he realized that Gustave didn't exactly have a reference point for what he was talking about... He turned around to move a few things on his desk before grabbing a piece of rolled up paper in a leather sheath, and with the ease of someone who had clearly done this for a long time, pulled the paper free and unrolled it to lay it out against the desk to show Gustave a hand-drawn map of the Continent.
"See, the area you saw was here." He circled the familiar land of the Continent closest to Lumière, before sliding his finger further North, to another large landmass past the Sea Gustave had almost crossed himself. His eyebrows twitched for just a moment, a blink and you'd miss it moment, but enough for that brief flicker of regret to cross his features again before he attempted to smother it in thoughts of trains and Frozen Hearts. "This large island here is where the coldest part of the Continent is, Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts." He tapped a stretch of mountains in the northern stretch of the landmass. "There's all kinds of Engines all over the place, but my favorite is hidden pretty high up, one of the bigger Engines. She pulled luxury cars, and I would take trips just to ride along and stare out the windows..."
For a moment he just let himself linger on a memory of Clea, Alicia, and him on one such trips. Alicia tucked against his arm as she dozed off while Clea rolled her arms across from them. When he pulled himself out of it, he nodded quickly in response to the question.
"Yeah, I'm less of a sculptor than Clea, but try and I think my passion for trains carries me through the medium. Was always more of a painter when it came to visual mediums." He chuckled, slightly awkward as he picked up one of the rougher models. One he had worked on with just his dagger and a handful of supplies he could get his hands on back on the Continent thanks to the Gestrals.
At the Engineer's comment about slipping away from Lumière, to go to the Continent themselves, and have Verso show him the engines in person. The Pianist prayed to the Fragment of Verso's soul that his face wasn't visibly flushed as he stared at him, slightly wide-eyed. "Right— Right, yes of course. It'd only make sense; out of everyone I do know the Continent the best, I'm familiar with where the Engines are located, and I'm a good fighter so—" He cleared his throat, setting down the model in his hands. "Yeah. I could see that working out..."
Monoco’s Station, so… further north? Gustave’s head tilts, and he takes a step closer when Verso shuffles around and pulls out a roll of parchment from a sheath. The question on his lips is answered as a map of the Continent is unwraps, clearly hand-mad, across the desk. His eyes flit between the various markers, then back to Verso before following the man’s finger. Spring Meadows, Flying Waters—where he found Maelle—the ancient sanctuary, and the gestral village within. Esquie’s Nest… And Stone Wave Cliffs. He has to close his eyes for a few seconds. Thus, he completely misses Verso’s flicker of regret.
“Right…” An entire section of the Continent that he hadn’t gotten to see.
He studies the map as Verso continues, curiously eyeing the depiction of a mountain. Maybe they’d see snow there, given the elevation? They never got it here in Lumiere, only paintings and stories to tell the tale. Station must be referring to a train station; he could smack himself for not seeing that sooner. Did the rail lines survive in some state? Was there a map of the routes? “I wonder just how many variations there are…” He mumbles, mostly to himself. “Size, shape, power…” To have ridden in one, though… maybe Verso describes it in his notes?
Clea had been a sculptor, like her Outside counterpart? Gustave looks at Verso’s early attempts with a soft smile. “I have some drawings, myself, from childhood scribbling to adult scrawls. I can build, but miniatures are a bit out of my skill set.” He hadn’t had much free time either, what with his apprenticeship and later his actual work. Everything else had taken center stage.
“See? The perfect guide! We just have to… Verso—?” The engineer lifts his head, facing the man. He can’t help the red that blooms when Verso’s stare lands squarely on him; was he blushing? He makes to gesture with his left hand, but he forgets that he doesn’t have one right now. What’s left of the upper arm makes the motion, “—Um. Yeah. Plans. We should make one...” Good save, Gustave. He dryly says to himself. But putain, physical, inspectable trains.
“It’s mostly passenger transit, Maman painted Lumière to have everything it would ever need so there was never really any need for things like freight and shipping like the Outside. My personal favorite was the Calais-Mediterranée Express, she was a luxury night express train.” He nodded toward the journal, silently doing his best to will away the warmth in his face as he tried to focus on the trains. That was the topic, he could focus. No problem—
The smile Gustave’s face only made something in his chest ache, something he refused to acknowledge as his eyes snapped up at the sound of his name with only a slightly alarmed look before he nodded again.
“It should be simple enough, I can’t imagine they’d question or hound us too badly if we tell them it’s about trains and we could also pick up Monoco for extra protection if they don’t trust me to keep you safe on my own. Even though I’ve been just fine in the past.” He rolled his eyes slightly on the last part, but shook it head after. “Not important.”
“Important things is the cold. You’re going to need something thicker than your old uniform with you if we go to the mountains. I’ll be honest those rolled up sleeves were going to be rough on you.” His face briefly pinched into a scowl as he thought for a moment. “I might have a spare of my jacket. They’re old and pretty beat up, but it would keep you warm that I can tell you for sure.”
The only other hurdle really was transportation. Sure they could get a boat to the Continent, but between the islands? That was a whole other matter, and Esquie hadn’t responded to his calls to him in a few weeks… “We could try calling for Esquie, but I haven’t heard from him or seen him since he and Monoco left. Otherwise a boat is really a one-way trip and we’d have to risk swimming to the island.” Admitting to Esquie’s lack of response brought back an all too familiar sting at the reminder that two of his only friends had left him. Returned to the Continent without him, and left him without much more than their farewells, and a smack in the head in Monoco’s case. Yet another reminder of his failure and how he was confident they would rather not speak to him… “I’m sure we’ll figure it out. Esquie would be happy to see you again, I’m sure of that at least.”
Gustave’s very, very much trying to suppress the urge to plop down and page through Verso’s journal right then and there. Calais-Mediterranée Express. He makes a mental note. The engineer in him is buzzing with questions, questions that would in all likelihood be answered by reading. Shit, he’s going to have to push his bed from the wall, or unstick a chair from wherever he flung it back home. He can’t just sit on the floor to peruse this! ... Focus.
“I know the Sciel and Lune wouldn’t give us, or at least me, too much pushback,” Gustave replies, head tilted in thought. “Maelle might give more, but I can just start explaining intricacies, and eventually she’d let off.”
Wait, merde. He hadn’t thought of the cold. His old uniform—the one he died in came back with was a perfect recreation, down to the additions made by his apprentices with Sophie’s help so long ago. Gustave couldn’t look at it much now, but he refused to do away with it, and so in a corner it rested. Gustave’s smile gives way to something considering, “The one sleeve had been an alteration by my former apprentices. Longer-sleeved garments tend to snag on the arm, and that wouldn’t have gone over well on the Continent.” He explains, and not to mention it was annoying. “But you are right, it wasn’t made for the cold all that well. If you are offering your spare, I could use it.” That’d be one thing solved.
Gustave’s face morphs into an expression of shock. What? Esquie wasn’t? What about Monoco, or had he also left Lumiere? “Esquie hasn’t answered you? His best friend Verso?” He repeats, rather incredulously. Setting aside the matter of getting across the seas, he continues, eyebrows pinched, “One of the first things he told us when we went to ask him for help was just that. I can’t imagine a reason as to why he wouldn’t…” He tries to think of a reason but comes up blank.
What was going on? Was he missing something?
Verso’s face visibly twisted into a grimace when Gustave addressed Esquie’s lacking response to him calling, salt in the wound especially when he reminded him of how Esquie has always referred to Verso as his best friend. Esquie had always come to him when he needed him, but this time he’d been on his own. Shifting away from the map now rolled out across his desk, Verso’s arms quickly came up to fold across his chest in a seemingly more guarded posture not unlike he had been when Gustave initially woke him up.
“Esquie can hear practically across the Continent, I’ve always been able to call out and he’d be there. Verso Painted him to be able to sense dark thoughts plaguing the minds of the Canvas’ inhabitants as well…” Running a hand up and down his own arm, almost in a subtle self-soothing motion, Verso’s pale gaze dropped to the floor with a return of that mournful look.
“When I betrayed the Thirty-Third, he was… So disappointed in me. It was like being scolded when we managed to get back to the Continent after escaping Renoir… He wasn’t mad, “Bad things happen when we get mad.” he told me… Said he could never be mad at me.” He closed his eyes, remembering Esquie looming over him and doing his best to be comforting. How much his old friend’s presence and belief in him had meant despite what he had done. “But I knew he was disappointed in my choice…”
Only for him to do it again to Maelle after their battle with her father…
Esquie and Monoco both had barely spoken to him after Maelle repainted his displaced Chroma back into the upper layers of the Canvas. Back into Lumière. He’d hardly spoken to anyone in those first few days, and he had tried to go back to the Continent with them when all was said and done but…
They told him he should stay. That it would probably be for the better that he stay in Lumière, a claim that it was “for his own good because he’d be stupid and reckless all over again” if he went with them. It had crushed him. Standing there in the harbor, the day they’d left. He remembered giving Monoco a tight hug before the Gestral smacked him upside the back of his head that day, and demanded he try to life the life that had been given to him.
“I haven’t seen either of them since they left Lumière. I just chalked it up to them being upset with me…”
Able to sense dark thoughts… a part of him wonders why the Outside Verso, the painter Verso, would create such a thing. From what he knows of Maelle’s brother, perhaps the man needed such a friend like Esquie in his corner.
He’s alone here, the thought dawns on Gustave as his Verso replies, getting smaller with every sentence he speaks. Sisters gone, father gone. And now his oldest friends having left. Everything he’s ever heard of both Esquie, and later Monoco would’ve led him to believe otherwise, that regardless of the circumstances those two wouldn’t stay away entirely. The engineer frowns, quietly lowering Verso’s journal onto the wood desk.
Verso was almost an inverse of himself at this point in time. Alone with no one really at his side, and Gustave who was alone by choice — with friends and family that he kept at a distance. He doesn’t—can’t—know what it’s like, to lose something like that. A family, he’d have known for decades, and friends that same amount of time. Gustave hasn’t really lost family, though. Family he remembers at least.
(In retrospect the girl he and Em raised was now further away from what he remembers. Regaining her memories accounted for some of that change, but this new side to her exposed today was enough of a step away.)
“It’s been weeks, actual months even. Having Esquie of all beings disappointed in you…” Gustave tucks a stray curl behind his ear, and he sighs, suddenly tired. “Betrayal or no, I wouldn’t have thought he’d stay upset long enough to refuse completely. Esquie at least, I don’t know Monoco.” The gestral had already departed, along with Esquie, before Gustave had even been… repainted. He wraps his arm around his midsection. “I… suppose you’ll get the chance to ask, at least? When we go. Esquie’s nest is just beyond Flying Waters.” He nods at the map.
Unless... someone had something to do with it?
"Esquie doesn't hold grudges and he doesn't like to be angry, but I can't see it being anything but disappointment. Monoco used to tell me that Verso valued second chances, its why he created the Gestral River. It allows them to reincarnate..." He shook his head, trying to think of anything off but he just... Couldn't. Monoco had been so serious, had grabbed him by the shoulders, tried to tell him he was worried about him. Yet of course all Verso did was shrug him off and tell him he'd be fine once they got back to the Continent, back home, where they belonged.
"Monoco... He and I have had a rocky relationship at times. We'd live together for a while, get involved with Expeditions, lose them, and we'd stay together a while longer until we fought or simply drifted apart. He didn't talk to me for nearly fifteen years once..." He tried to laugh about it, a soft humorless sound that only served as a reflection of how much he missed his old friend and their times together. "He almost didn't join me for the thirty-third. He was tired of watching humans die year after year because of me and tried to convince me to make things different this time."
One of his hands came up once more to run over his face, scrubbing over his silvery-white facial hair before falling again. "It's pretty safe to assume he's upset with me."
The real kicker truly was Esquie. Esquie who scooped him into hugs and asked him to dance with him, who always believed in him. "Maybe Monoco or Maelle asked him not to respond to me, I don't know..."
His eyes drifted to the map once more, to the sketch he had done so long ago of Esquie's nest on the first stretch of the Continent. "Yeah... Yeah, wouldn't hurt to check on the big marshmallow." He nodded, that sad look still lingering in his eyes until he visibly attempted to reign it back in as that measured look made a return to his face. Careful and neutral.
"As for traveling across the Continent, without my sister to keep painting them, we shouldn't encounter too many Nevrons either but it never hurts to be ready and I could certainly be wrong. I have been in the past." He shrugged, his eyes passing over the map again as he attempted to find a new topic to shift attention to and away from himself. "Any places besides Monoco's Station and Frozen Hearts you'd want to see? The Continent's a pretty big place, lots to do and see. Plenty of places I never showed the girls either."
The gestral’s river… then the stories are true; they can live again if they fall? Then Noco is…? He’d read about the confrontation at the manor in Old Lumiere, and that had been a hard read. A second chance, or maybe an infinite amount of them for as long as the world existed. Another glimpse at their world's creator, at the young man who never got to see it grow.
“Fifteen years.” Gustave exhales; he didn’t see the humor in that whatsoever. But giving Monoco the benefit of the doubt, he supposes watching person after person die in what seemed like an endless endeavor is—at least—about as hard to experience as it is to hear. Year after year, expedition after expedition, death after death. His shoulders sag, “That’s… a while to be without a friend, and one that you’ve known for so long. I… always wondered what friendships would look like, ones that have lasted decades, lifetimes, and not… not what we had here in Lumiere.”
Gustave’s eyes stray toward where Lumiere rest on the map, their home, but not much of one at the moment. His eyebrows draw together, “You mean Esquie? Would… would they do that?” He asks lowly, though it’s not a real question, he then mutters a: “I sincerely hope not.” No one… should be forced to be alone.
He lifts his gaze back to Verso, nodding back when the pale haired man nods his assent. Esquie’s Nest, then. For both of them, one to have an answer and one to greet an old, new friend. He lets the change of topic flow unimpeded.
“I’ve kept up with my sword work, so I’m fine with a little surprise.” Kept up is a bit of an understatement, and not entirely the full story. “Anything else I want to see?” Gustave rubs his chin in thought. “Maybe Old Lumiere? See where it all started for our Lumiere. Besides that… I suppose—if you’re not averse to taking me—your favorite areas.”
Me : I love characters doomed by the narrative AND their own thoughts or actions!
Me the second a character is doomed by the narrative AND their own thoughts or actions:
12 and 37!
From @versoimparfait
From here!
12. Favorite book genre?
I'm a firm believer that Gustave is the kind of person to have a tied favorite. He's the type to burrow into a blanket fort and binge a mystery series. God help you if he finds anything remotely related to trains, though. (Sorry, Em and Mae, he will not shut up about it) Otherwise, you could find a lot of historical accounts/non-fiction on his shelves.
37. What recharges them when they’re feeling drained?
Depends on the type. Mentally, I envision the throwing of rocks and stones, sometimes skipping them too. Part of it is giving his hands something to do; part of it is like throwing a rock at his problem, or throwing the idea out to sea.
Emotionally, I see it more as putting everything down and playing music. Not listening, but actually making the music. He's still an engineer at heart. So, he added/adds some science to it.
At least before he lost his arm, he played the piano. Not very well, mind, but following a melody had a way of letting him recharge-something to follow and maintain, getting him to let go of what he was holding onto into the harmonics.
Then, a year or so after the loss, Emma lent him her left-handed violin, and he found in it another medium. It gave him something to focus on, getting him out of his head during that time.
(Fun fact: I did piano once before I lost the use of my hand, and picked up a second instrument until I lost fine motor control in both of my hands. So that's where this headcanon comes from :'] and I'm just a musical person ig)
