Thanks for the tag @what-about-third-breakfast ! I really only have the one thing to actually share even though I have plenty of fics floating in my head and notes. Here's an early early part for my Scarred Verso fic!
Title: Show me the places where others gave you scars
Gustave snorted, "And you could have gone with them, I don't need a babysitter."
"Sparring with a partner is better than training alone."
Gustave huffed before he shrugged off his jacket and backpack, and started unbuttoning his waistcoat. Verso's eyes locked on the fingers as they worked their way down Gustave's torso.
Verso swallowed deeply before he dragged his eyes away from the dexterous fingers and was able to get out, "If you wanted to strip down some then maybe we should have gone to the beach instead."
"If we're going to continue with training, then I would rather do so with fewer layers to sweat through." Gustave replied, shrugging off the purple waistcoat and letting it fall to the side with the jacket and his backpack. He finally undid a few of the buttons on his white button down, took a deep breath, and smirked lightly as he watched the immortal's eyes linger on his now revealed chest. "Well I feel a bit cooler already. Ready to go again."
Verso's darkening silver eyes leapt away from the open buttons that had revealed tanned skin and some curly chest hair to Gustave's mischief filled hazel eyes before he pouted slightly and shook his head.
"Well if stripping down worked wonders for cooling you off, I'd best join you." Verso's pout turned into a smirk, "After all, it wouldn't be fair for me to overheat while you stay nice and cool during this round, now would it."
It's still a work in progress that doesnt seem to be coming to an end at any point soon, but I hope everyone enjoys the brief look!
I'll tag @puppy-of-embers and @wishuponanidiot ! (No pressure at all though!)
“And that’s why the chroma here isn’t as intense as the areas around it”. Gustave is quite proud of his explanation however Verso doesn’t seem focused on the words. Rather he is focused on the man in front of him.
“What?” Gustave turns to him with a smirk. “Surprised someone who hasn’t been in the canvas as long knows as much or dare I say *more* than you?”
Verso laughs and shakes his head playfully.
It’s been a few months since Maelle was able to convince Renoir to leave the canvas. After gaining the knowledge of the canvas Gustave had been restless to discover all its ticks and secrets. Verso pounced on the opportunity to explore more of the continent with Gustave, alone, without any potential interruption. It was perfect.
And right now this moment was perfect. Just like all the other moments alone with Gustave before this. Once again Verso finds himself admiring the beauty of the man in front of him, but this time Gustave looks at him with love in his eyes.
“Just admiring” Verso smiles.
“Well come on we have to test a little higher on the cliffs. I have a theory that the chroma will get stronger when we are higher up there specifically but it’s still a theory.” Gustave points and before Verso can register his words Gustave starts moving towards his next destination.
Verso laughs and follows as he reflects how happy and lucky he is to be alive with the man ahead of him.
I was tagged by a bunch of people for WIP Wednesday while I was away, but then I didn't do it, and then I missed Wednesday, and then I felt guilty, and then.... We're here! Hooray!
I'm currently working on a Daredevil-E33 fusion fic (it's all @thunderstyled's fault). Gustave is a lawyer brought in by Aline Dessendre to sue the Writers Council after a fire is set in the Dessendre Manor that leaves og!Verso recovering in hospital from near-fatal burns. Gustave has his own ideas about justice.
Working Title: Indemnity
He can sense a blur of heat around the man's face and scalp in particular: without his sight, it's impossible to tell the exact details, but there's enough of a concentration of heat and blood to tell him that the mass of scars left behind by the fire are still healing. There's a slash of healing burn-wounds over one eye, and then flickering embers of heat on the other side of his face, crawling all the way from his cheek to his skull.
From what Aline Dessendre had told him, her son had been lucky to retain his eyesight after the damage the fire had done to his face - but her words had cut themselves short, her attention no-doubt dashing to the red glasses hiding Gustave's own eyes from view.
Now, he comes to stand at the end of the patient's bed. Both his hands come to rest on the top of his cane, and he opens his mouth to speak. "Mr Dessendre, I'm-"
"Merde," comes the rasping, exhausted interruption from the man in the bed. "She really is getting desperate."
Gustave pauses, but then regroups. "My firm is considering whether or not to take on your case," he says, as if the decision isn't already mostly-made, as if he isn't just waiting for the final agreement from his partners. "Your mother…"
"My mother is hunting down any lawyer she can find," Verso interrupts. "She's under the assumption that she can sue the fire out of existence."
Gustave's mouth twitches into an ill-advised and quickly-restrained smirk. "If anyone could do that, I imagine it would be her. She was quite… insistent when we met."
I'm tagging in @zombiearmor, @what-about-third-breakfast & @ramchberry if you'd like to give me a snoop at what you're currently working on 👀👀👀
For the writing game - Domso/substave aftercare after a particularly rough (but fun!) session? :3
Thank you so much for the prompt, Nyoom - I can never resist an excuse to write some more domestic dom!Verso. This is for the writing game over here [note: my ask box is now closed for new requests]
This is all very cuddly & PG-13, but I'll pop it under a cut just in case.
Gustave aches.
It's the kind of satisfying full-body soreness that tells him that tomorrow is going to be hell: tomorrow, he'll have welts that sting, and bruises that throb, and if the tenderness around his throat is any indication he'll have a handprint on his neck that he'll need to hide behind his shirt collar.
For tonight, the pain is fresh - and it barely registers in the face of Gustave's bone-deep satisfaction. He sinks deep into the pillow, lying on his front with his face half-buried. His eyes are shut, but he isn't sleeping: he's listening to the hushed sounds of Verso moving around behind him, pulling the sheets up over their bare waists.
Verso's hands carefully glide up Gustave's back. From the way that Verso stops and lingers at different spots, Gustave can tell that he's cataloguing the damage left behind: careful, thorough, precise. His fingers are as gentle now as they were rough before. As skilled as Verso is at taking him to pieces, he's equally skilled at putting him back together.
"This one's going to hurt," Verso murmurs as his fingers trace a raised line on Gustave's back, a mark that Gustave knows was left behind by Verso's belt. Without opening his eyes, he braces himself for what might come next; it feels like checking for the signs of an on-coming storm, for any hints that Verso might be doubting himself or diving into a sea of blame and disgust. "Stay like that. Don't move."
Gustave opens his eyes and shifts his head anyway, glancing over his shoulder to get a better look at his boyfriend. Pressed against him, Verso is still naked and gorgeous, his dark hair loosely tied back out of his face while a couple of white strands have crept out to drape around his face. He's still a sweat-soaked mess - but there's a spark of amusement in his eyes as he catches Gustave looking.
It still makes Gustave's heart flip, even after all this time: the sight of Verso peaceful and relaxed; the rare genuine smile on Verso's face; the soft affection that lives in the depths of those blue eyes.
If there's a storm brewing - blame or disgust or recrimination - it's a well-hidden one. This feels like shelter.
"I thought I said not to move," Verso protests, as he leans down to press a gentle kiss against Gustave's back. His lips make contact just above the sharpest mark he left behind: it's like a whisper of an unspoken apology, one that Gustave doesn't want or need.
Gustave shuffles on the bed to see him better, his thighs protesting with the movement and his stomach-muscles getting in on the action to object as well. Some time soon he'll need to rouse himself properly: if he asks nicely, Verso might draw a bath for him. If he asks really nicely, Verso might even get in there with him. And if he asks really, really nicely, he might be able to persuade Verso to wash his hair for him, those clever fingers massaging his scalp while Gustave gets to soak in the warm heat and wait to feel human again.
But, for now, moving at all feels like a challenge for the future. For now, all he wants to do is rest on his stomach and let Verso dote on him a little longer.
Verso's attention drifts to the other red stripes on his back, pressing kiss after kiss onto Gustave's skin until he reaches his nape. Verso's bare chest presses against Gustave's back, followed by the heated brush of his breath against Gustave's neck. Gustave's cheeks begin to heat up, even now, even after everything, at the full-body memory of how Verso feels against him.
"We went hard tonight," Verso says - and while Gustave finds himself instinctively searching for guilt or regret in Verso's voice, he finds nothing but satisfaction. A heavy sigh floats from between Gustave's lips when Verso presses a kiss against his shoulder, breathing against an earlier bite-mark. "I could help? If you want….?"
Verso doesn't put it into words, but his clever fingers brush against one of the welts left behind by his belt. The thought lingers in the open between them, the promise of the abilities that Gustave has only seen Verso pull out in battle: he's watched Verso twist the chroma of the canvas to transfer afflictions and pain to himself, and he's personally witnessed Verso make a mockery of his immortality to protect the people he cares about.
But now? Here?
Gustave grunts unhappily, and wriggles a little beneath Verso's weight. Verso is lithe enough that Gustave could probably throw him off with little difficulty if he really wanted to - so this is all for show, just a squirm to register his discontent. "Don't you dare," he grumbles, while he feels Verso burying a smirk against the skin of his shoulder. "They're mine. I earned every one."
It would only take a flicker of chroma for Verso to transfer the bruises or marks to himself - and his immortality would take care of it from there, wiping him clean the way it erases all other damage on the surface. All these hard-won marks would vanish into the canvas as if they never existed.
Gustave wriggles enough to finally flip himself over onto his back underneath Verso, recognising the way that Verso lifts himself up enough to make it easier for Gustave to move. He lies on his back, his marks pressed roughly against the sheets, as he looks up into Verso's blue eyes and doesn't flinch.
"Mine," he says stubbornly - and he doesn't know if he's talking about those marks, or if he's talking about Verso, but he thinks he might mean both.
"Yours," Verso agrees, his ice-blue eyes turning warm in a way that makes Gustave want to start grinning all over again.
He reaches up and brushes some of the fallen strands of white hair out of Verso's face, tucking them behind Verso's ear instead. Verso nuzzles against the palm of his metal hand as he moves, so soft and gentle that it's difficult to pair him up with the man who had so effortlessly destroyed Gustave only moments ago. Gustave can't help but yearn for both sides of him, the rough and the soft. He could spend years at Verso's side and still have so much more to learn, he knows.
"You're really alright?" Verso checks.
Gustave's eye-roll is painfully affectionate. "All I need is a cuddle, a warm bath, and maybe a glass of wine," he promises. He pushes himself up from the pillow to snatch a kiss from Verso's lips, too-light and too-quick. Casual. He leans back against his pillow and looks up at Verso, searching his face. "What about you?"
Verso tips his head to the side. "A cuddle, a warm bath, and a glass of wine," he agrees. He rolls off of Gustave, a deliberately clumsy swirl of limbs as they wrap themselves up in each other as planned. Verso's words end up whispered between them, quiet and peaceful. "Yeah. That sounds perfect."
They lie there together. They lie there for long enough that the damp patch on the mattress truly does become annoying, and the ache in Gustave's muscles truly does start to set in, and he truly does begin to long for that bath - but the soft carding of Verso's fingers through his hair, and the gentle murmur of Verso's voice, all make it harder and harder to ever want to leave.
I was commissioned by the wonderful Laura @thevalesofanduin to draw this scene for the BIG reveal chapter of „Light the way“ (Verstave, Rated E, Link to Ao3)
PLEASE give it a read, it is such an amazing story and a great twist!
Verso’s voice is completely distorted and he grips his face. Desperately trying to push together the fragmented parts of his face that have once hidden the empty hole beneath, his skin turns to shadowy ash that trails off him and into the sky, white and red Gommage petals rippling along his frame.
"Not yet. Not yet!" He cries in agony, desperate and broken.
Chapter 3 of "A life to cherish" is out on Ao3 - and this is the art I drew for it 👀
The Lampmaster is, without a doubt, my favorite boss in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
His soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal, and his design, built entirely from countless hands, is simply unforgettable.
And then there's Clea... She's still one of the most complex and morally ambiguous characters in the game, but she has created so many beautiful neurons in my brain. I just love the way she was written, and her visual design is incredible.
“Do you think he’ll do it?” Gustave reflects. “Renoir… do you think he will leave us alone? Let us be? Let us live our lives and let the people here continue for generations after?”
He looks at Verso “Grant you mortality?”
Verso is quiet and maskless as he stares off in the distance. “I… don’t know.” He doesn’t want to think about it too much. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up. He knows how long this battle had been going on… and he knows Renoir is not going to let the canvas be without a fight. No, Verso wanted to focus on what was in front of him.
“But what I do know is… Maelle is going to try…” he moves closer to Gustave. “I know that I’m with you right now….” He kisses Gustave’s cheek then moves tenderly to his lips. The engineer allows him to hold it there for a bit.
“I know I have a lot of making up to do. “ he takes Gustave’s hand and kisses it. Gustave blushes through his smirk.
Verso continues “I know that this time is precious, that it’s not guaranteed and that I don’t want to waste a moment without you”. Gustave pulls Verso towards him with a smile and Verso collapses on Gustave, a tangle of kisses, limbs, clothes and desperation enveloped them until nothing remained between the two.
“You make this life worth living Gustave…” Verso pants “I just need to be where you are, life or death, Gustave … I… I love you.”
Gustave rolls over and wraps his bare legs around the other man, almost pulling him inside.
“Verso” Gustave whispers as he wraps his arms around the man above him. His happy heart suddenly swells with sadness realizing this may be their last moment to share these feelings.
Nothing is guaranteed now. “I love you too”.
Verso plants a desperate raw kiss on Gustave as he let himself slide into the other man.
For the first time in decades Verso feels truly completely alive.
