tfln overflow / open post

[superniceone]

(open / overflow)

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[superniceone]

Gustave shakes his head, playacting at disappointed. "I give you full clearance to even the score, and that's the best you can do?" This is - dumb, honestly. Surely there are more productive things that either of them could do to fill the time that isn't lying in the grass and enjoying the mild weather.

He's preparing to say something to that extent when he hears a startled sound from Maelle and a clatter behind him. It's reflex alone that has him sitting fully up and twisting toward the fire quickly enough to give some people whiplash. The noise is followed by laughter, chatter that's too far away to be distinct enough to follow, and it's only then that Gustave drops back into the grass with a sigh.

"Sciel is easily the most magnetic person I've ever met," Gustave says abruptly, because it's easier than acknowledging the embarrassment over his own hypervigilance. "Extremely envious of that. Monoco... knows what he likes, and is unashamed to go for it." Feet. He's still baffled by the feet. "And what isn't there to envy about Esquie, really? I'd love to just live as him for a day."

[recreatable]

Verso watches as Gustave scrambles up, realizes he'd overreacted, recovers, and then immediately switches the subject. Smooth. The effusive praise he'd just asked Gustave to give only a few minutes before goes in one ear and out the other; it's far less interesting as an obvious distraction than it would have been if Gustave had offered it up genuinely.

Mockery isn't appropriate here, he thinks, and neither is gentle ribbing. He lets Gustave finish, although he doesn't acknowledge the word vomit. Probably more polite not to, honestly.

"Worried?"

[superniceone]

"Yes? Always, obviously." He groans and rolls onto his back, pressing the heel of his palm against his closed eye. "Do you have any idea how close I am to just building a raft to ship Maelle back to Lumiére? I could just put her on it while she's asleep and then-"

Gustave pantomimes pushing a raft in the air in front of him. He might actually be able to breathe then.

[recreatable]

Verso has decided that Gustave's concern for Maelle is his best quality. The way Gustave talks about him, one would think he and Verso have nothing in common, but just like Verso, he spends the better part of his life worrying about her.

"And then she'd swim her way back through infested waters?" Verso finishes. If anything, telling her that she had to leave would only make her more convinced to stay. Stubborn girl.

...Besides, he's selfishly glad that she's here. With her, they might actually have a chance to make it to the Paintress. She's given him the first bit of hope he's had in a long time.

"She's having fun, at least."

[superniceone]

"She is a force to be reckoned with. But - her having fun. It's not nothing," Gustave agrees. He wouldn't trade their bond for anything, but he does wish that he'd been able to give her a life filled with more fun before this journey.

He takes comfort, too, in the fact that she's surrounded by people who love her, as well - even if he has no idea Verso is included in that list.

"You've distracted me. I should really be doing something more productive." Not that anyone else is doing more than recovering for now.

[recreatable]

Maelle having fun is absolutely not nothing. When was the last time he saw Alicia—either Alicia—happy? For the first time, she's somewhere she belongs, almost flourishing despite the circumstances. He feels almost guilty that, if all goes according to plan, it'll all come to an end.

She can Paint another Canvas. One where she's even happier than she is now.

In response to Gustave's claim that he has better things to do, Verso quirks a brow. You're the one that came up to me, he could mention, but he doesn't. Instead, he just answers, "Yeah, probably."

It's not a request to stay, but it's not encouragement to go, either. He'd hate to distract Gustave from grooming his eyebrows.

[superniceone]

It's hard to turn off the feeling that you're racing the sand in the hourglass. That every hour needs to be meticulously planned, useful; so that a short life doesn't, by default, mean a life wasted.

Gustave sighs, tries to focus on the feeling of the grass tickling the back of his neck instead of the rolling anxiety that so often drives him forward. Finally, decisively, he states: "I'm not going to. Just saying - you know. I should."

[recreatable]

There's no one in the world who wants this to be more successful than Verso, and still he knows that spending every moment worrying won't make them any more likely to succeed. 67 expeditions before this, ones that were better thought-out and with more people. What's going to get them there isn't going to be productivity.

And, if he's being entirely honest with himself—which he rarely is—there's a benefit to procrastination, too. As long as they spend their time lying on the grass and looking up at the stars, they haven't yet failed.

"The Paintress will still be there tomorrow." It's a little melancholy, so he adds, "And I won't tell her we slacked off if you don't."

[superniceone]

"This might be the first time in my life I've been accused of slacking," Gustave muses. He seems to accept things there after a moment; this time, when he sits up, it's just to peel his jacket off. He wraps it in his arms, folding it into a makeshift pillow before he reclines onto the ground again.

He doesn't hate it, allowing himself the time to just breathe. "I assume Expedition 60 never slacked," he says after a while, the littlest bit of a smile in his voice. "Hopefully the weather was kind to them, at least."

[recreatable]

Verso imagines the 60s trekking through the snow near Monoco's station and can't suppress the smile on his face. If only word had made it back to Lumière of their near-success... but then again, that would have meant that every expedition after would follow in their footsteps. If eternity wasn't bad enough, an eternity of being plagued by nude expeditioners surely is.

Following Gustave's lead, he rolls onto his back, arms up behind his head as a cushion. "An expedition made entirely of fit, naked people?" There's amusement in his voice. "I bet they never slacked."

Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. He hopes it'll make Gustave laugh, or maybe horrify him. Either way, he won't be worrying about inexorable doom for a moment.

[superniceone]

It's a combination of both, actually, horrified laughter at the mental image, and Gustave hates that he finds it as funny as he does. The fact that they were as successful as they were is absurd to the point of comedy.

"I really can't imagine. Just some of the things we've done. Fighting in the gestral arena-" There's another bubble of laughter, tired and helpless. "Talk about a real show."

[recreatable]

Verso pulls a face, scrunching up his nose in disgust... while still grinning. It is, objectively, funny. He hadn't found it so at the time—he'd been incensed that this was the sort of expedition they were sending now, and had spent quite a lot of time brooding about it—but with the benefit of hindsight, yeah. A naked cadre of expeditioners is funny.

"You should just consider yourself lucky they didn't give the gestrals ideas." Imagine if Gustave and co. had waltzed into a village of nudist gestrals. Now that's horrific.

[superniceone]

Gustave has no idea what the anatomy of a gestral is like. He also has zero desire to seek that knowledge out, and he makes a bemused noise, as if begging Verso to stop.

(But having something to laugh about is nice. Juvenile, definitely, but it does help knock loose just the littlest bit of that tight ball of tension that has come to live in the center of his chest.)

"I keep a journal for my apprentices, you know," he says, warmth in his voice both from amusement and from thought of them. "I try to keep a record record of - well, everything, really, for them. But I think I might keep this particular conversation between you and me."

[recreatable]

He didn't know, actually. Verso has seen Gustave scribbling in a journal, but he'd assumed it was like his own journal: filled with depressed, brooding screeds. With the knowledge that it's meant to be a record for future generations, another piece of his image of Gustave clicks into place.

The pause that happens now really is companionable silence for once, Verso laughing softly under his breath as he imagines how Gustave could ever write and then we talked about nudist gestrals. Probably not the kind of mark he wants to leave on the world.

Then: "Did you write about me?"

[superniceone]

"Yes, of course I wrote about you." The answer is immediate, unashamed. If the gestrals merited a page, Verso's existence alone deserved its own chapter. Gustave keeps that exact thought to himself; it feels impolite to regard another man's life like a scientific study.

He turns his head to look at him again, and it may be the first time he's actually smiled at Verso without some sort of asterisk in the shape of a nervous chuckle or uncertainly furrowed brow. "But I've been strictly complimentary, in case that matters to you."

[recreatable]

"I thought you were recording the truth," he teases. Objectively, it doesn't matter what Gustave's journals say, or at least it shouldn't. If they meet success here, no one will ever read them. Still, it does make the corner of his mouth tug upwards to hear that it was complimentary.

Then again, of course it was. He has a feeling Gustave would feel too guilty writing anything insulting down for his apprentices to read.

Verso turns his head so that their eyes meet, both of his eyebrows raised expectantly. "Do I get to read it?"

[superniceone]

Gustave's own eyebrows go up, an expression clearly meant to be mimicry more than mockery. "Well, I don't know. I might need to make an editing pass first. Just in case."

He's not at all ashamed of anything that he's written; he'll pass it over easily if it seems like Verso has an earnest interest.

"It would break my heart to hurt your feelings, after all."

[recreatable]

"Oh, yeah. You're harsh."

He's not. Even the jibes Gustave has tossed his way are mild at best. He can imagine that Gustave's writings are scientific in nature, maybe slightly detached in the way that a historian's tend to be. It doesn't worry him overmuch what Gustave might have written about him; there are many things that he wouldn't want written down about himself, but Gustave has been privy to none of them.

"Well, if it adds to your notes, you can ask me anything you want. Lune already has."

[superniceone]

"I do have a reputation for harshness," he says with a level of gravity reserved only for dry joking around, before he lapses into a thoughtful silence. There are plenty of things he'd like to ask Verso, of course, if they were in a scientific vacuum. What had the discussion been like before that first expedition? What had the journey itself been like, really? And even more than that: did he have family? What had they thought of his condition? Did he have distant relatives now, back in the city?

But they're not in a vacuum, and it's not the sort of knowledge that's worth dredging up pain or regret. His existence by itself is enough, at least for now.

Finally, eventually, he'll settle on: "Cats or dogs?" He's teasing, and it's clear on his face.

[recreatable]

"I was being sincere, you know," he shoots back. Gustave could be writing down all sorts of fascinating firsthand stories about their world's history, and instead he chooses cats or dogs. If Lune were aware that he just wasted this opportunity, she'd probably set him on fire.

But Lune isn't here, and Gustave is yet to have his sizeable eyebrows singed off, so if it's pets he wants to talk about, it's pets he'll get. "Dogs," he answers simply, quickly, without thought.

A beat. "Are you sure you don't want to get your pen and start writing this down? It's riveting stuff."

[superniceone]

"I know you were, and I appreciate it. But I said I wasn't going to be productive tonight, didn't I? So: no, no notebook, sorry. The next interview, perhaps."

And Gustave can admit to himself that he enjoys the quiet ease that they've slowly been slipping into. He doesn't want to compromise that, and so he doesn't deviate from his chosen path of banal questions. He ponders for a moment, before asking "Do you think fish make good pets?"

It's the same silliness he'd occasionally use to break the silence during long hours in the workshop. He was clearly born to be an awkward, well-meaning dad, based on these vibes alone.

[recreatable]

Actually, Gustave said he should be productive, but far be it from Verso to point out that he is now, officially, slacking. (The horror.) Verso's father surely isn't of the 'awkward, well-meaning' type, so it's new and refreshing to experience this sort of goofiness. No time for silliness in the Dessendre family, of course. Not when their every interaction turns sour these days.

So, fish. Obviously, it depends on the fish. A cute little guppy, sure. A serpenphare? Well, he'd like to see Gustave try to put one of those in a tank.

"Thinking of getting one?"

[superniceone]

"I barely remember to feed myself. I can't be responsible for something that can't tell me it's hungry." And keeping pets seemed cruel in general these days, when it was so possible they might outlive their human companions.

And then, after a beat: "You just said I could ask. Hardly playing by the rules to answer a question with a question."

[recreatable]

One would think Gustave knew by now that the rules don't apply to him. He even shirks the limit of mortality, after all. But—

"Fine," he answers, waving a hand. Then: "I don't know. We weren't exactly a fish family."

[superniceone]

And, similarly - Verso should be very well aware that he was opening himself wide for the incoming question. "Alright, go on then. What kind of family were you?"