superniceone | tfln overflow / open post

"We can split it 30-70."

Very magnanimous of him. He grabs the returned book, holding it to his chest as he glances back at the rest of camp. Monoco is in considerably higher spirits than he was after the Sacred River, as he allows Maelle to brush out his hair/fur/whatever it is. Verso can hear him grousing, and Maelle arguing, It's so tangled!

"I'm going to check on the others." Make his rounds, you know. "You should talk to Lune before it passes you by."

Gustave is never entirely sure when Verso absconds because of discomfort versus when he does it because of a generally restless nature, and he watches him for a moment like he's trying to figure that out. He wonders briefly if he'll ever actually see him at all in the reconstructed Lumière, or if he'll find ways to keep himself so busy that he doesn't have time to deal with uncomfortable thoughts.

"Yeah, I'll go do that in just a minute," he promises after a beat, half-smiling at him, waving the fingers of one hand in a little goodbye.

'Checking in' somehow ends up with him taking over Monoco hair duties, with Maelle offering (quite critical) supervision from the sidelines. It's fun, though. A nice reprieve from somberness. Monoco looks amazing after he's done, if he says so himself. Downright silky. He can tell that Monoco thinks the same, because he keeps touching his fur and preening when he thinks no one is looking.

After the evening has wound down, he unrolls his bedroll next to Gustave's, almost-but-not-quite touching. Still a sliver of space between them, a physical representation of his lingering hesitations about this relationship, but close enough that their arms could brush if someone were so inclined.

He doesn't point it out, though, just kicks off his shoes and crawls into bed.

Gustave and Lune end up discussing the future much more than the past. She's not over it all by any means; no healing happens that quickly, and he knows that her history with her parents is something that she'll be grappling with for a long time. But it's clear that she's working on reframing some things, and it's no burden for him to chat with her for a while about their respective thoughts on the future of their home.

Verso's proximity at bedtime startles him slightly, but only because he's already engrossed in the second book he'd borrowed. Oh. Well. It's not as if he minds.

"I'm almost done with this chapter," he says, voice hushed.

"All right," Verso says, waiting patiently for Gustave to reach a stopping point before trying to pull attention. When Gustave reaches the end of his chapter, then he finally says, "I would have loaned you more if I'd known you were going to go through them so fast."

Gustave closes the book, tucking it beneath his pillow. He'd meant to say he'd be done reading soon, that Verso wouldn't have to worry about him making sounds and keeping him awake, but he's amused by the remark. "I didn't, either, to be fair. But they're good."

It's really nice getting lost in someone else's head.

Let's all say thank you, Aline for uploading her ePubs to this Minecraft world.

When he says "Good," it's genuinely pleased that Gustave likes them. Then, teasingly, he adds, "I thought you might only be interested in reading blueprints."

"Why?" Gustave's eyes go wide in feigned interest. "Do you have some of those to lend out, too?" Verso's bedroll hasn't moved that far, but this feels like a deliberate response to his earlier admission. He reaches out just far enough to let his hand sort of vaguely brush Verso's shirt.

In full transparency, Verso never knows what to do when Gustave does weird shit like this. Cop a feel or don't. Commit!

But he's polite, so he lets Gustave fondle the fabric of his shirt regardless. "After you called my work 'shoddy'?" Tsk, tsk. "I'm even less inclined to show you any blueprints than I am to let you read my poetry."

It's no weirder than placing a bedroll down next to someone else's with a super thin yet very deliberate gap between them. Not that Gustave is overthinking that or anything.

"Fine, fine. I'll just have to see if anything's survived in my old workshop."

"—Oof." If Gustave is ever going to bridge that super thin yet very deliberate gap between them, he's going to have to be more complimentary! "I'll admit, I was hoping you'd recant your accusations of shoddiness."

Gustave snorts softly, and his hand isn't actively fondling Verso's shirt. Even worse: it's just kind of resting there, in his space.

"I think we both know I was just saying that out of pettiness," he says. "Isn't teasing how I'm meant to flirt?"

"Ah," he says, shaking his head. "Common misunderstanding. I'm meant to flirt by teasing. You're meant to flirt by telling me how handsome and charming I am."

It's the way of things. Gustave gets made fun of, Verso gets a bigger head. A solid dynamic!

He leans in just a little, as if this next bit is a secret Gustave is lucky to be let in on. "Actually touching me instead of grazing my shirt is an option, too."

"Oh, sure. You can see why I was confused but I think I've got it now." His brows go up when Verso leans in, and then he laughs - quietly, not so loud that it becomes a joke for anyone else to listen to.

"I- this was an invitation," he says slowly, like he's sharing his own secret. "An offer. I was hoping you'd meet me halfway, but if you'd like me to do all the work again..."

"Oh, again," he echoes. Gustave calling him a brat is starting to look like the pot calling the kettle black. He settles on his back, linking his fingers over his torso, quite literally twiddling his thumbs. A sidelong glance Gustave's way, and— "Well, you know me. I hate work."

Gustave watches him for a moment, his expression fond, before he retrieves the book from beneath his flat little pillow and flips it back open. "You know," he says idly, "right before I left for the Expedition, a friend of mine said I was the most stubborn man she knew."

"We have so much in common. Mine said I was the most handsome man she knew."

What friend?? He has two friends, and they're 1) the family dog and 2) a childhood toy. Don't call him out on his blatant lie.

A moment passes, and he sets his hand down in the little sliver of space between their bedrolls. If Gustave gets to call what he did an invitation, then clearly, this gets to be called one as well.

"I wouldn't disagree with her," Gustave hums quietly. He's a stubborn man, but he's not a pointlessly obstinate one; he will turn the page and silently take that invitation, resting his hand on Verso's. He squeezes his fingers, appreciative, his eyes still on the book that he's no longer really paying any attention to.

Holding hands pancake-style is even more juvenile than Gustave calling him 'boyfriend', so Verso rectifies the situation by fumbling with his hand until he can intertwine their fingers. Gustave has nice fingers; rough in some spots from what he can only assume is tinkering with tools, but still soft in others. Warm.

He really likes this guy, and he instantly feels kind of like a piece of shit. Incapable of being normal, he gives Gustave one of his signature long, lingering looks Which Could Mean Nothing before closing his eyes. "Try to gasp quietly, if you can. I need my beauty sleep."

Unfortunately, Gustave cannot both hold his book and turn the pages with his mechanical hand. It's sophisticated, but that's difficult enough to do with an organic one, so he instead just folds it shut.

He squeezes Verso's fingers in his own, before he rolls onto his side; after a moment of contemplation, he lifts their joined hands to sort of half-drape across Verso's stomach. "Mmhmm. Silent as a mouse," he whispers.

Their hands are still joined when they wake, and it becomes the way Verso expects to sleep each night after on the Continent. It isn't holding each other so much as it is sleeping in a pile like a pair of kittens, but it's still more intimacy than Verso has experienced with another human being in nearly 70 years.

Things stagnate like that, because it's difficult to do much more than that with the return to real—for some measure of the word—life looming over them. And what a return to real life it is; Maelle doesn't expand on what transpired between them, but it must be fairly obvious that Verso intended to end it all and she stopped him. He doesn't expand on it, either. In fact, when they set foot back in Lumiére for the first time and Maelle begins the process of repainting everything she lost, Verso disappears without a word.

A day goes by, then two, then a week. He reaches out to no one, barely talks to Maelle. She creates him a living space, presumably in an attempt to make him happy here; there's a piano in the living room, but he spends most of his time lying in bed.

It's on the evening of the eighth day that he finally sets foot outside, knocking on the door of Gustave's family home with the hangdog expression he loves to wear when he's done something wrong. "Hey," he says once the door opens, like he hasn't just spent the past week crashing out. "Is Maelle here?"

He's hoping she isn't, actually.

Things stagnate like that, but Gustave is fine with it, actually. It's real warmth, no showmanship or bravado; just a quiet tether he can rely upon at night. He doesn't know how things are going to shake out, but - it's comforting, and he's grateful for that.

He's as cautiously hopeful as everyone else is when they finally move to confront Renoir. It is, ostensibly, a victory, but somehow it feels like everything has gone to hell. Maelle refuses to talk about it, gently and lovingly ices him out of any conversation he tries to initiate about Verso and whatever it was that had happened just between the two of them.

She stays busy. Gustave should, or at least busier than he does, but dread settles in his stomach like a lead weight that he can't throw off. Sciel, Lune, and Maelle take the lead on the reunions with the once lost, with their reintegration into society; Gustave focuses more on paperwork, planning. The logistics of shelter and food for the exploding population of a city is complicated even with a practical deity amongst them.

Gustave looks startled when he opens the door and finds Verso on the other side. He seems to be just out of the shower, his hair damp and face freshly shaved at Emma's insistence. "Oh," he says, something clicking hard in his chest. He hasn't given himself much space to think about it, but he doesn't know if he'd actually expected to ever see Verso again. "No, she's not. I- you can wait here if you want me to go look for her-?"

His eyes flick down the length of Verso's body, as if checking for injury or damage, a ridiculous response that he's fully unaware of even doing himself.

Oh is not exactly what you want to hear when you show up at your not-boyfriend's house after ghosting him for a week, but beggars can't really be choosers. Gustave looks nice, comfortable; Verso's never seen him in anything but the Expedition uniform, but civilian attire suits him. His hair is dripping a little onto the shoulders of his shirt, but Verso doesn't point it out.

He probably doesn't look his best, besides. He's looked awful this whole week, and although he'd tried his best to improve his appearance before coming over here, there's not much to do about the dead eyes of someone who really doesn't want to be here anymore. His hair is combed, at least, and he put on a clean shirt. That's progress.

"No, that's all right."

Verso lingers in the doorway for a moment, uncharacteristically awkward and unsure. Then: "Sorry. You're busy." Verso has no proof of this, but— "I'll go."

"No—"

Verso apologizes and it seems to snap Gustave out of his surprise, and he's stepping forward, reaching out to try to stay him.

"I'm not. I mean, Emma's got— there are some people coming over later, so I thought that's what— maybe someone was here early. You surprised me." He swallows, his throat tight. "Come in? I was going to make dinner, let me— please? Don't go."

'People coming over later'. The notion surprises him, although it shouldn't. The world had stopped for him, but for everyone else in Lumiére, it had kept turning.

He steps inside without argument, although he hovers in the entryway waiting for Gustave to tell him where to go, taking in what he can of the space from where he's standing. Of course, he'd known Gustave had a home, had even walked by it and peered in the windows during the sixteen years Maelle spent in Lumiére, but it's still odd to see him in such cozy surroundings regardless. When he imagines Gustave, it's with grass in his hair from sleeping on the ground.

"Nice place," he says, for lack of knowing what else to say.

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idk when maelle makes him old so just imagine him as a senior citizen if you want

verso showing up with a walker

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