superniceone | tfln overflow / open post

"Merde," Verso laughs. "You only let me bask in the compliments for five seconds before you send me crashing back to Earth."

Mean!!! Gustave is mean, actually. Verso can't imagine where Esquie got the idea that he's nice from. Maybe because being mean to Esquie is the moral equivalent of kicking a puppy, whereas being mean to Verso is more like swatting a particularly persistent fly. One that probably deserves it.

"And here I was trying to be endearingly humble." Which still means he was trying to be endearing in the first place. "I thought you might tell me I don't look a day over 90, at least."

Gustave grins slightly at his reaction, shifting to get a little more comfortable. His legs are bent, arms resting across his knees at chest height. If nothing else, it doesn't seem like he's prepared to flee when things turn awkward.

"It sounds an awful lot like you're fishing for compliments," he says. "But not a day over 90 - I can give you that."

It's only funny because it's so absurd. It doesn't matter how many silly jabs Gustave makes about grey hair or wrinkles; Verso's attractiveness is almost more objective fact than opinion.

Verso is pretty certain that the more Gustave lobs insults at him, the more comfortable he is. Which is a good thing; Gustave, whether he knows it or not, is the heart of this expedition, and Verso will need his trust. Like a sheep trusts the farmhand leading him to the slaughter, he thinks, but quickly pushes it aside. Gustave is dead either way, and at least this way, he'll be a member of the expedition that finally ends the cycle.

He doesn't care if Gustave is comfortable with him because he actually has any intention of being friends, of course. This time, he's really not going to get attached. It'll be a clean break.

"Flatterer," is his dry response. "You know, I was going to tell you about the continent before the Fracture, but if it's going to put me in your crosshairs..."

Gustave is certain that Verso has his own motivations, unshared reasons for making the choices he's made. He's not sure if his suspicion will ever fully abate, in light of those secrets. He is also fairly certain that he'd be twice as suspicious if Verso was pretending to be fully upfront about it all.

(And, ultimately? Gustave doesn't care what Verso's goals are, as long as they point towards safety for Maelle.)

"I can play nice," he says, mock-defensively, and he waves one hand in vague apology. "And I would love to hear anything you're happy to share." There's a moment's hesitation, before he amends: "But don't do it because you think you owe it to us. I'm sure it's tiring, being treated like a museum exhibit."

A museum exhibit. Yes, it is tiring to be poked and prodded at like a novelty, but their whole lives have been in a bubble. There's so much they don't know, and now here Verso is, holding the secrets of the universe in his hands. Anyone would be curious.

He shrugs. "I can't blame you."

There's a reason he turned the topic of conversation away from the expeditions, though, and onto more pleasant things. His life pre-Fracture was simple. No family feuds, no existential crises, no Gommages. He'd rather discuss that, given the option.

"I don't mind. They're good memories." Most of them probably aren't even his. He's jealous of the person who got to live them, rather than just recall them. "We used to travel all the time. Skiing, hiking, swimming. You've probably never been out of Lumière, have you?"

Gustave shrugs lightly at Verso's question, smiling a little crookedly out at the horizon. No, of course he'd never been out of the city in any meaningful way, but that was a question Verso certainly already knew the answer to.

"And what about the day to day? A Saturday afternoon, with no pressing obligations. How did you pass the time?" He can't really fathom it, the concept of a life lived without an expiration date. He'd spent so much of his life nearly deafened by the ticking of the countdown.

A Saturday afternoon, no pressing obligations. It's banal, but the memories feel almost too precious to share. He knows they're Verso's memories, the real one, because when he imagines a lazy day with nothing better to do, Alicia is there laughing. He never had an Alicia who laughed.

"Before I spent my time tortured and brooding, you mean?"

A joke. And also not a joke.

"...I played piano."

And he'd thought himself tortured and brooding about that, too, his love of music his greatest struggle. Some things never change.

"That suits you, I think." Not that Gustave would be able to explain exactly why he thinks that. The remark is earnest, a soft acknowledgement. They were all willing to pick up arms to fight for the future they wanted, but that had been a choice made out of necessity, not desire.

Verso was fierce and dangerous with a weapon, but Gustave can imagine him happier behind a piano.

"Were you any good?"

'Suits him', Gustave says. Interesting. He spent a lifetime being told it didn't suit him, but he supposes Gustave doesn't know the Dessendres. He has no expectations for Verso, which is oddly sort of freeing.

"See, now you've put me in a conundrum. Either I say yes and get branded a narcissist, or I feign modesty, and, well, then I'd be a liar."

"No, you showed some real restraint, waiting until you were asked. It sounds like a nice way to spend an afternoon." He flexes the fingers of his mechanical arm, considering it idly, and decides it was probably for the best that he'd never been overly interested in artistic pursuits of his own.

"Something else for you to chat with Lune about," Gustave says. He's not making an intentional choice offer so little about himself in return. The unconscious idea that he has nothing to offer that Verso hasn't likely already heard before keeps him from really even considering what he might share.

A silence stretches out. Not intentionally. It's just that Verso waits, expecting Gustave to offer up something of his own, and then he doesn't. And then Verso waits some more, and Gustave still doesn't. And then—

Okay, this is getting awkward.

He leans in again, as if to share a secret. "This is the part where you share something, now."

Gustave seems almost baffled when what he believed was a companionable silence is broken by that. He raises both eyebrows, like he's deliberating, before he shakes his head and replies with genuine apology in his voice. "I am - a profoundly uninteresting man," he says like it's a confession, reaching up to rub the back of his own neck. "I finished the Lumina Converter, and I'm proud of that. But otherwise..."

He trails off, shrugging one shoulder. "Sorry. I can make something up, if you'd like."

Profoundly uninteresting, he says, right before dropping the Lumina Converter into conversation. It's impressive enough to warrant 'interesting' status, but admittedly not what Verso is most curious about.

"How did you spend your time with Maelle?" comes out as more pointed than he intends, so he adds, "For example."

A nice save, he thinks (and hopes).

"I bet she wouldn't agree with profoundly uninteresting."

He's not expecting a question about Maelle, but the addendum is plausible enough that it doesn't raise his hackles. It's the same arbitrary Saturday question he'd asked Verso, really, just phrased in a different way.

"I don't know about that," he says, but he's smiling to himself as he reminisces. It's a soft look. Fond. "I helped her with her studies. She helped me with my apprentices. We trained." Gustave's expression crumples with amusement for a moment. "We had an exclusive two-member book club for a few months, but she kept reading too far ahead of me."

As Gustave talks, Verso's expression follows the same trajectory. A small, fond smile, albeit tinged with bittersweetness on his end. It aches a little to know that he might as well be a stranger to Maelle; she only has one brother, and that brother is sitting right in front of him. He only notices he's doing it after a moment, and clears his throat as he rids himself of the look.

Earnestly: "That doesn't sound profoundly uninteresting at all."

It sounds like someone who cared for Maelle when she needed it the most. Someone who made her happy, kept her safe. Verso owes Gustave a debt, really.

He can't read Verso's mind, but he's extremely well practiced with bittersweet wistfulness. Gustave won't point it out as such, but he does make a pointed effort to gentle himself just a bit. That was the singular thing every living person had in common: they all had someone to mourn. Knowing that it was coming had never actually made the grief any less profound.

"It wasn't to me," he admits. "The best days of my life, maybe." He deliberates for a moment, like he's unsure if he wants to continue. "You probably think it's irresponsible of me. To have allowed her to come, I mean."

A beat, then: "Yeah."

Of course he thinks it's irresponsible. Maelle is a child, and expeditions are famously lethal. Even knowing that Maelle would survive any encounter in the Canvas, he can't say he likes the thought of her being trampled by Nevrons or obliterated by the barrier around the Monolith. The Canvas is without death for the Dessendres, but it isn't without pain or suffering.

Another beat passes, though, and then he adds, "But I guess you couldn't exactly have stopped her, could you?"

"Oh, so you've noticed her stubborn side, too?" Gustave chuckles slightly at that, before he allows himself to tip onto his back. He stretches with a groan as he does, settling in to investigate the night sky.

It's easier to be candid when you're looking up into oblivion.

"She made up her mind, and that was that. And so I'm going to keep her safe." He folds his flesh and blood arm behind his head. He knows it isn't that easy, isn't that simple, but he doesn't care. He's not sure he can survive a second time the anguish he'd felt from losing her with everyone else on the beach. So Gustave speaks with conviction, the kind that doesn't invite debate: "It's as simple as that, to be honest."

Another moment passes—which perhaps Gustave will interpret as companionable silence, too—before Verso settles onto his back as well, the two of them making a V-shape on the grass, feet close and heads apart. The stars have never quite hit the same way since he discovered that the constellations were purposeful, but he stares up at them anyway.

"She'll be safe."

An unusually grave declaration from him. After a moment, he glances over at Gustave, corner of his mouth quirking up. "And, in the meantime, you can lean into being the tortured hero."

She'll be safe, said as a statement, not as a question. Gustave is aware that if Verso wanted to manipulate him, to win him over purposefully, all he'd need to do is exactly that: promise Maelle's safety. Being aware of it doesn't make it any less effective, though, and their Relationship Probably Levels Up.

The next part immediately sidetracks him, however. "Tortured hero?" Gustave turns his head to look Verso's way, his tone implying that the comment actually concerns him a bit. "I'm trying to be a good role model, Verso. Have I seemed particularly tortured?"

He's frowning in thought here, distracted already by his own recollection. Maelle has lost so much already; Gustave needs to be a supportive stone for her. Either he'll have time to deal with his own grief later, or he won't, but either way - he refuses to let her spend her energy worrying about him.

Gustave is just as tortured as the rest of them — that is, as tortured as someone with numbered days is. Verso had thought that much obvious, but clearly, living in delusion isn't just for Dessendres. The idea of being 'tortured' (it's a compliment; women love a tortured man!) seems to rankle, so instead of arguing, he says, "Happy-go-lucky hero, then."

A hero, at any rate. Not his, and probably not even Lune's or Sciel's, but certainly Maelle's. That's good enough for him, personally.

But he can't resist: "Not even a little tortured, huh?"

Happy go lucky is hardly better. Gustave rolls his eyes, plucking a bit of the dry grass beneath his fingers and flicking it ineffectually in Verso's direction in silent complaint.

More than anything else, he's stalling. This conversation could resolve easily, lightly, just like this, and Gustave isn't exactly well practiced at presenting his own vulnerabilities up willingly.

"I lost all hope when I woke up alone. After the bloodbath on the beach, you know?" Gustave doesn't know Verso had been there - just that he'd been told. "Full on despair. If Lune had found me a few minutes later..."

He doesn't sound particularly anguished. Regretful, maybe. "All that to say - of course I'm tortured. I just prefer..." Gustave trails off again, then hums, "sensitive. Sounds less broody."

Thinking about the beach is unpleasant for both of them. It had been nothing new—Renoir has removed countless people from existence—but it never gets easier to swallow that the fault really leads back to him. All of that suffering to maintain a world in which he exists. It's fucking intolerable. He just wants it to be over.

"You must have lost a lot of friends," he says softly, staring up at the endless sky because he can't bear to look Gustave in the eye. He knows very well what it feels like to have lost all hope. "I'm sorry."

For what it's worth, he sounds genuine.

"I did. Thank you." He'd lost even more in the years leading up to the expedition, of course. Bid farewell to family and friends in a way less brutally violent than that massacre had been, but the end result was always the same: an aching bruise stretched to cover the the memories he held close.

The lapse in conversation is stifling even to Gustave now; he feels almost guilty for pointing the conversation in a direction so heavy. He closes his eyes, scrambling for something, before he sort of just blurts unprompted: "Bet you've had food I've literally only read about in books. I can own up to being jealous about that."

Gustave, who claims he's not tortured, makes the conversation heavy by being tortured. It's fine, honestly; Verso has spent enough time brooding himself that he isn't startled by the turn in conversation. This world is depressing. He gets it.

But Gustave blurts out a change in subject, and Verso has to smile. He really is incurably awkward. It's funny. Charming, even, although he has the feeling that Gustave—self-deprecator that he is—wouldn't see it as such.

"So there are other things that you're jealous of that you haven't owned up to."

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gustave: what a nice silence verso: is this guy going to fucking TALK

literally exactly 😭

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