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[superniceone]

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[superniceone]

It's safe to say that Gustave would have been mortified beyond all reasoning if he thought that was even a possibility that Verso was entertaining. As it is now, he's just chuckling softly at him instead of shrinking back into the grass.

"I realise you're a consummate gentleman, but you're welcome to start brooding without me," he says, offering Verso's cup back to him. "I might take notes." He pauses, then adds: "More notes."

[recreatable]

On top of being awkward, it's also becoming abundantly clear that Gustave is a big old nerd. If the Gommage doesn't get him, it'll be death by notetaking.

"Oh, you will, will you?" he asks as he takes the cup back, swirling it the way Gustave had before using his free hand to write in the air with an imaginary pen. "Let history note that he was a devastatingly handsome brooder."

[superniceone]

In Gustave's defense, he has never once even attempted to pretend that he isn't a big old nerd. He barks a soft laugh at Verso's impression of him. "You've got my voice down. I do find you infuriatingly good-looking. Happy to hire you as a ghostwriter if all this-" He gestures vaguely around them. "Don't work out."

[recreatable]

That last comment is a bit depressing, and despite everything he's said tonight, Verso isn't actually trying to get Gustave to brood. He's a traitor in every way that counts, but betrayal doesn't point to malice. No need for Gustave to be miserable.

So: "If we don't make it to the Paintress," he says, slowly. If all of this has been yet again for nothing, and Verso has a hundred more years of living to dread. "I'll make sure your journals get read."

[superniceone]

Gustave stares openly at Verso for a moment, uncomprehending, before he ducks his head. His shoulders are actually trembling slightly with suppressed laughter as he pulls another long drink, mostly just to stall.

"I wasn't being grim, Verso." The solemnity with which he'd spoken was both funny and genuinely touching. "I meant more - your expeditioner's tour guide business, if this doesn't pan out. You can come back and apprentice under me? Sorry, I did say I was going to be brooding, didn't I?"

It's just that, for the one moment, he wasn't.

[recreatable]

Oh, my god, you try to be nice one time and get laughed at!!! This is why existence is suffering!!!

Verso stares at the water as if it's the most interesting thing in the world. Well, nothing to do now but gaslight. "Oh, yeah, I... also. Meant that."

[superniceone]

"No, don't- I didn't mean to-" Gustave cuts himself and his own inability to finish sentences off, leaning over to push gently at Verso's arm. "I was bracing for the fallout of calling you infuriatingly good looking. The genuine sentiment just - caught me off guard, I'm sorry."

[recreatable]

Of course he was going to tease Gustave for calling him infuriatingly good-looking, but then he'd thought that Gustave was being macabre and morbid about the possibility that his life's work may never bear fruit, and focusing on his ego after that would have been ridiculous, even for him. Obviously, though, he now has to recover his spot on the top of the totem pole after being humiliatingly knocked down several pegs, so—

"Right, infuriatingly good-looking. Let's circle back to that."

[superniceone]

Verso can't really be blamed for the mistake. This entire encounter was predicated upon the idea that Gustave would be getting drunk and melancholy; it's only natural he'd assumed it had been gallows humour instead of the normal, bad kind.

"Sure," he says, willing to indulge if only because he does feel a little bad for laughing at him like that. "But you've got a reflection, so this isn't news to you."

[recreatable]

Music isn't news to him, either, but it's still nice to hear. As (not-so-)secretly vain as he is, Verso appreciates a little positive feedback, thanks. Infuriatingly is actually a new one, though. 'Roguishly good-looking', sure. 'Effortlessly', maybe. Are these all descriptors he gave himself? Probably.

"I might have told you you weren't bad yourself, if you hadn't just laughed away my last shred of dignity."

Too bad, so sad.

[superniceone]

Gustave is aware that he isn't unattractive, really, but physical appearance has never ranked extremely high on the list of things that matter to him. He thinks back to the evening before the Expedition, the way he'd been derisively called scrawny to his face. It was exasperating, not hurtful.

"It's alright," he says with a sidelong smirk. "I've long come to terms with the fact that my role in this expedition is just to make the rest of you look even better."

[recreatable]

You don't really believe that might be his response if, again, he weren't just ridiculed for sincerity. Never doing that again, at least not until he can properly die of embarrassment afterward.

"Right." He gives Gustave an obvious up-and-down, appraising. "You're a hideous beast. The Nevrons actually run when they see you coming."

[superniceone]

"Hey, come on, now. I wasn't going that far. I look pretty good for an engineer with chronic sleep deprivation who almost never leaves his workshop and spends all of his time around literal children, actually."

Gustave finishing his third cup and deciding this is definitely, absolutely the last of it, because he doesn't actually want to take advantage of what Verso has ferreted away. Honestly, he's a bit shocked to find himself in warmer spirits than darker ones, but he's not going to question it too hard. There's still plenty of time for that to turn around.

"I've been told I clean up nice," he adds after a long pause, firmly.

[recreatable]

He probably does clean up nice, honestly. None of them are at their best right now, usually covered in blood, grime, and Nevron guts. Not that Gustave is bad to look at now; he'd only been joking at the absurdity of Gustave being there to 'make them look better', as if he were some sort of strange-looking creature (sorry, Monoco) and not a perfectly acceptable man.

"Looks like some people like engineers with chronic sleep deprivation who never leave their workshops."

He cants his head toward the campfire again, gaze on Sciel and Lune for a moment before it returns to Gustave, brow quirked pointedly. Verso's been around long enough to hear the way they speak to Gustave, with an amused little lilt to their voices when he hasn't said anything funny.

[superniceone]

Gustave glances over his shoulder, rolling his eyes good-naturedly when he twists back to Verso. "Men and women are capable of being friends, you know," he says. He tries not to think about Sophie, the way she'd given him implicit permission to move on from her; how that was the last thing in the world he wanted to think about while he was preparing to let her go forever.

He clears his throat, hastily looking down into the empty cup. He's a little softer when he adds: "It's not like that, really."

[recreatable]

They are, of course, but everyone becomes a little less capable of only 'being friends' when they have less than a year to live. A group of attractive, doomed people, out in the middle of nowhere with nothing better to do? Expedition 60 clearly isn't the only one that took their clothes off.

"Let me guess. Married to your work?"

[superniceone]

And there's the melancholy, settling on his shoulders like a cloak. Gustave reaches up to rub the sleeve of his coat, touching the stitching laid by his apprentices, led by Sophie. His eyes are distant, expression shuttered for a moment, before he finally smiles ruefully and says:

"Look, how about - you go take inventory of your wine reserves, and if you've still got enough to share a little more, uh. Then I'll tell you about her. Alright?" And it's an implied out, as well, if this isn't a conversation that Verso wants to be a participant in. Gustave could hardly blame him.

[recreatable]

"There's always a her," Verso says knowingly, because he has his own her as well. (Somehow, though, he imagines Gustave's relationship with her didn't end quite so morally bankrupt.)

That's all he says before grabbing their respective cups and returning to Esquie. Sciel asks if he's done brooding yet, to which he gives a dramatically sad look, which gets an okay, okay! The wine isn't worth holding onto, or so he hopes—he can't take it with him—so he doesn't ration it, only asks Esquie for more. Esquie is only too happy to comply, letting Verso know that he feels so much more buoyant now that he doesn't have so much wine sloshing around inside him.

When he settles back down, he holds the cup out, expression expectant. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we were just about to start the brooding portion of the night."

[superniceone]

What is he even going to say? How does he explain who Sophie is - was - to someone who'd never met her? Did he even have the right to? They'd barely seen each other for the last few years of his life, and god, talk about regrets.

"Plenty of other bad decisions we could make instead," Gustave says mildly, taking the cup and lifting it in quiet thanks. He really is macabre now, his expression a little drawn. "Not too late to just go skinny dipping instead."

[recreatable]

There's a pause, and then: "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." Sincerely; pulling bad memories out of someone unwillingly does nothing for anyone, and causes a whole bunch of unpleasantness. Ask him how he knows. "Although I've heard some say sharing your feelings helps."

Some. Not him, though.

[superniceone]

Gustave smiles, humourless, in Verso's direction, and just like before, the sip this time is made purely to stall. "Her name was Sophie," he says finally. "She was gorgeous, brilliant. Popular. And she loved me, for some reason."

God, he hates that this is still so hard.

"It's not like- I don't know if I earned this grief," he manages, stumbling slightly over the words. "We'd broken up years ago, barely saw each other since. But I was there, when she-" Gustave grips the cup a little too tightly, forces himself to relax. "I'm the one who got to hold her hand. And that's not nothing. More than a lot of people get. But I just never really- after her, you know?"

[recreatable]

Verso could say something incorrigibly irreverent like there, doesn't it feel good to open up? But Gustave's pain is very real, and just another piece of evidence that all this world does is take and take and take. Ending it will be a kindness, even if they might not see it that way.

"You'll always wonder what could have been. If things were different." It's somewhere between commiseration and prophecy spoken by someone who's been there before. This is the way of things. He takes another sip. "I'm sorry for your loss."

[superniceone]

"I didn't even end up having kids," Gustave blurts, and he's scowling a little. "That was the whole reason we didn't- and then I didn't, even." He's embarrassed to be voicing this out loud, but it feels kind of nice to get out there.

He'll be humiliated later, sure. But it feels nice for now.

[recreatable]

Oh. Gustave's grief for a life unlived sits heavy on his shoulders, a visible weight bearing down on him. He'd wanted children. Long ago, Verso had idly imagined his future as including children, but it hadn't been a real desire like Gustave is expressing. A longing, now, for something that will never be.

"I'm sorry," again. A little helpless, knowing that whatever he says won't make a lick of difference. A little miserable, knowing that Gustave's life is this way, in many ways, because of Verso's existence. "Do you still wish you had?" Before the expedition, before the Gommage.

[superniceone]

"I don't know. Maybe." Gustave swallows, looking a little apologetic for what feels like an over the top outburst. "I don't know if I'd be here right now. I'm not sure I could have left them."

He tilts his head back toward the group, though he doesn't look at them.

"I've got my apprentices. And I've got Maelle. So that's good enough."