tfln overflow / open post

[superniceone]

(open / overflow)

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[recreatable]

It's all a little quaint, honestly. Not bad, but certainly unearned. Verso quirks a small smile, reaching for his journal. "Try not to get stopped by too many admirers, hero."

[superniceone]

It's silly and fully playacting at being domestic, but it's nice. There aren't a lot of things that have felt nice.

So Gustave is going to make buckwheat crepes with cheese and eggs, and he's going to try to see if he can swing an invite to actually stay the night and wallow with him.

[recreatable]

Verso has plates, at least (no more than two, but Gustave doesn't need to know that), so he sets the table to feel as if he's done something useful before absconding to grab his journal again. When Gustave plates this breakfast-for-dinner ass meal, he sits down and slides the open journal across the table to Gustave, turned to a much more recent page. The most recent page, in fact.

"I did find another poem for you to review while you were out."

It's a dirty limerick about Gustave that Verso wrote while the subject was shopping. That's almost as good as being invited to stay the night.

[superniceone]

Gustave snorts as he takes the journal, tapping his fingers on the page. "Please make sure Maelle never sees this."

[recreatable]

Verso would burn that journal before he let Maelle read this limerick, but instead he says, mock-offended, "Hey, it was hard to find a fitting rhyme for 'girth'." He worked hard on this, show his ChatGPT poem some appreciation.

[superniceone]

No, Gustave is actually pretty tickled by it— and he's blushing a little, too, but there's not a chance he's going to admit that. "Well. I'll try not to let being your muse go to my head."

[recreatable]

"Right. Best stay humble, mon héros."

It's very dry, but he lets their knees brush together under the table as he pokes the crepe with his fork.

"This is good." Admittedly, his standards are quite low. "I can't believe you let us eat jerky all that time."

If they could pack a gramophone, they could have packed some eggs.

[superniceone]

They're actually pretty good— he wasn't totally lying about being able to make adequate crepes. "I wasn't the one in charge of rations, thanks. I'll introduce you to Raphaël later." He's folding the journal shut, handing it back. "I might write a copy of that when I get home."

[recreatable]

"I believe that's called plagiarism," Verso says lightly, although he's pleased to have amused Gustave. "But I'll let it slide, because I'm so magnanimous."

He stabs the crepe with his fork a few more times, then says, "I was on a time crunch, though. If you really want a good rhyme for 'girth', give me a couple of days." It's an excuse to see Gustave again.

[superniceone]

"Sure," he says, stabbing at his own. God!! Why does he have to be so awkward!! "Uh, you know. If you don't like it— there are plenty of eggs. I could try again in the morning."

[recreatable]

"Oh," Verso says, picking up what Gustave is putting down but a little surprised nonetheless. He hadn't expected Gustave to want to stay; his place is sad and impersonal, whereas Gustave has a nice, warm home filled with people that he loves. Verso knows which he'd choose, given the option.

All the same: "Yeah, it's terrible." It's a good crepe that's done nothing to deserve this abuse. "You should definitely try again."

[superniceone]

Gustave's residence feels more like a dollhouse than his actual home. At least there's very little pretense with Verso's; it might as well be a hotel, from what he's read about hotels.

"It's what any proper scientist would do," he says with a crooked smile at him, grateful, as if thanking him for doing him a favor. "Just a bit rusty. I've got high hopes for the morning."

[recreatable]

"We'll call this the prototype," he says before taking a bite of the crepe, which is clearly not terrible. In an attempt to impress-slash-amuse Gustave with his use of engineering terms: "It just needs some updated blueprints, some... revised calculus."

[superniceone]

Gustave leans back in his chair with a grimace, glancing over his shoulder. "What was that?" he calls to the empty doorway. "Esquie is asking for me?"

[recreatable]

Verso kicks Gustave in the shin underneath the table, but he's laughing. (Somewhat sheepishly, because it does bring to mind all of the times that he made up an excuse to flee from Gustave.) "See if I offer to be your assistant now."

[superniceone]

Gustave's shoulders shake a little with laughter, and he finishes maybe half his plate before he stands up. The way he goes to clean the dishes he'd used while cooking is such a deeply ingrained habit that he doesn't realize how easily it might come across as too comfortable in someone else's home.

"So you really don't mind if I stay the night?" He's pretty sure he was able to infer the answer, but he'd really like to hear it out loud.

[recreatable]

It probably is too comfortable, but more than that, the sight of Gustave going to wash up reminds Verso that he isn't, in fact, living in a hut anymore; he gets up himself, taking his dish to the sink to rinse.

"Should I?" It didn't occur to him to mind. Gustave is his— well. They've yet to define what he is, but he's certainly something. A friend who Verso says increasingly romantic things to during sex, at least. "Are the eggs really going to be that bad?"

But he has a feeling he knows what Gustave wants from him, so he turns to lean against the counter, eyes on Gustave. "...I like you," he says, and he realizes he's not sure he's ever said it in those exact words before. "And I'd like to wallow with you, if you'll let me."

[superniceone]

Verso has been trying to end things with him before they ever began. Gustave isn't certain about much anymore in this strange new version of the world he'd known before his Expedition, but he's fairly sure that Verso— well, likes him, yes, but that he's humoring him, too. It feels like a distinct line he needs to observe; that if he crosses it too soundly, Verso might disappear from his life entirely again.

He chuckles at the joke, hates himself for the childish way his heart clenches at the I like you. For just a moment, he allows himself to focus on washing the pan he'd used. "I care about you— more than what is likely reasonable," he says. "You are always welcome to wallow with me."

[recreatable]

Definitely more than is reasonable, because reasonable would be washing his hands of Verso entirely. He's had ample opportunity to do it. The first time Verso had lied to him; the second time Verso had lied to him; the third time— At this point, Gustave is obviously just a glutton for punishment.

Before the confrontation with Renoir, he'd let himself experience some hesitant optimism for the first time in decades, but he's been disabused of that notion; he knows it's selfish to draw Gustave into Verso's destructive orbit, but it's growing increasingly difficult not to be selfish. He'll end this soon, though, really, before it gets too serious.

Unwittingly, he smiles. "Then let's wallow, Monsieur Unreasonable."

[superniceone]

He wonders for a minute if he should go home, grab some clothes, let Emma know he'll be out for the night— but she's a smart woman, and after Verso visiting two days in a row he imagines she can put the pieces together herself.

"I'm going to grab that book," he says. He heads to the living room, stopping only long enough to briefly trap Verso against the counter to kiss him again. Even if he does notice Verso's room is part of an ongoing existential nightmare, he won't say anything about it; he's much more interested in just being comfortably horizontal for at long as he's able.

[recreatable]

It's probably hard not to notice that it's part of an ongoing existential nightmare: the curtains are drawn shut so as to block out any light, and the bed is unmade, the mattress the sort of lumpy that only comes from having someone lie, unmoving, on it for about seven days straight. The only joyful things in this room are a small, ceramic model train on the night stand and an unopened paint set on the desk.

"Don't mind the, uh..." Everything. Verso pulls open the curtains and hastily pulls the covers up on the bed. "I just wasn't expecting company in here."

With a sweeping gesture, he says, "Make yourself at home."

[superniceone]

"You weren't? Strange. I'm sure you could tell I had a non-stop parade of company through mine," Gustave says a little wryly, ambling over to inspect the little train set. "I'm not sure I'll ever have cause to go back to the manor myself, but you should show me your room there if we do."

But he perches on the bed, sliding back to sit against the headboard with book in hand and his legs stretched in front of him. The message he's trying to convey is don't let me interrupt your lolling about — he isn't expecting to be entertained.

[recreatable]

Verso did have a nonstop parade of company through his room pre-Fracture (he was popular!), but he keeps his mouth shut on that topic. The idea of returning to an empty manor is painful, but he shrugs and says, "Yeah, sure." It'll never happen, anyway.

He settles on the bed, too, feeling strangely awkward despite the fact that they had sex in the living room not long ago, and he didn't feel awkward about that at all. He'd been popular, yes, but even pre-Fracture he never had someone make him dinner and then companionably read beside him. It reminds him a little of playing house, except Clea always made him be the family dog.

"I usually just lie here and look tormented," he jokes. It's true, but he absolutely can't do that in front of Gustave now.

[superniceone]

There are few enough signs of life here that it's about what he expected, honestly. It reminds him of how he'd spent the week following his mother's Gommage.

"Okay," Gustave says, unfazed, already distracted by his book as he taps the top of his thigh. "Just put your head here so I can reach it."

[recreatable]

Oh. He should be offended that Gustave is barely paying attention to him, but it actually makes it easier to comply. He curls up on the mattress, head resting against Gustave's leg.

"I haven't read that one yet," he says after a long moment. Verso hasn't read any of the books on his shelf yet. "It would only be fair to read it aloud."