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[superniceone]

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[superniceone]

Gustave is fully aware of the special relationship that Esquie and Verso have; he wonders if they've spoken much at all, or if he and Monoco both are just biding their time until Verso is ready to leave.

He scoffs, idly going to retrieve his shoes. "Sciel and Sophie both did their best with me. I'm afraid I'm a lost cause, mon chéri."

[recreatable]

Oh, Gustave is getting ready to leave. He feels oddly deflated at the idea. Of course, he has to go; it would be entirely self-serving to want otherwise.

All the same, he wants otherwise.

He at least doesn't say it. Feeling it is bad, but verbalizing it is worse. Instead, he trails behind Gustave like a lost dog, or perhaps a stray cat begging for a bit of food. "Lost causes are my specialty." ...Which is a little too honest, so he quickly pivots to, "We could practice now, if you like."

[superniceone]

Gustave doesn't particularly want to leave; he'd just assumed the suggestion of walking him home, the question of when can I see you again meant that Verso wanted his home to himself for a bit. He doesn't particularly want to practice dancing, finds it awkward and himself ungainly, but— well. It feels more awkward to mention he'd let Sophie instruct and then refuse to let Verso try the same.

"In your living room?" His eyebrows are up, but he's stopped tying his shoe.

[recreatable]

"As opposed to in front of all of your family and friends, I was thinking."

—But Gustave does not seem at all amenable to the idea, and he's beginning to wonder if it wasn't as charming as he thought. Verso lifts his hands as if surrendering, then says, "But you're probably right to wait for Esquie after all. He is the master of dance."

[superniceone]

He's never been an extremely artsy sort of guy; the genuine offer had caught him off guard more than anything else. "I mean, it's not really them I'm worried about embarrassing myself in front of." He's not trying to bone any of them! Gustave straightens up. "But alright, then. You must be some sort of savant instructor, after all — you did teach a gestral to speak our language."

[recreatable]

Gustave has both embarrassed himself in front of Verso and managed to bone him already, so the thought that he's worried about such a thing makes Verso laugh. It's endearing that Gustave still has these worries, like he has any need to impress Verso. Like he didn't just get told 'I'm crazy about you', and five other ways of expressing Verso's unwise levels of affection.

He's spent almost the entirety of this relationship with one foot out the door, and while he can't exactly claim to be all in now, it has to be obvious that it isn't for lack of wanting.

"And look at him now—loquacious as anyone." Owing perhaps more to Monoco's own desire to be the best than anything Verso did, but he'll take the credit.

He extends a hand, palm up, waiting for Gustave's. "And you're lucky. The girls might have made you lead, but with me you can follow."

[superniceone]

Gustave is well aware of the fact that he'd fallen for Verso — well. Inappropriately. Inopportunely. They'd ended up together in this way that felt almost by chance; it doesn't matter how crazy Verso is admit him, he's hesitant about pushing his luck when they're already on borrowed time. Part of him still feels guilty for dragging Verso into this relationship at all, like he's selfish for asking for this emotional connection with him.

But Verso has a hand out to him now, and Gustave can't turn that down. He reaches out to lay his own onto Verso's, expression fond. "I don't mind leading, either, if you need to take it easy." In general, not just with dancing.

[recreatable]

He doesn't get to say it's by chance after denying, like, three attempts to break up with him at this point. Bitch, that was on purpose.

Gustave's hand is warm in his, a little smaller than his, fingers a bit callused from using his tools. Verso reels him in until he can snake a hand around Gustave's waist, finger crooked in his belt loop to keep him there. You know, just in case he decides to run out the building instead of dance.

Amused: "Two seconds ago you looked like you were going to throw up at the thought of dancing. Now you're going to lead?"

Verso leading is a safe bet, just from a practical standpoint; while his dances are about six decades out of date, he's still got far more experience with them than he imagines Gustave does. Verso can picture him awkwardly bowing out every time he's been asked to dance in the past 32 years, sheepish and apologetic and completely fucking blind to the fact that the people who were asking him were interested in him.

And 'in general', well. He'll just pretend he doesn't know that Gustave is referring to anything but the dance, considering that he doesn't really know how to take it easy.

"It's okay, I'll lead." A pause. "Good thing you're already limbered up."

[superniceone]

"Dancing doesn't make me ill." Gustave squeezes Verso's hand in his own like it's somehow a reprimand, like his stupid pulse hasn't racheted up with Verso's face in his own. He lays his mechanical hand on Verso's shoulder, lightly, mostly because he's not fully certain that's what he's meant to be doing with it.

He scrunches his nose, then confesses: "I was a really bright kid, and I picked up most things pretty quickly. And sometimes, when I run into something I don't pick up fast..." He trails off, not sure how to phrase 'I avoid it like the plague' without coming across as super juvenile.

He's ignoring Verso's last comment by making VERY POINTED conversation about the first.

[recreatable]

Verso smiles at the hand on his shoulder; it feels a little strange to feel metal through the fabric of his shirt, but strange in a way that he likes. A sensation unique to being with Gustave, and no one else.

"You'd rather not do it at all than not do it perfectly?" Super juvenile, perhaps, but a shared experience all the same. He can't help but laugh, a wry sound under his breath. "Yeah. I know the feeling."

He sways faintly to a rhythm in his own mind, not quite 'dancing' as much as 'vaguely moving'. Gustave, he expects, will need to be eased into just moving his hips.

"I avoided those Gestral beach games for decades because I was bad at them," he admits, sheepish.

[superniceone]

"No, I'm not that bad," Gustave protests, but it's hard to look actually upset standing this close to him. "I don't need to be perfect. I just don't like to be awful." It's an attitude that came from being academically gifted, not from parental pressure; he knew he was lucky to have had parents who only ever cared about him and his sister finding their own happiness.

Lune's relationship with perfectionism had always felt like parental trauma in its own way. Gustave was well aware that his was just an obnoxious quirk.

"And it's hard to find fault in your reasoning, anyway, considering I watched a ball get spiked directly into your face." He's chatting away, but the second Verso begins to sway, Gustave is immediately trying to shadow him, concentrating hard enough that it looks like he's worried about a pop quiz later.

[recreatable]

The gulf between 'perfect' and 'awful' might as well not exist, as far as Verso is concerned.

It hadn't been an accusation as much as an attempt to share a little vulnerability of his own to ease any embarrassment on Gustave's end; he knows how it feels, he'd meant to express, to fall short of your own expectations. Not that he'd mind if Gustave were the most awkward, ungainly dancer in the whole city—it would be charming in its own way. Nearly everything about him is, unfortunately.

Like the way he's concentrating so hard on simple swaying, as if there's a way to do this wrong. Verso squeezes his hand to loosen him up. "It's called blocking with your face," he argues, just to distract Gustave a little, "and it's very intentional."

I meant to do that, the litany of his life.

"What kind of music are they going to play?" he asks, then, thoughtful. "We can't dance without some music."

[superniceone]

Gustave has spent enough time around Verso to notice the perfectionism, and how badly anything that might be perceived as actual criticism gets under his skin. It worries him, but that worry lives on the backburner in the face of so many more pressing matters in their lives. He hopes desperately that there's a future possible where they get to work on those things together.

"I have no idea," he admits, and his metal hand squeezes Verso's shoulder apologetically. "The cotillion and the galop are popular. Emma loves to waltz—" She'd fired him as her practice partner when they were teens. "—so I imagine there'll be at least a bit of that."

[recreatable]

"Ah," he says, then turns over his shoulder to look at an invisible pianist on the bench. "Well. Maestro?" A moment later, and he's grinning and humming the Blue Danube, pressing their joined hands to guide Gustave back when he steps forward.

"I used to dance all the time before the Fracture. At parties." Thrown by his parents, although he sidesteps mentioning that to avoid bringing down the mood. Fancy affairs, given that the Dessendres are the 1%.

Admittedly, that all feels like a lifetime ago. Still, there's an easy confidence to this, like he has no doubt the motions will come back to him—or that he plans to pretend they have, even if they don't. "So, you're in good hands."

[superniceone]

Gustave chuckles at the little charade, visibly endeared, and he does his best to follow those leading steps. It takes a bit of recalibration with someone else leading, but the furrow of his brow is clearly a result of concentration, not due to some perceived insult to his masculinity.

"You must have been popular," he says, because Verso likes to be complimented, and also because it's true. Teasing: "Did they draw lots to see who got to dance with you?"

[recreatable]

Verso does like to be complimented—he's quirky and different like that—but he finds that he especially likes to be complimented by Gustave. His smile spreads insuppressibly wider across his face as he hums the waltz, stepping to the side and bringing Gustave along with him.

"Yeah," he jokes, "one time there was a riot."

He was popular, to be clear, although how much of that was on his own merit and how much was due to being created to be liked is hazy. Maybe it was all fake, just like everything else. Maybe even this, now, is fake; maybe Gustave only likes him because the rules of this world forbid otherwise.

Verso tries not to dwell on that.

"Never danced with anyone as handsome as you, though," he says, fully expecting Gustave to brush him off.

[superniceone]

Gustave is charmed by the humming, abruptly glad that he didn't suggest retrieving his record player for proper music to guide them. It probably would have been more helpful, sure, but this is — undeniably sweet.

The impulse is to dodge it, but he remembers abruptly the sketch of him he'd woken to, and it occurs to him that he really does like the way Verso sees him. Gustave fumbles a step and corrects himself, nudging Verso back to re-set and try those few steps again. "And I've never danced with anyone as striking as you," he says, earnest. "We'll have to be careful you don't start any fights at the harbor tonight."

[recreatable]

"Oh, I'm definitely going to start some fights," Verso says as he pulls Gustave back to a few steps ago, shrugging off the fumble easily. Quite frankly, it's a miracle that Gustave is even trying this with him at all. He's filled again, suddenly, with such a strong longing for things to be different that it nearly bowls him over—but the feeling is not an uncommon one, and he's used to hiding it. Verso clears his throat, starting the dance again. "Just, uh, not for the reasons that you think."

He leans in a little, eyes twinkling with amusement, expression tongue-in-cheek. "If anyone tries to dance with you, I'll say—" Lowering his voice: "Hey, I saw him first."

Joking, of course! He doesn't think Gustave would like that at all, but it's fun to imagine.

[superniceone]

Gustave has experienced the grief of a doomed relationship once this year already, watching Sophie dissolve into petals. With the threat of the Gommage lifted, it figured that he'd fall for the one person in the canvas unable to offer something without an expiration date. In another world, indeed.

The brightness in Verso's eyes is impossible to ignore, though, and Gustave laughs, impulsively bumping their mouths together. "That's fine," he says, leaning into Verso's playfulness. "I have very little interest of dancing with anyone but you, anyway."

[recreatable]

Just as impulsively, Verso chases that kiss, tugging Gustave closer with the hand on the small of his back. Pretense of dancing forgotten, he kisses Gustave the way he might if they were normal people; real people, with real lives, whose existences aren't predicated on suffering. If he were the type of person who didn't meet Gustave by nearly leaving him to die.

It's unrushed, fond, without the bittersweet tinge that accompanies most of his attempts at affection, and he's still humming the waltz as he does it.

"—But that's a move for more advanced dancers," he says, pulling back, face gone a little red at this insane outburst of emotion! that he just let control him.

[superniceone]

The movement and the uncomplicated affection catch Gustave off guard, and he's left smiling in a soft and genuine way — especially when he sees the color in Verso's face. They had literally had very messy sex that very morning, and he'd seemed less embarrassed about that, somehow.

"Je t'adore," Gustave says, which has become his stand-in for I love you, which he knows won't be at all well received. "I think I'm much happier to learn that one from you than Esquie."

[recreatable]

The sex hadn't been embarrassing (aside from, perhaps, some things that were said during the act) but this definitely is. Verso rarely lets himself get this swept away in emotion—not positive emotion, anyway. Then again, just experiencing positive emotion has been exceedingly rare for him until recently.

He likes the way he feels around Gustave, when the layers of envy and guilt are peeled back. Maybe he'd feel this way all the time, if they weren't here, surrounded by constant reminders of everything he's ever done wrong. Come with me to the Continent, he has the sudden urge to say, and—

The sudden rush of shame is like having ice poured down the back of his shirt. He fumbles, stepping back. "Well, you're a natural," he says, trying to keep up the appearance of good cheer. "You'll have to beat suitors away with a stick tonight."

He dries his suddenly sweaty palms on his trousers, looking for his shoes. "We should get going. I need to pick Monoco up from hanging out with your apprentices on my way back."

[superniceone]

Verso steps back and Gustave releases his hand, wondering immediately if he'd done something wrong. It was far from the first time he'd told Verso he adored him, and Verso had been the one to kiss him— he can't puzzle out what, exactly, is causing him to run this time.

"Sure," he says after a moment, like he's belatedly realizing Verso might expect a reply to that. Actually dancing at the harbor tonight is probably an extremely poor idea, he decides, and goes to slip on his own shoes. "I do know my way home, in case you're anxious to rescue him from the boys."

[recreatable]

He's made things uncomfortable. Again. He can sense it, the way the air in the room has shifted. Verso frowns; the last thing he wants is to make Gustave feel poorly when he's done nothing wrong. He's never done anything wrong—it's always Verso, ruining things.

The walk home is something he wants to do even now, but he doesn't trust himself not to muck things up for a second time today. As he slips his shoes on, he asks, "You're okay walking home alone?" It isn't as if Lumière is dangerous, and the walk to the workshop to pick up Monoco could be good to clear his head. "...Then I'll go play the hero for Monoco."

Anxious not to make Gustave feel rejected, he adds, "He's a little upset about having to share." For decades, there'd never been anyone else to challenge Monoco's place as 'best friend'; clearly, he's feeling a bit insecure now that Verso has been spending so much time with someone else. Might as well make him feel appreciated by saving him from Gustave's gaggle of apprentices.

[superniceone]

Gustave isn't a very dangerous man, but he's probably one of the most dangerous in Lumière just by virtue of being able to stubborn a weapon to his side with a flick of the arm — he's not exactly worried about his own safety.

And he doesn't quite feel uncomfortable, either. Concerned, perhaps, but he's less afraid now of making a misstep and causing Verso to disappear abruptly from his life entirely. After a good night's sleep and an incredibly emotionally nourishing morning, he's feeling a lot better than he had been the night before, too.

He's worried about Verso's comfort, not his own. "No, of course," Gustave reassures him gently, "it's important to make sure he knows he's not being replaced. I'll pick you up tonight?"