superniceone | tfln overflow / open post

It is that exact devotion causing Gustave the stress and frustration that he's been carrying around with him since the truth of the Canvas had been revealed. It was one thing to dedicate his life to Lumière, maybe the last fragment of humanity left after the Fracture had scattered everyone far and wide. To preserving its history for future generations, because there was knowledge too valuable in those stories to risk losing.

It was something else entirely to devote himself to Lumière, the ant farm the same age as the man in front of him. Gustave still loves his city, and always will — but it's harder to center his entire identity around it anymore, knowing their existence was never meant to be anything more than set dressing. Even more: knowing how fragile the existence of their world was at all. There's no longer a timer on the Monolith, but when things are quiet he's certain he can still hear the ticking of a clock.

"Well, we'll test it again tonight, then. And if I sleep like a baby again, you're going to have to just deal with being my safety blanket for a while." He lightly taps the top of Verso's foot with his own, before finally releasing him. "And it's harder than you think, isn't it?" Doing it all backwards!!!

The dance ends, and Verso is a bit rueful. He'd been dreading going to the party, but up here, alone with Gustave, he'd had fun. Felt light, even, like he wasn't dragging around a century's worth of emotional baggage. Although he steps back, he lets his fingertips linger lightly against Gustave's wrist.

"Yeah, yeah." He rolls his eyes, but— "Hey." He smiles, crooked. "Nice to meet you for the first time."

Gustave hesitates for just a second, eyes searching Verso's face to make sure he's not being secretly maudlin, before he leans into it. Intentionally over the top and a bit silly, he grips Verso's hand, leaning in to kiss the back of it.

"Wonderful meeting you for the definite first time ever. It's an honor."

Maelle would be horrified at how dorky he's being; he tries not to think about how selfishly he misses the way she once relied on him.

It's incredibly dorky. (Un?)fortunately, though, Verso has found that he's into dorky. A lot. That crooked smile spreads out, and he turns his hand over to take Gustave's chin between his fingers and kiss him. Quickly, and without heat or intention to make it anything but chaste. Affection for the sake of affection, because he likes to feel the heat of Gustave's face against his. Because people aren't meant to go decades without being touched in a loving way by another human being.

"Sorry," he says as he pulls away, again a little pink, the way he'd been after kissing Gustave this morning. It just all feels a bit— transparently self-indulgent. Like something he shouldn't be caught doing. "You must think I'm very forward, given that we just met."

Gustave is fascinated by how gestures of affection that come— well— naturally, easily to him are the ones that seem to trip Verso up the most. Affection for the sake of affection, because life was (for everyone but Verso) too short not to indulge in it. He steps in, crowding him just enough to brush a soft kiss against the slight pinkening of his cheek.

"Not at all," he says, trying to ease any embarrassment he can. "I'd rather you own it than apologise for it."

"How tolerant of you," is wry, but pleased. There's no part of him that thought Gustave, who'd tried to cuddle after exchanging perfunctory handjobs in the woods, would judge him for a kiss. It's only himself he's worried about doing that; things like impulsive kisses and dances on rooftops are things he's long disregarded as meant for everyone but him, and it's still challenging to accept that this is something he's allowed to have, too.

For a few more weeks, anyway.

"I have to admit, I did hear through the grapevine that you're an excessive kisser."

Gustave laughs again, because of all the possible things that could have followed him—

"It's true. You're looking at a guilty man." He's mock-exasperated as he gently pushes Verso away, turning instead to look at what he can see of the harbor from the edge of the roof. "I hope you won't hold it against me."

"There are a lot more interesting things I'd rather hold against you," he says, incorrigible.

"But before that"—because he's assuming that he will be holding his body against Gustave's tonight, at least because he's had a couple glasses of wine and he's feeling rather inclined to try this newfangled thing called cuddling—"I think I'm in the mood to compose, if my muse is in the mood to inspire."

You know, sit around, look handsome, listen to him improv.

Gustave seems to need a moment to decide if being referred to as a muse is making fun of him or not; he tilts his head at Verso, fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows knit in curiosity, before he hums a sound of pleasant agreement.

"I have always wanted to listen to you play," he says, half-smiling. "Behind the scenes with musical genius—I'm a lucky man." Gustave rounds back to face him again, stepping in a little close in a way meant to read as playful. "You want to head back now?"

Musical genius is perhaps a little overexaggerated, but he'll take it. Verso laughs, fingers curling around Gustave's wrist again. They're so scrawny; he can hardly believe Gustave was ever swinging around a sword. Then again, Verso's closer to a rakish man of leisure than a burly brawler himself, so maybe he doesn't have any room to judge.

"If you've had enough of dancing," he says, because he doesn't want to deny Gustave if he's having a good time, but— teasingly: "I can only assume you found it to be a torture worse than death."

You know, considering how hard he'd tried to avoid even practicing in Verso's living room.

He had! Just felt awkward! Which is probably a ridiculous way to have felt, considering he'd been intimate with Verso in ways he'd never dreamed of being with anyone else; it was a little dramatic, maybe, to think he might be turned off by clumsy dancing after everything else.

"Come on, one more song, then," he says, gently pulling at the hand wrapped round his wrist. "Just because we came all the way up here."

"Just because," Verso agrees, hand clasping Gustave's and other arm winding around his waist, just a little on the side of 'inappropriately close for dancing in public'. They're dancing in private, so it's fine. No one around to judge if their pelvises are touching in a non-family-friendly way.

"I should thank you, by the way." For a lot of things, probably, but primarily, "For stopping me from spoiling the night."

Even if a part of him does still feel like Gustave would be better off if he'd spent the night striking things up with Sophie again.

"I've tried to keep people at arm's length, in the past. Knowing that it'll... hurt, to lose them." Gustave, on the other hand, seems to have gone all in on making limited time count. Maybe he should be the same. "But I'm prepared to dedicate every second you'll give me to obnoxiously charming you, if you'll let me."

It strikes him again how starkly different this feels compared to dancing with Sophie. Verso's hand is rougher, his body lean without feeling soft or fragile. He can feel a more obvious strength in the pressure of the arm around his waist. It's not that he prefers it, exactly, but it's definitely novel — and the fact that he's pretty besotted with Verso in general helps a lot, too.

"Why would you—" He cuts himself off and laughs as he finds his steps. "You're welcome to charm me as much as you like. But— I'm just as happy for you to just— be, too." Lazing around, reading together — eating a breakfast of terrible eggs, even — were the sorts of mundane things that spelled contentment for him.

He wonders, too, if Verso will still feel that way if Gustave finds him, two or six or sixty months from now, when he's finally convinced Maelle to leave, when he finally feels good about the future of the Canvas again. But that's heavy, and tonight feels adequately salvaged, so he doesn't.

Eyes to the sky, Verso represses the urge to groan. Gustave is the most difficult person to romance in the world, bar none.

"I'm trying to say that I'm— all in." On this. On Gustave, specifically. That he's not going to have one foot constantly out the door anymore. A little exasperated, but still fond: "But clearly, it's my fate to have all of my grand romantic gestures brushed off by you."

"Anyway—" He steps to the side, rotates his body, and tugs Gustave into what is undoubtedly a clumsy dip. "I thought you liked when I tried too hard."

Gustave does more of an "awkward bend backwards" than a real dip, but the trust is there — he will lean into it enough that he would definitely fall onto his ass if Verso just let him go.

He doesn't say what feels obvious to him, that the grand gesture of saying he's all in maybe only falls a little flat because they've got barely more than two full weeks together now. Between the rooftop date and the penetrative sex, Gustave had assumed Verso was pretty committed to him for the time they had left together already.

"I do," he admits after he straightens up. He finds himself idly wishing he'd actually paid attention to learning to dance when he was younger. "And I'm trying to say, you're especially sexy when you're relaxed. That's all."

You can penetrate a person you're not committed to. Verso thinks about dumping Gustave, like, every five seconds. Even a little bit tonight!

...Which he's not going to do anymore, obviously. He's a new man, a better man. He's going to give Gustave a nice few weeks to fondly look back on once he's married Sophie and had 2.5 children with her, or whatever his future might hold.

"Fine," he says as Gustave returns to verticality, "I won't charm you. I'll pick my nose and leave the toilet seat up."

"Oh, good. I can start leaving my dirty underwear all over the place, then," Gustave says, like he hadn't had the impulse to fold his goddamn clothes the first time he'd gotten undressed in the woods with Verso. He pulls him in to kiss him soundly, hands firm as they grip his hips, and there's genuine warmth on his face as he pulls back and nods towards the stairs.

"You taste like wine," he says, and it's a compliment.

"You don't," Verso points out, considering that Gustave barely drank at all. Things had gotten swiftly awkward after he'd been given his glass, after all. Not that it had stopped Verso from downing his.

He steps back, too, hand skimming the railing as he takes the stairs down. "We'll have to rectify that. Music is better listened to with a drink." Especially when it's vaguely embarrassing 'you're my muse' improvisation.

Gustave had been a little worried about the awkward getting even worse if he'd let himself start drinking, too. He's sure they'll butt heads again probably sooner rather than later, but it feels safe enough now to unwind with a glass or two.

"We can share a bottle," he agrees, brushing his hand idly against the back of Verso's shirt as he follows him down the stairs. "I'm all in, too, by the way. In case that wasn't... implied obviously enough."

Smart. If they'd gotten in a wine-drunk domestic dispute in the middle of a party, Verso would probably never show his face outside again.

He did embarrass himself in front of Sophie and Lucien, admittedly, but two people are easier to avoid than the entire population of Lumière. Besides, it's not like he was going to be chatting it up with Gustave's ex-girlfriend, anyway. What would he say? Wow, we have such similar taste in men.

Once he reaches the bottom of the steps, he turns to lounge against the railing, saying, "And here I thought you were just using me for my body."

Gustave does the sort of long drag of his eyes down Verso's body that actually embarrasses him slightly, even if it is fully meant to be playful. "Only mostly for your body," he says, gently nudging his shoulder. "Do I have time to pick up a change of clothes from home, or is this inspiration fleeting?"

Verso nudges Gustave's shoulder back, laughing. He is embarrassing. And cute, and impossibly likeable. Verso never stood a chance at resisting his charms, clearly. If only things were different; if only they really had met for the first time at some party in Lumière, instead of when Verso nearly let him die for his own benefit. If only there were a future here instead of two weeks and then endless nothingness.

It's going to be even harder to go back to self-isolation now that he's had a taste of what it feels like to be a real person again, and somewhere deep down, he recognizes that. But just as he used to distract himself from his depressing reality on the Continent by doing stupid, reckless things, he distracts himself now by holding out a hand for Gustave to take.

"It's an ongoing inspiration." Gustave's already gotten him to write poetry and, hell, sketch. It had been tongue-in-cheek, but it hadn't actually been a joke to name him Verso's muse. "We can stop by your place, if we must."

If we must, because he'd thought Gustave had looked pretty good in his clothes, thanks.

Gustave is used to living a life hurtling toward endless nothingness; the reprieve from it, as brief as it may turn out to be, is nice. It aches already to think about Verso evaporating from his life, but — well, the Continent wasn't that far, not really. And there were already plans being made for Expeditions with a new goal: clearing out the Nevrons, reclaiming what they could of Old Lumière that had once been lost to them. They were much better prepared than the survivors — the victims , really — who'd been trapped there after the Fracture.

It's naive, probably, to tell himself that for once goodbye doesn't have to mean forever, but it's a comfort despite that.

Gustave considers for a moment, clearly thinking, before he reaches to take Verso's hand. The look he gives him says that he knows he's being cheesy again. "You know," he starts slowly, "I like it when you give me your hand first, too." It's the sort of sappy thing that anchored Gustave — and for a long time had sent Verso running.

When Gustave had first said I like it when you kiss me first, he'd felt— touched, surely, but guilty, too, aware of all the ways he'd been withholding of even the most minute affection so as to maintain emotional distance. Like it had even mattered, in the end. It hadn't been the physical intimacy that had made him fond of Gustave; it had been who he was. The kind of person to request hand signals so that he'd know if Verso were flirting with him or making fun of him.

As for I like it when you give me your hand first, Verso files that away in the back of his mind. None of this feels natural after so long being untouched by a human being in any way that wasn't cursory, but it gets more comfortable by the day, and if Gustave likes something, then he's inclined to give it. Mostly out of fondness, and a little bit out of guilt. A feeling that maybe he can atone for what he'd almost done—or not done, as the case may be—when they'd first met.

He slips his fingers between Gustave's, teasing, "I think you just like to be romanced." Tugging their joined hands up, he presses his mouth to Gustave's knuckles. Very gentlemanly, purposefully overwrought. "Fortunately, I can be very chivalrous."

It wasn't until the night that Verso had lay his bedroll a little closer to Gustave's that Gustave had realized how much he'd missed the casual affection of someone who cared about him. He knew that it was nice, something he hoped to have again someday— but falling asleep with Verso's hand in his own, the warmth of his body close enough to feel, had awoken a bittersweet longing lodged deep in his chest.

He'd had to abandon the 'no strings attached' notion pretty quickly, but thought he'd drawn a solid enough line otherwise. Of course, that was before rooftop poetry, to waking up to Verso sketching him. Before waltzing, and somehow enjoying it. Gustave wants to confess it again, a re-do at the confession of love; he wishes he'd said it out of contentment and not something halfway to spite.

"Guilty as charged," he says instead of any of that, smiling in a way that suggests he finds this extremely endearing. "And you are... impressively good at it. I noticed the color of the flower."

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