tfln overflow / open post

[superniceone]

(open / overflow)

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[recreatable]

Oh. Gustave means the other people he murdered. Fucking hell.

"Maybe," Verso says noncommittally, because the only thing worse than dealing with the potential fallout from one person he severely wronged coming back is dealing with all the people he severely wronged coming back. Julie will certainly be angry, but he hopes that by the time they finish their business on the Continent, she'll have cooled down enough not to completely ruin Verso's life here. But if there's multiple—

He's already doing quick mental calculations to figure out how he can convince Gustave that they need to stay on the Continent forever instead of ever going back to Lumière.

"They won't want to see me either," he starts. "Coming back here would be..." He presses his mouth into a thin line. "Hard."

[superniceone]

Gustave does his best to imagine a scenario where he was given the chance to bring any of his own Expedition back and decided to turn it down. If sixty years from now he was offered to have any of them brought back to life, wouldn't he take it without hesitating? Fuck, even before they'd discovered Maelle's true power, he would daydream about trading his life for one of theirs. He would have been happy to sacrifice his own heartbeat for Lucien's.

Sure, he's never lived sixty years in the first place, so it's hard to take that into real calculation. Maybe his affection for them would fade more than he thought possible. Still: it chafes at him.

"Verso," he says slowly, "if I ask you what you were fighting about, will you tell me?" What could she still be so furious about, this many years later?

[recreatable]

He can't exactly say no. That's almost worse than the truth. Verso squirms in his seat like an agitated child, wishing he'd asked to stay in for lunch instead. Wishing he hadn't brought this up at all. He hadn't expected Gustave to have all these opinions and to start asking all of these questions.

"My immortality," he says after a moment of discomfort, trying to prevaricate instead of outright tell Gustave falsehoods to his face. Excuses tumbling out before Gustave even knows what they're excuses for, he blurts, "They thought— and Renoir said they were Clea's creations, so—"

He sounds like Gustave, unable to spit a full sentence out.

[superniceone]

Gustave is trying to follow along, doesn't want to interrupt in case it causes Verso to dam up again, but it's clear that he's confused. What does it matter whose creations we are is the ugly thing in his chest that bubbles up that he absolutely does not say; instead, he focuses on trying to catch Verso's eyes.

"What did they think about your immortality?" he prompts softly, clearly locked in to this conversation.

[recreatable]

Verso very much does not look Gustave in the eye. This whole thing is so shameful that even thinking about it makes him want to curl up into a ball and die. Since he unfortunately can't do that, he instead stares at his glass of water, anxiously running a finger over the rim.

"I guess they thought it was suspicious." I guess, like he doesn't know. "And they knew that Renoir and I were the only ones to make it back from the Monolith alive, so I guess they thought I did it."

[superniceone]

"You guess," Gustave echoes softly, unable to miss the almost dismissive uncertainty, like Verso hadn't been there to witness all of this first hand. There's a sudden sinking stomach in his feeling, too, as he realises exactly what it is he's dancing around.

He doesn't mean to blurt it, actually, but it just sort of pops out unbidden, his affect flat to mask the way his heart rate has spiked uncomfortably: "You and Renoir killed them." Just like that day on the beach.

[recreatable]

Fuck. When did he start sweating? His eyes finally glance up from the glass, this time to dart around and see if anyone's listening in on their conversation. The only thing worse than Gustave finding this out would be everyone finding this out.

When he's convinced that he isn't about to be come at with pitchforks—something he notes that Gustave didn't even seem to consider when blurting it out—he reaches out for Gustave's hand, eyes pleading. "Mon chéri, let's just go home."

[superniceone]

Gustave tries to put himself into Verso's shoes, but all he can do is imagine him standing there next to his father in the sand while death rained down around them. When, exactly, had Verso began siding against his father instead of with him?

His hand twitches back, and a part of him knows he's being unfair to Verso— but it feels like the air has been knocked out of his lungs. "Home is— probably a good idea," Gustave agrees, slightly halting, because it doesn't even occur to him that Verso might mean his own home as their home.

[recreatable]

"Yeah, okay," he says, the relief obvious in the way his shoulders slacken. It's not a great reaction, by any means, but Gustave hasn't yet gone running in the other direction screaming, either. "Good."

He's quick to stand, reluctant to let Gustave have too long to think about this. (That's probably wrong of him, but morality seems less important than preserving the one good thing he has going right now.) "I'll kick Monoco out." So that they can have privacy while he gets on his knees and begs for absolution, or whatever. He's not exactly sure how this conversation is going to go.

[superniceone]

Gustave remains seated and stares up at Verso for a moment; his expression is fully uncomprehending, before he shakes his head once.

"No, uh— we should probably— both go home," he manages after a moment. "My sister— Emma— I should spend more time with her before I go."

Gustave doesn't have the words to describe the way he feels, this strange disassociation, but he's pretty sure there's no productive conversation to be had in this state.

[recreatable]

The tension in his shoulders returns all at once. Oh. It's over. Gustave hasn't said it's over, but he struggles to imagine a world in which this somehow goes his way. All good things come to an end; he just sort of wishes he'd had more than one day to enjoy this before it crumbled into dust in his hands, but that's fine. It's all fine.

"Oh," he says miserably. "Yeah. That's— okay. I have some stuff to do, too."

Like fling himself onto his bed weeping.

[superniceone]

A distant part of Gustave wars between concern for and irritation at Verso's obvious distress. How many Expeditioners have you killed, he wants to ask, but he swallows the question down with a sense of weariness. It had been almost easy to forget that either of them had ever been soldiers of sorts at all when those hands had been leading him in a rooftop waltz.

"Just— give me the day to digest this," he says, dragging his hand down his face and trying to summon himself back to his own body. "I'll come by tomorrow."

[recreatable]

"Sure," he says, although part of him would rather Gustave just never come over again if it means he has to stand there and listen to him explain why he can't be with someone who's done something so horrendous. A little part of him feels bitter at Gustave for telling him he shouldn't ruin things preemptively, but he knows it's unfair. It's not like Gustave could have guessed just how talented at ruining things he could be.

"I'll, uh, send Monoco over to your apprentices." So he doesn't have to listen to the break-up. That's probably the only thing that could make it even more awful than it's already going to be.

He wants to say je t'aime, but he's not confident Gustave will say it back. Instead, he crosses his arms over his chest and says, "I'll see you."

[superniceone]

"Yeah. I'll see you." There are so many questions he wants to ask, but things feel unsteady, abruptly raw - and this definitely isn't the place for it. He opens his mouth, closes it, and then grabs his glass of water to take a long sip like that'll somehow ground him. "I'll see you in the morning."

Gustave is going to go home and emotionally vomit all of his thoughts into the nearest journal, see if that can help him parse them out. Poor Julie. Poor Verso.

Monoco's surprise is evident when Verso arrives home alone. "No tagalong this time?"

[recreatable]

"Other side of the bed's all yours tonight, my friend," he says bitterly as he trudges inside.

As much as he loves Monoco, there's absolutely no way that discussing any of this with him will lead to anything productive—Verso doubts very much that gratuitous violence will make him feel any better about the fact that he just fucked this up in less than 24 hours—so he doesn't say anything else on the matter, just makes a beeline for the bedroom and shuts the door.

Well, wait. He does come back out in order to grab a bottle of wine. Then he absconds to the bedroom.

[superniceone]

Gustave only has a few hours to try to untangle the confused knots in his head before he's cajoled into spending time with both of his sisters. He is at first exasperated and then, eventually, grateful; despite his worry about Maelle, they're still both very good at pulling him out of his own mind. They spend most of the evening playing Belote, and he has a much easier time breathing by the time he retreats to his bedroom again.

It's early enough in the morning that most of the city is actually still asleep when he returns to Verso's; he tries the door instead of knocking, just because he doesn't want to wake anyone up. Mostly this means Monoco will receive the jumpscare of his life when he leaves the bedroom the next morning and finds Gustave asleep sitting up on the divan like a grandpa after a holiday lunch.

None of this is Monoco's business, and it won't be until Verso makes it so, but he'll turn back to the bedroom and whisper hopefully anyway: "I can bounce him if you want."

[recreatable]

He's way too fucking hungover to deal with this breaking and entering shit this early in the morning, but— "No," he drones as he drags himself out of the bed he's been wallowing in ever since returning from lunch. Still in the same clothing, rumpled in a very non-artful, very non-sexy way, and his hair is a little matted in the back from all the miserable rolling around.

"I forgot. The apprentices need you in the workshop this morning for..." A beat. Yeah, too hungover to come up with an excuse to make Monoco leave, either. "Science."

Once they're alone, he stands and stares at Gustave's sleeping form for a long, admittedly sort of creepy moment before he reaches out to shake him awake. One quick press of the palm to his shoulder, and then he steps back and crosses his arms. "You drool in your sleep."

[superniceone]

Gustave doesn't often feel particularly old, but thinks he's starting to feel his age when he pulls all-nighters like this. At twenty-two, he could throw himself into his work all night and remain tired but functional. Now, at nearly thirty-three, one measly night unable to sleep has left him dozing off upright.

"Oh. Hey." He wipes at his mouth, frowning up at Verso. Gustave knows he himself looks tired, but Verso looks rough as hell. "Didn't want to wake you two up." He glances toward the bedroom, silently asking if Monoco is in there.

[recreatable]

"Gestrals don't have to sleep," he reminds Gustave, because he's never too depressed for a 'well, actually' moment. "They just lie there for fun."

Ugh. This is painful. He wishes Gustave would just get it over with. Maybe he's hesitant to do it with Monoco still in the house; maybe he's afraid of getting beaten up for hurting Verso's feelings. "He's not here." Verso gestures vaguely toward Gustave. "So." You know. Get on with it.

[superniceone]

"Oh." Verso had already let everyone in the Canvas be erased; he's not really connected this behavior to fear over being broken up with for something he'd done before Gustave's parents had even been born. It had just taken time to unpack.

And he does want to talk about it, but they both seem to be in rough shape; he stands up with a little groan. "We could go back to bed for a bit then, if you'd like."

[recreatable]

Verso stares. Blinks a few times. Tries to figure out if he's just too hungover to understand what's happening here. "What?" he manages to blurt out after a moment's delay. It's not like Gustave to say something he doesn't mean, but it's so far off what he'd expected that he has trouble believing it.

"Together?" he asks stupidly, unable to stop his head from tilting like a confused dog's. "You're not—" Well, there's a lot of things he expected Gustave to be. Repulsed, definitely. Deeply disappointed. Betrayed, for what's probably the third or fourth time. "...Afraid of me?" he finishes instead.

[superniceone]

Gustave is— well. Several of those things, really. Betrayed and disappointed, sure, but more than any of that: he's mostly just sad about it all. If Verso is unwilling to talk about it further, that would definitely be a dealbreaker, but right now he just wants to understand.

"What?" he says a little dumbly when Verso gets his question out. "Do I have some reason to be?"

[recreatable]

Yes, but no. Gustave has nothing to fear, but at the same time, it wouldn't be unreasonable if he did feel afraid after the confession Verso made. Well, people are usually a bit uneasy around murderers, he bites back the instinct to say; all that will do is just convince Gustave that he should be afraid. That might be the right thing to do, admittedly, but he's not sure he has it in himself to do it.

"No," he says, shaking his head. "I would never hurt you."

At least. Not now.

[superniceone]

"And Maelle would just bring me back, even if you did," he can't help but add a little dryly. If Verso had grand designs on hurting him for some reason, there had been ample opportunity before now.

Gustave sits back down, apparently planning to just get comfortable on the divan in light of the fact that things are apparently even more complicated between them right now than he'd realized.

"No offence, but you— it looks like you feel like shit," he says. "It's early. We can talk when you've had some more sleep."

[recreatable]

Verso would be offended if not for the fact that he does undoubtedly feel like shit. He spent his night drinking and feeling bad for himself and pathetically tearing up a little, and while he's immune to death, he's not immune to the symptoms of dehydration. All he can do in response is scrub at his face with his palm.

Gustave's incredible vagueness doesn't do much to provide him relief. Talk. Nausea sloshes in his stomach, although it's difficult to tell how much of that is anxiety about this upcoming 'talk' and how much of it is the hangover. 50/50, if he had to guess.

"Yeah," he says distantly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Putain, my head hurts." He stands there for a long moment after, saying nothing but feeling a strong pull to ask Gustave to come with him. Clearly, though, the decision to sit back down on the divan was an intentional one, so after a prolonged stare, he just says, "Okay," and absconds back to his room.