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[superniceone]

(open / overflow)

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[superniceone]

She'll be safe, said as a statement, not as a question. Gustave is aware that if Verso wanted to manipulate him, to win him over purposefully, all he'd need to do is exactly that: promise Maelle's safety. Being aware of it doesn't make it any less effective, though, and their Relationship Probably Levels Up.

The next part immediately sidetracks him, however. "Tortured hero?" Gustave turns his head to look Verso's way, his tone implying that the comment actually concerns him a bit. "I'm trying to be a good role model, Verso. Have I seemed particularly tortured?"

He's frowning in thought here, distracted already by his own recollection. Maelle has lost so much already; Gustave needs to be a supportive stone for her. Either he'll have time to deal with his own grief later, or he won't, but either way - he refuses to let her spend her energy worrying about him.

[recreatable]

Gustave is just as tortured as the rest of them — that is, as tortured as someone with numbered days is. Verso had thought that much obvious, but clearly, living in delusion isn't just for Dessendres. The idea of being 'tortured' (it's a compliment; women love a tortured man!) seems to rankle, so instead of arguing, he says, "Happy-go-lucky hero, then."

A hero, at any rate. Not his, and probably not even Lune's or Sciel's, but certainly Maelle's. That's good enough for him, personally.

But he can't resist: "Not even a little tortured, huh?"

[superniceone]

Happy go lucky is hardly better. Gustave rolls his eyes, plucking a bit of the dry grass beneath his fingers and flicking it ineffectually in Verso's direction in silent complaint.

More than anything else, he's stalling. This conversation could resolve easily, lightly, just like this, and Gustave isn't exactly well practiced at presenting his own vulnerabilities up willingly.

"I lost all hope when I woke up alone. After the bloodbath on the beach, you know?" Gustave doesn't know Verso had been there - just that he'd been told. "Full on despair. If Lune had found me a few minutes later..."

He doesn't sound particularly anguished. Regretful, maybe. "All that to say - of course I'm tortured. I just prefer..." Gustave trails off again, then hums, "sensitive. Sounds less broody."

[recreatable]

Thinking about the beach is unpleasant for both of them. It had been nothing new—Renoir has removed countless people from existence—but it never gets easier to swallow that the fault really leads back to him. All of that suffering to maintain a world in which he exists. It's fucking intolerable. He just wants it to be over.

"You must have lost a lot of friends," he says softly, staring up at the endless sky because he can't bear to look Gustave in the eye. He knows very well what it feels like to have lost all hope. "I'm sorry."

For what it's worth, he sounds genuine.

[superniceone]

"I did. Thank you." He'd lost even more in the years leading up to the expedition, of course. Bid farewell to family and friends in a way less brutally violent than that massacre had been, but the end result was always the same: an aching bruise stretched to cover the the memories he held close.

The lapse in conversation is stifling even to Gustave now; he feels almost guilty for pointing the conversation in a direction so heavy. He closes his eyes, scrambling for something, before he sort of just blurts unprompted: "Bet you've had food I've literally only read about in books. I can own up to being jealous about that."

[recreatable]

Gustave, who claims he's not tortured, makes the conversation heavy by being tortured. It's fine, honestly; Verso has spent enough time brooding himself that he isn't startled by the turn in conversation. This world is depressing. He gets it.

But Gustave blurts out a change in subject, and Verso has to smile. He really is incurably awkward. It's funny. Charming, even, although he has the feeling that Gustave—self-deprecator that he is—wouldn't see it as such.

"So there are other things that you're jealous of that you haven't owned up to."

[superniceone]

"Oh, please." He stretches his arm out, fingers crooked, like he might pluck one of those constellations out of the sky. "I thought you knew already. Debilitating envy is my whole thing."

It's an over the top, absurd thing to say, but more importantly than that - it's a safer conversation.

"Lune is brilliant, just creative in a way that's out of my reach. I'll never be as adorable as Maelle, that's just out the window. And you've got that hair thing-" He indicates the stripe of white by gesturing at his own face. "Why do you think I kept droning on about hair yesterday?" Awkwardness. "Pure, unadulterated envy."

[recreatable]

Verso snorts. Even he isn't delusional enough to think Gustave is jealous of his hair. Of the fact that he gets to know what he'd look like with grey hair, maybe, and that Gustave will never see himself with old man greys. If anything, though, it's Verso who should be jealous that Gustave doesn't have old granny hair.

"Don't leave anyone out," he prods, because it's entertaining to watch Gustave gush. Clearly, he wasn't lying when he said effusive praise was his defense mechanism. He's good at it. "What about Sciel? Monoco? Esquie?"

[superniceone]

He's not wrong: he does wish desperately for a world where he could look forward to seeing himself and his loved ones grow old in peace. At the same time, it's not as if Verso's streak of white looks like a sign of actual age. Gustave thinks it's fair that he'd assumed it to be a fashion statement.

"Oh, I see here. I'm vulnerable with you for a second night in a row, and for a second night in a row I'm met with mockery. I'm starting to doubt this deep bond we've forged in the last twenty minutes."

[recreatable]

It's not mockery! It's gentle ribbing, which is totally different. He was enjoying Gustave's endless description of 'debilitating envy', actually, but fine. He'll let it go for now, allow Gustave to complain about his mockery.

"Oh, yeah?" He turns on his side, jokingly accusatory. "Was it vulnerability when you said I had crow's feet?"

You are not the victim here, Gustave.

[superniceone]

Gustav rolls his head to the side to look at Verso, his nose wrinkled slightly. "I'm sure that would have been very hurtful if your face weren't- how old were you when you stopped aging, anyway? Twenty-five, maybe?"

He pauses for a moment, clearly calculating something in his head, before he carries on with: "You're not genuinely worried about looking old, are you?"

[recreatable]

"If I was, you'd have devastated me."

But the answer is no. He's not worried about looking old. That would be better, in a way. Age would suggest change rather than infinite stagnation, would imply that there's an end to all of it. He'd always imagined he would get old, before he knew. The real Verso probably imagined he would get old, too.

"—Twenty-six," he adds, backtracking. "But good guess."

[superniceone]

Gustave hums under his breath, pleased with his own estimation. He has no read on the stormier waters beneath Verso's expression; privately, he's just glad he didn't jab at a sore spot, no matter how absurd he would have found it.

"Well, feel free to lob a potshot at me, if you feel the need to even it out." He twists onto his own side, but he's leaning up on his arm as he does. "Haven't heard a good one about my eyebrows in a while."

[recreatable]

"Your eyebrows?" Verso asks, just as Gustave shifts to give him full view of the aforementioned brows.

He raises one of his own—comparatively less magnificent and/or bushy, depending on how complimentary one is feeling toward Gustave—as he looks at them. To be honest, his eyebrows had been the last thing Verso had cared about, when he'd first gotten a good look at Gustave. The beating heart had been more of a concern. Verso's still not sure if he should have let him die.

Nothing against Gustave. Nothing at all, actually. He's just... a complication. It's probably deranged to be staring at him like this and wondering if he made the right choice, though, so he quickly recovers:

"They are... expressive."

[superniceone]

Gustave shakes his head, playacting at disappointed. "I give you full clearance to even the score, and that's the best you can do?" This is - dumb, honestly. Surely there are more productive things that either of them could do to fill the time that isn't lying in the grass and enjoying the mild weather.

He's preparing to say something to that extent when he hears a startled sound from Maelle and a clatter behind him. It's reflex alone that has him sitting fully up and twisting toward the fire quickly enough to give some people whiplash. The noise is followed by laughter, chatter that's too far away to be distinct enough to follow, and it's only then that Gustave drops back into the grass with a sigh.

"Sciel is easily the most magnetic person I've ever met," Gustave says abruptly, because it's easier than acknowledging the embarrassment over his own hypervigilance. "Extremely envious of that. Monoco... knows what he likes, and is unashamed to go for it." Feet. He's still baffled by the feet. "And what isn't there to envy about Esquie, really? I'd love to just live as him for a day."

[recreatable]

Verso watches as Gustave scrambles up, realizes he'd overreacted, recovers, and then immediately switches the subject. Smooth. The effusive praise he'd just asked Gustave to give only a few minutes before goes in one ear and out the other; it's far less interesting as an obvious distraction than it would have been if Gustave had offered it up genuinely.

Mockery isn't appropriate here, he thinks, and neither is gentle ribbing. He lets Gustave finish, although he doesn't acknowledge the word vomit. Probably more polite not to, honestly.

"Worried?"

[superniceone]

"Yes? Always, obviously." He groans and rolls onto his back, pressing the heel of his palm against his closed eye. "Do you have any idea how close I am to just building a raft to ship Maelle back to Lumiére? I could just put her on it while she's asleep and then-"

Gustave pantomimes pushing a raft in the air in front of him. He might actually be able to breathe then.

[recreatable]

Verso has decided that Gustave's concern for Maelle is his best quality. The way Gustave talks about him, one would think he and Verso have nothing in common, but just like Verso, he spends the better part of his life worrying about her.

"And then she'd swim her way back through infested waters?" Verso finishes. If anything, telling her that she had to leave would only make her more convinced to stay. Stubborn girl.

...Besides, he's selfishly glad that she's here. With her, they might actually have a chance to make it to the Paintress. She's given him the first bit of hope he's had in a long time.

"She's having fun, at least."

[superniceone]

"She is a force to be reckoned with. But - her having fun. It's not nothing," Gustave agrees. He wouldn't trade their bond for anything, but he does wish that he'd been able to give her a life filled with more fun before this journey.

He takes comfort, too, in the fact that she's surrounded by people who love her, as well - even if he has no idea Verso is included in that list.

"You've distracted me. I should really be doing something more productive." Not that anyone else is doing more than recovering for now.

[recreatable]

Maelle having fun is absolutely not nothing. When was the last time he saw Alicia—either Alicia—happy? For the first time, she's somewhere she belongs, almost flourishing despite the circumstances. He feels almost guilty that, if all goes according to plan, it'll all come to an end.

She can Paint another Canvas. One where she's even happier than she is now.

In response to Gustave's claim that he has better things to do, Verso quirks a brow. You're the one that came up to me, he could mention, but he doesn't. Instead, he just answers, "Yeah, probably."

It's not a request to stay, but it's not encouragement to go, either. He'd hate to distract Gustave from grooming his eyebrows.

[superniceone]

It's hard to turn off the feeling that you're racing the sand in the hourglass. That every hour needs to be meticulously planned, useful; so that a short life doesn't, by default, mean a life wasted.

Gustave sighs, tries to focus on the feeling of the grass tickling the back of his neck instead of the rolling anxiety that so often drives him forward. Finally, decisively, he states: "I'm not going to. Just saying - you know. I should."

[recreatable]

There's no one in the world who wants this to be more successful than Verso, and still he knows that spending every moment worrying won't make them any more likely to succeed. 67 expeditions before this, ones that were better thought-out and with more people. What's going to get them there isn't going to be productivity.

And, if he's being entirely honest with himself—which he rarely is—there's a benefit to procrastination, too. As long as they spend their time lying on the grass and looking up at the stars, they haven't yet failed.

"The Paintress will still be there tomorrow." It's a little melancholy, so he adds, "And I won't tell her we slacked off if you don't."

[superniceone]

"This might be the first time in my life I've been accused of slacking," Gustave muses. He seems to accept things there after a moment; this time, when he sits up, it's just to peel his jacket off. He wraps it in his arms, folding it into a makeshift pillow before he reclines onto the ground again.

He doesn't hate it, allowing himself the time to just breathe. "I assume Expedition 60 never slacked," he says after a while, the littlest bit of a smile in his voice. "Hopefully the weather was kind to them, at least."

[recreatable]

Verso imagines the 60s trekking through the snow near Monoco's station and can't suppress the smile on his face. If only word had made it back to Lumière of their near-success... but then again, that would have meant that every expedition after would follow in their footsteps. If eternity wasn't bad enough, an eternity of being plagued by nude expeditioners surely is.

Following Gustave's lead, he rolls onto his back, arms up behind his head as a cushion. "An expedition made entirely of fit, naked people?" There's amusement in his voice. "I bet they never slacked."

Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. He hopes it'll make Gustave laugh, or maybe horrify him. Either way, he won't be worrying about inexorable doom for a moment.

[superniceone]

It's a combination of both, actually, horrified laughter at the mental image, and Gustave hates that he finds it as funny as he does. The fact that they were as successful as they were is absurd to the point of comedy.

"I really can't imagine. Just some of the things we've done. Fighting in the gestral arena-" There's another bubble of laughter, tired and helpless. "Talk about a real show."