[Unaccustomed to strangers in general – and less so to polite ones who regard her with something completely absent suspicion and morbid curiosity – Alicia looks at first like she's not quite sure how to respond. But when Clive apologises, she fixes him with a look of sisterly exasperation and gestures to Verso. She's used to him monopolising his own time; at least he's not alone like he usually is after a Gommage, lost and depressed and almost hoping that no more Expeditioners land on the Continent's shores.
That look flares with pride when Clive mentions the piano playing, though, and she leans towards Verso, bumping him with her shoulder as if to say see, you should play more. He ignores it at first to address the needling, his sheepishness shifting into something more apologetic.]
Surprise?
[But then his focus return Alicia.]
Hey, you still owe me a song, remember? [And then back to Clive:] She likes to write.
[Very deliberately, he doesn't call her a writer. The title still hurts her after everything that happened, even if she's never met any of the real Writers herself. Alicia frowns at the reminder, though. Not in a way that suggests she's ashamed that she didn't bring the promised lyrics, but rather something more serious. Once more, she points to Clive; once more, she points to the manor. Then, she mimes being trapped in a cage. Verso closes his eyes and sinks back against the piano, ignoring how the keys cry out in protest.]
Ah, so that's why you're here.
[Alicia looks down at her feet, suddenly unable to look either of them in the eye, and Verso finds himself similarly struggling to meet Clive's own gaze. He manages easily enough, though.]
Renoir wants to use her to lure us into a trap.
[But then, that should be expected. He never was going to leave them alone after Clive summarily defeated him. Not wanting to leave her brother to explain everything, Alicia emphatically shake her head no at Clive. She won't help. She refuses.]
She'll knock him off our path. Should buy us some time.
[ Ah. Another realization－ Alicia doesn't speak. Or, well, not verbally. She's plenty capable of communicating in everything but words, and Clive watches the melody of her actions with fond familiarity, a sort of "been-there-done-that" in terms of the experience of being an older brother with a younger sibling who has a lot to say.
It's sweet, how Verso picks up on every minutiae that Alicia lays down. How he doesn't just listen, but volleys the ball back into her court. She writes, he plays.
It would've been lovely if she'd just been here because she missed her brother. Unfortunately, nothing in their lives will ever be that simple; the groan of piano keys under Verso's weight expertly expresses Clive's sentiment about Renoir and the nature of why Alicia was sent here.
Before he can stop himself: ] Does your father have no shame?
[ Weaponizing his children against one another? It's a sin of the highest caliber, as far as Clive is concerned. Alicia and Verso may struggle to look at him, but Clive's posture straightens against the injustice. Blue eyes blazing, he looks back and forth between the two before shaking his head in obvious disapproval. ]
What will he do to your sister if he finds that she didn't obey him? [ Nothing good, he thinks, if Renoir's treatment of Verso is anything to go by. ] ―I'll not have it. I'll go to him alone, if he's so curious as to what I'm capable of.
[Alicia still loves Renoir in ways Verso doesn't; she still loves Aline in ways that she doesn't deserve. So, when Clive starts speaking ill of him, her expression darkens and she retreats a bit more into herself, a bit more towards Verso. He places an arm around her shoulder and pulls her close.]
He won't hurt her. She's his hidden star.
[Which might not be the most important matter to address, but it's the one that he knows will resonate the most with Alicia, so Verso makes it his priority as well.
Also among his priorities is preventing her from having to hear what he and Clive might or might not do when it comes to dealing with Renoir. Right now, he's what Alicia has. He's all that she has had since Verso broke free from him and had to leave her behind to keep her safe. So, he fixes Clive with a look of not now as he diverts his attention to Alicia.]
It'll be all right. [He holds up his hand, pinky extended, which Alicia accepts after a moment's hesitation.] I promise. Why don't you head on home before Papa wakes up?
[After casting a skeptical glance towards both men, Alicia nods and leaves Verso and Clive to their conversation. Not that it continues right away; rather, Verso keeps watch until she disappears into the night and he can feel better about her being out of earshot.
When he turns back to Clive, exhaustion has settled into his features. Not that it ever really goes away, but.]
Sorry. Didn't want her to overhear. I don't think of Renoir as my father anymore but she does, so.
[A shrug. It's the majority of the reason why he doesn't take any aggressive action against his father. The rest being that his heart is still too soft, still too fond of the man he had been before the Fracture rent him asunder.]
And you're not going anything alone, okay? We'll figure this out together.
Edited (alicia don't leave your brother hanging like that) 2025-09-18 02:49 (UTC)
―struggles with it, visibly. On one hand, he understands it for the kindness it's meant to be, to spare his sister her feelings in the face of an insurmountable truth. And yet, seeing him send Alicia off back 'home' makes him think of Joshua in his childhood, cloistered within the cage of his mother's tyranny.
Still, after a few moments of emotional grappling, he understands that he's projecting. He sees the way the shroud of fatigue falls back onto Verso's shoulders, weighing him down the way it always seems to, and feels ashamed of having been the cause.
His lips pull tight for a second, then relax to neutral. Contrition seeps into his edges. ]
...I'm sorry. My outburst cut your time with your sister short.
[ And on the heels of apologizing about monopolizing Verso's time, to boot. They'd seemed so happy together, swaying to tuneless music and leaning on each other in their mutually-assured understanding.
Clive sighs, and shakes his head. ]
You could stay here with her. Keep each other safe.
[ Verso calls his father 'Renoir', and his mother 'the Paintress'. But he calls Alicia by her name, makes music with her, and that must count for something. They're family, and Clive really would rather face Renoir alone than make Verso go through the potential fallout of another family dispute. ]
[As soon as Clive apologises, Verso raises his hand to wave it away. He appreciates him coming to Alicia's defense. So few people do. Besides, it isn't like he was wrong; it's not as though he doesn't have every right to be angry. The Renoir Clive knows is an aggressive man, unflinching in his exertion of control over a son who's only sought freedom and agency. Not an overprotective father who would burn the world if it kept his children safe. Which is Verso's fault, of course, but it's also something he doesn't like talking about generally. After all the devastation Renoir has wrought against the Expeditioners, the last thing they need is some stranger humanising his actions.
Yet, now he doesn't really have many options. There's no way to address the reasons why Alicia doesn't stay with Verso without clarifying why she does remain with Renoir. So:]
I could, but she'd have to want that and she doesn't. She feels safer with him. Can't say that she's wrong.
[His lips attempt to twist into a smile; while it does bear some resemblance to one, it also looks a little like a grimace. Never has he faulted Alicia her choices, but never have they not hurt him a little, either. Lifting himself away from the piano, he offers a half-hearted shrug.]
Renoir's... kind to her. Yeah, he can be overbearing but things haven't been easy for her out here and he does what he can to give her a home away from everything.
[And all Verso offers is Nevron battles and existential angst and the constant understanding that no matter how much he and Alicia might want to be by each other's sides, they want different things in the end.]
[ Safer. A home away from everything. Again, Clive thinks that these are things that come with caveats, but he also can't blame Verso, either: he was also able to do so little for Joshua save for exist when he had his own oppressive parent to contend with.
Complicated. He still feels badly for having ruined what should have been precious time between siblings― talk of traps and diversions could have waited. When Verso moves away from the conjured piano, Clive moves towards it and sits himself down (taking up a lot more space than Alicia did) to run fingers over smooth keys. ]
...Difficult, [ Clive finally manages. He presses an index to white ivory, and presses down; the instrument hums low in agreement. ] And the only thing that would mollify Renoir [ not 'your father' this time, ] is to do as he bids, I assume.
[ Only then will Verso have even an inkling of a chance at being by Alicia's side: to be a bird in the same cage, playing the same role, fulfilling the same duties. An everlasting caricature of a family who needs nothing but themselves. ]
[Once, the concert pianist in Verso might have bristled at the sound of his piano being played by someone else's fingers; now, though, he finds himself hardly minding. If Clive can feel any degree of catharsis from the notes, then that's good. And even if he can't, Verso can still find beauty in how they resonate in the night, not quite harmonising with the katydids but creating something lovely in their contrast all the same.
Verso dwells in that feeling rather than answering Clive right away. The delay is barely perceptible, just a breath of a moment, just a fleeting clinging to a distant time.]
Pretty much. As far as he's concerned, people are either with him or against him. Perish the thought of finding middle ground.
[The last line is delivered with some degree of humour, but some bitterness as well. Idly, and not entirely consciously, Verso's hand rises to the scar over his eye, his finger grazing the curve of it beneath his lower eyelid, tracing along the swirl of white paint set like smoke against the black.]
And – [He lifts his finger from his cheek and points it at Clive as if he's about to say something exceptionally important.] – we do nothing. He's stubborn but he's not stupid. We recruit some Gestrals to keep an eye out for us and we'll be fine. Probably.
[What a wonderfully well-thought-out idea. Verso shrugs afterwards, acknowledging its flippancy, then continues.]
No, seriously? He wants us distracted. The more we worry about him, the less we focus on what matters in the broader scheme of things. We'd be playing into his hand by running.
[ Sword-callused fingers run over delicate keys. He's reminded of how the stack of Verso's spine felt under his hand, its gentle bumps and ridges; it warms him a bit to think of the instrument being a fundamental part of Verso, so easy to conjure that he must have done so without issue.
C-D-E-F-G. Clive traces without playing, stringing together an invisible arpeggio. ]
And what do you suppose he intends to do with me?
[ He can imagine what he wants with Verso: to wear him out, to make him tire of this cat-and-mouse chase, to whittle him down until he relents to what Renoir must perceive as his inevitable homecoming. The less Verso focuses on the existential nightmare that is this world, the easier it will be－ it just becomes a matter of "son rebelling against his father until he sees the error of his ways".
Less so, for Clive. He wants to change the order of things; he wants to see Verso free, in every sense of the word. ]
I don't suppose he keeps pet Nevrons in his atelier.
[Ah. Clive poses a question Verso doesn't want to answer. So much so that his first impulse is to play off of Clive's almost-joke and answer something tangential: that it's the other Renoir who keeps pet Nevrons in his atelier. That opens up another can of worms, though, and is insensitively flippant beyond that, so he bites it down.
His second impulse is to run his hand over his face. This one he follows, ending by curling his fingers around his chin and resting like that for a moment. Idly, he thinks about how Clea had tried to recruit him several years earlier and wonders if Clive is her way of changing his no into something closer to a yes – a thought that has him drawing his lips thin and breathing deeply in and out and in and out through his nose.
Ultimately, the impulse he acts upon is the one telling him to be honest. Clive deserves to know what he's up against, even if it's cruel.]
Kill you if he can. Try to find some other way to debilitate you or get you out of the Canvas if he can't. He'll do anything to keep the Paintress painting and you're the biggest threat to that we've seen. By a massive margin, might I add.
[His tone at the end is gentle and light, verging on humorous despite him feeling anything but. Nothing is safe in this world, nothing is sacred. If his Clea can be disappeared – the one who was painted alongside him, strong and immortal and graced with Maman's gifts – then anything is possible, any fate can be inflicted upon Clive, especially the ones that are the most unthinkable.
Verso is stubborn, though, and Clive is hope, so:]
But hey, look at me. [Soft and earnest eyes. Imploring brows slightly lifted. Head tilted at a slight angle.] I'm not about to let you have all the glory and do all the protecting. I've got you, too, yeah?
[ Oh, Clive isn't worried about Renoir killing him. It is, in fact, the sort of thing most people would want to do to a man who can spontaneously erupt into a Nevron, and honestly, he would've been more surprised if, say, Renoir had painted a giant monster-sized hamster wheel for Clive to run circles on to keep the lights on in his mansion. The simple antagonism is far easier to deal with than any potential exploitation for another nefarious plot.
So Clive doesn't flinch. This might possibly say something horrible about him: that, while he won't sell himself for peanuts, he also doesn't care overmuch for his own safety.
Clive turns his attention from his hands to Verso's face－ his tired, beautiful face, gentle and imploring－ and, for a moment, it almost seems like he doesn't quite register how he might need to be protected.
It comes and goes. The slightly glasslike incomprehension slides off his features, making way for something softer. Far be it for him to assume that he has this all figured out; that's hardly the case, and he wouldn't be here if not for Verso's patience and aid. ]
You always do.
[ Have him, in every way that counts. ] I would be lost without you.
[ Lifting one hand from ivory keys, he pats the space (not much of it left) next to him on the bench, inviting Verso back. ]
[It is mildly unsettling how apathetic Clive is about the prospect of his own death, how befuddled he seems about the thought that he might need protection out here, too. Verso supposes he can't judge, not when he dies as a matter of habit and has been subsisting on the fumes of self-sacrifice for decades. But he's also brimming with Dessendre hypocrisy, so his expression veers a little closer to frowning, though he has the decency to look away so Clive doesn't notice. Even if the simple act of diverting his gaze gives him away regardless.
Truly, there is no winning for Verso.
The confessions that follow – though wonderfully familiar now – warm him back up, and he leans down to press a kiss to Clive's forehead in continued affirmation, in the simple pleasure of a mutuality he never thought he'd experience again. At his request, Verso looks appraisingly down at the piano, gauging how much room there is for him, how much he'll have to stretch to be able to reach the furthest-away keys, how easily he'll be able to press down on the pedals.
And he laughs, patting Clive's shoulder as he does.]
We're gonna need to scoot the bench over first, big guy.
[While it is, perhaps, possible for Verso to play while slightly off-centre on the bench, the man is a perfectionist when it comes to the piano. And even though Clive has already heard him playing, he still wants to create a good impression, a proper impression; he wants him to understand that in a better world, a safer world, a world where catastrophe didn't spawn from his existence, this is the kind of man Verso would be: a man who wishes to bring beauty into the world. A man who wants to be heard through his song. So, he is completely fucking serious about the scooting.]
―Is not the reaction Clive has to being told to scoot, aware as he is of his size in relation to most others. It's a heartening response after Verso's gaze slides away to the side for a beat (did he say something wrong?), and falls closer in line with the kiss that dots onto Clive's forehead. Warm and sweet, as Verso so often is to him.
Which is why the slight flirt comes easily: ] You could sit on my knees.
[ Or between them, if Verso would prefer. A verbal wink-nudge, though Clive is too sincere on a bad day for it to sound like much of one. With that semi-half-maybe-actually-serious suggestion out of the way, he slides to make room on the far side of the bench, nudging as close to the higher keys as he can manage without slipping off of the narrow space altogether.
And, should the gentleman with his pianist shoulders (Clive sees it now, the graceful set of his posture; context is so lovely) oblige him, he'll crane sideways to kiss Verso's temple once he settles. ]
The stage is yours, monsieur.
[ Because again, in this crossover home, we respect the French. ]
[An equally intentioned flirt, though of course Verso can't help but infuse his own brand of trouble into it, taking his place beside Clive with a casualness that belies his message. But no, no, they can banter more later. It's Verso's fingers that itch the most, raring to reveal the beauty of the keys as they sing out against the night.
Not only does he permit the kiss but he leans into it, content, letting a little rumble rise from his throat. Though the night has been far from uneventful, getting to spend some time with his little sister and now sitting here with Clive, enjoying a peace that Renoir would see them both denied, is nice. Hope in its own right. Home and place and belonging in exactly the way Clive had mentioned days earlier.]
Merci, mon gros.
[This time he's calling him fat. Thank you for making that an actual term of endearment, France.
Now properly seated before the piano, Verso rolls his shoulders, stretches his back a bit, wiggles his fingers to dismiss any lingering tension. It buys him some time, too, to figure out which song he wants to play for Clive. So many of his original compositions are inspired by or dedicated to his family, and that feels inappropriate. The bulk of the rest he composed for the Lumiere opera which doesn't feel much better but that just means he'll have to take the time to write something for Clive later. For now, though, he needs to go with something so he chooses one he'd written after the Fracturebecause i say so, one he comes back to often when he feels himself slipping away. He doesn't feel that way now, but that's the point; he can enjoy it differently, this time. He can put a twist on its playing and let his heart express itself that way.]
[ A light puff of breath, amused, at mon gros, but that's all the sound Clive makes before he settles into his active silence. Preferring this― the thing that woke him from what should have been mudlike sleep, primordial and unthinking― to the twist of Verso's lips when he spoke (speaks) about Renoir, the hard choices Verso keeps having to make in the presence of his sister, who he adores but can't keep.
A part of Clive hopes that Alicia might come back to sway with her brother again, to pick up where Clive interrupted; a more selfish part of Clive wants to hold this moment sacred for himself. He watches the slow, measured journey of Verso's hand across the keys, mournful at first. Then the fingers climb higher, still into a near-whisper, hold the melody's breath―
―until they waterfall, repeating the initial tune with more conviction and force. A musical promise.
It's beautiful, all the way to the last note. A lingering thing that almost suggests more, or a repetition. Clive exhales once he realizes that Verso is done, and shakes his head a little in admiration.
Amazing, he murmurs. He leans back, head tipped, taking in Verso's well-sculpted profile. ]
...Do you know what it is that makes you so remarkable?
[The song ends but Verso's playing continues; softer now, more meandering, experimental in ways his whimsy wasn't when it was Alicia by his side. It's been decades since he played for anyone besides her – decades more still since his audience wasn't entirely comprised of Dessendres – and the inspiration to compose strikes him in ways it hasn't in a long time. Obviously, the thought to write a song for Clive had existed in his head before he started playing, but now it exists as its own movements, its own melody, melancholic yet hopeful, like gazing upon a tragedy with the understanding that it's time to rebuild.
He keeps feeling his way through it even as Clive speaks, though it becomes something of a mask, then, a way to conceal how his heart quickens and his expression softens just a bit while he awaits the delivery of more words that he isn't sure he's going to deserve. Words he wants to hear all the same.]
What, you mean besides my mischievous charm and rugged good looks?
[There's something almost cautious to his tone, but not in a bad way. Clive's developed a certain knack for knocking him off guard, and Verso's developed a certain fondness for how it reasserts his sense of safety. Still, he never knows what to expect, so his wondering gets a bit ahead of him.]
Besides those, [ is warmly exasperated. Which isn't to say that Clive doesn't think Verso charming or handsome (yes to both of those things, emphatically): they just happen to be obvious to anyone with eyes, in Clive's opinion.
He doesn't mind that Verso keeps playing as they converse. The melody is meandering but pleasant, and it proves the point that Clive wants to make. Which is: ] What I find remarkable is the depth of your feeling.
[ Irrefutable, he thinks. No man with a void for a soul can make music like this. It makes Clive consider, for a moment, what it would have been like if there was another life in which he passed by the boulangerie in Lumiere and looked up to see a handsome young man playing the piano in the loft above it.
He's certain that he would have felt the same Something that's still sitting in his chest, even now. Warm and silver and pulsing.
He goes on. ]
To have seen and experienced the things you have, and to not have made your heart stone. [ Back to what Clive had said on the night he should have died; how anyone lives with all of this. A cruel question, he now knows in hindsight, but the answer was as graceful as Verso always is. ] To know tragedy, and not to have grown thorns.
[ The way Renoir has, or the Paintress has. All of them, externalizing all of their grief in ways that cause more of it, while Verso―
―he makes masks. He makes music. He feels. ]
It's remarkable. [ For years and years and years with all of this, alone. ] I will never know anyone stronger than you.
[This Verso has memories of the other's childhood. Of being scolded over his sensitivity. Of being reminded, time and again, that lives in the canvases were soulless and less real than the lives outside of them. Depth of feeling was not a desirable trait for the Dessendres, who needed to cultivate a very specific public image, one of being above certain manners of non-artistic self-expression. So, he had retreated into himself, wearing masks around his family and confiding in dogs and plush toys when he needed to feel something more... real, more himself.
It's a habit so deeply ingrained that this Verso carries it inside of himself, too. Smile, make jokes, perform. Choose your masks wisely and none will be the wiser. Never has it felt like strength. Stubbornness, sure. A sense of responsibility. There's truth in the way he loves that he's never been able to lie about, and he likes that about himself, sometimes, too, though given everything else it feels more like a weakness than anything. Usually, though, he just hears Julie's words echoing through his mind – fucking coward – and lets them take over whatever other truths might exist.
Those words don't come to him now.
He wants to keep playing the piano but can't; his fingers still and he drops his hands to his lap. He wants to say something but the words don't come; soft, incredulous laughter rises instead, like he isn't sure what else he expected to happen besides being completely blown over. This is who you are, Clive keeps telling him, and more and more, his words take the resonance away from everyone else's; more and more, Verso makes good on his promise to believe him.
Of course, it's imperfect. There are things Clive doesn't know and actions that Verso can never forgive himself for taking. But the simple ability to hear what's being said and to not only understand where it's coming from, but to know that it's been enhanced – not impeded – by his lack of masks is freeing, even as it keeps his words locked up inside of him.]
Oh, come on. Now you're actually cheating. What am I supposed to say to that?
[There is a lightness to his voice, a lilt, but also a fragility as well. Which feeds into Verso's doubts that he's not as strong as Clive thinks, but which would also, he suspects, only serve as corroboration for Clive. Alas.]
[ Anabella had always called Clive her husband's son. Not hers. Too willful, perhaps, for her liking: principled in a way she didn't like, even when he was trying his best to please her. Annoyed by Clive's continued efforts to have her love him, then resentful when he resigned himself to her disdain. He knows what someone who is incapable of feeling is, because he was raised by one. And because of her, he almost turned to stone. Uncle Byron had often told him that he was such a sad child before Joshua was born, that they would go an entire season without seeing him smile, not once.
Humans are such fragile things. But it's this fragility that makes them lean, and nurture, and flourish.
So, yes. Verso positing his lack of strength would only reinforce Clive's pigheaded beliefs. (Dump his dumb ass, Verso.) It would be very human of him, and in turn, would be a very courageous display of self-reflection.
A smile, as he takes one of Verso's hands and kisses along its fingers. ]
"Well, obviously." [ He suggests, as a potential answer. (Something meta here about it being easy to mimic Verso's tone of voice.) ] "I'm very strong, and handsome, and musically gifted".
[ With affectionate humor, as he punctuates each ridiculous self-aggrandizing suggestion with another kiss to loosely-curled joints. The serious answer, though, is: ]
It's my feedback. Regarding your music, I mean. [ He tips his head, and it must be annoying how coy it isn't. ]
[Obviously, Clive sees some sort of value in Verso. More value than Verso can recall anyone seeing in him, not in a self-deprecating way but simply as a matter of experience. As Clive kisses his way across his fingers, Verso can't help but wonder what he's offering up in return that's earned him this much fondness, this much affection.
A part of him thinks to reciprocate – to lavish Clive with his own sweet praises and chaste kisses, or to take his seat on those earlier-offered knees and hold him close – but he doesn't want to overtake Clive's moment, doesn't want to shift the spotlight off of himself when Clive seems so content in how he's using it to highlight Verso's features. It's another lesson in vulnerability, he supposes. Another opportunity to stop being so afraid of the consequences of having to live up to someone else's ever-increasing expectations and start discovering what it means to meet them when they're always within reach.
Still, he wishes he was better; still, he craves to return the favour.
For now, though, he laughs at the impression.]
Hey. Hey, that doesn't sound like me. [Au contraire, it sounds eerily like him and he fucking knows it. Except:] You forgot charming.
[The last of Clive's comments, though, he sits with for a while. He has always wanted to be seen through his music; it's a large part of the reason why the bulk of his repertoire are songs that he and the other Verso had written for their respective families, who often saw what they wanted to see, particularly Renoir and Aline. But, right now it doesn't feel like enough. As much as his music reveals, it leaves so much more open to interpretation. And he wants to leave less room for that.
So, when Clive tips his head and claims everything he said before was feedback for the music, Verso laughs again – lighter now, more at peace – and moves in for a kiss that's gentle and expressive and vulnerable in ways he's yet to be, even when he was crying. He lets his lips linger over Clive's for a moment after breaking the kiss, then leans back again and shrugs his hands.]
[ Feelings without purpose, feelings without direction. The disarming reality of simply being, without needing a reason or a goal or a mission. Clive has not tried to justify his draw to Verso in any way, though he could give reasons if he had to; still, the tangible why-s pale in comparison to what his soul knows.
I love you, Clive doesn't say. (Famously bad at just getting it out and done with, the stupid oaf.) The sentiment is still a diamond-precious Something that he nurses for a better day, when he can be sure that it won't weigh on Verso with the bluntness of its finality. When he himself is sure that he's permitted to say it.
For now, their lips meet, and it's more than enough. It's everything, actually, coming from a man who was only comfortable telling the truth when he thought it'd die with Clive in the morning. Verso presses his honesty against Clive's mouth, and nothing has ever felt better than being able to breathe that feeling in.
(Well. Almost nothing. He still fantasizes about Verso's piano-trimmed (new information!) nails along his back.) ]
...Your sister might find us in a compromising position if we keep giving each other feedback.
[ A laugh, when their kiss breaks. Soft, equally vulnerable, and just a bit shy despite the content of his words. His hand squeezes over Verso's, and relents. ]
Will she return again, do you think?
[ Not tonight, even. Just in general. He'd like it if she felt comfortable enough. ]
[The topic returns to Alicia and a different kind of softness overtakes Verso: sadder, differently self-conscious, hinting at a unique set of questions about worth and deservingness. Whether she'll return has never really been a question – they care about each other too much for either of them to consider any of their meetings the last – but when is often on his mind. Sometimes it's weeks, but they've gone over a year without seeing each other before.]
I hope so. [A pause. A shrug as if the burden of missing his sister isn't heavy.] She still owes me those lyrics.
[That's not where he wants to leave things, though – it isn't where he should leave them. If Clive is going to become his constant companion, then he deserves to know what to expect. So, with a gentle sigh, Verso elaborates.]
We don't see each other often. She spends most of her time at the manor – slightly different manor than the one I took you to, for the record – and I'm not allowed inside, so...
[They see each other when she wants them to see each other. Even when Verso visits the Reacher, hoping to find her at its peak, she is there far less often than not. There have even been occasions when he's felt the telltale sense of not-quite-rightness of time having been stopped and restarted and found himself alone with the Axon and with the knowledge that Alicia slipped away because she hadn't wanted to see him. It hurts enough that it almost shows, but he's able to hold most of it back and mask what little of it slips through.]
It's always been up to her, and she seems more comfortable spacing things out.
[Which is a bit tangential to the question Clive asked, but then it feels better to get that out of the way now while he's mired in these thoughts instead of potentially having to grapple with it later.]
[ It's still hard to wrap his mind around all the complexities surrounding Verso's family situation, and this one proves particularly difficult. There is love there, Clive thinks, between Verso and his sister, but there's also caution too― whether that caution is attributable to Renoir and his retribution or something else, he can't quite tell.
A sad thing, that they're so bound to these invisible rules. But for years, he and Joshua had also been separated due to circumstance, so he can't speak much on it; he can only nod, grateful for this bit of personal information that Verso has felt he could put in Clive's hands. ]
I hope I haven't made things more difficult for you.
[ Sincerely. He remembers the uncomfortable shrinking when he'd expressed dislike for her father, and how skeptical she'd seemed upon being dismissed― if it's the case that Verso already has to wait to see Alicia between long stretches of time, on her terms, Clive hates to think that he's unwittingly made those intervals even longer.
Then again, Clive existing has probably made things harder for a lot of people, so. He supposes that being a headache is the baseline. (Back to childhood basics.) His expression turns appropriately contrite again, and he tips his chin up towards the sky and sighs. ]
It seems the closer I get to you, the farther I drive you from your family.
[ And maybe that's the point― he still wants to save Verso, more than anything else― but he can't be sure that this is the right way. Or if there's a right way. ]
[Clive's mood shifts and Verso's heart clenches. No, no, that isn't it at all, almost immediately spills forth, driven by the impulse to extinguish the flames of self-doubt before they grow more rampaging, before they destroy the scaffolding he and Clive have been haphazardly building around themselves. It feels dismissive, though, insubstantial. Like a reflexive I'm fine to evade a darker truth despite there being no dark truths at play here.
So, Verso takes Clive's hand in his own, not to hold it but to try and centre Clive in his presence. In the way he runs his thumb in half circles along his palm, too, soft and soothing, providing Verso with his own grounding as he convinces himself to reveal some of Alicia's secrets along with his own.
But first, an easy:]
Never. The closer you get to me, the closer I am to being myself. And if I'm going to help my family, that's what I need – I need you, not... more make-believe.
[He's so fucking tired of pretending to be his mother's Verso, his father's subordinate, a happy man grateful for being given a second chance at life and unbothered by how many sacrifices are required to keep him going. That's part of the reason, too, why he and Alicia have grown in separate ways; he can't hide his hurts anymore and she can't bear the sight of them.]
You want to know why Alicia finds it hard to be around me? The real Alicia is the reason why the real Verso died. He gave his life for her. And when Maman recreated her here, she made sure she'd carry that guilt with her.
[ A soft touch, contrasted by the sledgehammer-like truth that hits, vibrates, shatters. Clive has suspected, and Verso has all but said so between the margins of his words, but the use of real and recreated still fall like anvils.
He hates it. He hates it, he hates it. He fucking hates it. Despises it. Can't fathom it. He loathes the thought of it, and what it means for Verso, and now what it means for Alicia, to be punished for her brother's sacrifice. ]
The mask, [ he finally rasps. ] Her voice.
[ It's fucking― god, it's fucking nauseating. Faced with the unfillable absence of one child, Verso's mother mutilated another; she has imbued even her fantasy life with this knifelike resentment. ]
...How could the Paintress do this? [ Death, pain, and more death. This entire world is so steeped in it, and it's small wonder why. The architect of it is blind with it all. ] Does she think herself the only one who suffers?
[ How many mothers and fathers and siblings has the Paintress taken from the people of Lumiere? Perhaps it doesn't matter, if they're all just figments of her imagination. But Verso, who stands at the center of it all, is being buffeted by the storm from all sides: made to be real, but made all the same.
Clive's next breath threatens to break, but he regulates it with a shake to the head. He wants to recoil, but not from Verso― never from Verso. ]
Neither you nor your sister should be made to be arbiters for her pain. It is unthinkable.
[As Clive retreats into himself, Verso continues fidgeting with his hand, twisting it around, now, focusing on his fingers, feeling the texture of his calluses and taking in the healed and healing lines where sharp thing split open soft skin. Distracting himself from his own descent into loathing. Holding the memories of his own discovery of the truth at bay. These are familiar things, painfully so, and he doesn't want to submit to the madness they inspire; he needs to hold himself together. To be strong for Clive and for Alicia, too, even if she's not here to see him.]
Stolen from her.
[Clive doesn't need the emphasis, but Verso is compelled to put it to words all the same. So few people ever rise to Alicia's defense, especially when up against Aline. Even Renoir can be quicker to mollify his wife than to validate his daughter. But even if Alicia might rather keep these things secret, Verso still believes that her truths deserve to be acknowledged for what they are.
Addressing the rest of what Clive says is far more difficult. There's no denying that Aline's approach suggests her own grief is something exceptional. It's kept her from her real family – from her still-living children – for decades. It's stained the whole of the Canvas with so much death that its existence is inescapable. Verso himself has become an afterthought; he's not even sure if she misses him anymore or if she's too caught up in her war with Renoir to care about anything else but winning.]
At the very least, she thinks that what she wants is all that matters.
[But there's something more than that. The way that Painters are raised to see the lives they create. That detachment, that dehumanization, that ease with which they create and erase to their pleasure, because art should have no limits and brushstrokes can't have souls.
Except they do. They do.]
And it's not so unthinkable to them. Canvases are... Most of them exist so Painters can live out their fantasies. It's almost never about creating something real.
[Yet here they are, real as anything. It's wrong. It's cruel. It's a disgusting misuse of a power that could have been put to more beautiful uses – that was put to one before Verso died and Aline moved to corrupt what remained of his soul.]
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
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That look flares with pride when Clive mentions the piano playing, though, and she leans towards Verso, bumping him with her shoulder as if to say see, you should play more. He ignores it at first to address the needling, his sheepishness shifting into something more apologetic.]
Surprise?
[But then his focus return Alicia.]
Hey, you still owe me a song, remember? [And then back to Clive:] She likes to write.
[Very deliberately, he doesn't call her a writer. The title still hurts her after everything that happened, even if she's never met any of the real Writers herself. Alicia frowns at the reminder, though. Not in a way that suggests she's ashamed that she didn't bring the promised lyrics, but rather something more serious. Once more, she points to Clive; once more, she points to the manor. Then, she mimes being trapped in a cage. Verso closes his eyes and sinks back against the piano, ignoring how the keys cry out in protest.]
Ah, so that's why you're here.
[Alicia looks down at her feet, suddenly unable to look either of them in the eye, and Verso finds himself similarly struggling to meet Clive's own gaze. He manages easily enough, though.]
Renoir wants to use her to lure us into a trap.
[But then, that should be expected. He never was going to leave them alone after Clive summarily defeated him. Not wanting to leave her brother to explain everything, Alicia emphatically shake her head no at Clive. She won't help. She refuses.]
She'll knock him off our path. Should buy us some time.
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It's sweet, how Verso picks up on every minutiae that Alicia lays down. How he doesn't just listen, but volleys the ball back into her court. She writes, he plays.
It would've been lovely if she'd just been here because she missed her brother. Unfortunately, nothing in their lives will ever be that simple; the groan of piano keys under Verso's weight expertly expresses Clive's sentiment about Renoir and the nature of why Alicia was sent here.
Before he can stop himself: ] Does your father have no shame?
[ Weaponizing his children against one another? It's a sin of the highest caliber, as far as Clive is concerned. Alicia and Verso may struggle to look at him, but Clive's posture straightens against the injustice. Blue eyes blazing, he looks back and forth between the two before shaking his head in obvious disapproval. ]
What will he do to your sister if he finds that she didn't obey him? [ Nothing good, he thinks, if Renoir's treatment of Verso is anything to go by. ] ―I'll not have it. I'll go to him alone, if he's so curious as to what I'm capable of.
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He won't hurt her. She's his hidden star.
[Which might not be the most important matter to address, but it's the one that he knows will resonate the most with Alicia, so Verso makes it his priority as well.
Also among his priorities is preventing her from having to hear what he and Clive might or might not do when it comes to dealing with Renoir. Right now, he's what Alicia has. He's all that she has had since Verso broke free from him and had to leave her behind to keep her safe. So, he fixes Clive with a look of not now as he diverts his attention to Alicia.]
It'll be all right. [He holds up his hand, pinky extended, which Alicia accepts after a moment's hesitation.] I promise. Why don't you head on home before Papa wakes up?
[After casting a skeptical glance towards both men, Alicia nods and leaves Verso and Clive to their conversation. Not that it continues right away; rather, Verso keeps watch until she disappears into the night and he can feel better about her being out of earshot.
When he turns back to Clive, exhaustion has settled into his features. Not that it ever really goes away, but.]
Sorry. Didn't want her to overhear. I don't think of Renoir as my father anymore but she does, so.
[A shrug. It's the majority of the reason why he doesn't take any aggressive action against his father. The rest being that his heart is still too soft, still too fond of the man he had been before the Fracture rent him asunder.]
And you're not going anything alone, okay? We'll figure this out together.
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―struggles with it, visibly. On one hand, he understands it for the kindness it's meant to be, to spare his sister her feelings in the face of an insurmountable truth. And yet, seeing him send Alicia off back 'home' makes him think of Joshua in his childhood, cloistered within the cage of his mother's tyranny.
Still, after a few moments of emotional grappling, he understands that he's projecting. He sees the way the shroud of fatigue falls back onto Verso's shoulders, weighing him down the way it always seems to, and feels ashamed of having been the cause.
His lips pull tight for a second, then relax to neutral. Contrition seeps into his edges. ]
...I'm sorry. My outburst cut your time with your sister short.
[ And on the heels of apologizing about monopolizing Verso's time, to boot. They'd seemed so happy together, swaying to tuneless music and leaning on each other in their mutually-assured understanding.
Clive sighs, and shakes his head. ]
You could stay here with her. Keep each other safe.
[ Verso calls his father 'Renoir', and his mother 'the Paintress'. But he calls Alicia by her name, makes music with her, and that must count for something. They're family, and Clive really would rather face Renoir alone than make Verso go through the potential fallout of another family dispute. ]
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Yet, now he doesn't really have many options. There's no way to address the reasons why Alicia doesn't stay with Verso without clarifying why she does remain with Renoir. So:]
I could, but she'd have to want that and she doesn't. She feels safer with him. Can't say that she's wrong.
[His lips attempt to twist into a smile; while it does bear some resemblance to one, it also looks a little like a grimace. Never has he faulted Alicia her choices, but never have they not hurt him a little, either. Lifting himself away from the piano, he offers a half-hearted shrug.]
Renoir's... kind to her. Yeah, he can be overbearing but things haven't been easy for her out here and he does what he can to give her a home away from everything.
[And all Verso offers is Nevron battles and existential angst and the constant understanding that no matter how much he and Alicia might want to be by each other's sides, they want different things in the end.]
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Complicated. He still feels badly for having ruined what should have been precious time between siblings― talk of traps and diversions could have waited. When Verso moves away from the conjured piano, Clive moves towards it and sits himself down (taking up a lot more space than Alicia did) to run fingers over smooth keys. ]
...Difficult, [ Clive finally manages. He presses an index to white ivory, and presses down; the instrument hums low in agreement. ] And the only thing that would mollify Renoir [ not 'your father' this time, ] is to do as he bids, I assume.
[ Only then will Verso have even an inkling of a chance at being by Alicia's side: to be a bird in the same cage, playing the same role, fulfilling the same duties. An everlasting caricature of a family who needs nothing but themselves. ]
And what do we do? Do we keep running?
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Verso dwells in that feeling rather than answering Clive right away. The delay is barely perceptible, just a breath of a moment, just a fleeting clinging to a distant time.]
Pretty much. As far as he's concerned, people are either with him or against him. Perish the thought of finding middle ground.
[The last line is delivered with some degree of humour, but some bitterness as well. Idly, and not entirely consciously, Verso's hand rises to the scar over his eye, his finger grazing the curve of it beneath his lower eyelid, tracing along the swirl of white paint set like smoke against the black.]
And – [He lifts his finger from his cheek and points it at Clive as if he's about to say something exceptionally important.] – we do nothing. He's stubborn but he's not stupid. We recruit some Gestrals to keep an eye out for us and we'll be fine. Probably.
[What a wonderfully well-thought-out idea. Verso shrugs afterwards, acknowledging its flippancy, then continues.]
No, seriously? He wants us distracted. The more we worry about him, the less we focus on what matters in the broader scheme of things. We'd be playing into his hand by running.
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C-D-E-F-G. Clive traces without playing, stringing together an invisible arpeggio. ]
And what do you suppose he intends to do with me?
[ He can imagine what he wants with Verso: to wear him out, to make him tire of this cat-and-mouse chase, to whittle him down until he relents to what Renoir must perceive as his inevitable homecoming. The less Verso focuses on the existential nightmare that is this world, the easier it will be－ it just becomes a matter of "son rebelling against his father until he sees the error of his ways".
Less so, for Clive. He wants to change the order of things; he wants to see Verso free, in every sense of the word. ]
I don't suppose he keeps pet Nevrons in his atelier.
[ Ha ha. ]
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His second impulse is to run his hand over his face. This one he follows, ending by curling his fingers around his chin and resting like that for a moment. Idly, he thinks about how Clea had tried to recruit him several years earlier and wonders if Clive is her way of changing his no into something closer to a yes – a thought that has him drawing his lips thin and breathing deeply in and out and in and out through his nose.
Ultimately, the impulse he acts upon is the one telling him to be honest. Clive deserves to know what he's up against, even if it's cruel.]
Kill you if he can. Try to find some other way to debilitate you or get you out of the Canvas if he can't. He'll do anything to keep the Paintress painting and you're the biggest threat to that we've seen. By a massive margin, might I add.
[His tone at the end is gentle and light, verging on humorous despite him feeling anything but. Nothing is safe in this world, nothing is sacred. If his Clea can be disappeared – the one who was painted alongside him, strong and immortal and graced with Maman's gifts – then anything is possible, any fate can be inflicted upon Clive, especially the ones that are the most unthinkable.
Verso is stubborn, though, and Clive is hope, so:]
But hey, look at me. [Soft and earnest eyes. Imploring brows slightly lifted. Head tilted at a slight angle.] I'm not about to let you have all the glory and do all the protecting. I've got you, too, yeah?
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So Clive doesn't flinch. This might possibly say something horrible about him: that, while he won't sell himself for peanuts, he also doesn't care overmuch for his own safety.
Clive turns his attention from his hands to Verso's face－ his tired, beautiful face, gentle and imploring－ and, for a moment, it almost seems like he doesn't quite register how he might need to be protected.
It comes and goes. The slightly glasslike incomprehension slides off his features, making way for something softer. Far be it for him to assume that he has this all figured out; that's hardly the case, and he wouldn't be here if not for Verso's patience and aid. ]
You always do.
[ Have him, in every way that counts. ] I would be lost without you.
[ Lifting one hand from ivory keys, he pats the space (not much of it left) next to him on the bench, inviting Verso back. ]
Will you play for me?
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Truly, there is no winning for Verso.
The confessions that follow – though wonderfully familiar now – warm him back up, and he leans down to press a kiss to Clive's forehead in continued affirmation, in the simple pleasure of a mutuality he never thought he'd experience again. At his request, Verso looks appraisingly down at the piano, gauging how much room there is for him, how much he'll have to stretch to be able to reach the furthest-away keys, how easily he'll be able to press down on the pedals.
And he laughs, patting Clive's shoulder as he does.]
We're gonna need to scoot the bench over first, big guy.
[While it is, perhaps, possible for Verso to play while slightly off-centre on the bench, the man is a perfectionist when it comes to the piano. And even though Clive has already heard him playing, he still wants to create a good impression, a proper impression; he wants him to understand that in a better world, a safer world, a world where catastrophe didn't spawn from his existence, this is the kind of man Verso would be: a man who wishes to bring beauty into the world. A man who wants to be heard through his song. So, he is completely fucking serious about the scooting.]
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―Is not the reaction Clive has to being told to scoot, aware as he is of his size in relation to most others. It's a heartening response after Verso's gaze slides away to the side for a beat (did he say something wrong?), and falls closer in line with the kiss that dots onto Clive's forehead. Warm and sweet, as Verso so often is to him.
Which is why the slight flirt comes easily: ] You could sit on my knees.
[ Or between them, if Verso would prefer. A verbal wink-nudge, though Clive is too sincere on a bad day for it to sound like much of one. With that semi-half-maybe-actually-serious suggestion out of the way, he slides to make room on the far side of the bench, nudging as close to the higher keys as he can manage without slipping off of the narrow space altogether.
And, should the gentleman with his pianist shoulders (Clive sees it now, the graceful set of his posture; context is so lovely) oblige him, he'll crane sideways to kiss Verso's temple once he settles. ]
The stage is yours, monsieur.
[ Because again, in this crossover home, we respect the French. ]
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[An equally intentioned flirt, though of course Verso can't help but infuse his own brand of trouble into it, taking his place beside Clive with a casualness that belies his message. But no, no, they can banter more later. It's Verso's fingers that itch the most, raring to reveal the beauty of the keys as they sing out against the night.
Not only does he permit the kiss but he leans into it, content, letting a little rumble rise from his throat. Though the night has been far from uneventful, getting to spend some time with his little sister and now sitting here with Clive, enjoying a peace that Renoir would see them both denied, is nice. Hope in its own right. Home and place and belonging in exactly the way Clive had mentioned days earlier.]
Merci, mon gros.
[This time he's calling him fat. Thank you for making that an actual term of endearment, France.
Now properly seated before the piano, Verso rolls his shoulders, stretches his back a bit, wiggles his fingers to dismiss any lingering tension. It buys him some time, too, to figure out which song he wants to play for Clive. So many of his original compositions are inspired by or dedicated to his family, and that feels inappropriate. The bulk of the rest he composed for the Lumiere opera which doesn't feel much better but that just means he'll have to take the time to write something for Clive later. For now, though, he needs to go with something so he chooses one he'd written after the Fracture
because i say so, one he comes back to often when he feels himself slipping away. He doesn't feel that way now, but that's the point; he can enjoy it differently, this time. He can put a twist on its playing and let his heart express itself that way.]no subject
A part of Clive hopes that Alicia might come back to sway with her brother again, to pick up where Clive interrupted; a more selfish part of Clive wants to hold this moment sacred for himself. He watches the slow, measured journey of Verso's hand across the keys, mournful at first. Then the fingers climb higher, still into a near-whisper, hold the melody's breath―
―until they waterfall, repeating the initial tune with more conviction and force. A musical promise.
It's beautiful, all the way to the last note. A lingering thing that almost suggests more, or a repetition. Clive exhales once he realizes that Verso is done, and shakes his head a little in admiration.
Amazing, he murmurs. He leans back, head tipped, taking in Verso's well-sculpted profile. ]
...Do you know what it is that makes you so remarkable?
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He keeps feeling his way through it even as Clive speaks, though it becomes something of a mask, then, a way to conceal how his heart quickens and his expression softens just a bit while he awaits the delivery of more words that he isn't sure he's going to deserve. Words he wants to hear all the same.]
What, you mean besides my mischievous charm and rugged good looks?
[There's something almost cautious to his tone, but not in a bad way. Clive's developed a certain knack for knocking him off guard, and Verso's developed a certain fondness for how it reasserts his sense of safety. Still, he never knows what to expect, so his wondering gets a bit ahead of him.]
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He doesn't mind that Verso keeps playing as they converse. The melody is meandering but pleasant, and it proves the point that Clive wants to make. Which is: ] What I find remarkable is the depth of your feeling.
[ Irrefutable, he thinks. No man with a void for a soul can make music like this. It makes Clive consider, for a moment, what it would have been like if there was another life in which he passed by the boulangerie in Lumiere and looked up to see a handsome young man playing the piano in the loft above it.
He's certain that he would have felt the same Something that's still sitting in his chest, even now. Warm and silver and pulsing.
He goes on. ]
To have seen and experienced the things you have, and to not have made your heart stone. [ Back to what Clive had said on the night he should have died; how anyone lives with all of this. A cruel question, he now knows in hindsight, but the answer was as graceful as Verso always is. ] To know tragedy, and not to have grown thorns.
[ The way Renoir has, or the Paintress has. All of them, externalizing all of their grief in ways that cause more of it, while Verso―
―he makes masks. He makes music. He feels. ]
It's remarkable. [ For years and years and years with all of this, alone. ] I will never know anyone stronger than you.
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It's a habit so deeply ingrained that this Verso carries it inside of himself, too. Smile, make jokes, perform. Choose your masks wisely and none will be the wiser. Never has it felt like strength. Stubbornness, sure. A sense of responsibility. There's truth in the way he loves that he's never been able to lie about, and he likes that about himself, sometimes, too, though given everything else it feels more like a weakness than anything. Usually, though, he just hears Julie's words echoing through his mind – fucking coward – and lets them take over whatever other truths might exist.
Those words don't come to him now.
He wants to keep playing the piano but can't; his fingers still and he drops his hands to his lap. He wants to say something but the words don't come; soft, incredulous laughter rises instead, like he isn't sure what else he expected to happen besides being completely blown over. This is who you are, Clive keeps telling him, and more and more, his words take the resonance away from everyone else's; more and more, Verso makes good on his promise to believe him.
Of course, it's imperfect. There are things Clive doesn't know and actions that Verso can never forgive himself for taking. But the simple ability to hear what's being said and to not only understand where it's coming from, but to know that it's been enhanced – not impeded – by his lack of masks is freeing, even as it keeps his words locked up inside of him.]
Oh, come on. Now you're actually cheating. What am I supposed to say to that?
[There is a lightness to his voice, a lilt, but also a fragility as well. Which feeds into Verso's doubts that he's not as strong as Clive thinks, but which would also, he suspects, only serve as corroboration for Clive. Alas.]
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Humans are such fragile things. But it's this fragility that makes them lean, and nurture, and flourish.
So, yes. Verso positing his lack of strength would only reinforce Clive's pigheaded beliefs. (Dump his dumb ass, Verso.) It would be very human of him, and in turn, would be a very courageous display of self-reflection.
A smile, as he takes one of Verso's hands and kisses along its fingers. ]
"Well, obviously." [ He suggests, as a potential answer. (Something meta here about it being easy to mimic Verso's tone of voice.) ] "I'm very strong, and handsome, and musically gifted".
[ With affectionate humor, as he punctuates each ridiculous self-aggrandizing suggestion with another kiss to loosely-curled joints. The serious answer, though, is: ]
It's my feedback. Regarding your music, I mean. [ He tips his head, and it must be annoying how coy it isn't. ]
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A part of him thinks to reciprocate – to lavish Clive with his own sweet praises and chaste kisses, or to take his seat on those earlier-offered knees and hold him close – but he doesn't want to overtake Clive's moment, doesn't want to shift the spotlight off of himself when Clive seems so content in how he's using it to highlight Verso's features. It's another lesson in vulnerability, he supposes. Another opportunity to stop being so afraid of the consequences of having to live up to someone else's ever-increasing expectations and start discovering what it means to meet them when they're always within reach.
Still, he wishes he was better; still, he craves to return the favour.
For now, though, he laughs at the impression.]
Hey. Hey, that doesn't sound like me. [Au contraire, it sounds eerily like him and he fucking knows it. Except:] You forgot charming.
[The last of Clive's comments, though, he sits with for a while. He has always wanted to be seen through his music; it's a large part of the reason why the bulk of his repertoire are songs that he and the other Verso had written for their respective families, who often saw what they wanted to see, particularly Renoir and Aline. But, right now it doesn't feel like enough. As much as his music reveals, it leaves so much more open to interpretation. And he wants to leave less room for that.
So, when Clive tips his head and claims everything he said before was feedback for the music, Verso laughs again – lighter now, more at peace – and moves in for a kiss that's gentle and expressive and vulnerable in ways he's yet to be, even when he was crying. He lets his lips linger over Clive's for a moment after breaking the kiss, then leans back again and shrugs his hands.]
Figured you could use some feedback, too.
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I love you, Clive doesn't say. (Famously bad at just getting it out and done with, the stupid oaf.) The sentiment is still a diamond-precious Something that he nurses for a better day, when he can be sure that it won't weigh on Verso with the bluntness of its finality. When he himself is sure that he's permitted to say it.
For now, their lips meet, and it's more than enough. It's everything, actually, coming from a man who was only comfortable telling the truth when he thought it'd die with Clive in the morning. Verso presses his honesty against Clive's mouth, and nothing has ever felt better than being able to breathe that feeling in.
(Well. Almost nothing. He still fantasizes about Verso's piano-trimmed (new information!) nails along his back.) ]
...Your sister might find us in a compromising position if we keep giving each other feedback.
[ A laugh, when their kiss breaks. Soft, equally vulnerable, and just a bit shy despite the content of his words. His hand squeezes over Verso's, and relents. ]
Will she return again, do you think?
[ Not tonight, even. Just in general. He'd like it if she felt comfortable enough. ]
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I hope so. [A pause. A shrug as if the burden of missing his sister isn't heavy.] She still owes me those lyrics.
[That's not where he wants to leave things, though – it isn't where he should leave them. If Clive is going to become his constant companion, then he deserves to know what to expect. So, with a gentle sigh, Verso elaborates.]
We don't see each other often. She spends most of her time at the manor – slightly different manor than the one I took you to, for the record – and I'm not allowed inside, so...
[They see each other when she wants them to see each other. Even when Verso visits the Reacher, hoping to find her at its peak, she is there far less often than not. There have even been occasions when he's felt the telltale sense of not-quite-rightness of time having been stopped and restarted and found himself alone with the Axon and with the knowledge that Alicia slipped away because she hadn't wanted to see him. It hurts enough that it almost shows, but he's able to hold most of it back and mask what little of it slips through.]
It's always been up to her, and she seems more comfortable spacing things out.
[Which is a bit tangential to the question Clive asked, but then it feels better to get that out of the way now while he's mired in these thoughts instead of potentially having to grapple with it later.]
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A sad thing, that they're so bound to these invisible rules. But for years, he and Joshua had also been separated due to circumstance, so he can't speak much on it; he can only nod, grateful for this bit of personal information that Verso has felt he could put in Clive's hands. ]
I hope I haven't made things more difficult for you.
[ Sincerely. He remembers the uncomfortable shrinking when he'd expressed dislike for her father, and how skeptical she'd seemed upon being dismissed― if it's the case that Verso already has to wait to see Alicia between long stretches of time, on her terms, Clive hates to think that he's unwittingly made those intervals even longer.
Then again, Clive existing has probably made things harder for a lot of people, so. He supposes that being a headache is the baseline. (Back to childhood basics.) His expression turns appropriately contrite again, and he tips his chin up towards the sky and sighs. ]
It seems the closer I get to you, the farther I drive you from your family.
[ And maybe that's the point― he still wants to save Verso, more than anything else― but he can't be sure that this is the right way. Or if there's a right way. ]
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So, Verso takes Clive's hand in his own, not to hold it but to try and centre Clive in his presence. In the way he runs his thumb in half circles along his palm, too, soft and soothing, providing Verso with his own grounding as he convinces himself to reveal some of Alicia's secrets along with his own.
But first, an easy:]
Never. The closer you get to me, the closer I am to being myself. And if I'm going to help my family, that's what I need – I need you, not... more make-believe.
[He's so fucking tired of pretending to be his mother's Verso, his father's subordinate, a happy man grateful for being given a second chance at life and unbothered by how many sacrifices are required to keep him going. That's part of the reason, too, why he and Alicia have grown in separate ways; he can't hide his hurts anymore and she can't bear the sight of them.]
You want to know why Alicia finds it hard to be around me? The real Alicia is the reason why the real Verso died. He gave his life for her. And when Maman recreated her here, she made sure she'd carry that guilt with her.
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He hates it. He hates it, he hates it. He fucking hates it. Despises it. Can't fathom it. He loathes the thought of it, and what it means for Verso, and now what it means for Alicia, to be punished for her brother's sacrifice. ]
The mask, [ he finally rasps. ] Her voice.
[ It's fucking― god, it's fucking nauseating. Faced with the unfillable absence of one child, Verso's mother mutilated another; she has imbued even her fantasy life with this knifelike resentment. ]
...How could the Paintress do this? [ Death, pain, and more death. This entire world is so steeped in it, and it's small wonder why. The architect of it is blind with it all. ] Does she think herself the only one who suffers?
[ How many mothers and fathers and siblings has the Paintress taken from the people of Lumiere? Perhaps it doesn't matter, if they're all just figments of her imagination. But Verso, who stands at the center of it all, is being buffeted by the storm from all sides: made to be real, but made all the same.
Clive's next breath threatens to break, but he regulates it with a shake to the head. He wants to recoil, but not from Verso― never from Verso. ]
Neither you nor your sister should be made to be arbiters for her pain. It is unthinkable.
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Stolen from her.
[Clive doesn't need the emphasis, but Verso is compelled to put it to words all the same. So few people ever rise to Alicia's defense, especially when up against Aline. Even Renoir can be quicker to mollify his wife than to validate his daughter. But even if Alicia might rather keep these things secret, Verso still believes that her truths deserve to be acknowledged for what they are.
Addressing the rest of what Clive says is far more difficult. There's no denying that Aline's approach suggests her own grief is something exceptional. It's kept her from her real family – from her still-living children – for decades. It's stained the whole of the Canvas with so much death that its existence is inescapable. Verso himself has become an afterthought; he's not even sure if she misses him anymore or if she's too caught up in her war with Renoir to care about anything else but winning.]
At the very least, she thinks that what she wants is all that matters.
[But there's something more than that. The way that Painters are raised to see the lives they create. That detachment, that dehumanization, that ease with which they create and erase to their pleasure, because art should have no limits and brushstrokes can't have souls.
Except they do. They do.]
And it's not so unthinkable to them. Canvases are... Most of them exist so Painters can live out their fantasies. It's almost never about creating something real.
[Yet here they are, real as anything. It's wrong. It's cruel. It's a disgusting misuse of a power that could have been put to more beautiful uses – that was put to one before Verso died and Aline moved to corrupt what remained of his soul.]
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