[Verso can feel it in the kiss, he can see it in the smile that follows: he should not, in fact, have said anything. Another consequence of how different his experience is from the Lumierans, he supposes. Where he's lived without hope for decades and drinks up what he can find like it's absinthe, Clive has just had it snatched away from him. Maybe it could still come back; maybe there's unseen light ahead that will take them both by surprise. For now, though, there isn't much beside darkness.
So, when Clive draws away, Verso slaps his thighs and rises to his feet. Night will dwindle into morning before too long, and Clive is meant to be sleeping – insofar as it's possible right now. But resting at the very least, letting his mind do as it will when Verso's company isn't a distracting factor, clearing itself of as much of the detritus as it can before they're set to head off again.]
Well, right now, it'd make me happy if you went back to bed. You've had a long day, yeah? And we're gonna have a bunch more ahead of us. I've still got half a world to show you.
[Which is true, but which he's sure bears significantly less meaning than it had when they first set out after that night in the manor. A night that feels like it's worlds away given everything that's followed. Verso sighs at the thought and looks up at the stars.]
[ The soft sound of palms hitting thighs has a sobering effect. A closed door, maybe, or an abrupt termination. Clive wonders if it's perspective or distance that Verso wants, and he frowns about it for just a touch of a second before he reaches out, still occupying his part of the piano bench.
Not quite a tug of a sleeve. No part of him wants to project neediness. But it is the soft brush of fingers to an elbow, and blue eyes settled on Verso's profile. ]
Verso.
[ Melancholy, but with certainty. Sadness and despair aren't always synonymous; it hurts, yes, to consider the very real possibility of them never being meant for anything uncomplicated, but Clive would never give up the idea of together. ]
I want my future to look like you. I'll be the luckiest man in this world if I wake to your face near mine, every morning.
[ A low breath, and he settles his hand back on his own lap, and finally gets up. He'll let Verso de-summon the piano if he wants; it seems a shame to just leave it out here for it to erode away in the elements. ]
[Comfort is rare on the Continent. Rare among Expeditioners who still believe that everything will be solved by killing the Paintress, rarer still for those who know better. Verso hasn't really encountered the latter, much; Esquie hides away his darkness and Monoco masks his with loyalty and by being an equal match in dumb humour and reckless self-endangerment.
With Clive, he isn't sure how to help – a failing that's all the more pronounced by its contrast with how easily Clive has been able to reach him – and that feeds into his core issues surrounding how his existence and its effect on the world have only ever made things worse. Not that he's descending into those depths now or that he's consciously having these thoughts, they just underlie the moment.
A moment in which Clive once again reaches out to comfort him. Verso lifts a hand to brush some of Clive's ever-unruly hair back, centring himself in the blue of his eyes, in the warmth of his skin where his fingertips run along it, in the steadiness with which he continues to stand on shaky ground. The future comes with infinite uncertainties, but the fact that Clive has him and he has Clive is not one of them.
Even if the threat of Clive's mortality is much harder to face than the thought of his own, and the sadness filling the space between them leaves Verso feeling more scared than anything, like it makes the possibility of losing Clive all the more real.
Dwelling on that won't help, though, so Verso cocks his head and smiles in a way that finds his eyes twinkling a bit, too.]
I don't know about luckiest. I mean, I'd still be waking up next to you, so. You can be second luckiest.
[As always, he falls back on humour. He thinks to admit to the issue – to let Clive know that he's not sure how to ease any of this away, but burdening Clive with his own comfort doesn't feel right to Verso. And some things cannot be relieved, anyway. No matter how stubborn the desire is to the contrary.]
Still think you should try to sleep, though. Want me to sit with you for a bit? I do a great rendition of Frère Jacques. Very soothing.
[ Clive is fine, in the way he always has been. Life is a process full of pain, defined by trial and error and loss, but his love will always supplant the need to buckle under pressure. If he has nothing else, he wants that love to be the sum of his parts: the courage he received from his father, the humanity he learned from his uncle, the purpose he inherited from Cid. The everything-s from Joshua. And finally, the heart he's left in Verso's hands, to hold and keep outside of his own body.
Footprints, in the vast landscape of this world (this Canvas). Little acts of rebellion in the form of connection, to say that they were here, that they existed. A grand, beautiful thing, only marred by the possibility that there is no gentle conclusion to all of it.
But still, they persist. They have to, else he prove that love means nothing in the face of all this tragedy. And Clive can't accept that, not even if it's the truth that consistently tries to keep reinforcing itself.
So. He doesn't despair at Verso's backtrack into humor. It's the sort of thing that he's come to like about Verso, anyway: the ability to say this sort of shit when the world seems to be falling down, because Clive certainly isn't charming enough. It seems less an avoidance now and more a sweet sort of awkwardness of a man who spent decades socializing himself among a bunch of Gestrals. ]
Founder, not Frère Jacques.
[ Hasn't he suffered enough tonight!!! (Not really, in the grand scheme of things.) This time, the Clive smiles, it's on steadier foundations. ]
Threat received. I'll sleep, as you say.
[ He leans in, and presses a warm kiss to Verso's mouth. He's fine, he's here. ]
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
no subject
So, when Clive draws away, Verso slaps his thighs and rises to his feet. Night will dwindle into morning before too long, and Clive is meant to be sleeping – insofar as it's possible right now. But resting at the very least, letting his mind do as it will when Verso's company isn't a distracting factor, clearing itself of as much of the detritus as it can before they're set to head off again.]
Well, right now, it'd make me happy if you went back to bed. You've had a long day, yeah? And we're gonna have a bunch more ahead of us. I've still got half a world to show you.
[Which is true, but which he's sure bears significantly less meaning than it had when they first set out after that night in the manor. A night that feels like it's worlds away given everything that's followed. Verso sighs at the thought and looks up at the stars.]
no subject
Not quite a tug of a sleeve. No part of him wants to project neediness. But it is the soft brush of fingers to an elbow, and blue eyes settled on Verso's profile. ]
Verso.
[ Melancholy, but with certainty. Sadness and despair aren't always synonymous; it hurts, yes, to consider the very real possibility of them never being meant for anything uncomplicated, but Clive would never give up the idea of together. ]
I want my future to look like you. I'll be the luckiest man in this world if I wake to your face near mine, every morning.
[ A low breath, and he settles his hand back on his own lap, and finally gets up. He'll let Verso de-summon the piano if he wants; it seems a shame to just leave it out here for it to erode away in the elements. ]
Remember that. More than anything, I want you.
no subject
With Clive, he isn't sure how to help – a failing that's all the more pronounced by its contrast with how easily Clive has been able to reach him – and that feeds into his core issues surrounding how his existence and its effect on the world have only ever made things worse. Not that he's descending into those depths now or that he's consciously having these thoughts, they just underlie the moment.
A moment in which Clive once again reaches out to comfort him. Verso lifts a hand to brush some of Clive's ever-unruly hair back, centring himself in the blue of his eyes, in the warmth of his skin where his fingertips run along it, in the steadiness with which he continues to stand on shaky ground. The future comes with infinite uncertainties, but the fact that Clive has him and he has Clive is not one of them.
Even if the threat of Clive's mortality is much harder to face than the thought of his own, and the sadness filling the space between them leaves Verso feeling more scared than anything, like it makes the possibility of losing Clive all the more real.
Dwelling on that won't help, though, so Verso cocks his head and smiles in a way that finds his eyes twinkling a bit, too.]
I don't know about luckiest. I mean, I'd still be waking up next to you, so. You can be second luckiest.
[As always, he falls back on humour. He thinks to admit to the issue – to let Clive know that he's not sure how to ease any of this away, but burdening Clive with his own comfort doesn't feel right to Verso. And some things cannot be relieved, anyway. No matter how stubborn the desire is to the contrary.]
Still think you should try to sleep, though. Want me to sit with you for a bit? I do a great rendition of Frère Jacques. Very soothing.
no subject
Footprints, in the vast landscape of this world (this Canvas). Little acts of rebellion in the form of connection, to say that they were here, that they existed. A grand, beautiful thing, only marred by the possibility that there is no gentle conclusion to all of it.
But still, they persist. They have to, else he prove that love means nothing in the face of all this tragedy. And Clive can't accept that, not even if it's the truth that consistently tries to keep reinforcing itself.
So. He doesn't despair at Verso's backtrack into humor. It's the sort of thing that he's come to like about Verso, anyway: the ability to say this sort of shit when the world seems to be falling down, because Clive certainly isn't charming enough. It seems less an avoidance now and more a sweet sort of awkwardness of a man who spent decades socializing himself among a bunch of Gestrals. ]
Founder, not Frère Jacques.
[ Hasn't he suffered enough tonight!!! (Not really, in the grand scheme of things.) This time, the Clive smiles, it's on steadier foundations. ]
Threat received. I'll sleep, as you say.
[ He leans in, and presses a warm kiss to Verso's mouth. He's fine, he's here. ]