[Once Clive responds with that semblance of humour, Verso turns back around. Though he can't be certain of where his thoughts have truly wandered, the reassertion of Clive's strength feeds Verso's own. Which helps, despite his familiarity with the place. Circumstances are exactly as Clive says they are: the Forgotten Battlefield may well be the most difficult place on the Canvas to traverse for its effects on morale, and he isn't immune to that.
More than a few times, Verso has thought he's spotted new bodies leaning up against the piles of the old ones, their uniforms pristine, their bodies unmarred by battle and perfectly positioned, and he's wondered whether they've chosen death or he's projecting his own deep-seated exhaustion onto them. A question that could possibly be answered by reaching out for the chroma locked inside of them and letting its age reveal its truths, but also a question that he can't bear to have confirmed, and so he leaves the details to the dead who carry them, honouring their places among their brethren in the only way he knows how.
It doesn't feel like enough, but then nothing ever really does.]
The bigger groups can usually manage. It's the ones who've lost most of their members that struggle. A couple have... ended their Expeditions right here. I always wondered if they returned to Lumiere after. Can't imagine that would be an easy decision, but it's not like it's any easier to choose to stay out here, so.
[He's rambling.
Either way, the decision to return to Lumiere doesn't feel like one that he could make. Let the people believe that the hope they'd built into the ships and hoisted upon the shoulders of the Expeditioners can still be fulfilled until the changing number tells them otherwise, he thinks. Then again, there's value in information, merit in sacrificing one's pride in the name of bolstering the next Expedition, so maybe he's focusing on the wrong things. How the fuck is he supposed to know, either way?
With this reminder of how little he actually understands about his fellow people and the lives they lead, he runs his hand through his hair and sighs.]
[ A frisson of fear, brief, after each number Clive sees etched on familiar-looking armbands on familiar-looking uniforms (almost identical, with a few personal touches on each one). None of them bear the number of his father's expedition, nor Cid's; he doesn't expect the former to be here among the rubble, given that he assumes Verso would have told him if this was Elwin's final resting place (Verso had seemed to know something about his father's fate, which is still not a conversation he's been able to have), but the latter―
―he doesn't want to imagine it. Cid, a man who defied every single catastrophe with breezy humor and untouchable confidence, to have died in such a hopeless place. To have become another footnote in this relentless record of brutal destruction.
Clive is still thinking of his mentor when Verso mentions survivors, and his mouth forms the vague shape of an oh, almost in surprise. Right― it's not like Verso would know, not having lived in Lumiere since he left it so many decades ago. ]
For as long as I remember, and as far as I'm aware, Expedition Zero has ever been the only one that returned to Lumière after venturing outside of it.
[ History lost to the annals of time; they've discussed this. Courage deified for morale, but ignored for fifteen years after the Fracture anyway. Humans, imperfect as they are, will always choose peace of mind over reality.
As he sidesteps a pool of what looks like congealed blood: ] I suppose this place changes someone too much for them to consider returning. They quickly realize that they belong nowhere― not in the grim safety of Lumière, nor the imposing cruelty of the Continent.
The only choice left to them is how they die. [ Phrased specifically that way, since Cid is on the mind. ] And, as a fellow Expeditioner, I can respect what they chose.
[ An impossible decision, really. God, he wants to change things. Clive flits towards Verso, instinctively holding out a hand to catch him when he thinks Verso is going to trip because of his backwards walking (careful!!!), and breathing through his teeth when Verso retains his mountain-goat balance. Impressive. ]
―May I ask about a specific Expedition? Not my father's.
[It's strange how easily the word belong helps contextualise everything for Verso. There have been times when he's travelled alongside a promising Expedition and worried that they'd reach a turning point where they wanted to give up and go home. His own lack of belonging had found him longing for everything they'd behind. Not that he faulted their decisions, he just figured he had a better grasp on the weight of them.
Lumiere was often all they had in common.
Now, he considers whether he's been projecting all this time. After all, his heart never really left Lumiere; rather, its heart had turned against him. Long has he wondered what he would do if he was a simpler man with a home awaiting his return and friends who would cry at the sight of him, a family whose love was genuine, a career at the opera house, something normal awaiting him on the other side of the Continent's extremes. It feels like the answer is yes.
The rest of what Clive says, though – that has much clearer resonance. To choose to die in silence. To choose to protect Lumiere from despair. To choose to blend into a crowd so that when loved ones embark upon their own Expeditions, they never learn the truth and can tell themselves whichever stories help them sleep better when the ever-cold nights come and the ever-bright stars offer what little solace they can. Verso can respect that, too.]
Yeah. I suppose so.
[There's nothing else to say, really. He still can't speak of his own experiences or fill in the gaps between what Clive is saying and what the people in Lumiere might or might not be enduring. So he falls silent, letting his focus linger on the shipwrecks with their weathered masts and sunken hulls, frayed flags waving in the breeze against the starburst of rubble backlit like an explosion by the golden sun. That focus soon shifts to Clive's hand when he catches it in his periphery, and he takes that toothy hiss as a sign to fall into step by his side. A beneficial position, he finds, as Clive asks his question and his heart lurches just a bit in his chest, bringing a slight tension to his expression, too.]
I might not know anything, but of course, ask away.
i get 99% of the details about this canon wrong but i managed to remember the armbands
[ Can you tell I'm not using numbers anymore because I am truly vibing with the timeline at this point... Anyway, the meat and potatoes of what Clive wants to confirm is: ]
It was helmed by a man called Cid. [ Glancing sideways at Verso now; Clive feels just a little safer for having him within arm's reach. ] He was roughly my height, and smoked like a chimney. He would have used his chroma to summon lightning.
[ A brief inhale, and Clive demonstrates: the same blue-purple crackle of static that he'd summoned back in the cave, in the aftermath of Ifrit's rampage. Depending on how attuned Verso is to him by now, Verso might realize that the power doesn't quite feel Clive's own― something borrowed, but molded into Clive's shape.
(Maybe it's another anomalous thing about Clive: a black hole, painted under his skin. The reason why Ifrit is always so hungry.) ]
You remind me a bit of him, on occasion. ...Then again, Cid was more irreverent than charming.
[ Lips curl into a half-smile. He nudges Verso's elbow with his own. ]
...Did you ever meet him?
Edited (ask a QUESTION, clive) 2025-09-25 10:50 (UTC)
there are so many details and i would like very much to exchange my dollars for a lore book
[The name doesn't really cause Verso to lose any of his tension, but it does inspire a huff of a laugh all the same. Which is probably an answer in and of itself, but still he quickly follows it with:]
Oh yeah, I met him.
[And what a character he'd been, every bit as smooth-yet-gravely as his voice, brimming with a kind of humour that Verso couldn't always keep step with, which made him appreciate the man all the more. Memories flood his mind of hard-fought battles and harder-fought rests, of the way the crackle of his lightning seemed to carry resolve in its static. The last time Clive had called forth that ball of lightning, Verso hadn't thought much of the signature its chroma bore; now, though, he does, feeling how it's laced with Cid's essence, and for a moment he can almost feel the man behind him, on the verge of making one comment or another on his propensity towards slinking off to brood.
As is always the case, though, the good memories give way for the final ones, those last heroic acts and the rattling breaths that follow, and Verso literally shakes them from his mind, ending the motion by looking over his shoulder.]
You're the protege, aren't you?
[Who Cid had talked up at length. Maybe by name, maybe not by name; Verso tries not to commit the details about those left behind in Lumiere to memory. There are already so many names and faces and stories that he creates space for; there is already too much for him to grieve. Yet, a lot of things he would have otherwise forgot flood to the surface. The pride Cid had expressed. The tales of a sad boy with a stubborn spirit. The conflicting hopes that said boy would never need to set foot on the Continent and that he would rain hell upon the Paintress when his turn came.
Verso says none of that yet. Guessing at Clive being the protege is already a bit presumptuous. Assuming not only that he's correct but that he should immediately transition into storytelling would be entirely too much. So, a question instead:]
Did you want to know something in particular?
every day i'm asking sandfall about ways for me to give them money, tbh
[ (Expedition 33-16, the DLC: The Cid Files. It's about two hours' worth of content of Cid absolutely roasting the shit out of Verso, but in a very loving way.)
Clive laughs, despite himself, when Verso calls him 'the protege'. It's not wrong, but it is very Cid, and a bit of himself is glad that the mention of him doesn't only conjure melancholy and grief― that there's some part of him that hasn't relegated these beloved people to a corner of his mental landscape so sanctified that he can't even speak their names without wanting to weep. ]
I am, [ he affirms, still smiling. ] I hope you forgot everything he told you about me.
[ An ironic thing for Clive to say, though he doesn't know it. It's mostly to convey that he doesn't think anything Cid said about him would have been particularly flattering: "he cries a lot and he's gloomy and he didn't know his tits from his ass when I first met him", probably. "Wouldn't have been able to fold his laundry if I didn't show him how." (A flat-out lie: Clive was very good at folding laundry.)
It's strange to think that someone so important to him had beat him to the "meeting Verso" punch, but then again. It's Very Cid. Clive waffles with the question he could think to ask, which is whereabouts Cid managed to get before the Continent claimed him, but since Verso hasn't immediately tried to steer him in some other direction after the mention of his mentor, he'll assume that Cid didn't die here.
Best not to speak more death into existence in this place, anyway. Instead: ]
Did he ever drag you out to do some hare-brained scheme, nearly get you killed, and explain it away as an opportunity for learning and growth?
[ He must have. "Oh, look at that path. Must be a shortcut. Oh, it leads to a nest of Nevrons? Learn and grow!" ]
[(What's more roasting of the man who was literally roasted, anyway?)
By now, if there's one thing that Verso understands about Clive it's that the light he sees himself in is slightly off-centre from the truth. Which is understandable, of course, given everything he knows about his mother, but it still surprises him, somewhat, when it comes up in the context of Cid, who clearly loved that boy like his own. And while Verso could just say that, he chooses instead to shrug and drag things out a little.]
Understandable. I, too, want people to forget what was said about me when it was nothing but effusive praise.
[A breath of a laugh follows, and then he shifts a bit more serious, a bit more honest.]
You meant a lot to him. The whole Expedition knew. He always talked about you when things were rough. And the rest of the time...
[At first, Verso just shrugs. Once upon a time, he had been the most reckless man on the Continent – a title he bore with some degree of pride, in no small part because it gave him stories to tell and those stories made him feel interesting, like he had something he could share with the others when he was hiding so much else away. Then Cid showed up and turned it into another competition, one that found Verso getting his ass handed to him more often than not.
He runs his hand through his hair at the memory.]
He absolutely was dragging us out on hare-brained schemes, yeah. Had this whole thing about how all the other Expeditions followed the beaten paths and that got them nowhere, so his Expedition was going to try a new way. Gotta admit it had its benefits. The Continent's a lot easier to traverse now than it was back then. I'm guessing he was the same in Lumiere...?
[Insofar as he could be, anyway!!!]
Edited (fingers, you have to type all the words, every time; brain, you knock it off, too) 2025-09-26 00:35 (UTC)
[ Despite himself: a flicker of surprise. It's not that he doubts that Cid cared for him― he did, recklessly and wholly, which is an inelegant summation of the man's personality at its core― he hadn't cared much to know how his adoptive guardian spoke to others about the stray he took in. Hadn't expected Cid to talk about him frequently, or in a manner that could be described using superlatives.
It makes the back of his eyes warm. Like he could cry about it (he could). He doesn't, though, fond as the thought makes him and devastated as the loss makes him; again, Clive is happy to know that speaking of Cid no longer reduces him to rubble.
Besides, imagining Verso being heckled by his mentor makes Clive's heart swell a size. He'd have liked to see it, he thinks; Verso would have been very cute, being caught off-guard by a breezy veteran and his oddball ways. ]
Ah, yes. "Complacency is the root of all evil", and all that. [ The sigh that follows doesn't quite stick its landing. Winds up sounding more like a laugh, than anything else. ]
He was always that way. Tried to push me to do things I'd never considered doing before I met him. Joining the Academy, finding my own purpose.
[ A brief smile, and he brushes his knuckles against Verso's. ]
...I think he'd be proud of what we're doing now.
[ Two utterly unlikely people coming together to face utterly deranged odds to resolve a bottomless dispute between extremely powerful forces. Outlaw behavior. Cid would have loved it, despite the massive migraine it would've given him. ]
[Clive quotes Cid and memories flood Verso of the kinds of things he used to say and all the ways through which he was able to motivate people without getting preachy or overly optimistic. A Commander through and through in speech and in action, a rare sort who considered leadership a hierarchy of sacrifice instead of one of status and rank. Verso contemplates letting Clive know what happened to him, but decides to save that information for later, instead offering up a quote of his own.]
I always liked, "You keep putting your head up there in those clouds, and the world'll never stop kicking your ass."
[Not that it changed much – poor Cid had weeks to fight against decades of unspoken despair – but the message behind it has stuck with him all the same: you'll never find yourself unless you stop losing yourself. Looking down when he feels the graze of Clive's knuckles, he captures Clive's fingers in a backwards handhold just long enough for a gentle squeeze.
Pride, though. Verso has a harder time reflecting on Cid – or anyone, if he's being honest – and thinking that they might be proud of what he's doing. Decades worth of no results and going back-and-forth on what he wants will have that effect, though, so he's used to that by now. Assuming that people are looking down on him and wishing he would choose a different course or push himself a little harder is another of those things that keep him grounded in reality. If Aline is certain she's right and both Renoirs are staunch in their slaughters and Clea can act with such unflinching cruelty because she is that sure of her own path, then Verso chooses discomfort and self-doubt and embracing all the ways he's fucked up over the years. He'll be the imperfect copy of a perfect son.
But he does want to think that one day, he can make someone proud. So:]
I hope so. It's men like him who remind why I'm doing this.
[With that, the reminiscing seems like it's over. Or at least on hold until they reach the tree at the end of their journey. Which finds him cycling back to something he'd noticed earlier but couldn't figure out how to broach. Now, though, he dives straight in.]
So. You gonna tell me how it is that you can use his chroma?
[ A softer smile, and one final quote for a quote: ]
"Forgiveness― and in turn, salvation― can only begin with acceptance."
[ He's held that true, for ages. Something he still holds to, to keep him from being mired in self-pity or denial. When the fog of despair closes in, he tells himself to accept it as his own, and to keep it from clouding what he is― who he is. And so, here he is now, with the man he cares most about in this unrelenting storm of issues yet to be resolved, learning and growing ever day.
Clive really does believe Cid will be proud. He also thinks Cid would heckle him about putting a name to his feelings, but that can be something Clive kicks himself for another day, because: ]
―That said, I don't know. [ Regarding how he can manage to take a piece of someone else's innate abilities. One thing about himself that he's accepted, but hasn't understood. He's not sure if he's meant to save or forgive himself for it, but the power is something anomalous and strange, which falls in line with everything else he's found out about himself Post-Ifrit. ] There are those who... it almost feels like I attune to them. I respond to the color of their chroma, and I can...
[ Electricity crackles along his fingertips; it's followed by a weaker gust of green-tinged wind, a carry-over from another member of Cid's Expedition, Benedikta. (An accidental claiming, and the first time Clive or Cid realized he could do this. She'd been fucking furious about it for weeks.) ]
...I can claim it, to some extent.
[ He closes his fist, and energy evaporates off his skin, shimmering in the yellow-orange of the setting (rising?) sun. ]
It's why I can still feel the chroma you gave me, back at the manor. It never left.
[Oh, that's certainly a quote. A big one. Clive lifts it like it's something light and buoyant, and Verso tries to grasp for it with the same faith, but he is so driven by denial instead that his fingers only graze its edges and he pulls away. Maybe one day he'll figure out how to switch from one to the other. With Clive by his side and in his corner it does feel possible; he did, after all, attempt to reach for it in the first place. Something he might not have done just a few months ago.
When that green wind rises, Verso makes an equal attempt at grasping it, letting its chroma wrap its way around him. There's something familiar about it that he can't quite place – like a glance from a stranger whose face lingers long afterwards and the resonance of a voice long forgotten.
That's not important, though; Clive reveals more of the ways that he's unique and Verso thinks back on the mark he'd left on Clive's chest with his own chroma. He'd meant it as a complement to the bites and the scratches and the bruises – something that would stand out more and linger a little longer. Back then, the thought of his chroma becoming a permanent presence amid Clive's might have worried him a little. Chroma carries everything there is to a person, after all – their life, their soul, their heart, their memories – and it's scary to think that someone else might hold onto a piece of that. Now, he's mostly just curious.]
What's it feel like?
[It starts out as a general question, and Verso thinks for a flicker of a second on whether he wants it to come across that way. There is, of course, the lovestruck part of him that wants to understand the nature of his chroma's existence within Clive's own, whether it's more of a whisper of a presence or if there are interpretable parts of him floating around in there. He's wondering, too, about whether it's an imbuing or a tainting, and if Clive would benefit from carrying more of it or less of it inside of himself, and what that might mean, and whether granting it to Clive has put him at a deficit. Et cetera. So he adds:]
You know, keeping a piece of me with you like that.
[It ends up as a bit of a general question, too, but at least Verso feels more sure about this one.]
[ Lightning, wind, fire (unbeknownst to him, there are two variations of that last element: life-giving, and life-taking). Clive presses a hand to his chest, picking apart the colors sitting under his skin and listening for each one, eyes closed. He's never stopped to wonder if everyone in Lumiere has the same sort of synesthesia that he does. ]
You feel like...
[ A breath, here, as he reaches for sparkling silver-white. It gets easier and easier to access every time he calls on it, and more and more familiar every time his consciousness brushes up against it. ]
...Starlight. [ With conviction, as he lets that warmth flood from from chest to fingertips. It makes him glow somewhat― just a little silver streaking his night-black hair, mimicking Verso and his stripes of white. ] Like guidance.
[ So, no, nothing interpretable or concrete. Nothing that Clive can pull apart for clues or information. Just a feeling, an essence, the intent that Verso had tried to slide into his heart that night, tired and desperate as they both were for some sort of connection. A reassurance, even, that Verso exists.
He tucks the feeling back into his chest for safekeeping, and breathes through his nose. ]
It feels good. [ Simply put. ] I doubt I could part with it.
[The sound of starlight twinkles in the space between them. Its light glimmers in Clive's hair. Clive speaks of guidance, but the only guidance Verso feels works in the opposite direction; he finds himself carding his fingers through that patch of light, releasing a slow and gentle breath as if he's worried he'll spook it all away.]
Hey. No fair. You wear it better than I do.
[Laughter rings through his voice without gaining its own momentum. Fondness, too, but that's almost become a staple of how he speaks to Clive these days, with an almost ever-present hint of a purr chasing his rumbling tone. An impulse to kiss him rises and goes ignored; were they anywhere else Verso wouldn't have thought twice, but not here, never here where so many lie dead and displaced. So, he takes his hand instead, summoning a burst of chroma to pool between their palms, brimming with the warmth and softness of something shared. Another good feeling, Verso hopes; a reassertion opposed to the thought of parting. Being kept as a part of someone has long been a very complicated thing for him, given how it tends to end up with the other person throwing themselves into their own fires. With Clive, though...]
I like that. The thought of you keeping a part of me with you.
[Clive is his Clive and he is his Verso, and possessive though those impulses may be, they feel liberating more than anything, a celebration of a sense of belonging that once felt as fantastical as anything else in this world. But having his question answered only breeds more curiosity. Albeit a different kind, one Clive can't really answer: how it would feel if Clive's chroma were a part of Verso. And while Verso has never absorbed chroma in the way Clive's describing, he still has to ask:]
[ The glimmer of silver pulses when touched, resonating with Verso's presence in a way that makes Clive's heart tug and flutter. Magnetized to him, Clive sways on his feet and leans in, almost like a hound lowering its head to be scratched between the ears.
Good. It feels good, always. Even better, when Verso deigns to curl their fingers together and floods Clive with more of that starlight chroma, making Clive bend even more towards him, forehead to the furry lining around Verso's collar, where he nuzzles inwards for a few, long breaths.
No other color has felt like this. It sates that hungry, ravenous hole in his chest in the shape of Ifrit, who sits in his consciousness with its mouth open, still demanding to swallow Verso whole; Clive doesn't consider that he was painted to harmonize with the immortal shift of Verso and his family's chroma, because the truth of that doesn't resonate with him. He feels this way because he chooses to, and he feels this way because he wants Verso. With or without Ifrit, he will always want this beautiful man and the white-silver shimmer of his soul.
Finally, Clive sways back upwards. Relaxed, but poised. Pleased to know that Verso isn't horrified by the idea of Clive laying claim to part of him, and reciprocally curious about whether his power could work in reverse. ]
...Would you want to chance it? [ You know. Because he's not sure if the color of his own chroma will be pleasant at all, tinged by Ifrit as it is. Maybe it'll be corrosive for Verso, a virulent thing that eats away at all that precious silver. The thought of it pinches Clive's brows inward in a slight frown.
But he does try it. A little mote of fire, burning quietly on the palm of his hand. (Again, if he knew about how 'Verso' died, this might horrify him a lot more.) ]
[The Canvas has long lapped at Verso with its perpetual flames. To embrace them now – to get even a glimpse at the chroma inside of Clive, chroma that quite likely has the power to burn everything to the ground – doesn't scare Verso. What greater expression of denial exists than to embrace that which has been used to try and imprison him? So, when he feels the tickle of Clive's fire, he wraps his own chroma around it then retracts them both deep inside of himself, closing his eyes and letting the fire work its way through him.
It burns at first in the way that the real Verso had burned: sharp and searing, moving with a hunger that will never know sating. His grip on Clive's hand tightens and he hisses through his teeth, focusing on how these flames – even if starved for more – are not greedy. They touch his own chroma without lingering, simply delivering the abstractions of their truths, and Verso finds comfort in how they don't hide away from how honesty fucking hurts, sometimes.
Eventually, he stops burning. The brightness of the flames syncs up with the origins of starlight and they harmonise, leaving Verso's whole body tingling like a star field billions strong, each one with a determined flame at their hearts. Hearts that beat to the rhythms of love songs, playing in the pitch of hope.
At first, all he can let out is a breathy laugh and a simple:]
Merde.
[His palm is sweaty; he thinks he can feel more sweat beading along his hairline, too. His own heart beats to adrenaline's rhythm, and while he doesn't know whether his chroma will retain Clive's in the same way that Clive's has his own, the after effects make him certain that he wants it to last for as long as he has breath.]
I'd say that was worth the risk. Your fire, it... It makes my light feel brighter.
[ There's a moment of internal panic when Verso hisses, when the grip of their hands conveys pain instead of companionship. Fire is an element that's inherently destructive, and Clive lingers on the thought that it was foolish to expect it to be anything but.
Breath catching, he opens his mouth to call Verso's name; closes it a moment later, as he tells himself to trust that Verso will be alright. That they were made for each other, and that they're both better for it.
Validation comes in the sound of that merde, in the way that Clive's hair also turns starlit again to match the patter of Verso's elevated heartbeat. It's both perfect and agonizing, and it fills Clive with the sort of need that belongs nowhere in this broken battlefield with its thousands of corpses looking on in muted horror.
A huffed breath, and he reaches to wipe some of the sweat off of Verso's temple, using his free hand to sweep at the soft wave of Verso's two-toned bangs. ]
If such a thing is possible. [ Brighter? When Verso is already the brightest thing in a five-hundred mile radius?
A love-drunk thing to think, certainly, but it's the first thing that comes to mind. Then: ] ...We should discuss this elsewhere, before you make me want to get on my knees.
[ Verso is very lovely when he's framed by Clive's flames. (This better not awaken something in Clive.) A mental note, here, to see how he can tame his own flames so that the process of containing it might be less of an ordeal for Verso if the mote he just passed on fades; Ifrit rumbles in his chest again, pleased and possessive. ]
[Clive casts his doubts and Verso casts him a beaming smile, still bearing all the warmth and the wondrousness of what's he's just experienced.]
What, you can't see it?
[Surely it's sparkling in his eyes; it must be blooming slightly pink across his cheeks, too, from the way the force of it all leaves him feeling flush and interconnected with Clive. It still feels like both the wrong and the right time to kiss him, but there's an appeal to holding back and letting it build inside of him while the still-crackling flames reassert that everything about Clive is hearth and home, right down to the literal core of his existence.
The original plan was to power through the Forgotten Battlefield and set up camp once they reached Monoco's Station. But because Monoco isn't expecting them – and because he might not even be home – when Clive brings up the notion of elsewhere, Verso decides that it can wait. These past few moments do beg discussion. And the rest of what he says, well, that makes its own pleas and creates its own warmth that Verso wants to wrap them both up in. So, with a nod ahead, he gestures to the ruined fortress just off to the side. Rough-hewn stone contrasts against ornate gold-and-black doorways with their sharp lines and geometric designs seeming wholly out of place. Most of the wall on the other side of the doors has collapsed in on itself, but the door furthest left backs onto something more solid. There's even the hint of lamplight peeking in from a faraway corner.]
We can set up camp in that building. There's a room we can use. Takes a bit of navigating to get to it, so it's safe from the Nevrons.
[ Clive can see it. That's the problem, especially in this place of grief; it seems more than a little disrespectful to flaunt their connection in front of the dead, so it's a bit of a relief to be directed towards a place less carefully monitored by the tragedy that surrounds them.
So. He nods, and they head off in the direction of the looming structure. They make short work of a Ramasseur in the way― bolstered by each other's chroma, the Nevron is almost an afterthought― and that quick shot of adrenaline only makes Clive's pulse quicken in his chest.
Up some broken steps, past fractured walkways. Clive tries to imagine what any of this was before strife rendered it all rubble, but everything he can think of is too melancholy for the moment; he sets it all aside in favor of Verso, still burning bright in yellow-gold sunlight, and finally, finally reaches for him once they find themselves in the safest patch available to them in this hell.
Chest to back, hands linked in front of Verso's stomach. Clive encircles Verso in his arms, taking a moment to nose along his nape and to breathe him in. ]
You are warmer.
[ Proof that a piece of Clive flickers in him, still. Verso, his Verso, unique and singular and like nothing and no one else. Clive is convinced of it. ]
[Several Expeditions have sought solace in this room over the years; combined with how the roof and the walls keep the weather out, it's about as close to comfortable as any place can be on the Continent. There's some old barracks beds off to the side, a fireplace with space for a cooking pot and a dwindling stack of firewood, a perpetually lit lantern, and various books and games that the soldiers stationed here may have played, once, that Verso remembers collecting from elsewhere in the fortress.
Not that any of that really matters. The room could be nothing besides crumbling walls and a dusty floor and Verso would still feel like a privileged man for having Clive here with him in more ways than he'd known possible.
The warmth inside of Verso hasn't faded, it's true; neither has the buzzing inside of his own chroma, a sensation that he feels all the more when Clive closes his arms around him and Verso leans a bit of his weight back against him as he hums, content.]
Mm, but I could still be warmer.
[After a moment, he lifts one hand to the side of Clive's face, maneuvering him into a light-laced kiss, letting his chroma emanate from all the places where their bodies touch, just a soft tickle for now, just a hint at what might come should Clive match his energy. The kiss breaks like a tease: too soon for it to get anywhere, slow enough to create a suggestion of more that Verso almost but doesn't quite follow through on.]
[ They can do something practical with the firewood and the books and the supplies later: right now, all Clive sees are flat surfaces that he can lay Verso on, which is not the most gentlemanly thing for him to be contemplating, but. Well. All this talk and demonstration of how their essences sing when they touch has made him go a little out of his mind with want.
The teasing doesn't help. It's white-silver all the way down right now, in his eyes and in his mouth and in his heart. Color without color, a reflection of the rest of the visible spectrum, unyielding in its refusal to be stained. It suits Verso, Clive thinks, and he almost whines in the back of his throat when their brief kiss breaks and he's cut off from the warm taste of him. ]
Yes, [ he whispers. ] And let me keep more of you in me, in turn.
[ Again, love-drunk, except this time he says the stupid thing instead of keeping it in the relative privacy of his head. He parts Verso's hair to kiss a bare patch of neck, smooth and unblemished despite the memory of having bitten into the same spot when Ifrit'd run rampant that one night.
He shudders at the memory of it, but it doesn't deter him from walking Verso over to the nearest bed and falling onto it with playful gracelessness. If he's careful, he thinks he could pull from his furnace and let his chroma wrap around the both of them without them both burning to death― he'd done it once before, when he was winding down from his tantrum and let Verso hold him even when he was more Ifrit than Clive. ]
Will you trust me with this?
[ Because it's not exactly the safest or sanest thing, what Clive is doing here. Wanting to have, but also wanting to give the full breadth of something that even he's still figuring out. Verso wouldn't be blamed for saying no, and Clive will still warm him anyway― just, you know, in a safer and saner way. ]
[Clive keeping more of Verso in him could mean a great many things, and Verso's mind flips through them all with rapacious interest as Clive's lips and breath and warmth against his neck cause a different kind of tingle to layer over the electricity of his chroma, and he curses under his breath.
But then Clive guides him to the bed and his heart bounds ahead of his body; they fall and Verso laughs again, rolling over onto his side so that he can get a better look at Clive. As always, his hair is doing what it wants, so Verso reaches up to brush it aside, only to get distracted by the soft curve of his cheeks and the jut of his jaw, and he ends up stroking his fingers along them instead. Fuck, he's beautiful. Chiselled and rugged and battle scarred, yet with such kind and sad and gentle eyes that draw Verso in with their truths. Hopelessly helplessly, he gets caught up in them, too, as Clive requests his trust anew.
It's an important question, yet Verso doesn't give it a moment's consideration. He doesn't need to; even after what happened with Ifrit, even with the memory of how his back shattered on contact when he was slammed against the ground, and how Ifrit's flames ate away at his palm, and how Clive's beast-driven teeth sank into his neck, Verso's faith in Clive is absolute.
And so is the surety of his response.]
Yeah. Can't really think of anything I won't trust you with.
[Well. There are the the secrets he's still keeping, but that's less a matter of trust and more a consequence of his own struggles to reach out and burden people with things they can't change. Still, he doesn't know what, exactly, to expect, so his heart pounds all the more in his chest, and his breathing gets a little heavier, and his eyes grow wider, but there's no reluctance in any of that. He really does hold absolute faith in Clive.]
[ Yeah, Verso agrees without even the shadow of hesitation, and Clive―
―oh, it's definitely love that he feels. A jolt of it, startlingly powerful, threatening to pull him apart from the inside out. This beautiful man, made and unmade and currently in the making, struggling with masks and memories, trusts Clive with his safety and self. For all of the doubts they both share about their future, Verso says yes to Clive with the sort of certainty that breaks Clive's fucking heart and reassembles it in Verso's shape.
He loves Verso so much. If nothing else about this world is real, this feeling is.
So he repositions their bodies again: a familiar setup, with Verso on his back and Clive covering him like a blanket, elbows on either side of that lovely face, fingers in wind-swept hair. Like the time they first tried to shove themselves together, but with more focus; there's no method to this madness, but at least Clive has a better idea of what he is now, what he can be. ]
Breathe with me.
[ In, out. Clive kisses the rhythm into Verso's mouth for a few seconds, acclimating them both to the cadence. In, out. As he does, he calls on Ifrit, and bids that hungry creature to heed him, and to obey.
This time, there's no struggle. The hellfire in him answers with benign amusement, and pours forth from every inch of Clive's body with exploratory enthusiasm: it paints Clive red, crimson in his hair and crimson in his chest, veinlike streaks flowing from his heart all the way up to the scar on his face. Clive almost chokes on that first rush of heat, but he expels his next breath as steam through his teeth, onto Verso's lips and tongue.
Warm, without being scalding. He pools chroma over Verso, enveloping him and nesting him in Ifrit's seemingly bottomless energy. It's a wonder that the room doesn't catch on fire, but everything stays intact (for now).
(Good thing they didn't do this anywhere near Alicia. Clive might have become Public Enemy Number One if he had.) ]
[At the first brush of Clive's fingers in his hair, Verso closes his eyes, sinks into the bed, and yields to the man who keeps him going. It's chills that he feels at first, not warmth, as he steadies himself and they learn to breathe in tandem, and he shudders the first time that they match each other inhale for exhale.
When the chroma floods him, Verso bucks against Clive; he makes a noise that's part hitched breath, part whimper borne on a purr. He's been warm before – of course he's been warm before – but what he feels now transcends temperature and touch and all the senses he's ever experienced. Focusing on matching their breaths becomes a struggle he nearly fails to overcome, so self-destructively distracted by how good it feels that he has to call upon the most stubborn parts of himself to keep him going, to keep matching Clive breath for breath and kiss for kiss.
Firelight bleeds through his eyelids; stars rise to embrace it. Verso feels Clive's chroma fill him, and he wraps his arms around him, pulling him closer, closer, closer, there are still pieces of him that need to be baptised by the flames, there are things his heart can't communicate without throbbing its rhythms against Clive's own. At some point, Verso becomes so immersed in Clive's flames that he needs to release his light, so he reciprocates, touching and breathing and loving his fire-brightened light into all the parts of Clive that he can reach. He feels like he's going to implode here on the bed, like he might spontaneously combust only for fate to resurrect him and the process to repeat again and again, the two of them caught in a cycle of rebirth through the power of each other's chroma.]
Fuck, I...
[Love you, love you, love you. Verso doesn't understand how it's possible to feel this fucking close to someone, so close they're sharing the literal essences of their existences, yet still crave more and more and more. But he supposes that love can be such a greedy thing. It's just that he's always known this in painful contexts, and now, now he wants to stake his own white-knuckled claim on Clive's love.
Releasing his hold on Clive, he grasps onto his wrist instead, guiding him to place his palm over his heart.]
[ Synesthesia, again. Supernovas of color and light reflect and refract, scarlet on silver on scarlet on silver, like fingers on piano keys, ivory on charcoal on ivory. The process doesn't feel like painting― it feels like music, playing notes until the sound becomes a tune and the tune becomes a melody, meandering but not directionless, rising and falling in time to the rhythm of their chroma. Clive's ears ring with it, and his exhale becomes a hum, trying to find and carry the note that he's hearing.
They could burn away like this, wrapped in each other. Passing their hearts back and forth for inspection and safekeeping until exhaustion takes them. Clive has never felt so full, never felt so welcomed, never felt so complete. It's almost an unbelievable thing, that it took until the year he was meant to die to find the man who would make him feel so uncompromisingly alive; it's an irony of sorts, but he doesn't even fucking care.
And oh, the sound of Verso's heartbeat is so fucking beautiful. Just like the rest of him. Beloved, beloved, beloved. Clive soothes his palm over Verso's chest, worshiping the map of his body, the shape that contains all of this starlit music. ]
―And I was born for you, to hear your heart beat.
[ More precious than any painting. Clive could spend the rest of his life with his ear against Verso's chest, listening to the proof of him. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.
Clive kisses fire into Verso's mouth again, lips and tongue almost numb from it. His heart breaks again, and pieces back together. Over and over, until he can't remember what it felt like before he met Verso, before he knew what it was like to really breathe. ]
I'm sorry I made you wait, [ he finally whispers. ]
[Though Verso can't claim to have been born – created – for any other reason than to salve Aline's grief, the moment that Clive expresses that he was born for him, his heart and soul ring out in unison. Yes, yes, this is his place in the world; tucked away into its unseen corners, uplifted and sheltered and fully encompassed within Clive's presence. He'd will his heart to beat all the more strongly, to make its message resonate all the more clearly, but it does that of its own volition, rising as high as it can as if to kiss at Clive's palm.]
It's okay. I'd say you've more than made up for it.
[A bit of a jest. There's nothing to apologise for, of course; he is here now and he his here in full and he is gracing Verso with warmth and pleasure and joy in measures that he's never experienced. In truth, had he known what awaited him on the other side of the decades of loneliness he's endured, he may well have consented to decades more, for the light of Clive's flames feels like such a strong beacon that Verso can't imagine losing his way knowing that it was what illuminated the paths ahead.
Sighing and laying heavier upon the bed, Verso takes in Clive's luminescence, the streaks of golden-orange in his hair, the glow of his scar, the trail of light that meanders down his neck and tucks itself away behind his shirt. Verso runs his knuckle along that light as far as it can go, then dips his fingers under the edge of Clive's collar, gliding them down until they settle in the V above the button.]
Show me the rest?
[His other hand joins the first, teasing at the button but not fully unseating it. They have time and space and freedom here to take their time and explore each other in ways that their circumstances and the newness of their connection had restricted before; they can redefine what it means to be the other's lover, feeling through the smaller moments, focusing on the details yet to be committed to memory, slowing time while they're afforded the luxury of knowing that it will submit to their command. And he plans to take advantage of that.]
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
no subject
More than a few times, Verso has thought he's spotted new bodies leaning up against the piles of the old ones, their uniforms pristine, their bodies unmarred by battle and perfectly positioned, and he's wondered whether they've chosen death or he's projecting his own deep-seated exhaustion onto them. A question that could possibly be answered by reaching out for the chroma locked inside of them and letting its age reveal its truths, but also a question that he can't bear to have confirmed, and so he leaves the details to the dead who carry them, honouring their places among their brethren in the only way he knows how.
It doesn't feel like enough, but then nothing ever really does.]
The bigger groups can usually manage. It's the ones who've lost most of their members that struggle. A couple have... ended their Expeditions right here. I always wondered if they returned to Lumiere after. Can't imagine that would be an easy decision, but it's not like it's any easier to choose to stay out here, so.
[He's rambling.
Either way, the decision to return to Lumiere doesn't feel like one that he could make. Let the people believe that the hope they'd built into the ships and hoisted upon the shoulders of the Expeditioners can still be fulfilled until the changing number tells them otherwise, he thinks. Then again, there's value in information, merit in sacrificing one's pride in the name of bolstering the next Expedition, so maybe he's focusing on the wrong things. How the fuck is he supposed to know, either way?
With this reminder of how little he actually understands about his fellow people and the lives they lead, he runs his hand through his hair and sighs.]
no subject
―he doesn't want to imagine it. Cid, a man who defied every single catastrophe with breezy humor and untouchable confidence, to have died in such a hopeless place. To have become another footnote in this relentless record of brutal destruction.
Clive is still thinking of his mentor when Verso mentions survivors, and his mouth forms the vague shape of an oh, almost in surprise. Right― it's not like Verso would know, not having lived in Lumiere since he left it so many decades ago. ]
For as long as I remember, and as far as I'm aware, Expedition Zero has ever been the only one that returned to Lumière after venturing outside of it.
[ History lost to the annals of time; they've discussed this. Courage deified for morale, but ignored for fifteen years after the Fracture anyway. Humans, imperfect as they are, will always choose peace of mind over reality.
As he sidesteps a pool of what looks like congealed blood: ] I suppose this place changes someone too much for them to consider returning. They quickly realize that they belong nowhere― not in the grim safety of Lumière, nor the imposing cruelty of the Continent.
The only choice left to them is how they die. [ Phrased specifically that way, since Cid is on the mind. ] And, as a fellow Expeditioner, I can respect what they chose.
[ An impossible decision, really. God, he wants to change things. Clive flits towards Verso, instinctively holding out a hand to catch him when he thinks Verso is going to trip because of his backwards walking (careful!!!), and breathing through his teeth when Verso retains his mountain-goat balance. Impressive. ]
―May I ask about a specific Expedition? Not my father's.
o rite armbands
Lumiere was often all they had in common.
Now, he considers whether he's been projecting all this time. After all, his heart never really left Lumiere; rather, its heart had turned against him. Long has he wondered what he would do if he was a simpler man with a home awaiting his return and friends who would cry at the sight of him, a family whose love was genuine, a career at the opera house, something normal awaiting him on the other side of the Continent's extremes. It feels like the answer is yes.
The rest of what Clive says, though – that has much clearer resonance. To choose to die in silence. To choose to protect Lumiere from despair. To choose to blend into a crowd so that when loved ones embark upon their own Expeditions, they never learn the truth and can tell themselves whichever stories help them sleep better when the ever-cold nights come and the ever-bright stars offer what little solace they can. Verso can respect that, too.]
Yeah. I suppose so.
[There's nothing else to say, really. He still can't speak of his own experiences or fill in the gaps between what Clive is saying and what the people in Lumiere might or might not be enduring. So he falls silent, letting his focus linger on the shipwrecks with their weathered masts and sunken hulls, frayed flags waving in the breeze against the starburst of rubble backlit like an explosion by the golden sun. That focus soon shifts to Clive's hand when he catches it in his periphery, and he takes that toothy hiss as a sign to fall into step by his side. A beneficial position, he finds, as Clive asks his question and his heart lurches just a bit in his chest, bringing a slight tension to his expression, too.]
I might not know anything, but of course, ask away.
i get 99% of the details about this canon wrong but i managed to remember the armbands
[ Can you tell I'm not using numbers anymore because I am truly vibing with the timeline at this point... Anyway, the meat and potatoes of what Clive wants to confirm is: ]
It was helmed by a man called Cid. [ Glancing sideways at Verso now; Clive feels just a little safer for having him within arm's reach. ] He was roughly my height, and smoked like a chimney. He would have used his chroma to summon lightning.
[ A brief inhale, and Clive demonstrates: the same blue-purple crackle of static that he'd summoned back in the cave, in the aftermath of Ifrit's rampage. Depending on how attuned Verso is to him by now, Verso might realize that the power doesn't quite feel Clive's own― something borrowed, but molded into Clive's shape.
(Maybe it's another anomalous thing about Clive: a black hole, painted under his skin. The reason why Ifrit is always so hungry.) ]
You remind me a bit of him, on occasion. ...Then again, Cid was more irreverent than charming.
[ Lips curl into a half-smile. He nudges Verso's elbow with his own. ]
...Did you ever meet him?
there are so many details and i would like very much to exchange my dollars for a lore book
Oh yeah, I met him.
[And what a character he'd been, every bit as smooth-yet-gravely as his voice, brimming with a kind of humour that Verso couldn't always keep step with, which made him appreciate the man all the more. Memories flood his mind of hard-fought battles and harder-fought rests, of the way the crackle of his lightning seemed to carry resolve in its static. The last time Clive had called forth that ball of lightning, Verso hadn't thought much of the signature its chroma bore; now, though, he does, feeling how it's laced with Cid's essence, and for a moment he can almost feel the man behind him, on the verge of making one comment or another on his propensity towards slinking off to brood.
As is always the case, though, the good memories give way for the final ones, those last heroic acts and the rattling breaths that follow, and Verso literally shakes them from his mind, ending the motion by looking over his shoulder.]
You're the protege, aren't you?
[Who Cid had talked up at length. Maybe by name, maybe not by name; Verso tries not to commit the details about those left behind in Lumiere to memory. There are already so many names and faces and stories that he creates space for; there is already too much for him to grieve. Yet, a lot of things he would have otherwise forgot flood to the surface. The pride Cid had expressed. The tales of a sad boy with a stubborn spirit. The conflicting hopes that said boy would never need to set foot on the Continent and that he would rain hell upon the Paintress when his turn came.
Verso says none of that yet. Guessing at Clive being the protege is already a bit presumptuous. Assuming not only that he's correct but that he should immediately transition into storytelling would be entirely too much. So, a question instead:]
Did you want to know something in particular?
every day i'm asking sandfall about ways for me to give them money, tbh
Clive laughs, despite himself, when Verso calls him 'the protege'. It's not wrong, but it is very Cid, and a bit of himself is glad that the mention of him doesn't only conjure melancholy and grief― that there's some part of him that hasn't relegated these beloved people to a corner of his mental landscape so sanctified that he can't even speak their names without wanting to weep. ]
I am, [ he affirms, still smiling. ] I hope you forgot everything he told you about me.
[ An ironic thing for Clive to say, though he doesn't know it. It's mostly to convey that he doesn't think anything Cid said about him would have been particularly flattering: "he cries a lot and he's gloomy and he didn't know his tits from his ass when I first met him", probably. "Wouldn't have been able to fold his laundry if I didn't show him how." (A flat-out lie: Clive was very good at folding laundry.)
It's strange to think that someone so important to him had beat him to the "meeting Verso" punch, but then again. It's Very Cid. Clive waffles with the question he could think to ask, which is whereabouts Cid managed to get before the Continent claimed him, but since Verso hasn't immediately tried to steer him in some other direction after the mention of his mentor, he'll assume that Cid didn't die here.
Best not to speak more death into existence in this place, anyway. Instead: ]
Did he ever drag you out to do some hare-brained scheme, nearly get you killed, and explain it away as an opportunity for learning and growth?
[ He must have. "Oh, look at that path. Must be a shortcut. Oh, it leads to a nest of Nevrons? Learn and grow!" ]
no subject
What's more roasting of the man who was literally roasted, anyway?)By now, if there's one thing that Verso understands about Clive it's that the light he sees himself in is slightly off-centre from the truth. Which is understandable, of course, given everything he knows about his mother, but it still surprises him, somewhat, when it comes up in the context of Cid, who clearly loved that boy like his own. And while Verso could just say that, he chooses instead to shrug and drag things out a little.]
Understandable. I, too, want people to forget what was said about me when it was nothing but effusive praise.
[A breath of a laugh follows, and then he shifts a bit more serious, a bit more honest.]
You meant a lot to him. The whole Expedition knew. He always talked about you when things were rough. And the rest of the time...
[At first, Verso just shrugs. Once upon a time, he had been the most reckless man on the Continent – a title he bore with some degree of pride, in no small part because it gave him stories to tell and those stories made him feel interesting, like he had something he could share with the others when he was hiding so much else away. Then Cid showed up and turned it into another competition, one that found Verso getting his ass handed to him more often than not.
He runs his hand through his hair at the memory.]
He absolutely was dragging us out on hare-brained schemes, yeah. Had this whole thing about how all the other Expeditions followed the beaten paths and that got them nowhere, so his Expedition was going to try a new way. Gotta admit it had its benefits. The Continent's a lot easier to traverse now than it was back then. I'm guessing he was the same in Lumiere...?
[Insofar as he could be, anyway!!!]
no subject
It makes the back of his eyes warm. Like he could cry about it (he could). He doesn't, though, fond as the thought makes him and devastated as the loss makes him; again, Clive is happy to know that speaking of Cid no longer reduces him to rubble.
Besides, imagining Verso being heckled by his mentor makes Clive's heart swell a size. He'd have liked to see it, he thinks; Verso would have been very cute, being caught off-guard by a breezy veteran and his oddball ways. ]
Ah, yes. "Complacency is the root of all evil", and all that. [ The sigh that follows doesn't quite stick its landing. Winds up sounding more like a laugh, than anything else. ]
He was always that way. Tried to push me to do things I'd never considered doing before I met him. Joining the Academy, finding my own purpose.
[ A brief smile, and he brushes his knuckles against Verso's. ]
...I think he'd be proud of what we're doing now.
[ Two utterly unlikely people coming together to face utterly deranged odds to resolve a bottomless dispute between extremely powerful forces. Outlaw behavior. Cid would have loved it, despite the massive migraine it would've given him. ]
no subject
I always liked, "You keep putting your head up there in those clouds, and the world'll never stop kicking your ass."
[Not that it changed much – poor Cid had weeks to fight against decades of unspoken despair – but the message behind it has stuck with him all the same: you'll never find yourself unless you stop losing yourself. Looking down when he feels the graze of Clive's knuckles, he captures Clive's fingers in a backwards handhold just long enough for a gentle squeeze.
Pride, though. Verso has a harder time reflecting on Cid – or anyone, if he's being honest – and thinking that they might be proud of what he's doing. Decades worth of no results and going back-and-forth on what he wants will have that effect, though, so he's used to that by now. Assuming that people are looking down on him and wishing he would choose a different course or push himself a little harder is another of those things that keep him grounded in reality. If Aline is certain she's right and both Renoirs are staunch in their slaughters and Clea can act with such unflinching cruelty because she is that sure of her own path, then Verso chooses discomfort and self-doubt and embracing all the ways he's fucked up over the years. He'll be the imperfect copy of a perfect son.
But he does want to think that one day, he can make someone proud. So:]
I hope so. It's men like him who remind why I'm doing this.
[With that, the reminiscing seems like it's over. Or at least on hold until they reach the tree at the end of their journey. Which finds him cycling back to something he'd noticed earlier but couldn't figure out how to broach. Now, though, he dives straight in.]
So. You gonna tell me how it is that you can use his chroma?
no subject
"Forgiveness― and in turn, salvation― can only begin with acceptance."
[ He's held that true, for ages. Something he still holds to, to keep him from being mired in self-pity or denial. When the fog of despair closes in, he tells himself to accept it as his own, and to keep it from clouding what he is― who he is. And so, here he is now, with the man he cares most about in this unrelenting storm of issues yet to be resolved, learning and growing ever day.
Clive really does believe Cid will be proud. He also thinks Cid would heckle him about putting a name to his feelings, but that can be something Clive kicks himself for another day, because: ]
―That said, I don't know. [ Regarding how he can manage to take a piece of someone else's innate abilities. One thing about himself that he's accepted, but hasn't understood. He's not sure if he's meant to save or forgive himself for it, but the power is something anomalous and strange, which falls in line with everything else he's found out about himself Post-Ifrit. ] There are those who... it almost feels like I attune to them. I respond to the color of their chroma, and I can...
[ Electricity crackles along his fingertips; it's followed by a weaker gust of green-tinged wind, a carry-over from another member of Cid's Expedition, Benedikta. (An accidental claiming, and the first time Clive or Cid realized he could do this. She'd been fucking furious about it for weeks.) ]
...I can claim it, to some extent.
[ He closes his fist, and energy evaporates off his skin, shimmering in the yellow-orange of the setting (rising?) sun. ]
It's why I can still feel the chroma you gave me, back at the manor. It never left.
no subject
When that green wind rises, Verso makes an equal attempt at grasping it, letting its chroma wrap its way around him. There's something familiar about it that he can't quite place – like a glance from a stranger whose face lingers long afterwards and the resonance of a voice long forgotten.
That's not important, though; Clive reveals more of the ways that he's unique and Verso thinks back on the mark he'd left on Clive's chest with his own chroma. He'd meant it as a complement to the bites and the scratches and the bruises – something that would stand out more and linger a little longer. Back then, the thought of his chroma becoming a permanent presence amid Clive's might have worried him a little. Chroma carries everything there is to a person, after all – their life, their soul, their heart, their memories – and it's scary to think that someone else might hold onto a piece of that. Now, he's mostly just curious.]
What's it feel like?
[It starts out as a general question, and Verso thinks for a flicker of a second on whether he wants it to come across that way. There is, of course, the lovestruck part of him that wants to understand the nature of his chroma's existence within Clive's own, whether it's more of a whisper of a presence or if there are interpretable parts of him floating around in there. He's wondering, too, about whether it's an imbuing or a tainting, and if Clive would benefit from carrying more of it or less of it inside of himself, and what that might mean, and whether granting it to Clive has put him at a deficit. Et cetera. So he adds:]
You know, keeping a piece of me with you like that.
[It ends up as a bit of a general question, too, but at least Verso feels more sure about this one.]
no subject
You feel like...
[ A breath, here, as he reaches for sparkling silver-white. It gets easier and easier to access every time he calls on it, and more and more familiar every time his consciousness brushes up against it. ]
...Starlight. [ With conviction, as he lets that warmth flood from from chest to fingertips. It makes him glow somewhat― just a little silver streaking his night-black hair, mimicking Verso and his stripes of white. ] Like guidance.
[ So, no, nothing interpretable or concrete. Nothing that Clive can pull apart for clues or information. Just a feeling, an essence, the intent that Verso had tried to slide into his heart that night, tired and desperate as they both were for some sort of connection. A reassurance, even, that Verso exists.
He tucks the feeling back into his chest for safekeeping, and breathes through his nose. ]
It feels good. [ Simply put. ] I doubt I could part with it.
[ "I doubt I could part with you". ]
no subject
Hey. No fair. You wear it better than I do.
[Laughter rings through his voice without gaining its own momentum. Fondness, too, but that's almost become a staple of how he speaks to Clive these days, with an almost ever-present hint of a purr chasing his rumbling tone. An impulse to kiss him rises and goes ignored; were they anywhere else Verso wouldn't have thought twice, but not here, never here where so many lie dead and displaced. So, he takes his hand instead, summoning a burst of chroma to pool between their palms, brimming with the warmth and softness of something shared. Another good feeling, Verso hopes; a reassertion opposed to the thought of parting. Being kept as a part of someone has long been a very complicated thing for him, given how it tends to end up with the other person throwing themselves into their own fires. With Clive, though...]
I like that. The thought of you keeping a part of me with you.
[Clive is his Clive and he is his Verso, and possessive though those impulses may be, they feel liberating more than anything, a celebration of a sense of belonging that once felt as fantastical as anything else in this world. But having his question answered only breeds more curiosity. Albeit a different kind, one Clive can't really answer: how it would feel if Clive's chroma were a part of Verso. And while Verso has never absorbed chroma in the way Clive's describing, he still has to ask:]
You think it could work both ways?
no subject
Good. It feels good, always. Even better, when Verso deigns to curl their fingers together and floods Clive with more of that starlight chroma, making Clive bend even more towards him, forehead to the furry lining around Verso's collar, where he nuzzles inwards for a few, long breaths.
No other color has felt like this. It sates that hungry, ravenous hole in his chest in the shape of Ifrit, who sits in his consciousness with its mouth open, still demanding to swallow Verso whole; Clive doesn't consider that he was painted to harmonize with the immortal shift of Verso and his family's chroma, because the truth of that doesn't resonate with him. He feels this way because he chooses to, and he feels this way because he wants Verso. With or without Ifrit, he will always want this beautiful man and the white-silver shimmer of his soul.
Finally, Clive sways back upwards. Relaxed, but poised. Pleased to know that Verso isn't horrified by the idea of Clive laying claim to part of him, and reciprocally curious about whether his power could work in reverse. ]
...Would you want to chance it? [ You know. Because he's not sure if the color of his own chroma will be pleasant at all, tinged by Ifrit as it is. Maybe it'll be corrosive for Verso, a virulent thing that eats away at all that precious silver. The thought of it pinches Clive's brows inward in a slight frown.
But he does try it. A little mote of fire, burning quietly on the palm of his hand. (Again, if he knew about how 'Verso' died, this might horrify him a lot more.) ]
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It burns at first in the way that the real Verso had burned: sharp and searing, moving with a hunger that will never know sating. His grip on Clive's hand tightens and he hisses through his teeth, focusing on how these flames – even if starved for more – are not greedy. They touch his own chroma without lingering, simply delivering the abstractions of their truths, and Verso finds comfort in how they don't hide away from how honesty fucking hurts, sometimes.
Eventually, he stops burning. The brightness of the flames syncs up with the origins of starlight and they harmonise, leaving Verso's whole body tingling like a star field billions strong, each one with a determined flame at their hearts. Hearts that beat to the rhythms of love songs, playing in the pitch of hope.
At first, all he can let out is a breathy laugh and a simple:]
Merde.
[His palm is sweaty; he thinks he can feel more sweat beading along his hairline, too. His own heart beats to adrenaline's rhythm, and while he doesn't know whether his chroma will retain Clive's in the same way that Clive's has his own, the after effects make him certain that he wants it to last for as long as he has breath.]
I'd say that was worth the risk. Your fire, it... It makes my light feel brighter.
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Breath catching, he opens his mouth to call Verso's name; closes it a moment later, as he tells himself to trust that Verso will be alright. That they were made for each other, and that they're both better for it.
Validation comes in the sound of that merde, in the way that Clive's hair also turns starlit again to match the patter of Verso's elevated heartbeat. It's both perfect and agonizing, and it fills Clive with the sort of need that belongs nowhere in this broken battlefield with its thousands of corpses looking on in muted horror.
A huffed breath, and he reaches to wipe some of the sweat off of Verso's temple, using his free hand to sweep at the soft wave of Verso's two-toned bangs. ]
If such a thing is possible. [ Brighter? When Verso is already the brightest thing in a five-hundred mile radius?
A love-drunk thing to think, certainly, but it's the first thing that comes to mind. Then: ] ...We should discuss this elsewhere, before you make me want to get on my knees.
[ Verso is very lovely when he's framed by Clive's flames. (This better not awaken something in Clive.) A mental note, here, to see how he can tame his own flames so that the process of containing it might be less of an ordeal for Verso if the mote he just passed on fades; Ifrit rumbles in his chest again, pleased and possessive. ]
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What, you can't see it?
[Surely it's sparkling in his eyes; it must be blooming slightly pink across his cheeks, too, from the way the force of it all leaves him feeling flush and interconnected with Clive. It still feels like both the wrong and the right time to kiss him, but there's an appeal to holding back and letting it build inside of him while the still-crackling flames reassert that everything about Clive is hearth and home, right down to the literal core of his existence.
The original plan was to power through the Forgotten Battlefield and set up camp once they reached Monoco's Station. But because Monoco isn't expecting them – and because he might not even be home – when Clive brings up the notion of elsewhere, Verso decides that it can wait. These past few moments do beg discussion. And the rest of what he says, well, that makes its own pleas and creates its own warmth that Verso wants to wrap them both up in. So, with a nod ahead, he gestures to the ruined fortress just off to the side. Rough-hewn stone contrasts against ornate gold-and-black doorways with their sharp lines and geometric designs seeming wholly out of place. Most of the wall on the other side of the doors has collapsed in on itself, but the door furthest left backs onto something more solid. There's even the hint of lamplight peeking in from a faraway corner.]
We can set up camp in that building. There's a room we can use. Takes a bit of navigating to get to it, so it's safe from the Nevrons.
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So. He nods, and they head off in the direction of the looming structure. They make short work of a Ramasseur in the way― bolstered by each other's chroma, the Nevron is almost an afterthought― and that quick shot of adrenaline only makes Clive's pulse quicken in his chest.
Up some broken steps, past fractured walkways. Clive tries to imagine what any of this was before strife rendered it all rubble, but everything he can think of is too melancholy for the moment; he sets it all aside in favor of Verso, still burning bright in yellow-gold sunlight, and finally, finally reaches for him once they find themselves in the safest patch available to them in this hell.
Chest to back, hands linked in front of Verso's stomach. Clive encircles Verso in his arms, taking a moment to nose along his nape and to breathe him in. ]
You are warmer.
[ Proof that a piece of Clive flickers in him, still. Verso, his Verso, unique and singular and like nothing and no one else. Clive is convinced of it. ]
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Not that any of that really matters. The room could be nothing besides crumbling walls and a dusty floor and Verso would still feel like a privileged man for having Clive here with him in more ways than he'd known possible.
The warmth inside of Verso hasn't faded, it's true; neither has the buzzing inside of his own chroma, a sensation that he feels all the more when Clive closes his arms around him and Verso leans a bit of his weight back against him as he hums, content.]
Mm, but I could still be warmer.
[After a moment, he lifts one hand to the side of Clive's face, maneuvering him into a light-laced kiss, letting his chroma emanate from all the places where their bodies touch, just a soft tickle for now, just a hint at what might come should Clive match his energy. The kiss breaks like a tease: too soon for it to get anywhere, slow enough to create a suggestion of more that Verso almost but doesn't quite follow through on.]
Let me feel you everywhere.
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The teasing doesn't help. It's white-silver all the way down right now, in his eyes and in his mouth and in his heart. Color without color, a reflection of the rest of the visible spectrum, unyielding in its refusal to be stained. It suits Verso, Clive thinks, and he almost whines in the back of his throat when their brief kiss breaks and he's cut off from the warm taste of him. ]
Yes, [ he whispers. ] And let me keep more of you in me, in turn.
[ Again, love-drunk, except this time he says the stupid thing instead of keeping it in the relative privacy of his head. He parts Verso's hair to kiss a bare patch of neck, smooth and unblemished despite the memory of having bitten into the same spot when Ifrit'd run rampant that one night.
He shudders at the memory of it, but it doesn't deter him from walking Verso over to the nearest bed and falling onto it with playful gracelessness. If he's careful, he thinks he could pull from his furnace and let his chroma wrap around the both of them without them both burning to death― he'd done it once before, when he was winding down from his tantrum and let Verso hold him even when he was more Ifrit than Clive. ]
Will you trust me with this?
[ Because it's not exactly the safest or sanest thing, what Clive is doing here. Wanting to have, but also wanting to give the full breadth of something that even he's still figuring out. Verso wouldn't be blamed for saying no, and Clive will still warm him anyway― just, you know, in a safer and saner way. ]
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But then Clive guides him to the bed and his heart bounds ahead of his body; they fall and Verso laughs again, rolling over onto his side so that he can get a better look at Clive. As always, his hair is doing what it wants, so Verso reaches up to brush it aside, only to get distracted by the soft curve of his cheeks and the jut of his jaw, and he ends up stroking his fingers along them instead. Fuck, he's beautiful. Chiselled and rugged and battle scarred, yet with such kind and sad and gentle eyes that draw Verso in with their truths. Hopelessly helplessly, he gets caught up in them, too, as Clive requests his trust anew.
It's an important question, yet Verso doesn't give it a moment's consideration. He doesn't need to; even after what happened with Ifrit, even with the memory of how his back shattered on contact when he was slammed against the ground, and how Ifrit's flames ate away at his palm, and how Clive's beast-driven teeth sank into his neck, Verso's faith in Clive is absolute.
And so is the surety of his response.]
Yeah. Can't really think of anything I won't trust you with.
[Well. There are the the secrets he's still keeping, but that's less a matter of trust and more a consequence of his own struggles to reach out and burden people with things they can't change. Still, he doesn't know what, exactly, to expect, so his heart pounds all the more in his chest, and his breathing gets a little heavier, and his eyes grow wider, but there's no reluctance in any of that. He really does hold absolute faith in Clive.]
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―oh, it's definitely love that he feels. A jolt of it, startlingly powerful, threatening to pull him apart from the inside out. This beautiful man, made and unmade and currently in the making, struggling with masks and memories, trusts Clive with his safety and self. For all of the doubts they both share about their future, Verso says yes to Clive with the sort of certainty that breaks Clive's fucking heart and reassembles it in Verso's shape.
He loves Verso so much. If nothing else about this world is real, this feeling is.
So he repositions their bodies again: a familiar setup, with Verso on his back and Clive covering him like a blanket, elbows on either side of that lovely face, fingers in wind-swept hair. Like the time they first tried to shove themselves together, but with more focus; there's no method to this madness, but at least Clive has a better idea of what he is now, what he can be. ]
Breathe with me.
[ In, out. Clive kisses the rhythm into Verso's mouth for a few seconds, acclimating them both to the cadence. In, out. As he does, he calls on Ifrit, and bids that hungry creature to heed him, and to obey.
This time, there's no struggle. The hellfire in him answers with benign amusement, and pours forth from every inch of Clive's body with exploratory enthusiasm: it paints Clive red, crimson in his hair and crimson in his chest, veinlike streaks flowing from his heart all the way up to the scar on his face. Clive almost chokes on that first rush of heat, but he expels his next breath as steam through his teeth, onto Verso's lips and tongue.
Warm, without being scalding. He pools chroma over Verso, enveloping him and nesting him in Ifrit's seemingly bottomless energy. It's a wonder that the room doesn't catch on fire, but everything stays intact (for now).
(Good thing they didn't do this anywhere near Alicia. Clive might have become Public Enemy Number One if he had.) ]
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When the chroma floods him, Verso bucks against Clive; he makes a noise that's part hitched breath, part whimper borne on a purr. He's been warm before – of course he's been warm before – but what he feels now transcends temperature and touch and all the senses he's ever experienced. Focusing on matching their breaths becomes a struggle he nearly fails to overcome, so self-destructively distracted by how good it feels that he has to call upon the most stubborn parts of himself to keep him going, to keep matching Clive breath for breath and kiss for kiss.
Firelight bleeds through his eyelids; stars rise to embrace it. Verso feels Clive's chroma fill him, and he wraps his arms around him, pulling him closer, closer, closer, there are still pieces of him that need to be baptised by the flames, there are things his heart can't communicate without throbbing its rhythms against Clive's own. At some point, Verso becomes so immersed in Clive's flames that he needs to release his light, so he reciprocates, touching and breathing and loving his fire-brightened light into all the parts of Clive that he can reach. He feels like he's going to implode here on the bed, like he might spontaneously combust only for fate to resurrect him and the process to repeat again and again, the two of them caught in a cycle of rebirth through the power of each other's chroma.]
Fuck, I...
[Love you, love you, love you. Verso doesn't understand how it's possible to feel this fucking close to someone, so close they're sharing the literal essences of their existences, yet still crave more and more and more. But he supposes that love can be such a greedy thing. It's just that he's always known this in painful contexts, and now, now he wants to stake his own white-knuckled claim on Clive's love.
Releasing his hold on Clive, he grasps onto his wrist instead, guiding him to place his palm over his heart.]
Mon coeur bat pour toi, et toi seul.
[And oh, how it beats.]
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They could burn away like this, wrapped in each other. Passing their hearts back and forth for inspection and safekeeping until exhaustion takes them. Clive has never felt so full, never felt so welcomed, never felt so complete. It's almost an unbelievable thing, that it took until the year he was meant to die to find the man who would make him feel so uncompromisingly alive; it's an irony of sorts, but he doesn't even fucking care.
And oh, the sound of Verso's heartbeat is so fucking beautiful. Just like the rest of him. Beloved, beloved, beloved. Clive soothes his palm over Verso's chest, worshiping the map of his body, the shape that contains all of this starlit music. ]
―And I was born for you, to hear your heart beat.
[ More precious than any painting. Clive could spend the rest of his life with his ear against Verso's chest, listening to the proof of him. I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.
Clive kisses fire into Verso's mouth again, lips and tongue almost numb from it. His heart breaks again, and pieces back together. Over and over, until he can't remember what it felt like before he met Verso, before he knew what it was like to really breathe. ]
I'm sorry I made you wait, [ he finally whispers. ]
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It's okay. I'd say you've more than made up for it.
[A bit of a jest. There's nothing to apologise for, of course; he is here now and he his here in full and he is gracing Verso with warmth and pleasure and joy in measures that he's never experienced. In truth, had he known what awaited him on the other side of the decades of loneliness he's endured, he may well have consented to decades more, for the light of Clive's flames feels like such a strong beacon that Verso can't imagine losing his way knowing that it was what illuminated the paths ahead.
Sighing and laying heavier upon the bed, Verso takes in Clive's luminescence, the streaks of golden-orange in his hair, the glow of his scar, the trail of light that meanders down his neck and tucks itself away behind his shirt. Verso runs his knuckle along that light as far as it can go, then dips his fingers under the edge of Clive's collar, gliding them down until they settle in the V above the button.]
Show me the rest?
[His other hand joins the first, teasing at the button but not fully unseating it. They have time and space and freedom here to take their time and explore each other in ways that their circumstances and the newness of their connection had restricted before; they can redefine what it means to be the other's lover, feeling through the smaller moments, focusing on the details yet to be committed to memory, slowing time while they're afforded the luxury of knowing that it will submit to their command. And he plans to take advantage of that.]
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i hate that i wrote you an essay about clive's AU life. IM SORRY
but i love that you wrote me an essay about clive's au life so we have achieved balance
shoves clive in a locker... im coming for verso next
can clive fit into a locker
...ok fair point
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so what i'm hearing is clive won't be seranading verso with the ben starr version of until next life
local expeditioner gets dumped by local immortal man after attempting to sing (poorly)
or!!! local immortal man gets dumped by local expeditioner after 168-hour singing lesson marathon
ben starrs separate citing creative differences (i will never let this happen)
it would be a crime they both deserve a ben starr
THEY DO!!! i'm neither sane nor normal about them
how dare these sad men tbh (please continue daring, sad men)
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