I lose, [ for clarity's sake, ] because I have to wait for you to touch me.
[ Not because he has any macho hangups about bottoming, which he doesn't: as evidenced by everything he's doing now, shimmying out of his pants leg by leg, exposing strong thighs fortified by the same crimson streaks that race up his arms, his neck. He feels like he's teetering just along the side of being ridiculous, pretending to have the body type that benefits from this incremental striptease; the reality, in his opinion, is anything but. Too angular, too square, too strong. He's too grown and too infatuated to be self-conscious in front of the man he loves, but there is a vague wonder if this is more humorous than it is enticing.
Oh well. The pants strip off, and he lets it fall onto the ground next to the bed on top of the boots and socks he's also divested himself of. He's still flame and starlight, softly-glowing blue eyes made just a little dull from arousal, cock not quite at full-mast but getting there, already half-hard from all the chroma-sharing and anticipation.
Clive breathes through his nose, watching for any shifts in Verso's scrutiny, wondering how best to negotiate this. Eventually, he admits: ]
I've never done this before. [ He absolutely refuses to make this maudlin, so he interrupts himself by shifting into what he knows is a frankly obscene position with his thighs parted and his back arched, one hand behind him for balance, the other stealing between his legs to feel along his own rim. ] ―Not in any way that mattered.
[ Just the once, when he was still so numb and lost, 'Wyvern' instead of 'Clive'. After his mother threw him out of their house, burned a mark onto his face to impress upon the fact that he was no longer welcome, and left him to survive with a gaggle of men who needed an errand boy.
Again, he refuses to make this maudlin. He's meant to be seducing Verso, not inciting pity, and so he tries to push the tip of his middle finger inside himself to prove that yes, he wants Verso. Badly. Enough that he doesn't care that he's making a spectacle of his poorly-planned prep, which must be as unsexy as his stripping. ]
I want you to be my first, [ is a strained huff. His eyes shutter, and he reaches inside himself for more starlight; it helps him relax, to hold himself less stiffly. ]
[Oh. Oh, he sees what's happened now. Clive mentions touch and Verso laughs lightly, slightly sheepish over how he's created the impression that there wouldn't be abundant touching but holding his peace for now and keeping himself together as he's treated to a show. Maybe it's a little silly, but he's sufficiently captivated by the whole-body sight of Clive unleashed and Ifrit tamed, and so the answer to whether it's enticing is easily found in the way he looks at him, eyes rapt and lascivious, lips slightly parted as licks them wet, then quirks them into a lewd smile.
Maybe Clive is paint. Maybe he is chroma. Maybe he is someone else's creation, whether upon birth or upon the bestowal of Ifrit. Verso sees him as a man of his own existence, forged in internal and external flames, wearing them now in one of the most exquisite displays of whole-essence beauty he's ever witnessed. The fact that this man chose him feels nothing short of miraculous.
As he talks, Verso listens; as he reveals this part of himself, Verso reveals his own body, keeping his attention far more heavily focused on the Clive than on the act so he can take in everything he's sharing. Not in any way that mattered, he says, and while it's not an experience that Verso shares, the thought of it causes no less of a twinge in his heart, and his expression softens without losing the fire in his eyes. After all, extinguishing those flames is an impossible prospect when the sight of Clive's finger pressing inside of himself brings to mind the question of how good it will feel to fill him up and bottom out inside of him.
With his jacket, vest, and shirt off and discarded in one direction of the other, he rises from the bed to strip the rest of himself bare, then moves to take a seat in Clive's lap, wrapping his legs around him, cock gently bumping against cock. Like this, he runs his thumb along Clive's bottom lip with starlit fingertips.]
Then, I'll take you, and take you, and take you, until the only word you can speak is my name.
[His voice is improbably soft given the message it carries, but then that's part of it, too. He wants Clive, desperately, but he needs him in whole, not as a quick fuck, not with the way their chroma moves between them in ways they've yet to experience in full. So, he continues.]
Touch is the whole point, mon feu.
[To demonstrate, he snakes his other hand between them to dance a path of stars along Clive's half-hard cock, featherlight and teasing.]
[ A misinterpretation of the assignment: Clive thought he'd have to go without until Verso deemed him worthy of being claimed. Which would've been a fun little test in and of itself, though he would always prefer Verso being a participant rather than the audience, and especially for what he deems, ostensibly, his first time allowing anyone to claim him fully.
So he's happy to be mistaken. Very mistaken, as weight displaces on the mattress and Clive is seeing starlight not from a distance, now, and up close― so close, in fact, that Verso climbs onto his knees and gives Clive his weight and his promise, lets Clive taste his essence along his lip.
His eyes snap open again, and for a gasp of a second, Clive goes entirely silver. Crimson flames defer to the intensity of Verso's chroma, opening up all of Clive to allow Verso's energy access to every pathway, every meandering inch of his wanting body. It's intense in a way that stiffens Clive all the way, makes his cock drool shamelessly once touched; the expanse of his body feels like one open nerve, eager and humming for Verso's attention. ]
Oh, fuck, [ he whines, when he remembers to breathe. Scarlet makes its way back to the fore, but only barely― all Clive can see, as he pushes past his own discomfort to bury his middle deeper inside himself, bucking and grinding against Verso's cock in the process, is Verso's haloed hair, his halo eyes. A fucking angel. Sinner and saint, Clive's everything. ] All of it― mon étoile, give me all of it. Fill me with you, just you.
[ His Verso. Not a facsimile, not a replication, not anything but this feeling of warm, unyielding starlight, resisting stain and blemish. If Clive was made to consume him, let him consume him on his own terms: let it be about love and not violence, of being together instead of tearing apart.
Another moan, as Clive laves his tongue along the finger still pressed against his mouth. Hunger makes Ifrit roil again in this happy push-and-pull, lapping along Verso's edges with teasing, playful heat.
Some couples worry about breaking the bed in their coupling; Clive momentarily has a real concern that they might take the fucking fortress down.
Might be fun. He sighs again, warm and provocative, and relinquishes Verso's thumb to claim his mouth, wanting more, more, more of that silver. The please he murmurs is less begging and more goading this time around, a bit more in line with the so-called competitive spirit he's supposed to be channeling. ]
[To see Clive coloured with flames is a wondrous sight on its own, one Verso knows he'll never be able to look away from, no matter how overwhelming that brightness may be at times, no matter how much its beauty breaks his heart in the same way that music often does. But for that gold and orange and red to shift to silver – for Verso to look at Clive and see the way that he lights him up, in turn – is everything. It's absolutely fucking everything. Even as the effect fades, the memory claims permanence in Verso's heart and mind and soul.
So does the feeling of the friction between their chroma-laced cocks as he groans in blissful agony. So does the taste of Clive's pre-come; Verso swirls his thumb along his cockhead to capture it then brings it to his mouth, staring Clive straight in the eyes as he slowly, methodically licks himself clean.]
Merde. I could suck you dry.
[But not right now. Touch by touch and breath by breath and deep kiss by deep kiss, it becomes devastatingly difficult for Verso to maintain his side of his game, but he is more than stubborn enough to keep trying, and self-denial is second nature to him, anyway, so after a point he shifts his position to make it harder for Clive to grind against him, pressing one hand against the back of his neck to hold him into an unrelenting kiss, resting the other against the small of his back, sending bursts of starlight from both palms, powering and powering and powering them until they become supernovae.
That please doesn't go ignored – his whole fucking body responds to its delivery into his mouth, nerves shuddering and cock hardening – but instead of meeting that plea with an escalation, he draws some of his chroma back inside of himself and shifts to kissing Clive like there is no urgency between them at all.]
Please be patient.
[His tone is as mischievously teasing as its ever been, and he huffs a laugh against Clive's mouth before his teeth claim his lower lip, the bite long and hard enough to be felt. Possessive, so fucking possessive that he nearly surprises himself, but fuck if he wasn't serious that Clive is his freedom; fuck if he's ever felt more like himself than he does right now, enjoying himself through enjoying his lover, both of their chroma colliding to make him feel grateful that the twisted natures of their existences have at least granted them the boon of these unspeakable pleasures.]
I want you at your breaking point. I need to feel it like it's mine.
[ A hand to the small of his back, and Verso's mouth over his. Clive thinks he could come just from this, his flushed cock completely untouched, flooded with light and being rewired from the inside out. He's dizzy with it, breathless and restless, forgoing the process of spreading himself to concentrate solely on the unrelenting, unforgiving, perfect bursts of pure silver that spread up his spine, go straight to his cock, take root in his heart.
He's close, shaking, and then－
－it's gone, retracted, leaving Clive smoldering in his own embers again, gasping for breath. And fuck, it's so unfair, it's so fucking unfair to the point of it being near-cruel, and Clive's next whine is almost a growl, low and throaty and desperate. ]
Verso.
[ He tilts his balance forward, the arm used to brace himself now curling around Verso's shoulders to reorient, back arched, chest to chest. It should be impossible for someone to feel so good everywhere, to set his nerves alight wherever they touch; maybe it so happens now that Clive can't attune to anyone else ever again, so completely taken by Verso and the color of him, bathed in reflective white.
He wouldn't care, if that were the case. He bucks against Verso's knee, trying to find any part of him to make friction with, resuming his efforts to pry himself open so that he can fucking take Verso already, Verso and his perfect chroma and his perfect cock. Two fingers this time, rash and impulsive, the wet sounds from between his legs an obscene undercurrent to the music they're making. ]
Fuck, fuck－ [ Patience is the last thing on Clive's mind, but he can try for Verso. He could do anything for Verso, he would give anything for Verso. Sweat-slick foreheads rub together, and Clive licks at kiss-swollen lips, coaxing more teeth, more tongue. ] ―I feel so empty without you.
[ Is he winning? Is he losing? Does it matter? Verso wants to see him break, and Clive wants to see Verso break. He wants the slant of those beautiful, coy lips to pull tight, and those warm eyes to turn hungry and sharp. He wants Verso to shove him down and take him, and so－
－he tries to want to win. Raking lines of fire along Verso's shoulderblades, tracing each stack of his spine with licks of flame. ]
Closing his eyes, and tightening his grip, Verso accepts each kiss of fire imbued into his spine with a moan and a reflexive jolt of his own hips as heat singes is its way all throughout him. Betrayed by his body, he can't help but growl into their next kiss, letting Clive know how exactly he feels about his take on the game by dominating his tongue and digging his fingers into his back so he can send stronger, more concentrated bursts of chroma out from his fingertips. For a foolish moment he loses sight of what he's supposed to be doing and allows his chroma to completely consume him, reducing him to ash and delirium as he endures the dual aches of fire and arousal to chase the kind of bliss capable of rewriting a man.
But no, no, he cannot demand patience and then fail to embody it in the very next moment; he cannot break until the two of them can shatter into shards together, each so deeply embedded in the other that they become one entity instinctively chasing a singular goal.
So down his hand goes again, one finger stealing the pre-come leaking from each of their cocks, then joining Clive's in burying itself inside of him. As soon as Verso feels Clive's muscles flex in response, he lets out a brattish laugh against Clive's lips and sends a trail of starlight shooting along his walls as he starts thrusting in tandem with Clive's fingers.
One tune can't be changed without the other, though, and Verso releases his hold on Clive's neck to take both their cocks in his other hand, stroking them slowly, absent chroma. It's torturous – it's wholly fucking torturous – but Verso justifies it by thinking about how they're in this together, all starlight and firelight, all illuminating heat, all need, need, beautiful, fantastical, wings-giving need.]
You call that burning?
[Oh, he knows he's tempting fate with that; he understands he's no further away from total collapse than Clive is. But there is something about how Clive falls to the brink only to fight his way back into full competitive spirit that excites Verso more than the thought of winning does, something about the implication it creates of how Clive wants to receive him that he finds completely irresistible.]
―Once he stops grinding down into the feeling of new fingers inside of him, that is. For a few moments, he's stupid with the need to fuck into and against the dual sensation of those hands in him, on him, and his world boils down to the spark of light that quite literally fills him from the not-quite-deepest part of him, making him get that much closer to hitting his peak with an arch of his back and a full-bodied groan.
Not yet, though. Patience. Even though he turns white-silver all over again for a held note of a long breath, consumed and subsumed, a canvas for Verso to paint whatever he wants on him. Clive stays like that, clenching around Verso's digits with stubborn need, turned all the fucking way on when he remembers those beautiful pianist fingers sliding over black and white keys.
He's being tuned by this man. Made to sing. The thought of it makes his heart do the stupidest things in his chest, thrilled and pleased and elated. And so Clive reciprocates, reaching deeper into his furnace for more heat, wanting to match Verso's intensity beat by agonizing beat. ]
Careful, Verso. [ His last warning before he folds forward, teeth along Verso's neck in a facsimile of that time on the beach. ] Keep breathing.
[ A hot tongue laves against sweaty skin; Clive admires the smooth column of that shapely neck, tracing it with lips and nose. It makes his mouth water, and he clamps his teeth over it, flooding fire into Verso's pulse as he bites and sucks marks directly over his jugular.
Will immortality make the bruises fade by morning? Clive hopes not, as he litters Verso with lovebites infused with his chroma. His hips rock on Verso's fingers, shoving down each time his teeth sinks. Claiming, claiming. ]
[There is a difference, Verso quickly discovers, between the feeling of someone else's chroma moving through skin and muscle and the complete and utter surrender that follows its entry into the fucking bloodstream. Perfect, beautiful, enrapturing tension works its way through him. His head falls to Clive's shoulder. His hand stills around their cocks and he can swear, he can fucking swear that he can feel Clive's chroma pumping pleasure into him from the inside. The only saving grace keeping him from coming on the spot is that he is overtaken by so many distracting sensations that none of them can reach their peak, like the whole of his body is being edged.
It's what he asked for, it's exactly what he asked for; what he didn't ask for was for Clive's chroma transforming him into a whimpering moaning mess, barely managing to make the few spluttering curses that spill past his lips coherent, but living through it now informs him that he really wouldn't have it any other way. Let Clive know the effect he's having on him, let him learn how to decipher the language of his pleasure, let him win and win and win until the end of time if this is how it's going to feel to lose.
(Verso is too competitive for that. He will start plotting his revenge the moment he's no longer fuckstruck and vibrant with Clive's fire. But for now, Clive's victory is fully shared.)
With a growl, he thrusts his fingers hard into Clive one last time before withdrawing them entirely and shoving him back against the bed until he cooperates. One hand remains braced against Clive's shoulder; the other returns to its place around his own cock, holding it steady as he rubs its head against Clive's entrance.]
You stop, I stop.
[In other words: more, still. Just a little more.]
[ Did he win? It hardly matters― Clive feels his back hit the mattress, feels his entire center of gravity shift, and he's in Verso's orbit and in his sights, right where he needs to be. He falls, the way he's been falling this entire time: in love, in love.
Sparks fly. Clive spreads his legs and invites Verso closer, arcs to the heretofore unknown feeling of a lover pressing against him, and laughs about it. Buoyant, high on the feeling of being wanted by this man, this man, this impossible, improbable, incomparable man.
The sound shimmers; Clive shifts silver again, so full of it that he can't tell if he'll shatter from it or if it's the only thing keeping him together. One leg hooks over Verso's hip, and he laugh-sighs again at the feeling of that slick cockhead sliding against his rim.
There's nothing else to say. Just another twinkling sound in place of je t'aime, and the brightest smile Clive can muster. ]
Come here.
[ Softly, with searing affection. There's nothing platonic or chaste about their combined hunger and need, but the way Clive touches his palm against Verso's cheek is nothing short of adoring, fifty different confessions tucked into the way his thumb rolls just along the corner of one halo-grey eye.
(In love, in love. A creature made of paint, who would rather die here with Verso than live a flesh and blood life without him.) ]
[Another fusion; Clive's happiness takes Verso's starlight and turns it into a kind of music he's never heard before, one that feels like it's glowing in the air between them. The silver laced glow of Clive's radiance brings a glimmer to Verso's sweat damp-body, and he can almost feel himself twinkle as he closes his eyes to focus in on the never-again feeling of pushing into Clive for the first time.
And oh, what an amazing feeling it proves to be. Verso moans deep and rich, like a man so wealthy with love he longs for nothing else, voice rumbling into a growling purr as he nuzzles against Clive's palm, a beast unleashed and tamed in his own right. But that taming factors into how soon he stops, even as he feels the tentative embrace of Clive's walls as they respond to his intrusion. As much as Verso brims with the desire to wholly seat himself and let Clive feel the full force of the effect he has on him, he hasn't forgotten that this is the first time that he's been taken like this that means something. So, he moves his hand from his cock to Clive's hip, steadying them both as he rocks his own hips slowly, pressing in deeper with each gentle thrust, face contorted into an expression of pure, patient need.]
This is what I think about when I touch myself.
[Or it has been lately, sating himself on those nights when one of them needs to keep watch and they can't even push their bedrolls together and let their shared breath warm the air between them. Sometimes, he fantasises about Clive coming back for one reason or another – he forgot his canteen or his binoculars, or he needed a tint to keep him alert, or he heard Verso's self-strangled moans from afar and safety be fucking damned – and catching him in the act so they can see it through to fruition, but that remains an unspoken dream.
Well, that one part of it, anyway. Further and further Verso presses inside of Clive, still chasing comfort in lieu of the ever-building pleasure that promises a rich pay-off soon, soon, so very soon.]
[ Verso pushes in, and Clive's eyes instinctively flick downwards to where they start to connect, blue-silver widened slightly in what could pass as awe. It feels nothing like the clumsy time this happened first (and last), nothing like the teeth-gritting, hand-clawed pain that made him tense like stone and wait, wait until it was just over; Verso feels like an unfurling, a remaking from the inside out, and Clive almost bids him to wait because it feels like so much, so fucking much.
But he doesn't, and the slow, careful claiming makes every bit of his fire turn starlight. Clive can't control it― his whole body lights to the feeling of Verso's chroma, wanting him and wanting him and wanting him, and greedily clings onto him, trying to pull him in and deeper, lamenting every time those hips pull back and away.
He doesn't know this. He's never felt this before. There are no defenses for it, and so all Clive can be is honest and unfiltered, his moans coming in short pants, eyes both dark and bright with molten arousal. His hand scrabbles for purchase along Verso's shoulderblades, gripping and petting, unable to choose between encouraging or demanding. ]
Merde, [ is a sweet gasp, almost like song. ] Fuck, Verso, please.
[ It's too much to think about Verso having fantasized to this; Clive wishes he'd known, so they could have consummated it sooner, tangled on bedrolls, Nevrons be damned. If being taken by Verso feels like this, Clive could let Verso have him whenever and wherever he pleases; he feels full, but needs to be fuller. ]
Deeper. Deep as you can be. Take me, claim me, I'm yours.
[ No more daydreaming. Back to me, Clive says with the motion of his hips, trying to rock down as much as he can. Reckless with it, a shimmering mess of starlit energy, trying to find the right rhythm to make them both incandescent. He can't stand those last inches of Verso that he doesn't have, and so he reaches down to touch where they meet, silver-lit fingers dancing along what he can still feel of Verso's cock. ]
[Verso opens his eyes and everything is light. Verso closes his eyes and it's the same. He and Clive could be miles apart or separated by worlds, and Verso suspects he'd be able to see Clive's brightness shining down on him with warmth and love and a mutuality that he hasn't felt since before he learned the truth of his existence. He suspects the sights and the sounds and the sensations of Clive coming apart beneath him will alight him with pleasure until the end of his days, too, the cursing and the begging and the bucking and writhing and the incoherent sounds in between flowing into a melody that Verso wants to orchestrate again and again and again, letting the immaculate beauty of his vulnerability break his heart into as many pieces as it needs to be shattered into in order to heal.
Such are the thoughts that swirl through his mind until he feels an unexpected jolt of everything wonderful about Clive, absolutely fucking everything, shoot itself straight through his cock.]
Oh, fuck, come on. [Light laughter spills from between his lips amid his own heady breathing as Clive's fingers continue to dance constellations of their combined light over what little of his shaft remains exposed.] You just can't help yourself, can you?
[Stupid question. He knows. Pausing for a moment to collect himself, he then shifts Clive's hips along with his own to encourage a better angle. The next thrusts are quicker, harder, deeper, until he's fully seated inside of him, hips pressed to hips and light swirling with light and heat feed heat feeding heat. He lets out a moan bigger then the others, and he moves his hand from Clive's hip and to his jaw as he leans down and claims his lips, too, his tongue lacking the patience and rhythm of his cock and simply taking and tasting as they both adjust to becoming one in this way, too.
His patience is quick to wear out, though, so he's quick to break the kiss and ask in a thick, heady tone:]
So, what'll it be, mon feu? Sin –
[He nearly pulls out before thrusting back in, hard and deep but neither to their full extents, still aware that this is new to Clive.]
– or salvation?
[The next few motions are softer, slower, driven by more of a rolling of his hips to meet Clive's than a slamming of them together. These, he maintains as he awaits his answer, peppering kisses along Clive's jaw as he does.]
[ It's diabolical, that Verso is asking him questions when the entirety of Clive's existence narrows down to where their bodies are making friction. There's not enough oxygen or brainpower left as Clive kisses and pants against Verso's mouth, breathing in for every one of Verso's exhales, filling his lungs, too, with that precious essence; he's busy trying to taste Verso's moans on his tongue and to not shatter completely when he's fucked into, so his initial response to sin or salvation is, unfortunately, an inelegant gasp that makes him sound like he's dying.
Ah isn't an answer, but it's the one that Verso will have to be satisfied with for a bit. Clive's arms have flown up to encircle Verso's neck, fingers in dark hair, hugging and tugging. If there was any part of him that could have been embarrassed about all of his hard-earned strength and much-endured training being useless in the face of all this pleasure, well.
That shame is dust. Ah, he tries again, head tilted back, neck exposed, eyelids fluttering. He has no idea where he ends, and where Verso begins.
Finally: ] Troublemaker, [ is how he expresses his ire, the how dare you make me choose. It's unserious, though, and Clive bucks back onto Verso's cock, grinding into that slower motion, shaking his head. He can't, he can't choose, but if he had to－ ]
I told you to teach me, [ he says, legs hooking around Verso's waist to keep him close. ] Sin, god, fuck.
[ The real answer is "whatever you want", but Clive blearily thinks that Verso won't settle for that; he has never let Clive hide behind deference, and god, fuck, merde, Clive loves him so much for it. Clive is out of his mind with infatuation, and he succumbs to it with flashes of white-red pooling around his heart. He might never find equilibrium again. ]
[With Clive's choice finally made, Verso chuckles into his next kiss to his jaw, then bites down, holding the skin between his teeth as he pulls away until it slips free. Repositioning himself one final time, he hooks his arms underneath Clive's and grasps onto his shoulders, digging his fingers into the muscle and channelling his chroma into the bruises he hopes to leave behind once this is all done.]
Good boy.
[A tease carried on a growl delivered straight into the pulse point on his neck. With near torturous slowness, Verso pulls his hips back; then, using his grip on Clive's shoulders for leverage, he drives back home into his hearth, his shelter, his sheath, his place, his everything – because that's what Clive encompasses in this moment, all that Verso senses and feels and knows and wants and needs. The pace he strikes rises and falls like climaxing music, always with force and gravitas, but with moments of soften tempos and more deliberate thrusts scattered between to make the hardest thrusts and the deepest impacts resonate all the more strongly as he sings the chaotic lyrics of pleasure and their chroma flares all around them, firelight and starlight bright as day.]
You take me so well.
[He noses up Clive's neck, bites at his earlobe, thrusts and thrusts and thrusts, hitting Clive at an angle that strikes himself just fucking right, just so fucking perfectly that he lets out a whimper of a cry right into his ear. The next thrust it the hardest yet, as if to drive home the audacity of the way Clive's body yields to perfectly to his own, the way he teaches Verso in turn that pleasure has depths he's never before realised.]
[ There's no space in Clive's brain to process what good boy in Verso's low growl does to him; Clive just lets himself feel it, cock drooling against his stomach and streaking his skin with precome, and lets himself feel every other swell of overwhelming light and heat and friction as they follow, crescendo on top of crescendo on top of crescendo. He pants, shifts, rocks back on Verso's cock, sparking silver on red on silver, drawing it on Verso's skin with blunted nails, kissing it onto whatever part of him that he can reach with his gasping mouth. A mess, reduced to what Verso promised he would be reduced to: a man so thoroughly taken that all he can think or speak is Verso's name. ]
Verso, Verso.
[ Sex has never felt like this, not in any configuration. Like a full rewriting of everything he ever knew about himself, made and unmade to fit and reach for the shape of someone else. He both feels utterly full and utterly ravenous, too much clashing against not enough, sated and desperate. The sound of skin on skin and their collective harsh breathing is both raucous and miles away; he has the delirious, unhinged desire to unhinge his jaw and swallow Verso whole again.
A lot. Clive is still defenseless against this feeling, and there's pleasure in knowing that, too― that Verso is both his first and his only. It's the only well-formed thought in his chaotic head before Verso finishes him off with a particularly beautiful inwards thrust, so deep that Clive sees stars (ha); his body is molten silver when he comes, back arched and neck extended, raven-black hair haloed in Verso's chroma. Every inch of him belongs to Verso in that perfect moment, but still―
―the agonizing peak isn't enough. He clenches around that hot, hard heat inside him, keeping it in his depths, greedy despite his hypersensitivity. Every raw nerve sings torturous pleasure, and Clive tries to share the feeling through his own fire in Verso's veins, glowing palm to Verso's nape. ]
Come in me, [ he pleads. It's the only way he can truly finish, together together together. ] You feel perfect, you're fucking perfect, I need it.
[ He doesn't care how brazen or wanton that sounds. Only Verso will ever hear him beg lewdly, and Clive's trust in Verso is absolute. Hugging Verso closer with his orgasm-wracked body (he feels like he's still coming, like he can't fucking stop coming), he paints his overstimulation all over Verso's body. ]
[The war between too much and not enough bleeds into Verso with Clive's chroma. It's beautiful. It's blinding and eye-opening in equal measure. It's maddening, it's so blissfully fucking maddening that the sin becomes a miracle for how Verso's still managing to hold himself together, still remaining present for Clive even as his walls close in around him and his chroma opens him up from the inside out.
Like this, Clive shares his orgasm; he telegraphs his overstimulation across every one of Verso's nerves until they all carry bits and pieces of his pleasure inside of them, little signals of the kind of brilliance the two of them can create when they come together, even if it's a lewd and loud and writhing sort, even if it isn't something they can cast into the world except through how much more determinedly they show up in it for each other, even if it reduces Verso to something blubbering in sound and erratic in movement as he thrusts and chases and grasps and pants and whimpers and pleads as if there's anything left for Clive to give to him.
Except maybe a return of the patience Verso had asked of him earlier. Just a little more, he wordlessly promises. Verso focuses and focuses and focuses; he takes what he feels of Clive and makes more room for it, channelling his own chroma through his fingertips and into Clive's shoulders, clenching and unclenching his grasp on them with each thrust, dull nails biting into sweat-damp skin. And he builds and he builds and he builds and –
He does not simply come inside of Clive, but across and through him as well, finding yet another way to demonstrate, to prove how much Clive's flames enrich his own light. Pulsing, pulsing, pulsing, riding it through, moaning afresh against Clive's ear with each new shockwave of pleasure, chasing an end that teases at being elusive until it finally wraps itself around him and he lets out a strangled cry that's some gibberish fusion of Clive's name, a three-word confession, and the beginnings of a song they'll play together time and again.
One last thrust, one final burst of chroma through his fingertips, and his hips lose their energy and his hands lose their strength and his body loses its ability to hold itself up, and Verso collapses boneless and broken onto Clive, absorbing his light in a different way as he remembers how to breathe.]
By the time their collective light settles, Clive is a man-shaped puddle on hopelessly creased sheets (note to self: tell Verso not to lead future Expeditions here, if that's even a thing they have to consider anymore), neither glowing nor pulsing to firelight or starlight. Spent and full and utterly fucked out, black hair like a hurricane across his scarred face. The only thing that telegraphs anything but blissful sexual exhaustion are his eyes, blue and wet and glimmering with emotion; he fixes them on Verso once he remembers what it feels like to have actual functions aside from trying to jam Verso further inside himself,
and laughs. ]
―Did I win?
[ On the tail end of a rasped breath, as if he has sand in his throat. Later, he might wonder if Renoir saw twin beams of pure light stretching up and above the Forgotten Battlefield and got Real Mad about it, because Clive isn't above that sort of unapologetic, unabashed declaration when he wants to make them. (Fuck you, Hugo Kupka.)
Ifrit trills happily in his chest. Clive misses his opportunity to extend his own garbled three-word confession in the aftermath of his earth-shattering fall, and thus, he'll have to choose a better time for it. Again.
Just for now, the world is still and uncomplicated. A false peace, but a perfect one. Just beyond the crumbling walls of the fortress sit thousands of bodies in tepid blood, with monstrous Nevrons shuffling and dancing among their ruins; Clive forgets them for this protracted moment, and god, it almost feels like this could be their lives if they try hard enough. If, if. ]
[Little by little, Verso returns to the moment, to a room that smells of musk and sweat, to the home-like warmth of the man still beneath him and sheathing him, to the mess of his hair, stark black where it lands upon the pillow and sticks to his face in chaotic patterns that Verso traces with his fingers. As wondrous as the lights radiating from Clive's body were, the softness and the quiet filtering in through the madness of everything else find Verso all the more enraptured by that slight glistening of his eyes, and he almost wishes that there were tears running down those lust-pinked cheeks so that he could embrace yet another way to exist here with him by kissing them away.
Instead, he laughs in harmony with him.]
No, I did. [It's a truth that Verso holds as true as any other. To win is to lose and to lose is to win, and to that effect he adds:] Game was rigged. I was always going to win.
[It's sappy and it's romantic and it's absent any form of bragging at all. Clive is no prize to be wagered but he is one to be treasured and fought for with everything that Verso has and beyond. To share in his company is victory in its own right; to understand the feeling of his chroma, and to earn the right to witness and exist within his vulnerability, and to trust and be trusted to such grand extents that all he feels is a profound sense of security are gifts he never would have imagined he'd receive.
And he thinks that this – this is how it feels to actually matter.]
[ Next time. It sounds as beautiful as lovers pledging, on the day of their Gommage, to meet by the harbor again 'next year'. And, truly, despite all the truths that Verso might have been reticent to speak until it was assured that Clive would take them to his death, Clive has believed him ever since they first tangled haphazardly on Gommage-colored sheets, in the black-and-gold cage of Verso's sterile not-quite-home.
Clive still believes him. Next time. He hums to the tune of that promise, even if he doubts Verso will let him win (the only thing he'll doubt about Verso). Far too competitive for that, he's finding out. That, too, Clive loves about him. ]
Gracious of you. [ ("You're such a liar", but affectionately.) Another laugh to add to the pile, as he pulls Verso into and against him, holding him as close as bone-tired arms can manage. Cradling him, keeping him, protecting him. There's so much harm this world both intends and doesn't intend to do to someone so impossibly precious, and even for a moment, Clive wants Verso to feel unburdened from all of it. Safe and guarded, looked after.
Clive loves him. Maybe thinking it often and hard enough will immortalize the feeling. He loves Verso. He loves him.
Later, they'll wash up using water from their skins and clean off using the frankly unsalvageable sheets they've rested on, and press ahead: the scores of graves Verso has dug for the fallen will bring them back to the reality of things again, because there's no escaping it.
But, among the rows and rows and piles and piles of death and sepia-toned memory, there will be the remnants of a red scarf wrapped around the branch of a quiet, serene-blooming tree. Familiar, though it should be impossible. Remnants of Joshua, where he has no business being. ]
[It doesn't matter how drunk on love they may have found themselves while tucked away into that room in the fortress; one step back out onto the Forgotten Battlefield is capable of sobering away even the richest experiences.
So, it's with silence that Verso gestures Clive ahead into this most sacred of places – perhaps the only truly sacred place left on the Continent – falling into step behind rather than beside him.
If asked, Verso could identify the exact Expeditioner who once owned every armband that waves in the ever-present breeze of his would-be graveyard. He could share stories and contextualise losses, could point out which armbands were handed over to him in the final gestures of the dying and which ones he had taken from bodies that still held warmth and colour because he'd been desperate for a way to memorialise their wearers. He could walk through this place as blind as he had when he'd taken those first steps past the gate and still have a sense of where everyone he's cared about has been laid to rest.
Seeing that red scarf stops him in his tracks before sending him almost rushing ahead of Clive, fingers reaching for the fabric well before it's reasonable to think that they could grasp it. Panic filters in through the remaining distance as he wonders if this is a message from someone he doesn't want to hear from, a threat, an ultimatum, another attempt to get him to bend the knee.]
Hold on. Stay there.
[Maybe it's a ridiculous request to make when all that's amiss is a scrap of fabric, but this is Verso's place, it's his, filled with the shards of his heart and the memories of his people, and he can't help but take it seriously.]
[ Armband pennants washed in golden sunlight, fluttering in an evergreen breeze. The deaths here are gentler, but the care with which they've been immortalized makes the graves Clive is surrounded by more stifling than the haphazard impossibility of the Battlefield proper. Clive knows which human had a hand in crafting this place, and to him, that revelation is as startling as I'm the son.
It distracts him from the red scarf waving among red-dressed branches. Everywhere he looks, he imagines Verso knelt in front of another wooden stake in the ground, hands stained with dirt, head bowed. Numbers watch him from all around: fifty to sixty to eighty to zero.
Zero. Clive lingers in front of that hallowed number, zero, before he notices Verso and his desperate reach towards what Clive doesn't identify as an anomaly; it seems another memento among many others, until he, too, finally starts to take in its shape.
Recognition flies like a well-aimed bolt to his heart. It freezes him where he stands, unintentionally obeying the request to stay, but his expression does what the rest of his body doesn't: it shifts and twists, blue eyes opening wider in shock. ]
―That's...!
[ Crimson fabric, the same as his father used to wear. Joshua had always looked striking in red, the color contrasting like sunset against his golden hair. Clive's heart stops, clenches, and pounds against his ribs. ]
...Joshua? [ He turns, surveying his surroundings as if he could expect to find anything here but the shadow of the dead. As if Joshua isn't also dead (because he killed him), as if this could be anything but some horrific, monstrous trick that someone is playing to punish Clive for trying to steer Verso from his family's preordained path.
[That's not the reaction Verso expected. Not that his head is clear enough for him to have held any expectations at all, but still, not even his subconscious held an inkling of a thought that the scarf belonged to Joshua.
Now that the idea is practically a living, breathing thing, though, his heart sinks even deeper, lurching it's way fast and hard into his stomach. Suddenly, the prospect of the Dessendres fucking with him feels like a petty concern, not worth considering in the face of them lashing out against Clive.]
Joshua?
[He thinks to calm Clive down, to quiet him in case the scarf was left by a malicious party who lurks nearby. But if that's true then it's too late now, and if it isn't, then the only way to establish that is by figuring out what's up with the scarf.
So, he tugs it loose from the branch, carefully looking over it for any signs of a message. He finds it tucked away in a corner, written in neat black script:
Forevermore.
With a frown, he finally lifts the scarf to Clive so that the writing is in plain sight.]
[ If this was the work of a punishing hand, then it knew exactly where to hit Clive where it hurts: Joshua is still a gaping wound patched over haphazardly with mental bandages, liable to bleed at the slightest reminder or touch. His is an absence both deeply felt and numbingly distressing, and the strength of that absence tilts Clive off-kilter more often than not.
He should calm down. There's no way. But he draws closer to Verso to inspect the single-worded note in a familiar hand―
―and the entire world seems to shift under his feet. Again. Like the night he woke up and found Joshua missing amid an indistinguishable pile of burnt and gnarled corpses. ]
...The promise I made to my brother, [ comes after a protracted delay. Hand outstretched, he brushes fingertips just beneath that neat script, afraid that it'll crumble at his touch, and his touch specifically. ] That I would protect him until the end of time.
[ A silly oath; the countdown would only have given Joshua two more years. "Forever" is a daring thing to promise in a world scraping its time thin. ]
But Joshua is... [ dead, he can't bring himself to say (even now), and his fingers curl back, hand clenching into fist. ] ...If this is a warning from our adversaries, it's an unforgivable one.
[A pause while Verso wonders about things he shouldn't speak aloud. Like whether Joshua was painted with the same fate-defying strokes as Clive. Like how certain Clive is that his little brother was among the piled-up bodies he'd woken up atop of. Like whether it's possible that Clea or Renoir or whoever else might have taken Joshua captive. But he doesn't want to build up a hope that might not go anywhere; he doesn't want to put Clive in a position where he has to say goodbye to his brother twice.
None of the Dessendres are supposed to know that this place exists – or at least they're not supposed to be aware that it means something to Verso – and he wonders about that too, if maybe that was blind hope on his part and there's truly nothing that's outside the sight of the Painters. He already knows that they don't have limits to what they'll do in order to bring about their desired outcomes, so he can't even say the cruelty is beneath them. What he can say is that arrogance governs much of how they interact with Canvases, along with an overvaluing of their own perceptions. This feels more like something he should put to words.]
They get caught up in how they see us. You know, like we're not as fleshed out as they are so what they do to us doesn't matter so much. But they're still good artists, and good art gets ahead of its creators to become something... more than they expected.
[Everything he says now stems more from the original Verso than himself, piecemeal sentiments extracted from memories and cobbled together into a rationalisation on how the Dessendres could possibly justify their actions in the Canvas. And of course he sees how the Lumierans rise to that point of more-than-expected; it's never been more possible to ignore than through Clive's perseverant strength as he comes to terms with the nature of his own creation.
Verso places his free hand on Clive's shoulder. No chroma this time, just weight and warmth and presence. He offers the scarf to him, too, holding it out like it's something precious no matter its origins.]
So, if they're responsible for this, I say fuck their intentions. Make it into something more.
[ "Good art". Still a strange and surreal pill to swallow, though the reality of it can no longer be denied: Clive's entire existence is defined by the strange way in which he was painted, a dark, dark absorbing black to Verso's bright, bright reflective silver. To the 'artists' that Verso speaks of, he's nothing more than an ephemeral concept given temporary sentience; theirs to harm or redirect as they please, for the sake of a grander mission.
It doesn't particularly distress Clive to know that he was meant to be a puppet. He is, simply, what he is. But the negative impact that said role as a puppet plays on Verso, has played on Joshua－
－his lips draw into a tight line. Tense, unhappy. It makes the creature under his skin churn again, calling for destruction; whose, Clive can't quite decipher. ]
That I will.
[ Finally, to that warm hand on his shoulder, and the steadying guidance of Verso's presence. ] It'll take more than a warning to take me from you.
[ To emphasize, he accepts the scarf with its sobering note. It's still redolent with the scent of parchment and ink and incense. Like a warm, amber-infused library. ]
...I wonder what our creators want from us now. If their intention is to turn us against each other, or something entirely different.
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
no subject
[ Not because he has any macho hangups about bottoming, which he doesn't: as evidenced by everything he's doing now, shimmying out of his pants leg by leg, exposing strong thighs fortified by the same crimson streaks that race up his arms, his neck. He feels like he's teetering just along the side of being ridiculous, pretending to have the body type that benefits from this incremental striptease; the reality, in his opinion, is anything but. Too angular, too square, too strong. He's too grown and too infatuated to be self-conscious in front of the man he loves, but there is a vague wonder if this is more humorous than it is enticing.
Oh well. The pants strip off, and he lets it fall onto the ground next to the bed on top of the boots and socks he's also divested himself of. He's still flame and starlight, softly-glowing blue eyes made just a little dull from arousal, cock not quite at full-mast but getting there, already half-hard from all the chroma-sharing and anticipation.
Clive breathes through his nose, watching for any shifts in Verso's scrutiny, wondering how best to negotiate this. Eventually, he admits: ]
I've never done this before. [ He absolutely refuses to make this maudlin, so he interrupts himself by shifting into what he knows is a frankly obscene position with his thighs parted and his back arched, one hand behind him for balance, the other stealing between his legs to feel along his own rim. ] ―Not in any way that mattered.
[ Just the once, when he was still so numb and lost, 'Wyvern' instead of 'Clive'. After his mother threw him out of their house, burned a mark onto his face to impress upon the fact that he was no longer welcome, and left him to survive with a gaggle of men who needed an errand boy.
Again, he refuses to make this maudlin. He's meant to be seducing Verso, not inciting pity, and so he tries to push the tip of his middle finger inside himself to prove that yes, he wants Verso. Badly. Enough that he doesn't care that he's making a spectacle of his poorly-planned prep, which must be as unsexy as his stripping. ]
I want you to be my first, [ is a strained huff. His eyes shutter, and he reaches inside himself for more starlight; it helps him relax, to hold himself less stiffly. ]
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Maybe Clive is paint. Maybe he is chroma. Maybe he is someone else's creation, whether upon birth or upon the bestowal of Ifrit. Verso sees him as a man of his own existence, forged in internal and external flames, wearing them now in one of the most exquisite displays of whole-essence beauty he's ever witnessed. The fact that this man chose him feels nothing short of miraculous.
As he talks, Verso listens; as he reveals this part of himself, Verso reveals his own body, keeping his attention far more heavily focused on the Clive than on the act so he can take in everything he's sharing. Not in any way that mattered, he says, and while it's not an experience that Verso shares, the thought of it causes no less of a twinge in his heart, and his expression softens without losing the fire in his eyes. After all, extinguishing those flames is an impossible prospect when the sight of Clive's finger pressing inside of himself brings to mind the question of how good it will feel to fill him up and bottom out inside of him.
With his jacket, vest, and shirt off and discarded in one direction of the other, he rises from the bed to strip the rest of himself bare, then moves to take a seat in Clive's lap, wrapping his legs around him, cock gently bumping against cock. Like this, he runs his thumb along Clive's bottom lip with starlit fingertips.]
Then, I'll take you, and take you, and take you, until the only word you can speak is my name.
[His voice is improbably soft given the message it carries, but then that's part of it, too. He wants Clive, desperately, but he needs him in whole, not as a quick fuck, not with the way their chroma moves between them in ways they've yet to experience in full. So, he continues.]
Touch is the whole point, mon feu.
[To demonstrate, he snakes his other hand between them to dance a path of stars along Clive's half-hard cock, featherlight and teasing.]
There are so many ways I want to fill you.
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So he's happy to be mistaken. Very mistaken, as weight displaces on the mattress and Clive is seeing starlight not from a distance, now, and up close― so close, in fact, that Verso climbs onto his knees and gives Clive his weight and his promise, lets Clive taste his essence along his lip.
His eyes snap open again, and for a gasp of a second, Clive goes entirely silver. Crimson flames defer to the intensity of Verso's chroma, opening up all of Clive to allow Verso's energy access to every pathway, every meandering inch of his wanting body. It's intense in a way that stiffens Clive all the way, makes his cock drool shamelessly once touched; the expanse of his body feels like one open nerve, eager and humming for Verso's attention. ]
Oh, fuck, [ he whines, when he remembers to breathe. Scarlet makes its way back to the fore, but only barely― all Clive can see, as he pushes past his own discomfort to bury his middle deeper inside himself, bucking and grinding against Verso's cock in the process, is Verso's haloed hair, his halo eyes. A fucking angel. Sinner and saint, Clive's everything. ] All of it― mon étoile, give me all of it. Fill me with you, just you.
[ His Verso. Not a facsimile, not a replication, not anything but this feeling of warm, unyielding starlight, resisting stain and blemish. If Clive was made to consume him, let him consume him on his own terms: let it be about love and not violence, of being together instead of tearing apart.
Another moan, as Clive laves his tongue along the finger still pressed against his mouth. Hunger makes Ifrit roil again in this happy push-and-pull, lapping along Verso's edges with teasing, playful heat.
Some couples worry about breaking the bed in their coupling; Clive momentarily has a real concern that they might take the fucking fortress down.
Might be fun. He sighs again, warm and provocative, and relinquishes Verso's thumb to claim his mouth, wanting more, more, more of that silver. The please he murmurs is less begging and more goading this time around, a bit more in line with the so-called competitive spirit he's supposed to be channeling. ]
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So does the feeling of the friction between their chroma-laced cocks as he groans in blissful agony. So does the taste of Clive's pre-come; Verso swirls his thumb along his cockhead to capture it then brings it to his mouth, staring Clive straight in the eyes as he slowly, methodically licks himself clean.]
Merde. I could suck you dry.
[But not right now. Touch by touch and breath by breath and deep kiss by deep kiss, it becomes devastatingly difficult for Verso to maintain his side of his game, but he is more than stubborn enough to keep trying, and self-denial is second nature to him, anyway, so after a point he shifts his position to make it harder for Clive to grind against him, pressing one hand against the back of his neck to hold him into an unrelenting kiss, resting the other against the small of his back, sending bursts of starlight from both palms, powering and powering and powering them until they become supernovae.
That please doesn't go ignored – his whole fucking body responds to its delivery into his mouth, nerves shuddering and cock hardening – but instead of meeting that plea with an escalation, he draws some of his chroma back inside of himself and shifts to kissing Clive like there is no urgency between them at all.]
Please be patient.
[His tone is as mischievously teasing as its ever been, and he huffs a laugh against Clive's mouth before his teeth claim his lower lip, the bite long and hard enough to be felt. Possessive, so fucking possessive that he nearly surprises himself, but fuck if he wasn't serious that Clive is his freedom; fuck if he's ever felt more like himself than he does right now, enjoying himself through enjoying his lover, both of their chroma colliding to make him feel grateful that the twisted natures of their existences have at least granted them the boon of these unspeakable pleasures.]
I want you at your breaking point. I need to feel it like it's mine.
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He's close, shaking, and then－
－it's gone, retracted, leaving Clive smoldering in his own embers again, gasping for breath. And fuck, it's so unfair, it's so fucking unfair to the point of it being near-cruel, and Clive's next whine is almost a growl, low and throaty and desperate. ]
Verso.
[ He tilts his balance forward, the arm used to brace himself now curling around Verso's shoulders to reorient, back arched, chest to chest. It should be impossible for someone to feel so good everywhere, to set his nerves alight wherever they touch; maybe it so happens now that Clive can't attune to anyone else ever again, so completely taken by Verso and the color of him, bathed in reflective white.
He wouldn't care, if that were the case. He bucks against Verso's knee, trying to find any part of him to make friction with, resuming his efforts to pry himself open so that he can fucking take Verso already, Verso and his perfect chroma and his perfect cock. Two fingers this time, rash and impulsive, the wet sounds from between his legs an obscene undercurrent to the music they're making. ]
Fuck, fuck－ [ Patience is the last thing on Clive's mind, but he can try for Verso. He could do anything for Verso, he would give anything for Verso. Sweat-slick foreheads rub together, and Clive licks at kiss-swollen lips, coaxing more teeth, more tongue. ] ―I feel so empty without you.
[ Is he winning? Is he losing? Does it matter? Verso wants to see him break, and Clive wants to see Verso break. He wants the slant of those beautiful, coy lips to pull tight, and those warm eyes to turn hungry and sharp. He wants Verso to shove him down and take him, and so－
－he tries to want to win. Raking lines of fire along Verso's shoulderblades, tracing each stack of his spine with licks of flame. ]
Burn for me, my star.
no subject
Closing his eyes, and tightening his grip, Verso accepts each kiss of fire imbued into his spine with a moan and a reflexive jolt of his own hips as heat singes is its way all throughout him. Betrayed by his body, he can't help but growl into their next kiss, letting Clive know how exactly he feels about his take on the game by dominating his tongue and digging his fingers into his back so he can send stronger, more concentrated bursts of chroma out from his fingertips. For a foolish moment he loses sight of what he's supposed to be doing and allows his chroma to completely consume him, reducing him to ash and delirium as he endures the dual aches of fire and arousal to chase the kind of bliss capable of rewriting a man.
But no, no, he cannot demand patience and then fail to embody it in the very next moment; he cannot break until the two of them can shatter into shards together, each so deeply embedded in the other that they become one entity instinctively chasing a singular goal.
So down his hand goes again, one finger stealing the pre-come leaking from each of their cocks, then joining Clive's in burying itself inside of him. As soon as Verso feels Clive's muscles flex in response, he lets out a brattish laugh against Clive's lips and sends a trail of starlight shooting along his walls as he starts thrusting in tandem with Clive's fingers.
One tune can't be changed without the other, though, and Verso releases his hold on Clive's neck to take both their cocks in his other hand, stroking them slowly, absent chroma. It's torturous – it's wholly fucking torturous – but Verso justifies it by thinking about how they're in this together, all starlight and firelight, all illuminating heat, all need, need, beautiful, fantastical, wings-giving need.]
You call that burning?
[Oh, he knows he's tempting fate with that; he understands he's no further away from total collapse than Clive is. But there is something about how Clive falls to the brink only to fight his way back into full competitive spirit that excites Verso more than the thought of winning does, something about the implication it creates of how Clive wants to receive him that he finds completely irresistible.]
Come on. You can do better than that.
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―Once he stops grinding down into the feeling of new fingers inside of him, that is. For a few moments, he's stupid with the need to fuck into and against the dual sensation of those hands in him, on him, and his world boils down to the spark of light that quite literally fills him from the not-quite-deepest part of him, making him get that much closer to hitting his peak with an arch of his back and a full-bodied groan.
Not yet, though. Patience. Even though he turns white-silver all over again for a held note of a long breath, consumed and subsumed, a canvas for Verso to paint whatever he wants on him. Clive stays like that, clenching around Verso's digits with stubborn need, turned all the fucking way on when he remembers those beautiful pianist fingers sliding over black and white keys.
He's being tuned by this man. Made to sing. The thought of it makes his heart do the stupidest things in his chest, thrilled and pleased and elated. And so Clive reciprocates, reaching deeper into his furnace for more heat, wanting to match Verso's intensity beat by agonizing beat. ]
Careful, Verso. [ His last warning before he folds forward, teeth along Verso's neck in a facsimile of that time on the beach. ] Keep breathing.
[ A hot tongue laves against sweaty skin; Clive admires the smooth column of that shapely neck, tracing it with lips and nose. It makes his mouth water, and he clamps his teeth over it, flooding fire into Verso's pulse as he bites and sucks marks directly over his jugular.
Will immortality make the bruises fade by morning? Clive hopes not, as he litters Verso with lovebites infused with his chroma. His hips rock on Verso's fingers, shoving down each time his teeth sinks. Claiming, claiming. ]
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It's what he asked for, it's exactly what he asked for; what he didn't ask for was for Clive's chroma transforming him into a whimpering moaning mess, barely managing to make the few spluttering curses that spill past his lips coherent, but living through it now informs him that he really wouldn't have it any other way. Let Clive know the effect he's having on him, let him learn how to decipher the language of his pleasure, let him win and win and win until the end of time if this is how it's going to feel to lose.
(Verso is too competitive for that. He will start plotting his revenge the moment he's no longer fuckstruck and vibrant with Clive's fire. But for now, Clive's victory is fully shared.)
With a growl, he thrusts his fingers hard into Clive one last time before withdrawing them entirely and shoving him back against the bed until he cooperates. One hand remains braced against Clive's shoulder; the other returns to its place around his own cock, holding it steady as he rubs its head against Clive's entrance.]
You stop, I stop.
[In other words: more, still. Just a little more.]
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Sparks fly. Clive spreads his legs and invites Verso closer, arcs to the heretofore unknown feeling of a lover pressing against him, and laughs about it. Buoyant, high on the feeling of being wanted by this man, this man, this impossible, improbable, incomparable man.
The sound shimmers; Clive shifts silver again, so full of it that he can't tell if he'll shatter from it or if it's the only thing keeping him together. One leg hooks over Verso's hip, and he laugh-sighs again at the feeling of that slick cockhead sliding against his rim.
There's nothing else to say. Just another twinkling sound in place of je t'aime, and the brightest smile Clive can muster. ]
Come here.
[ Softly, with searing affection. There's nothing platonic or chaste about their combined hunger and need, but the way Clive touches his palm against Verso's cheek is nothing short of adoring, fifty different confessions tucked into the way his thumb rolls just along the corner of one halo-grey eye.
(In love, in love. A creature made of paint, who would rather die here with Verso than live a flesh and blood life without him.) ]
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And oh, what an amazing feeling it proves to be. Verso moans deep and rich, like a man so wealthy with love he longs for nothing else, voice rumbling into a growling purr as he nuzzles against Clive's palm, a beast unleashed and tamed in his own right. But that taming factors into how soon he stops, even as he feels the tentative embrace of Clive's walls as they respond to his intrusion. As much as Verso brims with the desire to wholly seat himself and let Clive feel the full force of the effect he has on him, he hasn't forgotten that this is the first time that he's been taken like this that means something. So, he moves his hand from his cock to Clive's hip, steadying them both as he rocks his own hips slowly, pressing in deeper with each gentle thrust, face contorted into an expression of pure, patient need.]
This is what I think about when I touch myself.
[Or it has been lately, sating himself on those nights when one of them needs to keep watch and they can't even push their bedrolls together and let their shared breath warm the air between them. Sometimes, he fantasises about Clive coming back for one reason or another – he forgot his canteen or his binoculars, or he needed a tint to keep him alert, or he heard Verso's self-strangled moans from afar and safety be fucking damned – and catching him in the act so they can see it through to fruition, but that remains an unspoken dream.
Well, that one part of it, anyway. Further and further Verso presses inside of Clive, still chasing comfort in lieu of the ever-building pleasure that promises a rich pay-off soon, soon, so very soon.]
Coming deep inside of you.
no subject
But he doesn't, and the slow, careful claiming makes every bit of his fire turn starlight. Clive can't control it― his whole body lights to the feeling of Verso's chroma, wanting him and wanting him and wanting him, and greedily clings onto him, trying to pull him in and deeper, lamenting every time those hips pull back and away.
He doesn't know this. He's never felt this before. There are no defenses for it, and so all Clive can be is honest and unfiltered, his moans coming in short pants, eyes both dark and bright with molten arousal. His hand scrabbles for purchase along Verso's shoulderblades, gripping and petting, unable to choose between encouraging or demanding. ]
Merde, [ is a sweet gasp, almost like song. ] Fuck, Verso, please.
[ It's too much to think about Verso having fantasized to this; Clive wishes he'd known, so they could have consummated it sooner, tangled on bedrolls, Nevrons be damned. If being taken by Verso feels like this, Clive could let Verso have him whenever and wherever he pleases; he feels full, but needs to be fuller. ]
Deeper. Deep as you can be. Take me, claim me, I'm yours.
[ No more daydreaming. Back to me, Clive says with the motion of his hips, trying to rock down as much as he can. Reckless with it, a shimmering mess of starlit energy, trying to find the right rhythm to make them both incandescent. He can't stand those last inches of Verso that he doesn't have, and so he reaches down to touch where they meet, silver-lit fingers dancing along what he can still feel of Verso's cock. ]
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Such are the thoughts that swirl through his mind until he feels an unexpected jolt of everything wonderful about Clive, absolutely fucking everything, shoot itself straight through his cock.]
Oh, fuck, come on. [Light laughter spills from between his lips amid his own heady breathing as Clive's fingers continue to dance constellations of their combined light over what little of his shaft remains exposed.] You just can't help yourself, can you?
[Stupid question. He knows. Pausing for a moment to collect himself, he then shifts Clive's hips along with his own to encourage a better angle. The next thrusts are quicker, harder, deeper, until he's fully seated inside of him, hips pressed to hips and light swirling with light and heat feed heat feeding heat. He lets out a moan bigger then the others, and he moves his hand from Clive's hip and to his jaw as he leans down and claims his lips, too, his tongue lacking the patience and rhythm of his cock and simply taking and tasting as they both adjust to becoming one in this way, too.
His patience is quick to wear out, though, so he's quick to break the kiss and ask in a thick, heady tone:]
So, what'll it be, mon feu? Sin –
[He nearly pulls out before thrusting back in, hard and deep but neither to their full extents, still aware that this is new to Clive.]
– or salvation?
[The next few motions are softer, slower, driven by more of a rolling of his hips to meet Clive's than a slamming of them together. These, he maintains as he awaits his answer, peppering kisses along Clive's jaw as he does.]
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Ah isn't an answer, but it's the one that Verso will have to be satisfied with for a bit. Clive's arms have flown up to encircle Verso's neck, fingers in dark hair, hugging and tugging. If there was any part of him that could have been embarrassed about all of his hard-earned strength and much-endured training being useless in the face of all this pleasure, well.
That shame is dust. Ah, he tries again, head tilted back, neck exposed, eyelids fluttering. He has no idea where he ends, and where Verso begins.
Finally: ] Troublemaker, [ is how he expresses his ire, the how dare you make me choose. It's unserious, though, and Clive bucks back onto Verso's cock, grinding into that slower motion, shaking his head. He can't, he can't choose, but if he had to－ ]
I told you to teach me, [ he says, legs hooking around Verso's waist to keep him close. ] Sin, god, fuck.
[ The real answer is "whatever you want", but Clive blearily thinks that Verso won't settle for that; he has never let Clive hide behind deference, and god, fuck, merde, Clive loves him so much for it. Clive is out of his mind with infatuation, and he succumbs to it with flashes of white-red pooling around his heart. He might never find equilibrium again. ]
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Good boy.
[A tease carried on a growl delivered straight into the pulse point on his neck. With near torturous slowness, Verso pulls his hips back; then, using his grip on Clive's shoulders for leverage, he drives back home into his hearth, his shelter, his sheath, his place, his everything – because that's what Clive encompasses in this moment, all that Verso senses and feels and knows and wants and needs. The pace he strikes rises and falls like climaxing music, always with force and gravitas, but with moments of soften tempos and more deliberate thrusts scattered between to make the hardest thrusts and the deepest impacts resonate all the more strongly as he sings the chaotic lyrics of pleasure and their chroma flares all around them, firelight and starlight bright as day.]
You take me so well.
[He noses up Clive's neck, bites at his earlobe, thrusts and thrusts and thrusts, hitting Clive at an angle that strikes himself just fucking right, just so fucking perfectly that he lets out a whimper of a cry right into his ear. The next thrust it the hardest yet, as if to drive home the audacity of the way Clive's body yields to perfectly to his own, the way he teaches Verso in turn that pleasure has depths he's never before realised.]
Fuck, fuck. How do you feel this good?
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Verso, Verso.
[ Sex has never felt like this, not in any configuration. Like a full rewriting of everything he ever knew about himself, made and unmade to fit and reach for the shape of someone else. He both feels utterly full and utterly ravenous, too much clashing against not enough, sated and desperate. The sound of skin on skin and their collective harsh breathing is both raucous and miles away; he has the delirious, unhinged desire to unhinge his jaw and swallow Verso whole again.
A lot. Clive is still defenseless against this feeling, and there's pleasure in knowing that, too― that Verso is both his first and his only. It's the only well-formed thought in his chaotic head before Verso finishes him off with a particularly beautiful inwards thrust, so deep that Clive sees stars (ha); his body is molten silver when he comes, back arched and neck extended, raven-black hair haloed in Verso's chroma. Every inch of him belongs to Verso in that perfect moment, but still―
―the agonizing peak isn't enough. He clenches around that hot, hard heat inside him, keeping it in his depths, greedy despite his hypersensitivity. Every raw nerve sings torturous pleasure, and Clive tries to share the feeling through his own fire in Verso's veins, glowing palm to Verso's nape. ]
Come in me, [ he pleads. It's the only way he can truly finish, together together together. ] You feel perfect, you're fucking perfect, I need it.
[ He doesn't care how brazen or wanton that sounds. Only Verso will ever hear him beg lewdly, and Clive's trust in Verso is absolute. Hugging Verso closer with his orgasm-wracked body (he feels like he's still coming, like he can't fucking stop coming), he paints his overstimulation all over Verso's body. ]
My first, my only, my star. Come in me, please.
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Like this, Clive shares his orgasm; he telegraphs his overstimulation across every one of Verso's nerves until they all carry bits and pieces of his pleasure inside of them, little signals of the kind of brilliance the two of them can create when they come together, even if it's a lewd and loud and writhing sort, even if it isn't something they can cast into the world except through how much more determinedly they show up in it for each other, even if it reduces Verso to something blubbering in sound and erratic in movement as he thrusts and chases and grasps and pants and whimpers and pleads as if there's anything left for Clive to give to him.
Except maybe a return of the patience Verso had asked of him earlier. Just a little more, he wordlessly promises. Verso focuses and focuses and focuses; he takes what he feels of Clive and makes more room for it, channelling his own chroma through his fingertips and into Clive's shoulders, clenching and unclenching his grasp on them with each thrust, dull nails biting into sweat-damp skin. And he builds and he builds and he builds and –
He does not simply come inside of Clive, but across and through him as well, finding yet another way to demonstrate, to prove how much Clive's flames enrich his own light. Pulsing, pulsing, pulsing, riding it through, moaning afresh against Clive's ear with each new shockwave of pleasure, chasing an end that teases at being elusive until it finally wraps itself around him and he lets out a strangled cry that's some gibberish fusion of Clive's name, a three-word confession, and the beginnings of a song they'll play together time and again.
One last thrust, one final burst of chroma through his fingertips, and his hips lose their energy and his hands lose their strength and his body loses its ability to hold itself up, and Verso collapses boneless and broken onto Clive, absorbing his light in a different way as he remembers how to breathe.]
Merde.
[What else is there to say?]
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By the time their collective light settles, Clive is a man-shaped puddle on hopelessly creased sheets (note to self: tell Verso not to lead future Expeditions here, if that's even a thing they have to consider anymore), neither glowing nor pulsing to firelight or starlight. Spent and full and utterly fucked out, black hair like a hurricane across his scarred face. The only thing that telegraphs anything but blissful sexual exhaustion are his eyes, blue and wet and glimmering with emotion; he fixes them on Verso once he remembers what it feels like to have actual functions aside from trying to jam Verso further inside himself,
and laughs. ]
―Did I win?
[ On the tail end of a rasped breath, as if he has sand in his throat. Later, he might wonder if Renoir saw twin beams of pure light stretching up and above the Forgotten Battlefield and got Real Mad about it, because Clive isn't above that sort of unapologetic, unabashed declaration when he wants to make them. (Fuck you, Hugo Kupka.)
Ifrit trills happily in his chest. Clive misses his opportunity to extend his own garbled three-word confession in the aftermath of his earth-shattering fall, and thus, he'll have to choose a better time for it. Again.
Just for now, the world is still and uncomplicated. A false peace, but a perfect one. Just beyond the crumbling walls of the fortress sit thousands of bodies in tepid blood, with monstrous Nevrons shuffling and dancing among their ruins; Clive forgets them for this protracted moment, and god, it almost feels like this could be their lives if they try hard enough. If, if. ]
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Instead, he laughs in harmony with him.]
No, I did. [It's a truth that Verso holds as true as any other. To win is to lose and to lose is to win, and to that effect he adds:] Game was rigged. I was always going to win.
[It's sappy and it's romantic and it's absent any form of bragging at all. Clive is no prize to be wagered but he is one to be treasured and fought for with everything that Verso has and beyond. To share in his company is victory in its own right; to understand the feeling of his chroma, and to earn the right to witness and exist within his vulnerability, and to trust and be trusted to such grand extents that all he feels is a profound sense of security are gifts he never would have imagined he'd receive.
And he thinks that this – this is how it feels to actually matter.]
You can win next time.
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Clive still believes him. Next time. He hums to the tune of that promise, even if he doubts Verso will let him win (the only thing he'll doubt about Verso). Far too competitive for that, he's finding out. That, too, Clive loves about him. ]
Gracious of you. [ ("You're such a liar", but affectionately.) Another laugh to add to the pile, as he pulls Verso into and against him, holding him as close as bone-tired arms can manage. Cradling him, keeping him, protecting him. There's so much harm this world both intends and doesn't intend to do to someone so impossibly precious, and even for a moment, Clive wants Verso to feel unburdened from all of it. Safe and guarded, looked after.
Clive loves him. Maybe thinking it often and hard enough will immortalize the feeling. He loves Verso. He loves him.
Later, they'll wash up using water from their skins and clean off using the frankly unsalvageable sheets they've rested on, and press ahead: the scores of graves Verso has dug for the fallen will bring them back to the reality of things again, because there's no escaping it.
But, among the rows and rows and piles and piles of death and sepia-toned memory, there will be the remnants of a red scarf wrapped around the branch of a quiet, serene-blooming tree. Familiar, though it should be impossible. Remnants of Joshua, where he has no business being. ]
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So, it's with silence that Verso gestures Clive ahead into this most sacred of places – perhaps the only truly sacred place left on the Continent – falling into step behind rather than beside him.
If asked, Verso could identify the exact Expeditioner who once owned every armband that waves in the ever-present breeze of his would-be graveyard. He could share stories and contextualise losses, could point out which armbands were handed over to him in the final gestures of the dying and which ones he had taken from bodies that still held warmth and colour because he'd been desperate for a way to memorialise their wearers. He could walk through this place as blind as he had when he'd taken those first steps past the gate and still have a sense of where everyone he's cared about has been laid to rest.
Seeing that red scarf stops him in his tracks before sending him almost rushing ahead of Clive, fingers reaching for the fabric well before it's reasonable to think that they could grasp it. Panic filters in through the remaining distance as he wonders if this is a message from someone he doesn't want to hear from, a threat, an ultimatum, another attempt to get him to bend the knee.]
Hold on. Stay there.
[Maybe it's a ridiculous request to make when all that's amiss is a scrap of fabric, but this is Verso's place, it's his, filled with the shards of his heart and the memories of his people, and he can't help but take it seriously.]
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It distracts him from the red scarf waving among red-dressed branches. Everywhere he looks, he imagines Verso knelt in front of another wooden stake in the ground, hands stained with dirt, head bowed. Numbers watch him from all around: fifty to sixty to eighty to zero.
Zero. Clive lingers in front of that hallowed number, zero, before he notices Verso and his desperate reach towards what Clive doesn't identify as an anomaly; it seems another memento among many others, until he, too, finally starts to take in its shape.
Recognition flies like a well-aimed bolt to his heart. It freezes him where he stands, unintentionally obeying the request to stay, but his expression does what the rest of his body doesn't: it shifts and twists, blue eyes opening wider in shock. ]
―That's...!
[ Crimson fabric, the same as his father used to wear. Joshua had always looked striking in red, the color contrasting like sunset against his golden hair. Clive's heart stops, clenches, and pounds against his ribs. ]
...Joshua? [ He turns, surveying his surroundings as if he could expect to find anything here but the shadow of the dead. As if Joshua isn't also dead (because he killed him), as if this could be anything but some horrific, monstrous trick that someone is playing to punish Clive for trying to steer Verso from his family's preordained path.
Still, still― ]
Joshua?! Joshua, can you hear me?! Are you here?!
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Now that the idea is practically a living, breathing thing, though, his heart sinks even deeper, lurching it's way fast and hard into his stomach. Suddenly, the prospect of the Dessendres fucking with him feels like a petty concern, not worth considering in the face of them lashing out against Clive.]
Joshua?
[He thinks to calm Clive down, to quiet him in case the scarf was left by a malicious party who lurks nearby. But if that's true then it's too late now, and if it isn't, then the only way to establish that is by figuring out what's up with the scarf.
So, he tugs it loose from the branch, carefully looking over it for any signs of a message. He finds it tucked away in a corner, written in neat black script:
Forevermore.
With a frown, he finally lifts the scarf to Clive so that the writing is in plain sight.]
This mean something to you?
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He should calm down. There's no way. But he draws closer to Verso to inspect the single-worded note in a familiar hand―
―and the entire world seems to shift under his feet. Again. Like the night he woke up and found Joshua missing amid an indistinguishable pile of burnt and gnarled corpses. ]
...The promise I made to my brother, [ comes after a protracted delay. Hand outstretched, he brushes fingertips just beneath that neat script, afraid that it'll crumble at his touch, and his touch specifically. ] That I would protect him until the end of time.
[ A silly oath; the countdown would only have given Joshua two more years. "Forever" is a daring thing to promise in a world scraping its time thin. ]
But Joshua is... [ dead, he can't bring himself to say (even now), and his fingers curl back, hand clenching into fist. ] ...If this is a warning from our adversaries, it's an unforgivable one.
[ Both for its content, and for its location. ]
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None of the Dessendres are supposed to know that this place exists – or at least they're not supposed to be aware that it means something to Verso – and he wonders about that too, if maybe that was blind hope on his part and there's truly nothing that's outside the sight of the Painters. He already knows that they don't have limits to what they'll do in order to bring about their desired outcomes, so he can't even say the cruelty is beneath them. What he can say is that arrogance governs much of how they interact with Canvases, along with an overvaluing of their own perceptions. This feels more like something he should put to words.]
They get caught up in how they see us. You know, like we're not as fleshed out as they are so what they do to us doesn't matter so much. But they're still good artists, and good art gets ahead of its creators to become something... more than they expected.
[Everything he says now stems more from the original Verso than himself, piecemeal sentiments extracted from memories and cobbled together into a rationalisation on how the Dessendres could possibly justify their actions in the Canvas. And of course he sees how the Lumierans rise to that point of more-than-expected; it's never been more possible to ignore than through Clive's perseverant strength as he comes to terms with the nature of his own creation.
Verso places his free hand on Clive's shoulder. No chroma this time, just weight and warmth and presence. He offers the scarf to him, too, holding it out like it's something precious no matter its origins.]
So, if they're responsible for this, I say fuck their intentions. Make it into something more.
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It doesn't particularly distress Clive to know that he was meant to be a puppet. He is, simply, what he is. But the negative impact that said role as a puppet plays on Verso, has played on Joshua－
－his lips draw into a tight line. Tense, unhappy. It makes the creature under his skin churn again, calling for destruction; whose, Clive can't quite decipher. ]
That I will.
[ Finally, to that warm hand on his shoulder, and the steadying guidance of Verso's presence. ] It'll take more than a warning to take me from you.
[ To emphasize, he accepts the scarf with its sobering note. It's still redolent with the scent of parchment and ink and incense. Like a warm, amber-infused library. ]
...I wonder what our creators want from us now. If their intention is to turn us against each other, or something entirely different.
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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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