[ What Verso relays makes sense: someone wouldn't have painted a Nevron under his skin if they wanted him to be a cute and cuddly addition to a dead man's fantasy world. It's more than likely that he was supposed to turn inside out ages ago, to inhabit Ifrit fully and never revert back to this flesh-and-chroma version of himself, to rampage across Lumiere or the Continent and burn whatever sentimental value was left in this world, alongside its immortal inhabitants.
A fate that he continues to defy, with Verso's help. He shudders to think of what happened if he didn't have that hand extended to him after his first transformation― if he'd shattered completely back then, without starlight to guide him back into himself.
He takes Verso's hand, and uses that hold to guide the both of them to a patch of warm grass that they can sit on for a moment. It brings them eye-level with the forest of wooden would-be tombstones decorated with fluttering armbands. Again, numbers surround them, odds and evens. ]
You mean to say that my brother might yet live. [ Softly, as if saying so would keep the idea from manifesting. ] ...I can dare to hope, though...
[ A low breath, through his teeth. ] ...He may not want anything to do with me, after what I've done.
[ Would that be the reason for the discarded scarf? A shedding of that forevermore? Clive remembers the way his mother looked at him, cold and dispassionate, and imagines Joshua looking at him the same way; it feels like ice in his blood. ]
[Verso lets Clive takes his hand, letting the way he holds it fill the silence in turn. The place he guides them to is one where Verso has sat time and again, and he softens into the familiarity of the ground beneath him and the sight before him, dozens of memories waving in the ghost of the wind, refusing to fall all these years later.
What Clive says next invites more silence to follow. It's true that a lot of people would draw their lines well ahead of where Clive stands, wanting nothing to do with him now that they know he's lethally different. That doesn't seem right when it comes to Joshua, but all Verso really has to base that on his how much Clive adores his little brother; he never met Joshua, doesn't know who the man is when he isn't being spoken about by the person who loves him the most in this world.]
Maybe. [Is all he can offer at first. Blunt yet soft and gentle.] But it's hard for me to imagine anyone who knows you would believe you wanted any of that to happen.
[After all, Verso had only known the vengeful side of him – and only for a few weeks, at that – and he never doubted that the beast acted upon Clive's instincts and impulses of its own volition. There could, of course, be an argument to make regarding the fact that Clive killed people Joshua knew while Verso had no connection to them, but it's not one that he considers. Love begets understanding. At least where it's deserved.
I'm not as good as you think I am, Clive had said when Verso called him salvation. Back then he had made no argument, but he offers one now, running his thumb along Clive's as he does.]
[ He hadn't wanted it. But wanting doesn't preclude the realities of what happened, and doesn't bring people back from the dead. It's a feeling that, sitting here among the shadows of the dead, Clive thinks Verso understands: that for all of their combined good intentions, all that they can do, sometimes, is bury those that get caught in the crossfire of those intentions.
A sobering thought. Clive leans his weight a bit more against Verso, black hair against black hair, and hopes that he won't end up as another marker in this expansive, lonely cemetery. ]
I wonder, [ is his truthful response. Not a denial, not a pushback. Just a statement of fact, that he grapples with the idea of goodness, and whether it has any place in a description of himself. Not because he wants to reject it, but because he doesn't know if he's done anything to deserve being on that end of the morality spectrum. ]
Sometimes I think that I'm not punished enough or often for the things that I've done. That I still only navigate this world thanks to your grace and patience. That I haven't changed anything except for how I see myself― and is that truly enough, to atone for the things that I've done?
[ A low sigh, which fades into an errant breeze. ]
I feel that there's nothing I can't do, when I'm with you. But I wonder if that, too, is a burden for you to bear.
[Heavier and heavier the conversation gets, but Clive's weight against Verso feels like something light. Turning his head, Verso presses a kiss to Clive's crown, then rests his forehead in the same place, wrapping an arm around him to draw him a little nearer. There's a fair bit that he wants to address, but he goes for the simplest thing first, the only thing he has the authority to say aloud.]
I don't feel burdened.
[If anything, he's glad that he can actually do something good for someone after so many years, so many bloodstained fucking years, of knowing that his existence only amounts to death and suffering and death. Even if his hands are mostly tied and he can only really scramble to help when it really matters, he'll always choose to sit here in Clive's pain with him and to lift him towards and above his aspirations when his wings are unfurled and ready to make their own wind. To be apart from him feels like the bigger burden.
The more Clive brings up his past transgressions, though, the more Verso understands that he can't keep speaking from his own experiences and understandings and expecting them to be enough to bear the weight of whatever else is plaguing him. So, he matches the heaviness of Clive's words by taking a heavier approach himself.]
What else do you think you've done that you deserve being punished for?
[ Oh. He doesn't like this. Or, more accurately― he likes the lean, the arm around him, that slight touch to his hair, the steadiness of Verso's presence curled against his side. No amount of pride or posturing will bring himself to dislike the comfort that Verso brings, no matter how undeserved.
What Clive doesn't like is this feeling. Memories of running into an abandoned shack with his knees curled up in a facsimile of the Paintress's posture against the Monolith, thinking about all the things he was, and more importantly, wasn't. Time and perspective have eroded that shame and guilt away into resigned forgiveness, but the recollections remain contentious despite everything; Clive hasn't told a single soul about what he used to do and feel as a child, not even his brother.
Verso invokes it, though, with his question. And, strangely, it feels less prying or impossible to address when it's Verso with his palm held open for an answer. Especially after the diamond-clear way he delivers I don't feel burdened, offered with such conviction that Clive has to blink it out of his lashes.
He tries for a smile. It doesn't stick the landing, but it leaves him less tense, and more willing to speak his next words: ]
I was born.
[ Truthful. A grandiose thing, he knows. But it'd been at the center of every emotional break he'd ever had as a child, under his mother's scrutiny and his brother's poor health. I'm sorry I was born. I'm sorry I took all the strength from my brother and kept it for my own. I'm sorry for being a son that not even a mother could love.
A sin that he taught himself to learn not to apologize for over time, and with the help of men and women far better than he ever was. But it persists, in these moments. Not a grand ache, but a reminder of his meandering beginnings. ]
Verso isn't sure what to do with that at first; simple and decisive and blunt, it distils all the self-perceived sins of Clive's existence down to that first breath he took, that first cry that would lead into many more, far more than any child should have to bear. Reflexively, Verso pulls Clive a little bit closer, as if it's possible for one touch, one embrace, to undo a lifetime of a mother's resentment. It's not, he knows, but like fuck is he going to do nothing.]
Okay.
[It isn't okay, it isn't right, it isn't anything that any part of Verso has any inclination towards accepting, but now is not the time to be arguing with Clive. There's a reason he's starting here – hard though that may be for Verso to comprehend – and that deserves to be honoured, at least until it's given more shape and he can get better sense of what, exactly, he's grasping for here.]
Okay, we'll begin there. Tell me the rest of the story?
[He tries to keep his tone soft and warm and encouraging, but it's laced with sadness and a radiant kind of pain, a throbbing that he feels in his own chest and heart and in the pit of his stomach. Once more, he reasserts to himself that the nature of Clive's past only proves his goodness, it doesn't call it into question, but again, he can't say that, not yet, so he simply holds it close to his chest like something precious and worth cradling.]
i hate that i wrote you an essay about clive's AU life. IM SORRY
[ The statement feels self-evident― what else is there to say, beyond the fact that he was unwelcome at birth?― but refusing to elaborate now would be cheap and cowardly; Clive has nothing to hide from Verso, who has has shared the color and shape of his soul with. It only rankles that the more he speaks, the more Verso seems to bruise, and so Clive reaches for him with his own open-palmed hand to stroke along his jaw. It telegraphs what Clive knows to be his reality, despite everything: it's okay. I'm alright.
Verso, his starlight. Being seen by him has never felt terrifying. So he opens his mouth again, and starts. ]
...I've spoken of my mother. [ Her resentment, her accusations. ] She was so paranoid that others saw me as the child of an affair, and not her own. So obsessed with the notion of bloodlines in a world so eager to end them early― she cared only for how she would outlast the Monolith's countdown through the children she bore.
[ A dry huff. He gestures to himself, unruly hair and all. ]
Perhaps she saw through to the core of me. An impurity in her own blood. To her, I was a thing to be excised at her nearest convenience, and Father... [ His brows knit, somewhat. ] ...The Academy demanded his attention. I don't blame him for serving the good of Lumiere, but his absence emboldened my mother, I suppose.
[ So. There's the groundwork. His first sin: being unwanted. ]
Joshua changed everything, but as I said before― he was unwell, and my mother blamed this, too, on the taint I left in her blood. She obsessed over him, stifled him like a bird in a cage. And so it went, that I finally felt purpose in shielding my brother from the weight of our mother's moods.
[ Phew. This may be the most Clive has ever spoken about himself, ever. ]
But I couldn't even accomplish that. [ He promises he'll find a good place to stop; he's almost there. His lips quirk upwards in light apology, brows downturned. ] After Father left for his Expedition, my mother's attitude towards me worsened. Couldn't bear to see the remnants of the husband who left her, I think.
So she forced me out of our home. Took a flame to my face, and cast me out. I... [ And this is the other thing he wishes he were punished for: ] ...I let her. I left Joshua in that house, though I'd sworn to protect him. I felt so numb about it all, so empty. So consumed by my own doubts and pains, that I allowed my mother to do what she did. It was unforgivable.
but i love that you wrote me an essay about clive's au life so we have achieved balance
[Soon, it becomes almost impossible to listen without interjection. All Verso hears is a listing of the injustices Anabella committed against her children, retold from the wrong perspective. No part of him has the heart to change the arc of Clive's story, though, not while it's still being shared. Maybe, he thinks – though with no small degree of doubt – the conclusion will reveal something that wraps it up together.
That doesn't happen, and Verso holds back a sigh. What Clive reveals isn't outside of the realm of understanding; Verso had felt similar things about leaving Alicia behind with Renoir, even if Renoir never mistreated any of his children in the ways that Anabella harmed her own, and Alicia had made her own choice in the end. Which doesn't really make their situations comparable, but it does give Verso some grounding in coming up with something to say.]
What do you think you could have done? To stop your mother or to take care of Joshua on your own.
[What if is a question that has long plagued Verso. What if he had been a better son; what if he had stood up for himself earlier instead of holding back until it was too late? Would either of those have freed Aline from her madness and this world from her grief? Or, what if he had betrayed his father's wishes and told everyone the truth about themselves and the Paintress? What would life in the Canvas be like now, if only he hadn't been a status-quo-following fucking coward?
All these years later, he's still struggling to remind himself that he can't know that things would have been better or worse; he's still figuring out how to accept that he did what he thought was best at the time, that he did what he thought he could, and that his weakest moments and his darkest courses make him a real human – something most of the Painters would sooner deny. Understanding that beneath the paint and the chroma and the ill intentions of their existences, the people of the Canvas are precisely that – people – is often the one thing that keeps him going.
And people do awful things, selfish things. They give up when they have the capacity to fight. They fight when they have room to forge peace. They suffer and lash out, creating their own cycles to augment that of the Gommage. Verso still looks at them and sees the good. Hell, he still sees it in Aline and in both Renoirs; in Clea, too, when he reaches deep down into the real Verso's memories to remind himself that she's just a sister who's not only desperately mourning her brother, but is watching the world they'd created together get systematically destroyed by people who couldn't care less about how she herself grieves.
These are things that he can't say about Anabella, though; in the end, people can also be the most inhuman creatures of all.]
What your mother did to you both is unconscionable. How you responded to that... it doesn't make you a bad person.
shoves clive in a locker... im coming for verso next
[ The first question makes Clive tense, for how well-aimed it is. What could he have done? A boy barely fifteen, and his smaller, frailer brother― where could they have gone? What could Clive have done for Joshua that wouldn't have made things worse?
He supposes it's the same sort of question that Verso has asked himself, over the years. Close his eyes, and he still remembers Verso and Alicia swaying on a piano bench, and the sadness in Verso's eyes as he bid his sister to go back to their father. Again: what could either of them have done in the face of such impossible odds?
Clive nests against Verso, resting his oversized body into the cradle of the other man's side. He breathes, and the tightness in his chest recedes somewhat. ]
Maybe so. But I gave myself away for scraps for years afterwards until Cid found me, living like a wraith because I couldn't face my weakness. [ A ghost of a smile here, again. This time, it's laced with self-deprecation, the sentiment of sound familiar? written plainly on his features. ] I'd thought I'd put that all behind me, but I became that same creature when I lost Joshua again. I made you endure me in that state.
[ Those first few days― weeks, even― when Clive barely spoke a word in Verso's presence. Bare-boned 'yes' and 'no's, blue eyes dark like steel. He unfurled gradually, but he can't imagine that it was an enjoyable process for Verso. ]
―But I want to help. For you, I want to be better than I am. Good or no, I want to stand proud by your side.
[Another kiss to Clive's crown when he tucks up against him; another deep breath of his own as Verso lays curse upon curse against wherever the remnants of Anabella's chroma rest. Nobody can face their weaknesses alone, he thinks to say, but that's something hard-learned and easily denied, at least in his experience, so he keeps it to himself. Best to show than to tell, anyway; best to let the truths he holds speak for themselves.]
You weren't that hard to be around, you know. I could always see the goodness in you.
[Which is a huge part of the reason why when Clive mentions wanting to stand proud by his side, Verso relaxes, smiling against the mess of his hair. He has his own issues with pride, of course, his own struggles with figuring out what better should mean for him and learning how to shape himself to suit it. But when he ignores all that and puts himself aside, it simply feels good to hear those words delivered with an honest conviction, with a depth that he feels so wondrously lost and comfortingly found inside.]
And I'm honoured to be walking this path with you. There's no one I'd rather have here with me.
[It's not an affront to Alicia; she deserves whatever peace may be found on the paths that he and Clive will walk together, but she doesn't deserve the anguish they'll doubtlessly endure, or the limits they'll have to push their bodies to, or the failures that will no doubt rise like weeds to choke the life out of whichever victories they grasp from the Dessendres' clutches. And she deserves a happy brother, a brother who hates himself a little less so that he might better prove his love for her.]
[ A light laugh: Verso is being very generous about the state Clive was in when he found him, but that's not terribly surprising. Maybe it's always been the case that Verso saw him more clearly than Clive ever saw himself, which is why he didn't run away screaming after the initial Ifrit-related debacle. It's the sort of thought that warms Clive from the inside out, and paints over long-held notions about the shape he was born into (created into?).
Reciprocal relaxing happens. The nearness makes Clive miss the ruined bed they left behind, makes him wish they had more time to tangle around each other. Words like here with me and together bring up recollections of that hot, heated pressure seated inside him, and remind him that he is, in fact, just a little sore－ pleasantly so, in the sort of way that hasn't hindered his ability to walk briskly by Verso's side.
A strange direction for his mind to be wandering in, after all the talk of his existential misgivings. Not a thought that's completely left of center, though, given recent developments. The red scarf remains tucked safely against his waist, wedged between his belt and his hip.
Briefly, he thinks to ask: "if Joshua is alive, how do I explain you to him? my comrade? my lover?"
He swallows it. This doesn't seem the right time nor place. So: ]
...Together. [ The essential three words, always the hardest to say. Clive settles on another three-worded statement, though it's not the exact one rooted deeply into his heart. ] Come what may.
[ And, because this is important: ]
I should hope that you never have to bury me here.
[It makes sense, the progression from the surety of togetherness to the uncertainty of what awaits them on the other side of tomorrow, with mortality bearing down on them from all angles. Not Verso's, though, never Verso's, and that's the problem, that's what makes Clive's words hurt so much.
Relaxation loses the fight against tension, and Verso takes a deep, steadying breath in through his nose, out through his mouth, closing his eyes as it ripples through Clive's hair. The thought of losing him isn't one that Verso allows himself to humour often – really, it's one that he is quicker to dismiss. Surely, the fact that he hasn't Gommaged makes a statement about permanence rather than impermanence; surely, his flames will be long-burning and impossible to extinguish; surely, Verso won't find himself alone in the world after receiving so many reminders of how it feels to love someone with the whole of his being.]
Yeah. [There's an edge of humour to his voice as he tries to downplay what's going through his head, all the awful potentialities, all the reminders of how it feels to be oppressively lonesome.] The feeling's mutual.
[Genuinely, he doesn't know what he'd do without Clive. Part of that is the blindness of fear – Verso is a survivor if nothing else – but much of it is the simple truth of his exhaustion. He's tired, he's tired, he's so bloody tired, and even if they're constantly on their feet, always in motion, Clive is still his rest and respite, his home and his hearth, and the thought of losing him is exhausting.
I need you, he thinks to add. I can't do this without you. But instead, he says:]
[ The truth of Verso's words is evident in their current location: graves upon graves upon graves, watching them from every direction. This time, it's Clive's turn to shift and angle and press his lips against any part of the other that he can find, which turns out to be the underside of Verso's jaw－ he settles there, and feels Verso's tense pulse through that thin layer of skin.
Those pianist hands should never have had to dig through dirt, to drag stiff bodies. They're torturing you, Clive had said when he'd first been handed the barest outline of Verso's reality, and that assessment still holds fast, even now. ]
That you have.
[ Numbers wave at them. Fifty to sixty to seventy to zero. Too many. Far too many. Remarkable, that Verso hasn't lost his mind to all of this loss. Tragic, that he hasn't let himself. He remains, still, the strongest person that Clive has ever met. (Cid will cede the questionable honor; "take it, I don't want it".) ]
Bearing all of this, on your own. [ A low murmur, as he takes one of Verso's hands. He dislodges his face from its nest against Verso's neck to kiss along the knuckles. ] ...If it were up to me, I would never have you lose again.
[ No more tailing Expeditions only to watch them be obliterated; no more lying and hoping against hope. It's not a promise Clive can make, but it is a vocalization of what he wants, and that must count for something. ]
[Were they less tucked against each other, maybe Verso would rise to his feet, shake off the grief working its way through him like a cyclone, bring some composure into lips as they threaten to quiver, and into his eyes as they verge on raining tears, and into his breaths as they shift toward staccato rhythms. But as things are, he curls his fingers around Clive's and rests his head against his chest, accepting that there's no point in hiding from a man who's so thoroughly found him.]
I wish it were up to you.
[Despite it all, he gets the words out easily enough. Maybe because they're so simple. Maybe because he's just borrowing them from Clive, taking his if and making it into a wish. And what a wish it is, warm and familiar and devastating in its impossibility, but well-received all the same because Verso does understand what Clive means by saying it aloud.
The approach Verso takes in response isn't about him, though; looking out onto the nearly countless graves, he thinks about how each one of those people deserved better. How they should have been able to watch grandchildren and their children grow up; how they should have been able to grow old themselves, eking out whatever existences they wanted within the promised safety of Lumiere. All of them suffered terribly, both here on the Continent and back home where the brutalities of death were cloyingly perfumed by petals in the wind. And none of them, not a single one, was granted the right to matter by the man and the woman weaponising their lives to perpetuate their wars.]
I don't care what they chose. Nobody should have to die like they did.
[His voice is barely audible at the end, fading with futility.]
Nobody, [ Clive agrees. The loss is so staggering as to be nearly insurmountable; there's no catharsis to be derived here, not even if one screams oneself hoarse in presence of all the dead. A tragedy is a tragedy is a tragedy. Immovable, unshakeable. It can only be addressed, and accepted, and immortalized.
Clive's hand skims over Verso's hair, fingers winding their way through the streaks of white that cut through the dark. Signs of years and stress－ Clive finds them precious, and touches them reverently as he speaks. ]
Even if we end the war between your families [ plural, though that probably isn't the most accurate way to define Painted VS Unpainted ], the fact will remain that our futures were hard-earned.
...So much death. We'll remain defined by it, until the end of our days.
[ Because happy endings are storybook fantasies; no one hears about what happens during 'happily ever after', because it's trite and impossible. A girl gets married to a prince who used to be a frog, then finds out a year later that she abhors his personality and the way he snores in bed.
Living is hard work. Often harder than dying, which remains devastatingly easy. ]
We'll be blamed, and accused, and misunderstood. [ His touch shifts downwards, along Verso's cheek, cupping his jaw. ] There will be years of suffering before any of us find peace.
[ A long breath, in and out. ] But we owe it to the dead. And we will ever have each other.
[We owe it to the dead. Verso sits in that thought for a while. It doesn't ease the burdens of the rest of what Clive says – and it shouldn't; the paths they walk will more likely than not bring harm to everyone, and losing sight of that would mean they've lost their way – but it does keep Verso from wishing he could sink deep beneath the ground and curl up beside everyone he's lost along the way as if he has a rightful place to claim among them. As if death would ever give him the honour of its embrace.
Which is an awful thought to be having here, where he's surrounded by so many people who wanted nothing more than to live, so he forces himself to stop, grasping instead onto the last of what Clive said: that they'll ever have each other. There are no guarantees here on the Canvas, but Verso wraps himself up in one all the same, seeking warmth in the fantastical idea of shared futures and a quieter kind of love where they don't each live in anticipation of the other's pain.
Not that pain should always be avoided, of course. Sometimes, it's needed for closure; always, it's needed for healing. That thought guides Verso even further away from the devastation of being surrounded by so much death and towards the peace of rest and respite, and the knowledge that at least the world can't hurt the people they hold dear anymore; at least they're free from their suffering.
So, softly, he asks something he'd meant to earlier.]
Do you want to see them?
[A pause. The words are right there on the tip of his tongue, but he feels the need to give them a little space to breathe, a little reverence before he invokes their memories.]
[ And won't it be such an existential heartfuck to find out one day that Verso simply wants to die? That's going to be the worst day of Clive's painted life.
Until then, though: this. Because of course Verso said nothing about Cid or his father being piled among the rubble of the Battlefield, because they weren't. Because of course Verso had taken the time to bring them to this hallowed nest for them to be lit by yellow-gold sun, away from the angry blood-red of blood and tarnished chroma. Because of course Verso is just the way he is, so defined by his empathy despite the weight of the world bearing down on him, each year and each Expedition at a time.
Of course Verso is like this. It stills Clive's heart; his breath stills alongside it, as he peels away from Verso's side, shock mixed with pain mixed with resignation. Of course, of course. ]
They're here? [ God, fuck, merde. ] ...Verso.
[ He speaks that name like a whisper, almost a sob. What Clive feels for this man has no name, no descriptor, no definition.
Hands fly to Verso's face, cradling them between his palm. Yes, he'd like to see where Verso laid his father and his mentor to rest. But also, fuck, the thought of the man he loves being the one to have done it makes something in Clive shatter. ]
I'd like to see them, [ he finally manages after a long pause, strained and grief-laden. ] But, gods－ fuck.
[ His eyes shutter. He rests, forehead against forehead, breath mixing with breath, before he tempers himself back to some semblance of equilibrium. ] ...Merde, it should never have taken me this long to find you.
[Verso feels Clive's response before he sees it, he sees it before he hears it, he hears it before releasing the breath he's been holding. The way he speaks his name nearly breaks him, and he swears that he can feel Clive's chroma curl around his heart, expressing all those things that words are not nearly powerful enough to communicate. So, he listens to the edges of his voice, and he feels the callouses of his hands, and he measures the emotive rhythms of his breathing, and he exists in the silences between moments without a sense of knowing but with a feeling of unity that he prefers, anyway, for how sure and comforting it is in the face of the unknown.
It's enough that he finds himself able to let out the softest breath of a laugh, in the end.]
Au contraire, you found me exactly when I needed you to.
[At a turning point of his own, caught between so many paths ahead that he's been alternating his way across them, dancing to rhythms he doesn't understand, following music that he'd never want to claim as being of his creation. And while he still isn't sure what tomorrow holds, he knows that Clive will be a part of it, and as for the rest – well, he no longer has to figure that out alone.
Rising to his feet, he turns around and offers Clive his hand. The man doesn't need it, of course, but Verso does; these small gestures they share, seemingly insignificant in the grander scheme of things, are the ones that keep him the most grounded for how they're so damned easy to take for granted. Never again, though. Never with Clive.]
[ Tomorrow comes, they say. As sure as the sun rises, etc. There's no guarantee as to what form said tomorrow will take, but Clive would like to think that his future is in Verso's shape, to the temperature of Verso's warmth.
So he takes the proffered hand, and notes how easy it feels for their fingers to link and for him to get back on his feet with Verso acting as an anchor. It isn't a lie when Clive claims that he's fine, that there are things he can do on his own, but the ability to survive and subsist is not the same as the ability to live a full life.
Chroma glows red, where they touch. His soul still resonates in Verso's presence. ]
I'd like you to, [ is his reply to the question, with conviction. ] I want the both of them to know who makes me want to live.
[ So Verso better buckle up and get ready to be embarrassed. Or to stand awkwardly as Clive kneels in front of two graves and silently but emphatically declares oaths and vows to dead men in his head, and possibly out loud, depending on where emotions take him.
Verso is, of course, free to bow out. "Actually, they're your family, so I'll sit this one out." Clive, however, will content himself with letting Verso lead him where he needs to go, like the saddest but most purpose-driven shaggy dog ever to walk the Continent. ]
[In no universe does Verso leave Clive alone with his grief when he wants him to stand with him, so he reasserts his hold on his hand and guides him the short distance to the nearest of the two graves: Cid's, set beneath a pole with multiple of the same armbands waving in the wind. At the base of the pole rests a black weatherproof box and a purple and black lighter. Inside the box are the last of his hand-rolled cigarettes. Verso had rearranged them neatly into place after bringing it here, wanting to imagine the man flipping the lid open and tapping one out in the fluid way he did damned near everything.
The area is nice, dappled sunlight filtering in through golden leaves, a slight hill making way for even ground, small white flowers poking out amid the blades of grass. Only once Clive is standing in place beside him does Verso loosen – but not release – his grip on his hand, leaving it up to Clive to decide how and where he wants him present.]
Your mentor.
[Though the cigarette box and lighter probably made that obvious. What isn't obvious is this:]
His Expedition ran into a Nevron they weren't strong enough to handle, and he got in between them so they could get away. The ones who listened survived. The others, they refused to leave his side.
[And Verso had arrived too late to do anything; the Nevron had wiped out half of the remaining fighters, and Cid had been mortally wounded. Alive, though, and able to speak his final words. Verso won't share the former – there's no reason to bring his own guilt into Clive's grief – but he will offer the latter.]
Last thing he said was that it was okay. You know, for those who come after. And that he entrusted his protege with his hopes for the future.
[ A familiar cigar box, and a familiar lighter. Oh, old friend, is the first internal sigh Clive allows himself: you've become much smaller than when I saw you last.
His hand closes over Verso's once－ a squeeze hard enough to verge on uncomfortable－ before Clive remembers himself, and relents. The grip unfurls for the moment, and he lets go to give himself space to kneel in front of the pole and the armbands, all of them emblazoned with the same hallowed number that'd been on the Monolith when Clive saw the expedition off.
He sighs, and it's almost a laugh. ]
Sounds like him. [ Sounds like them, too, the ones that stayed. He spots Benedikta's armband among the rest, gold trimming along the black fabric laced with jade-green thread. ] He always did like to have the last word.
[ His voice breaks towards the end; there are some absences that will always loom large and gaping, a space that nothing will fill. Clive breathes through that familiar ache, the part of his heart that still hopes that Cid will turn the corner, plumed in smoke, warm as thunder.
His next words are for his mentor. Tear-stained, but steady. ] ...Cid. You always told me that it was never too late to reclaim one's fate. That I was right to say that we need to look to a future where we have a choice to live, not to die.
[ The flat of his palm rests against the top of the pole, imbuing it with violet. ] I'll live. I promise you. [ A ghost of a smile, still tear-laced. ] And, you'll be surprised to know, with someone by my side.
[ The smile gains in conviction, as he gets back up onto his feet. ] Now you've nothing left to nag me about. [ Knuckles rap against smooth wood, as if to chide. ] You know Verso is the best of us. We'll be alright.
[ He can hear Cid's smoky laugh in his head. "You interrupted my sleep to gloat? Yeah, I think you'll be just fine." Wiping his face with his sleeve, Clive turns back to Verso, and tips his head. ]
...Thank you. For seeing him through his last moments.
[It almost feels intrusive, listening to Clive speak to Cid, but because it feels like an honour, like trust, like belonging to be a part of something so painful and so personal, Verso remains unflinchingly solid by his side, even as he speaks words that bring tears to his own eyes: I'll live. I promise you. Oh, how he wants to see that promise through; oh, how he wishes he could face Cid's grave with the same conviction and vow that he'll be able to give Clive the future he deserves.
This isn't about him, though – even as Clive speaks of their companionship. So, when Clive turns back around, Verso lifts himself up to press a kiss to his temple before resting their foreheads together, rebuilding his own composure breath by breath and second by second until he feels solid enough to pull back away. A wayward tear glistens on Clive's cheek in the golden light, and Verso thumbs it away.]
He was a good man. I'm glad his words finally reached you.
[In hindsight, Verso wonders if that was Cid's intention all along. Tell the boy it's okay. Let him know that he's laid the trail for his success. Keep an eye on him.
He will. He will. He will.
Taking Clive's hand again, Verso guides him towards the base of the tree, encouraging him into a kneel beside him. Like this, he brushes aside a pile of leaves to reveal many lidded glass pots containing red and white rose petals, perfectly preserved, then takes the one at the very top of the group, tucked into the curve of root jutting up from the ground.]
Your father's Expedition they made it all the way to Old Lumiere.
[Holding the jar in his palm, he offers it to Clive.]
We were camping out for the night when Renoir found us and... erased everyone. Most of them went in their sleep.
[It's no consolation. It offers no solace. One man massacred dozens in an instant. Didn't even give them the chance to defend themselves. Just attacked them from behind when they were supposed to be safe.]
[ Verso is always so warm. His light reaches and settles in Clive in ways that he never thought anything could, and wraps around his grief, cotton-soft. He makes Clive feel safer in his own emotions, feel more sure in his ability to have them.
How horrible, then, that it's Verso's father who has the adverse effect on him. Renoir, a name that feels as threatening as the ice-cold rap of a cane against a hard surface. For a moment, Clive doesn't understand what he's seeing－ red and white preserved in glass－ and when he does, when he does...
...God, he wishes there was a way to hate Renoir less. Family brings with it a whole cadre of complications, and there's no part of Clive that wants to see Verso suffer the loss of a father, no matter how twisted their bonds have become.
But still. He stares vacantly at the petals in jars, somehow more perverse than wooden stakes in dirt, and can't deny that his heart fills with resentment. Rage. Something simmering and ugly, as he considers the implications of the word erased. ]
...Father.
[ For a long moment, it's the only thing Clive can think of to say. At the very least, Cid's passing was reconcilable; he could understand and imagine how it might have happened. This, however, is a sort of cruelty that Clive struggles with, with his fingers white-knuckled around the jar that he finally accepts into his hands. ]
I... [ Words fail him. He shakes his head. ] ...Can't imagine it.
[ Softly. It feels so fucking senseless; he could kill Renoir for it. ]
Yeah. [It's pretty fucking unimaginable, even having witnessed it himself.] I'm sorry.
[To watch Clive process what he's seeing is to remember how it felt to move through the scene of the massacre, alone and surrounded by petals and loosed chroma. Everything had been quiet, so quiet that he could hear those petals brushing up against the ground as wind moved to claim them, and he slips into that silence for moment, here and now.
If he had known his father had it in him to wipe out an entire Expedition, just like that, he'd have taken greater precautions. He'd have insisted on finding another place to camp, or he'd have stayed on sentry duty all night, or he'd have considered recruiting the Curator to their cause, given how their interests were aligned and the 58s were already working with him, too. There is no Expedition he's felt greater regret over losing, no group of people who feels he's failed more.
Which is another tangle of emotions and guilt and grief that he keeps to himself.]
They got as far as they did thanks to his leadership. I really thought that they might see it through.
[And he wishes they'd had the chance to realise their full potential. Such is how things go on the Continent, though, where hope is the most significant threat of all and the greatest successes result in the most decisive deaths.. He thinks to add that at least they never lost that hope – at least their deaths came at a time when they weren't aware that they were facing it down – but he isn't sure how well that will land so he keeps it to himself. Maybe that's just a consolation to him, a justification to wield in the even that the only person who can be saved is Aline.]
[ He doesn't want to crouch here with these jars like this, numb and shocked and without words, adding to the already-horrific reality of what happens to Expeditions that are carried on a fair wind.
The nobler the soul, the more determined the spirit, the more quickly this world will try to excise it. This is proof that Gods don't suffer the defiance of creatures that they created. ]
...I don't doubt it. [ Is where he lands, after meandering in his thoughts. It's the truth: he doesn't. His father was always his hero, the bravest and most capable man in all of Lumiere, upright and noble and brilliant. (He has not stopped once to consider that a brave and capable and noble man might also have intervened at any time to stop his wife from abusing his child; sometimes, admiration is as much a pathology as anything else.)
Clive closes his eyes, and presses his forehead to the smooth glass of the jar containing what may or may not have been his father; he can't imagine the shock of seeing a group of humans reduced to petals in an instant, and the agony of reckoning with that shock by memorializing it. Again, Verso continues to be the strongest man he'll ever know, not just for bearing the fact that this was his own father's doing, but for having the grace to remember and preserve. ]
Anything I can think of to say would be unkind to you, [ Clive murmurs, obviously meant for Verso. ] And so, I won't.
[ Say anything, he means. Just a low inhale and exhale, slow and measured, before he sets the jar back down on leaf-covered ground. Sunlight filters through the glass, making petals gleam as if they were dew-slick. I'll make you proud, he thinks, before getting up onto his feet.
His fingers curl and uncurl, venting numbness and anger. He doesn't want to get caught in the tangle of that quiet rage, not in this sacred place where so much of Verso's own pains are put to (debatable) rest; Verso deserves far more than that. ]
―I'd like to return here, one day. When our paths are lighter and brighter.
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
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A fate that he continues to defy, with Verso's help. He shudders to think of what happened if he didn't have that hand extended to him after his first transformation― if he'd shattered completely back then, without starlight to guide him back into himself.
He takes Verso's hand, and uses that hold to guide the both of them to a patch of warm grass that they can sit on for a moment. It brings them eye-level with the forest of wooden would-be tombstones decorated with fluttering armbands. Again, numbers surround them, odds and evens. ]
You mean to say that my brother might yet live. [ Softly, as if saying so would keep the idea from manifesting. ] ...I can dare to hope, though...
[ A low breath, through his teeth. ] ...He may not want anything to do with me, after what I've done.
[ Would that be the reason for the discarded scarf? A shedding of that forevermore? Clive remembers the way his mother looked at him, cold and dispassionate, and imagines Joshua looking at him the same way; it feels like ice in his blood. ]
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What Clive says next invites more silence to follow. It's true that a lot of people would draw their lines well ahead of where Clive stands, wanting nothing to do with him now that they know he's lethally different. That doesn't seem right when it comes to Joshua, but all Verso really has to base that on his how much Clive adores his little brother; he never met Joshua, doesn't know who the man is when he isn't being spoken about by the person who loves him the most in this world.]
Maybe. [Is all he can offer at first. Blunt yet soft and gentle.] But it's hard for me to imagine anyone who knows you would believe you wanted any of that to happen.
[After all, Verso had only known the vengeful side of him – and only for a few weeks, at that – and he never doubted that the beast acted upon Clive's instincts and impulses of its own volition. There could, of course, be an argument to make regarding the fact that Clive killed people Joshua knew while Verso had no connection to them, but it's not one that he considers. Love begets understanding. At least where it's deserved.
I'm not as good as you think I am, Clive had said when Verso called him salvation. Back then he had made no argument, but he offers one now, running his thumb along Clive's as he does.]
You're a better person than you think you are.
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A sobering thought. Clive leans his weight a bit more against Verso, black hair against black hair, and hopes that he won't end up as another marker in this expansive, lonely cemetery. ]
I wonder, [ is his truthful response. Not a denial, not a pushback. Just a statement of fact, that he grapples with the idea of goodness, and whether it has any place in a description of himself. Not because he wants to reject it, but because he doesn't know if he's done anything to deserve being on that end of the morality spectrum. ]
Sometimes I think that I'm not punished enough or often for the things that I've done. That I still only navigate this world thanks to your grace and patience. That I haven't changed anything except for how I see myself― and is that truly enough, to atone for the things that I've done?
[ A low sigh, which fades into an errant breeze. ]
I feel that there's nothing I can't do, when I'm with you. But I wonder if that, too, is a burden for you to bear.
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I don't feel burdened.
[If anything, he's glad that he can actually do something good for someone after so many years, so many bloodstained fucking years, of knowing that his existence only amounts to death and suffering and death. Even if his hands are mostly tied and he can only really scramble to help when it really matters, he'll always choose to sit here in Clive's pain with him and to lift him towards and above his aspirations when his wings are unfurled and ready to make their own wind. To be apart from him feels like the bigger burden.
The more Clive brings up his past transgressions, though, the more Verso understands that he can't keep speaking from his own experiences and understandings and expecting them to be enough to bear the weight of whatever else is plaguing him. So, he matches the heaviness of Clive's words by taking a heavier approach himself.]
What else do you think you've done that you deserve being punished for?
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What Clive doesn't like is this feeling. Memories of running into an abandoned shack with his knees curled up in a facsimile of the Paintress's posture against the Monolith, thinking about all the things he was, and more importantly, wasn't. Time and perspective have eroded that shame and guilt away into resigned forgiveness, but the recollections remain contentious despite everything; Clive hasn't told a single soul about what he used to do and feel as a child, not even his brother.
Verso invokes it, though, with his question. And, strangely, it feels less prying or impossible to address when it's Verso with his palm held open for an answer. Especially after the diamond-clear way he delivers I don't feel burdened, offered with such conviction that Clive has to blink it out of his lashes.
He tries for a smile. It doesn't stick the landing, but it leaves him less tense, and more willing to speak his next words: ]
I was born.
[ Truthful. A grandiose thing, he knows. But it'd been at the center of every emotional break he'd ever had as a child, under his mother's scrutiny and his brother's poor health. I'm sorry I was born. I'm sorry I took all the strength from my brother and kept it for my own. I'm sorry for being a son that not even a mother could love.
A sin that he taught himself to learn not to apologize for over time, and with the help of men and women far better than he ever was. But it persists, in these moments. Not a grand ache, but a reminder of his meandering beginnings. ]
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Verso isn't sure what to do with that at first; simple and decisive and blunt, it distils all the self-perceived sins of Clive's existence down to that first breath he took, that first cry that would lead into many more, far more than any child should have to bear. Reflexively, Verso pulls Clive a little bit closer, as if it's possible for one touch, one embrace, to undo a lifetime of a mother's resentment. It's not, he knows, but like fuck is he going to do nothing.]
Okay.
[It isn't okay, it isn't right, it isn't anything that any part of Verso has any inclination towards accepting, but now is not the time to be arguing with Clive. There's a reason he's starting here – hard though that may be for Verso to comprehend – and that deserves to be honoured, at least until it's given more shape and he can get better sense of what, exactly, he's grasping for here.]
Okay, we'll begin there. Tell me the rest of the story?
[He tries to keep his tone soft and warm and encouraging, but it's laced with sadness and a radiant kind of pain, a throbbing that he feels in his own chest and heart and in the pit of his stomach. Once more, he reasserts to himself that the nature of Clive's past only proves his goodness, it doesn't call it into question, but again, he can't say that, not yet, so he simply holds it close to his chest like something precious and worth cradling.]
i hate that i wrote you an essay about clive's AU life. IM SORRY
Verso, his starlight. Being seen by him has never felt terrifying. So he opens his mouth again, and starts. ]
...I've spoken of my mother. [ Her resentment, her accusations. ] She was so paranoid that others saw me as the child of an affair, and not her own. So obsessed with the notion of bloodlines in a world so eager to end them early― she cared only for how she would outlast the Monolith's countdown through the children she bore.
[ A dry huff. He gestures to himself, unruly hair and all. ]
Perhaps she saw through to the core of me. An impurity in her own blood. To her, I was a thing to be excised at her nearest convenience, and Father... [ His brows knit, somewhat. ] ...The Academy demanded his attention. I don't blame him for serving the good of Lumiere, but his absence emboldened my mother, I suppose.
[ So. There's the groundwork. His first sin: being unwanted. ]
Joshua changed everything, but as I said before― he was unwell, and my mother blamed this, too, on the taint I left in her blood. She obsessed over him, stifled him like a bird in a cage. And so it went, that I finally felt purpose in shielding my brother from the weight of our mother's moods.
[ Phew. This may be the most Clive has ever spoken about himself, ever. ]
But I couldn't even accomplish that. [ He promises he'll find a good place to stop; he's almost there. His lips quirk upwards in light apology, brows downturned. ] After Father left for his Expedition, my mother's attitude towards me worsened. Couldn't bear to see the remnants of the husband who left her, I think.
So she forced me out of our home. Took a flame to my face, and cast me out. I... [ And this is the other thing he wishes he were punished for: ] ...I let her. I left Joshua in that house, though I'd sworn to protect him. I felt so numb about it all, so empty. So consumed by my own doubts and pains, that I allowed my mother to do what she did. It was unforgivable.
but i love that you wrote me an essay about clive's au life so we have achieved balance
That doesn't happen, and Verso holds back a sigh. What Clive reveals isn't outside of the realm of understanding; Verso had felt similar things about leaving Alicia behind with Renoir, even if Renoir never mistreated any of his children in the ways that Anabella harmed her own, and Alicia had made her own choice in the end. Which doesn't really make their situations comparable, but it does give Verso some grounding in coming up with something to say.]
What do you think you could have done? To stop your mother or to take care of Joshua on your own.
[What if is a question that has long plagued Verso. What if he had been a better son; what if he had stood up for himself earlier instead of holding back until it was too late? Would either of those have freed Aline from her madness and this world from her grief? Or, what if he had betrayed his father's wishes and told everyone the truth about themselves and the Paintress? What would life in the Canvas be like now, if only he hadn't been a status-quo-following fucking coward?
All these years later, he's still struggling to remind himself that he can't know that things would have been better or worse; he's still figuring out how to accept that he did what he thought was best at the time, that he did what he thought he could, and that his weakest moments and his darkest courses make him a real human – something most of the Painters would sooner deny. Understanding that beneath the paint and the chroma and the ill intentions of their existences, the people of the Canvas are precisely that – people – is often the one thing that keeps him going.
And people do awful things, selfish things. They give up when they have the capacity to fight. They fight when they have room to forge peace. They suffer and lash out, creating their own cycles to augment that of the Gommage. Verso still looks at them and sees the good. Hell, he still sees it in Aline and in both Renoirs; in Clea, too, when he reaches deep down into the real Verso's memories to remind himself that she's just a sister who's not only desperately mourning her brother, but is watching the world they'd created together get systematically destroyed by people who couldn't care less about how she herself grieves.
These are things that he can't say about Anabella, though; in the end, people can also be the most inhuman creatures of all.]
What your mother did to you both is unconscionable. How you responded to that... it doesn't make you a bad person.
shoves clive in a locker... im coming for verso next
He supposes it's the same sort of question that Verso has asked himself, over the years. Close his eyes, and he still remembers Verso and Alicia swaying on a piano bench, and the sadness in Verso's eyes as he bid his sister to go back to their father. Again: what could either of them have done in the face of such impossible odds?
Clive nests against Verso, resting his oversized body into the cradle of the other man's side. He breathes, and the tightness in his chest recedes somewhat. ]
Maybe so. But I gave myself away for scraps for years afterwards until Cid found me, living like a wraith because I couldn't face my weakness. [ A ghost of a smile here, again. This time, it's laced with self-deprecation, the sentiment of sound familiar? written plainly on his features. ] I'd thought I'd put that all behind me, but I became that same creature when I lost Joshua again. I made you endure me in that state.
[ Those first few days― weeks, even― when Clive barely spoke a word in Verso's presence. Bare-boned 'yes' and 'no's, blue eyes dark like steel. He unfurled gradually, but he can't imagine that it was an enjoyable process for Verso. ]
―But I want to help. For you, I want to be better than I am. Good or no, I want to stand proud by your side.
can clive fit into a locker
You weren't that hard to be around, you know. I could always see the goodness in you.
[Which is a huge part of the reason why when Clive mentions wanting to stand proud by his side, Verso relaxes, smiling against the mess of his hair. He has his own issues with pride, of course, his own struggles with figuring out what better should mean for him and learning how to shape himself to suit it. But when he ignores all that and puts himself aside, it simply feels good to hear those words delivered with an honest conviction, with a depth that he feels so wondrously lost and comfortingly found inside.]
And I'm honoured to be walking this path with you. There's no one I'd rather have here with me.
[It's not an affront to Alicia; she deserves whatever peace may be found on the paths that he and Clive will walk together, but she doesn't deserve the anguish they'll doubtlessly endure, or the limits they'll have to push their bodies to, or the failures that will no doubt rise like weeds to choke the life out of whichever victories they grasp from the Dessendres' clutches. And she deserves a happy brother, a brother who hates himself a little less so that he might better prove his love for her.]
We'll make right what we can, together.
...ok fair point
Reciprocal relaxing happens. The nearness makes Clive miss the ruined bed they left behind, makes him wish they had more time to tangle around each other. Words like here with me and together bring up recollections of that hot, heated pressure seated inside him, and remind him that he is, in fact, just a little sore－ pleasantly so, in the sort of way that hasn't hindered his ability to walk briskly by Verso's side.
A strange direction for his mind to be wandering in, after all the talk of his existential misgivings. Not a thought that's completely left of center, though, given recent developments. The red scarf remains tucked safely against his waist, wedged between his belt and his hip.
Briefly, he thinks to ask: "if Joshua is alive, how do I explain you to him? my comrade? my lover?"
He swallows it. This doesn't seem the right time nor place. So: ]
...Together. [ The essential three words, always the hardest to say. Clive settles on another three-worded statement, though it's not the exact one rooted deeply into his heart. ] Come what may.
[ And, because this is important: ]
I should hope that you never have to bury me here.
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Relaxation loses the fight against tension, and Verso takes a deep, steadying breath in through his nose, out through his mouth, closing his eyes as it ripples through Clive's hair. The thought of losing him isn't one that Verso allows himself to humour often – really, it's one that he is quicker to dismiss. Surely, the fact that he hasn't Gommaged makes a statement about permanence rather than impermanence; surely, his flames will be long-burning and impossible to extinguish; surely, Verso won't find himself alone in the world after receiving so many reminders of how it feels to love someone with the whole of his being.]
Yeah. [There's an edge of humour to his voice as he tries to downplay what's going through his head, all the awful potentialities, all the reminders of how it feels to be oppressively lonesome.] The feeling's mutual.
[Genuinely, he doesn't know what he'd do without Clive. Part of that is the blindness of fear – Verso is a survivor if nothing else – but much of it is the simple truth of his exhaustion. He's tired, he's tired, he's so bloody tired, and even if they're constantly on their feet, always in motion, Clive is still his rest and respite, his home and his hearth, and the thought of losing him is exhausting.
I need you, he thinks to add. I can't do this without you. But instead, he says:]
I've buried too many people.
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Those pianist hands should never have had to dig through dirt, to drag stiff bodies. They're torturing you, Clive had said when he'd first been handed the barest outline of Verso's reality, and that assessment still holds fast, even now. ]
That you have.
[ Numbers wave at them. Fifty to sixty to seventy to zero. Too many. Far too many. Remarkable, that Verso hasn't lost his mind to all of this loss. Tragic, that he hasn't let himself. He remains, still, the strongest person that Clive has ever met. (Cid will cede the questionable honor; "take it, I don't want it".) ]
Bearing all of this, on your own. [ A low murmur, as he takes one of Verso's hands. He dislodges his face from its nest against Verso's neck to kiss along the knuckles. ] ...If it were up to me, I would never have you lose again.
[ No more tailing Expeditions only to watch them be obliterated; no more lying and hoping against hope. It's not a promise Clive can make, but it is a vocalization of what he wants, and that must count for something. ]
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I wish it were up to you.
[Despite it all, he gets the words out easily enough. Maybe because they're so simple. Maybe because he's just borrowing them from Clive, taking his if and making it into a wish. And what a wish it is, warm and familiar and devastating in its impossibility, but well-received all the same because Verso does understand what Clive means by saying it aloud.
The approach Verso takes in response isn't about him, though; looking out onto the nearly countless graves, he thinks about how each one of those people deserved better. How they should have been able to watch grandchildren and their children grow up; how they should have been able to grow old themselves, eking out whatever existences they wanted within the promised safety of Lumiere. All of them suffered terribly, both here on the Continent and back home where the brutalities of death were cloyingly perfumed by petals in the wind. And none of them, not a single one, was granted the right to matter by the man and the woman weaponising their lives to perpetuate their wars.]
I don't care what they chose. Nobody should have to die like they did.
[His voice is barely audible at the end, fading with futility.]
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Clive's hand skims over Verso's hair, fingers winding their way through the streaks of white that cut through the dark. Signs of years and stress－ Clive finds them precious, and touches them reverently as he speaks. ]
Even if we end the war between your families [ plural, though that probably isn't the most accurate way to define Painted VS Unpainted ], the fact will remain that our futures were hard-earned.
...So much death. We'll remain defined by it, until the end of our days.
[ Because happy endings are storybook fantasies; no one hears about what happens during 'happily ever after', because it's trite and impossible. A girl gets married to a prince who used to be a frog, then finds out a year later that she abhors his personality and the way he snores in bed.
Living is hard work. Often harder than dying, which remains devastatingly easy. ]
We'll be blamed, and accused, and misunderstood. [ His touch shifts downwards, along Verso's cheek, cupping his jaw. ] There will be years of suffering before any of us find peace.
[ A long breath, in and out. ] But we owe it to the dead. And we will ever have each other.
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Which is an awful thought to be having here, where he's surrounded by so many people who wanted nothing more than to live, so he forces himself to stop, grasping instead onto the last of what Clive said: that they'll ever have each other. There are no guarantees here on the Canvas, but Verso wraps himself up in one all the same, seeking warmth in the fantastical idea of shared futures and a quieter kind of love where they don't each live in anticipation of the other's pain.
Not that pain should always be avoided, of course. Sometimes, it's needed for closure; always, it's needed for healing. That thought guides Verso even further away from the devastation of being surrounded by so much death and towards the peace of rest and respite, and the knowledge that at least the world can't hurt the people they hold dear anymore; at least they're free from their suffering.
So, softly, he asks something he'd meant to earlier.]
Do you want to see them?
[A pause. The words are right there on the tip of his tongue, but he feels the need to give them a little space to breathe, a little reverence before he invokes their memories.]
Cid and your father.
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Until then, though: this. Because of course Verso said nothing about Cid or his father being piled among the rubble of the Battlefield, because they weren't. Because of course Verso had taken the time to bring them to this hallowed nest for them to be lit by yellow-gold sun, away from the angry blood-red of blood and tarnished chroma. Because of course Verso is just the way he is, so defined by his empathy despite the weight of the world bearing down on him, each year and each Expedition at a time.
Of course Verso is like this. It stills Clive's heart; his breath stills alongside it, as he peels away from Verso's side, shock mixed with pain mixed with resignation. Of course, of course. ]
They're here? [ God, fuck, merde. ] ...Verso.
[ He speaks that name like a whisper, almost a sob. What Clive feels for this man has no name, no descriptor, no definition.
Hands fly to Verso's face, cradling them between his palm. Yes, he'd like to see where Verso laid his father and his mentor to rest. But also, fuck, the thought of the man he loves being the one to have done it makes something in Clive shatter. ]
I'd like to see them, [ he finally manages after a long pause, strained and grief-laden. ] But, gods－ fuck.
[ His eyes shutter. He rests, forehead against forehead, breath mixing with breath, before he tempers himself back to some semblance of equilibrium. ] ...Merde, it should never have taken me this long to find you.
[ With that, he finally lets Verso go. ]
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It's enough that he finds himself able to let out the softest breath of a laugh, in the end.]
Au contraire, you found me exactly when I needed you to.
[At a turning point of his own, caught between so many paths ahead that he's been alternating his way across them, dancing to rhythms he doesn't understand, following music that he'd never want to claim as being of his creation. And while he still isn't sure what tomorrow holds, he knows that Clive will be a part of it, and as for the rest – well, he no longer has to figure that out alone.
Rising to his feet, he turns around and offers Clive his hand. The man doesn't need it, of course, but Verso does; these small gestures they share, seemingly insignificant in the grander scheme of things, are the ones that keep him the most grounded for how they're so damned easy to take for granted. Never again, though. Never with Clive.]
You want me to come with you, or...?
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So he takes the proffered hand, and notes how easy it feels for their fingers to link and for him to get back on his feet with Verso acting as an anchor. It isn't a lie when Clive claims that he's fine, that there are things he can do on his own, but the ability to survive and subsist is not the same as the ability to live a full life.
Chroma glows red, where they touch. His soul still resonates in Verso's presence. ]
I'd like you to, [ is his reply to the question, with conviction. ] I want the both of them to know who makes me want to live.
[ So Verso better buckle up and get ready to be embarrassed. Or to stand awkwardly as Clive kneels in front of two graves and silently but emphatically declares oaths and vows to dead men in his head, and possibly out loud, depending on where emotions take him.
Verso is, of course, free to bow out. "Actually, they're your family, so I'll sit this one out." Clive, however, will content himself with letting Verso lead him where he needs to go, like the saddest but most purpose-driven shaggy dog ever to walk the Continent. ]
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The area is nice, dappled sunlight filtering in through golden leaves, a slight hill making way for even ground, small white flowers poking out amid the blades of grass. Only once Clive is standing in place beside him does Verso loosen – but not release – his grip on his hand, leaving it up to Clive to decide how and where he wants him present.]
Your mentor.
[Though the cigarette box and lighter probably made that obvious. What isn't obvious is this:]
His Expedition ran into a Nevron they weren't strong enough to handle, and he got in between them so they could get away. The ones who listened survived. The others, they refused to leave his side.
[And Verso had arrived too late to do anything; the Nevron had wiped out half of the remaining fighters, and Cid had been mortally wounded. Alive, though, and able to speak his final words. Verso won't share the former – there's no reason to bring his own guilt into Clive's grief – but he will offer the latter.]
Last thing he said was that it was okay. You know, for those who come after. And that he entrusted his protege with his hopes for the future.
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His hand closes over Verso's once－ a squeeze hard enough to verge on uncomfortable－ before Clive remembers himself, and relents. The grip unfurls for the moment, and he lets go to give himself space to kneel in front of the pole and the armbands, all of them emblazoned with the same hallowed number that'd been on the Monolith when Clive saw the expedition off.
He sighs, and it's almost a laugh. ]
Sounds like him. [ Sounds like them, too, the ones that stayed. He spots Benedikta's armband among the rest, gold trimming along the black fabric laced with jade-green thread. ] He always did like to have the last word.
[ His voice breaks towards the end; there are some absences that will always loom large and gaping, a space that nothing will fill. Clive breathes through that familiar ache, the part of his heart that still hopes that Cid will turn the corner, plumed in smoke, warm as thunder.
His next words are for his mentor. Tear-stained, but steady. ] ...Cid. You always told me that it was never too late to reclaim one's fate. That I was right to say that we need to look to a future where we have a choice to live, not to die.
[ The flat of his palm rests against the top of the pole, imbuing it with violet. ] I'll live. I promise you. [ A ghost of a smile, still tear-laced. ] And, you'll be surprised to know, with someone by my side.
[ The smile gains in conviction, as he gets back up onto his feet. ] Now you've nothing left to nag me about. [ Knuckles rap against smooth wood, as if to chide. ] You know Verso is the best of us. We'll be alright.
[ He can hear Cid's smoky laugh in his head. "You interrupted my sleep to gloat? Yeah, I think you'll be just fine." Wiping his face with his sleeve, Clive turns back to Verso, and tips his head. ]
...Thank you. For seeing him through his last moments.
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This isn't about him, though – even as Clive speaks of their companionship. So, when Clive turns back around, Verso lifts himself up to press a kiss to his temple before resting their foreheads together, rebuilding his own composure breath by breath and second by second until he feels solid enough to pull back away. A wayward tear glistens on Clive's cheek in the golden light, and Verso thumbs it away.]
He was a good man. I'm glad his words finally reached you.
[In hindsight, Verso wonders if that was Cid's intention all along. Tell the boy it's okay. Let him know that he's laid the trail for his success. Keep an eye on him.
He will. He will. He will.
Taking Clive's hand again, Verso guides him towards the base of the tree, encouraging him into a kneel beside him. Like this, he brushes aside a pile of leaves to reveal many lidded glass pots containing red and white rose petals, perfectly preserved, then takes the one at the very top of the group, tucked into the curve of root jutting up from the ground.]
Your father's Expedition they made it all the way to Old Lumiere.
[Holding the jar in his palm, he offers it to Clive.]
We were camping out for the night when Renoir found us and... erased everyone. Most of them went in their sleep.
[It's no consolation. It offers no solace. One man massacred dozens in an instant. Didn't even give them the chance to defend themselves. Just attacked them from behind when they were supposed to be safe.]
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How horrible, then, that it's Verso's father who has the adverse effect on him. Renoir, a name that feels as threatening as the ice-cold rap of a cane against a hard surface. For a moment, Clive doesn't understand what he's seeing－ red and white preserved in glass－ and when he does, when he does...
...God, he wishes there was a way to hate Renoir less. Family brings with it a whole cadre of complications, and there's no part of Clive that wants to see Verso suffer the loss of a father, no matter how twisted their bonds have become.
But still. He stares vacantly at the petals in jars, somehow more perverse than wooden stakes in dirt, and can't deny that his heart fills with resentment. Rage. Something simmering and ugly, as he considers the implications of the word erased. ]
...Father.
[ For a long moment, it's the only thing Clive can think of to say. At the very least, Cid's passing was reconcilable; he could understand and imagine how it might have happened. This, however, is a sort of cruelty that Clive struggles with, with his fingers white-knuckled around the jar that he finally accepts into his hands. ]
I... [ Words fail him. He shakes his head. ] ...Can't imagine it.
[ Softly. It feels so fucking senseless; he could kill Renoir for it. ]
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[To watch Clive process what he's seeing is to remember how it felt to move through the scene of the massacre, alone and surrounded by petals and loosed chroma. Everything had been quiet, so quiet that he could hear those petals brushing up against the ground as wind moved to claim them, and he slips into that silence for moment, here and now.
If he had known his father had it in him to wipe out an entire Expedition, just like that, he'd have taken greater precautions. He'd have insisted on finding another place to camp, or he'd have stayed on sentry duty all night, or he'd have considered recruiting the Curator to their cause, given how their interests were aligned and the 58s were already working with him, too. There is no Expedition he's felt greater regret over losing, no group of people who feels he's failed more.
Which is another tangle of emotions and guilt and grief that he keeps to himself.]
They got as far as they did thanks to his leadership. I really thought that they might see it through.
[And he wishes they'd had the chance to realise their full potential. Such is how things go on the Continent, though, where hope is the most significant threat of all and the greatest successes result in the most decisive deaths.. He thinks to add that at least they never lost that hope – at least their deaths came at a time when they weren't aware that they were facing it down – but he isn't sure how well that will land so he keeps it to himself. Maybe that's just a consolation to him, a justification to wield in the even that the only person who can be saved is Aline.]
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The nobler the soul, the more determined the spirit, the more quickly this world will try to excise it. This is proof that Gods don't suffer the defiance of creatures that they created. ]
...I don't doubt it. [ Is where he lands, after meandering in his thoughts. It's the truth: he doesn't. His father was always his hero, the bravest and most capable man in all of Lumiere, upright and noble and brilliant. (He has not stopped once to consider that a brave and capable and noble man might also have intervened at any time to stop his wife from abusing his child; sometimes, admiration is as much a pathology as anything else.)
Clive closes his eyes, and presses his forehead to the smooth glass of the jar containing what may or may not have been his father; he can't imagine the shock of seeing a group of humans reduced to petals in an instant, and the agony of reckoning with that shock by memorializing it. Again, Verso continues to be the strongest man he'll ever know, not just for bearing the fact that this was his own father's doing, but for having the grace to remember and preserve. ]
Anything I can think of to say would be unkind to you, [ Clive murmurs, obviously meant for Verso. ] And so, I won't.
[ Say anything, he means. Just a low inhale and exhale, slow and measured, before he sets the jar back down on leaf-covered ground. Sunlight filters through the glass, making petals gleam as if they were dew-slick. I'll make you proud, he thinks, before getting up onto his feet.
His fingers curl and uncurl, venting numbness and anger. He doesn't want to get caught in the tangle of that quiet rage, not in this sacred place where so much of Verso's own pains are put to (debatable) rest; Verso deserves far more than that. ]
―I'd like to return here, one day. When our paths are lighter and brighter.
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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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