[Somehow, the word closure hits harder when Clive says it than it does when Verso thinks it to himself. A bristling happens in response, a deep-seated denial that finds Verso shaking his head, already bucking against the notion before he realises what he's doing.]
The closure's for them, not me.
[The more he sits in this moment, the more wrong it feels to grasp for his own feelings of peace and acceptance when several of the people memorialised here are dead by his own hands. Just thinking of how they might respond now, just hearing the anger and the hatred and the injustice in their voices as they launched question after question at him, just feeling the futility of their blades in his heart and the way they kept going and going and going, fills him with a sense of self-disgust so thick he has to swallow it down.]
There was another Expedition soon after Zero. Search & Rescue. I'm the reason they're here.
[And oh, what a cowardly way to express that he killed them all with his own hands; oh, what a disrespectful thing it is, to take such an indirect approach to telling the truth, both to them and to Clive. He steels himself against himself and continues.]
My family and I, we just learned the truth about everything, but we kept a lot of it to ourselves. Including our immortality. We did try to tell them that the Paintress wasn't responsible for the Fracture, but that just made them suspicious of us. The last straw was when I was killed by a Nevron. The... woman I was in love with saw it happen, and when she found me alive, I lied to her and said she was seeing things.
[The breath he lets out next is almost like a laugh, almost like the staccato exhalation of emotional overload.]
She told the others and they agreed I needed to be dealt with. I should've gave into them but I didn't, I refused to admit what had happened, and they decided to prove I was immortal. So, I fought back and...
[The words don't come. Were they anywhere else, Verso might have been okay with that; the implication is clear enough without their speaking. Here, though, he owes it to the dead. Keeping his voice as steady as possible, he finishes the confession.]
―there's a flinch. Forwards, not backwards, an involuntary desire to reach and touch and hold, because, for a fleeting moment, Clive worries that Verso might leave after he places this truth in Clive's hands. I lied, and I fought back, and I killed them.
He holds himself back, because he knows that it isn't comfort that Verso is seeking. Just a place to put this honesty, and to push gently back against Clive's assertion regarding closure, or that he deserves it at all; which Clive will hold steadfast to, that he does, though he's not here to argue against what Verso has held in his heart for half a century.
But oh, what choice did Verso ever have? What choice did any of them give him? He didn't choose this life; he didn't choose his immortality; he didn't choose the terms of his existence. How could anyone navigate the truth of it all, especially after being shattered by it themselves? ]
Verso. [ His voice skims into a whisper, verging on susurrous disbelief. ] What else could you have done?
―What else would they have let you do?
[ Which isn't to say that Clive can absolve Verso of the murder; like Clive, he'll have to spend the rest of his life atoning for his sins. But there has to be some grace, some measure of understanding that Verso is always, always fighting impossible odds. His is a battle that was never framed to be winnable. ]
[The flinch is followed by a stepping back – Clive is right; not only is Verso not seeking comfort, but the thought of receiving it with the dead as his witnesses only fills him with greater disgust. And while both questions asked are fair – and both are questions he's heard from Renoir and Alicia and Monoco – Verso can't take them as the perspective-granting guides they're intended as being.
They have answers.]
Endured.
[There's a burn at the backs of his eyes; he can't raise the heels of his palms fast enough to smother those fires before they meet the open air and transform into tears. Another step back signals that he needs to bear these pains alone.]
What were they going to do, kill me?
[It's a question that's haunted him every day of his life since. There are extenuating circumstances as well, he knows – what if they turned against Alicia? what if they killed the Paintress before she could save anyone? – but there is no reconciling the fact that his life was never worth more than any one of theirs, yet he had acted as if otherwise in that moment. He'd given into the anger and the hurt and the fear and the betrayal; he had let them bear the consequences of his lies.
You did this, Julie had said. Everyone–? And now me. Fucking coward. Can't even look at me. Verso closes his eyes and brings his memory of her face to mind and he looks and looks and looks until her expression almost starts to soften, and then he can't bear to look anymore, can't bear to think of her giving him that which he doesn't deserve, so he looks up at the sky instead.]
[ Pinpoint, concentrated pain. It takes everything that Clive has to respect that distance made, to stand where he is and let Verso release this into the space between them, tear-slick and blood-slick. Words fall like boulders, and settle into death-covered dirt like petals and ash.
Endured. A solution, to be sure. Verso could have sat and bent the knee and let blades and bullets tear him apart until he pulled himself back together again. He could have been mutilated again and again, without consequence, until he found the courage or the numbness necessary to tell whatever truth was available to him.
He could have endured. But Clive thinks it would have broken something fundamental in him; that beautiful starlight he keeps hidden under all his masks. It would have broken something in all of them. Cruelty shatters humanity, in both the victim and the perpetrator.
So: ] You were human.
[ Maybe this puts the 'Verso magic' into perspective. The cavalier attitude towards self-harm, the lack of interest in his own wellbeing. Or maybe this is Clive and his own biases, because it's impossible for him to be completely objective about the man he's come to love, desperately and entirely.
Or maybe it just breaks Clive's heart to see Verso leaning in to the fact that he shouldn't be. As if what he is has removed him from being entitled to hurt. As if that's all he's good for, all he was made for. To saddle, to shoulder. ]
[So were they, Verso wants to argue, but Clive knows better than anyone how it feels to lose that control, and so he won't insult him by twisting his intentions into yet another device of self-flagellation. For the same reason, he won't argue that being human isn't enough – that one's humanity doesn't mean anything when it snuffs others out. Clive knows and understands and has the experience to back both up.
And Verso would never want him to think the worst about himself.
In that way, Clive does help. Verso will never forgive himself for what he did, of course – he will never justify his own actions, even if he is capable of calling it a betrayal – but he can't explore these thoughts and these feelings without being reminded of the parallels and the perspectives they inspire, as if Clive's chroma has taken root in Verso after all, just in a different way, exactly how he needs it to manifest. Warm and protective and safe with a sense of belonging.
It still doesn't feel like the right thing to feel, considering where they are, but Verso reminds himself that wallowing in self-loathing keeps him from walking the paths he needs to walk toward whatever future will free Lumiere from the fate of a drawn-out, whimpering death. Thinking these thoughts isn't easy – it's never been easy – but now when he asks the question of what else he can do, he knows the answer is nothing. Either he lives on and tries to honour their memory, or he dies and it's all for vain.
He can only hope that it's what they want, too.
With a soft sigh, he returns to the here and now.]
A human who's made more than his share of mistakes.
[Is the response he's settled on in the end. Not to wallow or to succumb, but rather to acknowledge.
Now, he offers his hand for Clive to take, half nervous because he isn't sure if his confession has changed things or not, doesn't know if Clive's hold on his hand will feel different, or if he'll avoid taking it at all, or –
[ He isn't ready to move on. More than anything else he's heard today, even more than the new knowledge of how his father perished, Verso's experience with Search & Rescue stills Clive where he stands. The enormity of all of it, and the fear it must have inspired. Again, Clive thinks back to that foolish question he'd asked, all those weeks ago: how do you live with it?
He isn't ready to move on. He'll think about this all day, as they traverse the rest of what this sunset part of the Continent has to offer. He'll think about what it must have felt like to balance loyalty to one's family against loyalty to one's love, and what it must have felt to bear the horrible culmination of that inevitable tipping of scales.
Verso said "the woman I was in love with". Clive will think about that, too. The phrasing of it, and how that love might still live in Verso, whispering coward in his head.
He isn't ready to move on. But they must, and so he reaches for the offered hand to hold, fingers around fingers and palm against palm with stillsame conviction. All the things he wants to do― to hold, and kiss the salt from Verso's cheek, and keep him close― Clive denies himself now, because it's neither the time nor place for it.
He'll only take what's offered. Anything else would be to placate himself, and that would be monstrous in light of everything he knows now. ]
If you are.
[ The both of them, mired in the bog of their poorly-earned survival. Still, Clive is glad that Verso is here; he can't resent any part of Verso's history if it brought Verso here, with him, now.
So, one last thing he'll offer, before they go: ]
We'll see our sins through to the end. Together.
[ A unified front, still. It's all Clive can offer as he tightens his grip, and starts their walk away from crimson and gold. ]
[Nearly half a century has passed since Verso's told anyone about this, and never has he told one of the Lumierans. Existing in the aftermath of such a revelation is something that he doesn't quite know how to manage, and so he falls silent for a while, focusing on steadying his breathing and on the perfect familiarity of the way their palms fit together and Clive's fingers twine with his own. As is often the case, he worried over nothing.
Haunted by the ghost of his own voice, he wishes he could find something more to say, some way to bridge the divide between the hope they have to hold onto and the despair that keeps him, at least, still trapped in the graveyard, even as gold and red make way for green, and then for the white of snow, so much snow that there doesn't seem to be an end in sight, covering the ground and rising high up into the sky upon the backs of mountains. But he still feels queasy, still feels like he's fighting to press forwards, and so he chooses the haunting over its release, letting his grip on Clive's hand speak all the things that he cannot.
At least it's getting easier to quiet the darker of his thoughts. Snow has always been one of Verso's favourite things, bundling up in scarves and mittens, streaming down bumpy hills on a pair of skis, warming up afterwards fireside with a warm drink. The Fracture and the ensuing years have taken much from Verso, but the things he's always loved about the Canvas haven't dwindled. So, as the shape of Monoco's Station clarifies in the distance, he releases a final long, cleansing breath, and finally finds his words again.]
This used to be the most popular destination on the Continent, you know.
[Small talk. It feels a bit scrambling, a bit pathetic given the weight of everything they've both just waded through, but it's what he has to offer.]
Most of the attractions were lost in the Fracture, but there's still a ferris wheel and a carousel out there. Pretty sure they still work.
[ Silence reigns, until it doesn't. Clive is content to let Verso navigate on his own terms, to offer whatever he can whenever he can in the light of all this despair; Clive is still thinking about Verso being threatened by swordpoint when the ice finally breaks (ha), and it takes him his own moment to come back down to earth.
The distance thaws. Ocean-blues warm again as they settle on Verso, though there's still a hint of grief in the thinness of his smile. ]
It's hard to imagine the Continent being so freely available to us.
[ A vacation spot, instead of a minefield to navigate. Again, Clive thinks of what the Battlefield might have been before it became repurposed as the first obstacle to overcome before reaching the Monolith: a child's idea of a medieval fortress? Did they play knights and princesses on unbroken ramparts?
It reminds Clive that all of this is the result of a dead man's imagination. 'Verso', the other one (the 'real' one), the last vestiges of his creative soul. He, too, must have been a talented painter, blessed with the sort of fancy that made him paint carousels and ferris wheels in snow.
Clive tips his chin and watches his breath mist from between his teeth. A moment later, he relinquishes his hold on Verso's hand, and stops walking. ]
Keep walking, [ he offers to Verso, in turn. It's followed by a vague motion of the previously-held hand, a go on while he stands still in snow. ]
Yeah. And it's hard to think this is the same place, sometimes.
[Which itself is hard to explain. The Lumierans alive today have only ever known this Continent – chopped up and cast so far and wide that shards of it hang in the sky, polluted by Nevrons and death, the remnants of the grand trains that once travelled to and from all sides relegated to a few areas, as run-down and forgotten as everything else that once made the Canvas a livelier, cosier place to live.
Not that Verso has the heart to keep talking when Clive releases his hand and stands in place. Verso stops too at first, lips slightly parted, head cocked, eyes narrowed, and his confusion only grows when he's told to continue ahead.
Trust me echoes across his thoughts, but this is the hardest Verso has had to fight against his doubts and fears about finding himself alone, again. It's easy to hope that Clive means to catch back up to him, harder to be sure, especially with the memories of what happened with Search & Rescue still so fresh on his mind. He hadn't thought that they'd be the ones to teach him how the kiss of iron felt against his heart; he hadn't believed that Julie would ever be the driving force behind his suffering. Not that he thinks Clive has any plans of that nature, only that he knows better than to hold anything between them as absolute.
But no impulse to object rises, and Verso lets out an unsure sigh that he hides behind a casual shrug, as if Clive has simply stopped to tighten the buckles on his boots.]
Okay.
[And with that, he turns back away and maintains his path towards Monoco's Station.]
[ It's agony, to let Verso go. Even more painful to see the blithe way in which Verso complies, and asks nothing of why or what for. Again, as if this is all he thinks he's good for, complying and bearing and surviving the injustices that this world and his family have foisted on him. As if this is all he'll ever know.
It kills Clive to think that Verso might just keep walking and walking, just because Clive told him to. That he wouldn't stop or look back or turn around to come claim Clive again, angry at the lack of explanation or the sudden departure. That he would bury all his starlight under his layers and layers of protection again, and would never tell the truth again, even if he found another man or woman to hold dying in his arms.
A terrible, excruciating thing. Clive watches Verso go, black and gold and violet like a bruise among all this bleached-white snow. He lingers in his own silence for a few seconds that stretch into a minute, and it's when Verso is substantially far enough away that Clive crouches down where he is,
scoops up some snow,
and lobs a neatly-packed handful of it at the back of Verso's stupid, stubborn, beautiful head. ]
Look alive, soldier.
[ A minute is the longest Clive can endure watching Verso go. He has half a mind to be annoyed by it ("don't just let me do this to you"), but mostly―
―Clive loves him, burdens and all. He'd do anything to lighten that load, even just a little. ]
Edited (verso has long legs) 2025-10-11 01:16 (UTC)
[The snowball collides with the back of his head, and at first Verso feels struck by a different kind of ice, one that crystallizes in his veins and stops him in his tracks. One beat, two beats, before he recovers enough sense to recognise the feeling of a snowball to his noggin, realises that he is not, in fact, under attack, and reasserts that the fire to his starlight is ever and always exactly what he needs.
Even if he didn't need chunks of snow falling down the collar of his jacket and melting into his shirt. But that's fine; it's wonderful, honestly, how Clive has so effortlessly managed to bring him the rest of the way back into this place and this moment with this true and vulnerable and freeing – albeit still unspoken – love that they share, leaving him with no recourse but to shake himself free of some of the doubts he'd placed upon his own shoulders for the sake of weighing himself down.
Leaving his back open – it's better covered than his front, at least – he crouches down to gather together his own handful of snow to craft into a ball with enough heft to suggest Verso has a significant degree of experience with lobbing his own snowballs at unsuspecting companions. When he turns around, he points to his own forehead, and then to Clive's, calling his shot.]
Grave mistake, mon feu.
[The call is a ruse. When he throws the snowball, he's actually aiming for the scandalously low V of Clive's shirt. This is what he deserves for having his more unbuttoned than Verso does. But it is also payback for the fact that there is snow melting its way down Verso's back and it does not feel pleasant!!!]
[ This is how Clive dies: not in some heroic stand against a Nevron or in a dramatic faceoff against the Paintress, but of hypothermia in a snowy field because he wanted to make a guy smile.
Worth it, honestly. He remembers sneaking Joshua out of their house on Joshua's birthday, watching his brother laugh and splash his way through the fountain in the town square; the severity of his mother's punishment had been proportional to Joshua's joy, but that hardly mattered. For a day, his brother was blissfully free.
Clive can only do so much. One snowball fight isn't going to make the events of their past or present magically okay. But he ducks when he assumes Verso will try to biff him in the head, and laughs when the ducking only helps the incoming shot hit squarely in the crevasse of his open shirt.
They're still alive. They're still human. That gives him hope, even despite the fact that his ample bosom does not love the feeling of ice against skin. His poor frozen nipples!!!! Verso is a war criminal for this. ]
Oh, now you've gone and done it.
[ Two more snowballs, scooped and packed in rapid succession. The first one is purposefully meant to be easy to dodge: a straight line, right to the chest. Should Verso hop out of its trajectory successfully, the second shot is aligned to hit his hip, lower and hard to avoid. No crotch shots, because Clive is a gentleman. ]
[There is no context in which this man hasn't embraced music. Even if the world is quiet now save for the crunch of their boots upon the snow, Verso moves in response to Clive's onslaught with a rhythm; a graceful dodge of the first snowball, a fluid lifting of his hip, the hit landing but also getting lobbed a short distance away afterward.]
Mercy. Mercy.
[Delivered in the flattest tone he can muster as he follows Clive's suit by packing a couple snowballs, and then strikes his own course by immediately disappearing them into the hammerspace where he keeps his piano and his weapons and whatever else he has stashed away for the sake of plot convenience and dramatic battle intros.]
Whatever shall I do?
[The process continues as Verso moves closer to Clive, making himself a bigger arsenal while he makes himself into a bigger target and a bigger ass. But he is smiling, and there isn't only rhythm to the way he moves but a looseness as well, tensions temporarily relaxed as Clive makes him feel like a fool for ever questioning that he wants to remain by Verso's side as much as Verso wants to be by his. It's a bust of good amid the bad, a different kind of guilt than the type he's used to grappling with, sheepish and silly and absent the usual despair of life-or-death stakes.
He loves him more than he can express – clearly, since he's not expressed it at all – and may never understand how he's come to deserve him, but he won't take it for granted. Moments like these are too fleeting to not be embraced in full.]
[ Vexing, that Verso has the audacity to be so thoroughly beautiful even when Clive has half a mind to pelt him with even more snowballs.
(The closest they can get to a full-fledged fight, maybe, in the future: Clive, holding Verso's face in his hands, trying to convince Verso never to allow Clive to harm him without reason or explanation, to accept that Clive would rather be killed by him than be allowed to harm him in any way.)
Some other time. Right now, he's squaring up against a man who has invisible weapons in his arsenal and all the motivation in the world to win. Again, very vexing that Verso's competitiveness is part of his charm― less vexing is that smile, finally, that smile.
Clive takes another shot, mostly just to watch Verso dance out of its way again. Graceful, like fingers over ebony and ivory. ]
Surrender gracefully, before you do whatever it is that you're plotting.
[ That is, uh, a suspiciously large amount of snowballs that Verso is packing into his invisible pocket. Clive tries to remember if he's ever seen Verso launching a hundred projectiles at a Nevron mid-battle, and comes up woefully short of references; he has seen the way Verso plays with his prey, though, when Verso feels inclined to flit around like streaks of light, so―
―maybe he's bitten off more than he can chew. Whatever. Again: worth it. ]
Verso.
[ Founder, why is he moving closer. Clive actually might die. ]
[The word ends on a lilt mirrored by his movement and the way he shrugs his hands, playfully teasing as he materialises one of his stored-away snowballs and once again chucks it towards Clive's chest on account of it being such a broad and easy target and Verso has not yet entered the finesse stage of his retribution.
Potential retribution, anyway. That shift in Clive's tone, the way he says Verso's name, is compelling in its own right, though he can't quite put his finger on why. Then again, maybe that's the reason, a sense of curiosity, a drive to find out what else there is to discover about him and all the ways those things will warm him up, too. Surprises are rarely pleasant out here on the Continent, but Clive's are such an exception to that rule that Verso can't help himself from teasing forth as many of them from him as he possibly can.
Leaning down once more, he gathers up another snowball, tossing it up and catching it, timing each toss with every step as he continues moving closer.]
Now, why would I do that?
[A good dozen feet or so away, he stops moving but keeps bouncing the snowball in his hand. Deliberately and noticeably, he looks down to where the cold from that first snowball blooms red against Clive's chest, melt lines travelling beneath the dip of his collar like those streaks of firelight chroma that had radiated from his heart. Verso can't help himself from saying what he does next, either.]
[ Academically speaking, there's no way Clive can lose. He's fire incarnate: one burst of infernal chroma with scorching intent, and he'd be able to see the grass under his feet.
Speaking on a purely enjoyment-related basis, though? Nah. Too quick, too inelegant. This exercise is an extension of their silly back-and-forth in bed; no matter what, this is a win. Anything that has Verso moving to meet him instead of drawing away is a win. Even if the front of his shirt is a wet mess now, nipples pebbled in the cold.
It's cold, by the way. Lumiére never saw weather like this, and maybe Clive would have appreciated the picturesque vista sprawling around them if he weren't so utterly taken by the halo-eyed man currently trying to kill him with snowballs. ]
―As do you, [ is a verbal retaliation, one glove-covered hand tapping at his own neck, indicating where he'd left Verso a nice lovebite earlier. He wonders if it's gone now, painted over by Verso's regenerative immortality. What a shame, if so.
Strategy change. Clive bends down, and instead of gathering just enough snow for one well-defined shot, he sweeps long arms across downy white and hugs an obscene pile of it to his already-protesting chest (may his titties never recover from this); his journey back up onto his feet is careful and measured. Deliberate, even. Not for effect, but to make sure the snow stays where it should.
A flick of his gaze towards Verso is all the warning he gives before he starts trotting forward, with full intention to bowl Verso over and do something very unsexy to him. If Verso is music, Clive is this. ]
so what i'm hearing is clive won't be seranading verso with the ben starr version of until next life
[Smirking, Verso cants his head, reaching up with reddened and snow-wet hands to brush his hair aside and reveal the mark on his neck exactly where Clive had left it. Like the scar on his face, it's a little more black than red, lightened by swirls of white, present for however long he wishes it to be so.
The snowball in his hand dematerialises into hammerspace, and he makes a couple more that meet the same fate as he watches Clive embrace a worrisome amount of snow and hold it up to his chest. And it would be easy, Verso thinks, to launch an attack while Clive's so focused on standing up again, maybe knock him off guard, claim whatever victory he can before the inevitable escalation, but instead he watches with pretend blitheness, even as he moves to close the distance between them.
It's a bluff, he tells himself; Clive is very big and while Verso isn't small, he is aware that it is very difficult to be anything besides dwarfed by him. Surely he would not do what he's suggesting he'll do. And to that effect, he says:]
You won't.
[So, he stays put, cocksure and calm, playing a solo game of chicken that he can't lose regardless; either he's right and Clive stops and he wins, or he's wrong and Clive takes him by surprise and he finds delight in both that and in figuring out how to not only meet this new challenge but lift it to new levels.]
local expeditioner gets dumped by local immortal man after attempting to sing (poorly)
[ Another crime to add to the pile: showing Clive that lovebite when he's still too far away to appreciate it properly. It's a curious but lovely reminder of their desperate scrambling the night before, a night-colored bruise dappled by, again, starlight-like white.
If Verso was expecting Clive to honor you won't, well. Not after that particularly enticing display. (In reality, he was never going to honor you won't.) Funny, how they'd spent all that time between the graveyard and now with their hands linked, but had spent it worlds apart; funny, how Clive yearns for Verso even in Verso's company.
The fearsome monster approacheth. Snow in hand, promising ruin.
It shatters Clive that Verso trusts him so much. Clive loves him, and he doesn't know if there'll ever be a right time, a perfect time, to say it. ]
Won't I.
[ So: this. Long strides, sure and even, until 'being in Verso's periphery' turns into 'being in Verso's immediate vicinity', and―
―the warden of fire unleashes an avalanche. A downpour that drenches Verso's hair, his jacket, his shirt, which in turn drenches Clive's jacket, his shirt, his trousers, and sends them both careening down onto the ground, cushioned (mercifully) by the soft carpeting beneath them.
It's ridiculous. It's so fucking stupid. Every inch of Clive is screaming in cold, but he doesn't care: he rolls and tries to pin Verso under him, breathless with affection. ]
or!!! local immortal man gets dumped by local expeditioner after 168-hour singing lesson marathon
[A repetition, no less sure than before; no more correct, either. And so he's proven wrong, standing firm until the very last moment, letting out a grunt mangled by surprise as Clive, for the first time ever, strips Verso of warmth in one fell swoop rather than suffusing him with it through his gentle ways.
Not much of that gentleness lingers in the way his body collides with Verso's own, either, or in how Verso hits the ground with a snow-softened thud that casts another incredulous noise from his throat, this one breathier, more amused. So caught up is he in the absurdity and the wonder and ever-realised fantasy of each being this close to the other that Clive has all the opportunity in the world to do whatever he wants. Verso's arsenal of snowballs almost – almost – goes forgotten as he loses himself in the mischief and the love and the blue of Clive's eyes, so blue, how are they so blue?
When laughter finally rings out, there's still an element of competitiveness to it, still a chime of victory as if being pinned to the ground is exactly what Verso needed to earn back the upper hand. It's not, of course, but like hell is he going to concede that yet. So, he glides his focus along all the parts of Clive's body that he can see like this, taking in how completely drenched the man's made himself and trying not to shiver from the cold as the sight of Clive's more reddened chest reasserts how fucking covered in snow Verso is, too.
He has the absolute audacity to sound cocky about this whole thing.]
Good one. I'm pretty sure you got yourself better than you got me.
[It could not be less true and he fucking knows it.]
ben starrs separate citing creative differences (i will never let this happen)
[ They are the both of them devastatingly beautiful men; they are also sopping wet messes now, a mop and a dishrag, altogether far too old to be courting death by cold in the middle of a snowfield. Clive thinks to use his chroma to warm them before his hands (numb, getting number by the second) fall off, but he's distracted by the twinkle of Verso's laugh, that laugh that makes him feel like he missed a step going down the stairs, displacing his center of balance with ease.
He still wants to take Verso by the shoulders and shake the stain of coward off of him (you're human, you're human), but that grief is too old and too ingrained; there's no point trying to rub that out of Verso's makeup. It will forever remain a part of him, and Clive can only hold it the way he holds Verso's face now, cradled in too-cold palms (this can't be comfortable) as he rubs their damp foreheads together in his own statement of victory. ]
Exactly. [ A mirrored laugh. ] I've got you.
[ The same, but different. Not "gotcha", but "I have you". The slyest a man like Clive can get, trying to make Verso agree to the obvious: Clive will always have him.
His next kiss is frozen solid, snow-paled lips pressed to Verso's mouth. Perfect anyway, but he doesn't have the gift of immortality to shield himself from an early grave, so. A little burst of scarlet chroma, and Clive deigns to melt a little of the ice from Verso's white-streaked hair. ]
[Oh. Oh, it takes Verso a moment to catch up to what Clive is saying. There's a retort about how the fight isn't over yet right there on the tip of his tongue, and another about how those sweet – if frosty – hands on his cheek and that soft – if wet – meeting of their foreheads will do nothing to tame his drive to overcome the admittedly significant obstacle of Clive's weight pinning him down, when he circles back to that exactly and realises what this whole thing was about.
He swears it makes him warm enough to melt more of the snow beneath him. Or maybe it's the kiss to blame. Or maybe it's just Clive's chroma working the ice free from more than just Verso's hair. Maybe it's everything this man does for and is to him. That's probably the most likely explanation.
I don't deserve you, he thinks, as he so very often does, but nothing good could come of giving that thought breath, so he holds it as part of his resolve to be better and to do better so as not to squander the faith that Clive has in him and his humanity. So, lifting a snow-cold hand to the back of Clive's winter-cold neck instead, he runs his fingers through his hair and chooses a simpler path.]
Thanks.
[The laughter is gone and the smile alongside it, but what's replaced them both is a quieting and a stillness. It does hurt a little to be thinking about the what behind the why again, but it's the good kind of pain, like a sore muscle throbbing from getting stronger.
Even so, it is, perhaps, absolutely ludicrous for him to even be considering saying what on his mind now, the two of them laying in the snow, frozen and wet, red from cold, the chaos of their impromptu battle still written all over them, but what else does he say, what else can he say to the man who listened while he shared the worst of himself and responded by lobbing a snowball at the back of his head? So, he takes a deep breath followed by a slow exhale and then:]
[ The world teeters on the edge when Verso's smile fades. Clive, dripping droplets onto Verso's collar, watches the planes of the other man's face shift and settle, and wonders if the unseriousness offended― if it somehow read as callous or dismissive of the depth of Verso's current state of emotion.
But the hand tangled in his hair stays, and Clive is kept where he is, poised over Verso in freezing snow, waiting for a verdict―
―which is I love you, misting from that beautiful mouth.
It almost doesn't register. Blissful dissonance: the statement is at once too obvious and too blindsiding to digest. The three words that have defined Clive ever since they first kissed in witness of black-and-gold. That vague Something, flourishing under pressure and heartache.
For a moment, Clive forgets to breathe, bowled over by the substantive enormity of what they both knew to be evident. The ache in his chest is sweet, and paralyzing, and reaches far beyond what human physicality should allow for. ]
―As do I. [ Finally, on the tail end of a held inhale. ] I love you too, Verso.
[ Does it feel liberating to say it? Not quite: it feels like an unraveling. Clive unfurls, and god, he's sentimental about it. ]
Mon étoile. [ Hands still bracketing Verso's face, thumbs along the corners of both of Verso's pale, pale eyes. ] I love you.
[ His voice scrapes in the back of his throat; he's never said this before to anyone but Verso, and he wonders, briefly, if he can be believed. ]
I love you so much.
how dare these sad men tbh (please continue daring, sad men)
[Just as the brute force of Clive's counterattack had bowled Verso over moments earlier, so too does the emphatic expression of his love, those perfect three words delivered a perfect thrice, bring Verso to his figurative knees. Their love for each other is no competition, but the part of him that always wonders how he stacks up against others – born of his early unsurety over how he stacks up against the other version of himself – finds himself laughing and at peace over how Clive has emerged on top twice over.
Aside from that one fleeting thought, it's impossible to focus on anything besides how the sentiment itself feels, anyway. Fantastically warm enough to stave off the very real cold, empowering in ways Verso hasn't experienced since he realised the truth of his existence and set out on his scrambling and thus far futile course to make it mean something other than suffering, every bit as heartbreaking and beautiful as music, just as inviting and soothing as a crackling fire in a familiar hearth.
The impulse to put it all to words strikes him, but soon he realises that he has no words available, just the desperately fond look in his eyes, and the subtle shift to how he moves his fingers through Clive's hair as if testing the believability of this newly spoken but long-felt reality. Eventually, after beginning his languid descent from the high of reciprocation, he brings back his smile as a crooked, impish thing that casts a new twinkle to his suddenly damp eyes.]
Enough to warm me back up?
[Casual though the request might be, the way that Verso's voice draws tight and falls quiet, the centring breath that follows and the smile that chases after it – those demonstrate the real truth of the matter. In the face of everything, their shared love feels like such a human expression in a world that has attempted to strip them both of their humanity that he can't help but embrace the normalcy of this extraordinary thing that they share. Clive makes him feel like a person, not a concept; he helps him understand who Verso No-Last-Name is, separate from the Dessendre who's fully stepped aside in this moment, leaving just the man who craves to become something more than a conduit of grief.
Still, he follows it up with a tease of a tickle of starlight through his fingertips at the nape of Clive's neck, and more words that call out his wet hair and his wet eyes and the way he radiates trust and belief and belonging.]
[ What Verso is to Clive is as of yet still-undefinable, even after giving a shape to I love you. They're lovers, certainly, bound to each other through body and now-spoken sentiment, but even that designation doesn't seem to encompass enough of what it means to relish the odds that they're facing together. Verso isn't simply a man that Clive wants― he colors the world that Clive inhabits, gives it texture and meaning.
Clive wants to hold him. Wants to be held by him. Is privately thrilled when he's asked for his warmth, because yes, he can give it; is more thrilled by the fact that Verso is asking, because yes, Verso is allowed to. He's permitted more than the handover of pain and burden, permitted to wear more than masks to ensure his comfort, permitted to inhabit himself without guilt.
No more enduring. Not here, anyway. Clive gathers Verso up into his arms (emboldened by the feeling of silver chroma on his skin), from pinning to sitting in a few fumbling seconds, tucked chest to chest. Lips skim over the ink-swirl scar on Verso's face, grazing just along the corner of one glossy eye to see if he can taste salt there. ]
You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
[ Vulnerable and bare-faced. Guardian of nothing: just Verso. They're both in the process of figuring out what these things even mean, but even the vague shape of this misty-eyed struggle is lovely, so lovely. Clive wouldn't let Verso sacrifice it for anything, not even his own life.
A smile, and Clive finally does the sensible thing of misappropriating the monster in his chest as a furnace (a personal act of rebellion on his own part). Red-orange floods through him, out of him, covering them both where they sit embraced on snow and chasing away the immediate threat of freezing to death. With that pulse, he also presses I love you into the small of Verso's back: scarlet light right along his love's spine, tracing up to the nape of his neck. Impossible to misinterpret. ]
[There's something liberating about going from being pinned to the ground to being pinned to Clive's chest. Verso doesn't have the experience to name and qualify this new something, only that the way Clive's arms wrap around him makes him feel like he's sprouted wings, and the tickle of his facial hair across his eyelashes looses a tear, and he's overwhelmed by the feeling of wanting something and needing something without also miring himself in the worry of being an imposition.
Warmth enters him with Clive's chroma. It breezes across his cheek with Clive's breath. That expression of beauty – his beauty – delivered by the most breathtaking man he's ever met further warms his essences, those parts of him that aren't physical but that reap the greatest benefits from being held like this all the same.
Not all wounds heal. Not all guilt abates. Not all sins can be absolved. Verso has long understood these truths, even if it took a while for him to be able to hold them as his own without lying to himself. But he still maintains the belief that had guided him through the aftermath of what happened to Search & Rescue – that everyone brought to life on this Canvas deserves to exist, even if that might not be possible in the long term anymore – and so he lets himself remember how it feels when that allowance is granted to him as well, breathing deep and centring breaths as it suffuses him with new life and greater strength.
And he thinks that it's such a wonderful thing that this shared love exists across all of his senses now that he knows how it sounds in Clive's voice: like a rumble, like a rally, like a purr. Like a power to wield in its own right.
In this moment, though, that love manifests as a vibration up his back, a crackling flame that ignites across his scalp and casts him in a lovestruck haze. He rests more of his weight against Clive, curls himself closer against him, then takes his other hand, lifting it to his lips and kissing warmth into those still-chilled fingers. Laughter brings even more warmth to them as he releases a puff of it at the thought of catching Clive staring.]
You'll have to convince me to leave your arms first. They're in the running for my favourite place here, you know.
[Especially being held in the snow, pristine white stretching all around them, crystalline beneath the sun, beautiful like a blank sheet of music waiting for its potential to be realised. A soft sigh follows that thought and he nestles a little closer, seeking more of Clive's impossible warmth.]
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
no subject
The closure's for them, not me.
[The more he sits in this moment, the more wrong it feels to grasp for his own feelings of peace and acceptance when several of the people memorialised here are dead by his own hands. Just thinking of how they might respond now, just hearing the anger and the hatred and the injustice in their voices as they launched question after question at him, just feeling the futility of their blades in his heart and the way they kept going and going and going, fills him with a sense of self-disgust so thick he has to swallow it down.]
There was another Expedition soon after Zero. Search & Rescue. I'm the reason they're here.
[And oh, what a cowardly way to express that he killed them all with his own hands; oh, what a disrespectful thing it is, to take such an indirect approach to telling the truth, both to them and to Clive. He steels himself against himself and continues.]
My family and I, we just learned the truth about everything, but we kept a lot of it to ourselves. Including our immortality. We did try to tell them that the Paintress wasn't responsible for the Fracture, but that just made them suspicious of us. The last straw was when I was killed by a Nevron. The... woman I was in love with saw it happen, and when she found me alive, I lied to her and said she was seeing things.
[The breath he lets out next is almost like a laugh, almost like the staccato exhalation of emotional overload.]
She told the others and they agreed I needed to be dealt with. I should've gave into them but I didn't, I refused to admit what had happened, and they decided to prove I was immortal. So, I fought back and...
[The words don't come. Were they anywhere else, Verso might have been okay with that; the implication is clear enough without their speaking. Here, though, he owes it to the dead. Keeping his voice as steady as possible, he finishes the confession.]
I killed them. All of them.
no subject
―there's a flinch. Forwards, not backwards, an involuntary desire to reach and touch and hold, because, for a fleeting moment, Clive worries that Verso might leave after he places this truth in Clive's hands. I lied, and I fought back, and I killed them.
He holds himself back, because he knows that it isn't comfort that Verso is seeking. Just a place to put this honesty, and to push gently back against Clive's assertion regarding closure, or that he deserves it at all; which Clive will hold steadfast to, that he does, though he's not here to argue against what Verso has held in his heart for half a century.
But oh, what choice did Verso ever have? What choice did any of them give him? He didn't choose this life; he didn't choose his immortality; he didn't choose the terms of his existence. How could anyone navigate the truth of it all, especially after being shattered by it themselves? ]
Verso. [ His voice skims into a whisper, verging on susurrous disbelief. ] What else could you have done?
―What else would they have let you do?
[ Which isn't to say that Clive can absolve Verso of the murder; like Clive, he'll have to spend the rest of his life atoning for his sins. But there has to be some grace, some measure of understanding that Verso is always, always fighting impossible odds. His is a battle that was never framed to be winnable. ]
no subject
They have answers.]
Endured.
[There's a burn at the backs of his eyes; he can't raise the heels of his palms fast enough to smother those fires before they meet the open air and transform into tears. Another step back signals that he needs to bear these pains alone.]
What were they going to do, kill me?
[It's a question that's haunted him every day of his life since. There are extenuating circumstances as well, he knows – what if they turned against Alicia? what if they killed the Paintress before she could save anyone? – but there is no reconciling the fact that his life was never worth more than any one of theirs, yet he had acted as if otherwise in that moment. He'd given into the anger and the hurt and the fear and the betrayal; he had let them bear the consequences of his lies.
You did this, Julie had said. Everyone–? And now me. Fucking coward. Can't even look at me. Verso closes his eyes and brings his memory of her face to mind and he looks and looks and looks until her expression almost starts to soften, and then he can't bear to look anymore, can't bear to think of her giving him that which he doesn't deserve, so he looks up at the sky instead.]
I was a fucking coward.
no subject
Endured. A solution, to be sure. Verso could have sat and bent the knee and let blades and bullets tear him apart until he pulled himself back together again. He could have been mutilated again and again, without consequence, until he found the courage or the numbness necessary to tell whatever truth was available to him.
He could have endured. But Clive thinks it would have broken something fundamental in him; that beautiful starlight he keeps hidden under all his masks. It would have broken something in all of them. Cruelty shatters humanity, in both the victim and the perpetrator.
So: ] You were human.
[ Maybe this puts the 'Verso magic' into perspective. The cavalier attitude towards self-harm, the lack of interest in his own wellbeing. Or maybe this is Clive and his own biases, because it's impossible for him to be completely objective about the man he's come to love, desperately and entirely.
Or maybe it just breaks Clive's heart to see Verso leaning in to the fact that he shouldn't be. As if what he is has removed him from being entitled to hurt. As if that's all he's good for, all he was made for. To saddle, to shoulder. ]
no subject
And Verso would never want him to think the worst about himself.
In that way, Clive does help. Verso will never forgive himself for what he did, of course – he will never justify his own actions, even if he is capable of calling it a betrayal – but he can't explore these thoughts and these feelings without being reminded of the parallels and the perspectives they inspire, as if Clive's chroma has taken root in Verso after all, just in a different way, exactly how he needs it to manifest. Warm and protective and safe with a sense of belonging.
It still doesn't feel like the right thing to feel, considering where they are, but Verso reminds himself that wallowing in self-loathing keeps him from walking the paths he needs to walk toward whatever future will free Lumiere from the fate of a drawn-out, whimpering death. Thinking these thoughts isn't easy – it's never been easy – but now when he asks the question of what else he can do, he knows the answer is nothing. Either he lives on and tries to honour their memory, or he dies and it's all for vain.
He can only hope that it's what they want, too.
With a soft sigh, he returns to the here and now.]
A human who's made more than his share of mistakes.
[Is the response he's settled on in the end. Not to wallow or to succumb, but rather to acknowledge.
Now, he offers his hand for Clive to take, half nervous because he isn't sure if his confession has changed things or not, doesn't know if Clive's hold on his hand will feel different, or if he'll avoid taking it at all, or –
No. What will be will be.]
Ready to move on?
no subject
He isn't ready to move on. He'll think about this all day, as they traverse the rest of what this sunset part of the Continent has to offer. He'll think about what it must have felt like to balance loyalty to one's family against loyalty to one's love, and what it must have felt to bear the horrible culmination of that inevitable tipping of scales.
Verso said "the woman I was in love with". Clive will think about that, too. The phrasing of it, and how that love might still live in Verso, whispering coward in his head.
He isn't ready to move on. But they must, and so he reaches for the offered hand to hold, fingers around fingers and palm against palm with stillsame conviction. All the things he wants to do― to hold, and kiss the salt from Verso's cheek, and keep him close― Clive denies himself now, because it's neither the time nor place for it.
He'll only take what's offered. Anything else would be to placate himself, and that would be monstrous in light of everything he knows now. ]
If you are.
[ The both of them, mired in the bog of their poorly-earned survival. Still, Clive is glad that Verso is here; he can't resent any part of Verso's history if it brought Verso here, with him, now.
So, one last thing he'll offer, before they go: ]
We'll see our sins through to the end. Together.
[ A unified front, still. It's all Clive can offer as he tightens his grip, and starts their walk away from crimson and gold. ]
no subject
[Nearly half a century has passed since Verso's told anyone about this, and never has he told one of the Lumierans. Existing in the aftermath of such a revelation is something that he doesn't quite know how to manage, and so he falls silent for a while, focusing on steadying his breathing and on the perfect familiarity of the way their palms fit together and Clive's fingers twine with his own. As is often the case, he worried over nothing.
Haunted by the ghost of his own voice, he wishes he could find something more to say, some way to bridge the divide between the hope they have to hold onto and the despair that keeps him, at least, still trapped in the graveyard, even as gold and red make way for green, and then for the white of snow, so much snow that there doesn't seem to be an end in sight, covering the ground and rising high up into the sky upon the backs of mountains. But he still feels queasy, still feels like he's fighting to press forwards, and so he chooses the haunting over its release, letting his grip on Clive's hand speak all the things that he cannot.
At least it's getting easier to quiet the darker of his thoughts. Snow has always been one of Verso's favourite things, bundling up in scarves and mittens, streaming down bumpy hills on a pair of skis, warming up afterwards fireside with a warm drink. The Fracture and the ensuing years have taken much from Verso, but the things he's always loved about the Canvas haven't dwindled. So, as the shape of Monoco's Station clarifies in the distance, he releases a final long, cleansing breath, and finally finds his words again.]
This used to be the most popular destination on the Continent, you know.
[Small talk. It feels a bit scrambling, a bit pathetic given the weight of everything they've both just waded through, but it's what he has to offer.]
Most of the attractions were lost in the Fracture, but there's still a ferris wheel and a carousel out there. Pretty sure they still work.
no subject
The distance thaws. Ocean-blues warm again as they settle on Verso, though there's still a hint of grief in the thinness of his smile. ]
It's hard to imagine the Continent being so freely available to us.
[ A vacation spot, instead of a minefield to navigate. Again, Clive thinks of what the Battlefield might have been before it became repurposed as the first obstacle to overcome before reaching the Monolith: a child's idea of a medieval fortress? Did they play knights and princesses on unbroken ramparts?
It reminds Clive that all of this is the result of a dead man's imagination. 'Verso', the other one (the 'real' one), the last vestiges of his creative soul. He, too, must have been a talented painter, blessed with the sort of fancy that made him paint carousels and ferris wheels in snow.
Clive tips his chin and watches his breath mist from between his teeth. A moment later, he relinquishes his hold on Verso's hand, and stops walking. ]
Keep walking, [ he offers to Verso, in turn. It's followed by a vague motion of the previously-held hand, a go on while he stands still in snow. ]
no subject
[Which itself is hard to explain. The Lumierans alive today have only ever known this Continent – chopped up and cast so far and wide that shards of it hang in the sky, polluted by Nevrons and death, the remnants of the grand trains that once travelled to and from all sides relegated to a few areas, as run-down and forgotten as everything else that once made the Canvas a livelier, cosier place to live.
Not that Verso has the heart to keep talking when Clive releases his hand and stands in place. Verso stops too at first, lips slightly parted, head cocked, eyes narrowed, and his confusion only grows when he's told to continue ahead.
Trust me echoes across his thoughts, but this is the hardest Verso has had to fight against his doubts and fears about finding himself alone, again. It's easy to hope that Clive means to catch back up to him, harder to be sure, especially with the memories of what happened with Search & Rescue still so fresh on his mind. He hadn't thought that they'd be the ones to teach him how the kiss of iron felt against his heart; he hadn't believed that Julie would ever be the driving force behind his suffering. Not that he thinks Clive has any plans of that nature, only that he knows better than to hold anything between them as absolute.
But no impulse to object rises, and Verso lets out an unsure sigh that he hides behind a casual shrug, as if Clive has simply stopped to tighten the buckles on his boots.]
Okay.
[And with that, he turns back away and maintains his path towards Monoco's Station.]
no subject
It kills Clive to think that Verso might just keep walking and walking, just because Clive told him to. That he wouldn't stop or look back or turn around to come claim Clive again, angry at the lack of explanation or the sudden departure. That he would bury all his starlight under his layers and layers of protection again, and would never tell the truth again, even if he found another man or woman to hold dying in his arms.
A terrible, excruciating thing. Clive watches Verso go, black and gold and violet like a bruise among all this bleached-white snow. He lingers in his own silence for a few seconds that stretch into a minute, and it's when Verso is substantially far enough away that Clive crouches down where he is,
scoops up some snow,
and lobs a neatly-packed handful of it at the back of Verso's stupid, stubborn, beautiful head. ]
Look alive, soldier.
[ A minute is the longest Clive can endure watching Verso go. He has half a mind to be annoyed by it ("don't just let me do this to you"), but mostly―
―Clive loves him, burdens and all. He'd do anything to lighten that load, even just a little. ]
no subject
Even if he didn't need chunks of snow falling down the collar of his jacket and melting into his shirt. But that's fine; it's wonderful, honestly, how Clive has so effortlessly managed to bring him the rest of the way back into this place and this moment with this true and vulnerable and freeing – albeit still unspoken – love that they share, leaving him with no recourse but to shake himself free of some of the doubts he'd placed upon his own shoulders for the sake of weighing himself down.
Leaving his back open – it's better covered than his front, at least – he crouches down to gather together his own handful of snow to craft into a ball with enough heft to suggest Verso has a significant degree of experience with lobbing his own snowballs at unsuspecting companions. When he turns around, he points to his own forehead, and then to Clive's, calling his shot.]
Grave mistake, mon feu.
[The call is a ruse. When he throws the snowball, he's actually aiming for the scandalously low V of Clive's shirt. This is what he deserves for having his more unbuttoned than Verso does. But it is also payback for the fact that there is snow melting its way down Verso's back and it does not feel pleasant!!!]
no subject
Worth it, honestly. He remembers sneaking Joshua out of their house on Joshua's birthday, watching his brother laugh and splash his way through the fountain in the town square; the severity of his mother's punishment had been proportional to Joshua's joy, but that hardly mattered. For a day, his brother was blissfully free.
Clive can only do so much. One snowball fight isn't going to make the events of their past or present magically okay. But he ducks when he assumes Verso will try to biff him in the head, and laughs when the ducking only helps the incoming shot hit squarely in the crevasse of his open shirt.
They're still alive. They're still human. That gives him hope, even despite the fact that his ample bosom does not love the feeling of ice against skin. His poor frozen nipples!!!! Verso is a war criminal for this. ]
Oh, now you've gone and done it.
[ Two more snowballs, scooped and packed in rapid succession. The first one is purposefully meant to be easy to dodge: a straight line, right to the chest. Should Verso hop out of its trajectory successfully, the second shot is aligned to hit his hip, lower and hard to avoid. No crotch shots, because Clive is a gentleman. ]
no subject
Mercy. Mercy.
[Delivered in the flattest tone he can muster as he follows Clive's suit by packing a couple snowballs, and then strikes his own course by immediately disappearing them into the hammerspace where he keeps his piano and his weapons and whatever else he has stashed away for the sake of plot convenience and dramatic battle intros.]
Whatever shall I do?
[The process continues as Verso moves closer to Clive, making himself a bigger arsenal while he makes himself into a bigger target and a bigger ass. But he is smiling, and there isn't only rhythm to the way he moves but a looseness as well, tensions temporarily relaxed as Clive makes him feel like a fool for ever questioning that he wants to remain by Verso's side as much as Verso wants to be by his. It's a bust of good amid the bad, a different kind of guilt than the type he's used to grappling with, sheepish and silly and absent the usual despair of life-or-death stakes.
He loves him more than he can express – clearly, since he's not expressed it at all – and may never understand how he's come to deserve him, but he won't take it for granted. Moments like these are too fleeting to not be embraced in full.]
no subject
(The closest they can get to a full-fledged fight, maybe, in the future: Clive, holding Verso's face in his hands, trying to convince Verso never to allow Clive to harm him without reason or explanation, to accept that Clive would rather be killed by him than be allowed to harm him in any way.)
Some other time. Right now, he's squaring up against a man who has invisible weapons in his arsenal and all the motivation in the world to win. Again, very vexing that Verso's competitiveness is part of his charm― less vexing is that smile, finally, that smile.
Clive takes another shot, mostly just to watch Verso dance out of its way again. Graceful, like fingers over ebony and ivory. ]
Surrender gracefully, before you do whatever it is that you're plotting.
[ That is, uh, a suspiciously large amount of snowballs that Verso is packing into his invisible pocket. Clive tries to remember if he's ever seen Verso launching a hundred projectiles at a Nevron mid-battle, and comes up woefully short of references; he has seen the way Verso plays with his prey, though, when Verso feels inclined to flit around like streaks of light, so―
―maybe he's bitten off more than he can chew. Whatever. Again: worth it. ]
Verso.
[ Founder, why is he moving closer. Clive actually might die. ]
no subject
[The word ends on a lilt mirrored by his movement and the way he shrugs his hands, playfully teasing as he materialises one of his stored-away snowballs and once again chucks it towards Clive's chest on account of it being such a broad and easy target and Verso has not yet entered the finesse stage of his retribution.
Potential retribution, anyway. That shift in Clive's tone, the way he says Verso's name, is compelling in its own right, though he can't quite put his finger on why. Then again, maybe that's the reason, a sense of curiosity, a drive to find out what else there is to discover about him and all the ways those things will warm him up, too. Surprises are rarely pleasant out here on the Continent, but Clive's are such an exception to that rule that Verso can't help himself from teasing forth as many of them from him as he possibly can.
Leaning down once more, he gathers up another snowball, tossing it up and catching it, timing each toss with every step as he continues moving closer.]
Now, why would I do that?
[A good dozen feet or so away, he stops moving but keeps bouncing the snowball in his hand. Deliberately and noticeably, he looks down to where the cold from that first snowball blooms red against Clive's chest, melt lines travelling beneath the dip of his collar like those streaks of firelight chroma that had radiated from his heart. Verso can't help himself from saying what he does next, either.]
You look good in red.
no subject
Speaking on a purely enjoyment-related basis, though? Nah. Too quick, too inelegant. This exercise is an extension of their silly back-and-forth in bed; no matter what, this is a win. Anything that has Verso moving to meet him instead of drawing away is a win. Even if the front of his shirt is a wet mess now, nipples pebbled in the cold.
It's cold, by the way. Lumiére never saw weather like this, and maybe Clive would have appreciated the picturesque vista sprawling around them if he weren't so utterly taken by the halo-eyed man currently trying to kill him with snowballs. ]
―As do you, [ is a verbal retaliation, one glove-covered hand tapping at his own neck, indicating where he'd left Verso a nice lovebite earlier. He wonders if it's gone now, painted over by Verso's regenerative immortality. What a shame, if so.
Strategy change. Clive bends down, and instead of gathering just enough snow for one well-defined shot, he sweeps long arms across downy white and hugs an obscene pile of it to his already-protesting chest (may his titties never recover from this); his journey back up onto his feet is careful and measured. Deliberate, even. Not for effect, but to make sure the snow stays where it should.
A flick of his gaze towards Verso is all the warning he gives before he starts trotting forward, with full intention to bowl Verso over and do something very unsexy to him. If Verso is music, Clive is this. ]
so what i'm hearing is clive won't be seranading verso with the ben starr version of until next life
[Smirking, Verso cants his head, reaching up with reddened and snow-wet hands to brush his hair aside and reveal the mark on his neck exactly where Clive had left it. Like the scar on his face, it's a little more black than red, lightened by swirls of white, present for however long he wishes it to be so.
The snowball in his hand dematerialises into hammerspace, and he makes a couple more that meet the same fate as he watches Clive embrace a worrisome amount of snow and hold it up to his chest. And it would be easy, Verso thinks, to launch an attack while Clive's so focused on standing up again, maybe knock him off guard, claim whatever victory he can before the inevitable escalation, but instead he watches with pretend blitheness, even as he moves to close the distance between them.
It's a bluff, he tells himself; Clive is very big and while Verso isn't small, he is aware that it is very difficult to be anything besides dwarfed by him. Surely he would not do what he's suggesting he'll do. And to that effect, he says:]
You won't.
[So, he stays put, cocksure and calm, playing a solo game of chicken that he can't lose regardless; either he's right and Clive stops and he wins, or he's wrong and Clive takes him by surprise and he finds delight in both that and in figuring out how to not only meet this new challenge but lift it to new levels.]
local expeditioner gets dumped by local immortal man after attempting to sing (poorly)
If Verso was expecting Clive to honor you won't, well. Not after that particularly enticing display. (In reality, he was never going to honor you won't.) Funny, how they'd spent all that time between the graveyard and now with their hands linked, but had spent it worlds apart; funny, how Clive yearns for Verso even in Verso's company.
The fearsome monster approacheth. Snow in hand, promising ruin.
It shatters Clive that Verso trusts him so much. Clive loves him, and he doesn't know if there'll ever be a right time, a perfect time, to say it. ]
Won't I.
[ So: this. Long strides, sure and even, until 'being in Verso's periphery' turns into 'being in Verso's immediate vicinity', and―
―the warden of fire unleashes an avalanche. A downpour that drenches Verso's hair, his jacket, his shirt, which in turn drenches Clive's jacket, his shirt, his trousers, and sends them both careening down onto the ground, cushioned (mercifully) by the soft carpeting beneath them.
It's ridiculous. It's so fucking stupid. Every inch of Clive is screaming in cold, but he doesn't care: he rolls and tries to pin Verso under him, breathless with affection. ]
or!!! local immortal man gets dumped by local expeditioner after 168-hour singing lesson marathon
[A repetition, no less sure than before; no more correct, either. And so he's proven wrong, standing firm until the very last moment, letting out a grunt mangled by surprise as Clive, for the first time ever, strips Verso of warmth in one fell swoop rather than suffusing him with it through his gentle ways.
Not much of that gentleness lingers in the way his body collides with Verso's own, either, or in how Verso hits the ground with a snow-softened thud that casts another incredulous noise from his throat, this one breathier, more amused. So caught up is he in the absurdity and the wonder and ever-realised fantasy of each being this close to the other that Clive has all the opportunity in the world to do whatever he wants. Verso's arsenal of snowballs almost – almost – goes forgotten as he loses himself in the mischief and the love and the blue of Clive's eyes, so blue, how are they so blue?
When laughter finally rings out, there's still an element of competitiveness to it, still a chime of victory as if being pinned to the ground is exactly what Verso needed to earn back the upper hand. It's not, of course, but like hell is he going to concede that yet. So, he glides his focus along all the parts of Clive's body that he can see like this, taking in how completely drenched the man's made himself and trying not to shiver from the cold as the sight of Clive's more reddened chest reasserts how fucking covered in snow Verso is, too.
He has the absolute audacity to sound cocky about this whole thing.]
Good one. I'm pretty sure you got yourself better than you got me.
[It could not be less true and he fucking knows it.]
ben starrs separate citing creative differences (i will never let this happen)
He still wants to take Verso by the shoulders and shake the stain of coward off of him (you're human, you're human), but that grief is too old and too ingrained; there's no point trying to rub that out of Verso's makeup. It will forever remain a part of him, and Clive can only hold it the way he holds Verso's face now, cradled in too-cold palms (this can't be comfortable) as he rubs their damp foreheads together in his own statement of victory. ]
Exactly. [ A mirrored laugh. ] I've got you.
[ The same, but different. Not "gotcha", but "I have you". The slyest a man like Clive can get, trying to make Verso agree to the obvious: Clive will always have him.
His next kiss is frozen solid, snow-paled lips pressed to Verso's mouth. Perfect anyway, but he doesn't have the gift of immortality to shield himself from an early grave, so. A little burst of scarlet chroma, and Clive deigns to melt a little of the ice from Verso's white-streaked hair. ]
it would be a crime they both deserve a ben starr
He swears it makes him warm enough to melt more of the snow beneath him. Or maybe it's the kiss to blame. Or maybe it's just Clive's chroma working the ice free from more than just Verso's hair. Maybe it's everything this man does for and is to him. That's probably the most likely explanation.
I don't deserve you, he thinks, as he so very often does, but nothing good could come of giving that thought breath, so he holds it as part of his resolve to be better and to do better so as not to squander the faith that Clive has in him and his humanity. So, lifting a snow-cold hand to the back of Clive's winter-cold neck instead, he runs his fingers through his hair and chooses a simpler path.]
Thanks.
[The laughter is gone and the smile alongside it, but what's replaced them both is a quieting and a stillness. It does hurt a little to be thinking about the what behind the why again, but it's the good kind of pain, like a sore muscle throbbing from getting stronger.
Even so, it is, perhaps, absolutely ludicrous for him to even be considering saying what on his mind now, the two of them laying in the snow, frozen and wet, red from cold, the chaos of their impromptu battle still written all over them, but what else does he say, what else can he say to the man who listened while he shared the worst of himself and responded by lobbing a snowball at the back of his head? So, he takes a deep breath followed by a slow exhale and then:]
I love you.
THEY DO!!! i'm neither sane nor normal about them
But the hand tangled in his hair stays, and Clive is kept where he is, poised over Verso in freezing snow, waiting for a verdict―
―which is I love you, misting from that beautiful mouth.
It almost doesn't register. Blissful dissonance: the statement is at once too obvious and too blindsiding to digest. The three words that have defined Clive ever since they first kissed in witness of black-and-gold. That vague Something, flourishing under pressure and heartache.
For a moment, Clive forgets to breathe, bowled over by the substantive enormity of what they both knew to be evident. The ache in his chest is sweet, and paralyzing, and reaches far beyond what human physicality should allow for. ]
―As do I. [ Finally, on the tail end of a held inhale. ] I love you too, Verso.
[ Does it feel liberating to say it? Not quite: it feels like an unraveling. Clive unfurls, and god, he's sentimental about it. ]
Mon étoile. [ Hands still bracketing Verso's face, thumbs along the corners of both of Verso's pale, pale eyes. ] I love you.
[ His voice scrapes in the back of his throat; he's never said this before to anyone but Verso, and he wonders, briefly, if he can be believed. ]
I love you so much.
how dare these sad men tbh (please continue daring, sad men)
Aside from that one fleeting thought, it's impossible to focus on anything besides how the sentiment itself feels, anyway. Fantastically warm enough to stave off the very real cold, empowering in ways Verso hasn't experienced since he realised the truth of his existence and set out on his scrambling and thus far futile course to make it mean something other than suffering, every bit as heartbreaking and beautiful as music, just as inviting and soothing as a crackling fire in a familiar hearth.
The impulse to put it all to words strikes him, but soon he realises that he has no words available, just the desperately fond look in his eyes, and the subtle shift to how he moves his fingers through Clive's hair as if testing the believability of this newly spoken but long-felt reality. Eventually, after beginning his languid descent from the high of reciprocation, he brings back his smile as a crooked, impish thing that casts a new twinkle to his suddenly damp eyes.]
Enough to warm me back up?
[Casual though the request might be, the way that Verso's voice draws tight and falls quiet, the centring breath that follows and the smile that chases after it – those demonstrate the real truth of the matter. In the face of everything, their shared love feels like such a human expression in a world that has attempted to strip them both of their humanity that he can't help but embrace the normalcy of this extraordinary thing that they share. Clive makes him feel like a person, not a concept; he helps him understand who Verso No-Last-Name is, separate from the Dessendre who's fully stepped aside in this moment, leaving just the man who craves to become something more than a conduit of grief.
Still, he follows it up with a tease of a tickle of starlight through his fingertips at the nape of Clive's neck, and more words that call out his wet hair and his wet eyes and the way he radiates trust and belief and belonging.]
Look what you've done to me.
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Clive wants to hold him. Wants to be held by him. Is privately thrilled when he's asked for his warmth, because yes, he can give it; is more thrilled by the fact that Verso is asking, because yes, Verso is allowed to. He's permitted more than the handover of pain and burden, permitted to wear more than masks to ensure his comfort, permitted to inhabit himself without guilt.
No more enduring. Not here, anyway. Clive gathers Verso up into his arms (emboldened by the feeling of silver chroma on his skin), from pinning to sitting in a few fumbling seconds, tucked chest to chest. Lips skim over the ink-swirl scar on Verso's face, grazing just along the corner of one glossy eye to see if he can taste salt there. ]
You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
[ Vulnerable and bare-faced. Guardian of nothing: just Verso. They're both in the process of figuring out what these things even mean, but even the vague shape of this misty-eyed struggle is lovely, so lovely. Clive wouldn't let Verso sacrifice it for anything, not even his own life.
A smile, and Clive finally does the sensible thing of misappropriating the monster in his chest as a furnace (a personal act of rebellion on his own part). Red-orange floods through him, out of him, covering them both where they sit embraced on snow and chasing away the immediate threat of freezing to death. With that pulse, he also presses I love you into the small of Verso's back: scarlet light right along his love's spine, tracing up to the nape of his neck. Impossible to misinterpret. ]
I think I'll be looking at you for a long time.
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Warmth enters him with Clive's chroma. It breezes across his cheek with Clive's breath. That expression of beauty – his beauty – delivered by the most breathtaking man he's ever met further warms his essences, those parts of him that aren't physical but that reap the greatest benefits from being held like this all the same.
Not all wounds heal. Not all guilt abates. Not all sins can be absolved. Verso has long understood these truths, even if it took a while for him to be able to hold them as his own without lying to himself. But he still maintains the belief that had guided him through the aftermath of what happened to Search & Rescue – that everyone brought to life on this Canvas deserves to exist, even if that might not be possible in the long term anymore – and so he lets himself remember how it feels when that allowance is granted to him as well, breathing deep and centring breaths as it suffuses him with new life and greater strength.
And he thinks that it's such a wonderful thing that this shared love exists across all of his senses now that he knows how it sounds in Clive's voice: like a rumble, like a rally, like a purr. Like a power to wield in its own right.
In this moment, though, that love manifests as a vibration up his back, a crackling flame that ignites across his scalp and casts him in a lovestruck haze. He rests more of his weight against Clive, curls himself closer against him, then takes his other hand, lifting it to his lips and kissing warmth into those still-chilled fingers. Laughter brings even more warmth to them as he releases a puff of it at the thought of catching Clive staring.]
You'll have to convince me to leave your arms first. They're in the running for my favourite place here, you know.
[Especially being held in the snow, pristine white stretching all around them, crystalline beneath the sun, beautiful like a blank sheet of music waiting for its potential to be realised. A soft sigh follows that thought and he nestles a little closer, seeking more of Clive's impossible warmth.]
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