[With Clive's intentions solidified, Verso shifts into a more comfortable position tucked against him, easing into the feeling of being cradled. People have touched him gently before, but the energy was different, a surge through his body rather than a crackle in the air, and he'd felt almost unbearable heats as opposed to the urge to bask in literal and emotional and soul-affirming warmth. Through those encounters, the noises he made rang loud; his hips bucked with desperate urgency, completely indifferent to how good it feels to be loved.
Now, though, Verso closes his eyes and nuzzles into Clive's neck, letting the thundering of his heart and the staccato music of his breath convey his body's desires and praises. He lets the thought of being Clive's first in another way wash over him. If he hadn't told Verso what his life had been prior to joining the Expedition, he might have been surprised. Now, though, he's simply grateful that a man who'd had so much love denied him still has such a surplus to give to others.
To him. A thought which finds Verso contently humming against Clive's pulse, letting out the barest whimper of a breath as a surge of pleasure tingles its way all the way up to his scalp. It's not long after that before his cock starts to pulse and he loses his calmer intensity, body tensing and breath bearing more and more noise, strained and keening, breaking into a moan as his orgasm traps him in a place of mon feu, mon feu, mon feu, mon feu, and his own come spills forth and lands where it lands – he cares but he doesn't know, face buried as it is against Clive, breath coming out in pants against his skin.
Eventually, he regains enough of his senses to remember that he'd been spoken to.]
Mm, next time. And thanks. For trusting me to be your first.
[And heaven forbid he leave it at that, he tosses in a playful:]
For being so good with your hands, too. That one's gonna stay with me for a while.
[ It's a slight shame that Clive can't see the way Verso buckles under the wave of his orgasm, but the satisfaction of cradling him close and kissing affirmations into his hair eclipse it, far and away. It's Clive's turn to be painted this time around, palm and finger and the expanse of his thighs, and the collectively sticky mess they've become bothers him so little that he has the audacity to cuddle closer to Verso as he slowly floats back down to earth.
He cleans his hand off (they're going to have to drain the water and refill it if they ever want to get clean), and fusses Verso into their original, more comfortable position. Less strain on those poor knees. ]
A long while, I hope.
[ That greedy mine, still lingering along Clive's edges. A rare thing, but entrusted fully to Verso in this moment as his arms wind around a come-stained middle, fingers playing along what's left of the 'marks' he left.
His lips press against the crest of Verso's shoulder, and settle there for a bit. ]
―But tell me if it ever gets to feel like too much.
[Earnest, so earnest that the words flow out like breath, easy and natural, soft and necessary. His fingers finds those splashes of himself and paint whorls of starlight upon the Canvas of Clive's thigh, and he lets out the sigh of a dreamer, the sigh of a man finding the bravery to put those dreams to words.
The bravery he finds, but the words...]
I don't know how to explain it, just... Your love feels different, like...
[He gives up. Leaves those whorls unfinished on Clive's leg, moves his hand over Clive's heart and imbues it with chroma distilled from the feelings Verso can't qualify, he can only radiate outwards. Like fire. Like light. Hope strong enough that if he'd thought about it deeper, he might bring himself to tears. The ever-intensifying filtering out of a definition of love that's easily abused and quickly betrayed in favour of one that means what it's supposed to fucking mean, at least in his romantic heart, his fool's heart. A sense of being ordinary that can only be contextualised by how deeply he feels like an outsider.]
I don't know. [He repeats.] Right now? I can't get enough of it.
[A pause to let out a light laugh as he things about what he's just said in the context of what Clive's saying, and so he offers, half tongue-in-cheek:]
[ Starlight tangles over the outline of Verso's heart, and sinks inward. Like Benedikta's tempest and Cid's levin, but more fundamental; Verso's silver doesn't feel like an energy to be channeled, but one that forms him anew. Fortifying and inextricable, a new seventh sense. It makes Clive sigh in contentment, lists against the edge of the bathtub with his head lolling gently to the side.
If this is what Clive's love feels like to Verso, Clive never wants to stop giving it to him. This steady anchor, this strange and frightening warmth. He reaches back and brushes his own firelight up along the dip of Verso's navel, tracing up the clean line of his sternum to flutter along a collarbone. Flames lap at Verso's throat, harmless but asserting. Je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime.
A huff, when the tables turn on him. ] Point taken. [ His mouth presses against a sweat-flushed temple. ] My greatest joy is when you want things for yourself.
[ And, in turn, he'll have to accept that Verso might think the same. Terrifying.
Reaching back to fumble with the faucet, Clive starts the water up again to at least make the barest attempt at cleaning; the lonely, forgotten soap demands their attention, and Clive is looking forward to fussing around with Verso's very well-styled coif. ]
Tell me something you like. Besides music and red wine and looking beautiful.
[Leaning properly against Clive's chest, now, Verso reaches to take the hand that's not busy with the faucet and begins to play with it, thumbing across his knuckles, exploring how the slight stickiness of both their hands changes the feeling. An upgrade from prodding at his own hands, letting the various aches distract him from the ones held by his heart, in more than just the one way.
It helps, too, to have this outlet of distracting motion as he contemplates Clive's question. There's the obvious, the easy you, but that feels dismissive right now, especially with how blatant he's just made its depths. Then there's soaring down the mountain on a pair of skis, wind in his hair and mind clear of everything besides the descent, which doesn't feel like the mood, either. Not when his heart still carries the vulnerability of his release and the rerunning of the water promises to soothe rather than to exhilarate.
So:] I write a lot of poetry.
[Is that too close to music? Newsflash: the artist likes art in most of its forms. Maybe context will help.]
Usually at night when everything is quiet and the sky is so clear you can see every star. It helps me clear my mind so I can sleep. Or I'll go swimming.
[A pause as he contemplates telling him about the times when he dives deep underwater, drowning and drowning and drowning, but pressing through to explore the parts of the Canvas that no one else has seen or will ever see, places where no Nevrons lurk and nothing has been fractured. That seems like it carries too much risk of worrying Clive, though – and selfishly, Verso worries in turn that said worry will affect his ability to enjoy the depths – so he hums and chooses a different course of elaboration.]
[ Poetry and water: dreamlike topics for a dreamlike bath warmed by chroma and intimacy. Clive smiles about it as he uses his free hand to imbue the porcelain around them with fresh flame, letting white tinge pink for a breath of a second before that heat filters outwards to the once-again filling water around them. Less silver now that the water level is rising; the scent of sandalwood takes a slight back seat to the warm spice of bergamot curled into the steam. ]
Swim captain, [ he repeats. (Verso would be a Pisces, actually.) ] A lyricist, a musician, and a star athlete.
[ To the affectionate tune of overachiever. He doesn't care if the original Verso did much the same in his out-of-Canvas past, because it doesn't matter. ]
It seems apt. You feel...
[ He sifts through the water with his fingertips, letting ripples draw mercurial designs on the surface. Looking for the right word, poetic as he isn't. Clive keeps a journal of his own, one that Verso might have seen him writing in at the dead of night: the accounts within are far more pragmatic than they are artistic, a way for him to remember himself as the days crawl by. ]
...Of the air, and the water. Fluid.
[ Finally, he settles on that. ]
The Academy in Lumière doesn't do competitive swimming anymore, unfortunately.
[Verso can't help but laugh at Clive's list, at the implication behind his tone. Maybe he had been something of an overachiever back before the Fracture; it's hard for him to see it that way when he still feels like a man incapable of living up to expectations, someone who's always been more lost than not, trying to find himself by reaching towards whatever he was good at and seeing how far it could take him.
Even now, he questions how much of his success owed to his surname, how much of it owed to his charm, how much was built on the lies he'd told for different reasons, way back then. It's probably little wonder that his imposter syndrome runs so deep that it's etched into damned near every experience he's ever had, but at least it means he's able to shed himself of it before it becomes something apparent.
Another expression of fluidity, the way these things dissipate into the air with the steam, the way they sink into the water.
That unfortunately is what piques his interest the most, anyway. Not for the first time, he wonders what kind of interests Clive might have had if he'd been granted the chance to come into his own under less dire circumstances. All he really knows is that he liked theatre. Favoured Cid's apartment and the Academy training grounds. Lived his life for others.]
No? [With a gentle hum, he dips Clive's hand under the water and works it clean insofar as he can without soap.] What would you have liked to do that you never had the chance to?
[ Clive wonders about the days before the Fracture. About Lumière and its relationship to the Continent, about what that life would have meant without the looming countdown of the Monolith to remind him of his mortality, about what 'Clive' might have been like in the ethereal but gentle delusion of the Paintress' ideal world.
It's hard to imagine. The dire nature of their current society is all he knows, and everything that he is now is a result of the thousands dead in the Forgotten Battlefield, and countless more scattered like detritus wherever they roam.
He turns his hand over in Verso's, letting him scrub gently at hard-earned calluses. ]
Truth be told, I don't know. [ A lame answer, but the truth. ] Father started teaching me how to fight before my sixth summer－ when Joshua was born－ and I haven't thought to do much else since then.
[ He'd spent hours outside behind their manor, swinging swords until his hands bled and running laps around the fractured city, squaring off against adults twice his age. He'd lived most of his life in that small box, fighting and fighting and fighting.
Clive lets his free palm cup clean water from the faucet, and trickles it over Verso's hair. ]
It was less that I hadn't been given the chance, and more that I didn't see a reason to pursue anything but the blade. Father seemed proud of my skills, and that felt... enough. [ A little laugh, wistful. ] Made me feel less like a mistake, at any rate.
He can in part, at least, with both his memories Verso's about what it meant to live up to the Dessendre name, all those expectations that he would paint like his parents and his sister, honouring his family's artistry by colouring within their lines. Sometimes, praises over his art had made both versions of his other selves feel like they could be enough, though those same praises had felt like gilded bars at time, like scissors held to his flight feathers.
But he has false and stolen memories of pursuing things beyond painting, too, and they feel real enough to him that his heart twinges at the thought of never having had them at all. It almost sounds peaceful, to have had his fate reveal itself when he was five and for him to never wondered otherwise; it almost sounds like hell, never thinking to escape.
When the fresh water cascades through his hair, Verso lifts himself up a bit, making things a little easier for Clive. Buying a moment, too, to mull over his own response.]
So what I'm hearing is that I have a lot to show you.
[Said softly, fondly. Already, Verso's mind supplies him with thoughts of him and Clive speeding down slopes on skis, or swimming through the reefs, or gliding down the Reacher on handcrafted wings, or having Esquie fly them to the highest point of rubble in the sky so that they can sit on the precipice between the world and space, watching crystal clouds float beneath them and stars sparkling all above them, knowing nothing but light and the expansiveness of the great unknown.
Halfway through he notices a theme, so with a lilt of mischief to his tone, he adds:]
[ Maybe he ought to feel more apologetic that this is the only thing he has to offer: himself and his dearth of experiences, a life half-lived. Verso could choose from any number of other men and women who could match him intellectually, who could sit beside him on a piano bench and weave melodies with the ease of breathing, who could trade beautiful words with him in poetry and prose－ people who could enrich his life, who have more to offer than bloody hands and a steady heartbeat.
But to say so would be to invalidate the reality that Verso chose him. To say that the one thing that has made Verso so singular, so stunning－ his heart, his bleeding, anguished heart－ is wrong, and that it's erred in a judgment that must have been difficult to make. And so, Clive has to accept that, perhaps, this strange thing that he calls himself might be enough for the man that he thinks deserves more, better, everything.
Another stream of water later, and Clive begins the slow, luxurious process of massaging soap into damp black-white hair. Tented fingers sift over Verso's scalp, trying to unravel headache-tension through firm-gentle touch. ]
I've never been up high enough to feel afraid.
[ Rubbing circles around Verso's temple, he adds: ] Yet.
[ Playful, to match that mischief. That single syllable lilts, near-daring. ]
But I suppose that's one thing that I never had the chance to do, and would like to. To...
[ A little mealy-mouthed for a moment, slightly hesitant to say the rest. ] ...Go on an outing with someone I love. [ You know. A Date. ] Our current journey notwithstanding. I'd like to take you somewhere, someday.
[Of all the touches they've exchanged today, it's the way Clive's fingers work at Verso's scalp that has him responding the most emphatically, shoulders slumping with a slight wobble, rich moan rumbling free from his throat. The barely there scent of the smoke mingles with the sandalwood, the bergamot, and he finds himself slipping into a rare peace, a rare surrender into indulgence.
Yet joins next time among Verso's favourite things Clive says (though both still pale in comparison to love and mon etoile) and he lets the thought of showing Clive the world become something more concrete, routes and opportunities colliding in his mind as traces familiar mental paths across the Continent. For all the harm this world has wrought, and for all the injuries it's inflicted on him over the decades, it's still a beautiful place, one he'd like to show more of to Clive.
And one that he'd like to have Clive show him, too, even if he knows his way around already. Maybe there's a tucked-away cluster of flowers somewhere, a tree that reminds Clive of something, a spot on the edge of the cliffs where the fragments in the sky arrange themselves just so. Any of myriad little things that stand out to one man where they might not to another, any parts of themselves that they can reveal to each other through their interpretations of the land around them.
For now, though, he's a bit more charmed by the awkwardness with which he broaches the topic, that pause, calling it an outing. Maybe Clive hasn't experienced much that life has to offer, but the way he approaches the new and the unknown with a taste for adventure is endearing in its soft optimism, its embrace of life unlived.]
You can take me anywhere, any day. I'll need it, where we're going. We both will.
[Deeper into the territory both Renoirs defend. Standing in the shadow of the Monolith. Passing by more and more bodies, taking in the full expanse of Lumieran failure at the hands of the Dessendres. Even if their dates end up being quiet squirrellings away into corners where they can bleed and cry and hurt in the comfort of each other's love. Even if they find places to escape into that they never want to leave again. Even should the sky fall and the sea burn and the land turn to smoke and ash, Verso suspects he'd still want Clive to pull him off into better corners. He knows he wants to do the same.]
I hate to tell you, but...
[A teasing pause. He rests his hands above the bend of Clive's knees, tapping his fingers in faux contemplation.]
... you're going to have to get used to taking breaks and being spoiled.
[ I'll need it is strangely more heartening than it is discouraging. A reassertion of the hardships they'll face, yes, but also an affirmation that this desperate reaching for each other is a necessary and integral part of their journey. Punishment and discovery, splintering and re-forming. They're going to put that old adage about broken bones healing and becoming twice as strong as before to the test.
It all feels eminently doable, as long as Verso is by his side. The arch of his smile remains steady on his lips, telegraphing appreciation and affection as his hands work the soap into a finely-whipped lather and paints the entirety of Verso's two-toned head white.
Cute, he thinks. He starts forming the meringue-like pile into a little hill on the crown of Verso's head. ]
You spoil me already.
[ Which he sincerely believes. He's said as much, about how his early mornings are defined by trying to process the fact that he can blink sleep out of his eyes and have Verso be the first thing he sees, the first thing he feels tucked close to his body. It's the kind of joy that still makes his head spin, and he feels it right now as he idly smears shampoo down the nape of Verso's neck. ]
You'll be the one to suffer if you spoil me too much.
[ A light huff-laugh, and he lets his knees push inwards as if to trap the body cradled between them. Maybe Verso is a cat person, and has never had the experience of having a big hound sit on him; he will in his future, if he's not careful. ]
[Turns out it's still possible for Verso to relax more; Clive's fingers move to play with the soap in his hair, and Verso sinks even more into the water, barely keeping himself from slipping as he does. It's sweet, and it's charming, and it's soul-affirming not just to be cared for like this, but to have this perfect comfort, this freedom to be just-right silly.
What has him laughing, though, softly, with the slightest tone of you doofus, is what Clive says. There's no real humour to it – quite the contrary, really, when Verso thinks about Clive's lacking experiences both with being loved and being spoiled – but there is a sort of giddiness over the opportunity to one day show Clive the difference between the two.]
All I've done so far is love you.
[Said simply, honestly. If anything, Verso feels like the reverse is true – that Clive has spoiled him terribly, and that he's sort of been stumbling along, seeking out opportunities to do the same. Whether that's true or not he doesn't know, only that he's barely begun to demonstrate how dear Clive is to him, or how determined he is to see him smile, or all the little things he has in mind for when their paths guide them to the just-right places for his long-held plans.
Speaking of just-right places – and of reaching new depths of relaxation – Verso shifts to nuzzle his nose against Clive's jaw, a gentle yes, hold me closer when his legs move to do precisely that.]
And there's not a whole lot I wouldn't suffer to keep loving you, so. Try me, mon feu. I look forward to it.
[On the topic of dates, though, and all the little things they still haven't learned about each other, Verso's mind inevitably falls back to one of the few things Clive has been able to share. The nuzzle becomes a kiss, which then becomes a resting of his soapy head in the crook of Clive's arm.]
You know, I've been meaning to ask. What's your favourite play?
[ "All I've done", Verso says, as if his love isn't something world-defining for Clive. Caring has always been at the center of Clive's ethos, and Verso has only continued to validate it by coaxing more and more of it out of Clive's deep, deep, deep reserves. (Speaking of swimming, of drowning.)
Head tipping, legs tangling, Clive keeps Verso close as he continues to play with soap-soaked hair with one hand, clean Verso's chest off with the other. If he lets that latter touch wander a bit, tracing lines where it shouldn't and thumbing slowly over the peak of a nipple, well. It's largely innocent: just a way for him to learn the contours of Verso's body without consequence.
(Careful what you wish for, Clive doesn't say. He's Ifrit and Ifrit is him, and the obsidian dog-lizard also wants attention from starlight silver.)
The matter of his favorite play, though－ ]
...Don't laugh. [ Cid did, which is why he starts here. ] It's "The Saint and the Sectary".
[ A relatively well-known stage play, though Clive isn't sure if any productions of it existed pre-Fracture. The sort of predictable but romantic story of a knight fighting against the dark forces of an evil wizard, who, in a shocking twist, is revealed to be the knight's father (it's Star Wars. it's Final Fantasy Star Wars. Clive is a fan of Final Fantasy Star Wars).
Just in case Verso has never seen it: ]
―"I, Sir Crandall of Camelot", [ he recites against Verso's ear, low and warm. The hand settled on Verso's chest lifts, and fingers curl around the hilt of an invisible sword. ] "will never turn to the darkness. You have failed in your endeavors, vile enemy－ I am a Knight."
[Maybe the places Clive touches are more conducive to stoking flames than to tempering the last of their embers, but pleasure still strikes Verso. Just a lightness, just a pleasant cascading of warmth that brings about its own variety of mindlessness, a clearing out of some of the more pervasive clouds of doubt that have long convinced him that his would always be a lonely existence.
It isn't, anymore.
Were there any room left for him to melt against Clive he'd have taken advantage of it; in its absence, he closes his eyes. Not that Clive can appreciate that, but with his hand against his chest he might be able to pick up on the way Verso's breathing slows down into something almost meditative, a level of calm that he's yet to attain around him. One he hasn't experienced since before the Fracture.
Verso doesn't laugh, though not because he's asked not to. The play is familiar in the more sweeping of its motions – he had only seen it once or twice over 50 years ago, so much of it has been lost to time – and its theme of the good knight standing firm against evil tracks so well with everything he knows about Clive that the thought of him being a fantasci-fi nerd is just nice. It warms the cockles.
It inspires the heart, too, and Verso finds himself with new plans for how they might pass the time at Monoco's Station when they have their rest there before parting ways with Joshua again.]
Makes sense, Sir Crandall of Camelot.
[Okay, so maybe he can't entirely resist teasing him; an apology follows by way of him taking those curled fingers in his own and pressing a flurry of kisses to each one of their knuckles, a gesture more in tune with what he truly wants to say.]
How could such a bright fire ever turn to the darkness?
[Ifrit not aside, Ifrit not ignored. There are things Verso still needs to come to understanding – like how Clive's warnings are different than Verso's, more about awareness than about challenge – but his experiences with both sides of the man he loves have inspired that foolhardy side of him to believe in the absolutes of what he's witnessed. That vibrant flames will always overpower obsidian and ash and char; that Clive knows how to wield love with gentleness in a world where it has only ever been weaponised.]
[ God, he could hold Verso against his chest like this forever. Warm and safe, with the only worry to share between them the cooling of water and the pruning of their bodies. The security and uncomplicated joy of this moment is one he'll keep in his memory to refer back to over and over, if and when he ever doubts the shape of his humanity again: this perfect, crystalline moment where he gathered his love in his arms and was sure that they both felt utterly, completely, unmitigatedly real.
A breath, slow and content, and Clive works to rinse the snow-capped shampoo mountain off of Verso's head. Once he clears the last of the suds off, he presses his lips to a damp crown in silent prayer for this tired, time-weathered man to find a more lasting peace in his future. One that becomes his normal, without reality threatening to close in on it. ]
Sir Crandall's fire looks to his star, who reminds him that fire burns to make light as much as it does to create chaos.
[ Not a part of the script. The good knight never cupped his unshod saint's cheek and tipped her up for a kiss, but Clive does, using that hand that received Verso's blessings. He claims Verso's mouth, parting lips and teeth to lick affection into him, a je t'aime nested in each breath.
It's not enough to just think it; he murmurs it once they pull back for real air, and not the shared heat of their inhales and exhales. ]
I love you. [ Well and truly. He's taken, in every way that he could be. ] In our next life, we'll go see as many plays as you want.
[ And he says that, next life, with the conviction of someone who hopes that every version of his painted soul will find Verso, somewhere.
(Too intense? Maybe. When Clive loves, he loves absolutely.) ]
[It's funny. Verso's spent so long trying to escape being held in a make-believe world, and now all he wants is to be wrapped up in the fantasies that spill from Clive's lips, the knightly speech and the loverly vows, the purrs and rumbles and gravelling of his tone, the way even his breath speaks of the depths of its love.
Even the intensity comes across something gentle, something that sets Verso at ease. Yes, once they're back outside of this moment that compulsion to do whatever he can to feel like he's earned such absolute love will strike him afresh, but here and now there's nothing to question. Not while Clive takes such good care of him; not when everything feels like it's starting to fall into place, as nebulous a concept as that might be and as risky as it is to even humour.
Ever a performer, ever in love with that moment of being on a stage and communicating in the abstractions and the riddles of art, there's something else that Verso has in mind when Clive talks about plays. He hums, soft, and runs the fingers of one hand along Clive's thigh, even more soft.]
I want to see you star in one.
[Or two, or three, or dozens. Verso pictures Clive in full knight regalia, flame-gold armour reddened by rubies, smoked with onyx, in his element with a fake sword in his hands and artistry on his lips. Speaking words that everyone wants to hear, looking out at audience of people who are there to see him, the man and not the beast, the artist not the warrior.]
You'd look beautiful in the spotlight. I'd probably miss half the play because I wouldn't be able to take my eyes off of you, but it'd be worth it.
[ Starring in a play. Clive laughs, then turns his mind over what that might even be like: the heat of the spotlight, the pressure to perform. Uncle Byron had told him when he was a child that it's impossible to see faces when one is up on stage, that the contrast of light and dark renders the audience a map of shifting, vague shadows that won't feel quite as terrifying to act in front of; a silly thing his uncle had said to encourage his serious-faced nephew to pursue the theater, Clive had thought.
Gentle, uncomplicated memories. Ones he'd kept himself from lingering on, for fear that it would feel like spitting on his purpose as an Expeditioner. Now, he indulges in it with the same comfort that he indulges in Verso's steady presence, and stifles the urge to say that he'd be no good as an actor－ he doesn't know how to inhabit anything but his own ill-formed skin. ]
And I would forget half my lines if I saw you watching me from the front row. It wouldn't be much of a play.
[ So. More harmless fantasizing, as he finishes cleaning the last of himself off of Verso's chest. (The dizzying mental image of Verso stained in his come will live rent-free in Clive's head for weeks to come.) ]
...I'd act during the day, and you'd play piano at night. We'd never leave the operahouse.
[ A kiss to Verso's jaw, and Clive finally lets up some of his fussing. Arms wrap loosely around Verso's middle, warm and heavy with relaxation, and his gaze slides slideways towards the wall-sized window flooding the room in light, at the various paintings and their gauzy, dreamlike renderings of various places on the Continent (or so Clive assumes).
There's something that Clive wants to say, but he struggles with the words; maybe he should write them, he thinks, so that he can see his thoughts before he brings them to voice.
So: ] Verso. [ He says, to anchor himself back to the present again. Two syllables, like music. ]
[It's Verso's turn to laugh at the thought of Clive catching him in the audience and flubbing his lines. There's an appeal to being so loved that it flusters, though only if he ignores that he wouldn't be the only person watching. In an ideal world where Clive can embrace his theatre nerd self, the operahouse would be packed every night, and the people would rave for days about his performance.
This is where his thoughts linger for a while. On the image of them building an apartment for themselves in the operahouse, carving out whatever lives they want to lead among its halls, finding a place deep within its heart where they can retreat from the lights and the crowds and the performances to be perfectly and honestly themselves. On the fantasy of coming up with their own musical theatre productions where one accompanies the other and their music speaks of all the things their hearts would have them share. Maybe they'd sit up all night, putting words to paper and to voice and to music. On all the dangerous dreams that he knows may never be realised, but that he keeps building up anyway, so used to disappointment that he doesn't think it scares him anymore.
It does. It's just hard for it to find room with Clive's arms wrapped around him. Harder still when Verso meets the gesture by lacing their fingers together and drawing Clive's hold a little more snug. Like this, he can't see Clive's focus drifting, but he can feel the way it moves in the room. There's something about it that gives Verso pause and keeps him silent. He turns, too, to look through the window, though he doesn't pay much attention to the paintings in its periphery. He's seen enough of the Dessendres' work to last him several lifetimes.
Conversely, hearing Clive say his name, well, that's something he hopes never becomes ordinary or familiar, something that he can't imagine tiring of. Even when he worries, a little – like now – about why nothing follows its speaking.]
[ It's beautiful, in a melancholy way. This space, this room, full of never-lived memories, a tomb for a love that two people shared in a world now permanently defined by loss. Clive doesn't know the Paintress by any other shape than the giant, fractured body slumped like a lost child on the base of her self-made hourglass, and he wonders what she might have looked like here, sharing a bath with her beloved: does Verso have her eyes? Would Clive be able to look at her and see the resemblance? Is that why she always sits with her face buried in her knees, terrified of looking at the world with features that remind her of her dead son?
Moonlight streams over their soap-muddied bathwater. Under the surface, Clive sees their tangled legs and their linked hands as vague silhouettes visible through sparkling silver; when Verso calls his name, he watches Verso's chest rise and fall to accommodate the single syllable.
It's a terrifying thing, being in love. To know that this moment, too, could one day become a memory that breaks one or both of them when the world disappoints them with its cruelty. They sunder each other the more they try to press together; each joining is a fresh cleaving when they have to part.
A breath, and Clive rests his head against damp hair. Frightening, to exist in this liminal space between bliss and the next tragedy. But that, too, is what it means to live. Or so he thinks.
[The unknowing of what's on Clive's mind does peel back a bit of Verso's blanketing relaxation, but not in a manner that's in any way detrimental. It's an alerting rather than a burdening, a shifting of how he's present for Clive, his own quiet fostering of the flames ever lapping and the light ever shining on them both.
Yes, he immediately thinks to answer. Of course. Anything is possible – including Clive asking the impossible – but Verso doesn't want to humour that until it's unavoidable. Not here in the bath, in Clive's arms, not knowing how long it'll be before a moment like this finds them again. Especially as the water cools around them, and the knowledge that the moon can only hold off the sun for so long filters in through the window, and the air starts smelling like ink and paint and something vaguely artificial.
But even if that yes would be brimming with honesty, there's still something disingenuous about making a promise without hearing the ask. Something dismissive, too, about trying to head it off as if whatever it is, it's a silly question not worth asking, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. So, Verso shifts his head, hopefully making it a more comfortable resting place for Clive but also making it easier to lift himself up and turn to properly face Clive should he ask for something that needs to be answered with eyes on eyes. For now, though, a comfortable:]
[ Verso tilts, and Clive angles to meet the nesting. The soap he'd used to wash Verso's hair smells like clean cotton and a hint of lavender, and Clive's eyes shutter briefly to commit this, too, to sense memory.
Once that's done, he strings together the promise he wants to be kept. ]
―If anything happens to me, [ is quiet, but sure. ] Promise me you'll still remember how to love like this.
[ Because maybe that's the problem: the Dessendres have forgotten how to love each other, in the wake of all this loss. Clive sees it everywhere, in the scars the Continent wears and the broken, jagged seams of the sky, in petals and ash and the fear of death. Maybe if the Dessendres had remembered to turn to each other and press their palms against each other's broken hearts, they would have let the Canvas live on its own terms; or maybe they would have laid it to rest before any of this could have happened, and spared all of them the anguish.
It's a hard ask, Clive knows. Hypocritical, too, given that Clive knows that if anything happened to Verso, he would fucking shatter beyond any hope of repair. Still, he's selfish enough to not want that for the love of his life－ wants to make sure that Verso will open himself to the possibility of being cared for again, if only because Clive can't bear the thought of the alternative.
His next breath dances along the curve of Verso's ear; god, he really could spend hours just holding him like this, without expectation or consequence. ]
[An impossible promise it is, then. Which solidifies it as something that Verso should confront while facing Clive, but he can't bring himself to do that. There's a dark part in his mind that almost wishes his hands were still sore, that they could still offer him the distraction of an easy kind of pain, just a bit of pressure, just a soft grazing. Instead, his body slumps to the extent that it can when he'd been so relaxed moments earlier, and he holds himself – and thus Clive's arms around him – a little closer.
In truth, Verso can't even promise that if anything happens to Clive, there'll be many more tomorrows for him to remember. What's the good of his existence, what's the point in believing in better, if he can't keep a single person from succumbing to the cruelties of the Canvas? How can he keep believing in love when everyone who's loved him – both as himself and as the real Verso – only suffers for it in the end? Should the worst come to pass, he feels like the best course of action would be to track the real Renoir down and plead with him for the oblivion he's been long denied.
So, he shakes his head. Shrugs his shoulders. Draws what strength he can from Clive's presence into his own ever-dwindling wells of it and still finds himself scraping at the bottom for whatever small amounts he can draw forth.]
You asked me to be honest, so...
[No. A word he can't speak. A word he's sure doesn't need to be spoken. Thoughts of losing Clive flood into him more determinedly than the daydreams he'd humoured earlier, real in ways that nearly suffocate all those pretty, pretty images of grey hair and theatre stages, of nights bent over notebooks, of swords dulled with time. Verso's breathing grows a bit more controlled, but in that focus he's able to keep his voice steady. Small blessings.]
Anything else. Ask me for anything else but that and it's yours.
Guilt crawls up Clive's spine at that curling, that shake of the head. The no that Verso doesn't speak gets pressed against Clive's chest, a rejection in the shape of Verso's shrugged shoulders, and he moves to hug the other man closer, to let the loop of his arms project protection.
It's gutting to feel it, and then, to hear it. That Clive has taken a torch to Verso's hope and heart and lit it with such ferocity that there's nothing else for it to do but snuff out, should his flame ever die. An uncontrolled, uncalculated wildfire, capable of burning all this beautiful silver to ash; the horrific legacy that Clive will leave if he ever fails. ]
Verso... [ A susurrous sigh. There's an apology baked into it, somewhere－ I never wanted to become the thing that hurts you－ but he keeps it to himself.
Water displaces around them, as Clive rests his chin on Verso's shoulder. Verso, warm and corporeal and damp and lovely; Clive doesn't regret his mine. Still thinks it, even, lovesick and contradictory. ]
...I'll just have to live longer than you do, then.
[ And maybe it's possible now, with this new glimmer of chroma stitched around his heart. Different from violet levin and jade wind, deep-rooted and stubborn. Still new and fresh and contentious, but a blessing nevertheless in Clive's eyes. ]
[In the aftermath, Verso wonders if maybe he should have lied. Let the moment be sweet and loving, let Clive believe that he has given him the strength to not simply meet tomorrow together, but to overcome it alone as well. There is truth – immense truth – to how much more secure Verso has come to feel in his capacity for love, so it's not even like it would be a complete falsehood. Just a little white lie, an obfuscating puff of smoke, a blinding flash of light.
But even if the tone of that Verso substantiates those doubts, Verso is able to grasp onto something that informs him he's made the better choice: imagining how the sounds of his voice would have shifted if he had made that promise and Clive had seen right through him. A betrayal of both truth and trust setting back everything they've been fighting for.
Nothing is ever fucking easy. A thought that had escaped him for a few blissful moments. He doesn't regret the preceding serenity, though, no matter how thoroughly the chill of the future seeps into the spaces it once occupied. That feeling – and the one he bears now of never wanting to let Clive down through his cowardice – is what will keep him going when he doesn't think he can continue onward. It's real. He knows that, now. It's possible.
The thought of Clive outliving him doesn't sit with him much better than the opposite does, but he doesn't want to descend too deep into matters of mortality or the lack thereof. Not when he still thinks of what he's bestowed upon Clive as all curse and no blessing.
Besides, there's still some warmth to the bath and great comfort in how their bodies slot together, and he isn't about to let that go to waste. With a soft laugh, he leans his head against Clive and loosens his grip.]
Hey, those aren't our only options. We could always go out together in a blaze of glory.
[Verso isn't sure how that would work, exactly, but that doesn't matter. Who fucking cares about the specifics. Twisted though it might be, there's something wonderful to the thought of dying with the knowledge that nobody would be left behind. No grief, no suffering, no agonising pain capable of empowering all sorts of awfulness.]
Or as tired old men who want to end things on our own terms.
[It shouldn't, but that thought warms him up a little, too.]
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
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Now, though, Verso closes his eyes and nuzzles into Clive's neck, letting the thundering of his heart and the staccato music of his breath convey his body's desires and praises. He lets the thought of being Clive's first in another way wash over him. If he hadn't told Verso what his life had been prior to joining the Expedition, he might have been surprised. Now, though, he's simply grateful that a man who'd had so much love denied him still has such a surplus to give to others.
To him. A thought which finds Verso contently humming against Clive's pulse, letting out the barest whimper of a breath as a surge of pleasure tingles its way all the way up to his scalp. It's not long after that before his cock starts to pulse and he loses his calmer intensity, body tensing and breath bearing more and more noise, strained and keening, breaking into a moan as his orgasm traps him in a place of mon feu, mon feu, mon feu, mon feu, and his own come spills forth and lands where it lands – he cares but he doesn't know, face buried as it is against Clive, breath coming out in pants against his skin.
Eventually, he regains enough of his senses to remember that he'd been spoken to.]
Mm, next time. And thanks. For trusting me to be your first.
[And heaven forbid he leave it at that, he tosses in a playful:]
For being so good with your hands, too. That one's gonna stay with me for a while.
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He cleans his hand off (they're going to have to drain the water and refill it if they ever want to get clean), and fusses Verso into their original, more comfortable position. Less strain on those poor knees. ]
A long while, I hope.
[ That greedy mine, still lingering along Clive's edges. A rare thing, but entrusted fully to Verso in this moment as his arms wind around a come-stained middle, fingers playing along what's left of the 'marks' he left.
His lips press against the crest of Verso's shoulder, and settle there for a bit. ]
―But tell me if it ever gets to feel like too much.
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[Earnest, so earnest that the words flow out like breath, easy and natural, soft and necessary. His fingers finds those splashes of himself and paint whorls of starlight upon the Canvas of Clive's thigh, and he lets out the sigh of a dreamer, the sigh of a man finding the bravery to put those dreams to words.
The bravery he finds, but the words...]
I don't know how to explain it, just... Your love feels different, like...
[He gives up. Leaves those whorls unfinished on Clive's leg, moves his hand over Clive's heart and imbues it with chroma distilled from the feelings Verso can't qualify, he can only radiate outwards. Like fire. Like light. Hope strong enough that if he'd thought about it deeper, he might bring himself to tears. The ever-intensifying filtering out of a definition of love that's easily abused and quickly betrayed in favour of one that means what it's supposed to fucking mean, at least in his romantic heart, his fool's heart. A sense of being ordinary that can only be contextualised by how deeply he feels like an outsider.]
I don't know. [He repeats.] Right now? I can't get enough of it.
[A pause to let out a light laugh as he things about what he's just said in the context of what Clive's saying, and so he offers, half tongue-in-cheek:]
You let me know if that gets to be too much.
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If this is what Clive's love feels like to Verso, Clive never wants to stop giving it to him. This steady anchor, this strange and frightening warmth. He reaches back and brushes his own firelight up along the dip of Verso's navel, tracing up the clean line of his sternum to flutter along a collarbone. Flames lap at Verso's throat, harmless but asserting. Je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime.
A huff, when the tables turn on him. ] Point taken. [ His mouth presses against a sweat-flushed temple. ] My greatest joy is when you want things for yourself.
[ And, in turn, he'll have to accept that Verso might think the same. Terrifying.
Reaching back to fumble with the faucet, Clive starts the water up again to at least make the barest attempt at cleaning; the lonely, forgotten soap demands their attention, and Clive is looking forward to fussing around with Verso's very well-styled coif. ]
Tell me something you like. Besides music and red wine and looking beautiful.
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It helps, too, to have this outlet of distracting motion as he contemplates Clive's question. There's the obvious, the easy you, but that feels dismissive right now, especially with how blatant he's just made its depths. Then there's soaring down the mountain on a pair of skis, wind in his hair and mind clear of everything besides the descent, which doesn't feel like the mood, either. Not when his heart still carries the vulnerability of his release and the rerunning of the water promises to soothe rather than to exhilarate.
So:] I write a lot of poetry.
[Is that too close to music? Newsflash: the artist likes art in most of its forms. Maybe context will help.]
Usually at night when everything is quiet and the sky is so clear you can see every star. It helps me clear my mind so I can sleep. Or I'll go swimming.
[A pause as he contemplates telling him about the times when he dives deep underwater, drowning and drowning and drowning, but pressing through to explore the parts of the Canvas that no one else has seen or will ever see, places where no Nevrons lurk and nothing has been fractured. That seems like it carries too much risk of worrying Clive, though – and selfishly, Verso worries in turn that said worry will affect his ability to enjoy the depths – so he hums and chooses a different course of elaboration.]
Believe it or not, I used to be swim captain.
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Swim captain, [ he repeats. (Verso would be a Pisces, actually.) ] A lyricist, a musician, and a star athlete.
[ To the affectionate tune of overachiever. He doesn't care if the original Verso did much the same in his out-of-Canvas past, because it doesn't matter. ]
It seems apt. You feel...
[ He sifts through the water with his fingertips, letting ripples draw mercurial designs on the surface. Looking for the right word, poetic as he isn't. Clive keeps a journal of his own, one that Verso might have seen him writing in at the dead of night: the accounts within are far more pragmatic than they are artistic, a way for him to remember himself as the days crawl by. ]
...Of the air, and the water. Fluid.
[ Finally, he settles on that. ]
The Academy in Lumière doesn't do competitive swimming anymore, unfortunately.
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Even now, he questions how much of his success owed to his surname, how much of it owed to his charm, how much was built on the lies he'd told for different reasons, way back then. It's probably little wonder that his imposter syndrome runs so deep that it's etched into damned near every experience he's ever had, but at least it means he's able to shed himself of it before it becomes something apparent.
Another expression of fluidity, the way these things dissipate into the air with the steam, the way they sink into the water.
That unfortunately is what piques his interest the most, anyway. Not for the first time, he wonders what kind of interests Clive might have had if he'd been granted the chance to come into his own under less dire circumstances. All he really knows is that he liked theatre. Favoured Cid's apartment and the Academy training grounds. Lived his life for others.]
No? [With a gentle hum, he dips Clive's hand under the water and works it clean insofar as he can without soap.] What would you have liked to do that you never had the chance to?
crawls back to the starrs, wheezing and panting
It's hard to imagine. The dire nature of their current society is all he knows, and everything that he is now is a result of the thousands dead in the Forgotten Battlefield, and countless more scattered like detritus wherever they roam.
He turns his hand over in Verso's, letting him scrub gently at hard-earned calluses. ]
Truth be told, I don't know. [ A lame answer, but the truth. ] Father started teaching me how to fight before my sixth summer－ when Joshua was born－ and I haven't thought to do much else since then.
[ He'd spent hours outside behind their manor, swinging swords until his hands bled and running laps around the fractured city, squaring off against adults twice his age. He'd lived most of his life in that small box, fighting and fighting and fighting.
Clive lets his free palm cup clean water from the faucet, and trickles it over Verso's hair. ]
It was less that I hadn't been given the chance, and more that I didn't see a reason to pursue anything but the blade. Father seemed proud of my skills, and that felt... enough. [ A little laugh, wistful. ] Made me feel less like a mistake, at any rate.
hands you a sadman and a pillow
He can in part, at least, with both his memories Verso's about what it meant to live up to the Dessendre name, all those expectations that he would paint like his parents and his sister, honouring his family's artistry by colouring within their lines. Sometimes, praises over his art had made both versions of his other selves feel like they could be enough, though those same praises had felt like gilded bars at time, like scissors held to his flight feathers.
But he has false and stolen memories of pursuing things beyond painting, too, and they feel real enough to him that his heart twinges at the thought of never having had them at all. It almost sounds peaceful, to have had his fate reveal itself when he was five and for him to never wondered otherwise; it almost sounds like hell, never thinking to escape.
When the fresh water cascades through his hair, Verso lifts himself up a bit, making things a little easier for Clive. Buying a moment, too, to mull over his own response.]
So what I'm hearing is that I have a lot to show you.
[Said softly, fondly. Already, Verso's mind supplies him with thoughts of him and Clive speeding down slopes on skis, or swimming through the reefs, or gliding down the Reacher on handcrafted wings, or having Esquie fly them to the highest point of rubble in the sky so that they can sit on the precipice between the world and space, watching crystal clouds float beneath them and stars sparkling all above them, knowing nothing but light and the expansiveness of the great unknown.
Halfway through he notices a theme, so with a lilt of mischief to his tone, he adds:]
You're not afraid of heights, right?
two of my favorite things 🥹
But to say so would be to invalidate the reality that Verso chose him. To say that the one thing that has made Verso so singular, so stunning－ his heart, his bleeding, anguished heart－ is wrong, and that it's erred in a judgment that must have been difficult to make. And so, Clive has to accept that, perhaps, this strange thing that he calls himself might be enough for the man that he thinks deserves more, better, everything.
Another stream of water later, and Clive begins the slow, luxurious process of massaging soap into damp black-white hair. Tented fingers sift over Verso's scalp, trying to unravel headache-tension through firm-gentle touch. ]
I've never been up high enough to feel afraid.
[ Rubbing circles around Verso's temple, he adds: ] Yet.
[ Playful, to match that mischief. That single syllable lilts, near-daring. ]
But I suppose that's one thing that I never had the chance to do, and would like to. To...
[ A little mealy-mouthed for a moment, slightly hesitant to say the rest. ] ...Go on an outing with someone I love. [ You know. A Date. ] Our current journey notwithstanding. I'd like to take you somewhere, someday.
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Yet joins next time among Verso's favourite things Clive says (though both still pale in comparison to love and mon etoile) and he lets the thought of showing Clive the world become something more concrete, routes and opportunities colliding in his mind as traces familiar mental paths across the Continent. For all the harm this world has wrought, and for all the injuries it's inflicted on him over the decades, it's still a beautiful place, one he'd like to show more of to Clive.
And one that he'd like to have Clive show him, too, even if he knows his way around already. Maybe there's a tucked-away cluster of flowers somewhere, a tree that reminds Clive of something, a spot on the edge of the cliffs where the fragments in the sky arrange themselves just so. Any of myriad little things that stand out to one man where they might not to another, any parts of themselves that they can reveal to each other through their interpretations of the land around them.
For now, though, he's a bit more charmed by the awkwardness with which he broaches the topic, that pause, calling it an outing. Maybe Clive hasn't experienced much that life has to offer, but the way he approaches the new and the unknown with a taste for adventure is endearing in its soft optimism, its embrace of life unlived.]
You can take me anywhere, any day. I'll need it, where we're going. We both will.
[Deeper into the territory both Renoirs defend. Standing in the shadow of the Monolith. Passing by more and more bodies, taking in the full expanse of Lumieran failure at the hands of the Dessendres. Even if their dates end up being quiet squirrellings away into corners where they can bleed and cry and hurt in the comfort of each other's love. Even if they find places to escape into that they never want to leave again. Even should the sky fall and the sea burn and the land turn to smoke and ash, Verso suspects he'd still want Clive to pull him off into better corners. He knows he wants to do the same.]
I hate to tell you, but...
[A teasing pause. He rests his hands above the bend of Clive's knees, tapping his fingers in faux contemplation.]
... you're going to have to get used to taking breaks and being spoiled.
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It all feels eminently doable, as long as Verso is by his side. The arch of his smile remains steady on his lips, telegraphing appreciation and affection as his hands work the soap into a finely-whipped lather and paints the entirety of Verso's two-toned head white.
Cute, he thinks. He starts forming the meringue-like pile into a little hill on the crown of Verso's head. ]
You spoil me already.
[ Which he sincerely believes. He's said as much, about how his early mornings are defined by trying to process the fact that he can blink sleep out of his eyes and have Verso be the first thing he sees, the first thing he feels tucked close to his body. It's the kind of joy that still makes his head spin, and he feels it right now as he idly smears shampoo down the nape of Verso's neck. ]
You'll be the one to suffer if you spoil me too much.
[ A light huff-laugh, and he lets his knees push inwards as if to trap the body cradled between them. Maybe Verso is a cat person, and has never had the experience of having a big hound sit on him; he will in his future, if he's not careful. ]
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What has him laughing, though, softly, with the slightest tone of you doofus, is what Clive says. There's no real humour to it – quite the contrary, really, when Verso thinks about Clive's lacking experiences both with being loved and being spoiled – but there is a sort of giddiness over the opportunity to one day show Clive the difference between the two.]
All I've done so far is love you.
[Said simply, honestly. If anything, Verso feels like the reverse is true – that Clive has spoiled him terribly, and that he's sort of been stumbling along, seeking out opportunities to do the same. Whether that's true or not he doesn't know, only that he's barely begun to demonstrate how dear Clive is to him, or how determined he is to see him smile, or all the little things he has in mind for when their paths guide them to the just-right places for his long-held plans.
Speaking of just-right places – and of reaching new depths of relaxation – Verso shifts to nuzzle his nose against Clive's jaw, a gentle yes, hold me closer when his legs move to do precisely that.]
And there's not a whole lot I wouldn't suffer to keep loving you, so. Try me, mon feu. I look forward to it.
[On the topic of dates, though, and all the little things they still haven't learned about each other, Verso's mind inevitably falls back to one of the few things Clive has been able to share. The nuzzle becomes a kiss, which then becomes a resting of his soapy head in the crook of Clive's arm.]
You know, I've been meaning to ask. What's your favourite play?
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Head tipping, legs tangling, Clive keeps Verso close as he continues to play with soap-soaked hair with one hand, clean Verso's chest off with the other. If he lets that latter touch wander a bit, tracing lines where it shouldn't and thumbing slowly over the peak of a nipple, well. It's largely innocent: just a way for him to learn the contours of Verso's body without consequence.
(Careful what you wish for, Clive doesn't say. He's Ifrit and Ifrit is him, and the obsidian dog-lizard also wants attention from starlight silver.)
The matter of his favorite play, though－ ]
...Don't laugh. [ Cid did, which is why he starts here. ] It's "The Saint and the Sectary".
[ A relatively well-known stage play, though Clive isn't sure if any productions of it existed pre-Fracture. The sort of predictable but romantic story of a knight fighting against the dark forces of an evil wizard, who, in a shocking twist, is revealed to be the knight's father (it's Star Wars. it's Final Fantasy Star Wars. Clive is a fan of Final Fantasy Star Wars).
Just in case Verso has never seen it: ]
―"I, Sir Crandall of Camelot", [ he recites against Verso's ear, low and warm. The hand settled on Verso's chest lifts, and fingers curl around the hilt of an invisible sword. ] "will never turn to the darkness. You have failed in your endeavors, vile enemy－ I am a Knight."
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It isn't, anymore.
Were there any room left for him to melt against Clive he'd have taken advantage of it; in its absence, he closes his eyes. Not that Clive can appreciate that, but with his hand against his chest he might be able to pick up on the way Verso's breathing slows down into something almost meditative, a level of calm that he's yet to attain around him. One he hasn't experienced since before the Fracture.
Verso doesn't laugh, though not because he's asked not to. The play is familiar in the more sweeping of its motions – he had only seen it once or twice over 50 years ago, so much of it has been lost to time – and its theme of the good knight standing firm against evil tracks so well with everything he knows about Clive that the thought of him being a fantasci-fi nerd is just nice. It warms the cockles.
It inspires the heart, too, and Verso finds himself with new plans for how they might pass the time at Monoco's Station when they have their rest there before parting ways with Joshua again.]
Makes sense, Sir Crandall of Camelot.
[Okay, so maybe he can't entirely resist teasing him; an apology follows by way of him taking those curled fingers in his own and pressing a flurry of kisses to each one of their knuckles, a gesture more in tune with what he truly wants to say.]
How could such a bright fire ever turn to the darkness?
[Ifrit not aside, Ifrit not ignored. There are things Verso still needs to come to understanding – like how Clive's warnings are different than Verso's, more about awareness than about challenge – but his experiences with both sides of the man he loves have inspired that foolhardy side of him to believe in the absolutes of what he's witnessed. That vibrant flames will always overpower obsidian and ash and char; that Clive knows how to wield love with gentleness in a world where it has only ever been weaponised.]
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A breath, slow and content, and Clive works to rinse the snow-capped shampoo mountain off of Verso's head. Once he clears the last of the suds off, he presses his lips to a damp crown in silent prayer for this tired, time-weathered man to find a more lasting peace in his future. One that becomes his normal, without reality threatening to close in on it. ]
Sir Crandall's fire looks to his star, who reminds him that fire burns to make light as much as it does to create chaos.
[ Not a part of the script. The good knight never cupped his unshod saint's cheek and tipped her up for a kiss, but Clive does, using that hand that received Verso's blessings. He claims Verso's mouth, parting lips and teeth to lick affection into him, a je t'aime nested in each breath.
It's not enough to just think it; he murmurs it once they pull back for real air, and not the shared heat of their inhales and exhales. ]
I love you. [ Well and truly. He's taken, in every way that he could be. ] In our next life, we'll go see as many plays as you want.
[ And he says that, next life, with the conviction of someone who hopes that every version of his painted soul will find Verso, somewhere.
(Too intense? Maybe. When Clive loves, he loves absolutely.) ]
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Even the intensity comes across something gentle, something that sets Verso at ease. Yes, once they're back outside of this moment that compulsion to do whatever he can to feel like he's earned such absolute love will strike him afresh, but here and now there's nothing to question. Not while Clive takes such good care of him; not when everything feels like it's starting to fall into place, as nebulous a concept as that might be and as risky as it is to even humour.
Ever a performer, ever in love with that moment of being on a stage and communicating in the abstractions and the riddles of art, there's something else that Verso has in mind when Clive talks about plays. He hums, soft, and runs the fingers of one hand along Clive's thigh, even more soft.]
I want to see you star in one.
[Or two, or three, or dozens. Verso pictures Clive in full knight regalia, flame-gold armour reddened by rubies, smoked with onyx, in his element with a fake sword in his hands and artistry on his lips. Speaking words that everyone wants to hear, looking out at audience of people who are there to see him, the man and not the beast, the artist not the warrior.]
You'd look beautiful in the spotlight. I'd probably miss half the play because I wouldn't be able to take my eyes off of you, but it'd be worth it.
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Gentle, uncomplicated memories. Ones he'd kept himself from lingering on, for fear that it would feel like spitting on his purpose as an Expeditioner. Now, he indulges in it with the same comfort that he indulges in Verso's steady presence, and stifles the urge to say that he'd be no good as an actor－ he doesn't know how to inhabit anything but his own ill-formed skin. ]
And I would forget half my lines if I saw you watching me from the front row. It wouldn't be much of a play.
[ So. More harmless fantasizing, as he finishes cleaning the last of himself off of Verso's chest. (The dizzying mental image of Verso stained in his come will live rent-free in Clive's head for weeks to come.) ]
...I'd act during the day, and you'd play piano at night. We'd never leave the operahouse.
[ A kiss to Verso's jaw, and Clive finally lets up some of his fussing. Arms wrap loosely around Verso's middle, warm and heavy with relaxation, and his gaze slides slideways towards the wall-sized window flooding the room in light, at the various paintings and their gauzy, dreamlike renderings of various places on the Continent (or so Clive assumes).
There's something that Clive wants to say, but he struggles with the words; maybe he should write them, he thinks, so that he can see his thoughts before he brings them to voice.
So: ] Verso. [ He says, to anchor himself back to the present again. Two syllables, like music. ]
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This is where his thoughts linger for a while. On the image of them building an apartment for themselves in the operahouse, carving out whatever lives they want to lead among its halls, finding a place deep within its heart where they can retreat from the lights and the crowds and the performances to be perfectly and honestly themselves. On the fantasy of coming up with their own musical theatre productions where one accompanies the other and their music speaks of all the things their hearts would have them share. Maybe they'd sit up all night, putting words to paper and to voice and to music. On all the dangerous dreams that he knows may never be realised, but that he keeps building up anyway, so used to disappointment that he doesn't think it scares him anymore.
It does. It's just hard for it to find room with Clive's arms wrapped around him. Harder still when Verso meets the gesture by lacing their fingers together and drawing Clive's hold a little more snug. Like this, he can't see Clive's focus drifting, but he can feel the way it moves in the room. There's something about it that gives Verso pause and keeps him silent. He turns, too, to look through the window, though he doesn't pay much attention to the paintings in its periphery. He's seen enough of the Dessendres' work to last him several lifetimes.
Conversely, hearing Clive say his name, well, that's something he hopes never becomes ordinary or familiar, something that he can't imagine tiring of. Even when he worries, a little – like now – about why nothing follows its speaking.]
Clive.
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Moonlight streams over their soap-muddied bathwater. Under the surface, Clive sees their tangled legs and their linked hands as vague silhouettes visible through sparkling silver; when Verso calls his name, he watches Verso's chest rise and fall to accommodate the single syllable.
It's a terrifying thing, being in love. To know that this moment, too, could one day become a memory that breaks one or both of them when the world disappoints them with its cruelty. They sunder each other the more they try to press together; each joining is a fresh cleaving when they have to part.
A breath, and Clive rests his head against damp hair. Frightening, to exist in this liminal space between bliss and the next tragedy. But that, too, is what it means to live. Or so he thinks.
He hums, thoughtful. ]
Will you promise me something?
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Yes, he immediately thinks to answer. Of course. Anything is possible – including Clive asking the impossible – but Verso doesn't want to humour that until it's unavoidable. Not here in the bath, in Clive's arms, not knowing how long it'll be before a moment like this finds them again. Especially as the water cools around them, and the knowledge that the moon can only hold off the sun for so long filters in through the window, and the air starts smelling like ink and paint and something vaguely artificial.
But even if that yes would be brimming with honesty, there's still something disingenuous about making a promise without hearing the ask. Something dismissive, too, about trying to head it off as if whatever it is, it's a silly question not worth asking, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. So, Verso shifts his head, hopefully making it a more comfortable resting place for Clive but also making it easier to lift himself up and turn to properly face Clive should he ask for something that needs to be answered with eyes on eyes. For now, though, a comfortable:]
What's the promise?
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Once that's done, he strings together the promise he wants to be kept. ]
―If anything happens to me, [ is quiet, but sure. ] Promise me you'll still remember how to love like this.
[ Because maybe that's the problem: the Dessendres have forgotten how to love each other, in the wake of all this loss. Clive sees it everywhere, in the scars the Continent wears and the broken, jagged seams of the sky, in petals and ash and the fear of death. Maybe if the Dessendres had remembered to turn to each other and press their palms against each other's broken hearts, they would have let the Canvas live on its own terms; or maybe they would have laid it to rest before any of this could have happened, and spared all of them the anguish.
It's a hard ask, Clive knows. Hypocritical, too, given that Clive knows that if anything happened to Verso, he would fucking shatter beyond any hope of repair. Still, he's selfish enough to not want that for the love of his life－ wants to make sure that Verso will open himself to the possibility of being cared for again, if only because Clive can't bear the thought of the alternative.
His next breath dances along the curve of Verso's ear; god, he really could spend hours just holding him like this, without expectation or consequence. ]
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In truth, Verso can't even promise that if anything happens to Clive, there'll be many more tomorrows for him to remember. What's the good of his existence, what's the point in believing in better, if he can't keep a single person from succumbing to the cruelties of the Canvas? How can he keep believing in love when everyone who's loved him – both as himself and as the real Verso – only suffers for it in the end? Should the worst come to pass, he feels like the best course of action would be to track the real Renoir down and plead with him for the oblivion he's been long denied.
So, he shakes his head. Shrugs his shoulders. Draws what strength he can from Clive's presence into his own ever-dwindling wells of it and still finds himself scraping at the bottom for whatever small amounts he can draw forth.]
You asked me to be honest, so...
[No. A word he can't speak. A word he's sure doesn't need to be spoken. Thoughts of losing Clive flood into him more determinedly than the daydreams he'd humoured earlier, real in ways that nearly suffocate all those pretty, pretty images of grey hair and theatre stages, of nights bent over notebooks, of swords dulled with time. Verso's breathing grows a bit more controlled, but in that focus he's able to keep his voice steady. Small blessings.]
Anything else. Ask me for anything else but that and it's yours.
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Guilt crawls up Clive's spine at that curling, that shake of the head. The no that Verso doesn't speak gets pressed against Clive's chest, a rejection in the shape of Verso's shrugged shoulders, and he moves to hug the other man closer, to let the loop of his arms project protection.
It's gutting to feel it, and then, to hear it. That Clive has taken a torch to Verso's hope and heart and lit it with such ferocity that there's nothing else for it to do but snuff out, should his flame ever die. An uncontrolled, uncalculated wildfire, capable of burning all this beautiful silver to ash; the horrific legacy that Clive will leave if he ever fails. ]
Verso... [ A susurrous sigh. There's an apology baked into it, somewhere－ I never wanted to become the thing that hurts you－ but he keeps it to himself.
Water displaces around them, as Clive rests his chin on Verso's shoulder. Verso, warm and corporeal and damp and lovely; Clive doesn't regret his mine. Still thinks it, even, lovesick and contradictory. ]
...I'll just have to live longer than you do, then.
[ And maybe it's possible now, with this new glimmer of chroma stitched around his heart. Different from violet levin and jade wind, deep-rooted and stubborn. Still new and fresh and contentious, but a blessing nevertheless in Clive's eyes. ]
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But even if the tone of that Verso substantiates those doubts, Verso is able to grasp onto something that informs him he's made the better choice: imagining how the sounds of his voice would have shifted if he had made that promise and Clive had seen right through him. A betrayal of both truth and trust setting back everything they've been fighting for.
Nothing is ever fucking easy. A thought that had escaped him for a few blissful moments. He doesn't regret the preceding serenity, though, no matter how thoroughly the chill of the future seeps into the spaces it once occupied. That feeling – and the one he bears now of never wanting to let Clive down through his cowardice – is what will keep him going when he doesn't think he can continue onward. It's real. He knows that, now. It's possible.
The thought of Clive outliving him doesn't sit with him much better than the opposite does, but he doesn't want to descend too deep into matters of mortality or the lack thereof. Not when he still thinks of what he's bestowed upon Clive as all curse and no blessing.
Besides, there's still some warmth to the bath and great comfort in how their bodies slot together, and he isn't about to let that go to waste. With a soft laugh, he leans his head against Clive and loosens his grip.]
Hey, those aren't our only options. We could always go out together in a blaze of glory.
[Verso isn't sure how that would work, exactly, but that doesn't matter. Who fucking cares about the specifics. Twisted though it might be, there's something wonderful to the thought of dying with the knowledge that nobody would be left behind. No grief, no suffering, no agonising pain capable of empowering all sorts of awfulness.]
Or as tired old men who want to end things on our own terms.
[It shouldn't, but that thought warms him up a little, too.]
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how DARE you choose that song...........
says the person who linked me a piano arrangement of MY STAR!!!
that's the Verso Dies Ending song.....................
at least clive will know how jill felt
he'll ugly cry for 100 years and then die of dehydration
he needs a torgal to sop up at least some of those tears; they should adopt that fluffy pink nevron
clive wants VERSO!!! (but they do deserve emotional support fluffs)
clive can have verso's petals that's something
opens up microsoft word to write a 500000 word fic about clive crying over verso's petals
rabidly refreshes ao3 (no but we should do this somehow)
you've given me too much power and i've gone mad with it
rubs hands together with such gusto the friction sets the sadmen aflame (again) (sorry, ben starrs)
WHEN WILL VERSO BE FREE!!!!!!!!!!
probably some time after the heat death of the universe or the reaper invasion or w/e destroys earth
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