[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.]
[ To Clive, surviving Clea was nothing short of a miracle. For the first time in a long while, the matter of his survival had actually felt like a blessing－ other incidents had made him feel seconds away from begging for death. First, with him sitting broken on a pile of corpses with his hands still cooling from Ifrit's fire, and the second with him facing what he felt was the inevitability of his Gommage, rain-drenched and in shock.
It doesn't escape Clive, though, that Verso has been forced to bear witness to every such incident. An unwilling participant in Clive's continuing cycle of maybe-death, with each one being more contentious than the last. The state of Verso's poor heart, to have had to put up with this; the least Clive can do is outlast him to make up for it.
No more losing. The smile doesn't force itself on his face, but slides there as a natural consequence of how much he wants to believe in a future where their exhaustion will be from old age instead of constant external pressure. Just two men who have enjoyed their best years with each other, and are ready to close their eyes and share the same dreamless sleep with each other into oblivion.
A nice thought, morbid as it might be. Clive tips Verso's chin after he finishes that daydream, and slumps forward to kiss him from his awkward angle. How could he not? ]
...I like the sound of the latter. So, a new promise, then－ this time, from me to you.
[ A better one, a kinder one, but one that's just as difficult. ]
I promise to live. For you, with you, every day.
[ Because self-sacrifice, Clive is finding, is as selfish as this desire to stay. And if he has to vacillate between two vices, why not choose the one that requires the strength to go on, to suffer the consequences of it without folding to despair? Verso had called him hope, and for that, Clive can burn and burn and burn. ]
I promise to make this world something more than a reminder of your grief.
[Envisioning a distant future is still a bit new to Verso. Not that he's never done it before; he had in those earliest days after the Fracture, when life felt more like a right than an imprisonment, and he still believed that Aline cared about more than existing within her chosen form of escapism for as long as circumstances permitted.
In theory, he's supposed to know better now, decades worth of experience informing him of the impossibility of a true tomorrow. But reality has begun to speak of different things. Like of how much having a reason to keep fighting changes the way he perceives everything around him. The world and its people. The Dessendres and their agonies. Himself and his capacity to bring about more than just suffering, more than just death, more than a drawn-out grief that stretches a family thin to the brink of being torn asunder.
However Clive interprets the effect of his love on Verso, Verso will always see it thusly: as a hail Mary healing, a chance to exist as his own person with his own person, one last vestige of belief that he can earn the right to exist for himself and for Clive and for Joshua and for everyone else who still breathes once this is all over.
So the new promise brings another sting to Verso's eyes, another soft curse to his lips as he affirms just how comfortably he curls up around Clive's finger, yielding to the once-harrowing promise of life and the long-desired promise of death.]
We won't let any of what's happened be in vain.
[The words still feel false on his tongue; they still sound fantastical in his voice, like the prose of a storyteller enchanting an audience with tales that cannot function within the realities of the world. But his heart beats to the rhythm of belief, and he lets that be enough for now. After all, he only has to look to his mother to see the power of fantasies. He just needs to wield them wisely.
Even if that is easier said than done.
Now, he finds the strength to look Clive in the eyes, only he doesn't simply shift his face towards his; rather, he lifts himself up, grudgingly manoeuvring himself free from their tangle of limbs so that he can sit before him, properly face-to-face, one hand reaching up to run a thumb along the remnants of a smile.]
I'm... tired. I'm so tired, but you...
[The gravity of his gravitas bears down on him and he pauses, shaking his head as if that could clear it of the weight and the clutter of his thoughts. All it does is buy him a moment's more time.]
With you by my side, I can rest enough to keep moving forwards. You help me find my way to tomorrow, and I'll be your home until I can build you a real one.
[ He really doesn't like the feeling of Verso slipping out of his arms, but the satisfaction of seeing that put-together face balances out that immediate feeling of loss. There's a moment where Clive tries to read Verso's expression, to see if the trajectory of his promise has hurt more than it's helped, but the appraisal quickly turns to simple observation.
He takes Verso in. From the tired slant of his brows to the matching slant of his lips, the wit and charm behind those bright, bright eyes, the dark scar that cuts down one side of his face and swirls, like night, along his cheek. His posture, the way he holds his weight, the still slightly-pink palm of one pianist's hand. Sleek silver, like the sword to Clive's squared shield. Damp and warm and, impossibly, his.
Head tipped, Clive rests into the hand on his cheek. It's Verso that should be the one with shelter after decades and decades of accruing world-ending exhaustion, but Verso always tries to meet Clive at least (more than) halfway, and Clive has gotten greedy for it. ]
You're the only home I'll ever need.
[ Truly. Just this touch along his jaw mades Clive believe in the existence of safety; just this time alone, pilfered in a different set of lovers' bathtub, has made him feel more confident in the persistence of his love.
But, as usual, he's made things heavy－ they were just talking about plays, good job Rosfield－ so he tries to recover a bit, shift back into quiet levity. ]
Besides. I might lose my mind if you tell me that you're an expert carpenter, on top of everything else.
[ Is there anything Verso can't do? The warmth in Clive's eyes shifts from molten adoration to exasperated adoration. (It's basically the same.) ]
[The greed is nice. The ready acceptance. Clive moves with Verso the way he had with Clive, that reflexive expression of their natural connection, and while the though of death and loss still lingers, they pale so deeply in comparison to how alive they are in this moment that they're easily ignored, cast aside onto the ever-accumulating pile of bullshit for Verso to haunt himself over later.
Now, he has a different point to meet Clive at; relinquishing his hold on his face, he dips both hands into the water, cupping some between his palms to pour over Clive's hair. Please forgive him for not using the faucet; he is a forestman sadman and such are his habits, now.
Speaking of...]
Consider your mind safe. I didn't say it'd be a fine house.
[There's an impish light to his eyes, a lilt of trouble to his voice. One day, Verso will take Clive to visit his Hot Mess shack in the woods in all its rundown and barely cobbled together glory, belongings scattered in all corners, random Nevron parts tucked away behind very, very liberal interpretations of walls. Maybe the mime he keeps as a neighbour will even drop by to say hello.
Somewhat distractedly, he runs his fingers across Clive's scalp, more of a massage than a washing.]
But it'd be ours. You know, proof that we can make this world our own instead of being...
[Playthings. Pawns. Unwitting actors in a decades-long play, held captive on a stage of grief. A huff. A recalibration. Then:]
[ Will Verso's weird shaggy dog ever really be clean? A question for the ages. Clive makes himself culpable by not requesting the use of fresh water, and lowers his head for the process of being dampened instead of washed. Reveling in the feeling of being touched more than anything else, happy to be a Good Boy while Verso's tone speaks to some mischief or misdeed (?) that Clive isn't aware of. What sort of horrific depression huts have you made in the past, Verso not-Dessendre!!!
His lips stay arched, humor bleeding into his voice as he tries not to get tepid water in his mouth. ]
Maybe you could draw the floorplans and leave the building to me.
[ It's fine, babe, stand around looking sexy while he does the gruntwork. It'll be good for morale, honestly.
One more surge of scarlet chroma, keeping the bath from going too lukewarm and with them ending in a situation where they'd both have to explain to Joshua how they caught a cold at the same exact time (can Verso catch colds? has he ever?). ]
Or there may be an abandoned operahouse somewhere on the Continent that we could repurpose. [ It's not too far-fetched: there have been entire city blocks left isolated in very unlikely places. ] I think I read a novel about someone who did something to that extent.
[ A pastiche of Gaston Leroux's Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. A loan from Benedikta; he never did get to tell her how he felt about the ending. ]
[His weird shaggy dog will smell nice, at least; Verso eventually reaches for the soap, adding some drops of the sandalwood oil before lathering it all together in his hands before running it through Clive's hair, adding more water afterward. Still not from the faucet. Maybe he will get there when the rinsing happens. Greater miracles have happened.
Like love after so much loss. A point that's been made so many times tonight the number is surely beyond countable, but one that Verso knows so well the consequences of losing sight of that he refuses to take it for granted. When the tub warms, so does his smile, a still-mischievous thing as he pictures Clive with grease on his face and sawdust in his hair, sleeves rolled up as he carries a pile of planked wood over his shoulder. A little cliché for the mind of an artist, perhaps, but the man likes what he likes.
With great care to not let any soap drip down Clive's face, Verso starts working his hair clean, still at a massaging pace.]
Why do I get the feeling that I'm the ingenue in both these scenarios?
[Which is to say that he's also familiar with the novel – there is not much else to do on the Continent besides read, and he can't spend all his time dwelling in varying states of despair. There's more laughter in his voice, an air of comfortable resignation. They've already established that he likes the idea of Clive swooping him in to claim his more-than-willing heart, and if they're already moving to rewrite their stories, then they can shift the narrative of how they occupy the operahouse, too, both of them like phantoms, both of them radiating their forms of light rather than succumbing to the darkness.]
But is that what you want? A place in some far-flung corner of the world.
[Verso has to admit it sounds nice. A bit lonely, perhaps, but there's familiarity in that kind of loneliness, at least for him, and perhaps for Clive, too, particularly if it takes them a while to reach that point. If it's reachable, the ever-unhelpful voice at the back of his mind reminds him, but shush, shush, shush. He is not a fool in general, just a fool in love.]
We'll have to get the trains running again. [It is possible that he has never sounded more excited about anything.] You'll love them. The way they speed across the Continent... it's indescribable.
[ So Verso has read it. Clive remembers being more sad about the ending than anything else, though Benedikta had called it a "good-riddance story"; he wonders what Verso's opinions are about it, but decides he'll ask later when the man in question isn't being adorable about transportation, of all things.
Staying upright and behaving is very difficult under current circumstances, but Clive sits still and lets Verso do as he will with the unruly mop of his raven-black hair. No matter how they dry it, it'll wind up being a wild mess; maybe with some product, they can emulate the styling from his youth. Half slicked-back, half combed-down. ]
Not so far-flung that people wouldn't be able to come hear you play if you wanted them to.
[ To answer the question, while the term 'angel of music' is still fresh on his mind. Which segues nicely into the topic of trains, which might carry scores of adoring Verso fans to their hypothetical refurbished operahouse. It's a ludicrous fantasy, all things considered, but why not? They've had their entire lives to lament, and they can't be faulted their moments of harmless delusion.
Doing his best not to slosh forward and dislodge Verso's hands in his hair (melting under the touch, as much as he wants to reciprocate): ]
You know, this is the first time I've ever seen a real train. [ First in Monoco's Station, and now in Frozen Hearts, with their ethereal presence winding impossible paths in air. It's easy to forget that the door in Clea's atelier leads back out into all that strange beauty, what with the catastrophe that happened in that ice-logged cave. ] Did you ride them often, when they were still operational?
[ Please, tell him about your special interests. Clive obviously wants and needs more reasons to adore Verso, hungry as he is for all the tidbits of him that put him into clearer focus. ]
Edited (i could be ur angle or yuor devil) 2025-12-01 00:30 (UTC)
[Great minds, perhaps; where Clive's mind wanders to what they might do with his hair afterward, Verso's finds itself occupied with what to do with it now, taking full advantage of the water and the soap to style him. A fwoop here, a fwoop there. A lifting into a fauxhawk followed by a complete smoothing down. But it's the almost-pompadour that has him leaning back a bit to admire his work.
His work and the man. Mostly the man. Verso likes the unruly mess, the shaggy dog. Appreciates how his scruff and low-buttoned shirt and battle-worn leathers all come together to craft this rugged campfire of a man, strong and soft in equal measure. Even the way his hair shadows the bluest blue of his eyes has its appeal for how it makes seeing them in the light all the more mesmerising.
Ah, but speaking of mesmerising:]
Oh, all the time. And not always because I had somewhere to be. Sometimes, I'd wake up in the morning, take the first train out of Lumiere, and just... write music until we were back in the city. That's part of the reason why I took up the guitar.
[Now, he reaches back into the bathwater, pooling more of it in his palms and, alas, using it to rinse the soap from Clive's hair. Then, more soap, more oil, more bathwater massaged into Clive's chest this time, the calloused pads of Verso's thumbs pressing into dirt and strain alike.]
I still do that. And when I get deep enough into the music, it's like...
[He closes his eyes, lolls his head to the side, takes a deep breath. When his eyes open again, there's a peace to them, a melancholy, a pain he doesn't try to hide because he wants to let his honesty stand on its own.]
For a few moments, it's like the Fracture never happened.
[At least he remembers how things felt before, anyway.]
[ The guitar. Yet another mental association Clive can make now, beyond the twinkling of ebony and ivory piano keys. Long fingers pressing along the graceful neck of a fretboard, strumming chords into an infinite sky.
Or, well. Into the compact space of a train car. Clive tries to imagine it: Verso, sitting in a corner booth with paper and inkwell occupying the seat next to him, legs crossed with his instrument propped against his knee. He tries to think of how the light from the window would catch him in profile, how men and women would stream in and out and linger around to listen, enriched by the swell and ebb of half-written melodies. How peaceful it must have been, and how many lives Verso must have unwittingly touched.
That should have been the legacy he left; not the sterile, vague figures standing vigil in Lumiére's harbor. One damp hand lifts from the water to press against Verso's cheek, holding him steady while keeping him in place for Clive to meet that look, to absorb it properly. Under Verso's palm, Clive's heartbeat keeps a regular, slow rhythm.
Not unlike the ambient swaying of a train, maybe. Clive can hope. ]
You have so much music in you. All that light, waiting to be heard.
[ His voice skims low, as if he's afraid that speaking too loud will drown out an invisible tune waiting to be channeled between them. ]
Do you have a favorite song that you've written?
[ Cradled by the safety of a destination-less journey, committed to gentle memory. Clive would like to hear it, one day. ]
[He does. He is brimming with music, bursting with unspoken truths, his days ceaseless collisions against the bars of a prison that shackles his voice as much as it does his identity and his future and his purpose. So, there's a sting to Clive's words and a pinching to Verso's expression in response. Not that isn't a lovely sentiment – it is, one of the sweetest he's had expressed about him – but rather that its beauty can only exist in that pain.
A light laugh follows, an inward expression of stop being so dramatic-slash-depressing, which for once isn't an easier-said-than-done prospect. As ever – as always, he hopes – the simplicity of Clive's heartbeat, its calmness amid the storm in Verso's own heart, is a well of strength that flows into him.]
Not really. It... changes. I mean, the song I wrote for Alicia is my favourite thing to play when she's here, but when she's not... all I hear are its flaws.
[Clumsy fingers. Notes he wishes he'd strung together differently. Melodies he thinks he could have woven more emotion into. Little technical hiccups in the music. Issues that aren't actually present but that the incessant flagellant inside of him will always find regardless.]
Right now? It's a little something I'm working on.
[With no instrument to play, he starts to hum the tentative draft of a song, his thumbs meandering from their task to move as if painting the notes on Clive's skin. It's a short song, infused with as much emotion as Verso can carry on such a softened voice, and when it's finished he doesn't say anything or ask Clive what he thinks, he simply shifts back to washing his chest.]
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
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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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It doesn't escape Clive, though, that Verso has been forced to bear witness to every such incident. An unwilling participant in Clive's continuing cycle of maybe-death, with each one being more contentious than the last. The state of Verso's poor heart, to have had to put up with this; the least Clive can do is outlast him to make up for it.
No more losing. The smile doesn't force itself on his face, but slides there as a natural consequence of how much he wants to believe in a future where their exhaustion will be from old age instead of constant external pressure. Just two men who have enjoyed their best years with each other, and are ready to close their eyes and share the same dreamless sleep with each other into oblivion.
A nice thought, morbid as it might be. Clive tips Verso's chin after he finishes that daydream, and slumps forward to kiss him from his awkward angle. How could he not? ]
...I like the sound of the latter. So, a new promise, then－ this time, from me to you.
[ A better one, a kinder one, but one that's just as difficult. ]
I promise to live. For you, with you, every day.
[ Because self-sacrifice, Clive is finding, is as selfish as this desire to stay. And if he has to vacillate between two vices, why not choose the one that requires the strength to go on, to suffer the consequences of it without folding to despair? Verso had called him hope, and for that, Clive can burn and burn and burn. ]
I promise to make this world something more than a reminder of your grief.
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In theory, he's supposed to know better now, decades worth of experience informing him of the impossibility of a true tomorrow. But reality has begun to speak of different things. Like of how much having a reason to keep fighting changes the way he perceives everything around him. The world and its people. The Dessendres and their agonies. Himself and his capacity to bring about more than just suffering, more than just death, more than a drawn-out grief that stretches a family thin to the brink of being torn asunder.
However Clive interprets the effect of his love on Verso, Verso will always see it thusly: as a hail Mary healing, a chance to exist as his own person with his own person, one last vestige of belief that he can earn the right to exist for himself and for Clive and for Joshua and for everyone else who still breathes once this is all over.
So the new promise brings another sting to Verso's eyes, another soft curse to his lips as he affirms just how comfortably he curls up around Clive's finger, yielding to the once-harrowing promise of life and the long-desired promise of death.]
We won't let any of what's happened be in vain.
[The words still feel false on his tongue; they still sound fantastical in his voice, like the prose of a storyteller enchanting an audience with tales that cannot function within the realities of the world. But his heart beats to the rhythm of belief, and he lets that be enough for now. After all, he only has to look to his mother to see the power of fantasies. He just needs to wield them wisely.
Even if that is easier said than done.
Now, he finds the strength to look Clive in the eyes, only he doesn't simply shift his face towards his; rather, he lifts himself up, grudgingly manoeuvring himself free from their tangle of limbs so that he can sit before him, properly face-to-face, one hand reaching up to run a thumb along the remnants of a smile.]
I'm... tired. I'm so tired, but you...
[The gravity of his gravitas bears down on him and he pauses, shaking his head as if that could clear it of the weight and the clutter of his thoughts. All it does is buy him a moment's more time.]
With you by my side, I can rest enough to keep moving forwards. You help me find my way to tomorrow, and I'll be your home until I can build you a real one.
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He takes Verso in. From the tired slant of his brows to the matching slant of his lips, the wit and charm behind those bright, bright eyes, the dark scar that cuts down one side of his face and swirls, like night, along his cheek. His posture, the way he holds his weight, the still slightly-pink palm of one pianist's hand. Sleek silver, like the sword to Clive's squared shield. Damp and warm and, impossibly, his.
Head tipped, Clive rests into the hand on his cheek. It's Verso that should be the one with shelter after decades and decades of accruing world-ending exhaustion, but Verso always tries to meet Clive at least (more than) halfway, and Clive has gotten greedy for it. ]
You're the only home I'll ever need.
[ Truly. Just this touch along his jaw mades Clive believe in the existence of safety; just this time alone, pilfered in a different set of lovers' bathtub, has made him feel more confident in the persistence of his love.
But, as usual, he's made things heavy－ they were just talking about plays, good job Rosfield－ so he tries to recover a bit, shift back into quiet levity. ]
Besides. I might lose my mind if you tell me that you're an expert carpenter, on top of everything else.
[ Is there anything Verso can't do? The warmth in Clive's eyes shifts from molten adoration to exasperated adoration. (It's basically the same.) ]
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Now, he has a different point to meet Clive at; relinquishing his hold on his face, he dips both hands into the water, cupping some between his palms to pour over Clive's hair. Please forgive him for not using the faucet; he is a forestman sadman and such are his habits, now.
Speaking of...]
Consider your mind safe. I didn't say it'd be a fine house.
[There's an impish light to his eyes, a lilt of trouble to his voice. One day, Verso will take Clive to visit his Hot Mess shack in the woods in all its rundown and barely cobbled together glory, belongings scattered in all corners, random Nevron parts tucked away behind very, very liberal interpretations of walls. Maybe the mime he keeps as a neighbour will even drop by to say hello.
Somewhat distractedly, he runs his fingers across Clive's scalp, more of a massage than a washing.]
But it'd be ours. You know, proof that we can make this world our own instead of being...
[Playthings. Pawns. Unwitting actors in a decades-long play, held captive on a stage of grief. A huff. A recalibration. Then:]
Reliant on them.
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His lips stay arched, humor bleeding into his voice as he tries not to get tepid water in his mouth. ]
Maybe you could draw the floorplans and leave the building to me.
[ It's fine, babe, stand around looking sexy while he does the gruntwork. It'll be good for morale, honestly.
One more surge of scarlet chroma, keeping the bath from going too lukewarm and with them ending in a situation where they'd both have to explain to Joshua how they caught a cold at the same exact time (can Verso catch colds? has he ever?). ]
Or there may be an abandoned operahouse somewhere on the Continent that we could repurpose. [ It's not too far-fetched: there have been entire city blocks left isolated in very unlikely places. ] I think I read a novel about someone who did something to that extent.
[ A pastiche of Gaston Leroux's Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. A loan from Benedikta; he never did get to tell her how he felt about the ending. ]
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Like love after so much loss. A point that's been made so many times tonight the number is surely beyond countable, but one that Verso knows so well the consequences of losing sight of that he refuses to take it for granted. When the tub warms, so does his smile, a still-mischievous thing as he pictures Clive with grease on his face and sawdust in his hair, sleeves rolled up as he carries a pile of planked wood over his shoulder. A little cliché for the mind of an artist, perhaps, but the man likes what he likes.
With great care to not let any soap drip down Clive's face, Verso starts working his hair clean, still at a massaging pace.]
Why do I get the feeling that I'm the ingenue in both these scenarios?
[Which is to say that he's also familiar with the novel – there is not much else to do on the Continent besides read, and he can't spend all his time dwelling in varying states of despair. There's more laughter in his voice, an air of comfortable resignation. They've already established that he likes the idea of Clive swooping him in to claim his more-than-willing heart, and if they're already moving to rewrite their stories, then they can shift the narrative of how they occupy the operahouse, too, both of them like phantoms, both of them radiating their forms of light rather than succumbing to the darkness.]
But is that what you want? A place in some far-flung corner of the world.
[Verso has to admit it sounds nice. A bit lonely, perhaps, but there's familiarity in that kind of loneliness, at least for him, and perhaps for Clive, too, particularly if it takes them a while to reach that point. If it's reachable, the ever-unhelpful voice at the back of his mind reminds him, but shush, shush, shush. He is not a fool in general, just a fool in love.]
We'll have to get the trains running again. [It is possible that he has never sounded more excited about anything.] You'll love them. The way they speed across the Continent... it's indescribable.
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Staying upright and behaving is very difficult under current circumstances, but Clive sits still and lets Verso do as he will with the unruly mop of his raven-black hair. No matter how they dry it, it'll wind up being a wild mess; maybe with some product, they can emulate the styling from his youth. Half slicked-back, half combed-down. ]
Not so far-flung that people wouldn't be able to come hear you play if you wanted them to.
[ To answer the question, while the term 'angel of music' is still fresh on his mind. Which segues nicely into the topic of trains, which might carry scores of adoring Verso fans to their hypothetical refurbished operahouse. It's a ludicrous fantasy, all things considered, but why not? They've had their entire lives to lament, and they can't be faulted their moments of harmless delusion.
Doing his best not to slosh forward and dislodge Verso's hands in his hair (melting under the touch, as much as he wants to reciprocate): ]
You know, this is the first time I've ever seen a real train. [ First in Monoco's Station, and now in Frozen Hearts, with their ethereal presence winding impossible paths in air. It's easy to forget that the door in Clea's atelier leads back out into all that strange beauty, what with the catastrophe that happened in that ice-logged cave. ] Did you ride them often, when they were still operational?
[ Please, tell him about your special interests. Clive obviously wants and needs more reasons to adore Verso, hungry as he is for all the tidbits of him that put him into clearer focus. ]
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His work and the man. Mostly the man. Verso likes the unruly mess, the shaggy dog. Appreciates how his scruff and low-buttoned shirt and battle-worn leathers all come together to craft this rugged campfire of a man, strong and soft in equal measure. Even the way his hair shadows the bluest blue of his eyes has its appeal for how it makes seeing them in the light all the more mesmerising.
Ah, but speaking of mesmerising:]
Oh, all the time. And not always because I had somewhere to be. Sometimes, I'd wake up in the morning, take the first train out of Lumiere, and just... write music until we were back in the city. That's part of the reason why I took up the guitar.
[Now, he reaches back into the bathwater, pooling more of it in his palms and, alas, using it to rinse the soap from Clive's hair. Then, more soap, more oil, more bathwater massaged into Clive's chest this time, the calloused pads of Verso's thumbs pressing into dirt and strain alike.]
I still do that. And when I get deep enough into the music, it's like...
[He closes his eyes, lolls his head to the side, takes a deep breath. When his eyes open again, there's a peace to them, a melancholy, a pain he doesn't try to hide because he wants to let his honesty stand on its own.]
For a few moments, it's like the Fracture never happened.
[At least he remembers how things felt before, anyway.]
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Or, well. Into the compact space of a train car. Clive tries to imagine it: Verso, sitting in a corner booth with paper and inkwell occupying the seat next to him, legs crossed with his instrument propped against his knee. He tries to think of how the light from the window would catch him in profile, how men and women would stream in and out and linger around to listen, enriched by the swell and ebb of half-written melodies. How peaceful it must have been, and how many lives Verso must have unwittingly touched.
That should have been the legacy he left; not the sterile, vague figures standing vigil in Lumiére's harbor. One damp hand lifts from the water to press against Verso's cheek, holding him steady while keeping him in place for Clive to meet that look, to absorb it properly. Under Verso's palm, Clive's heartbeat keeps a regular, slow rhythm.
Not unlike the ambient swaying of a train, maybe. Clive can hope. ]
You have so much music in you. All that light, waiting to be heard.
[ His voice skims low, as if he's afraid that speaking too loud will drown out an invisible tune waiting to be channeled between them. ]
Do you have a favorite song that you've written?
[ Cradled by the safety of a destination-less journey, committed to gentle memory. Clive would like to hear it, one day. ]
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A light laugh follows, an inward expression of stop being so dramatic-slash-depressing, which for once isn't an easier-said-than-done prospect. As ever – as always, he hopes – the simplicity of Clive's heartbeat, its calmness amid the storm in Verso's own heart, is a well of strength that flows into him.]
Not really. It... changes. I mean, the song I wrote for Alicia is my favourite thing to play when she's here, but when she's not... all I hear are its flaws.
[Clumsy fingers. Notes he wishes he'd strung together differently. Melodies he thinks he could have woven more emotion into. Little technical hiccups in the music. Issues that aren't actually present but that the incessant flagellant inside of him will always find regardless.]
Right now? It's a little something I'm working on.
[With no instrument to play, he starts to hum the tentative draft of a song, his thumbs meandering from their task to move as if painting the notes on Clive's skin. It's a short song, infused with as much emotion as Verso can carry on such a softened voice, and when it's finished he doesn't say anything or ask Clive what he thinks, he simply shifts back to washing his chest.]
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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