[Said with a light laugh. Verso, too, isn't sure what else he expected, and with less of an idea of how to make a rebuttal, he takes his sandwich and eats it as told. Except far be it from him to let that be the impression he makes. So, once he swallows his last bite, he makes a possibly predictable clarification.]
I only did that because it's delicious, for the record.
[And it's not entirely a lie, but in the end it's a simple thing that he can do to make his lover happy, so of course he obliged him. Clive could tell him to cobble together a chef costume and prepare another batch of sandwiches and he would at least consider humouring him.
Joshua is a little more familiar with Clive and therefore a little more reluctant to accept his follow-up at face value. But with that familiarity comes an understanding of when to back off, so he holds up his hands in defeat. "All right, but only a little less," he says, then pauses, a little twinkle lighting up his eyes. Maybe it's not such a complete defeat. "You do know what they say about old habits."
All sandwiches eaten, Joshua sinks back against the couch, his focus soft and contemplative. "I am glad for you both," he adds after a moment. "May your love for each other help change the course of this world."
Another laugh from Verso, this one a little more tentative, a little more like a huff.]
No pressure, right?
[Wrong. Which he knows; of course he does. They all understand the weight that rests upon their shoulders. Might as well laugh about it while they're still able.]
[ And, truly, this really is everything Clive could ask for. If he were a painter, this is what he'd want his tableau to look like: Joshua with his sky-blue eyes reclining on a chair in a room full of books, and Verso leaning away from an empty tray once-full of homemade breakfast. It's a facsimile of something normal and uncomplicated, as nothing about any of them fit either of those descriptors, but it's quiet and gentle and unmarred by flame or steel.
Old souls in younger bodies, speaking of things that would normally remain unspoken. Affection claws up the back of Clive's throat, tightening it enough that his next breath whistles. ]
No pressure.
[ Convinced, despite the fickle hand of fate always tightening its vicelike grip around them. Of all the things he could be uncertain about, his love has never been one of them; is it enough to change the world? Maybe not, but he can hold to the hope that it is. He can try to believe that it will be enough, because it feels more than enough to him and his heart.
Clive rests against the plush cushions of their couch, and casts a glance Verso's way. ]
Now, am I permitted a question? Or is this a Joshua-and-Verso-exclusive exchange?
[ Not that he's clamoring to be included, but. For the sake of letting this moment linger, Clive volunteers himself (and, consequently, Verso). ]
[There it is again, that surety Clive carries in himself, that conviction that keeps pushing Verso to believe in the impossible, or at least the improbable. Which itself was practically an impossibility in its own right before they'd met, and so while Verso still has his worries about what the path ahead might take from Clive, they lessen a little more. It's okay. They're okay. Maybe just for now, maybe never again after, but that's all the more reason to let it matter when that sense of okayness is everywhere around them.
A sheepish glance in response to Clive's question – have he and Joshua been monopolising the conversation? He hopes not, but it's also been a long time since he's had this kind of conversation, and so he isn't entirely sure of the etiquette. What he does know is that there isn't a universe in which he turns Clive down and doesn't come across as absolute dingus-minded doofus – not that there's a universe in which he wants to turn him down, mind – and so he shifts a little to better face him, arm resting on the back of the couch.]
Of course. And you know what? I'll do you one better. You can have two.
[The man has a litany of famous-last-word moments. If this ends up counting among them, oh well.]
[ Oh, Verso. Again, with the ping-ponging of "why did I think he would say any different", a soft laugh to garnish the sentiment as Clive forgets himself for a moment and leans in, pressing his palm to that handsome face and thumbing just below that audacious mouth that claims he'd be fine with two entire questions. Verso's uncalculated risks are worrying, but the way it slants his pretty lips is always strangely alluring. ]
It's not a competition, mon étoile.
[ You know. Just in case Verso expects this to turn into a battle of questions that someone is meant to win. Joshua is far too polite to roll his eyes at this display, but he does, in fact, look interested in what kind of question his brother would ask someone who he's presumably been traveling with long enough to know the basics of.
And, well. With his hand still resting on warm skin, he travels his thumb from the corner of those full, very-kissable lips up to the corner of one halo-bright eye. The one bisected by that ink-swirl scar, which he traces along.
Question one, then. ]
How did you get this?
[ Not a happy memory, probably. So Clive adds, to cushion the blow: ]
It's fetching on you.
[ Really adds to the 'dark and tortured man of mystery' vibe. Clive is biased, though. ]
[The song Clive plays upon Verso's skin is beautiful, captivating; Verso can feel its vibrations course through him, can feel himself slipping away into that wonderful space between reality and fantasy, where he retreats to with his music, where he can find the strength to express himself.
But even as Clive's touches reveal the direction things are headed, his words are still discordant. A yanking of Verso from one space to another, yet he exists concurrently in them both. In love enough to want to be taken elsewhere; in love enough to be all right with being guided through things that hurt.]
That's... courtesy of my father.
[Verso cants his head to the side, shoulder rising to meet it in a halved shrug. There are some things he's still not comfortable saying, so he takes a moment to stitch together something a little more complete than we fought and it sucked.]
We used to be on the same side. Couldn't agree on anything, but all we had was Alicia and each other, so I... endured until I couldn't anymore. He tried to cut me down when I let him know I'd be leaving, and we fought.
[Desperately. Mercilessly. Verso can still call to mind with near-perfect accuracy the vitriol in his father's words, the heartlessness in his eyes, the way the air itself felt like a cage closing in on him. Aline controlled him through happiness and delusion; Renoir would have seen him locked up and miserable if would mean that he'd be safe. Relatable in present company, he knows, but he can't bring himself to go into that much depth.]
I lost my family that day, so I keep it as a reminder of what I had to give up to get to where I am.
[ Definitely an unhappy memory. A few feet away, Clive can practically feel Joshua tensing in his chair, shocked by the claim of such unthinkable violence committed by a father against his son; Clive can also feel how Joshua slumps a moment thereafter, recalling the origin of Clive's scar on his face and knowing that it's so often the case that the most unspeakable displays of cruelty happen between blood relations.
(Paint relations? Doesn't matter. Whatever they bleed, it still hurts.)
As if to smooth over the fissure that Renoir has permanently left, Clive touches along Verso's face again, just along the seam of the fracture (ha). A running theme with the Dessendres, apparently. ]
...A mark of your agency, no matter how hard-earned it was. No wonder it looks beautiful on you.
[ It's very... Verso. To commemorate his losses on his skin, to wear the proof of his own pain. Clive's gaze flits down to the other man's wrist, where claws had dug in and left crescent-shaped marks; it's hidden under a sleeve right now, but he thinks he recalls them having still been present the night prior.
In the breath of silence that follows Clive's appraisal, Joshua softly interjects:
"Clive told me that the night he realized that Ifrit was a part of him, your father had been present. Has he been pursuing you all this time? To what end? Surely he can't expect you to have changed your mind."
Second question? Or does this one not count, since it's coming from Joshua? It doesn't matter either way, really― Clive finally draws his hand back, but only to replace it with a brief flutter of his lips under Verso's eye. ]
[At least with how Verso is curled on the sofa, he can't pick up on the full extent of Joshua's reaction. Just a glimpse of a shifting. A mixed blessing. Distracted as he is by that swell of... something – warmth, stubbornness, pride, the unique joy of being seen – when Clive reasserts the beauty of his scars, touch and words back to being harmonic, it only makes the way Joshua holds himself more apparent when he asks his own question and Verso turns back away from Clive to receive it.]
He sees every Gommage as a new opportunity to try and convince me.
[By which me means that he tries to leverage his failures against him. It's futile. There's nothing to be done besides give into the fantasy of family. Alicia deserves better. Et cetera.]
And every fight as a chance to restrain me.
[A sigh. Verso looks up at the roof as if the answers are written on its surface, shaking his head lightly as he does. It only lasts a moment, but when he continues, there's fresh vitriol behind his words, born of a bitterness held longer in Verso's heart than the love he'd once held for his father.]
Nothing matters more to him than having his family back. He'd burn the world down if that's what it took. He'd burn me down, too, in order to ... To keep me safe.
[Like Aline. Like the other Renoir. Like Clea. Like Verso himself. Each in their own self-destructive ways, each at the cost of everyone else as well. Verso chews on the inside of his lower lip, contemplating whether to leave things there. Technically, it answers the question of to what end, but it leaves so much more open, and Verso had promised to try and be more honest, so...]
Because in his ideal future, the Paintress stays here until it kills her, and we all die together.
[ Another contemplative fidget on Joshua's end: a crossing and uncrossing of his legs, as he stews in Verso's response. It's semi-familiar to him, and it's Clive that gives that feeling voice this time around: ]
Surviving only to die. ...Our mother was somewhat the same.
[ She would have put Joshua in a gilded pen, had him find someone to bear an heir, and waited for the cycle of death to come again to claim her. All Anabella had cared about was preserving a bloodline― Clive had heard her crooning, once upon a time, to an infant Joshua, that their family was the only one in Lumière to have a surname, because all the other children were descendants of orphans or had otherwise forgotten them after the Fracture. Rosfield, she had said, though Clive has never claimed it for his own.
But at least Anabella had never threatened violence against Joshua, thank god. Had never raised a finger against him, unlike Renoir and his willingness to drag the battered, broken half-corpse of his son back to the mansion to... what, seat him in an armchair as decoration, like so many of the portraits that hang in this manor?
Clive shakes his head, and rests one hand lightly on the back of Verso's. ]
I've said it before― it's madness. A parent should never wish for their child's death.
[ "Nor deprive them of their will to live. In that way, it seems your father is a slave to your mother's machinations."
A harsh assessment? Maybe. But it comes from a place of knowing― Joshua, too, could have been the same. It breaks Clive's heart. ]
[Verso looks down at where Clive's hand rests atop his own, hesitating for a moment before shifting his fingers to lace them together with Clive's. Legacy and stagnancy have long felt like the same concept differently packaged, and everything he's heard about Anabella have only driven that home for him. Change is a loss of control. The failure to meet expectations is an insult against one's heritage. A parent always knows better than their child.
There is a difference between Anabella and Renoir, though, one that Joshua touches on but can't complete. Anabella didn't act on love; for Renoir, that's his only driving factor. So:]
He's afraid, and he's drunk on love and his own illusions, and following her lead is the only thing that still makes sense in his world.
[Which sounds ridiculous, even to Verso. Of everyone, she's changed the most. Strong, proud Aline, fearless and perseverant, once gazing down at the world from among the loftiest positions, now lost to her grief and her desperate grip on the nightmarish fairytales she writes with the real Renoir. Not for the first time, he wonders who and what his father truly loves.
That doesn't need to be part of what he shares, so another pause, another mental tangent travelled down, before he continues.]
There's no freeing him from that. Believe me, I've tried. He just... He'll never stop being that slave.
[And thus, he'll never stop pursuing Verso. Never stop trying to isolate him. Never stop trying to convince him that the only path ahead is the one that marches them all the way back to a past that was never real.]
[ Verso uses that word too, slave, and it makes Clive's stomach turn again. All of them, marching blindly along railings set by a woman deranged by grief― surely there's more to life than this, more to glean from being alive than the constant reminder of irreplaceable loss.
But that's also rich, coming from him. Clive, who spent the greater part of his first few weeks with Verso on autopilot after his brother's presumed death; Clive, who'd molded himself around the same feeling of devastation that Aline is still feeling now, and prayed only for death to come after revenge. Who is he to speak about taking loss poorly?
Regardless, something biting and sharp glints in the blues of his eyes; a promise and a resolve, far more aggressive than he usually allows himself to be around Verso. ]
I would never let him take you.
[ His grip around Verso tightens. Never sounds almost like a growl, like the furnace-fire rumble of the hellbeast living in his chest. ]
Your father mistakes servility for love. And if your mother demands genuflection in place of sincerity, then we have to correct it.
[ To that... well. Joshua tips his head, and clears his throat. Clive glances towards him, eyes still glittering with knifelike focus, and huffs when his brother offers a soft: "listen to your own advice on occasion, brother." ]
[Oh, he doesn't like that aggressiveness. Not because of it reveals some new and unwelcome side of Clive – it doesn't – but rather because of what it says about how well he's taken Verso's request to heart. Which is to say not at all. It's a resounding no, an insistent we. Where Clive's grip on his hand tightens, Verso releases his, pulling his hand away and shifting a little bit back on the couch, distancing himself from this burst of drive.]
Yeah, so that's the opposite of leaving him to me.
[There is some humour to his tone, but mostly it's obfuscated by something tentative, something frustrated. Let me save you, too, he thinks to himself, not seeing the point in reasserting something he'd so recently said. Listen to you brother also goes unsaid, as does, "Ignore heart for once and follow ours in this. None of those feel like the right thing to say, though, so instead he moves to clarify.]
We run into him and he gets the better of us? I guarantee it's not me who he takes.
[How better to lure his son in? How better to chip away at his morale? How better to keep him captive? Nothing – absolutely nothing – would bring about Verso's defeat more surely than losing the last bit of light he's managed to scrounge together in this forsaken world.
Ah, but the reverse might just be as true. So, he softens just a little without losing any of his resolve.]
Look, I know I'm asking a lot, but you have to understand this isn't your fight.
[That last bit carries a lilt of pleading. Not intentional. Just strongly felt.]
[ Creased brows furrow further. Clive likes neither the distance nor the suggestion that Renoir-related conflicts are ones he'll have to sit out, but the memory of Clea and the cage she'd put Verso in remains fresh on his mind: thinking back on the man he loves pleading for his life makes Clive want to tear himself apart. He never wants Verso to have to do that again.
And yet. And yet. ]
...Our encounter with the Paintress' daughter proved that I can't be so easily erased.
[ Which is still the opposite of leaving Renoir to Verso. Clive knows it, but his obstinacy makes him dig his heels in one more time, at least one more time―
―only for him to earn Joshua's ire. He hears it before he sees it in the deep-set frown of his brother's face, in the way he squares his shoulders as he stands up. "Founder, Clive, listen to yourself. It's as if you think we depend on your pain to survive."
Straight and to the point. The sudden interjection knocks Clive sideways, but he doesn't get a chance to make his rebuttal before Joshua is leveling him with another observation-turned-question, demanding reflection with the imperiousness of a young prince.
"Do you think Verso wants to see you whittle yourself thin for his sake? How meaningful do you suppose any victory would be if you were left broken in the aftermath?"
Food for thought. Clive makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat, and tightens his grip on the crest of his knee. ]
[It isn't only Clive for whom Joshua's words resonate; Verso watches him rise and speak like a practised orator, brimming with the authority Anabella ascribed to his lineage and with a stubborn strength that rivals Clive's in near-perfect contrast. This changes the course he would have taken otherwise – one down which he argued the semantics of erasure – and finds him leaning back in towards Clive, though he doesn't reach out for him quite yet.]
My mother, my father, my sisters, Verso's real family, the Lumierans, the Gommage, the Nevrons... the only constant in this world is sacrifice. What are you changing by feeding into that?
[A bit hypocritical given how firm he is in his belief that his own sacrifice would serve as a course correction, but, again, such is the consequence of feeling like he's at the centre of everything. Such is the result of spending decades knowing that he's not worth all that's happened.]
Listen to me, Clive. You're a threat to everything he's trying to accomplish. The greatest one he's faced since the Fracture by far. He'll be at his strongest fighting you. But me? His methods don't change the fact that he does love me. And that weakens him.
[Which doesn't feel particularly great to say. There's a certain arrogance to it, an element of manipulation that he doesn't like to admit to, even if it's also one he's wielded more than a few times over the decades. One that his father has sharpened into one of the sharpest weapons in his arsenal. It's true, though, and Verso knows it well enough to speak it with infallible confidence.]
So, I'm telling you, if you want to keep me safe from him, then you're going to have to keep yourself safe first.
[ Predictably, Clive thinks to fire back with a "then you shouldn't have to sacrifice yourself, either". But he knows why Verso would consider himself the best man for the task of being a bulwark against the Dessendres, and the claim that Renoir will pull his punches against him is...
...probably true. Though not to any extent that would make Clive comfortable letting the violence happen. Verso had said so himself, that his father would burn him to keep him 'safe'― he tries to imagine himself sitting idly by while anything like that happens, and Clive simply can't, much as he doesn't enjoy making Verso plead his case or seeing Joshua's face twist with indignation.
So, a concession of sorts. (Or, well, a disclaimer. Close enough.) ]
You saw what happened last time we encountered your father. [ Anger and fear and other emotions so strong that they made the creature he'd been denying crawl out of its hiding space. ] ...I can't guarantee that I won't do anything if I see you hurt.
[ Joshua heaves an aggravated sigh at that; Clive knows that it's not the answer that either man wants from him. But just as Verso couldn't promise that he'd learn to love again if something happened to Clive, Clive can't promise that he'd hide and grit his teeth if the love of his life were in peril.
The most he can offer, with furrowed brows and a lowered gaze, is: ]
I'll do my utmost not to get in your way. But I can't promise that I won't.
[What happened to Clive last time is part of the reason why Verso would rather he keep his distance from Renoir. Not that he doesn't trust Clive, but rather because he doesn't want to see him pushed to those limits again. It's a silly notion at its core – there is nothing Verso can do to prevent anything from happening to anyone, anywhere, at any time when the Dessendres have such absolute control over everything – but fuck, he feels it with the whole of his being, such a radiant need that it may well resonate out from Verso and into the silvered chroma lacing Clive's heart.
In an uncomfortable way, he thinks he understands a little bit better where his father's coming from. A thought that twists his own expression, that looses a heavy sigh. Maybe Clive truly will be the end of him. Seeing him suffer and understanding his role in bring that suffering about feels like a worse fate than any other that might greet him on the other side of tomorrow. Except one: the both of them standing alone because they can't bear the consequences of acting together.
So, he runs his hands across his face, tightening all his excess tension into an expression neither brother can see, then almost wiping it away as he parts his hands and looks Clive head-on again, a light in his eye shining in place of the earlier pleas, but with a tiredness that steals away some of its glimmer.]
You're lucky I love you so much.
[If he didn't, he's not sure that he'd be able to resist the drive to pull away, sparing Clive from the curse of existing within his proximity and the consequences of perpetuating his too-long-lived life. He might have chosen the worst possible way to try and protect Clive. Instead, he taps Clive's hand where he grips onto his own knee, playing a silent, lilting song on the peaks of his knuckles.]
Not as lucky as I am that you love me, but... a decent second.
[ Oh, he can absolutely make this a competition if Verso wants to. Verso has had several decades to unlearn the idea of love, or at least consign it to a dark, inaccessible place with pretty masks to serve as a facsimile, and yet― here he is, tapping a gentle melody against his skin, offering his heart even when he knows it's liable to break at any point in time. It would be sacrilege to treat that heart poorly, to give it an excuse to hurt more than it already has over the years.
So. Here they are, at a stalemate. Neither of them willing to relent completely, but both of them understanding why they won't. Clive sighs, then shifts where he's sitting, sliding his hand under Verso's only to press it, along with the other hand, against the other man's face. A Verso sandwich. ]
You're worth fighting for. And you always will be.
[ That's Clive's truth, straightforward as ever. But Joshua, ever the one with more perspective, flumps back onto his chair and appraises the pair with no small amount of concern; Clive can feel it, though he has a feeling that the sentiment is directed more towards Verso than it is towards him.
"Be that as it may, Clive, if defeating Verso's father was as simple as besting him in swordplay, I can't help but think that he would have been felled ages ago. Our... uniqueness aside, pray listen to Verso about being cautious. There must be a reason why he insists."
Translation: sometimes you need a more solid strategy than whacking someone with a sword, dummy. Clive blinks, then slowly lowers his hand back onto his own knees. ]
[An idiot sandwich, but at least they're dumb, self-sacrificial sadmen together, relearning and discovering what the hell that kind of love is supposed to mean. So even as Verso feels Joshua's concern, too, he doesn't try to figure out how best to apply it to their circumstances. What else is there for him to do besides love Clive as he comes and face the world as it does? They could talk more, he supposes, digging down into their deepest insecurities, but that poses its own question of what they could feasibly accomplish. Nothing will change who they are at their cores. Not the memory of a dead man, not the housing of a vicious beast, not the machinations of people who act as if they're gods for the fact that they have blood in their veins instead of ink.
Of course, he could also address why Renoir still stands despite all the the destruction he's wrought against the Expeditions: the pure and simple fact that Verso has yet to find the heart to try to incapacitate him, knowing what he does of his motives, understanding what he does of where the fallen's chroma ends up when they're felled by Renoir rather than the Nevrons. Not wanting Alicia to be alone in the world, either, only the apparition of her mother by her side, a mother who's still barely able to look at her even without a face to make that apparent.
But he doesn't. It's something he'll need to share with Clive eventually, he just can't expose that part of himself now. Besides, Joshua isn't wrong. Renoir is profoundly powerful, and that feels more important to focus on. So:]
The Paintress gave him incredible powers. Even I don't know everything he's capable of doing. And part of that is because in theory, she has the ability him more. I mean, I can't say either way, but even if Clea painted you, the Paintress will know your chroma. It's possible that she's already found a way to counter it through him.
[And how do you counter the unknowable? By fucking parrying it on your first try? Please.]
Not to mention that this... gift of immortality is her doing. There's not a chance that she's incapable of reversing it, if that's what she wants.
[A small if, he thinks. The Aline of this world has always been more supportive of him than the one from Paris had of the real Verso. Such is the consequence of loss. So, it's not outside of the realm of possibility that she would try to preserve her son's happiness. Anything to keep him in this world. Anything to validate her choices.]
[ Ah. Well, that's just cheating, isn't it? Being able to layer abilities on top of abilities to counter anything that might come their way― but maybe that's the way of gods. So sure of their superiority that they'd do anything to maintain it, without knowing what they're even maintaining all of it for.
Clive's shoulders droop somewhat, but the edge of obstinacy doesn't leave the set of his jaw. A hound being told to heel, but remaining ready to spring forward at a moment's notice. ]
Point taken. [ He's but a man (with a monster in him) (a monster painted to look like a man?), and he doesn't have the shield of family to protect him from instant annihilation. Fine, he can concede that― especially on the heels of having seen what Renoir has done to their father, which is...
...not something he's been able to tell Joshua about, yet. He'll have to, perhaps to give his brother a little more context for his vehemence, but not while Verso is around. No part of him wants Verso to have to say I'm sorry again.
Instead― since he can tell that he's been defeated in this particular battle of words― he lifts his hands, palms up. ] ...Stubborn, the lot of us. But I suppose we'd have to be, to be doing what we're doing.
[ Fighting against the very shape of the world. Defying not just Fate, but the fabric of their existence. A foolish, reckless, crazy mission, as only living things with free will can set for themselves. At the very least, Clive can be proud of that. ]
And now I know not to try to debate anything when you two are both in one room.
[Verso keeps the Elwin connection quiet, too; it isn't his place to share any of what happened ahead of Clive. Nor does he consider it appropriate for him to needle him into making this reveal as he had the one about his presumed immortality. So he, too, lets the subject of Renoir drop with the rise of Clive's hands, following up with his own guilty-as-charged shrug when he casts the same (incredibly valid) judgment against them all.
It is good that they're stubborn. Nice, too; there's an appeal to butting heads without any of them trying to exert unreasonable control or wearing each other down in pursuit of a perfect solution that doesn't exist.
Verso may have had the more traditional family experience – having been crafted as a fully fledged adult aside – but the way the brothers not-Rosfield bounce off of each other gives him a more traditional feeling of family. Challenge and concession, warmth and teasing, an ebbing and flowing that takes them each from where they are to where the other stands.
He doesn't want to get ahead of himself. He doesn't want to go back to thinking this kind of a life isn't possible here. He brushes it off yet again. The opportunity to tease has availed itself. And he's only impishly human.]
At least not when your side of the debate is, Guys, it would really mean a lot if you let me throw myself headlong into danger.
[Spoken in his best imitation of Clive, which is a very good one for strange and mysterious reasons.]
We love you too much to let you be the hero, you doofus.
[Still a little slow to get completely onboard, Joshua also knows when he's been outnumbered, so he chases away the last lingering traces of objection and leans forward, not quite done with the darker side of their circumstances yet. "That addresses the matter of Renoir, then. But is there aught you'd have us know about Ifrit? Whether to see to your safety or to our own?"]
[ Hey!!!! That is a very legitimate argument to make, thank you very much!!!! Not that Clive puffs up at the imitation or the implication that he's being ridiculous (he isn't) (he is); he can appreciate that Verso doesn't want Clive to be yet another corpse he buries, and Clive doesn't want to be another exhausting memory of loss for Verso to carry throughout the years.
He does look like he wants to reject 'hero', though. He's no such thing. If anything, he's always doing the exact opposite of what's recommended to him－ or, well, so Cid had told him on occasion. Rich, coming from a man who used to call himself an outlaw.
But before he can say anything about that, Joshua asks about Ifrit, and... well, what is there to say about the hellfire raging in Clive's veins? His brother is correct to worry about the Nevron who nearly killed him (a nasty scar sits along his sternum as proof of the disaster, burnt-black and swirling), and correct to consider how to mitigate this particular risk.
A beat, and Clive leans forward, elbow on his knee and his open palm pointed towards the ceiling. He lets scarlet chroma pool and flicker around his fingertips, wild and untamed, then coalesces it all into a neat sphere that hovers a few inches in the air, rotating gently. ]
I've come to an understanding with it. [ The little sphere flares hotter, and Clive corrects: ] ...Him.
But he remains willful. He responds to the Dessendre's chroma with alarming voraciousness― sometimes I feel him trying to pull himself towards Verso.
[ That dark, starving need, nestled in the pit of Clive's stomach. A fire wanting to consume everything. ]
[Verso watches the flame in silence, both its unruliness and its taming, close enough to pick up on that surge of heat. Clive yet not Clive; Ifrit yet something more than he was made to be in his own right. There's an impulse to reach out and touch that flame, let its chroma suffuse him in a light he's never really opened his eyes to before, but thinks better of it in the end. It almost feels too intimate of a gesture for how important sharing their chroma has become to him, something to be attempted when they're alone.
So, instead, he shoots out some of his own light, swirling it around the flames without touching them, watching to see how their chroma reacts when it exists in territory far more neutral than their hearts. His, at least, is still teasing, still daring, still brimming with the fearlessness of a man condemned to live forever.
How Joshua watches it all is unreadable in a way that Verso almost envies, that natural suppression, that inborn sense of calm. “Tell, what is the nature of this arrangement? Will you be wielding him as a weapon, or is he more of a hail Mary to call upon when naught else avails itself? If even that."
It's a question Verso has yet to ask; the relative calm of the past few weeks has kept him from wanting to think too far ahead into the bloodied and violent futures that await them. And maybe his silence is a bit bolstered by projection, too, on the unearned assumptions he's based on what he knows about what it means to wield unthinkable power. Regardless, his curiosity is piqued now, and so he looks to Clive with gentle interest, with a trust that can transcend anything.]
[ Silver dances around scarlet, and, much like a cat batting at a toy, fire chases starlight. A strange thing, to watch colors interact as if they have a mind of their own. Clive notes how the embers of his chroma flicker then flare, unhinging itself like an open maw to try to swallow the glittering light weaving and ducking around it. A sliver of silver finds itself consumed by flame, and the result is a small, orange-yellow spark that burns brighter than the others.
Curious, but not entirely unfamiliar. It looks like how Clive had felt when Verso fed him his chroma the first time: an illumination from the inside out.
He takes all of that in, buying time as he turns over the question of how he intends to wield Ifrit, if at all. His initial answer is as honest as it is likely unhelpful: ]
I hadn't considered it. Our 'arrangement', as you say. [ Because: ] I'd been too preoccupied with the notion of controlling and containing him, so that he doesn't hurt anyone else.
[ It'd been all he could do to keep himself from losing his mind every time his hellbeast deigned to show himself in the open; harnessing him for higher purposes hadn't occurred to Clive at all.
Chroma continues to swirl and weave, until he snuffs his flame out with a flick of his wrist. ]
I can't help but wonder if it isn't what the Painters would want me to do, to rely on Ifrit and his power. To lose myself steadily to his fire, until it's all that's left of me.
But I can't imagine that I could best those that need besting without using this anomaly. It's as Cid always said－ one should make use of whatever tools life decides to bestow upon them.
[As far as plans go, we'll see what happens when it happens is not the most solid, but there's a certain comfort in how it lacks any specific expectation. No rules to follow besides the ones they set in the moment. No defaulting to failure it something doesn't go one way or another. Between Renoir and Ifrit and the Dessendres, there are too many unknowable variables for them to anticipate, anyway. Better to leave their minds open than to forge paths that might take them backwards. Et cetera.
Or Verso's exhausted mind lacks the capacity to think on the situation too hard or for too long. That's probably a contributing factor, too.
No matter. The flame is snuffed and Verso lets those thoughts dissipate with the light of his own chroma in silvery wafts of smoke. What the Painters want is a question that hasn't really stopped gnawing at him. Given how prone they are towards following the worst of their whims, it feels like another unknowable, something that might well change the next time Clea wakes up in the morning bitterly resentful over how she's been isolated.
There is one thing he thinks he can speak on, though, and he shifts on his seat as if trying to level himself out.]
Letting power corrupt them... it's all they know, so I wouldn't be surprised if they think everyone's the same way. Especially when we're all their creations.
[And thus, perhaps, susceptible to their interpretations, as is all art. Except that isn't the way of things, and Verso does wonder how much or how little they're aware of what it feels like to be alive through paint, how the chroma works its way through them, how the thoughts and feelings and memories and dreams of Verso's he holds inside of himself don't feel any more real, or even any different, from his own.
Another non-point, though. He frowns at the rest of what Clive says, contemplative. If Ifrit will need to be put to use, he'll have to be used well. A masterwork of combat to stand a chance against Painters who rarely produce anything short of their own masterpieces. So, gently:]
Maybe we should start, you know, sparring. Get your control over him up to snuff.
[ At this point, all they can really do is fail upwards, in the best sense of the term. Better to stumble and accidentally find a foothold than to stay still in one place and pray that a path opens up to them somehow. His relationship with Ifrit feels similar to that, actually: like extending a hand to shake and knowing that there's a fifty-percent chance that the other side will pull theirs back at the last possible moment.
Better to have tried. That's the prevailing sentiment to Clive's answer, though he does voice a bit of his uncertainties surrounding the matter. ]
We could. But, like I said― Ifrit is drawn to you, Verso. If anything goes amiss, you're going to have to incapacitate me.
[ Granted, 'incapacitate' is a very open-ended term. The last time he'd wanted Verso to do so, Verso wound up burning his hand against Clive's chest, so. Maybe he should try being a bit more specific.
Or not. He doesn't want to dampen breakfast further than he already has, so he turns towards Joshua and offers a light touch of a smile, wan but sure. ]
Verso is an excellent swordsman, [ errs on the side of doting, and Joshua gets as close to rolling his eyes as he can.
"Oh, I'm sure. Among many, many other virtues you'd be more than happy to spend all day listing." ]
[Somewhere in the back of his mind, Verso is aware that it is well within the realm of possibility that gumption and love and the foolish confidence of immortality won't be enough to stand up against whatever Ifrit may have in mind, and he will indeed have to incapacitate Clive. Believing in someone else is all well and good, but it can be a form of make-believe in its own right. A mask worn inward, obvious, perhaps, to everyone but him.
He does understand the risks, at least, and so he meets Clive's emphasis with a look that speaks to his own. Whatever it takes, whatever he needs, Verso will meet it head-on. It just might take him an extra moment to realise what exactly that'll entail.
Besides excellent swordsmanship, anyway. Like a basking cat, he lifts his posture a bit at the compliment, though there's nothing elegant about the laugh he huffs out at Joshua's response.]
He talks about you the same way, you know.
[Well, maybe a little different, regretful and mournful, self-deprecating in his comparisons, but Verso can't imagine that Joshua wants to hear as much – or that Clive wants it to be told – and besides, it isn't like the sentiments are dissimilar, anyway, just the circumstances, so he shrugs off that disconnect with a casual roll of his shoulders.]
Tried to get him to give me some ammunition on you, and you know what I got? A story about how much he loves you.
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
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[Said with a light laugh. Verso, too, isn't sure what else he expected, and with less of an idea of how to make a rebuttal, he takes his sandwich and eats it as told. Except far be it from him to let that be the impression he makes. So, once he swallows his last bite, he makes a possibly predictable clarification.]
I only did that because it's delicious, for the record.
[And it's not entirely a lie, but in the end it's a simple thing that he can do to make his lover happy, so of course he obliged him. Clive could tell him to cobble together a chef costume and prepare another batch of sandwiches and he would at least consider humouring him.
Joshua is a little more familiar with Clive and therefore a little more reluctant to accept his follow-up at face value. But with that familiarity comes an understanding of when to back off, so he holds up his hands in defeat. "All right, but only a little less," he says, then pauses, a little twinkle lighting up his eyes. Maybe it's not such a complete defeat. "You do know what they say about old habits."
All sandwiches eaten, Joshua sinks back against the couch, his focus soft and contemplative. "I am glad for you both," he adds after a moment. "May your love for each other help change the course of this world."
Another laugh from Verso, this one a little more tentative, a little more like a huff.]
No pressure, right?
[Wrong. Which he knows; of course he does. They all understand the weight that rests upon their shoulders. Might as well laugh about it while they're still able.]
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Old souls in younger bodies, speaking of things that would normally remain unspoken. Affection claws up the back of Clive's throat, tightening it enough that his next breath whistles. ]
No pressure.
[ Convinced, despite the fickle hand of fate always tightening its vicelike grip around them. Of all the things he could be uncertain about, his love has never been one of them; is it enough to change the world? Maybe not, but he can hold to the hope that it is. He can try to believe that it will be enough, because it feels more than enough to him and his heart.
Clive rests against the plush cushions of their couch, and casts a glance Verso's way. ]
Now, am I permitted a question? Or is this a Joshua-and-Verso-exclusive exchange?
[ Not that he's clamoring to be included, but. For the sake of letting this moment linger, Clive volunteers himself (and, consequently, Verso). ]
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A sheepish glance in response to Clive's question – have he and Joshua been monopolising the conversation? He hopes not, but it's also been a long time since he's had this kind of conversation, and so he isn't entirely sure of the etiquette. What he does know is that there isn't a universe in which he turns Clive down and doesn't come across as absolute dingus-minded doofus – not that there's a universe in which he wants to turn him down, mind – and so he shifts a little to better face him, arm resting on the back of the couch.]
Of course. And you know what? I'll do you one better. You can have two.
[The man has a litany of famous-last-word moments. If this ends up counting among them, oh well.]
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It's not a competition, mon étoile.
[ You know. Just in case Verso expects this to turn into a battle of questions that someone is meant to win. Joshua is far too polite to roll his eyes at this display, but he does, in fact, look interested in what kind of question his brother would ask someone who he's presumably been traveling with long enough to know the basics of.
And, well. With his hand still resting on warm skin, he travels his thumb from the corner of those full, very-kissable lips up to the corner of one halo-bright eye. The one bisected by that ink-swirl scar, which he traces along.
Question one, then. ]
How did you get this?
[ Not a happy memory, probably. So Clive adds, to cushion the blow: ]
It's fetching on you.
[ Really adds to the 'dark and tortured man of mystery' vibe. Clive is biased, though. ]
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But even as Clive's touches reveal the direction things are headed, his words are still discordant. A yanking of Verso from one space to another, yet he exists concurrently in them both. In love enough to want to be taken elsewhere; in love enough to be all right with being guided through things that hurt.]
That's... courtesy of my father.
[Verso cants his head to the side, shoulder rising to meet it in a halved shrug. There are some things he's still not comfortable saying, so he takes a moment to stitch together something a little more complete than we fought and it sucked.]
We used to be on the same side. Couldn't agree on anything, but all we had was Alicia and each other, so I... endured until I couldn't anymore. He tried to cut me down when I let him know I'd be leaving, and we fought.
[Desperately. Mercilessly. Verso can still call to mind with near-perfect accuracy the vitriol in his father's words, the heartlessness in his eyes, the way the air itself felt like a cage closing in on him. Aline controlled him through happiness and delusion; Renoir would have seen him locked up and miserable if would mean that he'd be safe. Relatable in present company, he knows, but he can't bring himself to go into that much depth.]
I lost my family that day, so I keep it as a reminder of what I had to give up to get to where I am.
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(Paint relations? Doesn't matter. Whatever they bleed, it still hurts.)
As if to smooth over the fissure that Renoir has permanently left, Clive touches along Verso's face again, just along the seam of the fracture (ha). A running theme with the Dessendres, apparently. ]
...A mark of your agency, no matter how hard-earned it was. No wonder it looks beautiful on you.
[ It's very... Verso. To commemorate his losses on his skin, to wear the proof of his own pain. Clive's gaze flits down to the other man's wrist, where claws had dug in and left crescent-shaped marks; it's hidden under a sleeve right now, but he thinks he recalls them having still been present the night prior.
In the breath of silence that follows Clive's appraisal, Joshua softly interjects:
"Clive told me that the night he realized that Ifrit was a part of him, your father had been present. Has he been pursuing you all this time? To what end? Surely he can't expect you to have changed your mind."
Second question? Or does this one not count, since it's coming from Joshua? It doesn't matter either way, really― Clive finally draws his hand back, but only to replace it with a brief flutter of his lips under Verso's eye. ]
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He sees every Gommage as a new opportunity to try and convince me.
[By which me means that he tries to leverage his failures against him. It's futile. There's nothing to be done besides give into the fantasy of family. Alicia deserves better. Et cetera.]
And every fight as a chance to restrain me.
[A sigh. Verso looks up at the roof as if the answers are written on its surface, shaking his head lightly as he does. It only lasts a moment, but when he continues, there's fresh vitriol behind his words, born of a bitterness held longer in Verso's heart than the love he'd once held for his father.]
Nothing matters more to him than having his family back. He'd burn the world down if that's what it took. He'd burn me down, too, in order to ... To keep me safe.
[Like Aline. Like the other Renoir. Like Clea. Like Verso himself. Each in their own self-destructive ways, each at the cost of everyone else as well. Verso chews on the inside of his lower lip, contemplating whether to leave things there. Technically, it answers the question of to what end, but it leaves so much more open, and Verso had promised to try and be more honest, so...]
Because in his ideal future, the Paintress stays here until it kills her, and we all die together.
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Surviving only to die. ...Our mother was somewhat the same.
[ She would have put Joshua in a gilded pen, had him find someone to bear an heir, and waited for the cycle of death to come again to claim her. All Anabella had cared about was preserving a bloodline― Clive had heard her crooning, once upon a time, to an infant Joshua, that their family was the only one in Lumière to have a surname, because all the other children were descendants of orphans or had otherwise forgotten them after the Fracture. Rosfield, she had said, though Clive has never claimed it for his own.
But at least Anabella had never threatened violence against Joshua, thank god. Had never raised a finger against him, unlike Renoir and his willingness to drag the battered, broken half-corpse of his son back to the mansion to... what, seat him in an armchair as decoration, like so many of the portraits that hang in this manor?
Clive shakes his head, and rests one hand lightly on the back of Verso's. ]
I've said it before― it's madness. A parent should never wish for their child's death.
[ "Nor deprive them of their will to live. In that way, it seems your father is a slave to your mother's machinations."
A harsh assessment? Maybe. But it comes from a place of knowing― Joshua, too, could have been the same. It breaks Clive's heart. ]
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There is a difference between Anabella and Renoir, though, one that Joshua touches on but can't complete. Anabella didn't act on love; for Renoir, that's his only driving factor. So:]
He's afraid, and he's drunk on love and his own illusions, and following her lead is the only thing that still makes sense in his world.
[Which sounds ridiculous, even to Verso. Of everyone, she's changed the most. Strong, proud Aline, fearless and perseverant, once gazing down at the world from among the loftiest positions, now lost to her grief and her desperate grip on the nightmarish fairytales she writes with the real Renoir. Not for the first time, he wonders who and what his father truly loves.
That doesn't need to be part of what he shares, so another pause, another mental tangent travelled down, before he continues.]
There's no freeing him from that. Believe me, I've tried. He just... He'll never stop being that slave.
[And thus, he'll never stop pursuing Verso. Never stop trying to isolate him. Never stop trying to convince him that the only path ahead is the one that marches them all the way back to a past that was never real.]
So, don't go getting any ideas. Leave him to me.
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But that's also rich, coming from him. Clive, who spent the greater part of his first few weeks with Verso on autopilot after his brother's presumed death; Clive, who'd molded himself around the same feeling of devastation that Aline is still feeling now, and prayed only for death to come after revenge. Who is he to speak about taking loss poorly?
Regardless, something biting and sharp glints in the blues of his eyes; a promise and a resolve, far more aggressive than he usually allows himself to be around Verso. ]
I would never let him take you.
[ His grip around Verso tightens. Never sounds almost like a growl, like the furnace-fire rumble of the hellbeast living in his chest. ]
Your father mistakes servility for love. And if your mother demands genuflection in place of sincerity, then we have to correct it.
[ To that... well. Joshua tips his head, and clears his throat. Clive glances towards him, eyes still glittering with knifelike focus, and huffs when his brother offers a soft: "listen to your own advice on occasion, brother." ]
―I wouldn't. [ "Be another Renoir", he means. ]
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Yeah, so that's the opposite of leaving him to me.
[There is some humour to his tone, but mostly it's obfuscated by something tentative, something frustrated. Let me save you, too, he thinks to himself, not seeing the point in reasserting something he'd so recently said. Listen to you brother also goes unsaid, as does, "Ignore heart for once and follow ours in this. None of those feel like the right thing to say, though, so instead he moves to clarify.]
We run into him and he gets the better of us? I guarantee it's not me who he takes.
[How better to lure his son in? How better to chip away at his morale? How better to keep him captive? Nothing – absolutely nothing – would bring about Verso's defeat more surely than losing the last bit of light he's managed to scrounge together in this forsaken world.
Ah, but the reverse might just be as true. So, he softens just a little without losing any of his resolve.]
Look, I know I'm asking a lot, but you have to understand this isn't your fight.
[That last bit carries a lilt of pleading. Not intentional. Just strongly felt.]
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And yet. And yet. ]
...Our encounter with the Paintress' daughter proved that I can't be so easily erased.
[ Which is still the opposite of leaving Renoir to Verso. Clive knows it, but his obstinacy makes him dig his heels in one more time, at least one more time―
―only for him to earn Joshua's ire. He hears it before he sees it in the deep-set frown of his brother's face, in the way he squares his shoulders as he stands up. "Founder, Clive, listen to yourself. It's as if you think we depend on your pain to survive."
Straight and to the point. The sudden interjection knocks Clive sideways, but he doesn't get a chance to make his rebuttal before Joshua is leveling him with another observation-turned-question, demanding reflection with the imperiousness of a young prince.
"Do you think Verso wants to see you whittle yourself thin for his sake? How meaningful do you suppose any victory would be if you were left broken in the aftermath?"
Food for thought. Clive makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat, and tightens his grip on the crest of his knee. ]
I...
[ He doesn't have an answer. ]
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My mother, my father, my sisters, Verso's real family, the Lumierans, the Gommage, the Nevrons... the only constant in this world is sacrifice. What are you changing by feeding into that?
[A bit hypocritical given how firm he is in his belief that his own sacrifice would serve as a course correction, but, again, such is the consequence of feeling like he's at the centre of everything. Such is the result of spending decades knowing that he's not worth all that's happened.]
Listen to me, Clive. You're a threat to everything he's trying to accomplish. The greatest one he's faced since the Fracture by far. He'll be at his strongest fighting you. But me? His methods don't change the fact that he does love me. And that weakens him.
[Which doesn't feel particularly great to say. There's a certain arrogance to it, an element of manipulation that he doesn't like to admit to, even if it's also one he's wielded more than a few times over the decades. One that his father has sharpened into one of the sharpest weapons in his arsenal. It's true, though, and Verso knows it well enough to speak it with infallible confidence.]
So, I'm telling you, if you want to keep me safe from him, then you're going to have to keep yourself safe first.
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...probably true. Though not to any extent that would make Clive comfortable letting the violence happen. Verso had said so himself, that his father would burn him to keep him 'safe'― he tries to imagine himself sitting idly by while anything like that happens, and Clive simply can't, much as he doesn't enjoy making Verso plead his case or seeing Joshua's face twist with indignation.
So, a concession of sorts. (Or, well, a disclaimer. Close enough.) ]
You saw what happened last time we encountered your father. [ Anger and fear and other emotions so strong that they made the creature he'd been denying crawl out of its hiding space. ] ...I can't guarantee that I won't do anything if I see you hurt.
[ Joshua heaves an aggravated sigh at that; Clive knows that it's not the answer that either man wants from him. But just as Verso couldn't promise that he'd learn to love again if something happened to Clive, Clive can't promise that he'd hide and grit his teeth if the love of his life were in peril.
The most he can offer, with furrowed brows and a lowered gaze, is: ]
I'll do my utmost not to get in your way. But I can't promise that I won't.
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In an uncomfortable way, he thinks he understands a little bit better where his father's coming from. A thought that twists his own expression, that looses a heavy sigh. Maybe Clive truly will be the end of him. Seeing him suffer and understanding his role in bring that suffering about feels like a worse fate than any other that might greet him on the other side of tomorrow. Except one: the both of them standing alone because they can't bear the consequences of acting together.
So, he runs his hands across his face, tightening all his excess tension into an expression neither brother can see, then almost wiping it away as he parts his hands and looks Clive head-on again, a light in his eye shining in place of the earlier pleas, but with a tiredness that steals away some of its glimmer.]
You're lucky I love you so much.
[If he didn't, he's not sure that he'd be able to resist the drive to pull away, sparing Clive from the curse of existing within his proximity and the consequences of perpetuating his too-long-lived life. He might have chosen the worst possible way to try and protect Clive. Instead, he taps Clive's hand where he grips onto his own knee, playing a silent, lilting song on the peaks of his knuckles.]
Not as lucky as I am that you love me, but... a decent second.
[This isn't a competition, either, Verso!!!]
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[ Oh, he can absolutely make this a competition if Verso wants to. Verso has had several decades to unlearn the idea of love, or at least consign it to a dark, inaccessible place with pretty masks to serve as a facsimile, and yet― here he is, tapping a gentle melody against his skin, offering his heart even when he knows it's liable to break at any point in time. It would be sacrilege to treat that heart poorly, to give it an excuse to hurt more than it already has over the years.
So. Here they are, at a stalemate. Neither of them willing to relent completely, but both of them understanding why they won't. Clive sighs, then shifts where he's sitting, sliding his hand under Verso's only to press it, along with the other hand, against the other man's face. A Verso sandwich. ]
You're worth fighting for. And you always will be.
[ That's Clive's truth, straightforward as ever. But Joshua, ever the one with more perspective, flumps back onto his chair and appraises the pair with no small amount of concern; Clive can feel it, though he has a feeling that the sentiment is directed more towards Verso than it is towards him.
"Be that as it may, Clive, if defeating Verso's father was as simple as besting him in swordplay, I can't help but think that he would have been felled ages ago. Our... uniqueness aside, pray listen to Verso about being cautious. There must be a reason why he insists."
Translation: sometimes you need a more solid strategy than whacking someone with a sword, dummy. Clive blinks, then slowly lowers his hand back onto his own knees. ]
...Fair enough.
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Of course, he could also address why Renoir still stands despite all the the destruction he's wrought against the Expeditions: the pure and simple fact that Verso has yet to find the heart to try to incapacitate him, knowing what he does of his motives, understanding what he does of where the fallen's chroma ends up when they're felled by Renoir rather than the Nevrons. Not wanting Alicia to be alone in the world, either, only the apparition of her mother by her side, a mother who's still barely able to look at her even without a face to make that apparent.
But he doesn't. It's something he'll need to share with Clive eventually, he just can't expose that part of himself now. Besides, Joshua isn't wrong. Renoir is profoundly powerful, and that feels more important to focus on. So:]
The Paintress gave him incredible powers. Even I don't know everything he's capable of doing. And part of that is because in theory, she has the ability him more. I mean, I can't say either way, but even if Clea painted you, the Paintress will know your chroma. It's possible that she's already found a way to counter it through him.
[And how do you counter the unknowable? By fucking parrying it on your first try? Please.]
Not to mention that this... gift of immortality is her doing. There's not a chance that she's incapable of reversing it, if that's what she wants.
[A small if, he thinks. The Aline of this world has always been more supportive of him than the one from Paris had of the real Verso. Such is the consequence of loss. So, it's not outside of the realm of possibility that she would try to preserve her son's happiness. Anything to keep him in this world. Anything to validate her choices.]
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Clive's shoulders droop somewhat, but the edge of obstinacy doesn't leave the set of his jaw. A hound being told to heel, but remaining ready to spring forward at a moment's notice. ]
Point taken. [ He's but a man (with a monster in him) (a monster painted to look like a man?), and he doesn't have the shield of family to protect him from instant annihilation. Fine, he can concede that― especially on the heels of having seen what Renoir has done to their father, which is...
...not something he's been able to tell Joshua about, yet. He'll have to, perhaps to give his brother a little more context for his vehemence, but not while Verso is around. No part of him wants Verso to have to say I'm sorry again.
Instead― since he can tell that he's been defeated in this particular battle of words― he lifts his hands, palms up. ] ...Stubborn, the lot of us. But I suppose we'd have to be, to be doing what we're doing.
[ Fighting against the very shape of the world. Defying not just Fate, but the fabric of their existence. A foolish, reckless, crazy mission, as only living things with free will can set for themselves. At the very least, Clive can be proud of that. ]
And now I know not to try to debate anything when you two are both in one room.
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It is good that they're stubborn. Nice, too; there's an appeal to butting heads without any of them trying to exert unreasonable control or wearing each other down in pursuit of a perfect solution that doesn't exist.
Verso may have had the more traditional family experience – having been crafted as a fully fledged adult aside – but the way the brothers not-Rosfield bounce off of each other gives him a more traditional feeling of family. Challenge and concession, warmth and teasing, an ebbing and flowing that takes them each from where they are to where the other stands.
He doesn't want to get ahead of himself. He doesn't want to go back to thinking this kind of a life isn't possible here. He brushes it off yet again. The opportunity to tease has availed itself. And he's only impishly human.]
At least not when your side of the debate is, Guys, it would really mean a lot if you let me throw myself headlong into danger.
[Spoken in his best imitation of Clive, which is a very good one for strange and mysterious reasons.]
We love you too much to let you be the hero, you doofus.
[Still a little slow to get completely onboard, Joshua also knows when he's been outnumbered, so he chases away the last lingering traces of objection and leans forward, not quite done with the darker side of their circumstances yet. "That addresses the matter of Renoir, then. But is there aught you'd have us know about Ifrit? Whether to see to your safety or to our own?"]
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He does look like he wants to reject 'hero', though. He's no such thing. If anything, he's always doing the exact opposite of what's recommended to him－ or, well, so Cid had told him on occasion. Rich, coming from a man who used to call himself an outlaw.
But before he can say anything about that, Joshua asks about Ifrit, and... well, what is there to say about the hellfire raging in Clive's veins? His brother is correct to worry about the Nevron who nearly killed him (a nasty scar sits along his sternum as proof of the disaster, burnt-black and swirling), and correct to consider how to mitigate this particular risk.
A beat, and Clive leans forward, elbow on his knee and his open palm pointed towards the ceiling. He lets scarlet chroma pool and flicker around his fingertips, wild and untamed, then coalesces it all into a neat sphere that hovers a few inches in the air, rotating gently. ]
I've come to an understanding with it. [ The little sphere flares hotter, and Clive corrects: ] ...Him.
But he remains willful. He responds to the Dessendre's chroma with alarming voraciousness― sometimes I feel him trying to pull himself towards Verso.
[ That dark, starving need, nestled in the pit of Clive's stomach. A fire wanting to consume everything. ]
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So, instead, he shoots out some of his own light, swirling it around the flames without touching them, watching to see how their chroma reacts when it exists in territory far more neutral than their hearts. His, at least, is still teasing, still daring, still brimming with the fearlessness of a man condemned to live forever.
How Joshua watches it all is unreadable in a way that Verso almost envies, that natural suppression, that inborn sense of calm. “Tell, what is the nature of this arrangement? Will you be wielding him as a weapon, or is he more of a hail Mary to call upon when naught else avails itself? If even that."
It's a question Verso has yet to ask; the relative calm of the past few weeks has kept him from wanting to think too far ahead into the bloodied and violent futures that await them. And maybe his silence is a bit bolstered by projection, too, on the unearned assumptions he's based on what he knows about what it means to wield unthinkable power. Regardless, his curiosity is piqued now, and so he looks to Clive with gentle interest, with a trust that can transcend anything.]
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Curious, but not entirely unfamiliar. It looks like how Clive had felt when Verso fed him his chroma the first time: an illumination from the inside out.
He takes all of that in, buying time as he turns over the question of how he intends to wield Ifrit, if at all. His initial answer is as honest as it is likely unhelpful: ]
I hadn't considered it. Our 'arrangement', as you say. [ Because: ] I'd been too preoccupied with the notion of controlling and containing him, so that he doesn't hurt anyone else.
[ It'd been all he could do to keep himself from losing his mind every time his hellbeast deigned to show himself in the open; harnessing him for higher purposes hadn't occurred to Clive at all.
Chroma continues to swirl and weave, until he snuffs his flame out with a flick of his wrist. ]
I can't help but wonder if it isn't what the Painters would want me to do, to rely on Ifrit and his power. To lose myself steadily to his fire, until it's all that's left of me.
But I can't imagine that I could best those that need besting without using this anomaly. It's as Cid always said－ one should make use of whatever tools life decides to bestow upon them.
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Or Verso's exhausted mind lacks the capacity to think on the situation too hard or for too long. That's probably a contributing factor, too.
No matter. The flame is snuffed and Verso lets those thoughts dissipate with the light of his own chroma in silvery wafts of smoke. What the Painters want is a question that hasn't really stopped gnawing at him. Given how prone they are towards following the worst of their whims, it feels like another unknowable, something that might well change the next time Clea wakes up in the morning bitterly resentful over how she's been isolated.
There is one thing he thinks he can speak on, though, and he shifts on his seat as if trying to level himself out.]
Letting power corrupt them... it's all they know, so I wouldn't be surprised if they think everyone's the same way. Especially when we're all their creations.
[And thus, perhaps, susceptible to their interpretations, as is all art. Except that isn't the way of things, and Verso does wonder how much or how little they're aware of what it feels like to be alive through paint, how the chroma works its way through them, how the thoughts and feelings and memories and dreams of Verso's he holds inside of himself don't feel any more real, or even any different, from his own.
Another non-point, though. He frowns at the rest of what Clive says, contemplative. If Ifrit will need to be put to use, he'll have to be used well. A masterwork of combat to stand a chance against Painters who rarely produce anything short of their own masterpieces. So, gently:]
Maybe we should start, you know, sparring. Get your control over him up to snuff.
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Better to have tried. That's the prevailing sentiment to Clive's answer, though he does voice a bit of his uncertainties surrounding the matter. ]
We could. But, like I said― Ifrit is drawn to you, Verso. If anything goes amiss, you're going to have to incapacitate me.
[ Granted, 'incapacitate' is a very open-ended term. The last time he'd wanted Verso to do so, Verso wound up burning his hand against Clive's chest, so. Maybe he should try being a bit more specific.
Or not. He doesn't want to dampen breakfast further than he already has, so he turns towards Joshua and offers a light touch of a smile, wan but sure. ]
Verso is an excellent swordsman, [ errs on the side of doting, and Joshua gets as close to rolling his eyes as he can.
"Oh, I'm sure. Among many, many other virtues you'd be more than happy to spend all day listing." ]
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He does understand the risks, at least, and so he meets Clive's emphasis with a look that speaks to his own. Whatever it takes, whatever he needs, Verso will meet it head-on. It just might take him an extra moment to realise what exactly that'll entail.
Besides excellent swordsmanship, anyway. Like a basking cat, he lifts his posture a bit at the compliment, though there's nothing elegant about the laugh he huffs out at Joshua's response.]
He talks about you the same way, you know.
[Well, maybe a little different, regretful and mournful, self-deprecating in his comparisons, but Verso can't imagine that Joshua wants to hear as much – or that Clive wants it to be told – and besides, it isn't like the sentiments are dissimilar, anyway, just the circumstances, so he shrugs off that disconnect with a casual roll of his shoulders.]
Tried to get him to give me some ammunition on you, and you know what I got? A story about how much he loves you.
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