[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.
[ There's a difference, as far as Clive is concerned, between suffering for someone and just blind suffering in general. Clive is content to do the former for any reason at all, but even he has his limits; the latter, he'd like to avoid.
At any rate, being pinned under the point of Verso's blade is definitively the former. And so is being outed in front of his brother for funneling illicit (?) information about him. Sheepish, he watches Joshua raise a brow and hum "oh? Ammunition, you say."
To the tune of: my well-behaved brother, trying to move the black chess piece forward first? The scandal of it all. Joshua already knows how much Clive adores him, and thus it doesn't surprise him at all that his brother didn't manage to dig up any significant dirt.
So: "should I be more wary of your partner being a bad influence on you, Clive?" is completely unserious, but offered with a challenge snuck between invisible lines, an invitation for his brother to bite back with something just as teasing (and probably embarrassing). Playful, easy.
A beat, and Clive sighs. ]
He's no worse than Cid.
[ Shots fired. Will Verso be more offended that he isn't as bad as Cid, or that he's been compared to Cid? Either way, Clive reaches sideways and ruffles Verso's soft, well-styled hair. ]
[The answer to Joshua's question comes easily enough when Verso's competitive-ass self makes an immediate and reflexive move to counter a completely reasonable, probably accurate, and not-at-all audacious claim with a confident and well thought out:]
Hey!
[He doesn't even know why he's bothered. Is it the beat, the sigh? It's certainly not the ruffling of his hair, which he leans into like it's a sunbeam cascading warmth across his scalp. No part of him actively wants Joshua to be wary of him, either, even if that wariness was presented in jest.
(Later, he might wonder if it has something to do with Clive's fondness for Cid, and that incessantly self-flagellating part of himself took it and ran with it like some statement of you don't compare, but if he does, he'll be able to cast it aside as something ludicrous, a relic of past loneliness.)
So, he crosses his arms over his chest, sinks back against the couch, pretends to sulk. He's not sure whether he should want to be worse than Cid or not, either – the notion of being like him hardly offends – but that conundrum is at least a bit easier to understand. It was the parts of Cid that deserved the label worst that cobbled together to make him into a better man than most.]
You know what, no, it's fine. Monoco will set things straight.
[A pause. A thought. Oh. Oh, Monoco will have a lot of stories that Clive for sure won't like. Stories that might actually make Joshua wary. Verso can only hope a good glare will get him to shut up, should the need arise.
Regardless, he plays it off for now with a casually joking:]
... On second thought, maybe Joshua should stay with the Gestrals.
[ If Clive ever suspected that Verso was comparing himself to Cid, Clive might actually find two pieces of bread to press against either side of Verso's very handsome face. Not an idiot sandwich, but a ridiculous sandwich. Clive loves many people in many different ways, but Verso has (and will always have) his heart in a vicegrip.
(Pot, kettle. Sometimes Clive will think about Verso's mysterious past love and feel a frisson of uncertainty, but that's his own complexes speaking.)
For now, though－ enamored by that faux-sulk, Clive leans away for a better vantage point of it. Very cute, and very middle-child of Verso. It makes Clive want to kiss that pout off his lips, but he politely refrains from being too overbearing in witness of his brother, who takes this new piece of information about Monoco and runs with it.
"Well, there's no chance of that happening now, is there? I wonder what this Monoco will have to say about you."
Ah. Clive's mental image of Monoco is... actually Cid-esque, which is ironic. Dark and mysterious and handsome like Verso, impish and eccentric like his mentor. Someone who has known Verso for a long time, and maybe... just maybe... might have been more than friends at some point...?
"Lurid and diabolical things, no doubt," his brother continues, a bit unhelpfully. It might be a bit of a kneejerk impulse that has Clive chiding him immediately afterwards. ]
Joshua!
[ The young man in question hides his chuckle behind his hand. Having a grand time seeing his stoic older brother react in ways he never has, presumably. ]
[On the one hand, the thought of Monoco not being given the chance to tattle on things like Verso's propensities towards getting cut in half and being consumed by giant flying sea serpents is very enticing indeed; on the other, Verso is all the more enamoured of the thought of witnessing the big by the way, Monoco is a Gestral reveal now that all these lurid and diabolical thoughts are flitting about the others' minds. It kind of makes him want to tease into it more, enjoy the bait-and-switch, and so he digs deeper down.]
Right. Sounds like we're all in agreement, so... Off to the Gestral Village we go.
[Where Clive chides, Verso wears the teasing almost like a badge of honour. Why yes, he is exactly that guy, headstrong and foolhardy, discovering himself through blood and sweat and broken bones, through bursts of adrenaline that remind him that he and the others are real and alive and so much more than tear-streaked paint slapped onto a child's artwork. It's the main thing that sets him apart from the other Verso, that rebellious freedom, that wiry-muscled strength, and he's long been comfortable in that.
Which, again, will probably prove worrisome. A problem for their future selves, though, like so many of the others that have cropped up.]
You like birds, right? They have these cannons that they can shoot you out from. Feels like you're flying.
[Verso, no, please refrain from using your Clive-supplied ammunition to suggest Joshua literally become ammunition-adjacent.]
Don't worry, it's safe. The ones in the village are mostly used to get their babies used to being vaulted long distances. Couldn't tell you why that's important to them, but…
[ "We are meeting Monoco," Joshua laughs, "and that's that."
Joshua, with his boundless curiosity and endless pursuit for the truth of things. Nosy, some might call him; Clive likes to think of it more as his brother doing his due diligence, and taking all the information he collects to find the best possible course of action that will benefit the most amount of people.
How will knowing about Verso contribute to this? Hell if Clive knows. It's just nice to see Joshua having fun, even if that full-faced smile turns somewhat dubious at the mention of baby-launching cannons.
"Though I may have to rescind 'lurid and diabolical'. 'Foolhardy' might be a better descriptor, much as it would be nice to know what it feels like to fly."
How many times has Verso broken his neck in the pursuit of fun??? Far less times than he deserves, probably. Still, Clive makes a sound of half-surrender, and gets up to clean the tray of food off the table. ]
At least I've always known that about Verso. A troublemaker.
[ Rich, coming from the man who'd immediately kissed that troublemaking mouth when given tacit permission to do so. Ancient history, but not quite－ Clive can still remember the beat that his heart skipped, and the alcohol-tinged taste when their lips met for the first time.
That's one for his private vault, though. Clive has to physically shake the thought off of him, lest he get lost in it for too long. ]
...No shooting out of cannons until I've tested it first.
[ Is directed at Joshua, who folds his arms across his chest. "You can survive most anything. Not a very meaningful reference point, Clive." ]
That's the fun thing about not being killable: you get to be a little foolhardy.
[A little. Moderately. As if the worst he's done is perform a few ill-advised stunts and absolutely nothing more extreme than that. Verso's not sure how long he can keep up that facade – or if it's even working – but far be it from him to stop trying. All he can do is keep hoping that they'll be distracted by Monoco's Monoconess and not what he has to say about Verso's Versoness.
A Versoness that gets a bit tickled when Clive suggests testing the cannons, images of his lover swooping through the air hitting him just so, just right. He can't help but let out a laugh at the thought, further imagining little plumes of flame shooting out from his feet as if he were propelling himself onward.
To Joshua:] I think your brother just wants to try it out for himself.
[And then, to Clive:] Admit it.
[There's a lot Verso could say in encouragement. Like how good it feels to have the wind whipping through your hair, how nice it is to know a different kind of life-endangering adrenaline than that of battle. Or how it can change one's perspective. Literally, of course, but also in the sense of seeing the world differently, even if only a small span of it. But because he's also aware that launching oneself from a piece of Gestral technology is a bit of a niche hobby, he keeps it quiet for now.]
[ Maybe Clive is a bit curious, insofar that he should probably test the limits of what the silver in his body is capable of repairing. Not that he'll say that here, with two men who might actually send him to his room (Verso's room) if he ever tells them that he's looking to experiment with his safety; "I'm going to try battering and bruising myself" is not exactly a reassuring or nice thing to say or hear.
Tray picked up, he glances back and forth between his brother and his partner. Two wonderful people, forged in the flames (ha) of their respective family conflicts. It's not fortunate that any of them had to know suffering, but they're the both of them radiant now, intelligent and empathetic and resilient. Clive's heart swells three sizes when he looks at them, and the strength of that feeling edges out the roaring flame in his chest.
But, to counter Verso's accusation: ] I think you're far more boyish than you let on.
[ Trains, Gestral cannons, daredeviling. If things didn't pan out the way they had, maybe if Verso weren't on the brink of things all the time, he wouldn't have had to play the part of the mysterious stranger guiding men and women through this labyrinthine Continent. That would have been a mask that Verso never had to craft or get comfortable with, and Clive thinks Verso would have been far happier without it. An overachieving middle child who wants to be the youngest once in a while.
The world should have been far kinder to Verso. Clive softens, shifts the tray to balance it against his hip, then ruffles Verso's hair again. ]
[Nor is it an off-the-mark observation. Verso knows. Whether that boyishness owes to his own heart or to his mother's grasping for days that were, at least for her, better ones, he can't say and doesn't want to think too hard on. Nor is he contemplating the darker things that Clive's still-unspoken interest might suggest about his still-self-bruising nature. When that inevitably comes up later, he'll be kicking himself, unsure who between them is the bigger idiot, but for now he doesn't delve any deeper than the surface of what Clive's saying, once again angling his head into his touch.]
And that sounds like my cue to start waking the inner child in you, too.
[And be a bad influence on him as well, probably.
There's so much more to it than that, though; whether a part of him or a part of his chroma, his unflappable youthful spirit has sustained him well beyond what he could have endured without it. And now it's become one of the things he clings to the most stubbornly, and one of the first aspects of himself that he embraces when he emerges from the darkness that often takes him out of commission for weeks, months, years at a time. So, a softening of his eyes, a lower rumbling of his voice to match. And an honesty that bleeds into vulnerability.]
You're going to need him.
[Because they all know that at the end of Monoco's stories and the Gestrals' cannons, there isn't much good awaiting them. They're going to have to carve it out of the world for themselves in that stubborn way of children who don't know any better.
At that, Joshua lets out a soft sigh, and chimes in with a similarly quieted, "He has for quite some time."]
[ And isn't it lovely, that it's a man that may or may not have had lived a childhood would be the one to teach a man how to find his inner child? Clive still doesn't know what it means for Verso to channel his boyishness, but it's lovely that Verso still can; to Clive, it only matters that Verso believes his instincts, and holds on to the things that make him happy.
(There might not be many of those things left, after all. And they likely keep dwindling every year, with every swipe of the Paintress' hand over the Monolith.) ]
You two make me sound like an old man.
[ The oldest in Lumiere, actually, but that doesn't count. Verso also outpaces him by decades, too, but that doesn't count either. The point is, really, that― ]
And, besides. I'm not as unhappy as you might think.
[ Steadily, with conviction. As he steps away from the table, tray in tow, maneuvering towards the towering shelves that line the dimly-lit library. He has his back towards the other men in the room, not to obfuscate but to give himself some time to think, to marinate. To be sure that, yes, even without Gestrals and cannons and the rose-tinted glasses that he might need to find to crawl out of the seemingly bottomless pits laid out for them around every corner, that he isn't suffering through this all. That there's joy to be found in the simple reality of existing in proximity of people he cares for; that he'd do it all again if asked to.
He breathes through his nose, fond. ]
As long as I have you two, I'll always feel alive.
[Clive is a bit of an old man, an old soul. Verso may always wonder if that's a result of nature or nurture, but he knows he'll never wish for different. It cradles a miraculous kindness, a gentleness that stands in persistent contrast to all the ways that life has hardened him into a seasoned soldier. So, even as he immediately moves into another tease, it retains the same softness from before.]
Maybe. But you did that to yourself first when you told me to eat my breakfast.
["And me to go out and play with my friends," is Joshua's contribution. Verso holds his hands up in a see, told you, kind of gesture, then rises to his feet himself, stretching his own tired old bones and long-strained muscles.
As for the rest, it's not that Verso necessarily thinks that Clive is unhappy, but rather that Clive isn't as happy as Verso might want. Which isn't a questioning or a condemnation of Clive's current happiness levels – it's an emphasis of how much Verso wants to bring more to his life. More light, more love, more happiness, more simplicity, more purpose, more sense of self, more of what little the world has to offer. Just more.
And so Verso gets up to his feet, moves behind Clive to wrap his arms around him for a moment, and to press a kiss to the back of his neck. Grateful, so very grateful, to feel like he might actually inspire life after decades of being centred in the opposite.]
I'm always going to want more for you, mon feu. Might as well start getting used to it.
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
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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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At any rate, being pinned under the point of Verso's blade is definitively the former. And so is being outed in front of his brother for funneling illicit (?) information about him. Sheepish, he watches Joshua raise a brow and hum "oh? Ammunition, you say."
To the tune of: my well-behaved brother, trying to move the black chess piece forward first? The scandal of it all. Joshua already knows how much Clive adores him, and thus it doesn't surprise him at all that his brother didn't manage to dig up any significant dirt.
So: "should I be more wary of your partner being a bad influence on you, Clive?" is completely unserious, but offered with a challenge snuck between invisible lines, an invitation for his brother to bite back with something just as teasing (and probably embarrassing). Playful, easy.
A beat, and Clive sighs. ]
He's no worse than Cid.
[ Shots fired. Will Verso be more offended that he isn't as bad as Cid, or that he's been compared to Cid? Either way, Clive reaches sideways and ruffles Verso's soft, well-styled hair. ]
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Hey!
[He doesn't even know why he's bothered. Is it the beat, the sigh? It's certainly not the ruffling of his hair, which he leans into like it's a sunbeam cascading warmth across his scalp. No part of him actively wants Joshua to be wary of him, either, even if that wariness was presented in jest.
(Later, he might wonder if it has something to do with Clive's fondness for Cid, and that incessantly self-flagellating part of himself took it and ran with it like some statement of you don't compare, but if he does, he'll be able to cast it aside as something ludicrous, a relic of past loneliness.)
So, he crosses his arms over his chest, sinks back against the couch, pretends to sulk. He's not sure whether he should want to be worse than Cid or not, either – the notion of being like him hardly offends – but that conundrum is at least a bit easier to understand. It was the parts of Cid that deserved the label worst that cobbled together to make him into a better man than most.]
You know what, no, it's fine. Monoco will set things straight.
[A pause. A thought. Oh. Oh, Monoco will have a lot of stories that Clive for sure won't like. Stories that might actually make Joshua wary. Verso can only hope a good glare will get him to shut up, should the need arise.
Regardless, he plays it off for now with a casually joking:]
... On second thought, maybe Joshua should stay with the Gestrals.
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(Pot, kettle. Sometimes Clive will think about Verso's mysterious past love and feel a frisson of uncertainty, but that's his own complexes speaking.)
For now, though－ enamored by that faux-sulk, Clive leans away for a better vantage point of it. Very cute, and very middle-child of Verso. It makes Clive want to kiss that pout off his lips, but he politely refrains from being too overbearing in witness of his brother, who takes this new piece of information about Monoco and runs with it.
"Well, there's no chance of that happening now, is there? I wonder what this Monoco will have to say about you."
Ah. Clive's mental image of Monoco is... actually Cid-esque, which is ironic. Dark and mysterious and handsome like Verso, impish and eccentric like his mentor. Someone who has known Verso for a long time, and maybe... just maybe... might have been more than friends at some point...?
"Lurid and diabolical things, no doubt," his brother continues, a bit unhelpfully. It might be a bit of a kneejerk impulse that has Clive chiding him immediately afterwards. ]
Joshua!
[ The young man in question hides his chuckle behind his hand. Having a grand time seeing his stoic older brother react in ways he never has, presumably. ]
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Right. Sounds like we're all in agreement, so... Off to the Gestral Village we go.
[Where Clive chides, Verso wears the teasing almost like a badge of honour. Why yes, he is exactly that guy, headstrong and foolhardy, discovering himself through blood and sweat and broken bones, through bursts of adrenaline that remind him that he and the others are real and alive and so much more than tear-streaked paint slapped onto a child's artwork. It's the main thing that sets him apart from the other Verso, that rebellious freedom, that wiry-muscled strength, and he's long been comfortable in that.
Which, again, will probably prove worrisome. A problem for their future selves, though, like so many of the others that have cropped up.]
You like birds, right? They have these cannons that they can shoot you out from. Feels like you're flying.
[Verso, no, please refrain from using your Clive-supplied ammunition to suggest Joshua literally become ammunition-adjacent.]
Don't worry, it's safe. The ones in the village are mostly used to get their babies used to being vaulted long distances. Couldn't tell you why that's important to them, but…
[It's fun!!!]
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Joshua, with his boundless curiosity and endless pursuit for the truth of things. Nosy, some might call him; Clive likes to think of it more as his brother doing his due diligence, and taking all the information he collects to find the best possible course of action that will benefit the most amount of people.
How will knowing about Verso contribute to this? Hell if Clive knows. It's just nice to see Joshua having fun, even if that full-faced smile turns somewhat dubious at the mention of baby-launching cannons.
"Though I may have to rescind 'lurid and diabolical'. 'Foolhardy' might be a better descriptor, much as it would be nice to know what it feels like to fly."
How many times has Verso broken his neck in the pursuit of fun??? Far less times than he deserves, probably. Still, Clive makes a sound of half-surrender, and gets up to clean the tray of food off the table. ]
At least I've always known that about Verso. A troublemaker.
[ Rich, coming from the man who'd immediately kissed that troublemaking mouth when given tacit permission to do so. Ancient history, but not quite－ Clive can still remember the beat that his heart skipped, and the alcohol-tinged taste when their lips met for the first time.
That's one for his private vault, though. Clive has to physically shake the thought off of him, lest he get lost in it for too long. ]
...No shooting out of cannons until I've tested it first.
[ Is directed at Joshua, who folds his arms across his chest. "You can survive most anything. Not a very meaningful reference point, Clive." ]
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[A little. Moderately. As if the worst he's done is perform a few ill-advised stunts and absolutely nothing more extreme than that. Verso's not sure how long he can keep up that facade – or if it's even working – but far be it from him to stop trying. All he can do is keep hoping that they'll be distracted by Monoco's Monoconess and not what he has to say about Verso's Versoness.
A Versoness that gets a bit tickled when Clive suggests testing the cannons, images of his lover swooping through the air hitting him just so, just right. He can't help but let out a laugh at the thought, further imagining little plumes of flame shooting out from his feet as if he were propelling himself onward.
To Joshua:] I think your brother just wants to try it out for himself.
[And then, to Clive:] Admit it.
[There's a lot Verso could say in encouragement. Like how good it feels to have the wind whipping through your hair, how nice it is to know a different kind of life-endangering adrenaline than that of battle. Or how it can change one's perspective. Literally, of course, but also in the sense of seeing the world differently, even if only a small span of it. But because he's also aware that launching oneself from a piece of Gestral technology is a bit of a niche hobby, he keeps it quiet for now.]
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[ Maybe Clive is a bit curious, insofar that he should probably test the limits of what the silver in his body is capable of repairing. Not that he'll say that here, with two men who might actually send him to his room (Verso's room) if he ever tells them that he's looking to experiment with his safety; "I'm going to try battering and bruising myself" is not exactly a reassuring or nice thing to say or hear.
Tray picked up, he glances back and forth between his brother and his partner. Two wonderful people, forged in the flames (ha) of their respective family conflicts. It's not fortunate that any of them had to know suffering, but they're the both of them radiant now, intelligent and empathetic and resilient. Clive's heart swells three sizes when he looks at them, and the strength of that feeling edges out the roaring flame in his chest.
But, to counter Verso's accusation: ] I think you're far more boyish than you let on.
[ Trains, Gestral cannons, daredeviling. If things didn't pan out the way they had, maybe if Verso weren't on the brink of things all the time, he wouldn't have had to play the part of the mysterious stranger guiding men and women through this labyrinthine Continent. That would have been a mask that Verso never had to craft or get comfortable with, and Clive thinks Verso would have been far happier without it. An overachieving middle child who wants to be the youngest once in a while.
The world should have been far kinder to Verso. Clive softens, shifts the tray to balance it against his hip, then ruffles Verso's hair again. ]
We'll let you play with the cannon first.
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[Nor is it an off-the-mark observation. Verso knows. Whether that boyishness owes to his own heart or to his mother's grasping for days that were, at least for her, better ones, he can't say and doesn't want to think too hard on. Nor is he contemplating the darker things that Clive's still-unspoken interest might suggest about his still-self-bruising nature. When that inevitably comes up later, he'll be kicking himself, unsure who between them is the bigger idiot, but for now he doesn't delve any deeper than the surface of what Clive's saying, once again angling his head into his touch.]
And that sounds like my cue to start waking the inner child in you, too.
[And be a bad influence on him as well, probably.
There's so much more to it than that, though; whether a part of him or a part of his chroma, his unflappable youthful spirit has sustained him well beyond what he could have endured without it. And now it's become one of the things he clings to the most stubbornly, and one of the first aspects of himself that he embraces when he emerges from the darkness that often takes him out of commission for weeks, months, years at a time. So, a softening of his eyes, a lower rumbling of his voice to match. And an honesty that bleeds into vulnerability.]
You're going to need him.
[Because they all know that at the end of Monoco's stories and the Gestrals' cannons, there isn't much good awaiting them. They're going to have to carve it out of the world for themselves in that stubborn way of children who don't know any better.
At that, Joshua lets out a soft sigh, and chimes in with a similarly quieted, "He has for quite some time."]
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(There might not be many of those things left, after all. And they likely keep dwindling every year, with every swipe of the Paintress' hand over the Monolith.) ]
You two make me sound like an old man.
[ The oldest in Lumiere, actually, but that doesn't count. Verso also outpaces him by decades, too, but that doesn't count either. The point is, really, that― ]
And, besides. I'm not as unhappy as you might think.
[ Steadily, with conviction. As he steps away from the table, tray in tow, maneuvering towards the towering shelves that line the dimly-lit library. He has his back towards the other men in the room, not to obfuscate but to give himself some time to think, to marinate. To be sure that, yes, even without Gestrals and cannons and the rose-tinted glasses that he might need to find to crawl out of the seemingly bottomless pits laid out for them around every corner, that he isn't suffering through this all. That there's joy to be found in the simple reality of existing in proximity of people he cares for; that he'd do it all again if asked to.
He breathes through his nose, fond. ]
As long as I have you two, I'll always feel alive.
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Maybe. But you did that to yourself first when you told me to eat my breakfast.
["And me to go out and play with my friends," is Joshua's contribution. Verso holds his hands up in a see, told you, kind of gesture, then rises to his feet himself, stretching his own tired old bones and long-strained muscles.
As for the rest, it's not that Verso necessarily thinks that Clive is unhappy, but rather that Clive isn't as happy as Verso might want. Which isn't a questioning or a condemnation of Clive's current happiness levels – it's an emphasis of how much Verso wants to bring more to his life. More light, more love, more happiness, more simplicity, more purpose, more sense of self, more of what little the world has to offer. Just more.
And so Verso gets up to his feet, moves behind Clive to wrap his arms around him for a moment, and to press a kiss to the back of his neck. Grateful, so very grateful, to feel like he might actually inspire life after decades of being centred in the opposite.]
I'm always going to want more for you, mon feu. Might as well start getting used to it.
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