[ 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.
[ "More" is not a word that Clive has used or thought about much, in terms of his own life. "More" is... it's loftier, like the royal "we", applied to persons of import or the general populace. More for Verso, more for Joshua, more for Lumière.
Absurd of him to think so, perhaps. Happiness isn't trickle-down economics; it's not something to passively receive through proximity. But maybe Clive has believed that for all of his years, that more is something granted by his betters, and that he should take what he has and know it to be enough; it's felt enough, at any rate. His father's care when he was around to give it, Rodney's grace, Cid's salvation, Joshua's return, Verso's love. Enough, and then some.
More, though. Clive is getting a better and better idea of more. ]
I'll do my utmost.
[ As he cranes back (without accidentally headbutting, because that would be unromantic) and tries to nuzzle to the best of his ability. He catches a glimpse of Joshua watching, and the restless twitch of his fingers, like perhaps he might want to record this moment either in words or a sketch for posterity; his brother had shown him the same effusive curiosity when he'd first met Cid, though it'd taken a bit longer for Joshua to warm to Cid, what with the constant teasing and calling him things like 'little lord' and 'princeling'. Cid always seemed to want to test people's patience before deciding whether he wanted to make them his responsibility. ]
...And I have an idea for 'more', [ Clive whispers. ] But maybe when Joshua isn't here to eavesdrop.
[ It's not even a lurid thing, but Clive doesn't quite hear how it might come across that way. Joshua actually does roll his eyes now, and gets up in theatrical put-upon-ness.
"Oh, I certainly don't want to be around for anything of the sort." Clive blinks. ]
[Clive's utmost is more than Verso will ever ask of him, but he lets out a contented hum behind him all the same because it's nice – it's really fucking nice – how it dethrones enough, at least for now. Besides, those four words also have an almost reciprocal effect on Verso, too, his own heart stirring at the thought of pushing himself to whatever utmosts inspire him as together takes on even greater meaning than the battles they fight and the nights they share in a world that's shrunk down just to them.
Notably, the world has not done that yet, so when Clive unwittingly engages in some innuendo, Verso freezes behind him before huffing out a laugh and pulling away, opting to give him a platonic pat on the shoulder as he does. At least the word eavesdrop is there to give Clive's true intentions way, even if the more he speaks of now is something nebulous and unknowable.]
Nice phrasing.
[Pushing past Clive, Verso makes his way to the bookshelf, scanning it with the eagle-eyed surety of a librarian. True to that, it only takes him a short while to pluck four books from the shelf – one on the history of Painting with a capital P and another on lowercase-p painting, a book on European history, and a book on ancient mythology. All of which he offers to Joshua in a neat stack.]
Before your brother scares you off, here. You can take them and whatever else you want. It's not like anyone's going to miss them, and they should be a good starting point.
[And if Renoir does miss them, then he can paint them back if it bothers him that much!!!]
[ Ah. Right. Phrasing. An internal kick for the misstep, and he retreats while Verso and his brother pick books from shelves like vultures on carrion. Joshua thanks Verso for the choices, of course, delighted to delve deeper into the grand mystery of painting (both capital and lower case); he also flits around and pilfers a few books on art history, a rather thick encyclopedia (Clive thinks), and a book, simply, about birds.
It's a leaning tower cradled in his arms by the time Joshua is done. "I've much to think about," he says, to the tune of this is the best day of my life. Clearly, being studious is a boon for him rather than a bane. "Once I collect my thoughts more properly, I'll trouble you two for a listening ear."
A nod, and he's off. Clive watches him teeter off with his things, and reins in his instinct to hover around to make sure his brother doesn't trip― he's altogether far too old for that sort of thing, though sometimes Clive looks at him and still thinks him a boy just over eight summers old, splashing around in a fountain.
Once he leaves, his shoulders lower just a centimeter. Fondness and guilt both jockey for attention, but he settles on the former. ]
...After all I've done, and he still treats me like a brother worth protecting. I'll never deserve him.
[ Never has. But he can set that aside, and turn back towards Verso, laughing softly under his breath as he shakes his head. ]
Do you remember when I told you that you're the sort of person I'd entrust my brother with?
[ The night of Clive's unfulfilled Gommage. Implied: that still holds true. It's not something he could have said while Joshua was still in the room (that would have earned Clive a punch), but it also isn't the more that Clive was implying; at the very least, his more is a little happier than that.
Maybe just as heavy, though. Clive juggles it in his mind for a bit, which may or may not be stupid given the nature of the last sentence he spoke out loud. ]
[He seems to think otherwise perches on the tip of Verso's tongue, but he stashes it away for some other time, perhaps. For one, he doesn't know Joshua all that well so it feels presumptuous; for another, it's not really any of his business and Joshua can speak up for himself. So, instead, a bit more of a proper kiss now that they're alone – although still something more chaste than not – before he moves to lean against the back of one of the armchairs, arms crossed over his chest.
Verso remembers. The sentiment had felt... not exactly nice, then, but like connection, something that carried a little bit of warmth. Certainly, it didn't hit him with the same kind of punch-to-the-jaw force that it does now. They've talked too much about fantastical tomorrows for him to comfortably shift back into the expectations of yesterday, to that default understanding that Expeditioners are ephemeral, even, perhaps, when they're brimming with the same immortality that has haunted Verso all this time.
At least there's some calm to extract from the laugh that preceded it, some light to keep himself from descending any further into the darkness than a dipping of his toe into its turbulent waters.]
Yeah, of course.
[Even if they'd both still believed Joshua to be dead, it had meant something profound enough that even if this Gommage had taken Clive and Verso hadn't met Joshua before his swooped in to turn him into petals and smoke, it would have lingered inside of him, held in a high position among all the other ghosts he carries onward into the endless tomorrows. That feels a bit too dramatic for what is still a soft and quiet moment, so he keeps himself from elaborating.
Instead, perhaps predictably, he moves to mask his unsurety with impishness.]
[ The cannon. Clive laughs about it, charmed by the ridiculousness of it, still not having provided Verso with a clear yes or no answer about whether he's enthused by the idea of shooting himself out of a poorly-thought-out Gestral contraption (the answer is yes, he actually is kind of enthused). ]
Well, I suppose there is that. Hopefully, you'll take responsibility if I break my neck.
[ A joke he can make because he knows he won't. Lighthearted despite the subject matter of an ignoble death, Clive positions himself directly in front of Verso's line of sight, three paces away with a bolted bookshelf behind his back. Posture easy, shoulders lowered, expression thoughtful. Considering and weighing on invisible scales whether what he wants to say will be yet another burden on Verso's already overladen psyche, or if he's somehow unwittingly cornered Verso into a situation where he's made it hard for the other man to refuse his more.
But, well. Maybe Clive is catastrophizing about something that doesn't need it. And maybe he should just come out and say what he wants without leaving Verso in the lurch further. So he opens his mouth again, slowly feeling his skin heat as he puts thoughts to words. ]
...What I wanted to tell you was, [ he starts, and instantly doesn't like this introduction. Mm, he hums as a self-interruption, and regroups. ] I...
...Don't think I've ever told you that my brother and I were one of the rare families in Lumiere that claimed a surname.
[ A strange pivot, he knows. But there's a point he wants to make here, even if the concept of a surname might be ridiculous to Verso. Was it more commonplace before the Fracture? Was it simply just something the Rosfields made up as a way to differentiate themselves from the others? He can't know, but he'll start here, first. ]
[Verso quirks a smile, halves a shrug. Gestures that say that he absolutely won't be taking responsibility, but in a way that makes it clear he's only teasing. Were Clive to get hurt, he would take on potentially insufferable levels of responsibility. It would be an entire, whole-ass thing. At least internally.
For now, though, simple patience in face of a growing curiosity as Verso tries to read between the lines of Clive's relaxed posture and the thought-tightened look on his face. That curiosity only blooms as Clive starts drawing his own lines from the concept of more towards whatever point he intends to make, a point that still feels nebulous and unknowable with each hint that gets layered onto the others. Like that flush to Clive's skin, like that faltering of his words. Even the mention of a surname only has the effect of starving Verso's curiosity even more.
This, he masks as a matter of habit.]
You didn't.
[A confirmation he considers chasing with another burst of history about life before the Fracture, or about that short stretch afterward when Verso could still consider himself a Lumieran and not a murderer. But that drive comes from the same place as both the curiosity he wants sated and his unsurety over why Clive brought up entrusting Joshua to him, and so he masks it away, too, driving home the image of a casual state of mind by leaning a bit more against the chair.
Likewise, any question he could ask feels leading rather than conversational, so he encourages Clive to continue with nothing more than a canting of his head.]
[ Find your footing, Clive chides internally. Verso must be wondering where the fuck Clive is going with this, and the more Clive thinks about it, the more it sounds like something that might have required a bit more decorum than this. Here he is, still standing with a food tray tucked under one arm, looking every bit like the fool he must be in this moment.
At the very least, he sets the tray down on top of a nearby stack of books (sorry Proust, Clive promises it's nothing personal). ]
I can't say for certain that the name itself means anything, but it was always something our mother cited as the reason we were different from the others. Something to uphold and protect. [ A wry half-smile. ] ...Though I wasn't given the right to claim it, for obvious reasons.
[ No surprises there. His fingers flex and unflex by his sides, and blue eyes settle on Verso with vague apology written into the way they narrow slightly. I'll get to the point, essentially. ]
Which is why I haven't mentioned it, nor thought I ever would. But we've spoken of more, and I thought...
[ A beat, to breathe in and out. ]
...There's no one to stop me from reclaiming that name, now. And, when all of this is over, you won't have to live under the shadow of 'Dessendre'.
[ Disparate dots, slowly being connected by string. Or so Clive hopes. He feels a bit ridiculous now, the more he tries to give this nebulous idea a solid shape, but he's come too far to back out now.
So, as he clears his throat: ] I thought that maybe we might share it. My surname.
[Verso not-Dessendre. Verso not-a-mononym. There's always been a part of him that's considered his name almost sacrosanct. A severing he couldn't bring himself to commit to, a different kind of being sliced in two than the one he's used to, something that threatens a more fearsome sort of pain. Having it presented as another extension of together, though – as a way for both him and Clive to reclaim something that's been dangled over them and never really been theirs – changes things more than he would have expected.
Now it's his turn to fall silence and deliver his own apologies through the widening of his eyes, his words lost to the overwhelm of the immediate interpretation that comes to mind:
This is a proposal.
And maybe he's wrong; maybe he's reading too much into a situation that he's several decades removed from. Surnames could mean something different to Clive's family than they'd meant in bygone times. It's not like Verso would know one way or the other. But they have been talking about settling down, growing old, watching their hair turn grey, and their skin be etched with well-earned wrinkles, and their bodies slowing, slowing, slowing until they reach their long-promised stop. Forever has long been imprinted on each of their hearts through the other's chroma.
This still feels different. It has gravitas. A promise written in something more substantial than fairytales and daydreams. Uncrossing his arms, Verso lifts himself back up and makes his way over to Clive, so quick to raise a hand to cup his cheek that it's in motion before he stops walking.]
You know how that sounds, right?
[Yet, despite the feel of it all, Verso doesn't want to get ahead of things. It could still be something simpler than what he's thinking; it could be as much a matter of phrasing as that innuendo that slipped out earlier. So, he stands there and he studies Clive afresh, not masking the curiosity in his eyes this time, softened though it might be by love.]
He knows what it is, too. This previously formless, vague desire that he's now shaped into words, into an idea, into― yes, a proposal. A different sort of I love you, not made sweet or incidental the way they'd stumbled upon it in ice and snow, but the same in the sense that it exists in this liminal space between their uncertain future and their hopes for tomorrow. A diamond truth among all the lies that they've had to endure.
For Clive, at least. The more that sits squarely in his heart, and begs him for attention. He struggles, still, with how he wants to phrase it; with what names might mean to Verso, and what it would take for Verso to relinquish or adopt a new one. Dessendre, both a prayer and a curse. A yardstick with which to measure the world by, and a cross to bear.
Is 'Rosfield' too much? Too little? Either way, Clive's answer is definitive, even as he tucks the two syllables of his surname into his pocket like a ring not quite ready to be given. ]
I do.
[ It's a proposal. Maybe not quite to fulfill a tradition that has long since become obsolete, but― a proposal, regardless. A suggestion, a hope, a wish, one that floods the valves of his heart and flows like fire through his veins, out and along where Verso's skin touches his cheek. Heat and intent and chroma. ]
It's a selfish thing, to want to give you my name. To want to be your home― the place you return to.
[ Warm hands reach to gently pry Verso's palm from where it's settled over his scar; there's still redness from where flames singed the flesh, and Clive kisses the poorly-healed skin with reverence and care. ]
A name is what we make of it. And I wanted to make something of it with you.
[Once upon a time, Verso had dreamed of proposals. They'd have slipped out from between his own lips, the final notes of an evening well-planned and dramatic, the kind of celebration that ceased to exist long, long ago. Love as a spectacle. Love as something that lights up the sky, and rings out like music, and leaves petals scattered on the ground, deliberate and with the promise of so many more tomorrows.
But after living a life of constant performance, mask after mask, lie after lie, grandiose gesture after grandiose gesture, the earnestness of this moment feels like exactly what he wants and needs, like everything he could possibly ask for, a preview and a promise of exactly the kind of existence he can see himself embracing should this cycle of death ever reach its end, making way for ordinary tomorrow, after ordinary tomorrow, after ordinary tomorrow.
Fuck, he wants that. Wants this feeling to never go away – freed birds fluttering in his heart, the breeze of Clive's breath against his palm working its way all the way down to his stomach, where pinwheels spin by its power, and across his body, too, where more of those gently crackling embers cascade warmth across his skin.]
If it's selfish, then I'm greedy. All I want is to return to you.
[His hearth, his tomorrow, his what-comes-after. Starlight shines in the corners of his eyes, and he pulls his hand away only to wrap his arms around Clive, nuzzling against his neck, holding onto him so that he might better be able to hold himself together.]
Yeah. Yeah, of course I'll share your name.
[He'll share anything that Clive should offer, as he hopes Clive will share all the things he will extend to him. Love and warmth and fear and vulnerability, pain and progress, all the different ways their battered bodies and broken hearts and buffeted spirits can heal. It still feels like an impossibility. It still resonates like the music of fantasy, spilling across a theatre audience with its make-believe melody of maybe, maybe, maybe.
And yet.
What that name is, he doesn't know, but he leaves it to Clive to tell him on his terms. To do otherwise feels akin to plucking a presented ring from its box and putting it on his own finger. Classless. The wrong kind of selfish and greedy.]
[ All Clive knows of grandiose gestures, he's only seen or read in plays and stories. Gallant, brave men kneeling at the altar of their beloved, offering not a ring or trinket but their lives for the sake of favor. Clive has half a mind to do the same, to bend the knee and press the back of Verso's hand to his forehead, turning promise and hope into an oath, but―
―this is sweeter. Arms around his middle, Verso's starlight smile tucked against his neck. The music of his breath, the way his voice twinkles when he says yes. Clive could listen to that yes forever, and it'll be a gift every single time. Permission and acceptance and trust and honesty. The candor that Clive had so naively asked for, granted tenfold; and oh, how fucking stupid of him. He should have known that Verso would be a giver.
In the ruin of this life, Clive has found this world's miracle. He holds Verso the way he might cradle a beating heart, and presses his lips to Verso's pulse to kiss his chroma into Verso's skin again. Flames not just to consume but to illuminate, a beacon in the dark when all other lights have gone out. ]
...You needn't have answered right away, [ he finally offers after an extended stretch of emotional overwhelm, of yeah still ringing in his ears like a thousand small bells. It still rocks his skull, the intensity of it. ] If you want time to think about it, you can have as much of it as you'd like.
[ Again: Dessendre might be a curse, but it used to belong to Verso until it shattered by his feet. Maybe he'd spent time trying to glue those pieces back together, and maybe it's hard to part with, no matter how much those pieces cut and make Verso bleed.
So says the man still trying to press scarlet under Verso's skin. Wanting him, loving him, imagining a life where they curl against each other and do ordinary things as ordinary men. Gentle fantasies of being tired and being able to answer by suggesting that they do nothing all day instead of pressing on regardless― of being happy, and nurturing that happiness without self-flagellation.
Clive closes his eyes, and surrenders himself to simply feeling. ]
But if you do decide you want it... [ Just a little tension, as he tugs at mental strings and finally, finally conjures the surname he'd never felt he had the right to speak. His and Verso's, if the world plays their cards kindly. ] ..."Clive Rosfield", and "Verso Rosfield".
[ Perhaps not as melodic as Dessendre, but the clunkiness might be a draw. It doesn't matter to Clive, at the end of the day― if he's "Clive Dessendre" (worse?), he'll still want to make something new with this adopted legacy. ]
[He knows he could have held onto an answer; he understands that a great expansive of time still separates them from finding togetherness in this new way. Reality may well bare its teeth tomorrow in ways that severs this more concrete promising of one to the other; he's aware of this, too. Long has he let the darkest potentialities keep him from pursuing brighter possibilities, though, and he doesn't want to give those maybes any power over a moment that feels wholly and genuinely like a yes.
All his life, he's been a Dessendre because he was told that's who he must be, just as all Clive's life, he's been denied a claim to his own damned name because he was told it was who he could never become. But neither extreme has changed the way they feel about their loved ones, and to Verso, that's what matters in the end. If he's learned one thing from the Dessendres, it's that a name is a banner to wave, a cause to fight for, a defining of past and present and future.
And Rosfield – the field of roses on the other side of the descent, growing from des cendres, the ashes, well, Verso thinks that not even Renoir with his metaphors and parables could paint a prettier picture of what awaits him and Clive on the other end of their fates.
Starlight kisses at scarlet; lips graze the rhythm of a pulse. And he laughs, soft and fond.]
There's nothing to think about. I want to make a different name for myself than the one I was given.
[He wants to be all the things Verso was never born to become in Paris or painted to become here in the Canvas. He wants to find himself in a set of expectations that aren't inextricably tied to pasts that he's never lived. Foolhardy and reckless though he is and always will be, a lot of it comes from a place of knowing. I cannot die is every bit as true to him as I am not a Dessendre.
Here, he pulls back. Steps the smallest step away, only so he can look Clive better in the eyes, taking his hands as he does so that he can still have something to hold.]
With you, that might actually be possible. So, yeah, I'd be honoured if one day, the name I make is ours, Monsieur Rosfield.
[ And oh, maybe it hits now, the reality of what he's just asked. Monsieur Rosfield out of Verso's mouth, turning a name into a song that Clive will want to commit to memory once they're free to sing it more loudly. He flushes with the thought of it, not in embarrassment but in boyish delight, the inner child that both Verso and Joshua had bade him find more often coming to the fore.
The glimmer (it feels an awful lot like silver) stays, reflected in his blue eyes, as he meets Verso's gaze and grips their hands together. ]
And it would be my honor to share that name with you, [ after a somewhat shy beat, ] Monsieur Rosfield.
[ Rosfield-to-be? Semantics. Either way, the fact remains that what Clive is suggesting is something far worse for the Dessendres than simply aiding their wayward painted son in what they might call a misguided rebellion― thus far, it might be that painted Renoir has viewed this as something close to a teenage tantrum, a phase that Verso has failed to outgrow as quickly as he'd hoped.
But ripping the Dessendre away from the son? A clearer intent to break from the mold, in far more certain terms. This is not the sort of relationship that Clive can bring to a father for his blessing, and really―
―he should probably stay well enough away from Renoir when their paths inevitably cross in the near future. Initially, at least. Until Clive finds his trump card, his winning strategy.
That's for Future Clive to worry about, though. Now, his head is full of the more that he envisions, and another bit to add to that pile.
Tentatively: ] ...Alicia is welcome to join us, if she'd like.
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
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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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Absurd of him to think so, perhaps. Happiness isn't trickle-down economics; it's not something to passively receive through proximity. But maybe Clive has believed that for all of his years, that more is something granted by his betters, and that he should take what he has and know it to be enough; it's felt enough, at any rate. His father's care when he was around to give it, Rodney's grace, Cid's salvation, Joshua's return, Verso's love. Enough, and then some.
More, though. Clive is getting a better and better idea of more. ]
I'll do my utmost.
[ As he cranes back (without accidentally headbutting, because that would be unromantic) and tries to nuzzle to the best of his ability. He catches a glimpse of Joshua watching, and the restless twitch of his fingers, like perhaps he might want to record this moment either in words or a sketch for posterity; his brother had shown him the same effusive curiosity when he'd first met Cid, though it'd taken a bit longer for Joshua to warm to Cid, what with the constant teasing and calling him things like 'little lord' and 'princeling'. Cid always seemed to want to test people's patience before deciding whether he wanted to make them his responsibility. ]
...And I have an idea for 'more', [ Clive whispers. ] But maybe when Joshua isn't here to eavesdrop.
[ It's not even a lurid thing, but Clive doesn't quite hear how it might come across that way. Joshua actually does roll his eyes now, and gets up in theatrical put-upon-ness.
"Oh, I certainly don't want to be around for anything of the sort." Clive blinks. ]
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Notably, the world has not done that yet, so when Clive unwittingly engages in some innuendo, Verso freezes behind him before huffing out a laugh and pulling away, opting to give him a platonic pat on the shoulder as he does. At least the word eavesdrop is there to give Clive's true intentions way, even if the more he speaks of now is something nebulous and unknowable.]
Nice phrasing.
[Pushing past Clive, Verso makes his way to the bookshelf, scanning it with the eagle-eyed surety of a librarian. True to that, it only takes him a short while to pluck four books from the shelf – one on the history of Painting with a capital P and another on lowercase-p painting, a book on European history, and a book on ancient mythology. All of which he offers to Joshua in a neat stack.]
Before your brother scares you off, here. You can take them and whatever else you want. It's not like anyone's going to miss them, and they should be a good starting point.
[And if Renoir does miss them, then he can paint them back if it bothers him that much!!!]
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It's a leaning tower cradled in his arms by the time Joshua is done. "I've much to think about," he says, to the tune of this is the best day of my life. Clearly, being studious is a boon for him rather than a bane. "Once I collect my thoughts more properly, I'll trouble you two for a listening ear."
A nod, and he's off. Clive watches him teeter off with his things, and reins in his instinct to hover around to make sure his brother doesn't trip― he's altogether far too old for that sort of thing, though sometimes Clive looks at him and still thinks him a boy just over eight summers old, splashing around in a fountain.
Once he leaves, his shoulders lower just a centimeter. Fondness and guilt both jockey for attention, but he settles on the former. ]
...After all I've done, and he still treats me like a brother worth protecting. I'll never deserve him.
[ Never has. But he can set that aside, and turn back towards Verso, laughing softly under his breath as he shakes his head. ]
Do you remember when I told you that you're the sort of person I'd entrust my brother with?
[ The night of Clive's unfulfilled Gommage. Implied: that still holds true. It's not something he could have said while Joshua was still in the room (that would have earned Clive a punch), but it also isn't the more that Clive was implying; at the very least, his more is a little happier than that.
Maybe just as heavy, though. Clive juggles it in his mind for a bit, which may or may not be stupid given the nature of the last sentence he spoke out loud. ]
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Verso remembers. The sentiment had felt... not exactly nice, then, but like connection, something that carried a little bit of warmth. Certainly, it didn't hit him with the same kind of punch-to-the-jaw force that it does now. They've talked too much about fantastical tomorrows for him to comfortably shift back into the expectations of yesterday, to that default understanding that Expeditioners are ephemeral, even, perhaps, when they're brimming with the same immortality that has haunted Verso all this time.
At least there's some calm to extract from the laugh that preceded it, some light to keep himself from descending any further into the darkness than a dipping of his toe into its turbulent waters.]
Yeah, of course.
[Even if they'd both still believed Joshua to be dead, it had meant something profound enough that even if this Gommage had taken Clive and Verso hadn't met Joshua before his swooped in to turn him into petals and smoke, it would have lingered inside of him, held in a high position among all the other ghosts he carries onward into the endless tomorrows. That feels a bit too dramatic for what is still a soft and quiet moment, so he keeps himself from elaborating.
Instead, perhaps predictably, he moves to mask his unsurety with impishness.]
Look, if this is about the cannon...
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Well, I suppose there is that. Hopefully, you'll take responsibility if I break my neck.
[ A joke he can make because he knows he won't. Lighthearted despite the subject matter of an ignoble death, Clive positions himself directly in front of Verso's line of sight, three paces away with a bolted bookshelf behind his back. Posture easy, shoulders lowered, expression thoughtful. Considering and weighing on invisible scales whether what he wants to say will be yet another burden on Verso's already overladen psyche, or if he's somehow unwittingly cornered Verso into a situation where he's made it hard for the other man to refuse his more.
But, well. Maybe Clive is catastrophizing about something that doesn't need it. And maybe he should just come out and say what he wants without leaving Verso in the lurch further. So he opens his mouth again, slowly feeling his skin heat as he puts thoughts to words. ]
...What I wanted to tell you was, [ he starts, and instantly doesn't like this introduction. Mm, he hums as a self-interruption, and regroups. ] I...
...Don't think I've ever told you that my brother and I were one of the rare families in Lumiere that claimed a surname.
[ A strange pivot, he knows. But there's a point he wants to make here, even if the concept of a surname might be ridiculous to Verso. Was it more commonplace before the Fracture? Was it simply just something the Rosfields made up as a way to differentiate themselves from the others? He can't know, but he'll start here, first. ]
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For now, though, simple patience in face of a growing curiosity as Verso tries to read between the lines of Clive's relaxed posture and the thought-tightened look on his face. That curiosity only blooms as Clive starts drawing his own lines from the concept of more towards whatever point he intends to make, a point that still feels nebulous and unknowable with each hint that gets layered onto the others. Like that flush to Clive's skin, like that faltering of his words. Even the mention of a surname only has the effect of starving Verso's curiosity even more.
This, he masks as a matter of habit.]
You didn't.
[A confirmation he considers chasing with another burst of history about life before the Fracture, or about that short stretch afterward when Verso could still consider himself a Lumieran and not a murderer. But that drive comes from the same place as both the curiosity he wants sated and his unsurety over why Clive brought up entrusting Joshua to him, and so he masks it away, too, driving home the image of a casual state of mind by leaning a bit more against the chair.
Likewise, any question he could ask feels leading rather than conversational, so he encourages Clive to continue with nothing more than a canting of his head.]
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At the very least, he sets the tray down on top of a nearby stack of books (sorry Proust, Clive promises it's nothing personal). ]
I can't say for certain that the name itself means anything, but it was always something our mother cited as the reason we were different from the others. Something to uphold and protect. [ A wry half-smile. ] ...Though I wasn't given the right to claim it, for obvious reasons.
[ No surprises there. His fingers flex and unflex by his sides, and blue eyes settle on Verso with vague apology written into the way they narrow slightly. I'll get to the point, essentially. ]
Which is why I haven't mentioned it, nor thought I ever would. But we've spoken of more, and I thought...
[ A beat, to breathe in and out. ]
...There's no one to stop me from reclaiming that name, now. And, when all of this is over, you won't have to live under the shadow of 'Dessendre'.
[ Disparate dots, slowly being connected by string. Or so Clive hopes. He feels a bit ridiculous now, the more he tries to give this nebulous idea a solid shape, but he's come too far to back out now.
So, as he clears his throat: ] I thought that maybe we might share it. My surname.
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Now it's his turn to fall silence and deliver his own apologies through the widening of his eyes, his words lost to the overwhelm of the immediate interpretation that comes to mind:
This is a proposal.
And maybe he's wrong; maybe he's reading too much into a situation that he's several decades removed from. Surnames could mean something different to Clive's family than they'd meant in bygone times. It's not like Verso would know one way or the other. But they have been talking about settling down, growing old, watching their hair turn grey, and their skin be etched with well-earned wrinkles, and their bodies slowing, slowing, slowing until they reach their long-promised stop. Forever has long been imprinted on each of their hearts through the other's chroma.
This still feels different. It has gravitas. A promise written in something more substantial than fairytales and daydreams. Uncrossing his arms, Verso lifts himself back up and makes his way over to Clive, so quick to raise a hand to cup his cheek that it's in motion before he stops walking.]
You know how that sounds, right?
[Yet, despite the feel of it all, Verso doesn't want to get ahead of things. It could still be something simpler than what he's thinking; it could be as much a matter of phrasing as that innuendo that slipped out earlier. So, he stands there and he studies Clive afresh, not masking the curiosity in his eyes this time, softened though it might be by love.]
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He knows what it is, too. This previously formless, vague desire that he's now shaped into words, into an idea, into― yes, a proposal. A different sort of I love you, not made sweet or incidental the way they'd stumbled upon it in ice and snow, but the same in the sense that it exists in this liminal space between their uncertain future and their hopes for tomorrow. A diamond truth among all the lies that they've had to endure.
For Clive, at least. The more that sits squarely in his heart, and begs him for attention. He struggles, still, with how he wants to phrase it; with what names might mean to Verso, and what it would take for Verso to relinquish or adopt a new one. Dessendre, both a prayer and a curse. A yardstick with which to measure the world by, and a cross to bear.
Is 'Rosfield' too much? Too little? Either way, Clive's answer is definitive, even as he tucks the two syllables of his surname into his pocket like a ring not quite ready to be given. ]
I do.
[ It's a proposal. Maybe not quite to fulfill a tradition that has long since become obsolete, but― a proposal, regardless. A suggestion, a hope, a wish, one that floods the valves of his heart and flows like fire through his veins, out and along where Verso's skin touches his cheek. Heat and intent and chroma. ]
It's a selfish thing, to want to give you my name. To want to be your home― the place you return to.
[ Warm hands reach to gently pry Verso's palm from where it's settled over his scar; there's still redness from where flames singed the flesh, and Clive kisses the poorly-healed skin with reverence and care. ]
A name is what we make of it. And I wanted to make something of it with you.
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But after living a life of constant performance, mask after mask, lie after lie, grandiose gesture after grandiose gesture, the earnestness of this moment feels like exactly what he wants and needs, like everything he could possibly ask for, a preview and a promise of exactly the kind of existence he can see himself embracing should this cycle of death ever reach its end, making way for ordinary tomorrow, after ordinary tomorrow, after ordinary tomorrow.
Fuck, he wants that. Wants this feeling to never go away – freed birds fluttering in his heart, the breeze of Clive's breath against his palm working its way all the way down to his stomach, where pinwheels spin by its power, and across his body, too, where more of those gently crackling embers cascade warmth across his skin.]
If it's selfish, then I'm greedy. All I want is to return to you.
[His hearth, his tomorrow, his what-comes-after. Starlight shines in the corners of his eyes, and he pulls his hand away only to wrap his arms around Clive, nuzzling against his neck, holding onto him so that he might better be able to hold himself together.]
Yeah. Yeah, of course I'll share your name.
[He'll share anything that Clive should offer, as he hopes Clive will share all the things he will extend to him. Love and warmth and fear and vulnerability, pain and progress, all the different ways their battered bodies and broken hearts and buffeted spirits can heal. It still feels like an impossibility. It still resonates like the music of fantasy, spilling across a theatre audience with its make-believe melody of maybe, maybe, maybe.
And yet.
What that name is, he doesn't know, but he leaves it to Clive to tell him on his terms. To do otherwise feels akin to plucking a presented ring from its box and putting it on his own finger. Classless. The wrong kind of selfish and greedy.]
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―this is sweeter. Arms around his middle, Verso's starlight smile tucked against his neck. The music of his breath, the way his voice twinkles when he says yes. Clive could listen to that yes forever, and it'll be a gift every single time. Permission and acceptance and trust and honesty. The candor that Clive had so naively asked for, granted tenfold; and oh, how fucking stupid of him. He should have known that Verso would be a giver.
In the ruin of this life, Clive has found this world's miracle. He holds Verso the way he might cradle a beating heart, and presses his lips to Verso's pulse to kiss his chroma into Verso's skin again. Flames not just to consume but to illuminate, a beacon in the dark when all other lights have gone out. ]
...You needn't have answered right away, [ he finally offers after an extended stretch of emotional overwhelm, of yeah still ringing in his ears like a thousand small bells. It still rocks his skull, the intensity of it. ] If you want time to think about it, you can have as much of it as you'd like.
[ Again: Dessendre might be a curse, but it used to belong to Verso until it shattered by his feet. Maybe he'd spent time trying to glue those pieces back together, and maybe it's hard to part with, no matter how much those pieces cut and make Verso bleed.
So says the man still trying to press scarlet under Verso's skin. Wanting him, loving him, imagining a life where they curl against each other and do ordinary things as ordinary men. Gentle fantasies of being tired and being able to answer by suggesting that they do nothing all day instead of pressing on regardless― of being happy, and nurturing that happiness without self-flagellation.
Clive closes his eyes, and surrenders himself to simply feeling. ]
But if you do decide you want it... [ Just a little tension, as he tugs at mental strings and finally, finally conjures the surname he'd never felt he had the right to speak. His and Verso's, if the world plays their cards kindly. ] ..."Clive Rosfield", and "Verso Rosfield".
[ Perhaps not as melodic as Dessendre, but the clunkiness might be a draw. It doesn't matter to Clive, at the end of the day― if he's "Clive Dessendre" (worse?), he'll still want to make something new with this adopted legacy. ]
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All his life, he's been a Dessendre because he was told that's who he must be, just as all Clive's life, he's been denied a claim to his own damned name because he was told it was who he could never become. But neither extreme has changed the way they feel about their loved ones, and to Verso, that's what matters in the end. If he's learned one thing from the Dessendres, it's that a name is a banner to wave, a cause to fight for, a defining of past and present and future.
And Rosfield – the field of roses on the other side of the descent, growing from des cendres, the ashes, well, Verso thinks that not even Renoir with his metaphors and parables could paint a prettier picture of what awaits him and Clive on the other end of their fates.
Starlight kisses at scarlet; lips graze the rhythm of a pulse. And he laughs, soft and fond.]
There's nothing to think about. I want to make a different name for myself than the one I was given.
[He wants to be all the things Verso was never born to become in Paris or painted to become here in the Canvas. He wants to find himself in a set of expectations that aren't inextricably tied to pasts that he's never lived. Foolhardy and reckless though he is and always will be, a lot of it comes from a place of knowing. I cannot die is every bit as true to him as I am not a Dessendre.
Here, he pulls back. Steps the smallest step away, only so he can look Clive better in the eyes, taking his hands as he does so that he can still have something to hold.]
With you, that might actually be possible. So, yeah, I'd be honoured if one day, the name I make is ours, Monsieur Rosfield.
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The glimmer (it feels an awful lot like silver) stays, reflected in his blue eyes, as he meets Verso's gaze and grips their hands together. ]
And it would be my honor to share that name with you, [ after a somewhat shy beat, ] Monsieur Rosfield.
[ Rosfield-to-be? Semantics. Either way, the fact remains that what Clive is suggesting is something far worse for the Dessendres than simply aiding their wayward painted son in what they might call a misguided rebellion― thus far, it might be that painted Renoir has viewed this as something close to a teenage tantrum, a phase that Verso has failed to outgrow as quickly as he'd hoped.
But ripping the Dessendre away from the son? A clearer intent to break from the mold, in far more certain terms. This is not the sort of relationship that Clive can bring to a father for his blessing, and really―
―he should probably stay well enough away from Renoir when their paths inevitably cross in the near future. Initially, at least. Until Clive finds his trump card, his winning strategy.
That's for Future Clive to worry about, though. Now, his head is full of the more that he envisions, and another bit to add to that pile.
Tentatively: ] ...Alicia is welcome to join us, if she'd like.
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