[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.
[Monsieur Rosfield. Funny how a pair of words can take on such different meanings in one voice and another, how one can carry an energising force, how the other can steal that energy away from him for a moment, thought and word and motion kneeling to its power. Images of being introduced on stage as Verso Rosfield filter through his better judgment, that last syllable echoing through a silenced room – field, field, field, field –
He hums, content, but shifts into something a bit more withdrawn at the mention of Alicia.
For all the dreams he's able to share with Clive, and for all the parts of him that can actually believe them in moments like this when the only thing bearing down on them is the Dessendres' opulence, he struggles to view any future he might have with his sister with the same sort of energy. Not that he doesn't want to, of course, because he very deeply does. But rather because he isn't sure what she wants, or what's best for her, or whether she sees tomorrow taking the same shape as he does or if she favours her father's vision of the future. He hopes she doesn't, but the way she stands with him, sometimes, gives him pause enough to hold his dreams of reunion at a distance.
Much of which he releases through a soft sigh, not wanting to ruin the moment by commenting on the weight of that if.]
It'd be nice to have a full house again. [Is what he goes with instead, tentative in a different way.] Maybe not all the time, but for dinners and on holidays. And we could leave our doors open for anyone who needs a place to hideaway for a while, and make that the Rosfield legacy. You know, hearth and harbour.
[Not exceptionalism. Not superiority through birthright. Not an inheritance of unwanted roles and forced responsibilities and a blood-bound duty to rise to unshared causes. It could be the natural extension of everything Verso's done and been, too, that surety of self and place and home supplanting the inescapable fact that he was literally created from nothing to be something against his will.
Losing this now would ruin him. That's hardly news considering he'd expressed a similar sentiment to Clive earlier, but putting it to words like this has a similar effect on his fear as it does on his hope. So, a kiss to reassert that now is real and now is safe and now is life, followed by his own selfishness, a more-through-less.]
So, I'm really going to need you to help me keep you safe.
[ Expertly, Verso sidesteps the subject of Alicia. Doesn't speak her name, even, when speaking of the possibility of a full house, a beautiful legacy that they can make for themselves. The portrait Verso paints is a future where Alicia may be free to come and go if she pleases, with pleases being the operative word.
It still breaks Clive's heart, knowing that Verso's estrangement from his sister is an unhappy one. That they both can't seem to see the shape of each other, even when they sway to the same rhythm of the same song and communicate in full sentences without using words at all. A precious, sacrosanct thing, made impossible to touch because of this ongoing war.
(Another reason why Clive dislikes painted Renoir deeply, as if the bar wasn't already low enough.)
Speaking (thinking) of Renoir, though. Clive winds his arms around Verso's middle, holding him with the affection of someone who intends to hold his partner through many, many more instances and situations in the future. Careful and reverent and gentle. ]
Is Renoir [ demoted from 'your father'; simply just his name, ] truly so blinded by his cause? Would he truly see to it that you have nothing at all?
[ Renoir, a servant to his love for Aline. But even so, isn't there any part of him that would wish for his son's happiness? For his son's peace of mind? ]
Am I such a threat to him? His cause?
[ Much as Clive doesn't like to think it, he thinks that they might want the same thing: to keep Verso safe, to see that he's protected. His expression sours just slightly at the thought of it, brows pinching inwards just a fraction. ]
[Oddly, Renoir is an easier subject than Alicia, at least in this context, and Verso nearly relaxes at this shift in focus, letting out a rumbling mm that's half-rooted in thought, half in response to being held more wholly.]
He thinks that removing the Paintress from the Canvas is tantamount to familicide. Or in your case, murder. It doesn't matter that the Canvas would be destroyed after her death because he figures that at least then, he'll have bought his family the greatest amount of time.
[Even if they're miserable. Even if they aren't themselves. Even if they'll never truly be together again as a unit. He cannot bear more grief, or survive more guilt, or relinquish control over the dreams he's long held of an impossible future. These things Verso won't say – they feel too personal to share – but goodness knows there's much, much more than he can use for context, so he shifts gears.]
And he thinks he's doing right by her. No matter what else, she's still his wife and he loves her, and he's not wrong that her real husband has caused her a lot of harm. Sending her home means sending her back to him. He'd never hurt her the way he has here, but... It's complicated.
[He thinks he's helping. He thinks he knows what's best. He acts purely out of love, which has made him devastatingly selfish. Verso's father knows that better than anyone, just as he feels the same justification to keep her where he believes she needs to be most. A self-perpetuating clusterfuck from both sides of the mirror.]
If we succeed at removing her and getting the other Renoir to come around, he won't be a problem. Until then, though...
[That thought probably doesn't need completing, so Verso leaves it to hang.]
Until then, he'll want to erase me as soon as he sees me.
[ A wry half-huff, as if to say back to this again. It's not personal, nor is it an indictment against his ability to fight back. Clive understands that much, logically and academically, even if his heart hates that that's the reality of things.
His turn to nest his face against Verso's neck, shoulders curled to melt against his front. The manor is a protective black-and-gold cocoon around them, but it won't always be the case; the future that Clive wants to see with Verso is safe behind his eyelids when he closes them, but dreams are only lovely when there's a spark of hope in reality to give them credence.
Drumming his fingers along the small of Verso's back: ]
What can I do to help?
[ To better their odds. To make sure that Verso doesn't fall apart. To ease even a fraction of the burden that must settle heavy on Verso's shoulders. If they're to share a name, Clive will have to live long enough to see that happen; to carry on, Clive will have to eschew self-sacrifice and have the courage to trust that persisting as he is will mean something. He has to be more than something for Verso to lose to keep going. Tomorrow comes is noble, but doesn't always have to imply subtraction for the sake of addition. ]
[Much less wry. A little more tense, though not starkly so. Verso reaches up to run a hand through Clive's hair, fingers working abstract patterns against his scalp, moving the silent yet lilting music of fairytales.
What can Clive do to help? What can be done more generally? There is, perhaps, an answer in the brutal: they could storm the manor, incapacitate him and find some way to make it last until they can trust him to stay his own blade and keep his lions and his chroma to himself. That would wholly devastate Alicia, though, and it might break away a part of Verso as well, not to mention that he struggles to find the will to defend himself against his father, at least when compared to all the other threats he faces. That relegates it to last-ditch status.
Ignoring him works until it doesn't; evading him works until he finds another way to back him into a corner. Appealing to the heart that still resides behind the layers and layers of blood-stained armour doesn't fucking work. Their diametric opposition to each other's goals means that neither one of them will ever stand down against the other.
Which should give Verso an entire arsenal of advantages to offer Clive, yet none besides the basics come to mind. Fight smart. Be defensive. Parry everything from the swing of his sword to whatever he draws forth from the split-open sky. A bunch of patronising advice for someone as seasoned as Clive.
So, a different kind of insight, then.]
He'll do anything. Everything. He's shot people in the backs, he's killed them while they were trying to talk to him, he... really will stop at nothing. I don't know how to help against that. You just... you need to be more determined than him.
[And maybe that's why Verso keeps falling short. It's been a long, long time since he's followed his own heart. So, now the wryness comes forth. Now, he almost laughs.]
That's harder than it sounds, by the way. He's really, really determined.
[And really, really in love, but Verso doesn't need to point that out. Not with talk of the Rosfields still keeping him warm and hopeful.]
[ Anything and everything. Clive doesn't doubt that about Renoir, either: the man's track record has spoken for him, both in decisiveness and brutality alike. Petals in bottles, rows and rows of handmade grave markers under where Expeditioners have been laid to rest. The Battlefield was a lesson in years and years of shattered hope, but Clive is glad to have seen it regardless. It's let him know what he's up against, well and truly.
Which is why he doesn't flinch at the mention of determination. It is, if nothing else, the one thing Clive has in spades and spades and spades. Verso might find no humor in a battle of obstinacy, but that trait is the strongest one in Clive's arsenal, the one that's kept his feet moving even after the weight of his own sins threatened to bring him under; the one that kept him from kneeling by Verso's feet and begging him for death the first time they met.
Onward, onward. Even if the soles of his boots wear down to nothing, even on bloody feet and broken heels. Onward, onward. That sentiment reflects in blue eyes, steady as the sea. ]
I don't fear his determination, nor what passes for his strength of will.
[ Bluntly, with no reservation. Renoir is Verso's father, yes, and Clive would choose the path of mercy if that's what it would take not to break Verso's heart, but still―
―he has no compunction about turning his sword on the man. No hesitation, nothing to cloud his judgment. ]
He fights for death, and we fight for a future. He's chosen not to choose, but to blindly follow a hopeless path set out by a woman lost to him.
[ And that makes him more dead than living, Clive thinks to say, but keeps to himself. A bit too intense, and not his place to say, besides. He can only speak for himself, and so he will. ]
I've chosen to live. And by virtue of that choice, he'll never be able to break me.
[ With the force of stubborn belief in every syllable of that declaration. Life has tried to break Clive several times over already; Renoir won't be the one to finish the job. Not as long as Verso is alive, and gives Clive a reason to keep pressing forward. Renoir Dessendre does not have a monopoly in loving and being in love. ]
[I've chosen to live. The words strike Verso similar to how Monsieur Rosfield had, bearing the kind of warmth that resonates as chills, even if it's hardly revelatory at this point in their journey of together. And while part of that feeling might owe to Verso's own long-complicated relationship with wanting to see tomorrow through, much of it is rooted in the rarity of hearing it said and knowing that it might actually prove true for once.
So, a tightening of his hold, a shifting of more of his weight against Clive, as if this closer proximity will osmose similar strengths and determinations into his own tired yet stubbornly beating heart. There's a part of him that wants to head off back to bed, safe and loved and as whole as he's felt in a while, to see if these feelings are enough to help him hold off the void and help his subconscious rediscover how to dream, too, tired as he is and has always been, but instead he re-roots himself in the topic at hand and the dark uncertainties from which I've chosen to live has sprung.]
Then... it sounds like he's the one who has no idea what he's up against.
[Maybe Renoir has command over powers that Verso has never seen; maybe the Paintress is funnelling into him all the chroma he looses into the Canvas with every Expeditioner he kills before the Nevrons can get to them and imprison that same chroma into stone-entombed bodies. It's even possible that Paintress knows exactly what peaks Clive's chroma is and is not capable of ascending, diminishing any surprise-based advantage that he might have over them. But the way that Clive loves, and the strength of his heart, and the power with which he keeps unknowingly lifting Verso up from the gutters of despair – those are unknowable variables, surprising, at times, even to Verso.
Things aren't as dire as having to wonder whether Renoir's unique brand of doom awaits them around all corners, though, so:]
We should be okay as long as we stay out of Old Lumiere. There's not a chance he won't be waiting for us at the Monolith, but he's smart enough to not try and stop us when we're not directly in his way.
[Perhaps a bit of a confusing statement, considering how he and Clive found each other again, which Verso is aware enough of to clarify.]
[ Renoir doesn't know what he's up against, owing partially to the fact that Clive doesn't quite know what he's capable of either. But Ifrit and his limitlessness is less important to Clive than his own inherent ability to withstand what life throws at him, and so he chooses to focus on the latter instead: his endurance, which is owed in no small part to the love he has for the man pressed against his front.
Clive presses his lips briefly to Verso's forehead, then nuzzles sideways along the stripe of white cascading along his temple. Signs of time and age, written into Verso's hair― one day, he hopes to mirror it. Until then, he has to white-knuckle onto this concept of living, strange as it remains to want it for himself.
The brief smile he allows himself at Verso's testimony about Clive's unpredictable bullheadedness, however, fades somewhat at the revelation that Verso had invited (?) Renoir into their space, all those weeks ago. ]
―The night I turned into Ifrit again?
[ The night of the Gommage-that-never-was. Clive recalls that Verso had mentioned something about Renoir occasionally showing up on the one day of the year that the Paintress sees fit to unwind herself from her preternatural crouch, but the way Verso phrases this― my doing― makes it sound different from the usual.
Without letting go, Clive steps back and smooths a hand down Verso's side. Head tipped, eager to listen. ]
[More of a waiting, a deliberate making available of himself. Verso pushes himself away from Clive's hold out of something vaguely resembling guilt but not quite there, some mingling of regret and exhaustion and the foolish longing of a long-changed son for his long-gone father.]
Like I said, I had an idea that he'd come find me, so I thought I'd try to use it to my advantage this time. Figured that maybe he'd have an easier time listening to me if I started speaking in his language. Or that he'd realise how he sounded and, I don't know, carve a different path.
[With Verso? Probably not; the fractures they suffered have made it so that what's left of them juts out at angles so sharp and conflicting that they may never slot back together into their father-and-son roles ever again. But maybe he would have listened, and maybe that would have changed how he was there for Aline and for Alicia; maybe it would have saved the next Expedition from being slaughtered for their successes. In retrospect it feels naive. The silly hopes of a man who will always struggle with being the boy he's never actually been.]
But all I ended up doing was walking into the lion's den and showing my belly.
[Nothing surprising in hindsight, but in the moment, when all those thoughts of possibility violently became a sequence of never, he faltered. Renoir took the advantage, and...]
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flamebrand) wrote2024-09-08 02:07 pm
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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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He hums, content, but shifts into something a bit more withdrawn at the mention of Alicia.
For all the dreams he's able to share with Clive, and for all the parts of him that can actually believe them in moments like this when the only thing bearing down on them is the Dessendres' opulence, he struggles to view any future he might have with his sister with the same sort of energy. Not that he doesn't want to, of course, because he very deeply does. But rather because he isn't sure what she wants, or what's best for her, or whether she sees tomorrow taking the same shape as he does or if she favours her father's vision of the future. He hopes she doesn't, but the way she stands with him, sometimes, gives him pause enough to hold his dreams of reunion at a distance.
Much of which he releases through a soft sigh, not wanting to ruin the moment by commenting on the weight of that if.]
It'd be nice to have a full house again. [Is what he goes with instead, tentative in a different way.] Maybe not all the time, but for dinners and on holidays. And we could leave our doors open for anyone who needs a place to hideaway for a while, and make that the Rosfield legacy. You know, hearth and harbour.
[Not exceptionalism. Not superiority through birthright. Not an inheritance of unwanted roles and forced responsibilities and a blood-bound duty to rise to unshared causes. It could be the natural extension of everything Verso's done and been, too, that surety of self and place and home supplanting the inescapable fact that he was literally created from nothing to be something against his will.
Losing this now would ruin him. That's hardly news considering he'd expressed a similar sentiment to Clive earlier, but putting it to words like this has a similar effect on his fear as it does on his hope. So, a kiss to reassert that now is real and now is safe and now is life, followed by his own selfishness, a more-through-less.]
So, I'm really going to need you to help me keep you safe.
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It still breaks Clive's heart, knowing that Verso's estrangement from his sister is an unhappy one. That they both can't seem to see the shape of each other, even when they sway to the same rhythm of the same song and communicate in full sentences without using words at all. A precious, sacrosanct thing, made impossible to touch because of this ongoing war.
(Another reason why Clive dislikes painted Renoir deeply, as if the bar wasn't already low enough.)
Speaking (thinking) of Renoir, though. Clive winds his arms around Verso's middle, holding him with the affection of someone who intends to hold his partner through many, many more instances and situations in the future. Careful and reverent and gentle. ]
Is Renoir [ demoted from 'your father'; simply just his name, ] truly so blinded by his cause? Would he truly see to it that you have nothing at all?
[ Renoir, a servant to his love for Aline. But even so, isn't there any part of him that would wish for his son's happiness? For his son's peace of mind? ]
Am I such a threat to him? His cause?
[ Much as Clive doesn't like to think it, he thinks that they might want the same thing: to keep Verso safe, to see that he's protected. His expression sours just slightly at the thought of it, brows pinching inwards just a fraction. ]
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He thinks that removing the Paintress from the Canvas is tantamount to familicide. Or in your case, murder. It doesn't matter that the Canvas would be destroyed after her death because he figures that at least then, he'll have bought his family the greatest amount of time.
[Even if they're miserable. Even if they aren't themselves. Even if they'll never truly be together again as a unit. He cannot bear more grief, or survive more guilt, or relinquish control over the dreams he's long held of an impossible future. These things Verso won't say – they feel too personal to share – but goodness knows there's much, much more than he can use for context, so he shifts gears.]
And he thinks he's doing right by her. No matter what else, she's still his wife and he loves her, and he's not wrong that her real husband has caused her a lot of harm. Sending her home means sending her back to him. He'd never hurt her the way he has here, but... It's complicated.
[He thinks he's helping. He thinks he knows what's best. He acts purely out of love, which has made him devastatingly selfish. Verso's father knows that better than anyone, just as he feels the same justification to keep her where he believes she needs to be most. A self-perpetuating clusterfuck from both sides of the mirror.]
If we succeed at removing her and getting the other Renoir to come around, he won't be a problem. Until then, though...
[That thought probably doesn't need completing, so Verso leaves it to hang.]
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[ A wry half-huff, as if to say back to this again. It's not personal, nor is it an indictment against his ability to fight back. Clive understands that much, logically and academically, even if his heart hates that that's the reality of things.
His turn to nest his face against Verso's neck, shoulders curled to melt against his front. The manor is a protective black-and-gold cocoon around them, but it won't always be the case; the future that Clive wants to see with Verso is safe behind his eyelids when he closes them, but dreams are only lovely when there's a spark of hope in reality to give them credence.
Drumming his fingers along the small of Verso's back: ]
What can I do to help?
[ To better their odds. To make sure that Verso doesn't fall apart. To ease even a fraction of the burden that must settle heavy on Verso's shoulders. If they're to share a name, Clive will have to live long enough to see that happen; to carry on, Clive will have to eschew self-sacrifice and have the courage to trust that persisting as he is will mean something. He has to be more than something for Verso to lose to keep going. Tomorrow comes is noble, but doesn't always have to imply subtraction for the sake of addition. ]
What should I expect?
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[Much less wry. A little more tense, though not starkly so. Verso reaches up to run a hand through Clive's hair, fingers working abstract patterns against his scalp, moving the silent yet lilting music of fairytales.
What can Clive do to help? What can be done more generally? There is, perhaps, an answer in the brutal: they could storm the manor, incapacitate him and find some way to make it last until they can trust him to stay his own blade and keep his lions and his chroma to himself. That would wholly devastate Alicia, though, and it might break away a part of Verso as well, not to mention that he struggles to find the will to defend himself against his father, at least when compared to all the other threats he faces. That relegates it to last-ditch status.
Ignoring him works until it doesn't; evading him works until he finds another way to back him into a corner. Appealing to the heart that still resides behind the layers and layers of blood-stained armour doesn't fucking work. Their diametric opposition to each other's goals means that neither one of them will ever stand down against the other.
Which should give Verso an entire arsenal of advantages to offer Clive, yet none besides the basics come to mind. Fight smart. Be defensive. Parry everything from the swing of his sword to whatever he draws forth from the split-open sky. A bunch of patronising advice for someone as seasoned as Clive.
So, a different kind of insight, then.]
He'll do anything. Everything. He's shot people in the backs, he's killed them while they were trying to talk to him, he... really will stop at nothing. I don't know how to help against that. You just... you need to be more determined than him.
[And maybe that's why Verso keeps falling short. It's been a long, long time since he's followed his own heart. So, now the wryness comes forth. Now, he almost laughs.]
That's harder than it sounds, by the way. He's really, really determined.
[And really, really in love, but Verso doesn't need to point that out. Not with talk of the Rosfields still keeping him warm and hopeful.]
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Which is why he doesn't flinch at the mention of determination. It is, if nothing else, the one thing Clive has in spades and spades and spades. Verso might find no humor in a battle of obstinacy, but that trait is the strongest one in Clive's arsenal, the one that's kept his feet moving even after the weight of his own sins threatened to bring him under; the one that kept him from kneeling by Verso's feet and begging him for death the first time they met.
Onward, onward. Even if the soles of his boots wear down to nothing, even on bloody feet and broken heels. Onward, onward. That sentiment reflects in blue eyes, steady as the sea. ]
I don't fear his determination, nor what passes for his strength of will.
[ Bluntly, with no reservation. Renoir is Verso's father, yes, and Clive would choose the path of mercy if that's what it would take not to break Verso's heart, but still―
―he has no compunction about turning his sword on the man. No hesitation, nothing to cloud his judgment. ]
He fights for death, and we fight for a future. He's chosen not to choose, but to blindly follow a hopeless path set out by a woman lost to him.
[ And that makes him more dead than living, Clive thinks to say, but keeps to himself. A bit too intense, and not his place to say, besides. He can only speak for himself, and so he will. ]
I've chosen to live. And by virtue of that choice, he'll never be able to break me.
[ With the force of stubborn belief in every syllable of that declaration. Life has tried to break Clive several times over already; Renoir won't be the one to finish the job. Not as long as Verso is alive, and gives Clive a reason to keep pressing forward. Renoir Dessendre does not have a monopoly in loving and being in love. ]
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So, a tightening of his hold, a shifting of more of his weight against Clive, as if this closer proximity will osmose similar strengths and determinations into his own tired yet stubbornly beating heart. There's a part of him that wants to head off back to bed, safe and loved and as whole as he's felt in a while, to see if these feelings are enough to help him hold off the void and help his subconscious rediscover how to dream, too, tired as he is and has always been, but instead he re-roots himself in the topic at hand and the dark uncertainties from which I've chosen to live has sprung.]
Then... it sounds like he's the one who has no idea what he's up against.
[Maybe Renoir has command over powers that Verso has never seen; maybe the Paintress is funnelling into him all the chroma he looses into the Canvas with every Expeditioner he kills before the Nevrons can get to them and imprison that same chroma into stone-entombed bodies. It's even possible that Paintress knows exactly what peaks Clive's chroma is and is not capable of ascending, diminishing any surprise-based advantage that he might have over them. But the way that Clive loves, and the strength of his heart, and the power with which he keeps unknowingly lifting Verso up from the gutters of despair – those are unknowable variables, surprising, at times, even to Verso.
Things aren't as dire as having to wonder whether Renoir's unique brand of doom awaits them around all corners, though, so:]
We should be okay as long as we stay out of Old Lumiere. There's not a chance he won't be waiting for us at the Monolith, but he's smart enough to not try and stop us when we're not directly in his way.
[Perhaps a bit of a confusing statement, considering how he and Clive found each other again, which Verso is aware enough of to clarify.]
The fight you saw? That was my doing.
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Clive presses his lips briefly to Verso's forehead, then nuzzles sideways along the stripe of white cascading along his temple. Signs of time and age, written into Verso's hair― one day, he hopes to mirror it. Until then, he has to white-knuckle onto this concept of living, strange as it remains to want it for himself.
The brief smile he allows himself at Verso's testimony about Clive's unpredictable bullheadedness, however, fades somewhat at the revelation that Verso had invited (?) Renoir into their space, all those weeks ago. ]
―The night I turned into Ifrit again?
[ The night of the Gommage-that-never-was. Clive recalls that Verso had mentioned something about Renoir occasionally showing up on the one day of the year that the Paintress sees fit to unwind herself from her preternatural crouch, but the way Verso phrases this― my doing― makes it sound different from the usual.
Without letting go, Clive steps back and smooths a hand down Verso's side. Head tipped, eager to listen. ]
You called for him?
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[More of a waiting, a deliberate making available of himself. Verso pushes himself away from Clive's hold out of something vaguely resembling guilt but not quite there, some mingling of regret and exhaustion and the foolish longing of a long-changed son for his long-gone father.]
Like I said, I had an idea that he'd come find me, so I thought I'd try to use it to my advantage this time. Figured that maybe he'd have an easier time listening to me if I started speaking in his language. Or that he'd realise how he sounded and, I don't know, carve a different path.
[With Verso? Probably not; the fractures they suffered have made it so that what's left of them juts out at angles so sharp and conflicting that they may never slot back together into their father-and-son roles ever again. But maybe he would have listened, and maybe that would have changed how he was there for Aline and for Alicia; maybe it would have saved the next Expedition from being slaughtered for their successes. In retrospect it feels naive. The silly hopes of a man who will always struggle with being the boy he's never actually been.]
But all I ended up doing was walking into the lion's den and showing my belly.
[Nothing surprising in hindsight, but in the moment, when all those thoughts of possibility violently became a sequence of never, he faltered. Renoir took the advantage, and...]
I'm sorry. Should've known better.
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