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In time, all of Verso’s memories begin to blur.
In time, they begin to degrade and lose their once-vibrant hues, their edges dulled like crumbling shells one may freely kick and turn over at the beach, and he’s long ago stopped being able to distinguish with certainty which memories are of his own, and which of them belong to Verso—the truer, purer version of Verso that he should’ve been.
But among them, he might still claim a handful as his own.
One of such moments is of a quiet evening, pre-Fracture, sitting in his family garden with his friends after a rumbustious afternoon of games. Andre and Tristian were already busy planning for the next round. Simon, who’d always been courteous, polite, and tended to utter words only out of pure necessity, was quietly laughing at some jokes that Verso had made earlier.
And in walked Clea.
There were bits of paints on her hands, on her sleeves, on her long hair. Arms planted on her sides, she gave Verso a pointed look, and aired some of the grievances she had against Verso about any and all offensive actions he had committed during the day. Or maybe they had been about some tasks that he’d left unfinished. Or just the general state of unruly behaviours he’d been displaying unbefitting as the heir of the Dessendre fortune. There were many wrongs he’d surely done over the day alone, but the details hadn’t mattered, because he wasn’t listening. Not that he ever listened, but this time around, the words completely failed to register because he caught the look on his friend’s face.
Simon’s face held an open shock, and his eyes only saw Clea.
Thus began a quiet courtship that Verso thought that suited Simon and secretly thought didn’t quite suit his sister, who he’d always thought would want to be wooed with all the extravagances in the world. That changed when Verso saw his sister, who had never once waited on the men who came to call on her, standing by the window one morning, with the smallest of the smiles on her face, over the scene of Simon approaching the gate of the Manor.
It’s those memories that Verso cannot shed now, at this moment—of Simon, looking up at Clea under the fading sunlight of their garden, and his sister, looking down at Simon, with a small and much too rare contented smile lingering over her lips.
At this very moment when Simon, or a husk of what remains of him, brings down his blade, brutally fast and strong, and sweeps it across the Abyss for what must’ve been for the umpteenth time.
Verso grits his teeth and dodges it. Lune parries the energy just in time, but the hit shatters the shell of chroma surrounding Sciel. Gustave reaches out to cover for Sciel, with Monoco just a step behind. They can’t hold him off indefinitely, Verso knows. They haven't been prepared to find Simon here, and they’re not strong enough to release him from the chromatic spell that had him under for all these years. The best they might do is laying him to rest, but Verso’s breaths are coming up short, and the rest aren’t faring much better.
Simon brings down his sword again, this time over Gustave, who’s still covering for Sciel. Gustave turns, his prosthetic arm lit up in dark red, but the timing—Verso sees it’s off, that Gustave wouldn’t be able to block it in time, and he knows, then. He knows he’ll be watching the scene of Gustave’s death unfold in front of his eyes. And this time Verso wouldn’t be able to save the life that he’s once before so cavalierly chosen not to.
No, thinks Verso, his heart beating wildly enough to escape his own chest. No, please, I—
Just then, the Frame freezes—or rather, Simon does.
And his sisters enter the Frame.
With only Simon frozen in the black and white tableau, Sciel and Monoco are free to grab Gustave by his shoulders, so they quickly drag him out from the reach of Simon’s blade.
And Clea, with Alicia holding her gently by her arm, faces Simon.
"Simon," says Clea.
His name, a single word, holds only pain, and it hurts. It hurts for Verso to remember his sister at the window on that beautiful, precious morning, over the sight of Simon at the gate, holding her favourite flowers.
"I don’t know how long I can keep him in this state," murmurs Alicia.
Clea stands still, looking up at the darkly stained face of the man she’s loved. For a short moment, Verso thinks she, too, might be once again painted in grey, despite having her colours back.
"You have found me, my love," says Clea, her voice soft and broken, and Verso shivers. "You have found me, so you have fulfilled your oath."
Simon remains frozen, immovable and immutable in grey, and Clea reaches out for him.
"So now," she says, and it’s worse, Verso thinks, it’s so much worse that there’s no tear in her eyes, because she no longer has any left. "Now you may rest. Now, you may be set free."
Without Maelle, they can’t even attempt to break him away from the spell of Clea the Paintress. All his sister could do is to let him go and release him from the Canvas. So, the flow of chroma from Clea’s fingertips seeps into Simon, spreading like a drop of ink in murky water, and the edges of him begin to scatter and dissipate, in petals lined with gold and grey.
"No," Lune utters, low and vehement, "fuck this," and she walks over to Clea and grabs her by the wrist to lower Clea’s hand over Simon.
And then Lune pulls out the Chroma Converter.
"Lune, wait," says Gustave, but Lune ignores it and turns to Alicia, who nods, mute and resolute, back at her. Both of them stand over Simon instead.
And together, two of them start to pull.
Their threads of chroma start to peel off the abysmal grey that envelops almost every inch of Simon. From their insistent pull, the smudges of paint begin to shake, and then flake off of him, little by little, slow and steadfast, until a flesh of colours begins to reveal itself underneath.
When the last taint of darkness over his face seeps out from Simon, the Frame unfreezes, and all three of them—Simon, Lune and Alicia—stagger on their feet. Sciel and Gustave catch Lune and Alicia before they fall.
When Simon sinks to his one knee and topples, Clea is there. She lets him fall, gently, over her, and holds his head on her lap.
For a long time, no one moves.
Until Simon opens his eyes.
"Clea," Simon rasps. Reverent. His eyes, Verso sees, still only hold Clea, and her alone.
Clea cups his face with her hand, and her tears once again fall on his face.
"There’s reckless, and there’s reckless, Lune," Gustave admonishes, while poking at the campfire to keep it going.
Lune shrugs, and then winces from the strain seemingly triggered by that small gesture. Even hours after the thorough administration of potions and pictos, she still looks completely worn down. "But it worked."
"We hadn’t even field-tested the newest converter once," says Gustave, exasperated and fond. "You had no idea how it would’ve gone."
"Well, consider it well-tested now," counters Lune, dryly. "And now we know: it works. My compliment to the engineering team."
"I do agree it was maybe a little reckless," Sciel injects lightly, "and yes, I know that’s a lot to take coming me, the resident reckless troublemaker. Still, all’s well that ends well, yeah? We should take the win where we can." Then she adds, more somberly, "And what would’ve happened to Simon and Clea if Lune didn’t give it a try just then?"
And the trio quiets, all of them clearly knowing the answer.
Verso, watching from the shadows, doesn’t join them.
But he, too, knows the answer. Simon would be dead, truly dead, after 67 years of knowing nothing but deaths and pain, and Clea, his sister Verso’s just gotten back, would’ve followed him not too long after.
And what awaits them now after the miraculous, tearful reunion. Would they live through their remaining lives together knowing only of happiness? After the decades of suffering that have left them with nothing but haunted memories?
Verso is a liar. A gifted and truly well-accomplished one, at that.
But even he can’t stomach such a lie.
He tries to slip into the dark, away from this circle of the old friends who are sharing a moment together. A little too late, perhaps, because Gustave looks up just in time from the fire and sees right through the shadows.
"Verso," says Gustave. A question. An invitation.
Verso loves hearing his name from these lips. In this voice, warmly amused and sometimes concerned, even his name sounds gentle. Almost guileless. As if Verso could be something other than what he is.
Verso takes a step back. And two. Until he’s turned away from the light and into the dark.
"You’re troubled," says Monoco.
"Let’s be fair," says Verso, spread out on the cool grass with his arms as pillows, and breathes in the chill night air. It helps a little. He wishes for music. For his piano. But because he wishes for them, he doesn't call to them. "When am I not?"
Verso keeps his eyes closed, but he can still picture with perfect clarity the look Monoco must be giving him under the starlit sky. "It would hardly be worth mentioning if this was your usual brand of troubled, would it," Monoco says gruffly. "But you’re being extra mopey tonight, even by your standard. It’s insufferable, so quit it."
"Humans are just so very squishy, and so easily squished," Esquie pronounces grandly, from up above, jubilant even with his uncannily incisive, if not necessarily timely, insight. "Not you, Mon Ami, but they are."
For a moment, Monoco is quiet. "This isn’t the first time," says Monoco, eventually. "Or the last, when we would come close to losing them. And we will again. You know this, Verso."
"I’m perfectly aware," says Verso.
Esquie is immortal. And Monoco can’t truly die. Not really. Verso, the true Verso, in his youthful hope and imagination and well before learning how to hide behind the masks of himself, has made sure of that.
All so selfishly, Verso is glad.
To his credit, Verso hasn’t thought it would go unnoticed, so he’s already prepared with his answer when he’s caught just when he’s ready to disappear.
"You’re leaving," says Gustave, and it’s not a question.
Gustave has been clearly waiting for him; the moment he sees Verso, he pushes himself away from the tree he’s been leaning against and unwraps his arms around his chest.
Verso puts on a smile, performative and automatic. He’s confident in its effects from long years of practice. "I thought I’d join Clea and Alicia for the next while," he lies, smooth and assured. "They could use a hand with Simon’s recovery. I’ll likely return in a few weeks’ time."
Verso tries to move around Gustave, but Gustave takes one side step and chooses to, actively, remain and be in Verso’s way.
As Gustave so often does, intentionally or otherwise.
And so often, inescapably.
Verso turns to him with a sharp look, and Gustave already looks sorry to have done it. "I can see that you want to be left alone," says Gustave, quiet, "that you don’t want to see me just now. If that’s truly what you want, I’ll respect your wishes and leave you be." Gustave gives him a small, uncertain smile. "But there’s something wrong, isn’t there?"
Even after all this time, facing Gustave’s open and direct gaze is akin to putting your hand into the scalding water while knowing perfectly well it will burn you utterly.
"Is it about what happened with Simon? Or is it," Gustave asks, voice restrained with concern, "about—the boy?"
And here’s a small piece of the truth that Verso still recognizes among his own lies:
Verso doesn’t want to lie to this man.
It’s a novel, troublesome sensation.
It shouldn’t be. Verso has lied, for the good of the people he cares about and for his own. He’s also lied to himself countless times until he no longer knows where the truths start and the lies end. So this should’ve been easy enough.
He also falls for people easily, and eagerly, by degrees. With inevitability. So this shouldn’t be difficult. At least, it shouldn’t have been.
Julie was beautiful and brave and liked his charms and his mischief, and that’s all he’s needed to fall in love with her, even though he’s never once given her a single valid reason to trust him. And he loves them now, too, these lovely mortals of his. He loves Lune, and her fierce nature and boundless desire for knowledge. Loves Sciel, her generous heart and her impish smiles. The way they’ve fearlessly fought against the gods alongside him and forgiven him for all of his lies. And Gustave—
Verso might have already loved him even when Gustave only existed as a piece of the memory zealously guarded by those who have loved him. A tale of a selfless brother who died to save his sister, Verso might’ve been able to resist, from his own long familiarity with such tales, but he’s had no such immunity to the fabled, almost fantastical story of a hopeful man who had loved the idea of friendships lasting for decades, a kind man who’d always given people the benefit of doubt and tried to see only the best in people, a dreamer who would’ve loved to have seen the trains running across the Continent, with true fascination and an open heart.
And if it was easy enough to learn and love Gustave then, when death and distance and guilt and shame softened the edges of everyone’s remembrance of him for Verso to turn him into this gleaming, idealized perfection, then learning of Gustave now, this living and breathing version that still perfectly matches up to the ideal that should’ve only remained fictional—loving him is only so devastatingly easy.
But his love—what of it? What is it even worth?
He loved Julie, or at least he truly believed he did, even as he killed her. Simon would’ve let himself die long before touching a hair on Clea’s head. Esquie. Monoco. Noco. Lune. Sciel. He loves them all, and he would’ve erased their existence in a blink, if it meant freeing his mother. So, consigning Gustave, a stranger, to a terrible, painful death meant nothing to him. He wanted Maelle’s brother dead, because he was a nuisance, a little obstacle in his way, and nothing more.
In the end, Verso may as well be just like the Painters, whom he loathes with every fibre of his being. He's just the same as Clea the Paintress—or worse, because he knows—he knows what it means to be Painted, and yet would still think nothing of inflicting the same pain on the others. And even his devotion is Painted to be sufficient only for his family, in a poor mimicry of the real Verso who might have once known what it really meant to be true.
So even Verso’s love, along with the rest of him, isn’t true.
"Verso," Gustave sounds his name, in the way Verso loves, gently insistent.
And reading concern in Verso’s silence, Gustave reaches out, as he always does. His hand lingers over Verso’s arm.
"Don’t," Verso snarls, feeling burned, and wrenches away.
Startled, Gustave lowers his hand. "I’m sorry."
It’s unbearable, to hear him say those words to the person who’s once actively desired his death. Gustave wouldn’t understand what it means to be truly sorry, because he takes the pain to give out only the best parts of himself, only the goodness, to others so freely. So this soft inflection of Gustave’s voice, gently telling the world that repeatedly wants him harmed that he understands it all, his goodwill so far reaching to withstand all of these and all of Verso—it’s simply not bearable. The fact that man has survived this far is a miracle in itself.
If you recall, he almost hasn’t, Verso’s inner voice conveniently supplies, and then he’s overtaken by the violent urge to kill something instead. Another Nevron. Himself. Anything and everything.
"I—would you like to see me go?" Gustave asks, then.
Yes, go, thinks Verso, and the words ring loud in his head. Vicious and virulent. Leave. Go now. Far away.
Gustave bears Verso’s silence for a moment longer before he says, "Right," so softly that Verso could barely hear.
Without another word, Gustave steps aside to let Verso pass.
And then Verso thinks, abruptly: No. Never.
Verso jerks Gustave forward with a pull at his arm just as Gustave shifts away, and catches him with a hand around the back of his head.
Gustave takes a quick indrawn breath, the look on his face still intolerable with too much understanding, that Verso has to sink his fingers in Gustave’s hair and kiss him to erase that look from his face and steal that last breath, feeling something raw and dark that he isn’t, can’t, going to let loose, not all the way. It elicits a small gasp from Gustave, the sound so maddening that Verso chases after it, starved and desperate, and he wrings it out of Gustave, again and again, pressing urgent kisses down along the line of his jaw and his neck, back on his lips, on his temple, over his fluttering eyelids.
Verso wants him. He wants him, with such maddening intensity, that for a moment, Verso can forget his own lies.
Lies and truths and everything in between.
Every morning Verso wakes up with a moment of a deep and searing disappointment—at the fact that he’s awake, at the bare fact of his continued existence. At his own failure to end it.
It’s early dawn when he wakes up this time, and he waits for the same moment to arrive, only for it to be edged out by the discovery of the warmth curved up next to him.
Sleep is still taking Gustave hostage. Verso fights hard against the temptation to coax him away from it, and eventually loses the battle. He runs his hand through Gustave’s terribly mussed hair, and plants a kiss on his unruly stubble, and finds a small smile at the curve of Gustave’s mouth. And then hears a low hum of laughter, warm with affection.
"That tickles," Gustave protests, voice still thick with sleep. His breath prickles at Verso’s ear.
Verso rests his head on Gustave’s chest and closes his eyes, listening out for the now-familiar heartbeats. The skin, and everything it holds underneath, is frail and pliable. It’s the limitation Vero has always been well aware of. He might love them, with whatever love he might be capable of, capricious and precarious, but they die. That doesn’t change. That never will.
"You’re thinking so very loudly," says Gustave, and cards his fingers through Verso’s hair. Lightly, and gently, until they slow into a quiet rhythm. "Would you—would you now, at least, tell me what’s on your mind?"
Gustave, true to form, is still hoping that under the dawning light, Verso might be willing to open himself up.
Verso reaches up and wraps his hand around Gustave’s, bringing them both down to rest over his own chest. "I was thinking—that you deserve better than this."
"Verso," says Gustave, and his hand stills in Verso’s grasp.
"That if you had any sense of self-preservation left, you would’ve stayed as far away from me as possible." He smiles to himself, just a little, when Gustave can’t quite find his words to say to that. "You wanted to know."
Gustave is quiet for another moment. "Do you, then, wish me to run from you, as far as possible? Would that satisfy you?"
The answer should’ve been a yes. Yes, for a thousand times. But his answer drags itself out of him before he can stop himself.
"No," says Verso. Fierce. Desperate. Contradictory. Because he can no longer lie. "Don’t. I don’t want to—I won’t let you."
Verso flips himself over and reaches for Gustave, clutching at all the skin he can touch. Gustave makes a soft sound, a little hitch of breath that still makes Verso’s mouth go dry, and desire curls inside him again, heat spreading from head to toe. Verso pushes Gustave into the soft moss underneath them, slow and inexorable, and kisses him until both of their breaths come out hard and stuttering.
"You’re such a terrible liar," says Gustave, his voice terribly fond. Sweat curls his dark hair in a tangled mess around his flushed face.
"There are many who’d disagree with you," says Verso, and rests his head on the crook of Gustave’s neck.
"Mm-hmm." Gustave’s body hums with suppressed laughter. "You really are. As Monoco says, it’s such a good thing that you are so dashing. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be getting away with it so well."
"No one would ever believe you’re this shallow. And stop talking to Monoco," Verso says, faintly irritated.
Gustave lets out a soft huff of amusement. "Ah, but Monoco was telling me of the tale of the precious little boy who’s given all the Gestrals this promise of new beginnings. I wanted to hear all about it."
"That’s not me," Verso says, flatly. "That wasn’t me. Having those memories doesn’t make me that person."
"But without those memories, you wouldn’t be so tormented." Gustave’s hand rests on the nape of Verso’s neck. "You wouldn’t be suffering this much if these memories didn’t make you. Why do you wish to take on only the bad that comes with them? Never anything good?"
Verso breathes in. He can still feel the strong heartbeats in the body underneath his. Because they are still, despite it all, despite all the odds, alive.
"When I first came to the Continent, there was so much I’d feared here. Nevrons. Your father," Gustave adds ruefully. "But everything else, once I was able to look underneath that fear, was so wondrous that it took my breath away every time I sat up and noticed. In every corner of that moment, there was you."
Gustave finds Verso’s hand again and threads his fingers with his own.
"I loved you a little, even when I only saw you in Alicia’s memories. In the eyes of your mother. In your father’s proudest moments. You say it wasn’t you. But I wonder how you could say it, when everything wondrous here is all you."
Gustave lifts Verso’s head with one hand around Verso’s face and kisses him lightly, and carefully. He murmurs Verso's name into his mouth. It still sounds gentle. Guileless. Almost true.
And it makes Verso want to believe it, for it to be his name.
"I read what Maelle wrote in the journal. About your trains. And the snow in Frozen Hearts. I thought without the Gommage there’ll always be enough time for us. And after yesterday—I think maybe I was wrong," says Gustave, with a touch of melancholy that he doesn't hide from Verso. "Perhaps there’s never enough time remaining for any of us. But will you still come with me—to show me your trains? The snow that Maelle described?"
There's a hint of anxiety in Gustave's voice. As if he might still expect a lie. As if Verso could lie to him and still live, when death isn't even allowed for him.
But he can't. What would you tell someone who already knows of all your lies.
When there’s no lie left to tell. What then.
Verso presses the back of Gustave’s hand to his forehead, and lets out a long shuddering breath.
This freedom from his own lies, Verso finds, feels like being in a free fall.
"Yes," Verso tells Gustave, and holds on tight as he falls, "I will."
END