Disparaissons Tous les Deux

by phyrestartr

Summary:

[SPOILERS!]

You are a loved one from borrowed memories, a flicker of salvation, a source of devastating desire; you're a fragment of the man who loved his music, loved his paintings, loved him, and yet you, too, are merely a painted copy of what Verso never had.

Real or fake, you are prepared to live and die for him.

But when the Chroma settles and the Canvas falls into the hands of an idealistic tyrantess, maybe sharing in replicant emptiness is liberation; perhaps you can reminisce together, guiltlessly dream of time shared in life and death, ponder the silver-linings of a miserable future.

Maybe you'll whisper of ways to make it all disappear, too.

Notes:

One more time for the kids in the back: ENDGAME SPOILERS! I'd suggest not reading unless you've finished the game--this is very much post-game stuff.

Anyway, I'm dying inside and need to vent write about this boy :sob: HE WAS SO YOUNG. JUST 26. ARE YOU KIDDING ME--

I have much more written, but I wanted to post the prologue/promise of writing something for Verso since, I dunno, he doesn't have much as of yet and I'm once again forced to cook my own food. Alas, the life of a thirsty writer lol

Chapter 1: First Try (Prologue)

It was refreshing, finding out you weren't real. It made the hum drum of every day less taxing, less of a nuisance, less worrisome—nothing you did mattered much anymore. The fears, from the anxiety of talking to strangers to the inevitability of death, no longer screamed into the void of your mind like children throwing their voices from mountaintops. In a sense, you were free.

But you weren't. You weren't free at all. None of you were.

Does that matter, though? You wondered, staring up at the opera house's open doors. Verso would be there. He'd be playing a lovely piece, something miserable and tragic, definitely. You imagined the suit he'd be wearing: black, gold, fitted. It would be disgustingly reminiscent of the monolith's peak and that gorgeous manor.

The image was almost enough to get you to walk in. Wouldn't it be a sight? To see him get lost in a melody that'd take him somewhere else. You'd seen him free himself with music before, like when he played with Maelle at camp, or when you wandered into the memory of his old home. That song still echoed in the valleys beneath your fears, probably, but those clouds—those dark, stormy things muffled the melodies and cries your very chroma remembered without fully hearing. There, in suffocating quiet, you had to remember:

I don't want this life.

Your throat tightened. Your heart hammered. Your sight blurred.

You turned, and left.

---

The seats were filled again. They were all faces of those Maelle knew from her sixteen years spent in Lumière, but fresh ones were sure to come in the future, with the building of families and whatever creations the young painter brought into being. Who's to say his mother wouldn't come back, too, and offer her own versions of life and wonder once more?

Verso held his breath as he scanned the crowd, searching, searching, searching, for a face that hadn't shown up for a performance yet.

Yet. Such a hopeful word, a single syllable stained with expectations and the promise of something to come. What a completely, utterly, shitty word.

He averted his sight from the crowd and retreated to the familiarity of ivory keys. Verso resented that colour—rather, the lack thereof—but a piece could not be played without them. A song could never be complete without the light complimenting the dark.

So, he let go, and played.