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Dirt falls from the sole of his shoe and tumbles down into oblivion.
Well, maybe that’s a bit dramatic.
There’s perhaps a hundred feet drop from the cliff closest to their camp. It ends in grass and rocks and flowers. Verso sits at the edge, swinging his legs idly.
He watches the oh-so familiar landscape unfolding before him, like a pop-up storybook. He has seen it from every angle, yet there is a flatness to his fondness for it, a worn, paper-thin quality to his enjoyment of its wonders. As much as it welcomes him, this world was not meant for him. Not really.
Sleeplessness sits like an itch behind his eyes, and no amount of rubbing rids him of it. One bad night is nothing, two is trouble. Four is starting to shroud him in that vague sense of unreality, making him crave some kind of sting. He just wants to be—hm. No, being held would make his skin crawl right now.
“You look like you’re about to make a bad choice,” someone says behind him, seemingly unconcerned with the danger of spooking him. Well, that’s fine. He doesn’t spook easily.
Gustave has a tendency to find him like this, when he’s tucked himself away from the others, wanting to soak in his misery in peace. Perhaps it’s an engineer’s instinct, drawing him towards the faulty link in their chain. Perhaps it’s his sharp intuition, pointing his suspicion to the fraud in their midst.
Perhaps it’s some kind of friendship, but Verso knows all too well that’s deadlier than anything.
He hums, looking down at his dangling feet.
“Jumping’s no good. Breaks your bones and leaves you gasping.”
“That’s …” Gustave stops behind him. “Hm. Joking about death is less fun with you.”
Like a good contrarian, Verso raises a finger in the air.
“I’d argue it’s more fun with me. Lived experience, and all that.”
“That is a choice of words,” Gustave chuckles sardonically. A pause, as the breeze fills the space between them. Ruffles through Verso’s hair like a friend. “How many ends have you met, then?”
“Oh, I’ve lost count. Anyway, it’s the first time that really matters.”
“I can imagine.” Exhaling, Gustave sits down beside him, both of their legs braving the abyss together.
Verso had been amused, at first, to see his habit of cliffside lounging, so very like himself. But he supposes what drives Gustave to the edge is his devotion to prolonging life, not to taunting its limits.
And Verso does enjoy it; teasing the seams of his eternal life, tasting the thrill of using this body in ways it was not meant to. Whether that’s riding a Stalact’s back down a hill or sorting different ways to die by the horror they leave him with.
“The worst ones leave you stuck somewhere…uncomfortable,” Verso says lightly. “Bellies of beasts, things like that. Then there’s drowning, which I don’t recommend; fire, which is just sad; stabbing, which is preferable.”
“Preferable,” Gustave repeats, nodding. “Right. You do seem the type.”
And what’s that supposed to mean? Clicking his tongue, Verso gives him a glance. Feeling the itch in his chest.
“It’s not so bad. Dying for a little while.”
This week has been merciless, a slow grind of little progress. Gustave’s new cream colored getup is already more gray than anything. Yet he never seems to let up. Such forward momentum, such belief in tomorrow. Such a gleam in his brown eyes. Verso wants a break from it.
“Why?” Gustave asks after a moment, in that way that sounds both judgmental and genuinely curious. Verso shrugs. It feels heavy.
“I’m always present. Even in sleep. Always aware, always existing. Sometimes I don’t want that.”
A loaded silence is all the response he receives. Verso amends this by complimenting him.
“Your, ah, welcome-to-the-party head shot was one of my better deaths, actually. Quick, painless. Clean healing. Just… a few minutes of nothingness.”
“You enjoyed that, did you,” Gustave says quietly, staring off in the distance.
“In hindsight, yeah. Yeah, I need— Sometimes I want—“
He scratches at his scruff. Wonders why this is all spilling out of his mouth now. It feels both mortifying and dangerous, like a peek of intestine through a slash in your belly.
“Some peace and quiet,” he finishes.
“Hm.”
The touch makes him flinch. Gustave’s hand—the warm one—traces fingers along his jaw.
For a dizzying moment Verso thinks he is being—what, caressed? And then the Picto glitters forth, metal materializing against the plush underside of his jaw. Verso’s pulse stutters.
Oh, he’s actually— Well, okay, yeah.
“Like this?” Gustave says, almost inaudibly. He is not looking at Verso; or rather, at a point on his shoulder. “You want this?”
“Go ahead,” Verso breathes. His brain feels suddenly numb, his skin prickles. “It’s not like it’s permanent.”
He’s taunted Monoco into gory battles before, why should this be any different?
It is, though; it is, but he can’t verbalize why.
Gustave nods slowly, cocking his head. His gaze drifts up the length of Verso’s throat, lazily, almost disdainfully.
He’s hard to read: Brandishing emotion openly on his face, but his thought processes seem paradoxical, enigmatic. Or perhaps Verso has simply forgotten what people are like. In a way, he never knew.
“I can see your pulse race, you know,” Gustave says, eyelids half lowered. “You’re bracing. That’s your body wanting to live.”
He’s not wrong—about the high pulse. It hammers in his chest, his throat, his temples. It’s a tranquillizing kind of thrill, a bite at the neck that leaves him docile.
“I’m not afraid,” he says, like a fool.
Gustave scoffs. Drags the barrel up his jaw, his cheek, along the meat of his lower lip. It’s hard not to make a sound at that, though Verso is unsure what shape it would take. Even suppressed, though, it’s noticed.
“What? Are you some kind of freak?”
“Didn’t you know that?” Verso laughs hoarsely.
Arrogance looks good on Gustave’s kind face. His lashes are pretty from below.
“Glad someone’s enjoying himself.”
Aren’t you? Verso wants to ask, but when his lips part, his mouth is suddenly full of gun. The metal clinks against his teeth, drags its texture against wet inner lip. He doesn’t resist. Should he?
He opens his mouth and lets the gun slip deeper. Gustave is looking, now, directly at him. The tendons of his hand flex visibly.
“You really do like this. Don’t you?”
Verso’s breath is going fast, but his mind is blissfully tingly; a night sky abuzz with firebugs. Quiet.
He’s never felt this way just from the threat of it.
Exhaling gruffly through the nose, he wills his body to relax. To take it. This is what he wanted, right?
He reaches up to touch Gustave’s hand—reassuringly? And, in wont of something better to do, adjusts the angle. He doesn’t want pain tonight.
Gustave’s frown deepens, the intrusion too. Verso can taste it now. He closes his eyes.
Still quiet.
“How nice to be immortal, and play around like this,“ Gustave’s voice mutters. He gives the weapon a mean little jab, making him half-choke, a quiet click. “To do this and get to regret it. To be able to take it back.”
Far too suddenly, he’s pulled the gun back, leaving Verso gasping wetly, caught in a wild disorientation. A string of spit falls back on his chin.
“What…?” he croaks. Gustave quirks a brow. Wipes the barrel off, slowly, across Verso’s mouth.
“Please,” he tries instead. “Please.”
“Your begging is vague. What are you asking me? For death? For what this—“ Gustave shakes the gun. No, Gustave’s hand is shaking. “—is a poor stand-in for?”
The flutter of Verso’s thoughts makes it impossible to answer. His mouth may hang open still, somewhat dumbly. Gustave looks down at his spit-wet gun and gives Verso a look of questioning derision.
“You do realize the euphemism?”
“Uh—yeah.” Verso clears his throat. Blood is rushing to his head, and not in the way he had imagined. “A century hasn’t changed that much.”
“Just trying to figure you out.”
Wiping his mouth, Verso feels his own hand tremble. What? his mind is still whispering intently. What is this? Why do I like it?
“I think you had me at ‘freak’,” he laughs, and even he can hear it sound hollow.
“Oh, poor Verso Dessendre.”
Gustave is actually angry with him, he realizes a little too late. There’s a snarled edge to his voice as he grabs hold of Verso’s collar and yanks him close.
“You waltz around provoking every threat. Throw yourself into unwinnable battles and make us watch you bleed. Parade your severed body parts like a carnival act—“
“Come on. Everyone loves that trick.”
“—ask friends to execute you for a nap. Most of us don’t get second chances. When we lose lives. Limbs. That’s it.”
Matching anger flares in Verso. Does Gustave think him some adrenaline-chaser who lacks consequence thinking? Some wet kitten who enjoys his kicks?
“I know. I’ve watched it happen to most everyone I’ve ever known.”
Leaning in, he takes the pressure off the pull on his collar. It brings him closer to the gun, still brandished, still wet, but now more of a reminder than a threat. Still effective, though; shame blooms hotly in his gut, finding home among the heat already there.
“And you want me to work on my gratitude?”
“It’s hard not to envy a long life in a world like this.” Gustave’s gained a wild look to his eyes. Pained, perhaps. Hungry. “You’ve had three times what I’ll ever get. Four times what my apprentices will. Why don’t you want to—“
He releases the grip on Verso’s collar. It’s a loss, somehow.
Frustrated into silence, Gustave flexes his fingers; looks off. Then his hand returns to Verso’s face, firmly enough that he flinches, but this time it is a caress. Probably.
A metal thumb draws a slow line below his eye. Equally careful, Verso leans into his palm, trying hard to catch his breath. It’s pure instinct; nothing in his mind is telling him this is a good idea.
It isn’t, of course.
Gustave seems to lose the wind in his sails, bowing forward to knock their foreheads together. It thumps dully: flesh and bone against flesh and bone.
“If you could survive the Gommage,” Verso whispers into that little pocket of peace, “just you alone, would you want it?”
“That’s— I won’t—Hm.” Warm, frustrated breaths waft over Verso’s chin. It makes the small of his back tingle. “I’m going to stop it. For everyone.”
“Yes,” Verso exhales. “For everyone.”
For me, too.
“You don’t believe me?”
“No, I do,” Verso says. Not wanting to get shaken again. Well. “This is a strong team.”
“It is.” Gustave says it in a way that demonstrates deep pride for his Lumière teammates, while also inviting Verso into its warmth. You are part of this, now: Will you be there with us, when it comes to it?
Sighing, Gustave lets his hands fall to his lap.
“I still don’t trust you. Maybe I never will. But I trust your goal.” A nod towards the monolith, though his attention stays on Verso. “You want this, too.”
Verso nods, keeping his gaze. That matters to Gustave, he thinks.
Verso both admires and laughs at such morals; he knows the lies are nothing but an extra sparkle in his own eyes. Maybe since they come from a place of love.
“I want it. Yes,” he murmurs.
“Well.” Gustave wipes his gun on Verso’s thigh before unsummoning it, which is utterly unnecessary and therefore somehow attractive. Getting to his feet, he gives Verso a hard look over his shoulder.
“For your information. There are ways to blank your mind that don’t call for an execution. It could even be pleasant, if you can believe it. You could ask a friend about that, next time.”
He leaves. Verso is left to his own devices; his own churning, conflicting wants. They’re no easier to consolidate than before. There is fresh sweat at the back of his neck.
Thumbing at his own lower lip, he feels his teeth still sing with the impact of metal.
“Right,” he says to no one at all.