stonethrow | (no subject)

[ Sciel and Lune were Gommaged so recently that reforming their Chroma proves to be trivial for Maelle, given a little bit of reassurance and encouragement. Gustave, though— he's been dead for much longer. The Canvas remembers him less, and so does Maelle. Honestly, Verso is a little relieved that it looks like she won't be able to bring him back, but then he sees the wetness form in her eyes.

He spends the better part of the next hour unwillingly walking her through the process of Painting Gustave again. It's a painstaking exercise. She tries and fails several times, too weak still to be able to will the Canvas into her desired image. When she's just about to give up, he tells her to try one more time, and he spares a little bit of his Chroma, too, just to fill in the gaps.

Then she's really crying, because the person she loves most in the world is standing in front of her, whole and alive. Verso mumbles something about giving them time alone and absconds. He can't bear to look at Gustave, feels like his throat is closing up at the sound of his voice behind him as he stalks off. It works out; Gustave's presence provides a welcome distraction from the angry shouting that Lune had been doing, and the group—sans Verso—all spend their time around the campfire filling Gustave in on every (every) little detail of what he's missed. While they laugh and cry over the fire each night, Verso spends his time as far away from camp as he can manage. When Maelle questions it, he tells her that he just doesn't feel well.

It's a lie the first evening, but becomes more true the second, and even more so the third. He hasn't been ill in decades, not since he stopped eating so many mysterious mushrooms. First, he considers that the illness has a psychogenic cause, that it's a physical manifestation of stress at seeing someone whose death he's responsible for spring back to life. Then, he begins to wonder if it's the Chroma. Maybe in allowing Maelle to use it for Gustave, he's given away some important, intrinsic part of himself.

The fourth day has been a miserable day of travel; he's stayed in the back, mostly, feverish and barely trudging along. He's not sure what he's looking for as he plods after Gustave, leaned against a tree in the distance, the journal Maelle kept updated in hand. They haven't spoken once, save for maybe a few awkward excusez-mois, and he'd wanted to keep it that way— but it feels now as if there's some part of him lost to Gustave, and he needs to find out if that's really true, if there's a way for him to get it back somehow. He must still be ten, fifteen feet away as he slogs toward him, feet feeling incredibly heavy. ]

Hey—

[ He throws up. ]

( returning is a lot.

gustave is not someone who expresses himself well in the spoken word like many of his friends (alive and dead) and his writing tends to lean towards the analytical and the careful distillation of hypotheticals and conclusions, never the poetic beauty that many others have been able to carve on paper with ink. even now, with a second lease at life, he can't find the words to express how wrong he feels, not when maelle clings to him, cheeks stained by tears, and not in the face of lune and sciel's relief, excitement, laughter over his return. they tell him everything, about their gommage, about maelle's real identity and powers, of the nature of lumière and the continent and the paintress and renoir—

and it all just feels like too much, too wrong, and though he's been painted anew to be right and spry, a weight lingers like an echo where his heart had stopped before. he had died, painfully, with a thousand regrets but certainty in mind, his ever-present prayer of for those who come after solidifying in one final resolve.

he cannot bear to express this much to his friends. monoco and verso are new members of the expedition, and while gustave is wary, he respects that the others trust them. monoco approaches him more candidly than the other man does, so gustave figures it would only be a matter of time. as proven by the fourth day of travel, when verso makes to approach him.

well, makes an attempt.

setting his journal and pen down on the ground with his backpack, he hurries to him, wondering if he should have brought a tincture with him. vomit has been abundant in their expedition, so this isn't particularly gross to him. )

Verso — what is the matter?

( unfortunately (for the both of them), maelle is taking a nap on esquie while both sciel and lune are in charge of collecting some fresh water and scavenge for some food, all while monoco keeps guard for any nevrons. whatever this is, the two of them will have to figure this out.

gustave places his hand on the man's shoulder, a little wary. he's got a flask attached to his belt with some water; he promptly reaches for it. his voice is gentle, softened by this innate worry he tends to carry for others. )

I've got some water for you, should you need it.

Edited 2025-12-08 04:50 (UTC)

Putain, [ is all he says at first, nauseated and embarrassed. The nausea, at least, subsides quickly enough; having someone's hand on his shoulder must be steadying, because the retching stops a moment after. He breathes in—not too deeply, considering he just upchucked onto the grass—and out, then eyes the little flask.

Voice a little scratchy from the aggressive vomiting he just did, he rasps, ] I was hoping it was wine.

[ Ha, ha. But also actually.

Verso takes the offered water if only to wash away the bad breath, terminally aware of the way other people are experiencing him. The water helps, too, he thinks; he still feels fatigued and vaguely awful, but it feels like maybe his fever has broken. ]

...Hi.

[ Hell, this is humiliating. Not only has he had to watch Maelle coo over Gustave for the past four days, but now he's practically thrown up on his shoes. ]

Sorry, I— [ He wipes his mouth. ] Haven't been... feeling well.

( wine would be better, probably, but not in the biological sense. it might only make him feel worse, and gustave knows a thing or two about how to best handle nausea—he had been maelle's ward for long, after all, and he had looked after his sister, even with the scant few years of difference between them.

with a softening smile, he says, caught slightly off-guard, a breath of the word, )

Hello.

( how unusual.

he kneels down as he ushers verso to sit, too, on the ground. the grass is slightly damp from a light rain earlier in the day, but they've been through worse and more disgusting terrain: this is pretty clean, all things considered. )

I noticed you've taken to the backline when we encounter Nevrons. I thought perhaps you were allowing me a bit of time in the spotlight.

( it's light, the comment, neither a scolding nor a vouch of arrogance. he remains quiet as he studies verso for a moment, before he says, )

Would a tincture help? I know we have a limited supply, but saving them is not worth you feeling unwell.

( not when gustave has been told how strong verso is—an asset in battle, more so than himself, he imagines. )

[ Gustave will feel, suddenly, a sharp flicker of— inexplicable irritation, followed immediately by guilt. It's not fair to be annoyed by how kind Gustave is being to him, and he knows this, but he feels it regardless. Can't you be just a little bit worse? he wants to shout, but he doesn't, because... well, that would be insane, and also because his throat is still a bit raw from the violent retching. ]

No, it's okay.

[ Well, it's not 'okay', but he is slowly starting to feel less ill the longer he sits here, and he's beginning to wonder if maybe he really did just make the whole sickness up in his head. Maybe— maybe it really is psychosomatic, and all he needed to do was confront the person who's been consuming his every thought head on.

Horrifying. Guilt gives way to embarrassment. ]

Sorry, uh—

[ He stumbles over his words, uncertain what to say. ]

I think I'm fine now. [ Abruptly, and without cause. He hopes dearly that Gustave doesn't notice how quickly his illness went away, how obvious it is that it's all just psychological. ] I was just coming to ask if...

[ A pause. He's not sure now. He cants his head toward the journal. Gustave's, ostensibly, although Maelle has been the one keeping it updated since his death. ]

If you got everything you needed from Maelle's journal entries.

( with gustave's propensities at having anxiety attacks, what is another sharp flicker of emotion but the norm? he catches note of it, though, for ever since he has 'returned', he has felt like any brash movements will make him fall apart. like he's just a doll and the stitches will come undone.

in some ways, gustave reads verso's embarrassment as not really wanting to engage with him very much. would make sense, wouldn't it?

the fact that he wanted to ask him anything at all makes him pause. )

Oh.

( he glances back at his journal, tries to think exactly why verso would worry about that in particular, then glances back at him. )

I've — mostly just gone through my own notes. It's difficult reading, after...

( to see the change in handwriting, to see the tear stains, now dry, on the page, the possible descriptions of what the girl had quickly recounter to gustave about where they had left his arm. his other arm, that is. ~~is any part of him even real—~~ )

I'm still not sure I've fully accepted that we're inside a painting.

[ Truthfully, Verso didn't actually want to ask that. He didn't really want to ask anything—the less he and Gustave have to interact, the better. But he'd had to say something, and accusing Gustave of making him ill (even unintentionally) had seemed suddenly ridiculous once the symptoms had passed.

So, now he has to deal with Gustave's existential crisis. ]

Yeah. It can be... a lot to take in.

[ He hadn't had someone as sweet and caring as Maelle to hold his hand and walk him through it. Clea had been brutal. You're not real. This family isn't real. ]

We already drank all the wine, or I'd offer you some.

Thanks, I think.

( about offering wine if they hadn't drunk it all? suppose it's the thought that counts. but it's not gustave who is feeling otherwise under the weather—it's verso. and the man had come to think, likely needing something, thus interrupted by throwing up.

gustave swallows this conscious feeling he has, of his 'existential crisis', and lingers, instead of studying verso's face. )

You're sure you're alright?

( life in lumière never ceases to be without its charm, but the quaint simplicity quickly disappeared from gustave's understanding of the world the older he got. his parents instilled in him and his younger sister the value of hard work, and how most everything can be achieved through toiling after one's dreams and passions. for gustave, it is in the way the world works: how geometric systems affect physics, and therein give way to the birth of new days of flight, space travel, and improving upon their current technologies. he is a visionary that sees beyond the present time, but living within the boundaries of these still inexistent technologies, forever his aim to develop that.

and to be a lifelong student, so to speak, a researcher in university is very expensive.

which is why his sister recommended he finds himself a patron ('what am i, a painter?') that would pay for his studies and research, all for some service in return. her connections in the government provided him a shortlist of potential patrons, of potential jobs he could undertake, but they were all far too stifling—asking that he deflect his research into something more selfish and grounded, for the benefit of said benefactor's business or lifestyle. it was a stroke of luck, one would say, his meeting with renoir dessendre in one of his sister's many hosted galas in city hall, and being introduced as a potential tutor for the youngest dessendre daughter.

a teacher, me? you must be out of your mind, emma.

give it some thought. it is the offer of a lifetime.

and she wasn't wrong. the reputation that precedes the dessendres as caretakers of many a prestigious art galleries in the nation, their fortune spanning centuries of history, and their dismissiveness toward anything that does not encapsulate painting, seems to have softened in more recent years. perhaps, one could say, because of the younger generation that wishes to go beyond their family's legacy of painting and the arts. renoir explained to him that in order for art to evolve, they must, too, see that the sciences do so in parallel—surprised gustave, even, by having mentioned some of his published research as points of interest.

so, after a few days of thought, gustave packed his suitcase, ended his lease, and moved into the dessendre home in the capital of lumière.

teaching maelle is a full-time job, turns out, but not one without merit. the young girl is lonely, but in her young age she shows a lot of enthusiasm under gustave's tutelage. she abhors maths, but loves to learn simpler aspects of science of the world around them, and he's generally engaged with finding ways to teach her the subjects she detests most by connecting them with things she cherishes. after five months with maelle as his ward, he has seen great improvement, and finds that his room in the left wing of the home becomes more and more decorated with her small pieces of art. it would be worrisome to think that the girl is attached to him, but seeing the dynamic of the family? he understands, though it is not for him to comment upon. aline, the matriarch, spends most of her time in her art galleries, alongside clea, the eldest. renoir comes and goes, checks up constantly on maelle, and those nights when he is in, gustave is spared a nightly visitor wanting company until she falls asleep, even if he is scribbling away in his journal. the brother maelle mentions constantly remains a mystery to gustave, though all he knows is a name, verso, and that he is studying music in some conservatory or another, the details hazy to the young girl, but gustave has picked up that this is not entirely something aline approves of.

in any case, he is allowed his free time in the evenings and weekends to work on his research, and maelle spends plenty of hours in the day with her governess, though he joins them once in a while in trips to museums and art galleries. it is an idyllic kind of life, especially when he wishes more than anything to be a recluse while he works on his research.

now and then, he sits in the gardens, much like today. it is not the coldest day in winter, which is why he had thought a short sitdown in the gardens would help his mind unclutter the myriad of thoughts regarding a particularly pesky equation he can't seem to solve. the winter sun, alongside the cold breeze, and the company of both monoco and noco removes him from this for a moment. that is, until both dogs bolt back inside, tails wagging far too excitedly.

he hears voices from the open garden door and peers up, that of a man. not renoir, certainly. the mysterious brother, then? maelle will be happy beyond words, if only she weren't in one of those obligatory art gallery trips with her mother and sister.

thinking perhaps he should make himself present, all things considered, gustave makes his way back inside, a soft movement of adjustment for his scarf, unawares of the snowflakes that decorates his hair and jacket. he closes the door behind him, hearing excited barks down the hall. )

Edited 2025-12-08 18:59 (UTC)

[ It's winter break from the Conservatory, so Verso lugs his suitcase from his little apartment above the patisserie all the way back to the Dessendre estate, loaded with enough clothing and toiletries to last him through the holidays, although admittedly he doesn't need it. Maman always keeps his room exactly as it was when he moved out, wardrobe filled with clothes and toothpaste on the bathroom counter. The favoritism is nauseating, Clea once said.

It's that suitcase making noise as it clatters to the floor in the living room that alerts the dogs; they come running as they always do, yipping in excitement as Monoco jumps up to put his front paws on Verso's legs, Noco nipping at his ankles. He's missed them terribly—the dogs have always felt like his, not the family's. He's the one who (until very recently) fed them, walked them, played with them. ]

I brought you something.

[ Crouching to lay open the suitcase, he fishes through for a little leather ball, embossed with a floral pattern the dogs won't be able to appreciate at all. He stands, arm reared back to toss the ball. ]

Fetch, [ he says, throwing it down the hall at the exact moment Gustave rounds the corner. ]

( it catches him by surprise, not so much the leather ball been thrown and catching on his foot, but the two dogs coming at him (noco falling behind, still stuttering in his puppy excitement) at incredible speed. he just about manages to dodge monoco, who continues giving chase to the ricocheting ball, but gustave catches noco in his hands, the puppy tumbling on his foot.

noco shakes his head, ears flopping, as he's dragged up in the air by gustave. )

I remember the rule was no running inside.

( a rule constantly urged by the matriarch of the home. the dogs had a big enough garden to run wild in. )

—I suppose that means you are Verso, if you are allowed to break it. ( there's a bemused tone to the words, gustave offering a sheepish smile as he sets noco back down on the floor. monoco has not returned with the ball, and is instead gnawing at it, which is why noco needs to go see what the hell that's all about.

it's really hard to tell what each member of this family will be like... clea barely acknowledges him.

gustave takes a few steps closer, offers his right hand for a shake. ) Je suis Gustave. Maelle's tutor.

[ Verso's allowed to break every family rule, but he guesses Gustave doesn't know that yet.

Maelle's tutor—he turns the words around in his head. They still sound a little foreign. Alicia had announced that she'd like to go by Maelle at the beginning of this year, and it still takes a little getting used to, although he tries his best to remember. She'd suffered such bullying and exclusion at the academy the previous year, the thing that drove her to schooling at home instead; he imagines the change of name is an attempt to put it all behind her. ]

You mean the tutor that Maelle can't stop talking about.

[ The comment is light, nonchalant, but if Gustave is particularly observant he might be able to pick up on a hint of blink-and-you'll-miss-it jealousy. Sometimes I'm afraid you're forgetting about me entirely, Verso once wrote in one of his letters to Maelle, before scratching it out and crumpling it up. He'd instead sent Sounds like you're having a great time!

He shakes Gustave's hand, firm and practiced. ]

My parents didn't, uh, mention you'd be here.

[ They'd said they'd be out for an art exhibition, or something of that like. He'd expected Gustave would be gone, too. ]

( gustave, of course, misses it, because he is not the kind of person who can so easily meet people's gazes. this is why he prefers his books and his research and tinkering about with expensive gears and tools. )

Well...

( especially with a statement like that—it embarrasses him, enough to glance back at the dogs and fill the air with his silence. gustave does know that maelle is a chosen name, for he hears clea and their mother call her by 'alicia'. renoir seems to advocate for the name change, if just because it brings a smile to the girl's otherwise sombre visage. and, of course, gustave really has no say in the matter, though he tries to avoid calling her by name at all among most members of the family.

to him, it seems like maelle would rather not have to express why she is being schooled at home with a private tutor, and gustave has never pushed for an explanation. it is easiest to turn a page when there is no baggage in new relationships.

that doesn't stop maelle from asking him all sorts of things: are you married like papa and mamam? do you have children? how old are you? what happened to your arm? he's always been able to wave it off with a little bit of humor, a little white lie, and speckles of truth here and there. )

I... suppose they expected you to arrive when they would be in. Your sisters and madame Aline are at the art gallery. I'm not certain where your father is.

( but rich people are outside of his zone of comfort; even with the months that he has been here, he feels more at ease in the spaces for the servants, feeling always slightly discouraged in the presence of such prominent people. maelle doesn't make him feel inadequate, but he's always fumbling when renoir asks him about his research, likely feeling like he is being tested to see if their money is being well spent (gustave is only thinking about maelle's exams after the winter break, how they will be the real show of his worth).

perhaps verso is much like his sister, clea, and would rather he not be in his sight. )

I'll — return to my room. I won't be a bother to you.

[ Another blink-and-Gustave-definitely-missed-it microexpression, his eyebrows rising for just a moment. Oh. It's an unexpected response. They've just met, and already Gustave is trying to excuse himself. It makes sense, of course. Gustave is a live-in tutor, but he's still a tutor. It's just a job. In fact, he was probably looking forward to having some peace and quiet before Verso showed up.

It's fine. Not everyone has to like Verso. (Yes, they do.)

—But then again, he'd said bother. Like maybe he thinks this is an imposition on Verso, rather than the other way around. Hm. He crouches down to close up his suitcase again. ]

Let me guess, [ he says, chewing it over, ] you've become familiar with Clea.

[ And now he assumes that Verso will act the same undoubtedly unfriendly way that she has. ]

( it really wasn't wanting peace and quiet so much as it was wanting some fresh air and a break from his research. but that much he assumes would be an uninteresting thing to mention to an artiste.

besides, verso should very much realize that he puts gustave in a difficult position, saying things like that. insinuating what they both know about clea's more serious-about-their-standing opinions.

it makes gustave break into something of a smile, though, taking his chances. )

I wouldn't assume that I am familiar with her, no.

( for the young lady has made it clear that she wishes to keep her distance from the 'staff' in her home. even if gustave falls under a different category, he is still staff.

as it were, he takes the words for what they're meant to be: a way of removing the fiction of verso being like his sister. )

Maelle has mentioned me a lot to you? I'm afraid that puts me at a disadvantage.

[ With the suitcase closed, he stands and picks it up, lugging it along as he gestures for Gustave to follow him down the hall and toward his room where he can drop it off. Monoco and Noco, having lost interest in the ball, clamber around underfoot. He gingerly steps over Noco. ]

She hasn't mentioned me?

[ That's...

Fine, he tells himself. It doesn't matter. She's getting older, to that age where little sisters don't fawn over their big brothers as much as they used to. Besides, she's been under a lot of stress from their parents, Maman especially. It's fine.

He shrugs noncommittally and says, like it doesn't hurt a little to hear, ] Guess there isn't much to say. I've been away at the Conservatory.

( suppose that he is going to follow the young master of the house about, then. gustave removes his scarf, the warmth of the home making the back of his neck start to sweat; it's easier to just keep it around his hands, warming at his fingertips.

with the question and the answer that verso gives himself, it makes gustave wonder if the dessendre are prone to such morose thoughts? is it a family thing?

he's not sorry that he laughs a little at that. should he be looked at in reproach, gustave will promptly clarify, shaking his head. )

No, you misunderstand. She has mentioned you, every day, but usually asking about your whereabouts or when you'll be back. I've tried prodding, ( because children tend to love to talk about things they're enthused about ) but she gets real quiet and sad when I do. I would say that she misses you dearly.

( he points over his shoulder, back down the hall, more or less to where the sitting room might be. )

I know your paintings are there, and that the piano must not be touched, unless it is by you. Maelle's strictest of rules.

( here, gustave offers verso a small grin. )