lightholdcr

[lightholdcr]

unfortunately now i am once again thinking about verso barely alive stumbling out of the manor fire to hand off his baby sister to the medical professionals that get there. like completely fucked up by the fire or maybe something collapses on him after he gets alicia to safety :') but just, the momentary desperation in his eyes like please save her please help her

thanks. anyway

[lightholdcr]

to me... young real world verso and pre-fracture verso are both like. shooting star in the careening toward the ground way. but very bright and very magnetic. emotions in tornados beneath the natural charisma and light he gives off. he's always been performing and he always wants to please everyone. he's always good until the moment he isn't and he crashes and burns in a spectacular fashion.

[lightholdcr]

the painters vs writers war but it’s just me in my brain going ‘idk if i wanna draw or write today’

[lightholdcr]

yeah his pinterest seems good. follow for more quality content

[lightholdcr]

never considered giving verso a verse where he has a reasonably normal one but he is a sentimental softie romantic and a LOVER and sometimes i think he can have that as a little treat. despite it all (and despite his 400 crimes)

[lightholdcr]

all of us whenever we see gustave: gusgus!

[lightholdcr]

he hears himself. all bluster, and the single note of desperation to him. and simon merely waits for him, fragments of the summer sun painted soft across his broad shoulders. verso hesitates, in the same way he did that night. gaze pulling and catching along where the sharpness and softness of simon met. curve of calm smile, line of jaw. verso searches his eyes, anchoring there as he often does.

simon’s look caught him then, too. bringing an immediate order to his whirlwind. he doesn’t even remember what grief had caught him in the undertow, that night. insignificant, maybe, since he just remembers simon.

verso’s eyes crinkle gently, with an amused hum, testing an often unmoving patience; ❝ no, i didn’t. i’m a terrible listener. ❞ he says, a smile lifting the corner of his lips; lopsided and all too boyish. ❝ — but you like me anyway. ❞ back then, he had probably been running from something not so different. he always runs to the same place, though.

briefly, something snags on his heart. something else shifts, and eases.

❝ i know, ❞ he offers, more quietly, like it’s an apology. and it is. when spun up in his own tangled thread, simon is often the first one he crashes into, like a ball of fire, or unruly waves against steady stone, a place to catch himself — like his fingertips resting on the keys of his mother's piano, worries are rendered still. ❝ ... i'm lucky you put up with me, aren't i? ❞ he ventures. it's playful, warm. some kind of admission, in another light.

it's finally after a moment's pointless hovering, that verso takes the simple invitation. crosses the distance in full and lets his frame ease down. parallel to simon, and not quite as towering, he rests palms behind him to perch against the windowsill. their shoulders brush in a very small motion. it tethers verso to something other than the carousel-spin of his thoughts. despite rolling in like a stormcloud, he's suddenly unsure. and it’s dangerously easy to feel laid bare by simon’s quietly discerning look. earnest, unwavering, steady.

verso folds. considers backtracking entirely. ❝ it’s… nothing important. i just, ❞ he studies his own hands in a mildly frustrated sort of way. frowns softly; ❝ ... i dreamt of it again. ❞ he clears his throat. which doesn't help. ❝ the um, the fire. though, it was different, this time. this time, i think i… ❞ his expression furrows, halted — was the space blank, or does his mind form a barrier? when he looks at his hands, skin pulled against knuckles, he imagines embers catching along his fingers. the smell of burning. the coating of soot inside his lungs that doesn't let him get a sound out — but he is screaming, isn't he?

verso nearly flinches. fingers curling, uncurling again. it's not like simon hasn't heard this before, his skull full of troubled thought. the only one, who has heard far too much of it. entrusted with his deepest guilt. i should have. i couldn’t—

there’s a deeper worry driven between his brows. ❝ i felt it, on my face. i couldn’t breathe. it felt… real. ❞ he tilts his head back against the window, squinting. watching the warm hue-shifts in the light. ❝ i was… afraid. ❞

he lets out a breath he wasn't aware he was holding. he trusts simon; if it was anyone else, he would have found something to be ashamed about. no one else would sit and hear him fret over something so insignificant as a dream. — dreams he comes away from disoriented, reaching for something that isn’t there. a ghost limb, or an extension of the self. always waking up to the feeling of smoke slipping through fingers. like he’s about to lose something. or like he already has. deep in his chest, petals stir in an open cavity, half-remembering — something.

he closes his eyes, and by force, dispels the thought.

inhale, a little stinging. ❝ just a nightmare. ❞ he dismisses, again, palms lightly patting thighs. enough of that. suddenly, the itch to get away from the feeling altogether. he tips his head against the glass, eyes lull sidelong to trace out simon's profile. verso huffs a soft laugh, nudging simon’s knee with his. recovers with a small grin, crooked along the edge; ❝ will you tell me about your day, instead, si? ❞

you were the only person i could go to. / could be sad verso back in lumiere seeking him out, could be them ruminating on it now, could b whatever u feel!

✧ established connection - accepting

the confession reaches him like rain through stone - slowly and with weight, as if it had travelled through time to find him. simon does not speak at first, he sits with it and lets it unfurl inside him - like a memory so deeply buried it aches to be unearthed, the kind that presses behind the ribs, quiet and constant, asking nothing, offering only presence.

the late sun slants through the windows of the empty academy, gilding the floor in fractured amber; dust drifts like pollen in the golden hush, and from somewhere far off, murmurs of evening birdsong. outside, lumière still ticks by in impossible order, like clockwork - but the silence between them is heavier than it should be. not painful, exactly - but real; and that is rarer here than anyone admits.

simon's long frame is relaxed against the window where piano notes sometimes drift up from the academy; leg drawn up, one arm dangling at his side, the other resting on his belt. he's not wearing uniform - just a linen shirt, sleeves rolled, long black hair loosened and spilling over his shoulders, collar open slightly at the throat, where a faint bruise like a fingerprint blooms beneath his jaw, and the heat of exertion from training still clings to his skin; but he looks calm, grounded - the kind of stillness people go to him for.

"I remember," simon finally says, tone low, like turning over something precious; "when you first came to me after dark. barefoot."

he can still see it - moonlight on polished marble, the way verso's locks caught silver at the edges, face drawn with some silent worry he never named; he had looked younger then, and simon - foolish enough to think he could stay distant, stay untouched.

"I told you to go back home." he exhales softly, like the ghost of a laugh. "--you didn't."

his mouth tilts into a smile, and his gaze shifts at last to verso, caught between tenderness and grief for something that hasn't happened yet. simon studies him in the golden hour, and something kindles in him, gentle and ruinous. verso still carries music in his posture, even when he isn’t playing; musician's hands still bear calluses from the sword training, his curls are slightly damp from the heat, and behind the eyes - that ache, the same one he carried into simon's orbit long ago, asking for nothing except to stay.

"you can always come to me." his voice roughens slightly, betraying the truth behind it, the gravity of him bent slightly toward the younger man.

"sit with me. tell me what's wrong."

[lightholdcr]

guys please put the guns down im delicate

[lightholdcr]

how it feels when i'm writing on here with some of you

[lightholdcr]

require someone to hold verso’s face exactly like this actually

[lightholdcr]

every day i write verso in a 1v1 with himself

[lightholdcr]

the letter slips from his fingers. the wind whips past him, and the world goes very still.

verso closes his eyes, and waits. at his back, their fleeting moments of happiness, and hope turn to fear. confusion. a child crying after her mother. the paintress is dead, and the very last souls in lumière flicker out one by one.

among them are the people that considered him a friend. who trusted him. and he cannot face them. he cannot bear to. they turn to red and ash, afraid, alone. without understanding. what they’d done. what he had guided their hands to do. and verso feels removed from it all. feels nothing, but the dull, continuous, ache that has always been there. there is no catharsis to be found in this quiet. there is no relief in this victory. there is only void, and the space life used to inhabit. the canvas stripped of its beating heart.

the letter from his sister disappears beneath the waves. she had hoped that he would make a different choice. he thinks they both knew he wouldn't.

surely, it's a fitting punishment, when oblivion does not come for him. when it sweeps fresh gommage petals along the harbour, and leaves him abandoned for the last time.

he nearly laughs. miserably, brokenly. when even the curator's final unmaking of this canvas flinches back from him. death burns its hands on him and recoils. like everything else, it cannot touch him. no matter how he prays for something. anything. to hurt — awaiting some punishment that he will never be granted. he supposes, there had to be one last twist of the blade in his gut, to remind him — of how little he’s ever mattered. how little any of this has mattered.

you remain.

verso barely moves when acknowledged. but he senses how the chroma swirls and bends around the figure that approaches. the tap of a cane against the cobblestone.

❝ … enough. please. ❞ his voice falters, threadbare. absent of any real fire. he knows, he cannot turn toward the sound of his father's voice. that it will cut him in two. there is a world where he’s a little boy again, running to hide his face and cling to his father’s coat sleeves.

this world threatens to tip sideways.

verso wants to shake himself, violently, of the sentiment. he’s not the father you knew, but maelle’s. verso’s.

— had his father ever sounded so gentle? maybe. perhaps a long time ago. all he remembers is the last time. on that god-forsaken monolith; this is all you have left of your son. in his last moments, your father begged for your life, instead of his own.

verso blinks sharply, tearing himself from his own mind. ❝ it's over, ❞ he says, more clearly. low, trying to sound removed. his bitterness forming a last line of a flimsy defense. he braces. expects to be studied. the man with your father’s eyes and your father’s voice pities you.

verso stares blankly into the fragments of grey light cast over the water. ❝ i've... done what you wanted. ❞ by now, it feels like an admission of defeat. his service to the dessendre family. the curator has never acknowledged him before this, and verso had no interest in finding out what a newly repainted renoir thought of this pale shadow of his son. this body that has never belonged to him. this existence he tears at with both hands like an animal in a trap. if he could have ripped the pieces of verso dessendre from himself, he would have, long ago. he would have saved everyone the extra grief.

all of this fucking grief. if there was another way, would you have taken it?

and yet he cannot stop himself from caring. a soft desperation closing a fist around his heart, choking his words; ❝ i — will she be safe? will they... both be safe? ❞ maman. alicia. the words form, and are bitten back. trimmed and restrained of any other undeserving sentiment he might have.

they are not your family.

— they both know what he is. what he isn't. if he had ever bore a real resemblance to the son they lost, verso had to believe it's long gone, now. a stolen identity he's spent the better part of immortality thrashing against the bars of. hardly knowing it was a cage painted for him long before it all turned to dust in his hands.

he remembers how clea — the one that stepped into the painting, regarded him with a unique coldness. like a particularly disgusting insect to kick off the underside of her shoe. and yet, when he grasped for purpose in his freefall, she offered it to him. in watching over alicia.

what did it matter to any of them, the life verso didn't get to live. when he throws it away now, as carelessly as he throws away the lives of his friends. when none of them had deserved to be trapped in the middle of this at all.

none of them had asked for this. i didn’t ask for this. please. i didn’t ask for this.

verso's eyes burn, stomach turning with that same roiling disgust with himself. he feels the places he’s chipping away, the places his raw nerves are touched by the cold air. ❝ i... had hoped it would... that i would... ❞ his hands curl at his sides uselessly. he wills himself not to shatter, at an acknowledgement so insignificant.

he tips his head up, steeling himself, and he finally turns. to look into the face of his father, on the other end of the pier. ❝ does it matter? you'll destroy the canvas, and i'll be... ❞ gone. finally.

lumière . the people here claimed it their very own city of lights, once upon a time . there are lamps on most every table, posts ever corner, but here &. now, 'tis no city of light . 'twould be more apt to present the moniker city of petals, for that is most all that's left . chroma like lifeblood arises from the erased, leaving muted petals to scatter gracelessly to stonework below— the sheer number of them enough to litter the streets, tens, hundreds ( you wonder, distantly, if they even numbered in the thousands ) of people choking stagnant air with saccharine sweetness . &. yet . &. yet, the dead have not even been given a moment of their eternal rest, crimson petals scarcely scraping the ground, before they are disturbed once more .

stagnating air— not so much as a breeze to keep lone survivor company, grows leaden with the sheer weight, the intensity of the creature that has arrived . the very fabrics of the canvas— the brushstrokes on which it was founded groan beneath the severity of the curator's presence like they just might snap at any moment . &. indeed they will, for with the paintress ejected &. maelle ( alicia ) reconstituting herself there is but one font for all the chroma of this world to flow unto . it weaves over the curator's disjointed figure, skin like crumbling parchment, the hollow where its visage does not rest .

paint awash over the curator, grafting bone &. blood &. skin from chroma until what remains is not curator but painter . ink drips from his form still, like a newborne child, &. stains street &. petals alike as he takes his first, uneven steps . one hand, left hand, raises slowly &. the ink flows like a river, a ramrod straight river of pitch black falling to the floor &. solidifying like ice into the form of his cane .

one tap, reverberating in crumbling alleyways &. thundering into the air, &. creation yields to the painter's will . all goes still: the ever defiant wreckage above— a mockery to the concept of gravity, the scattered remains of once - lumièrians freezing in the air . even the water's edge, the tide has been shocked into stillness, mid - wake , mid - crash upon the harbor . renoir, the real one, the living &. breathing man, the outsider— not the doppelgänger, the one who lived here, the one who belonged in the canvas, as comfort for one who did not . he looks upon the form that is &. is not his son in unreadable expression— it is a frothing storm of emotion that roils in him, like several drops of dye fallen into water &. vying to come out the dominant tone .

❝ you remain, @lightholdcr . ❞ the storming sea that is his well of emotion finally comes to some semblance of rest, settling upon remorse— a deep - seated thing that threatens to tremble the every word he speaks . it is not fair— that everyone else should be gone, &. he must remain . alone . the lone phantom to haunt these streets . ❝ ... even alicia succumbed, however temporarily, &. yet you are forced remain . ❞

plotted. — yeahhhh you already know what's upppp

[lightholdcr]

scout was telling me about this vid where someone talked about the dessendres all having their own like… chroma/petal colours and they were making suggestions for what flowers might match them. and they said marigolds for verso bc bravery/the transition of life to death/acceptance stage of grief and i’ve been punching the air ever since

[lightholdcr]

sometimes i make eye contact w the usfw memes and i’m like haha unless

[lightholdcr]

me: i need to avoid making a verso playlist the vibes would be a disaster

also me: i mean he kinda is man who sold the world david bowie when u think about it

[lightholdcr]

by god we have updated my header and we sort of have a carrd going it's just not good