WHO: Expedition 33 (Gustave, Maelle, Sciel, and Verso) WHEN: post-mingle, pre-mission WHERE: the apartments WHAT: the remaining members of Expedition 33 NOTES\WARNINGS: spoilers for Acts 1&2 of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
"What? You've really lost it if you think I'm even an option," Maelle laughs, voice a touch higher out of anxiety because what if. Sciel gets a barely-there push with her shoulder. If these so-called adults aren't being mildly gross, they're busy being bullies. Maelle likes it much better when it's aimed at Gustave.
"And you. You're even more insane," she says to Verso. The heart of the group? No, that was always Gustave. Another laugh escapes her as Verso comes to her rescue. "Sciel is the clear best choice, I think."
She glances at Gustave. The chore wheel? Really? She was happy to leave that in Lumiere.
She eases up her grip, should Maelle want to move away entirely, but she lingers right where she is. It’s a better angle on Gustave, anyway, and the furrow of that dark brown. Later, she decides, and she gestures broadly with her free arm, a little showy, a little silly.
“Well, then! I promise to be a benevolent leader, and to always move the chore wheel based on merit, rather than any petty whims. Shall we move on to orders of business?”
His eyebrows lift in response to the furrowed brow. He tosses a look of innocence even as he smiles. But he is soon holding his hands up in surrender at the "accusation" of insanity.
His hands do drop when Sciel graciously and theatrically accepts her role. "I feel as though we got played." He will take a second to look betrayed before inclining his head in her direction.
"Like what chores we truly have no right in doing?"
"There might be a few other more pressing matters than that." His glance flicks over to Maelle, as it has every few moments since they found each other again. Once again, they're in a situation where they need information they don't have, where everything is a question he doesn't know how to answer yet.
"Aurora, for one. Echo. These... missions. Some of the ones I've heard about have sounded dangerous, others just... strange."
A mission where everyone had to pretend to be a happy family? A gladiatorial world? How does any of it add up to saving their own?
And do they even still have a world left to be saved? "And that's not even touching on the complications of the other people here and their own motivations and abilities. Not to mention... Renoir."
His arms tighten across himself, but he quells the impulse to reach for that spot in his side where he'd been speared through, pouring blood, the wound through his chest that Aurora healed. He's getting better about it, he thinks. "We don't know what he might do."
Renoir. Maelle would prefer to talk about chore wheels and pretend that man isn't here. Her expression becomes much more somber, shoulders tensing under Sciel's arm, because Renoir is responsible for the single worst moment of her life. Just because Gustave is standing beside her again doesn't erase the memory of that kind of terror, that kind of grief. Not for her, not for Gustave.
She can't look at him or Verso and Sciel is all too perceptive, especially this close. That single open window doesn't feel like it's letting enough air into the room.
"... we'll kill him. We did it before. We'll do it as many times as necessary until he learns to stay away from us."
Silliness set aside, Sciel considers her duty as de facto leader done for now. Better to satisfy the questions she has, too, to most quickly get back to enjoying their afterlives... and whatever mission for Lumière's future is coming next.
But at Maelle's suggestion, she eases her arms off the girl, hands moving to her shoulders instead. Bracing.
"I met him," she remarks. "It wasn't pleasant, but he doesn't have any more experience or knowledge of this place than we do. He's just any old man, here."
There's no need to disagree with killing him, but it does put an odd pit in her stomach to imagine how that would look in a place like this. Would it be as sterile as the walls around them? Would he bleed brighter, on some raked concrete path outside a featureless building?
His gaze drifts between the three of them at the mention of Renoir and what to do about them. It lingers between Gustave and Maelle.
He stares at the ground briefly as he takes a few steps backwards. Subconsciously, he moves himself to be further away from the group - like they have to move their heads to speak to him instead of looking directly at one another.
Verso turns his head toward Sciel, noting her looking towards him. Yet again his gaze flickers back to the other two first.
"He's just an old man now." He repeats what has already been said but drifts his gaze toward the wall, toward the open window. "Our world is something he wants to maintain and survive." Frowning, he doesn't add anything else in defense of him; he can only say that much in any case.
"I saw him, too." Quiet, as he recalls that meeting. The way the sound of the cane echoed on the stairs. His own weak legs, trying to keep him upright without wavering. The man's calm dismissal. Those flashes of anger. "He was one of the first people I saw here."
And the last he'd seen in his own world. He shakes his head at Sciel, at Verso. "I don't think we should be so quick to dismiss him. If we can get stronger, regain our weapons, so can he. Our one advantage is that it seems like he's willing to leave us alone, so I agree with Sciel. We should do the same."
He turns his glance on Maelle, more intent, a little of the sternness of her guardian seeping in. "I don't want you anywhere near him. Even here, he could be dangerous, and he might not even be our biggest problem. Don't go seeking revenge, okay? If you see him, run."
Maelle looks between Sciel, Verso, and Gustave. Reluctantly, she nods, and decides to fess up since everyone else seems to be laying out their encounters.
"I... also saw him. Before I found you," she murmurs, eyes on Gustave. "I ran."
This time. She knew, alone, she would not be able to fight him. Even if he's just an old man, Gustave is right.
"So we all stay away from him. Distance, like Sciel said. Right?" Her eyes linger on Gustave, something pleading in them, before she looks to Sciel and then Verso. She can feel the pinpricks of upset behind her eyeballs. Gustave didn't run before. The one and only time she can recall him breaking a promise to her.
Sciel's expression softens, watching Gustave process, hearing his voice drop. How strange, to see someone reckon with their own death; how miserable that it would happen to someone so dear to her.
She nods, sure.
"All of us run," Sciel agrees, gently kneading Maelle's shoulders with her thumbs; easy, girl. Deep breaths. "He doesn't actually know much about us. If we steer clear, we can keep it that way."
She pauses, just a short purse of her lips.
"And... we keep each other informed. If we do cross paths with him, we speak up. Yes?"
Listening to their opinions and decisions, his expression doesn't change much. He decides to fix his stare toward the window rather than look at any particular person. His jaw works side-to-side but he understands their feelings. It'd be impossible to not be able to grasp what they're struggling with, at least.
A brief glance to Gustave. He recalls the conversation they had; the cold feeling in his chest that drops lower. His head tilts away from the group as he takes another step backwards.
He purses his lips; his fingers flex.
I don't think I should be here. The words catch in his throat as he pauses to stare for at Maelle, at Sciel. He opens his mouth to speak again but isn't sure where to begin. His eyebrows furrow as he wonders if this is the time to say anything; would it be better in a private setting.
"I saw him." His mouth twitches into a small, sad smile. "Twice, really. Once at the casino. Once here. I didn't mention the first time, because I wasn't sure he would appear here." He feels it is important to make that clear; he wasn't trying to obscure the truth this time around.
It just hurt if that one conversation ended up being all he had.
Sciel's hands are on Maelle's shoulders, so he doesn't reach out to set his own hand there, but he looks over and down to give Maelle a small, private smile, grateful. Whether she'll keep her word if she gets a chance to exact vengeance again he doesn't know, but right now, at least, she agrees. It lifts a weight of worry from his shoulders. Not all of it, but enough for him to take a breath, focus on something else for a moment. "Well, hopefully all our interactions with him will be so benign."
He looks over at Verso, who's drifting toward the edge of the room. Pacing, uncertain, or just wanting some space, Gustave doesn't know, but he'd said something earlier that's been niggling at Gustave since. "You said he's trying to save our world," he says, directing his attention toward Verso.
"But if everyone's gone... we might be able to save it for the Gestrals, but... what would that even mean, to save Lumiere only to have no one there to live in it?"
Maelle offers small, tentative smiles to Sciel and Gustave. She'll listen.
(As long as they keep their word, she will keep hers.)
"I don't trust anything that Renoir says. Most of it makes no sense, anyway," Maelle says, and she looks to Verso, then. Some of what Renoir has said makes sense in retrospect, in regards to him, but that's not her business to share. She's worried about him. She's been worried since she first ran into Verso here.
Now, he's setting himself apart. He is apart, different from them, and Maelle knows all too well how it feels to be the odd one out. That's always been her spot for one reason or another. The orphan that can't find a home. The teenager unable to make friends her age. No apprenticeship. An Expedition volunteer, throwing away nearly a decade of life.
"A man I spoke to said he'd been here a year already. So, we have time to... figure everything out, I guess." Maelle is in no hurry. She has Gustave. She could stay here forever, with him, and be content. Home can sort itself out. But she knows better than to say that aloud. Instead, she carefully ducks out from under Sciel's hands to approach Verso.
"You're not gonna turn in your armband, are you?" She asks, voice a touch lighter for Verso's sake, teasing despite the worry in her eyes. You're still with us, aren't you?
She lets Maelle go. All eyes are turning to Verso, and Sciel's are now amongst them. For a moment, while Maelle corners him, she searches his face. She's no stranger to his scarcity, the way he bends himself to the edge of the conversation whenever he can get away with it. A question sits on the tip of her tongue, and her lips part to make space for it, but it suddenly doesn't feel like the right place to ask.
All eyes on him hadn't been what he intended. His chin lifts as he acknowledges the attention that he is getting. He frowns slightly; he barely keeps himself from biting his bottom lip. But thankfully, he decides that he doesn't have to comment on what Gustave said.
Verso decides to side-step answering those questions by answering Maelle's question instead. "I didn't turn it in, but I did use it to help patch up our dashing gentleman friend." His chin drops as he gestures towards Gustave. He tilts his head to the side; feels more words want to come out but stops.
He pauses in what he could say to look to Sciel. It lasts longer than a second.
His eyes drift back down and away. "I told you that I'd look out for you." This is directed to everyone else in the room. A brief sweeping look as he's already decided what he would do. "Even if we were the only ones here, I'd do what I could to make sure you're safe."
A beat. "But we aren't the only ones." He tosses out an easy smile, reassuring Maelle as he hesitates then takes a step closer to them all. "Still, what I said doesn't change."
He watches as Maelle moves away from him and Sciel, towards Verso; hears that particular tone in her voice. She cares about him, that's clear, and it's — it's nice, he's always wanted Maelle to connect more with people, but it's strange, too, makes the floor feel oddly angled beneath his feet. He's never really heard her use that tone with anyone but himself and Emma, with Lune and Sciel a little once they'd come to the continent and all found one another again.
How long had they all traveled together? How well do they all know each other? "It's true," he confirms. "I didn't realize it was one of our armbands at the time, but in my defense, I wasn't feeling my best."
No, he'd been bleeding out there on the ground of that strange obstacle course, barely able to walk.
Verso's been kind to him, for the most part. He probably deserves the benefit of the doubt, at least when it comes to this. "But I'm sure we can get you a new one. Since you are, after all, part of the team now."
Some of the color drains from Maelle's face at Verso's little revelation about the fate of his armband. Gustave really doesn't help. No, he wouldn't be feeling his best if he were bleeding out from Renoir's attack. She can still feel the ghost of Sciel's hands on her shoulders, and she reminds herself to breathe, because every reminder of that terrible loss can't knock her off kilter this much.
Gustave himself is a reminder, and it's proving harder than Maelle thought to not think of him covered in his own blood, the life draining from him. His body, left abandoned on the wet stones. As if he wasn't the most vivid and lively and important person in her life. There's a strange void in her chest that alarms her--with no particular inclination to return to Lumiere, what now?
All she can do is focus on what's before her. Or try to, at least.
"We can get you a new one," Maelle echoes after Gustave, blinking, and forcing herself to lift a hand to pat the spot on Verso's arm where it should be. "You need it. You're one of us."
Sciel watches, lips closed. There are plenty of ways every soul in this room could choose to be their worst selves, and plenty reasons more for Gustave to harshly judge the merits of his replacement. (No one here is unkind enough to call Verso that, of course, but it’s a thought anyone could be drawn to at least once.) She is, herself, relieved that he doesn’t. There could be peace here. Some sort of friendship between men she trusts.
But there’s a little bit of wariness in her, too.
She just smiles, serene, expectant of Verso’s answer.
Yet again he thinks this isn't what he wanted. He recalls telling Renoir to tell them all the truth; he would have no place in this life. His eyes flicker back to Gustave. The empty place has been filled with who needs to be there.
But he pauses when Maelle lifts her hand to touch where the sash once was. Both of them saying that he's one of them; part of the team. He remembers saying that he should give it back to her because he felt a fraud. She told him then to wear it anyway, because he's chosen his side.
Again he looks to Sciel; she hasn't said anything yet it's her smile and her waiting for his answer that compels him to answer. It's simply something in how she's waiting that makes him not want to disappoint her, or them.
"I'll happily take a new one." Verso says like he didn't take those few seconds to think about his answer. He blinks and the hesitation seems to completely fade away; his eyes instead sparkle easily with amusement and warmth.
"And," he tips his head in appreciation, "very happy to be part of the team."
He and Verso had started to come to a kind of tentative understanding, he'd thought. Yes, Verso is still evasive when it comes to giving any real answers, and Gustave is certain he's omitting more truths he simply doesn't want to tell, but he had helped him back there at the casino. He'd given at least a few answers when Gustave pressed for them, though not as many as Gustave would have liked. He's charming and easy to talk to, and he'd been the only ally Gustave could expect to have. For a while it had seemed like the two of them would be working together, the threat of Renoir and of their world's destruction hanging over them.
But now it feels... awkward, at best. He'd only just started getting to know Verso, and now Maelle and Sciel are here with weeks or maybe months of time with him. Verso had maybe even had more time as a member of Expedition 33 than Gustave himself, and it's a strange feeling. It's not conscious, but he can feel the walls going up between them. Verso had won some smiles from him, gotten him to loosen up a little, but that was then. He almost feels like an intruder in this, his own team, watching the way Verso interacts with his friend and sister.
It's not a reaction he likes; he's not generally a jealous man. And this isn't jealousy, he thinks, not exactly, just...
He's not sure what it is, only that it's leaving him feeling just slightly off-balance. "Like I said before, you're a handy guy to have around."
Which is true, and he can just set the rest of it aside somewhere and not look at it. There's no reason for any of it, anyway. He likes Verso, and it's clear Maelle and Sciel do, too, and it's better to have more members of the team than fewer. They can figure out the rest as they go.
Maelle smiles up at Verso. There’s still something not quite at ease within him, but she has to take what he says at face value. Even if she has her concerns, she won't bring them up here before Sciel and Gustave. Maybe later she and Verso can talk. And maybe by then she'll have a new armband for him.
She just doesn't want him to go too far.
"We have two very handy guys," Maelle points out, and while she wants to stay near Verso, the pull to be right beside Gustave is too strong to ignore.
(Perhaps that's part of her worry, that Verso will want to be with his father, regardless of their past. If it feels instinctual to Maelle, it must be so much worse with blood involved.)
She returns to Gustave, close enough for her shoulder to touch his arm and looks to Sciel with a lifted brow. What next?
But there’s tension where there should be some sort of camaraderie and group huddle. She feels it travel across the room, slinking to hide behind Gustave’s graciousness, its footsteps drowned out by Verso’s showmanship. She looks to Gustave, and then to Verso, smile still on her face. She takes a half-step forward, a hand up.
“Just… one thing. Before we get too far from the subject…”
Sciel laces her fingers together in front of her, as if being pacifying upfront could grease the way. Not for the first time, she wishes Lune was here.
“Verso,” she says. “I think you should explain who Renoir is, since you’ve known him the longest. So Gustave is on the same page, yeah?”
"I'll continue to try to be as handy as you." A bright little smile to Gustave.
Verso starts out smiling at the little hand that is raised. He breathes out something like a laugh as he wonders what it is that she is going to say, but he somehow didn't expect that to be what she says.
His eyes widen for a brief second; he supposes he should have mentioned it as they were talking about it yet -- he doesn't have much of an excuse.
He flexes his fingers, feeling the anxiety run through his body. However, he relents because he can only keep it secret for so long. He hates the fact that may be the only reason he is saying anything at all, but he'll shove that thought (and the others that follow) somewhere in the back of his mind.
They're not useful at present.
"No, you're right." He tips his chin down, trying not to cross his arms, to curl in on himself. "We should be on the same page and I should've said something sooner, but there are a lot of reasons I didn't. It wasn't meant to hurt you."
Inhaling slowly, he looks briefly to Gustave. However, he decides to maintain eye contact with him instead of looking away this time around. "Renoir... he is my father." He can no longer say that he doesn't view him as that anymore since the two of them last spoke.
He thinks of saying more but decides to leave that be all he says.
Gustave's brows hitch up at Sciel's question before he turns to Verso, arms still folded across his chest, his expression one of patient curiosity. It's clear to him Verso knows at least something about Renoir, though they hadn't discussed him much that day at the waterpark. Another immortal, one he's apparently at odds with, but what their history might be, he doesn't know.
...He doesn't expect that.
He doesn't move, but every part of him freezes up at once, turning from a body at rest to one as unnaturally stiff as the petrified Expeditioners, their corrupted chroma still locked deep inside. He can't take his eyes off Verso. Vaguely, he recalls deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt only moments ago. This surely must be some kind of record when it comes to regrets on that count.
"'He's just an old man now,'" he quotes, quiet but harsh. He can be cutting, when he's angry, upset, afraid, and right now he's all of those things, each of them rolling into each other until it feels like his chest is filled with barbed wire.
Maelle and Sciel knew. He doesn't know how long they've known, but they know — so Gustave is on the same page, Sciel had said, so they all knew but him — and some distant part of him understands, intellectually, that however they'd found out, they'd found or heard or come to some kind of argument or understanding that lets them be fine with this. They aren't processing it right now, out of nowhere, the way he is. And maybe he should simply take their reaction as his guide, assume the best instead of the worst, and shove all the rest of it away, but —
Renoir hadn't taken their lives with his own hands, murdered them in cold blood. Maybe they can forgive the son for the sins of the father, but all Gustave can think of as he looks at Verso is the way the man apologized for not getting there soon enough. For not being able to save him.
Is that true? Or is it just that he weighed his father against the life of a man he doesn't even know and found that one was far easier to sacrifice than the other? "Your father?"
He's looking only at Verso, as if Sciel and Maelle aren't even here. "So when we talked about him, when I told you what I remembered, when you sympathized, you just didn't think that would be useful information for me to know?"
His voice had started out quiet, but it gets louder now, the words coming faster as he finally unfolds his arms, right hand lifting, fingers outspread. "Would you ever have told me? Or do you always need to be backed into a corner before you'll tell the truth?"
The moment Sciel speaks up, Maelle's heart sinks. Oh, she's not wrong to bring up that fact, that the son of the man that killed Gustave is here in what should be their safe home. A part of her is surprised Verso confesses, but really, he has no choice.
"Gustave..." Maelle says quietly as the emotions build within him. It's so much more complicated than simply being Renoir's son, but one thing at a time. Then, a little louder: "Gustave, it's... it's not easy to just say it."
It's personal. Private. Weak excuses from Verso, then, but Maelle understands. It would always be a bad conversation and it's bad now and maybe worse because Verso wasn't forthcoming with it but...
Maelle steps in front of Gustave, blue eyes wide with concern. For him, for Verso. For this little family she so desperately wants to keep together.
Sciel wasn't wrong to bring this up, but Maelle feels sick to her stomach seeing Gustave upset.
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"And you. You're even more insane," she says to Verso. The heart of the group? No, that was always Gustave. Another laugh escapes her as Verso comes to her rescue. "Sciel is the clear best choice, I think."
She glances at Gustave. The chore wheel? Really? She was happy to leave that in Lumiere.
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She eases up her grip, should Maelle want to move away entirely, but she lingers right where she is. It’s a better angle on Gustave, anyway, and the furrow of that dark brown. Later, she decides, and she gestures broadly with her free arm, a little showy, a little silly.
“Well, then! I promise to be a benevolent leader, and to always move the chore wheel based on merit, rather than any petty whims. Shall we move on to orders of business?”
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His hands do drop when Sciel graciously and theatrically accepts her role. "I feel as though we got played." He will take a second to look betrayed before inclining his head in her direction.
"Like what chores we truly have no right in doing?"
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"Aurora, for one. Echo. These... missions. Some of the ones I've heard about have sounded dangerous, others just... strange."
A mission where everyone had to pretend to be a happy family? A gladiatorial world? How does any of it add up to saving their own?
And do they even still have a world left to be saved? "And that's not even touching on the complications of the other people here and their own motivations and abilities. Not to mention... Renoir."
His arms tighten across himself, but he quells the impulse to reach for that spot in his side where he'd been speared through, pouring blood, the wound through his chest that Aurora healed. He's getting better about it, he thinks. "We don't know what he might do."
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She can't look at him or Verso and Sciel is all too perceptive, especially this close. That single open window doesn't feel like it's letting enough air into the room.
"... we'll kill him. We did it before. We'll do it as many times as necessary until he learns to stay away from us."
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But at Maelle's suggestion, she eases her arms off the girl, hands moving to her shoulders instead. Bracing.
"I met him," she remarks. "It wasn't pleasant, but he doesn't have any more experience or knowledge of this place than we do. He's just any old man, here."
There's no need to disagree with killing him, but it does put an odd pit in her stomach to imagine how that would look in a place like this. Would it be as sterile as the walls around them? Would he bleed brighter, on some raked concrete path outside a featureless building?
She glances at Verso. It's an undeniable impulse.
"We keep our distance, first and foremost?"
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He stares at the ground briefly as he takes a few steps backwards. Subconsciously, he moves himself to be further away from the group - like they have to move their heads to speak to him instead of looking directly at one another.
Verso turns his head toward Sciel, noting her looking towards him. Yet again his gaze flickers back to the other two first.
"He's just an old man now." He repeats what has already been said but drifts his gaze toward the wall, toward the open window. "Our world is something he wants to maintain and survive." Frowning, he doesn't add anything else in defense of him; he can only say that much in any case.
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And the last he'd seen in his own world. He shakes his head at Sciel, at Verso. "I don't think we should be so quick to dismiss him. If we can get stronger, regain our weapons, so can he. Our one advantage is that it seems like he's willing to leave us alone, so I agree with Sciel. We should do the same."
He turns his glance on Maelle, more intent, a little of the sternness of her guardian seeping in. "I don't want you anywhere near him. Even here, he could be dangerous, and he might not even be our biggest problem. Don't go seeking revenge, okay? If you see him, run."
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"I... also saw him. Before I found you," she murmurs, eyes on Gustave. "I ran."
This time. She knew, alone, she would not be able to fight him. Even if he's just an old man, Gustave is right.
"So we all stay away from him. Distance, like Sciel said. Right?" Her eyes linger on Gustave, something pleading in them, before she looks to Sciel and then Verso. She can feel the pinpricks of upset behind her eyeballs. Gustave didn't run before. The one and only time she can recall him breaking a promise to her.
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She nods, sure.
"All of us run," Sciel agrees, gently kneading Maelle's shoulders with her thumbs; easy, girl. Deep breaths. "He doesn't actually know much about us. If we steer clear, we can keep it that way."
She pauses, just a short purse of her lips.
"And... we keep each other informed. If we do cross paths with him, we speak up. Yes?"
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A brief glance to Gustave. He recalls the conversation they had; the cold feeling in his chest that drops lower. His head tilts away from the group as he takes another step backwards.
He purses his lips; his fingers flex.
I don't think I should be here. The words catch in his throat as he pauses to stare for at Maelle, at Sciel. He opens his mouth to speak again but isn't sure where to begin. His eyebrows furrow as he wonders if this is the time to say anything; would it be better in a private setting.
"I saw him." His mouth twitches into a small, sad smile. "Twice, really. Once at the casino. Once here. I didn't mention the first time, because I wasn't sure he would appear here." He feels it is important to make that clear; he wasn't trying to obscure the truth this time around.
It just hurt if that one conversation ended up being all he had.
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He looks over at Verso, who's drifting toward the edge of the room. Pacing, uncertain, or just wanting some space, Gustave doesn't know, but he'd said something earlier that's been niggling at Gustave since. "You said he's trying to save our world," he says, directing his attention toward Verso.
"But if everyone's gone... we might be able to save it for the Gestrals, but... what would that even mean, to save Lumiere only to have no one there to live in it?"
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(As long as they keep their word, she will keep hers.)
"I don't trust anything that Renoir says. Most of it makes no sense, anyway," Maelle says, and she looks to Verso, then. Some of what Renoir has said makes sense in retrospect, in regards to him, but that's not her business to share. She's worried about him. She's been worried since she first ran into Verso here.
Now, he's setting himself apart. He is apart, different from them, and Maelle knows all too well how it feels to be the odd one out. That's always been her spot for one reason or another. The orphan that can't find a home. The teenager unable to make friends her age. No apprenticeship. An Expedition volunteer, throwing away nearly a decade of life.
"A man I spoke to said he'd been here a year already. So, we have time to... figure everything out, I guess." Maelle is in no hurry. She has Gustave. She could stay here forever, with him, and be content. Home can sort itself out. But she knows better than to say that aloud. Instead, she carefully ducks out from under Sciel's hands to approach Verso.
"You're not gonna turn in your armband, are you?" She asks, voice a touch lighter for Verso's sake, teasing despite the worry in her eyes. You're still with us, aren't you?
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She says nothing, just watching.
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Verso decides to side-step answering those questions by answering Maelle's question instead. "I didn't turn it in, but I did use it to help patch up our dashing gentleman friend." His chin drops as he gestures towards Gustave. He tilts his head to the side; feels more words want to come out but stops.
He pauses in what he could say to look to Sciel. It lasts longer than a second.
His eyes drift back down and away. "I told you that I'd look out for you." This is directed to everyone else in the room. A brief sweeping look as he's already decided what he would do. "Even if we were the only ones here, I'd do what I could to make sure you're safe."
A beat. "But we aren't the only ones." He tosses out an easy smile, reassuring Maelle as he hesitates then takes a step closer to them all. "Still, what I said doesn't change."
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How long had they all traveled together? How well do they all know each other? "It's true," he confirms. "I didn't realize it was one of our armbands at the time, but in my defense, I wasn't feeling my best."
No, he'd been bleeding out there on the ground of that strange obstacle course, barely able to walk.
Verso's been kind to him, for the most part. He probably deserves the benefit of the doubt, at least when it comes to this. "But I'm sure we can get you a new one. Since you are, after all, part of the team now."
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Gustave himself is a reminder, and it's proving harder than Maelle thought to not think of him covered in his own blood, the life draining from him. His body, left abandoned on the wet stones. As if he wasn't the most vivid and lively and important person in her life. There's a strange void in her chest that alarms her--with no particular inclination to return to Lumiere, what now?
All she can do is focus on what's before her. Or try to, at least.
"We can get you a new one," Maelle echoes after Gustave, blinking, and forcing herself to lift a hand to pat the spot on Verso's arm where it should be. "You need it. You're one of us."
She doesn't want him to go anywhere.
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But there’s a little bit of wariness in her, too.
She just smiles, serene, expectant of Verso’s answer.
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But he pauses when Maelle lifts her hand to touch where the sash once was. Both of them saying that he's one of them; part of the team. He remembers saying that he should give it back to her because he felt a fraud. She told him then to wear it anyway, because he's chosen his side.
Again he looks to Sciel; she hasn't said anything yet it's her smile and her waiting for his answer that compels him to answer. It's simply something in how she's waiting that makes him not want to disappoint her, or them.
"I'll happily take a new one." Verso says like he didn't take those few seconds to think about his answer. He blinks and the hesitation seems to completely fade away; his eyes instead sparkle easily with amusement and warmth.
"And," he tips his head in appreciation, "very happy to be part of the team."
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But now it feels... awkward, at best. He'd only just started getting to know Verso, and now Maelle and Sciel are here with weeks or maybe months of time with him. Verso had maybe even had more time as a member of Expedition 33 than Gustave himself, and it's a strange feeling. It's not conscious, but he can feel the walls going up between them. Verso had won some smiles from him, gotten him to loosen up a little, but that was then. He almost feels like an intruder in this, his own team, watching the way Verso interacts with his friend and sister.
It's not a reaction he likes; he's not generally a jealous man. And this isn't jealousy, he thinks, not exactly, just...
He's not sure what it is, only that it's leaving him feeling just slightly off-balance. "Like I said before, you're a handy guy to have around."
Which is true, and he can just set the rest of it aside somewhere and not look at it. There's no reason for any of it, anyway. He likes Verso, and it's clear Maelle and Sciel do, too, and it's better to have more members of the team than fewer. They can figure out the rest as they go.
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She just doesn't want him to go too far.
"We have two very handy guys," Maelle points out, and while she wants to stay near Verso, the pull to be right beside Gustave is too strong to ignore.
(Perhaps that's part of her worry, that Verso will want to be with his father, regardless of their past. If it feels instinctual to Maelle, it must be so much worse with blood involved.)
She returns to Gustave, close enough for her shoulder to touch his arm and looks to Sciel with a lifted brow. What next?
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But there’s tension where there should be some sort of camaraderie and group huddle. She feels it travel across the room, slinking to hide behind Gustave’s graciousness, its footsteps drowned out by Verso’s showmanship. She looks to Gustave, and then to Verso, smile still on her face. She takes a half-step forward, a hand up.
“Just… one thing. Before we get too far from the subject…”
Sciel laces her fingers together in front of her, as if being pacifying upfront could grease the way. Not for the first time, she wishes Lune was here.
“Verso,” she says. “I think you should explain who Renoir is, since you’ve known him the longest. So Gustave is on the same page, yeah?”
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Verso starts out smiling at the little hand that is raised. He breathes out something like a laugh as he wonders what it is that she is going to say, but he somehow didn't expect that to be what she says.
His eyes widen for a brief second; he supposes he should have mentioned it as they were talking about it yet -- he doesn't have much of an excuse.
He flexes his fingers, feeling the anxiety run through his body. However, he relents because he can only keep it secret for so long. He hates the fact that may be the only reason he is saying anything at all, but he'll shove that thought (and the others that follow) somewhere in the back of his mind.
They're not useful at present.
"No, you're right." He tips his chin down, trying not to cross his arms, to curl in on himself. "We should be on the same page and I should've said something sooner, but there are a lot of reasons I didn't. It wasn't meant to hurt you."
Inhaling slowly, he looks briefly to Gustave. However, he decides to maintain eye contact with him instead of looking away this time around. "Renoir... he is my father." He can no longer say that he doesn't view him as that anymore since the two of them last spoke.
He thinks of saying more but decides to leave that be all he says.
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...He doesn't expect that.
He doesn't move, but every part of him freezes up at once, turning from a body at rest to one as unnaturally stiff as the petrified Expeditioners, their corrupted chroma still locked deep inside. He can't take his eyes off Verso. Vaguely, he recalls deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt only moments ago. This surely must be some kind of record when it comes to regrets on that count.
"'He's just an old man now,'" he quotes, quiet but harsh. He can be cutting, when he's angry, upset, afraid, and right now he's all of those things, each of them rolling into each other until it feels like his chest is filled with barbed wire.
Maelle and Sciel knew. He doesn't know how long they've known, but they know — so Gustave is on the same page, Sciel had said, so they all knew but him — and some distant part of him understands, intellectually, that however they'd found out, they'd found or heard or come to some kind of argument or understanding that lets them be fine with this. They aren't processing it right now, out of nowhere, the way he is. And maybe he should simply take their reaction as his guide, assume the best instead of the worst, and shove all the rest of it away, but —
Renoir hadn't taken their lives with his own hands, murdered them in cold blood. Maybe they can forgive the son for the sins of the father, but all Gustave can think of as he looks at Verso is the way the man apologized for not getting there soon enough. For not being able to save him.
Is that true? Or is it just that he weighed his father against the life of a man he doesn't even know and found that one was far easier to sacrifice than the other? "Your father?"
He's looking only at Verso, as if Sciel and Maelle aren't even here. "So when we talked about him, when I told you what I remembered, when you sympathized, you just didn't think that would be useful information for me to know?"
His voice had started out quiet, but it gets louder now, the words coming faster as he finally unfolds his arms, right hand lifting, fingers outspread. "Would you ever have told me? Or do you always need to be backed into a corner before you'll tell the truth?"
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"Gustave..." Maelle says quietly as the emotions build within him. It's so much more complicated than simply being Renoir's son, but one thing at a time. Then, a little louder: "Gustave, it's... it's not easy to just say it."
It's personal. Private. Weak excuses from Verso, then, but Maelle understands. It would always be a bad conversation and it's bad now and maybe worse because Verso wasn't forthcoming with it but...
Maelle steps in front of Gustave, blue eyes wide with concern. For him, for Verso. For this little family she so desperately wants to keep together.
Sciel wasn't wrong to bring this up, but Maelle feels sick to her stomach seeing Gustave upset.
"Verso chose us."
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