Chapter Text
Renaître: (French) To be reborn, to revive, or to reappear.
//
It starts, as most things do, at the end.
The beach is a mistake. Black sand stings his face alongside the seawater’s salt. Gustave tries not to think of the blood staining his coat, the only thing warm within a world that is suddenly so very, very cold. Survival is a cruel master and he’s never been so scared outside the loss of his arm, but it’s the same compulsion to protect that drives him through the fight, parrying—dodging—searching for Maelle amongst the turmoil.
He thinks he first scents it then: his mate—before everything goes black.
Later, he’ll realize he’d known that scent long before, carried, on occasion, within the confines of Lumière's fractured dome: clove and smoke amongst the petals of the dead.
Hey, you, he thinks while his vision grows black and an eclipse of a man bleeds into a world quickly losing its shape.
His last thought is that he could brush away the panic painting the omega’s sad, lonely face.
His first thought is: Maybe I can.
In all the tales the Writers told, in the myths and stories and hushed whispers of a society who deigned to keep the whimsy of their romanticism confined to things such as books and poems and plays, the story never went like this.
He’s beautiful. At least that fits right. Beautiful and perfect and alive.
His excursions to Lumière had never gotten him close enough to notice, before. By the time Maelle joined Gustave’s family, she was old enough to notice a suspicious dark-haired man following her through the city’s long shadows. And the beach hadn’t allowed him much time to take Gustave in. Nothing more than the rich scent of leather and ozone that still hadn’t left his nose all these hours later, no matter the distance he keeps.
A distance that no longer seems to help now they they’ve both woken.
“Who are you,” Alicia—Maelle—demands, sword held out, point brushing the soft place behind his chin. Verso stands his ground, eyes on his sister rather than the exhausted man at her side, dark circles heavy beneath both their eyes. “What do you want? Where did you come from?”
Verso would laugh if that didn’t mean piercing his own throat on her blade. Instead, he scratches at an itch bothering the place where his collar is undone, glancing at Gustave briefly and encountering a hardened expression that seems out of place on a man Verso’s only ever seen smiling.
“I’m here to help,” isn’t exactly a lie, but Gustave cocks his head anyway.
He’s onto you. Except that’s impossible. As impossible as the thrum of connection burrowing through his skin into his very soul.
Soulmate, his mind breathes, and Verso braces himself against an involuntary shiver, then shoves the thought far, far away because betas don’t mate, let alone have soulmates—a phenomena so rare—so impossible—that it’s only ever told as a children’s romantic fairytale.
Verso is not a child. He is over a hundred years old and a beta through and through. And even if it were possible for one of his nature to mate, soulmates—by definition—require a soul, and Verso is no more than the memory of a man set to paint with nothing of his own to claim. And like the Verso he’s been made in the image of, he is a beta, and betas don’t mate.
The itch grows, stabbing into the side of his throat where his scent gland hides. Some of his discomfort must show because Gustave’s hardened expression softens into something else: curiosity. Rather than scratch, Verso averts his eyes and considers impaling himself on Maelle’s sword to play dead long enough for them to disappear into the continent’s wilds, his only chance at ending this thing that keeps him alive slipping through his fingers for however long it takes for the Dessendre family outside the canvas to die, and what magic that keeps him alive to fade.
Gustave places a hand on Maelle’s shoulder before Verso works up his nerve.
“It’s okay, Maelle. I don’t think he saved us to hurt us.” Gustave meets his eyes when he says it, expectant like Verso is supposed to do anything other than laugh—because, well, yes, that had been his original plan.
Not anymore. Not now that he—he can’t.
He’s not my mate.
Again, Verso nearly laughs, and again, Maelle’s sword stops him. But then eyes the same ice as his catch him, and it’s with a huff of tension her blade finally slides away.
“We need to find other survivors,” Maelle says, looking at him but addressing Gustave. She’s old enough to have presented but too young to command an alpha older than her, though Gustave smiles like this is all normal. He lets her go, Maelle narrowing her eyes while she slips past Verso to head down the stairs.
Verso watches her go, so torn between his tangled thoughts and shattered plans that he nearly doesn’t notice him draw close.
“You coming?” Gustave murmurs, right there, at his shoulder, breath ghosting gently across that itch. Verso jerks, then goes stiff, nostrils flaring with a quick, desperate breath.
Leather and ozone, fresh and immediate. Verso swallows greedily while a spark lances through his gut into the core of him, barely registering Gustave’s eyes sliding to his throat when he lifts a hand to cover his gland. He catches himself before his fingers sink in, but too late, Gustave’s eyes flood black rather than warm, locked onto Verso’s fingers like it’s his mouth he might replace them with.
Oh, Verso thinks, the image coming together: Gustave’s hand at the back of his head, mouth a warm wet weight over his gland, his tongue laving, teeth nipping, a suckling pressure that would draw the very marrow from his boneless body, building and building, all before those teeth sank in and marked Verso as his.
The idea hits hard, nearly bringing Verso to his knees with the gravity of betrayal. Because that’s what this is: a betrayal of his body—of the rules defining their natures—of the shape Aline has made for him.
Verso rips his hand away and takes a step back, heart hammering a hole in his chest.
“Sorry,” Gustave says, the faintest pink painting his nose. “I didn’t mean to—ah, well. That’d be a lie, wouldn’t it?”
Verso is shaking too hard to say anything even if on the outside he’s a stony wall of silence. Gustave smiles again, like he’s laughing at himself rather than Verso, and he expects him to be in on the joke.
He’s not. He can’t be, because he has no idea what the fuck is happening.
“Maelle’s right, though,” Gustave continues like Verso hasn’t turned into one of those awful mimes with those stupid shield walls, “We should try and find other survivors before moving on. We’ll talk later though, right?”
“Right,” Verso blurts, then catches himself. “I mean, whatever about?”
Gustave stills, dark eyes holding his for a moment before they crinkle at the corners, the smile that blossoms across his face warmer than anything yet.
“Alright, I see how it is.” Gustave leans in, the tip of his head private, the tilt of his mouth coy. “I won’t complain if the dark and mysterious stranger who saved me wants to play hard to get.”
Verso chokes—chokes—on his next breath. Heat floods his blood, then his face, because Gustave’s alpha-brained assumption has no place with him, but there it is anyway, and Verso is left stunned at the top of the manor’s staircase while Gustave waits patiently at the door, as if Verso belongs no where else than at his side.
Later does not come until after a day of searching ends with a new survivor joining their team.
“Who are you,” Lune demands, hands glowing with picto energy, teeth bared, alpha scent clogging his brain. “Why are you wearing that uniform?”
It’s Gustave who talks her down, Verso’s beta instincts no where to be found in the face of this woman who would peel the skin from his bones if it meant she got to know all his secrets. Gustave does not let her. He speaks to her as gently as he might an omega, the wave of emotion crossing her face swept way in the tide of purpose she wears likes a shield. Her apology comes later, around a campfire that burns cold with how hot Verso has begun to feel.
“I’m sorry, for earlier. You saved them, and for that I am grateful.”
Verso doesn’t open his mouth because to speak now would reveal more than he can spare. He digs his fingers into his itch, massaging while he thinks no one is looking, resisting the urge to scratch while a drowsy heat engulfs his insides. The Gestral village is but a sleep away and he needs more than that to recover from the fatigue that plagues him, but he takes first watch anyway, using the excuse to flee to the cliffside where Gustave—and his cursed scent—cannot follow.
Correction: he isn’t supposed to follow.
A skitter of rocks tumbling over the cliff’s edge alert him to someone’s presence, and Verso twists around faster than his nose can catch the scent of leather and ozone.
“What are you doing?” he snaps, Gustave tossing him a casual grin when he slides down to sit at the base of the boulder next to Verso.
Gustave’s face is an alarming shade of grey when he looks up from the long fall down the cliff face.
“Merde, if I didn’t know better I’d say you have a death wish.”
Well, obviously you don’t know me at all, Verso does not say, instead looking everywhere but at Gustave lest he catch the lie anyway.
“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” he finally asks when Gustave tips his head back against the rock and closes his eyes.
“I don’t know how anyone is supposed to sleep after these last couple days.”
Verso can’t exactly refute him. He’d seen the massacre at the beach—born witness to dozens of others. He hasn’t slept well in years, let alone days.
“I’d like to say you grow used to it, but that’d be a lie. It never gets easy.”
Gustave cracks an eye open, a shrewd regard coloring the depth of his stare. “And I’d say it’s hard to believe your story, except it’s the least absurd truth I’ve encountered since leaving Lumière.”
Verso breaks eye contact, looking out over the sea instead of at the storm in Gustave’s eyes. “Regretting leaving the city?” He asks, like a dare, because any sane man’s answer would be yes.
“No, I don’t,” Gustave’s voice is low. He doesn’t need to elaborate, Verso can clearly feel the ebb of heat with how close Gustave sits, the itch under his skin scratching to an uncomfortable buzz, but Gustave continues speaking anyway, and what he reveals is surprising enough Verso twists to face him. “It’s never felt entirely real—Lumière. Now I know a little bit why. As wild as the continent is, it’s maybe the first thing that has felt authentic in all my life.”
“Oh?” Verso prods, intent. “How so?”
“It’s the Gestrals, and the landscape. They don’t feel like…recreations of a memory, more like their own unique thing. I don’t know if it’s because of the fracture and our isolation or how short our lives have grown to be that we can’t leave a meaningful mark behind, but Lumière…it’s like a postcard you send to someone, a snapshot of an experience someone else has already lived, but you get to claim as your own.”
There’s a profound wisdom to what Gustave says despite not having the full picture of the world he exists within. And the uncanny interpretation that the life he’s lived up until this point has been somewhat of a lie hits hard enough Verso can’t deny the camaraderie of experience they share, despite their clear divergences.
Maybe that’s why Verso asks, “So if my stories are the least absurd truth you’ve learned, what’s the most?” before he can stop himself.
Their eyes catch, and Verso’s caught, flayed open and bleeding for Gustave’s consumption, truth exposed like a nerve ending stripped bare. His hand reaches for the itch before he can stop it, fingers sinking in deep, but he says nothing. Can’t. Decades of hiding won’t allow him, while the heat in his blood makes his mouth too dry to speak.
Gustave sighs, eyes lowering to Verso’s hand. “You’re not going to acknowledge it, are you?”
I can’t.
“You feel it though, don’t you? The bond?”
Verso closes his eyes, hopes Gustave doesn’t notice how he’s begun to tremble.
“Verso,” Gustave all but commands.
“I’m sorry,” he finally says, forcing his voice normal despite how, inside, he screams. He slides his hand from his throat and fists it in his lap. “I’m a beta. I have been, my entire life. Whatever you think is between us isn’t possible.”
Gustave cocks his head, warm eyes holding his no differently than they had before, nostrils flaring as he—he must be taking in Verso’s scent.
“Huh,” Gustave says, Verso’s revelation tumbling off him like it means nothing. Like the truth Verso has finally offered him is actually the real lie. “Well aren’t you a mystery.”
That awful heat reaches his cheeks and Verso looks away, sinking back against the boulder and crossing his arms over his chest, resisting the urge to bring his knees up and hold on. Gustave watches for a long time, a blurred softness in the corner of Verso’s vision where his curls catch the starlight and make him seem closer than he actually is.
And Verso does, in fact feel it. He has not stopped feeling it since carrying Gustave off that beach. But whatever actually connects them is as artificial as the rest of the relationships he’s made in this cursed canvas. Esquie and Monoco and even the Gestrals they’ll meet at the village tomorrow are creatures meant for another man—another soul. Only Julie had ever felt like more, and Verso had already learned the lesson of what that means.
Hurt. Pain. Betrayal.
Verso’s not expecting it—when Gustave begins to hum.
He doesn’t recognize the song. It could be a childhood rhyme or something of Gustave’s own creation, but the effect is immediate. Every point of tension inside Verso releases, the clench of his jaw and the stiffness in his shoulders, the itch in his gland even starts to abate. He relaxes against the boulder, body heavy, his weight lax, seeking something he does not yet know the shape of, but suddenly feels within reach. He does not chase it. He lets his eyes fall closed and his breathing go full, secure in Gustave’s simple little song—the warmth of his voice, the presence of his care.
By the time nightsong replaces Gustave’s humming, sleep is within reach for what feels like the first time in years.
“There you go,” Gustave murmurs from somewhere close, voice like creamed coffee. “That must feel better, right?”
Verso nods before he realizes what’s happening. Then every bit of tension he released snaps back all at once.
“Putain” —Verso lurches to his feet, needing to go. Needing to run. Needing to leave.
Rocks skitter and scrape, Verso’s boot sliding out from under him when he spins to flee. He tumbles backwards towards the open sea below but Gustave is right there, hauling him back from the cliff’s edge before Verso can take them both over, stumbling backwards towards the open field beyond the boulder, the grass cool and rough beneath his cheek when they hit the ground together.
Air punches from his lungs with the force of their fall, the world spinning when leather and ozone replace what he’s lost. Verso chokes on it, Gustave’s scent flooding his brain in a way that makes him feel light—like those mushrooms Monoco gave him once, that had him giggling for hours that felt like days. But it’s a loss of control he cannot bear, that rips him from a euphoria he does not deserve—because Verso is not meant for things like love and bonds and mates.
“Don’t touch me,” he gasps, shoving blindly. Gustave curses and releases him, hands held up in a warding gesture when Verso finally finds his feet.
“Merde, sorry, sorry—”
But Verso is gone before Gustave can finish apologizing.
They dont talk about what happened, the next day. Gustave treats him as cordially as he has ever, all small smiles and gentlemanly gestures that leave Verso aching for something he doesn't even want, let alone think he can have.
You're lying to yourself again, a voice that sounds suspiciously like Monoco says, and Verso stuffs it away.
They reach the Gestral village and, at least then, he gets a distraction.
“Hey, I’m Sciel.”
She’s nice. Nicer than Lune.
She’s also another beta.
“I’m Verso.” Verso gives her a smile, head tipped down in that way they makes him seem smaller than he actually is. “It’s good to have another beta around finally.”
“To be fair, if I were to choose to be stuck alone with a bunch of alphas, it’d be those three.”
Across the village, Maelle shrieks with laughter, Gustave stumbling into Lune's outstretched arms while the Gestral Chief slams the throne room doors behind him.
“Maelle and Gustave, perhaps. I’m certain Lune would consider it a compliment if I told her she terrified me.”
Sciel laughs. It’s a gentling sound—something their little band of Expeditioners desperately need. Or maybe just Verso.
“Well, he can’t say I didn’t warn him, can he?” Sciel waves at the others and Gustave’s sheepish smile finds Verso instantly, the flush across his cheeks and mussed up hair taking his mind places he’d rather it not be right now.
Or ever. Ever would work, too.
That spot in his throat twinges, and Verso reaches for it. It’d stop itching over the last day, begun to dully ache instead, and the only thing that seems to help is pressure. So he digs in with two fingers, ignoring how Sciel watches, her eyes tracking his movement like she doesn’t quite trust him yet.
She shouldn’t. After all, Verso can’t even trust himself—not anymore. Not now that his whole plan is in shambles.
“Well, that went disastrously.” Gustave has arrived, and with him, another stab of pain through Verso’s scent gland. He grits his teeth and drags his hand away from his throat before Gustave notices.
“That’s why we’re called the Disaster Expedition!” Maelle’s laughter has not stopped, Gustave’s smile only growing broader when he looks up and catches Verso’s eyes. Verso doesn’t remember when he started smiling at Maelle but he must have been doing it longer than the last several seconds because there’s a fondness in Gustave’s stare that Verso has only ever seen directed at the others. Like, whether Verso wants it or not, Gustave has welcomed him into his small circle of family.
“Okay, okay. Next time? I’ll listen to Sciel.”
Sciel snorts. “Tell me when I’ve heard that before!”
“Gustave doesn’t even listen to me,” Lune grumbles like that’s Gustave’s greatest offense and not his deep brown eyes and molasses-sweet smile, or the alluring scent of leather and—
“—I bet he’d listen to Verso!”
Just like that, Maelle’s sights are set on him. Verso actually takes a step back when he realizes she’s caught him staring at Gustave.
Her grin turns sharp.
“Ah, well, I have fought everything there is to fight on the continent, so I suppose that does make me some kind of authority.”
Maelle rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, that’s definitely why. It’s not because he desperately wants to bone—“
“—Maelle!” Gustave half-chokes, half-laughs, face going somehow even more red. Verso does him the favor of matching him shade for shade.
It’s later, at the camp in the foothills of Esquie’s cavern, that Gustave finds him alone again. Like a bloodhound on a scent, Sciel has discovered his stash of wine and now Lune is playing her guitar while Maelle and Sciel and Esquie sing songs Verso once knew the lyrics of, a long long time ago. Time has changed them in the way it changes most things, bit by bit until the original is nearly unrecognizable, a transformation Verso will never fully understand for himself, thanks to the paintress who made him.
He rubs at his gland, huffing a breath when his fingers can’t reach deep enough to release the pain, then tugs his collar aside and places his whole palm over the area to feel how swollen it’s become. No wonder it hurts, he can feel it pulse in time with his heartbeat. And now that he’s looking for it, that same sensation echoes throughout the rest of his body. A full-bodied itch that has begun to stir just under his skin.
Putain, is he getting sick?
No, you’re—
A rustling in the trees causes Verso to spin around, hand hovering over his collar like he’s been caught doing something wrong.
“There you are.” Gustave appears with two small glasses balanced in one hand. “Sciel sends her condolences, and her thanks. I’m not sure your stash will survive the night.”
“We might not either, so best it gets drank.”
“Merde, that’s dark.” Gustave sidles up close, bumping Verso’s shoulder with his. It’s a casual touch, but Verso shivers anyhow. Gustave notices. “You okay?”
Verso meets his eyes through the fall of his hair. “Believe me, you don’t actually want that answer.”
“Don’t I?” Gustave’s free hand presses flat to his chest, feigning hurt. “Why else would I have brought this much wine? Though I guess I can return it…”
Verso snatches one of the glasses from Gustave’s hand and gives him a withering look, tipping it back in one large gulp. It’s a good vintage. One of his best. Definitely meant for sipping—not chugging.
“Ugh,” Gustave agrees when Verso hands the cup back. “All of Lumière's dead sommeliers are rolling in their graves.”
“So, you mean no one,” Verso mutters. “The gommage leaves nothing behind to bury.”
“Well, not everyone dies to the gommage. Sophie used to say those who did were the lucky ones. A peaceful death. No pain. No fighting for your life. I didn’t agree with her before. Now? Well…”
When Gustave doesn’t continue, Verso asks, “Well what?” Then, “Who’s Sophie?”
He suddenly realizes his mistake when Gustave ignores him and saunters over to a patch of grass near the tide pools. The shimmer of a picto going off results in a blanket unfurling across the ground and he drops gingerly down upon it, arranging his two glasses and a bottle of wine—another picto, Verso realizes—atop the blanket in a way that makes it obvious he expects Verso to join him.
Gustave pats the blanket beside him and gives Verso a look.
“Sit with me and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
That’s not how this conversation is supposed to go. Verso has the answers and it should be Gustave begging him to talk. But Verso can’t deny how much he wants to know about Gustave’s life. Why he became an engineer. How he lost his arm. Find out whoever this Sophie might be. Personal, intimate questions that he doesn’t have any right to know the answers to, though Gustave offers them up like he’s an open book.
Bond or not, Verso would very much like to read that book and—merde— “Fine. Fine.”
Verso’s hand flies to his collar to dig into his gland while he lowers to a seat beside Gustave.
“More wine?” Gustave asks once Verso settles in.
As if he’s going to say no. Verso takes the bottle and sinks his teeth into the cork, then rips it free.
Gustave chokes, then laughs. “Again, those poor sommeliers…”
Verso tips the bottle back and takes a swig, then nudges Gustave’s cup with his toe. “Well?”
Spirit of the duel accepted, Gustave tips back his wine in one gulp, then tosses the cup to the side and takes the bottle from Verso.
“Sophie broke up with me three years before her gommage.” A swig. “She said it was because she didn’t want me to miss out on finding my person, but I think she was afraid of committing when she knew in a few years she’d lose it all.”
Verso takes the bottle and tips it back. “Do you blame her?”
Gustave gives him a look. “About which part?”
Rather than answer, Verso takes another drink, then passes the bottle back without meeting Gustave’s eyes.
“If we don’t go on, who will?” A beat of silence, then. “I also thought Sophie was my person.”
A zip of something Verso can only call jealousy stirs the pain in his gland and, again, Verso reaches for his collar, then catches himself and twists his hands into his lap instead. “Well, there you go.” Maybe it’s the wine, but his voice has gone raw. “Maybe she was your person. It’s a choice, isn’t it? In the end.”
“I suppose so, yes.” Gustave must notice his fidgeting because he holds out the bottle. Verso does not hesitate. “I won’t force anything on you Verso. You know that right?”
Verso takes a long drink. Then, another. “What’s there to force?”
Gustave sighs. “Give that back.”
They spend a long time like that, bottle passing between them, Gustave’s scent collecting in Verso’s head, the ache in his gland dulling to a pulse rather than a stab. He finally caves and rubs at it again after waving off the bottle now that it’s halfway gone, closing his eyes and tipping his head to the side to get a better angle. He only realizes his mistake when a gasp cuts through the quiet, warm brown eyes meeting his when Verso stiffens and looks up at Gustave.
“Merde, sorry.” Gustave fumbles the cork before shoving it into the bottle, setting it aside. He looks flustered, eyes shining with wine though he isn’t yet drunk. The flush across his nose is cute despite the rejection Verso just served him. Not that it seems to phase Gustave. Verso imagines this is something of how Sophie must have felt when she tried to break up with him, then spent three years with a puppy chasing her heels.
Except…Gustave is not a puppy. He is a wolf. That’s the only explanation for how he shakes off his nerves and meets Verso’s stare head on and says, “Does that hurt?”
Which results in Verso saying, “A little.”
They both seem surprised.
Gustave recovers first.
Leather and ozone flood Verso’s senses when Gustave smoothly slides into place behind him, hands coming down on his shoulders with all the weight of his intentions.
“Is this okay?” Gustave asks, and all Verso manages is a nod.
It is a lie, but not one Gustave can detect.
Verso has never been so grateful.
“Try to relax, you're so tense.” Gustave kneads Verso’s shoulders through his leather coat, gentle, probing squeezes that only tease where Verso actually needs him. But he doesn’t say anything. He allows Gustave to explore on his own, head tipped forward so he doesn’t make the mistake of meeting his eyes. This would all be over, then, because no way Gustave won’t read the real lie in Verso’s suddenly wet, stinging eyes. “Here, like this, alright?”
Fingers touch his jaw, light but unmoving. Verso bites his lip and obeys the quiet command.
Gustave must see it then—his swollen scent gland—because his breath goes ragged.
“Merde, that must hurt.” Verso’s collar tugs at his throat when Gustave pulls it aside. “How long has it been like this?”
“A couple days,” Verso manages to say. “It only itched before that.”
Gustave makes a kind of tsking sound with his tongue, and then Verso about jumps out of his skin when a finger circles the circumference of his swollen gland.
“Easy,” Gustave murmurs, stilling but not removing his finger. “I’m only going to touch it.”
Not bite. Not mark. Not claim.
“I’m a beta,” Verso breathes, and of the handful of truths he’s told this one sinks into his gut like a bad meal.
“I know,” Gustave says so gently Verso can’t read him. “Lean back against me.” He doesn’t even rumble the command for Verso to obey. He’s shaking when he pushes his shoulders back into Gustave, his breath coming fast despite how Gustave’s done nothing more than put a finger on his skin. “Head this way,” Gustave continues, and then he’s cupping Verso’s jaw, tilting it to the side to expose the length of his throat, finger sliding away to instead reach for his shirt collar’s buttons, cool air brushing Verso’s suddenly heated skin when Gustave gives himself more room to work.
The finger returns, joined now by another, stilled atop the center of his gland while a thumb strokes slowly back and forth over the stretch of muscle where his shoulder becomes his throat.
“Gustave?” Verso breathes, and he doesn’t even know what he’s asking.
“Tell me if you need me to stop.”
Then he digs his fingers in and all the pressure built up within Verso’s body erupts.
His spine snaps into an arc. Gustave catches him, bracing him against his body while the hand to his jaw cradles his head to his shoulder. Verso must make sound but he can’t hear anything over the ringing in his head, the pain he’s been chasing for days now unleashing in wave after wave of shuddering convulsions. He can feel the gland recoil—a rhythmic clench and release that floods his bloodstream with hormones and his head with his own scent of clove and smoke.
“You poor thing,” Verso hears Gustave whisper from a continent away. “You must be in so much pain.”
You don’t know the half of it, Verso nearly snarls, instead finding Gustave’s wrist and squeezing.
Gustave doesn’t make him beg. Hard pressure releases to a firm palpitation, timed to the gland’s convulses that Verso feels mirrored in those auxiliary glands in his wrists and groin. Some of the pain slips back into place, but whatever Gustave is doing moves it along, the fingers of the hand cupping Verso’s jaw scratching gently through his scruff, a slow mindful soothe.
“You’re okay,” Gustave murmurs, cheek to Verso’s hair, breath ghosting his ear. “We’re nearly through.”
Then that sensation returns, and it’s not pain Verso feels any longer.
He doesn’t dare call it pleasure, even if that’s exactly what it is.
“Gustave,” he whimpers, trying to warn him. Pressure builds in his groin and Verso has to tip a knee to the side to make room for his erection, hips coming up off the blanket to ride the air while Gustave continues to brace him. He must see Verso’s erection but he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Gustave rocks him gently, the hand at his jaw cradling their faces close while his fingers sink in to palpitate again.
That’s what does it. The steady rhythm. The soothing brace of Gustave’s touch. Verso’s hips roll into empty air, his breath coming fast and shallow while the grip he has on Gustave’s wrist does not relent.
“Almost done,” Gustave says into Verso’s hair, the pulsating slowing, a deep rolling dig that seems meant to soothe rather than express. Verso shivers and lifts his hips again and again, resisting the urge to whine and instead biting hard enough on his lip to draw blood. Gustave makes a chuffing sound, then—for the first time—rumbles, “Don’t hurt yourself, Verso.”
The command slams into him. Like a rubber band snapping back into shape, Verso releases his lip and gasps.
“Sorry, sorry,” Gustave apologizes, actually sounding cowed. “I saw blood and I—“
“—I’m fucking hard, Gustave,” Verso isn’t sure if he’s apologizing or accusing, let alone whether he actually feels ashamed or is simply surprised.
“Saw that too.” Gustave, at least, doesn’t seem embarrassed. No, he sounds raw. Like it’s his scent gland that just got completely wrecked. “It’s natural, though. Simply means it worked. If you weren’t hard I’d be concerned. Beta or not, you just got two weeks worth of hormones released all at once, anyone would be.”
“Try a few decades,” Verso grumbles.
“Merde, no wonder you’re so miserable.”
And Verso—Verso laughs. A sharp, vicious bark that jerks him nearly as sharply into Gustave’s shoulders as anything yet. Gustave joins in a breath later, breath huffing into Verso’s hair where he turns his face in to smile. It’s intimate and easy and everything Verso wishes he could have but never seems able to hold onto, shame and all thoughts of what he deserves versus what he has not earned slipping away to be replaced by a brief moment of none of it fucking mattering.
Maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice it, at first. The slow slide of Gustave’s nose over his temple—the warmth of his breath on his cheek—and the deliberate shift of his palm from Verso’s jaw to his chin, to tip his face up within reach of Gustave’s lips—offer extended, there for Verso to take, if he so chooses.
Oh, how he wants to.
“Stop,” Verso gasps, nearly too late.
To his credit, Gustave doesn’t release him all at once. Verso would have collapsed if he had. Would have fallen straight through the center of the world and out the other side, because of all the lies he continues to tell, this one hurts the worst yet.
“Well, gotta admit, it was worth a shot.” Gustave’s smile remains, if a little sad—disappointed. Verso still feels like the world’s coming apart when Gustave squeezes his shoulders and slides away. The urge to chase after him rears heady and hungry, Verso rocks forward with it before catching himself.
Putain, what does that mean? Maybe it was true and Gustave couldn’t be his mate, but did that mean he couldn’t be something else?
“Gustave,” Verso starts, stops, then begins again. “Gustave, I’m—“
“—Gustave? Verso? You two out here?”
Verso feels a little less bad when Maelle appears in the clearing, Sciel at her back. His erection is all but gone, now, even if his scent must hang heavy in the air. Maybe it’s a testament to Sciel’s beta nature that she’s the only one to notice.
She blinks first at him, then Gustave, eyes narrowing when she must notice his sheepish expression.
“We brought more wine!” Maelle announces, none the wiser. And then it’s the four of them on the blanket together, Gustave meeting his gaze over and over, until the night grows cold and sleep comes for them all, and Verso knows, if he wants it, Gustave would let him try for that something else.
Any option for something else slips away three days later, when for the second time in as many weeks, Gustave nearly dies.
Apparently, blue eyes can’t hold the same kind of ice brown can, Verso realizes after he and Gustave plunge into the ice cold breakers at the base of the Stone Wave Cliffs. Sciel and Lune drag them both from the freezing waters, dumping them on Esquie’s back before Lune spends the next thirty minutes healing the wound between Gustave’s ribs while Maelle throws daggers in Verso’s direction.
You haven’t told them the truth, have you, son?
Sciel’s the first to pick up on the tense shift, attention split between Maelle and him while Lune’s hands sweep over Gustave who’s eyes haven’t bothered to open since they’d gone over the side of the cliff. Verso crouches alone at the furthest edge of Esquie’s back, teeth chattering while salt that has nothing to do with the sea stings his eyes.
“Here, come on now, you’re freezing. Can’t have you catching a fever.”
Sciel drapes a blanket across Verso’s shoulders and he nearly bursts into tears, right then. “Gustave needs it more,” he says somehow, voice raw.
“Good thing I have more than one then, right?” Sciel squats before him to fiddle with the drape of the blanket, perfectly positioned to break Maelle’s line of sight. Verso suspects she’s done it on purpose—typical beta—he’d hug her right now if he didn’t think that would land him on the tip of Maelle’s blade. “What happened up there?”
It’s obvious what happened. What isn’t obvious is what the hell Renoir meant—at least, not to them.
“Family’s complicated,” Verso says, loud enough everyone can hear. “Particularly when your father is protecting the Paintress.”
“Your father—“
“—Maelle,” Gustave cuts in, voice barely a whisper, but the command firm. Unquestioned. “Not now.”
Maelle sweeps to her feet to glare at Verso, then spins around to mirror him at Esquie’s opposite end.
By the time they reach the camp, Gustave is walking again, if still struggling to keep his eyes open. Or, maybe he just doesn’t want to look Verso specifically in the face.
Verso doesn’t blame him. He wouldn’t either. Not after that. Not when this is all his fault. In so many more ways than the obvious.
I should have warned them.
Instead, he’d gotten caught in all his lies.
It’s a miracle any of them are alive. A bigger miracle the remnants of Renoir’s attack are no more than a scar bisecting Gustave’s ribs and a shuddery inhale that Verso absolutely has not been listening for every hour they’ve escaped.
This is your fault. Even if getting Gustave killed was Verso’s plan from the start, everything had changed on the beach when he’d saved his life instead. And now the cards are stacked all wrong. Part of him wants to end the canvas—end himself. But with Gustave has arrived another desire. One that speaks to a part of him nothing else has been able to touch. And he can’t let Gustave die until he sees that through. Can’t let the last look between them be that accusing ice of his stare because even if it’s true that Verso wasn’t lying to protect himself, but rather get them all killed—it’s not like that anymore.
It’d be so much easier if it was.
I’m attracted to him. And truly, it’s no wonder. Gustave is smart. A genius. More clever than any man should be, with a too generous heart that he flaunts like it’s not his singular fatal flaw. Gustave cares and in that care there is perhaps space for Verso, if he can only bring himself the chance to see how he fits. And the only way to do that is to tell them the damned truth.
But how is Verso supposed to do that when he can’t even face his own reflection in the camp’s tide pool where he’s gone to avoid the prying questions that have replaced their former curiosity—away from the warmth and the laughter and the camaraderie he absolutely does not deserve—hadn’t before, and certainly does not now. No matter how much he suddenly wants it.
It’s true, you really do. Verso’s hand flies to his gland and his fingers sink in, digging at that returned itch while trying to smother his thoughts. You just have to accept that he’s your—
“—He’s my soulmate,” cuts through the canopy, and Verso flinches.
Silence swells where before there were shouts. It hangs over the whole of the camp, reaching Verso despite his attempt at removing himself from their heated exchange.
“Gustave,” Lune says, voice uncomfortably calm. “Verso is a beta.”
“Well, that’s not exactly true...” It’s not Gustave who speaks, though—it’s Sciel. “His scent has changed, I noticed today on Esquie after the attack.”
Verso goes stiff. A cold sweat breaks out across his skin, the world tilting strangely despite the solid ground he’s seated upon.
“He’s presented?” Gustave rumbles and the sheer possession in his voice shakes something loose inside Verso—he can’t stop the shivers.
“Don’t you dare move!” Maelle hisses, and Verso can almost see her leaping into Gustave’s lap to keep him pinned to the ground. “You’ll reopen your wound!”
“Verso’s too old to present,” Lune argues while Gustave quietly comforts Maelle. “It’s not biologically possible for him to do so now.”
“I know what I scented, Lune. Honestly, I’ve been getting whiffs since we met.”
“Well that just makes him more dangerous,” Lune snaps back. “He’s been lying about more than his nature. We can’t trust him!”
Gustave’s rumble takes on a gravelly quality as only an alpha’s can, a command Verso barely resists. He curls over his lap instead, breathing through the discomfort in his gland—the desire to sink to his knees at Gustave’s feet and tug his collar aside—bare his throat and scent for Gustave’s own judgement, allow him to lay claim to him as was any alpha mate’s right. “He’s not a threat, Lune. I would know it if he was.”
“He’s the son of the man who’s been slaughtering Expeditions!”
“Family is complicated.” The repeated line cuts deep, for its simplicity. Silence fills the camp, heavy with the gravity of truth they all must feel.
The fight tapers off, normal camp sounds returning, if not the laughter and camaraderie. But no one comes for him. No one checks on him. And Verso is unprepared for the return of that empty nothing he long thought he’d grown used to. Something he'd stopped calling loneliness years ago, though he’d never really found a better word to describe it. Whatever it is, he deserves it now, Maelle’s sniffling soothed by Gustave’s sweet timber of a voice, comfort offered up to his not-sister instead of…instead of him.
Just like that, the camp’s equilibrium shifts into a place that leaves little room for Verso.
He doesn’t fit. Can’t fit. The place that is meant for him remains occupied by a man long dead, within a world shaped for Verso’s nature—not his.
Betas don’t mate. Their biology doesn’t allow it. Take lovers, yes. Bear children if female, certainly. Form deep, romantic connections with both alphas and omegas, without a doubt.
But mate?
Sciel’s wrong, he thinks, desperate for logic—something that makes sense. Verso was a beta, so you are a beta. There’s no way you can be anything else.
Regardless, Gustave’s rich hum shivers through the leaves and finds him anyway. The scent of ozone hits in tandem, stronger this time and Verso sucks in a greedy breath while something inside him catches fire, like he’s the wick to Gustave’s flame.
Heat. All over. Engulfing him in hot, broiling pain.
It’s just a fever, he thinks to himself, hanging his head and breathing through his mouth. But fevers don’t normally come with a pulsing ache in his scent gland—at least, not that he remembers. He’s never actually gotten sick, even if the memories are there anyway. Implanted by a mother who is the only real thing he shares with the Verso he is meant to be.
Where the hollowness in his heart has formed, a painful hunger takes it place. Desperate and aching while the world pulses within his blood, a feverish creep of heat that tickles down the back of his neck and into his spine. Verso sucks in a breath despite it, Gustave’s scent overwhelming his tastebuds, and his mouth for some awful reason begins to water—the sensation of fabric against his skin spiking into jagged peaks.
Gustave, he thinks sadly, losing himself to his scent—his taste—the sheer absence of his presence.
A shadow falls over him and Verso notices too late, startling.
“Verso?” Sciel, again, ever the good beta. Her eyes widen when he looks up, hand coming out to push the hair from his brow and flatten against his skin. “Shit, you’re burning up.” She pulls away as if burned, glancing behind her towards the rest of camp before her expression smooths clear and she digs into her bag. “Here, drink this.”
A canteen is pushed into his hands and Verso barely registers lifting it to his lips. The water is cool. Sweet. He drinks more than his fill and nearly sighs when he finishes, Sciel catching his hands before the canteen can spill across the grass.
“Easy,” she murmurs, capping the canteen. “Do you need to lay down?”
“Why would I need to do that?” He deflects—a habit, but also—well, it’s an honest question, right? He can’t die. Can’t get sick. So what the hell is wrong with him?
“Don’t worry, okay?” Sciel murmurs, hand stroking down his back. “Lune can be aggressive but she’s harmless, I promise. And Maelle’s too young to give you much grief, she only just presented this year. Gustave, of course, is rather out of commission, but he can still help, if you want it. If you don’t, I’ll make sure he stays away.”
Verso stares up at her and then, abruptly, realization hits.
“I’m a beta,” he doesn’t say, but rather pleads. “Betas can’t mate."
Sciel gives him a small, private smile. It’s a little sad around the corners, the flood of her scent a neutral balm that briefly masks Gustave enough that Verso’s head clears and he feels—
Verso goes very, very still.
Merde, no. No.
Between his legs, something warm and wet leaks. Slicker than sweat and spreading in a pleasant, smooth glide. Barely a drop, but it’s there—and it shouldn’t be.
He meets Sciel’s eyes and the commiseration is confirmation enough.
“I have to go.” While he still can. Sciel rocks back on her heels when Verso lurches up and stumbles towards the path that will lead him into the wild world beyond—away from the taste of Gustave’s scent and all the truth it portends.
Mate, his hindbrain whispers.
Soulmate, his heart solemnly agrees.
Fire in his guts, the heavy scent of his alpha on his tongue, slick leaking between his cheeks, Verso flees the camp, heading for the only safe place he can think of—the only place cold enough to snuff out the heat suddenly igniting his veins.
Monoco’s Station.