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The camp is scattered that night.
Everyone’s exhausted. Verso can see that clearly on their faces, how their facade crumbles quicker and quicker the further they go. Verso gets it – he has been continuously tired for the last seventy years.
“Your friend is– interesting.”
Verso looks up, watching as Gustave approaches him. His clothes are still covered in dirt, smudges of mud gushing across his face. He looks tired as well, but then, again – Gustave’s eyes seem to be in an unceasing state of exhaustion.
“You’ll get used to him,” Verso replies, looking Monoco over from a distance. “I know he is not quite as charming as Esquie, but he has his redeeming qualities.”
Gustave chuckles. “A bold statement.”
Verso shrugs, his attention turning back to the Monolith. He doesn’t ask for the company, but soon after, Gustave sits close nearby, folding his legs.
“It must be nice. Having a friendship that can last decades,” Gustave says.
“I haven’t really seen him in a while,” Verso shrugs. “He won’t admit it, but watching so many expeditioners die takes a toll on him much more than it does on me.”
“Makes sense.” Gustave picks up the stone from the ground, his fingers clutching around it. They are still red, skin quite unused to the harsh frosts and snows of the Northern side of the continent. “Being immortal must really suck, huh?”
Verso laughs. It happens involuntarily, almost. On instinct. “You can't even imagine,” he says. “Not at first, there is some fun to it. But then it’s just—”
Verso tries to explain, but his breath catches in his throat.
There’s a limit. There is always an invisible barrier between him and other people, something that he can’t cross. One wrong step, and he shares too much, and it’s only a matter of time for them to turn on him, just like everyone else.
Verso takes another long breath. “I know it sounds ungrateful. People are dying barely reaching their thirties, and here I am, complaining about having all the time in the world to myself.”
“I get it, though,” Gustave says. “You also have to watch people you care about die, and I don’t know if I would prefer that over my own death.”
The words hang in the air, heavy above them. Verso knows where this is going, but it’s as if a train is set on the rails and there is nothing he can do to stop it from moving forward.
Gustave picks up a stone, throwing it in the distance, towards the Monolith. “At the beach, when I thought Maelle was dead–” he flinches from the word, “– gone. I didn’t really see a point in going forward. So I took a gun and–”
“I know,” Verso says.
Shit.
He closes his eyes and sees the silver of chroma swirling around the metal of the gun. It’s a slow rise to Gustave’s head. A small body in his arms, unconscious.
Verso shakes his head. Opens his mouth to reach for words to cover it up, but then–
“I guess it is that obvious.” Gustave chuckles, picking up another stone.
“It’s not that,” Verso says. “Seeing death, it can change you. But seeing the death of the person you love, it makes you want to cease to exist.”
Verso grips his knees tightly, staring ahead. What is he supposed to say?
I thought about dying countless times.
Sometimes, I think about doing it intentionally, just for it to hurt.
I wish I were just erased from existence.
Not exactly a good conversation starter.
The words roll up to his throat as he swallows them down. There is always a line, a border, a wall, a barrier, a huge body of water – and he can’t cross it.
Because there are always limits.
“Dark,” Gustave says, grinning.
Verso forces out a smile. “Hey, I am trying to be comforting here,” he says, back straightening up. “I am building a bond.”
Gustave laughs. “A bond?”
“Well, I can see you don’t trust me.”
Understandably, he thinks.
“It’s not that.” Gustave shakes his head. “There are so many questions, and barely any answers, and you seem to tell us half-truths of truths, and that makes me–us uneasy.”
Verso nods. Half-truths are an appropriate word to describe him. He is rather versed in those.
“Maelle likes you, though.”
Verso stiffens.
The whole thing still feels surreal. He knows it is different, that she is different. A stranger, really. All grown up since the last time he saw her.
And yet, it is so easy to fall back into the pattern. To laugh at her jokes, and let her make fun of him, and pretend like it’s supposed to be like this. Always were, always will.
In every world, and on every canvas, she will always be his sister. Nothing could change that.
“Can I ask you for a favor?” Verso asks. His hands are suddenly sweaty, the back of his neck tingling unpleasantly.
“Sure,” Gustave says. “Though I don’t know what someone like you could get out of me.”
“You care about Maelle, right?”
Gustave furrows. “Of course. She is my priority.”
“Good.” Verso exhales, composing himself. “If it comes down to it, promise me that you will put her safety over anything else.”
It’s as vague as he can get it, and even that feels like giving too much away.
Gustave meets his eyes for the first time. The frown is still on his face as he blinks, leaning in. “She is my sister.”
Verso tries his best not to flinch. “I know.”
“Of course, her safety is the most important for me.”
Verso nods. “Just–” he looks up, trying to find some words. As if they would magically conjure themselves into existence in the middle of the sky, “– promise me, okay? If it comes down to it, you’ll remember this conversation. You’ll do what is right for her.”
Gustave raises his hand and puts it on Verso’s shoulder. The touch is foreign, but welcomed. Reassuring.
“You will do the same, right?”
The hand on his shoulder grips almost painfully. It’s grounding, and for a second, Verso is filled with a glimmer of hope. That this can actually work. He can save the people he cares about.
The question now is whether he will be the one to bring those people to their end as well.
“Yeah, I think I will.”