Chapter Text
This was meant to be a happy ending.
It had to be.
And in order for it to be one it had to fix everything, allow everyone who had been wronged before to find a better future, to get back what they had lost. That’s what she tried to do, what she wanted with her whole heart.
For those who come after, and those who came before.
So why was it so difficult to fix this one last little detail ?
It was just one person to bring back, she’d done that so many times already it shouldn’t pose any difficulty. But those other people had either been ones she’d held dear or people she didn’t particularly care about.
None she had hated this much
But if she looked at it objectively she knew he too had been wronged by this whole affair, maybe even more so than many others. He was a victim of the painters. By all account he should be afforded the same mercy everyone else had.
But he’d killed Gustave
Gustave was back now, he was back and happy, but it didn’t change the fact that she remembered that day on the cliff, the horror of this memory will never leave her and he was the one responsible for it.
She hated him
She should let him rot, let him be gone for good, maybe even erase any trace left of him in this canvas down to the smallest memory his family had of him. She had the power to do so.
But this was supposed to be a happy ending
For everyone
It had to be one to justify its price, its consequences. This wasn’t selfish if so many other people got their happily ever after, if everyone did.
And ‘everyone’ included him.
If she couldn’t bring herself to grant him a ‘happily ever after’ she could at least give him a ‘happy enough’. He would be granted a new chance to live, all his children were safe and sound, for his wife there wasn’t much she could do but she wasn’t sure how he felt about that anyways after the past few decades. All this was more than generous enough already, he still had to pay the price for all the suffering he’s wrought.
Renoir would be granted her mercy as well, but it wouldn’t come without a price.
It was a price Renoir had been more than willing to pay.
Having a new chance with his family was more than worth it, he would have been willing to endure far worse than this for it, pay a far greater price. Once he’d spilled the blood and chroma of countless people for even a small chance of this, he would pay any price for them.
So what was his sight in comparison ?
If in her anger and spite she’d needed to take something from him to be willing to grant him this chance, then so be it.
Maybe he’d never see his children’s face again but they were safe and sound, they were here. He was around his daughters nearly every day. Clea he’d lost so many years ago, he never even got to understand what happened to her, now she was finally back. Alicia had been so badly hurt and scarred, taking her voice and face as repayment for a sin that wasn’t hers, she was whole again. Verso he was yet to reunite with, but he knew he roamed this city and someday he’d get the chance to meet him again and start to repair this bridge.
This was more than he ever allowed himself to hope for.
One day he was wandering the streets of Lumière, enjoying this lively atmosphere that reminded him of a time before the fracture, before things went wrong. He wasn’t truly sure where he was at the moment but it hardly mattered, no matter how disorienting trying to navigate the city without his eyes could be he knew his feet still knew this city like he never stopped living in it and they’d take him home at the end of the day.
A few notes of piano stopped him in his tracks.
It was muffled, coming from inside a nearby building, but there was no mistaking it. He’d recognize it anywhere, his son’s music. Leaning against the wall of the building the music was coming from he simply listened, a small smile on his lips.
When the desire came to step inside he didn’t dare to, their relationship had grown too strained not to fear his son’s reaction to seeing him again. Last time he’d seen him hadn’t ended well, to say the least.
When the urge refused to leave and grew more pressing he left.
He came back
Times and times again
Now when he walked around the city his wandering took him here as surely as they took him back home. Sometimes he could hear him play, sometimes not, sometimes it was another musician and although they played well enough he was still disappointed. When it was Verso he’d stop and listen, he never knew for how long, until the music stopped or the urge to simply step in grew too big and he had to leave.
Until the day he failed to leave and did step in.
By now he knew that the building he’d been visiting for the past few weeks had simply been the opera.
It was a vast building and he only had the distant sound of music to guide him to the correct room inside of it. No one questioned his presence. Renoir had learned long ago that people didn’t question you if you moved with purpose and conviction. As he walked the unfamiliar halls the music grew louder until he emerged in the room it had been coming from.
The music halted briefly
Then resumed
If his presence was being accepted or ignored he didn’t know.
-
Seeing his father simply walk in had been a surprise.
Oh, he’d known he was back and he’d noticed him lurking around recently. He’d watched him passing by in the street, pausing a few seconds, then continuing on his way looking mildly disappointed, this more than once. He never seemed to notice him. Maelle had told him what she did to him so he wasn’t surprised he went unseen by his father.
He understood what was most likely going on when one day he went to the window after playing and saw him leaning against the wall. He left quickly after, looking far happier.
Had he been listening to him play ?
Verso wasn’t sure whether to be a little creeped out or touched.
The fact that his father was now standing in his favorite practice room instead of outside was new.
He chose to keep playing a little, taking the time to process this new development before risking an actual interaction, he did seem content enough simply listening for now anyways.
-
The music was even more beautiful without a wall in between to muffle it.
It had been so long since the last time he got to listen to his son playing like that, since he even got to be in the same space without any strife.
Letting the music and familiar presence fill him he didn’t notice he was moving until his legs gently bumped against the bench and the music paused again.
When he didn’t speak nor move again the music resumed.
Taking this as a sign his presence wasn’t wholly unwelcome he stayed close.
After a while he sat next to Verso, his back to the piano. The bench was wide enough for both of them without any issue.
This earned him a short pause again.
He would be unable to tell how long he stayed there, but at some point the music stopped and didn’t start again.
Finally he spoke “I missed your music”
-
“That’s new, since when do you care for my music ?” Verso had far too many memories of his parents’ disapproval to not bite back at this.
His father stiffened next to him but his answer was surprisingly filled with confusion instead of defensiveness “I always liked your music and never tried to hide it. What could have ever made you believe otherwise ?”
Then they came to him, contradictory memories, ones that matched what he’d just been told, memories of growing up not scorned for his interests but supported in them. The memories of disapproval weren’t his, they belonged to another Verso and another Renoir. His mother had made sure to give him everything she could in this life, including being able to freely express his passion for piano.
He hated when this happened, when he felt like he’s had two lives that matched just enough to make distinguishing them hard and yet different enough that it mattered he’d know what was his and not. The most painful memories always felt the most real.
He must have taken too long to answer because his father was growing agitated next to him “Verso ?” he called, hesitantly reaching towards him as if he didn’t know if he was still there.
As if he thought he could have just left without a word, leaving him here alone.
For some reason the thought really disturbed him.
“I’m here” he hurriedly answered, briefly taking the reaching hand to redirect it before he could be poked in the face.
The silence settled back between them.
He felt like apologies needed to be made but he wasn’t sure which one of them should be doing so, they’d been carrying those scars for so long already.
-
His anxiety dissipated upon hearing Verso’s answer.
The silence had been just prolonged enough that he feared he’d simply slipped away. He wasn’t sure if it would have been a better or worse outcome than a screaming match. Worse probably, him leaving would have been a closed door, a pure and simple refusal to have anything to do with him. You can’t fix what isn’t there anymore.
Verso had been trying to close that door on him for years already.
What he felt next surprised him greatly.
A faint contact and warmth on his side.
Verso had shifted position just enough that he could now feel his physical presence and tell for himself that he hadn’t left. The simple gesture touched him so much he decided not to call attention to it, less Verso decided to take it back.
The silence continued after that, seems like neither of them were sure what to say.
So he tried something again “Do you remember how you used to play while I painted ?”
The answer was quiet but fond “You had a piano installed in your workshop for me, used to say it inspired you” His voice trailed away in thoughts as realization suddenly hit “But, your eyes, you can’t… not anymore”
You can’t paint anymore, true, he couldn’t.
“It doesn’t matter”
-
Doesn’t matter my ass.
Verso knew how much his art meant to his father, about as much as his own did for him.
Before being the terrifying immortal who cut down expeditionners like weed, before even being the commander of expedition zero, he’d been a painter. Of course not a painter of magical living canvases like his counterpart, but a painter anyways. He’d spent his whole childhood seeing his father paint, their home had been filled with his and his mother’s paintings, and later on also his own and his sisters’.
How did he not see this at all before ? Maelle had taken far more from him that he initially realized. Was it deserved ? Probably. At least in Maelle’s eyes.
He didn’t know how he’d feel, what he’d do, if someone fully took his ability to play from him, he’d probably go mad.
“I don’t believe you”
The answer came quickly and with disturbing certainty “If it’s the price I have to pay, then it truly doesn’t matter in the face of everything else. You and your sisters are worth more than my ability to paint.”
Him and his sister, not this world or Lumière, them, their family. Wasn’t that what it had always been about with Renoir ? No price was too great when it came to his family, whether it was paid by himself or by others.
Verso had never agreed with this.
An idea took shape in his mind.
He wasn’t sure if he liked it.
He simply wasn’t sure he was ready to take such a step, to offer this.
-
The loss of his art was a dull pain that hardly ever left, but he wasn’t about to let it weigh him down.
He had more important things to do than wallow in his own misery.
His son was talking to him again.
For now he seemed to be pondering what he’d just told him. Despite the silence the steady warmth at his side told him he was indeed still here.
Very little could have prepared him for what Verso was about to suggest, to offer him.
“There isn’t much we can do about that anyways I suppose, but…maybe there is something else we can do ? There are other ways to paint pictures than with pigments you know”
Verso seemed so hesitant, so unsure, that it made Renoir doubt he was understanding what he was implying correctly either, so he let him continue.
“I mean, you used to say hearing me play inspired you. If it helped you create new images maybe you could also use it more directly ?”
“Are you suggesting I learn how to play music ?” The idea was a little strange to him. Not that he’d never tried his hand at the various instrument that resided in his home, he’d just never truly committed to learning any. It simply didn’t hold that kind of appeal to him.
“I could show you ?” the suggestion was nearly timid, a tentative olive branch extended to him.
“I’m not sure how doable it would be.” He knew his hopefulness transpired in his voice. It was less about the prospect of learning music itself than about being invited in his son’s world, about being offered to spend time together.
“Come on, neither of us know how to back down once we want something, I’m sure we can figure something out together.”
“Are you finally admitting that you are impossibly stubborn ?”
The friendly jab got him an amused scoff “And we’ve got plenty of time, it will at least be more productive than lurking under my window.”
Before he could protest the relatively accurate accusation Verso continued “Turning around would be a start, come on !”
After a beat of hesitation he turned around to sit toward the piano, unsure what exactly to do next. This interaction was moving in a direction he’d never anticipated.
Verso gently pulled on his arm to set his hand down on the piano and invite him to explore the key
After years of conflict Verso and Renoir start to mend their relationship through their common love for art
Relationship level increased
Verso
0 → 1