Work Text:
In the margins of the Journal, small notes were curtly scrawled in lieu of proper summary or description. Tired. The single word, the simple admission, was cold and sharp on its own, a crack in a wall peering into the dark mind of a lonely individual.
He is not made for this world. He carries, and carries, with a useless lid floating within him. The water from the rain would fall easily off the surface of His stone peers. He is not made for this world.
Their skin is hardy and smooth, and their colours glitter in the sunlight. They dance around one another easily, scraping against each other without concern.
He is not made for this world. Their passage by Him scratches the surface of His body, and the sunlight passes through Him, blinding anyone unfortunate to lay eyes on Him.
Verso turned to face his husband, staring almost despondently out the cool glass, eyes grazing over a colourful garden. Gustave hadn't written anything since their departure, and this heavy piece in Verso’s hand was dated months back. Sometime in the fall.
Heavy hands and sturdy boots crush the fragments beneath them, into the rough concrete, and He thinks He can survive it. He thinks He can be like them. Little glass boy in a world of gemstones and concrete.
Paintings always allowed for interpretation of wild winding roads. Vivid shapes and colours could be as candid or as obscure as the Painter allowed, and a Writer could talk circles and circles but only few works could ever emulate such a trait.
“I wasn't any good at my Art,” Gustave once said with a wry smile and a too-light tone to be anything other than repetition. Words from another that anchored him so deeply that his self worth was reduced to sparks upon concrete.
He is not made for this world.
In spite of himself, or perhaps because this was all he had in an unforgiving circumstance, Gustave held onto his older finished works, and it hadn't been until soon after their wedding that he'd finally unpacked it, read it, and subsequently closed himself off.
Part of him regretted asking if he could read it. Gustave was tense, and his words were careful and practiced. “You do not need my permission,” he'd said, and Verso had long since learned that sometimes decisions were difficult to come to. Sometimes, only sometimes, Gustave needed only to feel that he could take an outstretched hand when he fell into the dark tunnels of his own mind.
Their silence stretched for an impossible length. Verso pulled Gustave from the window, and manoeuvred him into an idle embrace. “When you are ready,” Verso began, “The silence remains an invitation for your voice. Whatever you need to feel at ease again.”
Gustave breathed against him, eyes pressed against his shoulder. “I am at ease,” he responded and Verso was pleased to hear that it did not sound as hollow as when he last spoke. “I’m only worried that you will find my skills wanting.”
He hated them for what they did to him. Compliments were meaningless, and assurances would not be received how Verso wanted them to be. He let the Journal fall shut to the side, and turned his head to press a gentle kiss to Gustave's temple. “One day, when you do not hear the voices of the unworthy… if you ever find yourself willing of course… I'd like to Paint something of yours.” And perhaps one day it would be enough.
Though he knew it didn't need to be a joyful piece, Verso still hoped that it would be. Underneath the somber prose, Gustave’s imagination was as brilliant as his intellect. With his Script, he could inspire no small amount of creativity in another. Creation, inspiration, anything he had to give was a gift.
Almost childishly, he imagined the existence of a Glassmaker, whose gentle touch would easily mend the broken parts of the little glass boy. He imagined the Glassmaker would patch all that the stone people were too careless to handle.
He imagined the Glassmaker would whisk away that glass boy, to a kinder world with silk roads and velvet trains.
He imagined a softer world for the glass boy.
A simple touch to Verso’s jaw pulled him from his musings. “You have that look about you,” Gustave mumbled with wonder in his voice, “Like you want to pick up a brush.”
He hummed. “I found myself enamoured with an idea. Your Words have created a series of sparks, but I wouldn't dare bring your suffering to life.”
Gustave sat up, and his tension had all but dissipated. “I imagine you might just be thinking of creating a gentle place instead.” His smile was like refracting light to Verso— complicated, layered, and authentic. Unmasked. Whole.
Verso pushed himself up to kiss him. “Your imagination should never be stifled again.” Their lips only faintly brushed against one another, and it felt like a promise.
I will never smother that light in you.
“Perhaps it won't be, with all your encouragement.”
“Good.”