Archive of Our Own

It was a familiar route for Verso to follow when at this rock-bottom of negative emotions. Around a corner, into his room and his closet where he’d hidden it away. Cautiously he pulled the door to the walk-in shut behind him, heart hammering in his throat. The secrecy might have been a little bit ridiculous considering his whole family well knew that this canvas existed, and certainly wouldn’t disapprove of him painting. Though that might have been why he was so desperate to keep it hidden from their prying eyes, at least in part. He knew it would take nothing at all to get them to twist him deeper into the family business, and if they learned he still practised, even in secret…

Not that he did it often. It had been a long time since he’d spent any time there, in the canvas, painting. But now, smarting as he was, raw and pained after the horrible truth he’d come to realize about himself and his future, it was starting to look like an appealing option.

It was, after all, only a matter of time before his parents found a young woman in the artists’ guild that was a suitable wife for him.

And, as he was quickly learning, no man in their right mind would ever date the only Dessendre son.

It was something he’d mostly fallen out of, sworn off; but the aching in his chest was growing too unbearable, the knowledge that he was slowly descending into a cage he couldn’t possibly hope to break free from. Life transforming into a prison…

Carefully, apprehensively, he brushed his fingers against the canvas. A part of him was a bit hazy and out of practise at this, but it only took a few seconds for him to slip back into things, like he’d never been away, and he was falling down into the canvas, vision blurring as he was out of one world and into another.

He fell into a meadow of golden grass, shimmering water flowing nearby. Idyllic and peaceful: it made him wonder why he’d ever left in the first place. Even the reasoning of pushing aside childlike whimsy and succumbing to his family’s wishes seemed flimsy in such a paradise, where he was finally away from judging and prying eyes.

For the longest time Verso paced up and down in the place he remembered he’d labelled ‘yellow harvest’ a long time ago, letting the painted sunlight warm his face and the thoughts to trickle slow yet deliberately through his mind.

His plan was something he ought to be deeply embarrassed and ashamed about. It was so childish and desperate for affection, for belonging, but the longer he paced inside his warm and cozy canvas the less bothered by it all he became. Maybe it was a bit selfish, sure. But as a child, he’d created Esquie to be his friend; how was this any different?

When he started to raise his hand, it was uncertain. A bit unstable and out of practise, fingers extended that were more used to dancing across keys than drawing chroma from the air to paint. The sight of the petals beginning to gather there startled him—it had been so long since they had done that. Deep inside, he thought some small part of himself enjoyed the feeling and wished he’d never left, but most of him merely saw it as a means to an end.

The petals were white, and they slowly began to gather from the air around into a cloud, roughly the same height as Verso; drifting lazily into a column of softly churning white. For a few moments he eased his eyes shut, picturing all the things that he dreamt about having in a boyfriend. Warm, inviting eyes. Gentle arms to cradle him in. Hair that felt like silk under his fingers, just long enough to have a soft wave to it. Once the image he put together of his ideal boyfriend was complete, he went inward. A loving heart. A bit of nobility—he pictured dabbing it on delicately with a paintbrush in his mind. Kindness. A curious mind, one of interest that would provide Verso hours of camaraderie in discussion of any topic that happened to catch their interests.

Verso wanted his ideal boyfriend to have emotions, though he realized partway through that he may have metaphorically spilled the paint bottle over and made a stain. He’d been so focused on the painted man’s heart and feelings, they vibrated with intensity under his fingertips. A rookie error.

He didn’t care. The man was forming clearer than ever in his mind, becoming more perfect with each stroke he made, and against his fingertips he could swear he felt the brush of flesh. What the Dessendres painted was, at a certain level, impossible to distinguish from real.

At a certain point Verso could sense that it was done—he’d painted himself a boyfriend into existence, as pathetic and lonely as he knew that sounded—but he was too afraid to open his eyes. Shallow as it was, he was afraid his unpractised hands had made errors in the man’s face, or his overcorrection with emotions had been too much. And a part of him, deep down, was humiliated at what his decision had been. So desperate to run away from life and the shame he carried deep in the pit of his stomach that he’d painted futile dreams into his canvas. He should have outgrown this years ago.

“Hello? Are you lost? It’s a strange place for a young man like yourself to be.”

The voice startled Verso at first—that of a stranger, but so warm and comforting that he wanted to wrap himself up in it and never leave. It resounded with an immediate sense of safety and calm that not even Esquie could quite manage.

“I guess I’m a little bit lost.” It was the truth, in some way or another; Verso was only here because he’d been floundering in his outside life. “What are you doing out here?” Such an inane question: he was only here because Verso had made him to be. Selfish, selfish.

“Well, that makes the two of us.” A hand, so soft his brain couldn’t process it, so warm that it felt like a hot pastry fresh from the bakery case, wrapping around his. Had it been on the outside, Verso would have questioned the man’s motives in being so quick, but he’d been painted to give immediate attention so he simply welcomed it.

“You can open your eyes, though. There’s nothing scary here.” The man’s words were so kind and gentle. Verso couldn’t hold himself back from fluttering his eyelids open, looking to see who it was he’d created, and found himself not just pleased or proud with it, but astonished.

The man in front of him surpassed all of his wildest dreams. His mouth was settled into a warm, inviting smile with soft pink lips, chin tickled by the beginnings of stubble. Eventually he assumed it would match colour with the waves of chestnut brown hair on his head, shimmering in the painted golden light and making something eerily close to a halo. Trailing his gaze downwards Verso saw his eyes, golden brown and twinkling with what looked to be a hundred tiny gold flakes. For all he knew, it really could be golden paint flakes in there, and for a moment the man in front of him suddenly seemed thin and insubstantial.

This illusion passed, though, when he stepped closer and gave Verso’s hand a little squeeze. “Do you need me to take you home?”

“Not yet. I’m fine with being here. Just for a little longer, you know.”

“Good.” Oh, his smile. “I was starting to get a bit lonely out here.”

One of them led the other on a walk along the bank, both of them seeming to think and move in motion with one another. The conversation started off slow, remarks on the weather, only to pick up speed as they found common ground. As expected, the man was smart and curious, asking Verso more questions about his music than all the questions before put together. At first the attention made Verso bashful, and he made a point to direct the topic to the other man, feeling guilt in the pit of his stomach that he might not really have anything about himself to talk about.

“Well, maybe I should start by telling you my name.” He let out a soft chuckle, and in that moment Verso was starstruck by his own creation. There was no response, nor wondering how it was he didn’t know the name of the man he’d painted, only a burning curiosity and desperation to know the answer.

“I’m Gustave.”

Verso’s whole world, whole mind, lit up like a fire. His very soul came alive in a way he’d never been before, hanging on Gustave’s every word. He hadn’t planned that name, hadn’t painted it. In that strange, surprising realization held a nugget of hope that Gustave was autonomous after all. That they could grow feelings genuinely, without any painted chroma getting in the way.

“That name suits you,” he murmured, ducking his head down to look at the golden grass under their feet. Gustave wore smart black boots, soft leather bending and folding with his every step. A surprising amount of realism, even in a painting. He had remembered the canvas as fuzzy and vague around the edges, but part of that might have been the fading of childhood memories. Or, rather, he’d gotten better at painting.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that before, but…thanks.”

Of course you hadn’t heard it before, because I painted you less than an hour ago. Nothing in the canvas had given him this much guilt before. Was getting older making him more hesitant—and if not, what was making Gustave so different?

Looking back up at the man’s face, however, completely erased all Verso’s worries again. Letting a smile stretch cheeks that were stiff with having forgotten how, he responded in kind to his own creation, the kind and gentle man who actually cared about him. “I’m Verso.”

Verso could have sworn Gustave’s eyes dipped to look at his lips, and a shiver ran down his spine as he listened to his rich, beautiful voice speak the next words.

“If it’s all right, I’d say the name suits you. It’s as handsome as you are.”

Their hands found each other, sparks both painted and real flying, and Verso found the last of his cares that he’d painted a boyfriend into existence fade away.

Keeping the second secret in his closet was a difficult task. At first Verso kept it safe: he went into the canvas before bed when no one would notice, and crawled out in the morning with his family none the wiser. Each time he grew closer to Gustave, the initial sparks fading into something more substantial and permanent that felt less constructed and more genuine.

He found himself going about his days longing, wishing that he could be back inside the canvas with someone who cared about him instead of dancing a delicate rhythm to keep his parents at least somewhat placated with him. He didn’t want them to know that he was returning to his roots, or that he was technically in a relationship. Yet his mind was constantly wandering to Gustave, thinking about their most recent conversations, what step they might take next. They were moving surprisingly slowly, still mostly hand-holding and a few awkward kisses on the cheek, but that only made it all the more rewarding, special. Verso didn’t feel like he was pulling the strings to get Gustave head over heels with him as fast as possible. If anything, it was as if Gustave now developed an entire autonomy of his own and was taking it upon himself to slow things down.

Whatever the relationship between him and Gustave truly was, it was proving intoxicating. He appeared more and more in Verso’s thoughts until every second, every waking moment, was spent thinking about him.

It gave Verso the motivation to sit at the piano again. As always, he saw the sad disappointed looks his mother gave him, the grumbling his father did under his breath, but for the first time they couldn’t quite manage to reach him. He’d created a sanctum of his mind where everything he truly was could be held as sacred. His fingers ran along the keys and the joy overwhelmed the crushing pressure to be the perfect Dessendre son.

Somewhere along the line, he began composing a song for Gustave. Tender and strong, just like the man waiting for him in the canvas.

And every night, he kept going in.

The swirls of paint on the canvas welcomed him with open arms, and shortly after Gustave would always follow suit. They travelled to all the haunts of Verso’s youth: the hexagonal Stone Wave Cliffs, frozen splendor of the mountains laced with train tracks where he was finally able to talk someone’s ear off about without getting a full blast of distasted uninterest, and once even the cotton candy paradise that he’d created when he was barely old enough to hold a paintbrush.

This last one had been almost embarrassing to take Gustave to. His drafts were so naïve and childlike, but after mentioning them once Gustave had practically begged him to go.

Verso, as he was quickly learning about himself, didn’t have a single hint of backbone when it came to pleasing the man he was growing to care about so deeply.

With only some reluctance he took Gustave there, hand in hand, leading him along until the heady scent of cotton candy filled his nose.

“I love this place,” Gustave breathed, eyes looking around wide in wonder. “It’s so…free.”

“You think?” Verso blinked a few times and looked over at him, taking in the face that still made his stomach do backflips, made his heart quiver in his chest.

Gustave’s hand landed on Verso’s shoulder. “I do. It’s like…something out of a dream. A part of me wants to go wild like a child and start licking the ground beneath us.”

“I’m sure I couldn’t stop you.” Verso’s cheeks were stretching in a feeling that had been so unfamiliar not that long ago. “I did that a few times, when I was a kid. Or, rather, a lot of times.”

“Did it taste good?” The light was pink, and reflected off the golden flecks in Gustave’s eyes as he stared at Verso, waiting for an answer, hanging on his every word.

Like he’d been painted to do.

Like someone who loves me for who I am.

“You know what? I think it did.  At least, kid me thought it did. To him, nothing in the world was sweeter.”

“To him? What about you now? Is there something you’ve tasted since that’s sweeter?”

The question hung awkwardly in the air, Verso’s mind flitting to a certain place in answering the question that he dare not acknowledge.

Gustave seemed to read his silence, and bashfully pulled a little bit closer. His other hand rested itself on Verso’s cheek, cupping it softly.

“Maybe we can try and see if there’s another flavour you like, too,” he offered, voice whisper-soft like a feather. “If you’re okay with that.”

“I think I might be,” slipped out from Verso’s lips, surprising even himself. It wasn’t that he didn’t yearn to—with Gustave especially—but it was all so much. Not so fast but…was he really going to have his first kiss in a painting, with the man he painted to love him? Worries of morality and good decisions flashed through his head for the first time since they’d first met, panic that he’d made a wrong step, that he should leave the canvas now before things got more complicated.

Like before, Gustave made Verso stop caring.

His kiss was in fact sweeter than cotton candy, or licking the grounds of his drafts. (Verso could only imagine what kissing Gustave would taste like after they ate some of the nearby treats, with a shudder.) It was something most akin to pure and undiluted bliss, a heaven Verso could see himself getting lost in forever if he was allowed.

Somehow, Gustave seemed to know how to kiss, though Verso himself had no skill or experience on the subject whatsoever. From what he could gather, Gustave was very good at it, and he let himself be carried along for the ride. Even better, the ride was a long one: sinking into pink waters and cotton candy with their arms wrapped around one another, each deep loving kiss from Gustave seeming to fill in a previously gaping hole in Verso’s chest. All his other thoughts, strife and worries melted away like butter in the face of such simple and beautiful love. His attention was left to focus on more exciting matters: the way his heart pounded in his chest, the slow removal of clothing as they began to trust one another, the warm-hot feeling of Gustave’s skin under the palms of his hands. Verso was so alive, in ways he’d never been before. Letting Gustave in was the ultimate acceptance of himself and his preferences, laying in wait at the very bottom of the long way down they were taking with this: kissing every inch of one another’s bodies, wrapping tightly around one another until they were only one person, unable to tell where one ended and the other began.

Eventually, after the excitement had all calmed down, Verso fell asleep cradled in Gustave’s arms, happier and safer than he could remember ever feeling before.

It was a nice change of pace.

Less nice was the cold hard reality that when he woke up, he needed to leave the canvas. Verso had never felt such an overwhelming desire to stay before, and the dread at having to face the outside world had never been higher.

Gustave was still asleep, snoring delicately at the back of his neck. It would be cruel, unfair to leave now. Gustave might think that he’d abandoned him, that Verso only wanted him for the sex and not for the complete package of emotional softness and honesty that he’d grown to admire in the man. But he didn’t know when exactly Gustave would wake up, and he couldn’t stay for much longer. His family would notice his absence at the breakfast table…as much as he loathed the shared meals, he was expected at them. Being late was one thing, not showing up would earn him scowls and a lecture from Maman about how important the bonds of family were. Worse, it might bring about the suspicion that he was slacking away inside a canvas. All that would lead to a horrible chain reaction that Verso would prefer to avoid at all costs.

It took every fibre of strength in Verso’s soul to pull away, gently maneouvering himself out of the sturdy protective arms to expose himself to the air outside. Briefly gratitude that his body outside the canvas was still fully clothed flickered through his mind; he knew well enough that Renoir Dessendre would not tolerate his son showing up to breakfast in the nude.

He gave Gustave a parting gift of a kiss on his forehead, feeling a single tear roll out of his eye, still warm, onto his lover’s cheek. Even being apart for the day would be hard, but Verso knew he could only pull off whole days in the canvas without arousing suspicion at most once a week. He had a reputation of languishing often, no doubt, but his parents found it irksome and long past endearing.

Stepping out of the canvas and leaving Gustave behind tore Verso’s heart to shreds, and when he returned to his body sitting calmly and well-rested in the closet he could feel his face was stiff with dried tears.

Damn him for caring. And damn Gustave for being the most perfect partner for him and stuck inside a bloody painting.

Verso got a few strange looks when he turned up to breakfast late, and he could have sworn Maman muttered something about ‘I suppose we ought to at least let him rest’ under her breath. Clea passed Verso pastries with a stony expression on her face, which he at least figured was just about normal for her. Expecting more was a bit like anticipating a pig taking off into the air.

For the rest of the day, Verso was torn between emotions: guilt at leaving Gustave in the lurch like that, fear that his family may find out the truth sooner rather than later, and most of all ecstasy at what had transpired the night before. He hadn’t expected it to feel so nice, being with another man, but Gustave had delivered anything he could have hoped for and more. True bliss that had Verso’s skin itching for more, dreaming up ways that painted figures could be taken out of the canvas into the living, breathing world and ignoring the obvious problem of coming out to his family that would involve.

It wasn’t a common nor smiled upon practise, but he was fairly certain it had been done before, could be. If it required two people, he knew he could count on Alicia to help him. She alone he could trust with his little secret, and not to judge him. She was young, sure, but she had decent skill with a brush and chroma.

After dinner, Verso practically raced into his room, locking the door behind him and slipping into the closet, sinking into the canvas.

This time he was at the silver hexagonal Stone Wave Cliffs, faced by a Gustave with arms crossed in disapproval.

Before the other man had even a chance to say anything, Verso fell to his knees and let flow the most pathetic and ardent string of pleas he’d ever heard before in his life. Every last desperate word was genuine, filled with an overwhelming longing for Gustave to forgive him.

“My family needed me, and I couldn’t let them find out about where I was going,” Verso finished, realizing that homophobia didn’t exist in the canvas and that by extension Gustave would have no idea what he was talking about. “I wanted to come back. More than anything. Leaving you hurt me, hurt my soul.”

Maybe he was more cut out to be a writer than a painter, with words like these. His parents would swoon at the thought.

“I hoped you would come back, but I didn’t want to expect it.” Gustave’s voice was quiet. Not angry, but speaking slightly of hurt. Understandable. He likely didn’t know how much Verso himself was hurting from leaving him behind.

“I don’t want to make any promises.” As tempting as making pledges that he’d always come back for Gustave was, he knew better. Anything could happen to the canvas…anything could come up to prevent him from diving into it. “But if I can return, I will. I just…I can’t stay with you too long. Not right now.”

He braced himself for some cutting remark on Gustave’s part but it never came; instead he was regarded with silent curiosity as to what was coming next.

“I have a family that…expects me. I wouldn’t say they need me, not really, but my presence is assumed at certain times throughout the day and I don’t want to raise suspicion by being absent for too long.”

“Your family,” Gustave started, in a strange distant and dreamy voice. “They’re outside the canvas, aren’t they?”

Verso’s blood ran cold. “How—how do you know about the canvas?”

“You and I aren’t the only people living here. When you were gone, Esquie came. Explained things—in his own, strange way.” Gustave’s soft pink lips quirked up in a smile. “While it might not have been the clearest to make sense of, I could figure out the basic idea.”

“I’m sorry.” Verso meant it regarding everything, spreading his hands wide in what he hoped was an apologetic gesture.

Gustave looked at him, long and slow, unknown emotions dancing through his chestnut brown eyes, processing everything into what would be his response. Waiting for it was akin to being on tenterhooks.

“I’m not sure if I can forgive you yet—for the painting. For keeping that secret. I’ll have to think long and hard on it before i can come to a conclusion. As for you leaving last night, I’m hurt but I understand.”

There was a flicker of a smile on his face, but Gustave didn’t come any closer. Verso wanted to sink to his knees and beg for him to understand, but he knew it wouldn’t work. He’d need to win Gustave’s heart back slowly.

Really, if he played things right, Verso could have all the time in the world in the canvas. More than enough to work things out.

As much as he wanted to tempt Gustave with ideas of freedom, Verso kept quiet while he subtly turned the Dessendre library upside down to find evidence of a painted person being pulled out of a canvas to live a normal life. The entries he found were cryptic, but in the bits and pieces that lurked among them he swore there had to be some sort of escape.

It was almost as easy to get lost in his research as it was in the canvas itself, and many times Verso had to remind himself of existing commitments: performances that he’d committed to namely, though it wasn’t like his family would mind if he missed them. Once Verso thought he’d never dream of missing a concert, but his priorities were changing before his very eyes.

Parts of him wondered if someday, Gustave would be freed from the canvas and be able to come and watch him. The thought always made his usual stoic face break out into an almost manic smile, reminding him that he had to watch his thoughts around his family. A smiling Verso was, especially for them, a rarity of the highest degree.

As he’d expected, earning back Gustave’s trust was a slow but not unfair process. It helped that he’d learned his lesson and was now taking painstaking efforts to be brutally, unflinchingly honest with him. Since the night in the cotton candy bush they hadn’t been intimate in any real way, but Verso didn’t mind as much as he thought when the knowledge that he was doing it respectfully this time stayed in the forefront of his head. He dreamt of the next times, for certain, but Gustave’s smiles were no less sweet because of it.

He was slowly making improvements at delegating his time, also: appearing to family functions and other obligations more or less on time. This was made easier by Gustave’s newfound understanding of why exactly he had to go, though the parting hurt the same as always. In some ways, Verso felt that it might have even hurt just a little bit more, regardless of the promise to return he held in his heart.

Verso hadn’t wanted to tell anyone about his canvas boyfriend, but Alicia cornered him in the library one day during one of his now all-too-familiar research sessions, leaning casually against a shelf with a curious gleam in her eyes.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time in here lately.”

“So? Last I checked, we were free to go where we liked in the house.” Verso winced after this; it was not hard enough a response for Clea’s ilk, perhaps, but Alicia still didn’t deserve such sternness. “It’s quiet and relaxing in here,” he added in a softer voice, happy that it was at least part of the truth even with all the omissions. He had no problems lying to anyone else, but lying to Alicia always put a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Any fun projects I should know about?” Alicia slid up to sit on the desk, looking at him with that soft smile that made Verso feel warm and as if not everyone in the entire world hated him after all. She kicked her feet against the glossy front, shoes clacking merrily. “Anything you need help with?”

“I’m not sure.” Another statement that wasn’t really untrue.

Alicia let out a huffy mock sigh. “Come on, Verso. If it’s a secret from Maman and Papa, you know I’m not gonna tattle on you.”

Verso tilted his head sideways and looked at Alicia thoughtfully. There was truth to those words—Alicia had never once told on Verso, even when she had been a little kid. He thought she just might be the only person in the outside world that was in his corner. Surely she could be trusted to keep this…well, it was hardly a small secret, but nevertheless. Even if Alicia thought it was weird, he knew it wouldn’t reach Clea’s or their parents’ ears regardless.

“I don’t know how much you can help, but I do have a little project I’m working on.”

“Ooo.” Alicia leaned in closer. “I’m definitely interested now.”

“It’s an absolute secret, though, so you can’t tell anyone.”

Alicia rolled her eyes. “When have I ever not kept your secrets?” She mimed sealing her lips shut.

“I’ve been…painting again, a little.”

Before she clapped a hand over her mouth, Alicia let out a little gasp; her grey eyes were as wide as saucers. “You? Painting? What brought this on?”

“Shh! Not so loud.” The last thing Verso needed was for his family to catch wind that he’d finally gotten back into the family business again, though only in a manner of speaking. “I’m not doing it like they do. I just…needed to do something important. You have to promise to not judge me though, okay?”

Alicia’s expression turned serious. “Of course I’m not gonna. Not…seriously. I might tease you, but I won’t judge you if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I painted a boyfriend into my old canvas,” Verso finally admitted, eyes downcast to his and Alicia’s hands where they were braced on the desk, voice barely breaching a whisper. “I was so afraid of…well, everything. Not finding love, for one. So I took the matters into my own hands and made myself a boyfriend with paint.”

He couldn’t bring himself to look up into Alicia’s face, steeled his whole body in preparation for what he prayed wouldn’t be a bad reaction.

“That’s…honestly kind of sweet.”

The words blindsided Verso and he rocked backwards slightly in his chair, unstable. “What?”

“You were so lovesick that you painted yourself a boyfriend. That’s like something out of a romantic novel, I think.” Verso hazarded a glance, and realized that the smile on Alicia’s face was indeed genuine. He’d doubted her capacity to judge or hate him to any real degree, of course, but having it proven before him in broad daylight still helped more than he was willing to ever admit.

“I’m looking for ways to take painted people out of canvases,” Verso finally told Alicia, keeping his voice down to barely more than a breathy whisper. “I don’t know if there’s any, but I figured if it was possible it had to be somewhere in the library.”

Alicia smiled. “I hope there’s something about that here. There has to be, right? With all the books clogging up the place? And here I thought Papa hated writers.”

Verso needed to restrain himself from laughing, clapping his hand over his mouth to keep the sound from escaping. A light at seeing her joke land twinkled in Alicia’s eyes.

“I don’t know what’ll happen to him even if I can bring him out of the canvas. Where he’ll go, what people will say. But I feel like I owe it to him to try. He’s so…sweet,” he landed on, hating that he couldn’t come up with a more profound word for it. Maybe if Alicia got the chance to meet him someday, she’d be able to find it. “I think he deserves to live a real life outside, but if I can’t give it to him, maybe I’m just being cruel.”

“I’m too young for all this philosophy,” Alicia complained, rapping against the desk with the heels of her shoes. “Listen, Verso, I want to help you, but I’m not gonna sit around listening to you wax poetic about your painted boyfriend all the time.”

“That’s quite all right.” Verso felt a smile tug at his lips, something unusual indeed outside the canvas. “Your support and trust means enough to me as it is.”

“I didn’t say I supported you yet. You have to tell me one last thing, first.” Alicia waggled her finger. “What’s Monsieur Heartthrob’s name?”

Verso sighed happily, despite himself. “Gustave.”

“Ooo. Sounds like a real charmer. I can’t wait to meet him in the flesh.”

With that Alicia hopped down from the desk and flashed Verso a cheery, conspiratorial wink. He was unable to resist smiling back.

“You don’t miss me too much when I’m gone, right?” Verso offered the question uncertainly, sitting next to Gustave in a lollipop bush. He’d originally thought that his childhood refuge was a bit immature for spending extended romantic dates in as a young man, but it turned out Gustave loved it and begged Verso to take him there more often than expected. Something about the air tasting sweeter (which Verso supposed it did) and the colours making him feel warm and fluffy inside.

“I’m not sure if this is a trick question or not,” Gustave chuckled. “If I say no, will you be offended, or relieved that your absences aren’t ruining me?”

Feeling caught out at his own game—Gustave tended to do this, especially as of late—Verso sighed and leaned back against the stone carving of Esquie behind them. If he eased his eyelids half-closed, the light coming through their cracks was slightly pink-tinged turquoise. “Is ‘both’ a valid answer?”

“I suppose it is.” Gustave leaned in closer, wrapping his arm around Verso’s shoulders. So warm and loving, it made him feel all fizzy inside. “I just wanted to know so I could proceed with caution.”

“I appreciate your concern. But I think at this point, you’re fine either way.” The steady, solid warmth was something that Verso hadn’t realized he needed this much. The two of them basked in silence for a long time, the slowly rebuilt trust that was stronger than ever before. It may have lasted an hour or so, but Verso considered it to be one of the finest hours in his life.

“I told my sister about you.” He didn’t know what made him say it, only that the words were tumbling out before he could stop them.

Gustave cocked an eyebrow. “The stern one who likes to complain, or the younger cheeky one you enjoy talking with?”

“Which do you think?”

“The younger, cheeky one.” Gustave might have just had the greatest smile in the world. Since Verso had painted him, his stubble had grown out into a short but full beard, and it suited him; the golden light of his smile always reached his chocolate soft eyes. “What did she say?”

“That she approves. And wants to meet you someday, I think.”

“Well, I’d like to meet Alicia too, if it works out that way.”

“She thinks you must be a real heartthrob, to win me over like this.”

“Well?” Gustave raised a thick, soft brown eyebrow. “Would she be right?”

A bit of an embarrassing truth to fess up to, but Verso felt at least safe and trusted alongside Gustave. Free from possible harsh judgment. “I suppose she is. Though I’d refrain from telling her that—it might go to her head.”

“Is that a trait that runs in the family?”

“What? Inflated self-confidence? Not particularly. I suppose my older sister—Clea, the nasty one—got it from Papa. But it definitely skipped me.” Privately, Verso thought it had done a bit more than skip him. It seemed to have been more vindictive than the simple statement implied, ravaging his ability to hold any form of self-confidence and razing the field to the ground to prevent any tentative, foolhardy shoots from so much as trying to surface.

“Then it wouldn’t be a problem if I told you…” Gustave trailed off, cheeks flushing the colour of one of the tomatoes in Aline’s favourite salad. “That I think you’re handsome? Not that saying ‘you’re the most handsome person I’ve ever met’ qualifies for much when all I see are gestrals, and Esquie, who is wonderful but he really is a wine-filled plushie, you know? Not really handsome in the way you are—” Gustave was getting increasingly flustered as he kept talking, waving his hands wildly as if trying to swat away a bug.

“You don’t need to defend yourself,” Verso told him softly. “The compliment means enough on its own.” He wanted to kiss Gustave in thanks, but knew he couldn’t be the one to make that move first. “It means a lot, actually.”

Verso may have been off in his own world most of the time as of late, but even he could tell that something was off with Clea. Shortly after one particularly long research session in the library, he noticed that she was beginning to shoot him curious glances: tinged with that haughty knowing look she was so good at. Logically Verso knew it could have been about anything, even something as simple as putting a vase in the wrong spot, but his mind jumped to the worst possible conclusions as it was rather wont to do and decided it was best to not let the matter go. He went through all the possibilities and landed on a grim one: that Clea had somehow learned of what he was doing and decided to make it his problem.

At first he hadn’t wanted to put the burdens of his ever-worrying mind on Gustave, but clearly his concern was all too visible and he wasn’t doing a good enough job at hiding it. After a few nights of gentle prodding, Verso finally decided it was a lost cause and to open up.

“I worry that Clea is on to us.”

“So what? It can’t possibly be the end of the world if she has vague inklings that you’re spending time in here. You said that you used to spend time in here…well, often. And with Clea too, right?” Gustave ran his fingers through Verso’s hair soothingly, a gentle smile meant to calm him down. “Why couldn’t you still spend time here now?”

“Clea outgrew this canvas,” Verso said bitterly, remembering her disdainful comments on the subject. “She probably thinks it’s foolish that I continue to spend time here. Though I’m more worried she’ll find out about you, and that I’m trying to find a way to free you.”

“I know she’s not the most generous of people, but surely even she can’t hold a grudge against you for loving someone in a painting.”

Verso realized that Gustave didn’t understand quite how things worked in the outside world—it had been something so obvious, that he’d grown up knowing, he hadn’t bothered to clarify. “There’s two issues with this, unfortunately. The first being that the painter guild heavily frowns upon emotional connections of a…romantic nature with those inside your canvases.”

“Unfair, but I understand. I suppose it could get dangerous if you cared too much.” Gustave bit his lip, deep in thought. “Though I hope you don’t regret breaking that taboo for me.”

“I don’t,” Verso assured him hastily, leaning into his shoulder. “Not in the slightest. But that doesn’t mean that others will understand or be kind about it. There’s also this…idea outside. That two men shouldn’t be in love with one another. That it’s wrong in some way.”

Gustave paused for a long time before coming up with an answer. “That’s a bit arbitrary and silly, don’t you think?”

“Don’t tell Clea that. Or Papa.” They hadn’t explicitly stated any outwards hate on the subject only because it hadn’t come up. Verso held no delusions as to where their stances would lie.

“You know I can keep a secret.” And Gustave meant it too, Verso was sure, but he could still hear the tinge of confusion in his words. Part of him wondered if Gustave was almost too good for the world outside. Though his presence in it might also prove to be a much-needed light in the dark.

Verso’s anxiety continued to squirm like a dark mass of vague impending doom in the pit of his stomach. He kept trying to push it away, feeling like he was at least making a bit of progress on the matter of how to bring his boyfriend out into reality, growing closer with him all the while and having Alicia’s firm and cheerful support in the times he had to spend outside and away in the real world. He knew the strongest defense against worry was to prove it was unfounded, so he continued to do just that in his mind, running the loops of assurance over and over again like a record.

Just about the worst thing that can happen to one’s anxiety, however, was for it to be suddenly founded.

One night, late in the evening, after an intensive discussion over a scrap of information—and by extent hope—with Alicia, Verso slid into his room and heaved a sigh. The prospect of seeing Gustave again always made his heart a little bit lighter, and making a beeline to the closet where he knew the precious canvas was waiting for him, to take him away for a night of love and honesty and Gustave.

Except the closet door was slightly ajar.

Verso’s heart sank. He didn’t remember making such an error. He’d always been so strict about closing the closet door at all times, making sure his family couldn’t tell where he was storing the canvas, wouldn’t be able to ask questions. It wasn’t impossible that he’d made the mistake of leaving it open, sure, but the likelihood was slim enough that it lit his mind on fire with panic.

Taking a few deep breaths, feeling his heart not slow even a shred, Verso slipped inside to where his canvas lay waiting, pressing his hand on it and picturing Gustave in his mind’s eye. Take me to Gustave…let me in…

Just like always the world changed and began swirling in a kaleidoscope of vivid colours around him before coalescing into a landscape he recognized. Snow gently drifting down, train tracks arcing through the sky—it had been one of Gustave’s favourite places to spend time with him, and Verso had privately agreed. For a brief moment he felt anticipation override his worry, thinking that they might have a nice romantic night hand in hand walking along the airborne, trainless tracks.

The moment was cruelly short-lived. Walking forward revealed that the usually pristine white snow had specks of dark crimson on it, a colour more vivid than even the paints used to create the canvas in the first place. The path wound upwards, and Verso followed it, mind concocting the worst. He hoped they wouldn’t come to pass, but he knew better by now than to expect anything from a hope.

Standing just over the crest of the hill, on snow stained red like cherries, was a silhouette he recognized all too well.

Clea.

In one hand she held a long paintbrush, clenching her fist tightly around it as if it was a sword (and in her hands, it might as well have been). The gentle breeze fluttered the curtain of hair behind her, making her seem like some sort of goddess of this painted world returned after scorning it so long for vengeance.

“You think that your childish plan would go unnoticed, Verso? That you’d be allowed to have your silly little frivolities indefinitely in this immature place?”

“How did you find him?” Verso knew that letting his emotions creep into his voice was a sign of weakness, something that Clea would disapprove of. She’d use it as a trap, to move in for the kill as soon as she heard it. Even so, he couldn’t stop his words from quavering.

“You never did clean up, no matter how many times you were told as a child. When books are laid out on the desk in the library, one can hardly be expected to not see them. Researching ways of taking people out of the canvas? I thought you knew better than that, Verso.”

There was no sign in her face of what she’d just done to Gustave (though Verso couldn’t tell exactly what it had been, the sheer quantity of blood suggested it wasn’t good): instead Clea was staring into Verso’s face with a look so stony and stern it could have put her sculptures to shame.

“Maman will be deeply pleased to learn you’ve been painting again, though,” she added, flicking the paintbrush in her hand as if to underline the point. “Maybe you can start work on more mature projects, rather than wasting time with dalliances in this old, tired canvas.”

Lost for words, hoping for a comeback that he knew in his heart would never truly be there, Verso opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally finding some words to throw at her. “You shouldn’t have done that. He—wasn’t doing anything. He was happy.”

“He? Wasn’t real. A figment of your own woefully underpractised paintbrush. I’m not expecting a thank you for dealing with the problem, but I’m hoping the outcome will be favourable for us all. I don’t have to deal with your lovesick moping, and Maman and Papa finally get their son back into the atelier working with paints, just like he always should have been.”

With this Clea strode past him, not bothering to grace Verso with a look at all, bloodied dress hem dragging across the snow like it was perfectly normal. Verso fought against running straight to Gustave’s side to staunch the bleeding with everything he had in him,, knowing that Clea would judge it as a sign of weakness and likely return for worse. He couldn’t judge whether or not she’d tell their parents: that was the hard part about Clea, she was inscrutible, and her motivations possibly went so many layers deep that even she didn’t understand them all.

As soon as the air rippled and Clea vanished out the front of the canvas, though, Verso let his calm drop and ran to Gustave’s side, feeling the snow crunch under his feet, tears beginning to pool hot in his eyes.

“I’m here,” he panted, realizing he had no idea what any sort of first aid care typically consisted of. Gustave was lying helpless in the snow, on his side, clothes tattered and bloodsoaked. Heart quickened Verso rolled him over, searching for the wound sites, and noticed two: that his chest was bubbling with blood and his right arm was missing below the elbow.

For a brief moment he realized that Gustave was lucky Clea hadn’t just simply gommaged him from the canvas, but that relief was quickly overwritten by fear. She’d done so much damage…

“Hey. Shh. I’m here. I’m gonna fix this.” Verso didn’t know if this was the right thing, but he’d said it before when Alicia skinned her knees and she seemed to get along with it fine, so he decided it would have to do. “Gustave? Stay with me, sweetheart.” The man’s usually beautiful, shining brown eyes were dull and glassy, and Verso’s heart clenched in fear.

“We can fix this. I know you’re not going to leave me. Right?” The question wavered and went up at the end, reminding Verso of how he’d sounded as a child, afraid of whatever was lurking in the darkness of his room while he was trying to sleep, and only getting Aline’s distant, vague assurance that their house was perfectly safe. Now he didn’t even get that false assurance, just the warm wet blood of the man he’d selfishly made, then grown to genuinely love, all over his hands. The one that Clea claimed was fake, so surely it meant nothing to attempt to kill him.

Verso stared there, seeing what he now understood as Gustave’s corpse laying there on the snow, feeling like his heart had been torn in two. Maybe Clea had been right in part, that he wasn’t truly real. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t cared. She’d always been able to detach herself from painted creations, outgrow them whenever necessary. But Verso was a bleeding heart, and Gustave had long since transcended the realm of fantasy into some degree of reality.

Maybe Gustave hadn’t been real, but Verso’s feelings for him had been.

“Please don’t die, Gustave. I love you,” Verso pleaded, cradling his body close to his chest. “Don’t go. I needed you. I was going to find a way to let you free. And I still will—I promise. You just have to survive a little longer.”

Unfortunately, Gustave’s body was limp and not a single flicker of a heartbeat resounded under his skin anymore. Clea had done what she’d intended to: put an end to his painted life.

The useful side effect, tearing Verso’s heart into shreds in the process.

Verso wasn’t sure how long he sat there, clasping Gustave close to his chest and throbbing with an empty ache that filled his whole body up. It took him a very long time before he even felt enough of anything to think, and more still before he thought of ways to fix this. He couldn’t just paint another Gustave, because that would be unfair, wrong, to make someone who had memories of being someone they’d never been. Verso couldn’t do that to the man he loved. Though he wasn’t entirely sure as to how to unpaint his death using his original body, either. He could paint the hole in his chest shut, maybe, and paint some sort of prosthetic to replace his arm…but he didn’t know how to make a stilled heart beat again, how to have the light return to Gustave’s eyes.

Eventually, though his pain hadn’t lessened, Verso’s mind became a hair clearer, and he reached out into the air with shaking hands to find some of Gustave’s chroma before it began dispersing, and he started to dissolve into the air in a mist of petals. It was there, cloying, not having drifted particularly far since Clea had forcibly evicted it. Gathering at his fingers, dark red petals turned into a tiny whirlwind, memories of all the time he’d shared with Gustave flashing against the inside of his mind. It was Gustave’s very essence he needed, boiled down into a single cluster of chroma. The first time had been easy: Gustave had been simply an idea then. But now there was a name, a face, and so many beautiful things he’d learned about him along the way attached to him.

Everything mattered now, in a way it hadn’t before.

When Verso put his hand on Gustave’s stilled chest, he felt it getting warm, heating up under his touch, life growing to a swell where for a few horrible moments there had been nothing.

The world froze then, Verso waiting on tenterhooks, dreading the possible outcome. What if he’d failed…he always was the weakest painter of the family. Reviving someone like this was such a tall order.

A single, wavering gasp for breath, unsteady but real, blessedly so, caught Verso’s ears. Feeling more scared than he could remember having been, he opened one eye open a crack and looked down at Gustave, searching desperately for some sign of life.

On the outside there wasn’t a whole lot of visible difference, but he could see that Gustave’s chest had begun rising and falling now, shallow and slow yet steady. The relief that this filled him with was such a degree that it was almost a new sensation, his whole body waking up after shutting down in a panic.

With the situation now at least somewhat averted, he took a good look at Gustave in front of him, assessing the situation, figuring that most of the blood could wash off if they took a gentle dip in the waters somewhere. The missing arm was more of an issue: after Clea had cut it off, clearly it had dissolved into petals and then chroma, because no real trace of it was present for him to reattach. He tried again, searching in an almost pleading fashion, but nothing answered. Verso tried a different approach, forming the chroma in the air (his own chroma, a lot of it; he’d never had much of a sense of self preservation when it came to the canvas—that much Clea had been right about) into a prosthetic that would hopefully fit him, black shining with gold inlays and landing gently on the snow next to them. He’d wait to fit it when Gustave was awake, but knowing it was a matter of when and not if brought him a great deal of comfort.

Giving in to what little relief he could muster, and not caring if he lost track of time in the canvas this time, Verso lay back against a snowy boulder and laid Gustave delicately across his lap, feeling himself slide towards sleep strong enough that he knew it was futile to fight it.

The sky was shifting between pinks, purples and greens in a dazzling show when Verso woke up, the dancing lights painting Gustave’s face with life again. His eyes were open, though wearily so, and he seemed to be simply staring up at Verso, either not willing or not able to put thoughts into words.

“You’re awake.” What else could Verso have said, really? That was all that was running through his mind, ecstatic and barely able to contain itself.

Gustave managed a weak smile. “I guess I am, huh?”

“You have no idea how grateful I am for that.”

“Well. You weren’t wrong about your older sister being a piece of work, I guess.” It was clear Gustave was trying to lighten the mood, and Verso’s heart clenched. He didn’t deserve someone so wonderful, not really. He should apologize fifty times over, and then another hundred for good measure, but he wanted to bask in the moment of bliss for just a bit longer. So he leaned in and kissed Gustave gently on the lips.

Surprised, yet a sparkle of happiness glimmering in his eyes, Gustave kissed back.