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Sotto Voce by MsCoffeebear for Shin_PM
Fandoms: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Video Game)
07 Jun 2026
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Summary
Belle Époque Paris, 1913. Verso Dessendre is very good at being wanted. It is, in fact, the only thing the world has ever been willing to pay a ruined aristocrat for, and he has made his peace with that.
Then Gustave Virlogeux — celebrated conductor of the Opéra, one hand of flesh and one of steel, immovable as a closed door — catches him breaking into the rehearsal hall to play a piano in the dark. Instead of calling the gendarmes, he offers Verso a real chance and an honest wage, and commits the truly unforgivable sin of refusing to be charmed.
This is a story about a maestro who won't play along, a brat who won't behave, and a grand piano that did not consent to any of this. It is also, underneath all that, a story about being wanted for the whole of yourself — scars, ruin, and all — by someone who refuses to let you sell the one true thing you've got.
Or: a maestro who conducts in bed exactly as he does on the podium, a pianist whose every seduction technique fails spectacularly and repeatedly (until it doesn't), and one grand piano that did not survive the experience.