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Every fear that had ever crossed his path before that day would, in the years to come, seem small.
Verso thought he knew what it was to be afraid. He remembered quite clearly, one time, standing before his mother's easel as a boy with paint on the front of his shirt, where it definitely should not have been. Behind him was another giant splash of it, on the bottom corner of Aline's latest work, slowly drying.
His pulse had thundered so hard in his ears, the horror of one careless movement that undid hours of her labour catching up to him. That had felt, in its moment, like the end of the world.
It was not.
He learns the difference on a day when the sky was a flawless blue, and the sun sat mild and unthreatening above the roofs of Lumière.
Julie was only a few steps away, admiring a street painter's work with that particular tilt of her head he had grown so fond of; brows drawn in, corners of her mouth lifted ever so slightly, the way they always did when she got curious.
He turned around for no more than a mere handful of seconds, the coins in his palm had long grown warm. Sneakily, he was considering whether he'd manage to get away with stealing a bite of the sandwich he was buying her. Maybe she'll let me off the hook if I promise to play the piano for her later, he thought, a little smirk playing on his lips.
He did not really notice when the gentle warm breeze started to gradually dial down, and then dropped entirely, like someone just cupped a hand over the whole place. He was too busy, humming in thought while he decided between the creamy butter and turkey ham, or the herby tomato with goat cheese. Mmm, his mouth watered slightly at the smells. Everything was normal for a moment, idle sounds of life continued to fill the air from every direction around him; people chatted, and joked, and laughed.
The corner of the red cloth, hanging above the food stall, began to stir, catching Verso's eye. What started as a few sways as the wind returned with a colder touch, slowly picked up, and then the cloth was pushed, swinging to the side, wavering up and down against gravity. His hair was pushed back and away from his face too, the dark strands brushing the shells of his ears.
Above the rooftops, the sunlight dimmed.
"Hm?" Verso looked up, a frown pulling at his features. The weather was clear a moment ago, so what was this? But he couldn't find a cloud that blocked out the sun and cast it's shadow over them. It was like the sky had thickened with something else, something dark.
He hadn't had the chance to properly process the change, when suddenly, a low, distant groan, too long to be thunder, rose from all around, from the very air itself. His heart, which had been beating at a steady, ordinary pace, gave a hard thud.
Something was wrong, it dawned onto him.
He twisted around, eyes darting frantically for Julie. He could've sworn she was right behind him, she was right there.
The crowd was thicker now, people had slowed down to look up, hands lifting to shield above their eyes.
Putain, where--
"Ju--!"
His lips parted with her name, but he'd barely managed to call out, when the ground rumbled beneath him, shaking. His arms rose at once, one foot stepping to the side and legs bending at the knees to steady himself. He'd only just regained his balance, then in the very next moment, a man, wild-eyed and panicked, came pelting through, shoulder slamming into his chest with the force of a thrown flour sack.
Verso grunted and hissed through gritted teeth as the edge of the table dug into his back. His hands flew out, fingers clamping around stall's edge before he could go down completely. The coins, long forgotten, clattered somewhere at his feet.
A brief moment passed, when suddenly he didn't feel the ache of the impact anymore, taken away by the faces of his family flashing behind his eyes. His fear for them flared harder than any pain.
Maman. Papa. Clea. Alicia. They were back at the Manor right now. His chest pressed in with concern for their safety. He imagined his mother's open worry, his older sister's internal panic, his younger sister's quiet fear. His father would protect them, Verso was sure of that. His father would never let anything happen to them. Julie resurfaced into his thoughts and he was brought back, the unpleasant thumping of his own pulse roared in his ears, as loud as it had been in childhood before his mother's easel--
He tightened his grip and hauled himself upright, vision briefly blurred.
Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?
The painter's stand was half-obscured by the shifting knot of bodies and she was still nowhere in sight. He took two hurried steps in that direction, then, thank God, Julie came into view a second later, squeezing sideways through the press of coats and elbows, just three stalls away.
Someone shoved past her and she flinched away, one hand catching a crate nearby to brace herself. Her eyes were wide, darting over the chaos with a stunned, uncomprehending look that twisted something under Verso's ribs.
"Julie!"
Her head spun to the sound of his call, eyes finding his.
Relief hit Verso with such force it was almost painful. He could've fallen to his knees with it. The world was breaking around him, and yet there she was, and as long as she was there, he believed that nothing truly irreparable could happen.
He ran, and she moved too, at the same time he did. In that one, suspended instant, everything seemed to have pivoted around the space between them. It was just her and him, reaching out for each other through the parted sea of bodies. And then they collided.
His arms came around her firmly, and she clung on just as hard, so tightly, he thought for a second that they might've fused right then and there, became one shape in the middle of this whole mess.
"Verso--" Julie's voice broke. She drew back just enough to see his face, hands fisted in his collar. "What's happening?"
He did not know. And how could he? When his own heart was beating too hard, and his thoughts came in insufficient, useless bits and pieces. He knew only this; that terror had its claws on her, and that he would sooner let the world fall on his own head than see it sink any deeper into hers.
So, he smiled. So lightly, and so, so softly.
The kind of smile he used on quiet evenings when she worried over small things and he wished to make them smaller still. It didn't quite reach his eyes, but dear God, he prayed she wouldn't notice.
He let his hand rise, knuckles brushing her cheek. A stray strand of hair had slipped forward, he tucked it back with care, fingertips lingering against her skin. For that small second it was as if nothing had changed. This was just an ordinary afternoon, and he was only touching her because he wished to.
"It's probably just..." His eyes flicked up, then came back to her. The words died halfway. "It will pass, mon coeur."
The sky, however, didn't seem to like his answer. In response, sudden light above them fractured, followed by a loud crack! A hot white pain flashed in their ears, leaving behind an ache and an awful, high-pitched ringing.
Julie jerked in a flinch, fingers seizing in the fabric at Verso's shoulders and digging in hard. A distant part of her worried that he would bruise there later--if later still existed.
Between one breath and another, there was nothing but muffled sounds, like she was drifting underwater.
Then it all crashed back in at once.
The street erupted. Men shouted for their wives. Women screamed out names she didn't linger on. Children shrieked for parents, for siblings, for the pets they refused to leave behind. Their throats were never made for this kind of panic.
The noises piled on themselves, layer upon layer, until they stopped sounding like individual people and became one continuous shriek.
A thin, dark break cracked in the stone. Her eyes followed it as it zigzagged rapidly along the path, to fast and too narrow to be perceived under the feet of people who didn't have time to look down.
A blurry movement of hair and a bright orange skirt ran past, the woman's hands outstretched, reaching for a small boy, no more than six or seven. The boy turned towards her at the sound of his name, thick tears streaked down his flushed cheeks. Her fingers almost brushed his sleeve... almost--
--the ground dropped out from under her, widening from the once small crack.
The boy yelled and fell backward as his mother? sister? aunt?--it could've been anyone--leaped forward with a short, raw sound, catching the crumbling edge with both hands. It was only for a few fleeting seconds that she hung there, legs dangling above the dark, but it felt like an eternity. Her scream shattered through Julie like lightning on glass. The woman's fingernails scraped through dust and grit as she struggled to cling onto something, anything, until she couldn't hold on any more.
And then she was gone. Swallowed by whatever waited below.
Julie's arms shot out on instinct, tearing free of Verso's hold as if, from several paces away, she could possibly catch her. As if she could reach down into that hole and pull her back into the light by sheer force of will.
Her scream faded into the general roar, but it did not leave. It went on inside Julie's skull, looping, catching, refusing to finish properly.
"Stay with me."
Verso's voice was the only thing that pushed through it all, thinner than she'd ever heard it, a small tremor running under the words, and her gaze dragged back to him.
His chest ached with this strange, helpless fury in him, at the sheer size of what was happening. At his own smallness. If he could stand between his beloved and the sky, he would. If he could argue the earth into stillness, he would talk until his throat bled.
But he couldn"t do any of that. He could only hold her.
So he gathered her again, arms wrapping around her with such desperation. One hand cradled the back of her head, pressing her face into the warm hollow under his jaw. The other spanned the small of her back up to her shoulder blades, pulling her close enough that her spine curved into him.
He tried, stupidly, to make of his body a shell.
His nose buried into her hair, finding the warm, familiar scent of vanilla soap from this morning. He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. It was a small, reverent thing, an apology.
"Hey, it's okay, my love.." He whispered the first words of comfort that sat on his tongue. "It's okay. You're okay."
Julie could feel his heartbeat hammering where his chest pressed against hers, proof that he did not believe his own words, but she clung onto them anyway, because she had nothing else.
Above them, another ripple tore straight across the sky. Verso flinched under Julie's cheek, the jolt running through his muscles and into her own. His hold tightened until it almost hurt, and he let his eyes slide shut. Black filled his vision.
If the world must fall away, let it fall in darkness, he thought, weakly, so long as in that darkness, my last sensation was the feel of you in my arms.