Archive of Our Own

Verso's hair is going grey. Again.

"Where is it? Do you still have my dye? Oh god, there's too many feet, Monoco. There are so many." Verso says, rummaging through Monoco's pack, pulling out a few pairs of his own trousers, a comb Monoco uses on his fur and Verso uses on his hair and they use together on each other, a swimsuit Verso had another gestral sew for Monoco, a thousand hair ties, and a second Crulers' foot - Monoco can't resist how large they are.

Something about a big stinking foot with some real meat on it just gets him.

Verso sighs, though. Flips his slightly greying at the roots hair out of his freshly cut eye with an annoyed puff and then digs his arm back inside Monoco's pack.

He'd found Monoco in Yellow Harvest, barging into his camp, and demanded a touch up. He can't stand to look like Renoir for a second more than he has to or - well, a Verso in a bad mood is a Verso who disappears. Since this morning or two months, three weeks, four days, and a lengthy twenty-eight minutes ago.

And then he shows up and he asks for his hair dye.

Not even a hug or a there's my Monoco.

Monoco accepts this trait of Versos. He respects his need for distance. There's plenty of reasons why Monoco chooses to live outside of Gestral Village. Why Noco, as young as he is now, goes off on his own adventures. He understands.

The boy he'd met and watched grow into the man who isn't this one but very much is and very much isn't - he comes and he goes. He doesn't say when or for how long. But he comes back. Monoco knows this. It's simply a fact. One that goes hand in hand with a memory in a train station that is and isn't.

Verso had this world to hide in. This Verso has to dig for his own corner of this world to retreat into.

"There you are." Verso coos sweetly pulling out a small jar of black pigment. He shakes it then kisses the lid with a wet smack. Grins wide at Monoco. It's been so long since he's seen Verso with an expression so sunny. "Remember, I like the highlights." 

If he had an eyebrow to raise, Monoco would. But it's there in the way he crosses his arms. The unhappy-frown of an angle he holds his staff. The half-turn he makes to go back to his camp and his human-trinkets he's found and has yet to dissect properly.

But Verso pouts. Bottom lip stuck out so it's shiny with an attractive lure of saliva that humans have so much of that swiftly slides into a slanted almost-smile. He pulls at the heartstrings as surely as he knows his piano keys.

"C'mon," Verso cajoles him such earnestness, "It hasn't been that long."

"Who's counting? Not me."

"Mo - no - co." His dearest friend in the world who'd left him for months sidles up to him and buries his hand in the fur on Monoco's chest, scratching and tugging and sending very nice sensations and bubbling up so many very fuzzy feelings there's no hope for Monoco to stay put off and sulk like he hasn't been for the days he hasn't been counting.

He can accept and he can understand Verso and he can also find the man irritating as he is handsome.

Monoco's standards have really plummeted lately.

"Fine." Monoco concedes.

Verso hands him the jar and begins stripping himself of his shirt and tugging out his hair tie. His grey and black hair fans out in a soft wave that curls under his scruffy chin.

Monoco says, feelings the embers at his feet, "But only if you do mine after. I want to look extra elegant."

Verso pauses. "Extra?"

"Afraid you won't be able to handle it? My manly beauty?"

"I've been practicing all my life to handle you." He tosses off his left boot and starts unbuttoning his pants. "And I've been honing my braiding skills and I think I've raised the bar at five strand plaiting."

Monoco buys into it quickly. "Have you?"

"Doubting me?"

"Only as far as I can throw you."

"That's extremely far."

"All right. Not that far."

Verso sits in one of the many creek beds that winds through Yellow Harvest's serene land. Birds do their chirping and the giant Burgeon slowly chews on the mountainside, making deep crunching noises that are felt more than heard.

Monoco uses one hand for the dye and the other to keep Verso's precious grey highlights grey and out of the muck.

"My hands are going to be black for the next year." He says.

Verso hums, eyes closed peacefully, a flush spreading along cheeks down his neck, settling splotchy on his chest, and tilts his head where Monoco nudges him and mumbles with a sleepy slur to his words, "Remember - highlights."

It's the twenty millionth time he's said that.

As if Monoco - apprentice and mentor of the Immense and Terrifying Noco and now the Tiny and Cocksure Noco - was just some average Golgra brown-noser with such a short attention span he couldn't even finish his own -

Monoco pinches Verso's rubbery ear and leaves a black mark on his lobe. Verso grunts and splashes water on Monoco's leg.

Monoco chooses to take the high road and not completely dye Verso's hair. It's a trying choice to make. One that should be applauded - if he liked that sort of thing.

Spreading the dye evenly and making sure he doesn't miss a spot, Monoco takes his time under the setting sun to comb his fingers through Verso's hair. Massaging his scalp and earning a few happy noises that are as thrilling as the harshest most exhilarating battles won.

Verso picks back up on his humming. One of his newest songs he's been working on. Slow, lilting from note to note. His hair is softer than the furs Monoco wears. Longer. Cuts with the dullest knife. Daintier, the way all humans are. Immortal or not.

Verso is squishy.

Made up of perky and soft parts that seem to change with his mood. Red here. Dangling there. Hairy and smooth. The most fascinating human. How annoying for his favorite human, in this world and he's sure in the other, to hide himself away.

The dye takes time to set as any good stain or varnish does. Monoco rinses his hand in the water, squatting beside Verso, and gives his friend a good once over.

Tired. Baggy eyes. Thinner at the waist. Scruff about to turn into a ragged beard any moment now. The cut - it's still there. Scabbed over, but not mended. Never stitched. Not healed. It should be gone. It's been long enough.

Verso's face should never look like it hurts.

Monoco reaches out and taps at Verso's chin before taking it between his stained black fingers, pulling the man closer. Verso comes willingly, relaxed and sleepy sitting bare assed in the cool water of the creek bed. He blinks slowly at Monoco.

"Going for the edgy mysterious look, hm?" Monoco says.

"It's a reminder."

"To dodge?"

"What else?" Verso half-shrugs. He takes Monoco's hand from his chin and moves it upwards so he can nose at Monoco's palm. Like so much of him, he's squishy there, too. "Every time I look in a mirror I think quick, duck."

Verso is waiting for Monoco to laugh and it's another difficult choice to not fall in line with what Verso wants. Gingerly, Monoco cards his fingers through the dark hair he can reach and with his thumb touches the tail end of that long, rough scab just under Verso's eye that nearly blinded him.

The trouble between the two of them, he thinks, is that neither one of them can talk all that well.

Venturing into the wild, Monoco says, "Hurting yourself doesn't improve anything."

"Maybe I'm just marking the difference so no one gets confused."

"I'm not confused."

"And not everything is about you."

French has kilometers of subtleties that had taken Monoco years to grasp and every one of them is useless when Verso decides to dig himself a hole and sulk in it.

Monoco usually would hop right in and join him and they'd both not talk about what they weren't going to talk about and especially not the hole they're sitting in.

"No, I simply exist here just like you exist here and everyone else exists here and we all just go along existing. Here. In this world you made."

"Not me." Verso corrects. "And not everyone."

"No." Monoco says. He turns. He places his hand on Verso's back. Broad. Muscles shift so easily with a tired breath. He's grown taller and wider like any gestral from the village.

He'd been a small boy, once. Could fit in Esquie's palm - once.

"It's your world as much as it is mine." Monoco says then takes the bowl of water meant for his careful rinsing and dumps it over Verso's head.

Verso yelps. His shoulders jump to touch his ears, splashing water all over himself and Monoco. He twists to scowl at Monoco.

"Warn me first." Verso says.

"And give you the edge? Don't count on it." Monoco dips the bowl back in the creek, refilling it and dumps it over him again. This time Verso takes it without complaint. The next three times, too. It's only on the fifth that Monoco stops and does the rinse properly. He places his hand on Verso's warm forehead and tilts his head back, his hair flows and swirls dark in the wood bowl through Monoco's fingers.

Verso's eyes are shut. The cut is grim in orange evening light. Greyed and crusted over. Monoco has so many scars carved into his body, but it looks so much more painful for a human. Verso must feel it every time he blinks.

How Renoir could do such a thing to him.

Monoco sets the bowl down on a large stone to hold Verso's head in his hands, tilting him back and back until his weight is resting on Monoco and still his eyes stay shut. Relaxed. Without that terrible worried crinkle between his eyebrows wincing at life.

There's been so many humans wandering the continent doing odd human things. Before, there'd been Aline with Renoir chasing after little Verso and little Clea and even littler Alicia, stopping to smile and brush their mouths together. Verso had done the same with Julie and Simon.

It's an odd urge inside of Monoco.

A towering sensation that's caught him before, just now it's not letting him go. He doesn't quite understand it, but it's there pushing at him to lean inwards, curl around Verso's small and fragile human head with his handsome nice to look at human features, wet hair dripping down and through Monoco's fingers and -

THWACK

- He slams his mask into Verso's nose.

Verso yanks away from him, curling forward and holding his face, cursing loudly, Fucking damnit, Monoco.

Red whirls in the creek water near him. Verso holds his hand up bewildered at Monoco through one uncovered eye. Blood drips from his chin in fat, dye-like droplets.

"What was that for?"

Monoco's hands are stuck in the air. An ache blooms in the middle of his mask. He may have cracked the wood.

"Nothing. I didn't do - I need to go fight something. Large. Bloodthirsty. There's a beast to the west that needs slaying." He clears his throat and jumps to his feet. "Bye."

It couldn't be called running away if he was on a legendary hunt.

-

"You're embarrassing me." Golgra tells him. She tends to drop in and begin talking like they're in the middle of a conversation that's been ongoing for a few decades. It's Monoco's responsibility to remember what the hell he said last.

The Crimson Forest is an ideal place for meditations and reflecting and finding large near-human like nevrons.

Golgra leans over the dead Gold Chevaliere Monoco is sawing at to inspect it. Easier to do when they're not-alive and still damn difficult to get through outer shell. He has a special type of knife for the metallic ones.

She hums. Part approval at his kill. Part deeply disappointed at who he is.

"You're ignoring me." Her disdainful tone is most definitely aimed towards Monoco's choices in life. Not that he cares much. It's not his problem she's chosen to annoy him. "That's very rude to ignore your chief."

"I don't even live in the village."

"You're a gestral. Which means what you do is a reflection of me and what you are doing is weird."

Monoco drops his knife with a huff. He holds up the Chevaliere's leg and shakes it at her. "How is this weird?"

Golgra uncrosses her arms only to cross them again with the left on top of the right. Her back somehow becomes straighter. Her shoulders more squared. 

"You're spending too much time with that human."

"Can you go away?"

"He's only made you stranger, more isolated." She shakes her head. "Lazier."

"I'm trying to focus." He returns to his knife and with more vigor and a blazing burst of irritated strength he saws right through the stubborn Chevaliere's shell and bone and with a sharp snap - he has his pointy foot.

He holds it up in victory to Golgra and earns himself absolutely nothing.

"Why don't you just use one of the dead humans? They're everywhere. Plenty of feet." Golgra says. "Isn't that what you want?"

"We're not in the village right now, Golgra. I don't have to listen to you. Actually, I'm not listening to you. I'm talking to myself - I'm amazing. The deadliest, meanest fucker on the continent. I could be chief if I wanted to, but I don't because I'm so cool."

She crouches beside him and places her hand on his newly won golden foot. Running her blocky fingers over its ridges. Monoco feels it in every wood grain on his body it would be bad to yank it away from her.

Finally, she says, "You keep putting on other's bodies - why?"

Monoco does not run away - Golgra makes sure it's more of a limp.

-

They roam the northern continent for weeks taking down every nevron they come across. There are days where it feels like there is so much time. The sun won't set. There is no tomorrows. Just todays.

Verso never mentions Monoco's failed - he hates to label it with French and has no words for it in Gestral and Golgra doesn't know what she's talking about - though Monoco knows Verso will drag it up again. The man who will dance around his feelings more than any of the Danseuses has a habit of being demanding.

Two Crulers down. Verso has tied his immaculately dyed with perfect precision and artistry hair back and the left out stray hair catches on his nape. He's flushed from the final killing blow of the mammoth creatures. He spins his swords before they disappear. He's grinning up at Monoco.

With a hand on his hip, Verso holds his other over his eyes to block the sun.

"Monoco?" He calls out. "Don't tell me you're stuck."

As a Chevaliere, Monoco looms. He has lithe elegant fingers. Joints with muscles and tendons. He has a blinking, air-breathing face. Real eyes. A proper nose. Lips. He has lips. Real metallic lips that form words and purse together and smack when he licks them with his tongue.

Golgra is wrong. It's not that he wants to be someone else. He's Monoco and Verso is Verso. It's that Monoco doesn't have what Verso wants.

But Monoco can change Monoco.

He swipes away his sword. He bends. He leans down and in. He does not fumble it. There is no one with more accurate aim than him.

Verso takes a step back, frowning, holding a hand up.

"Monoco? What's wrong?" He says.

"Will you stop moving." Monoco snaps. Remembers Renior and Aline in the golden days where they would all come and play and see Verso's painting. Monoco purses his metallic lips and, again, leans in, determined, chest held tight in suspension, an anticipation so great he can hardly remember a fight that could compare to this feeling.

Verso stops him. Has his hand pressed firm on Monoco's armored shoulder. He pushes Monoco away. It's hardly even a suggestion of a nudge and yet it feels like a shove.

Verso's rejection snaps Monoco out of his Chevaliere form and he's back to being Monoco with his painted on mask.

They stare at each other.

Verso's hanging mouth keeps trying to say words Monoco does not, under any condition or any time or any nows or any tomorrows, want to hear.

Monoco tightens his grip on his staff, spins on his heel, and starts very much running away.

He hasn't seen Esquie in a while. He's not going in the direction of that wine-stuffed rock-obsessed balloon's nest. He'll take a detour around a few mountains. He'll hide out for a few years. Until the humiliation stops burning. It'd feel better to fight Golgra again. She'd knock some sense into him with a kick. Simple. No mortifying ordeal of trying and failing.

"Monoco!" Verso calls after him. He's running after Monoco. The man is lead-footed. Stomps all over the place. "We need to talk!"

"No!" Monoco starts to really hoof it.

"Damnit! You ancient bundle of kindling!" Verso yells just as he tackles Monoco from behind, they tumble onto the ground kicking up dirt and grass, tussling and tugging at each other until Verso sits victoriously on top of Monoco, breathing heavy and hot into his face.

"I will turn you into sawdust if you run away from me one more time." Verso angrily shoves at Monoco's chest.

"Try it." Monoco shoves him back. Verso's thighs tighten around his waist, not budging. "Get off me. Your old man stink is getting all over me."

Verso grunts then takes Monoco's wrists and pins them to the ground. Monoco writhes for a moment before sensibly folding. He will not talk. He'll wait for his moment and slip away.

Verso flips his hair out of his face. The downward angle he's glaring at Monoco has it falling back exactly where it was.

"Talk." Verso demands.

"I don't speak your silly little human language." Monoco says in Gestral.

"You loved learning French. It was one of our top ten hobbies."

Number seven. Behind learning poker. Ahead of performing the Cancan with Clea.

At a stalemate, Verso shakes his head and starts to laugh. It starts as small as a smile and grows from a deep graveling chuckle to a full bellow.

"Doofus. Goddamn idiot, Monoco." Verso shakes his head. He lets one of Monoco's wrists go to wipe at his face. "Why in this godforsaken world would I want to kiss something I've killed hundreds of times?"

"How else could we?"

"I didn't know gestrals could - "

" - It's not gestrals. It's me." Monoco hides his mask in his hands. "Maybe Verso did paint me this way. Maybe he didn't. I don't know or care much for the details. But if Verso had painted me differently, maybe we could - this is stupid. I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, I do."

"Tough."

Verso takes Monoco's hands and tries to pry them away and after some struggle he manages it. The strong foolish old man. He's gone chatty. Monoco doesn't care for it and does not like to see this soft expression on his face. Pity. A gently served rejection.

Verso settles on Monoco's lap. He strokes his fingers along the bottom of his mask then pushes up, forces Monoco to really look at his horribly handsome face.

"Sometimes I hate him. All painters. They've made everything so complicated." Verso traces the painted outlines. "What do you feel for me, Monoco? I don't think we've ever really talked about it."

"This is getting a little personal."

"I know. It's terrible." Verso keeps touching his mask and Monoco is losing focus. It tickles. It sends happy sensations everywhere. He doesn't know what to do. "I don't want you to be human. Or to look any different. You're Monoco. Why in the world would I want you to change?"

"Because I can't be human with you."

"You could cut my head off right now and I'd still be telling you you're the most handsome gestral I've ever seen."

Monoco touches Verso's thighs. He grips them tightly. They're in the hole together and Verso can't shut up about it.

He's squishy here, too. 

"Shut up." Monoco says. "You're making it so weird."

"It's true. You're very handsome."

"Stop."

"And such a good fighter."

"I am, but."

"And your voice - "

"You're being so ridiculous."

"Your voice alone could make a man quiver." Verso rubs his thumb in small circles at the edge of Monoco's mask. "Can you feel any of this?"

"I should never have said anything."

"Monoco." Verso says sharply. He presses his forehead to the mask then. His scar still that terrible pallid grey. "Can you?"

Monoco nods and Verso nods back.

With both hands he holds the edges of Monoco's mask, thumbs doing that circular thing that is sending an odd wonderful sensation of tingling across his entire body, like he's made of tinder, like the fire has passed into this world too.

"If you wanted a kiss," Verso says, slow, "You should have asked. I'd have done it a thousand times by now."

"I want a kiss." Monoco says very, very fast. "Please."

"What a polite gestral, my Monoco." Verso closes his eyes and leans in and there are his lips pressing gently on the wood grains and red paint of his mask.

It's wonderful. Bright warmth blossoms inside of him. Better than his first fight. Even more beautiful than the pointiest, meatiest foot.

Monoco reaches out and grasps tightly at Verso's wrists, holding him as Verso pulls back with his endearing slanted smile. Humans are so odd. Verso is the most magnificently strangest out of all of them.

"Owowow." Monoco says. "Again."