Chapter Text
when he first catches gustave staring at him, he assumes the worst. in fact, he assumes the worst so hard that he just — accepts it as fact. gustave is staring at him, which must mean he wants his revenge.
at first, he tells himself he’s wrong because the others never mentioned gustave to be the angry type. but then he thinks — wouldn’t you be angry with the person who let you die? but that was a stupid thought, because of course the answer is no. he wouldn’t be. so he tries again. wouldn’t a normal person be angry with the person who let them die? and that, he thinks — yes. which means — of course gustave is angry at him.
so — he’s assumed the worst, and now he’s running with it. now he’s fully convinced gustave is going to get him alone, get him weak, and torture him. he can’t die. so. torture. it’s happened before. it’ll happen again. so maybe gustave wouldn’t need to get him weak. maybe he’ll go willingly, accept the punishment he knows he deserves. yes. he will go willingly, he decides.
so he makes up his mind, deciding — he’ll approach gustave. offer himself up. maybe that way gustave will see how sorry he is, and not hurt him as badly. a very, very distant part of him is still aware how wildly out of character this all sounds for gustave. but the part of him used to being hurt doesn’t want to get his hopes up, so he doesn’t. he resolves himself to what’s going to happen, and moves his feet.
when he reaches gustave, a strange calm has settled over him. he deserves whatever gustave will do, will say. he’s been waiting for this moment for days now. days of gustave not looking his way at all. at least — at least now he’s finally looking.
“gustave,” he greets, and hopefully gustave doesn’t notice the way the word shakes. it’s not that he’s scared of punishment. it’s that he knows he deserves punishment for what he did. for letting gustave die. it was cruel of him. it was wrong.
and then — gustave does something he doesn’t expect. he —
he smiles.
“verso,” he says, and he — he — sticks out his hand. like he’s meeting someone he’s heard a lot about, which is probably true. but also like he’s meeting someone who didn’t let him die. why would he want to shake verso’s hand? why hasn’t he hit him yet?
verso momentarily doesn’t know what to do. but gustave — he doesn’t pull his hand away. he just — bizarrely — waits. patiently. his smile doesn’t falter. so verso — ache in his chest — makes himself put his hand in gustave’s.
when he does, he feels — something. he doesn’t know what it is. but this first contact with gustave has him feeling . . . alive. and not in the bad way. in the way where there’s a pleasant ache in his chest, where every ache is usually so unpleasant. he feels — absurdly — comforted, as they shake hands. and when he breaks the handshake first, he feels . . . almost cold. he hadn’t noticed he’d been feeling warm, but now that he’s feeling cold, he misses it immensely.
“it’s nice to finally meet you,” gustave goes on to say, and verso — he doesn’t get it. he doesn’t get how it could be nice to meet him. how it could be nice to meet the person who let you die. but he says it genuinely. there’s not an undercurrent of hatred in his tone at all. but he knows. verso knows that he knows. so — why? how?
the thing is, gustave had been standing over by himself, and so had verso. and that means it’s just the two of them over here, with no one able to hear their conversation. which will make it slightly less awkward when verso says: “i won’t protest, you know.” the words are the truth. he won’t protest. not to — not to anything gustave wants to do to him. he’s been through it all. this won’t be any different.
but gustave only blinks. once, confused. “what won’t you protest?” he asks, voice as confused as his expression.
so he’s going to make verso spell it out. a small, tiny part of his brain says, maybe he has no ill intentions toward you. but he ignores that part, in favor of every other time his brain has said that and been completely and utterly wrong. everyone has ill intentions. or — okay. maybe that’s not true. but when it comes to him, everyone seems to. so why wouldn’t gustave? so he says: “walk with me.”
gustave still seems confused, but he actually does. a part of verso had been hoping he’d refuse, and that would be the end of their very brief acquaintanceship. but he is following, while verso leads him away from where people could see them. and then he stops in an alleyway, deep in one that he knows people don’t really frequent. he turns around to face gustave. and he holds out his hands.
when gustave still looks confused, verso is starting to wonder if he’s stupid or something. but he knows that to not be true, based on what the others had told him. so — okay. not stupid. then why isn’t he getting it?
verso looks around, and finds a rusty pipe lying against the wall. he goes over to it, and picks it up. and then —
he offers it to gustave.
and gustave —
“what’s going on?” he finally asks. like he’d been wanting to ask this entire time, but hasn’t for reasons verso doesn’t understand. maybe he’s just that good, that trusting.
but no one’s that good. not really. who wouldn’t take the chance to beat verso with a rusty pipe? he’d take the chance to do it to himself, even. so he — swallows. he’s really going to have to ask. “i know this won’t make us even, but . . . it’s a start,” he says, slowly, because he knows it’s not even a start. he knows nothing could make them even.
gustave’s eyes narrow in thought. and then —
finally —
he gets it.