Chapter Text
The morning after Verso's neighbour tried to kick his sorry arse into gear, Verso got up and showered. Feeling slightly more human, he reheated the leftover soup for an early lunch. Following a slightly ambitious urge, he stared at his phone for a little while, realised he didn't quite have the courage to disappoint Monoco just yet, and headed out for the day.
He hadn't been to the church in a few weeks, but the changing of the seasons had transformed the little corner of Lumiere where maman was laid to rest. The birds were louder now, the trees greener.
It was nice. It felt like a sick kind of joke when Verso was mostly here to feel sorry for himself.
The flowers on the grave were fresher than when Verso was here last. The new bouquets filling the vases were a riot of colour in a way he was sure neither Alicia nor Clea would pick out. Whether they mourned his mother or came from a place of fresh grief for his father, Verso didn't know. He wasn't sure if he cared why other people came here.
This time, he sat on the ground before the grave. The dirt was a little scuffed up here, frequented by more footsteps than many of the lichen-bedecked gravestones scattered around. It would make him dusty; it would have made her fuss over him, back then.
Thinking of her still hurt. It was a different kind of pain, though, no longer quite so suffocating as the last time he was here. Verso looked at her name and tipped his head back to look at the clear, bright blue of the sky, and his vision didn't fuzz. The world didn't tip over.
He breathed in, then out, one hand on the sun-warmed black stone, and he was… okay. He was as okay as he reasonably could be.
Funny. He'd come here to emotionally kick himself now he was down, but grief didn't want that from him today.
He sat for a while, enjoying the quiet in his head. The ever-looping self-recrimination was gone, for now. He was sure it would be back — it always was, eventually — but for now he could think in peace.
When he was younger, he used to focus on things without pause, completely beyond anyone else's reach. When he composed, he could sit all day with his headphones in and he'd miss anyone calling for him, miss even a knock on his door until someone cracked it open and moved in his eyeline.
That wasn't a good excuse for losing track of what was going on in his surroundings right then and missing the crunch of dirt as Alicia approached.
He realised when she waved at him, and his cheeks heated like he'd been caught somewhere he shouldn't be. She would have walked all the way across the graveyard with him in eyeshot and he hadn't even realised.
Fuck. He wouldn't have come if he'd realised she might be here. He hadn't wanted to intrude.
He waved back, and she approached. If she didn't think he had a right to be here at the same time as her, she would have just left, he was sure. He hadn't intended to see her again so soon, but—
But it was fine. It wasn't her he'd blown up on. No matter what he'd made her suffer through on her own, both of them were here for maman. Verso wrestled down the instinct to bolt and smiled instead, even when he knew it looked a little strained.
"Salut." She nodded to him, regarded him only briefly, and redirected her attention to the grave. She reached into the satchel slung over her left shoulder, drawing out two brightly painted stones. One was intricately detailed, Clea's style unmistakeable in the barely-visible brushstrokes. The other was paler, simpler, careful: maman would have called it earnest in the same way she often described Alicia's efforts at painting when she was trying to be kind.
Verso didn't know her well enough anymore to say anything about what that meant for Alicia's relationship with maman or art. He wanted to think it was positive, but he was sure Alicia wouldn't appreciate the observation.
She stood for a minute after she set the stones down with all the other items decorating the grave. Verso had tried not to look at them too closely before, but he could see it now: Clea's practiced hand, Alicia's less technical one, and stones painted in lurid swirls of colour that could only be papa's contribution.
He said he hadn't visited the grave as much as he would have liked to. If Verso could make a guess, maybe Clea hadn't either. His parents always used to say that art was a piece of the soul, a little window into skill and emotion and time and dedication. Following that, this was a message to Aline: here's my time, energy, and love. I'll leave it with you for as long as the world allows.
Or he was reading too much into it. Clea always liked to tell him he overthought things.
Alicia inclined her head to him when she was done, moving to the nearest of the pine trees to lean against it and free up her right hand.
'I didn't expect you,' she signed, tapping her left thumb against her collarbone.
"I wanted to visit," he said; Alicia nodded. "I've only been once."
'Before you talked to Clea,' Alicia supplied. Verso blinked — he hadn't known she knew the way events had played out in that much detail. Maybe it was a recent development, the knowledge coming after he chewed Clea out about leaving her in the dark.
(Wishful thinking, again. His words wouldn't change her in the same way her words hadn't changed him. They were stubborn people, and all Alicia's knowledge meant was that Verso had probably judged Clea unfairly.)
"Are you…" Verso scuffed his foot against the grass. "How are you doing?"
Alicia shrugged, gesturing away from her chin with her pinky finger extended: 'Bad.'
Verso let out a slightly breathless chuckle. "Yeah. Me too."
Alicia's gaze sharpened then, and it healed a tiny little piece of Verso's heart that he still recognised it: she had an idea. 'I don't want to go back now,' she signed. 'Can I visit you?'
Verso fought with his immediate impulse to tell her yes, of course, she could visit and stay as long as she wanted. But no— he didn't have a spare room. He was running out of frozen food. His home was a state. He wanted to say yes, he just…
Boundaries. That was what this needed, if this shaky peace he'd found was going to last.
"You can come for the afternoon," he offered.
Alicia nodded, offering him a small smile. 'Bus?' she signed, the fingers of her right hand curled into a hook as she reached for her cane with her left.
"Of course. It's a couple different ones, is that okay?" She rolled her eyes, and Verso could practically hear the thoughts running through her head: yes, of course, I came all the way here, don't treat me like papa would have. Things she wouldn't dare say to anyone just yet.
They took the trip to Verso's home in silence. He could have filled it, wanted to make excuses for the mess she'd find when they arrived, but he found he couldn't. She'd seen far worse consequences of his action and inaction, and she'd never liked it when he fretted over things she thought were unimportant.
She used to say it: I'm meant to be the one who worries too much, a joke that only she found even remotely funny. And Verso couldn't think a damn thing without getting caught in the past and tangled in everything rattling around in his head, so he stayed quiet, stewing and hoping blindly that she wouldn't think poorly of him for it.
They were past the point where anything could be worse than what he'd already hurt her with. And the thought of that stung, but Verso tried to wield it as his own weapon instead: it was fine. If Alicia was willing to come to his home after all of that, if it could be safe when she didn't want to be at home, then they could weather anything. Least of all whether or not Verso had vacuumed recently.
The sun was beginning to dip towards the skyline as they walked up to Verso's building. Alicia wasn't trying to hide the way she looked around, surveying the tightly-packed apartments with a slightly judgemental eye. Verso's mouth formed a joke about the blinders of a wealthy upbringing, realised it would dip too close to something spoken at the expense of their parents, and swallowed it down again.
"It's nice enough inside," he offered, digging his keychain out of his pocket to unlock the door. Alicia huffed a carefully neutral little noise, which told him exactly how much she bought his words (not at all, of course).
The lift had decided to work today, which was encouraging. Once they were inside, it went down before it went up in a slight lurching motion that had Alicia reaching for a hand rail, touching it, and realising she was probably better off without.
Maelle hopped in from the basement level, a long, thin case slung over one shoulder. "Bonjour, Verso." She nodded to him, then Alicia. Her eyes lingered on Alicia's face for just a little too long in a way that still made Verso's hackles raise, even if he hadn't seen the way she surely attracted that same reaction every time she went outside for the last seven years. "Hi."
Alicia tipped her a little wave and a nod in return. If she was bothered by the staring, she didn't show it.
"This is my sister Alicia," Verso said. Maelle looked between them, her mouth parted in a little 'o' of realisation. Ah— she knew, then. Maybe Emma told her about bits of it (the fire? Just the recent deaths?) so she wouldn't accidentally put her foot in her mouth.
"I'm, um." She looked up at the number on the lift, ticking upwards but stubbornly not at the correct floor yet. "I'm Maelle. Good to meet you." The lift dinged, stopping at their floor, and Maelle stepped out first. "Have a… good evening?"
"You too. And thank Gustave for the soup." Alicia waved again, and Maelle darted down the hall to her own home.
'Neighbour?' Alicia asked, when Verso stepped out of the lift.
"Mmmhmm," he hummed, not wanting to say anything when one of the Leclairs could probably hear him if they were trying to. "Other end of the hall. I'm off to the right here."
Verso fumbled a little with his key in the lock, but there was no turning back now. Whatever state it was in was what Alicia would see. "And here we are. Home sweet home."
Alicia's eye swept the full length of the hall immediately, and Verso knew what she was thinking: was this it? She'd lived in that manor her whole life, and he doubted she'd been able to persuade their parents to let her move out for anything like studying.
Especially after Verso vanished. He hadn't asked anyone how that had changed things; he was fairly sure he already knew.
For a moment, the two of them just stood there. It was too early to offer Alicia any dinner, but too late for lunch. Asking her if she wanted a tour would involve showing her all five of the rooms in the flat, all of which existed on a scale varying from untidy to dirty enough to offend any guest.
"There's nice light in the piano room at this time of day," he suggested, and she nodded so quickly he could have sworn he heard her neck click.
He realised his mistake the moment the two of them entered the room: he hadn't played since before Renoir died. He hadn't tidied and certainly hadn't dusted. Alicia had a sensitive throat; she'd know already, or at least be able to guess, and…
And her fingers trailed along the keys of his beautiful, beautiful instrument that he had not been treating as it deserved, and she definitely found a fine layer of dust there, and that probably told her more than Verso had been willing to give up about how he'd been doing since papa died.
She didn't say anything, though. She went to the table by the window and grabbed one of the chairs, sitting down heavily. Her cane propped up against one of the table legs, she leaned down to massage one of her knees.
Alicia looked like papa when she did that in a way that twisted painfully in Verso's heart. Did she know she was his favourite? They'd always been so close; if Verso couldn't stop thinking about him, Alicia must have been in agony for weeks.
"I'm sorry about before," he said, crossing the room to sit across from her. He was sorry, though not for everything he'd said.
'I knew you'd argue,' Alicia answered. There was a tight line to her shoulders, but she was right. Even if it wasn't that day, they would have argued eventually. Maybe not over inheritance, or the way Verso approached returning to their family— it could have been anything at all.
Verso used to get on with everyone. Clea always used to tell him it wasn't a good thing, and he used to tell her she just thought that because she was bitter that people thought she was a bitch. They'd laugh together because both of them were right, and then they'd move on.
They'd ignore it as yet another of their petty arguments, and Verso would never address his inability to form a backbone, and Clea would never concede that maybe she'd find life a little easier if she didn't hold everyone to the same standards she held herself. Maybe it was inevitable that they couldn't get along anymore.
"She hates me," Verso said.
Alicia snorted. 'She hates everyone.'
"That's not true." He looked at her. She was frowning. "She loves you."
Alicia's hands half formed her next words, then she shook her head. 'She hates me.'
"No, I know how she treats people she hates." He knew how she treated people she loved, too. He hadn't seen too much of that since they reunited, but when he did, it was in the concern she treated Alicia with. "It's not the same with you."
Alicia made a humming noise in her throat. It sounded less… scraped than it did, back when Verso used to know her properly. 'I know she hates me. You know she loves me. She can do both for you too.'
Verso sighed. Yeah. Yeah, she could. "You're probably right. Maybe…"
She huffed. 'I'm always right.'
Sometimes, she was still the picture of the little Alicia who pouted and demanded that her big sisters stop doing boring schoolwork and play with her instead. She wouldn't appreciate the comparison, though, so Verso let it lie. "You're right about some things."
Alicia, eyebrows raised, gestured for him to continue. Typical.
"I was always going to argue with Clea," he said. Hearing her name pass his lips still felt strange after spending so long hoping to avoid anyone even suspecting he had siblings.
(Once, when Verso was getting a teaching certificate, one of his classmates told him that he had 'middle child energy'. It was a cold read from someone who'd never spoken to him before that icebreaker and Verso had a panic attack at the back of the classroom. In hindsight, it was embarrassing, but at the time it had screamed that someone knew his secret.)
Alicia didn't know about all that; she just gestured to him again.
"And you were right to be angry with me?" he offered. She nodded, satisfied. "I know I said it before, but I am sorry. For what it's worth." He wasn't sure it was worth anything.
'Make it up to me,' she signed.
Verso laughed and very pointedly clamped down on the thought that he should tell her that Clea had rubbed off on her after all those years— she was far more direct than she used to be. "How do you want me to do that?"
Alicia's gaze slid immediately to the piano. Verso pushed the flash of nervousness away. 'Play the piano for me?' she asked, her fingers dancing in the motion of the sign.
He used to have specific songs he played for her, once upon a time. Some of them lived in his mind and others were written down, but he… he'd wiped his files before he left, and the rest had gone to rust in the recesses of his memory. He didn't know if those were what she wanted, but beyond the simplest lullabies, he couldn't give them to her anymore.
Still, maybe she'd recognise his style. He nodded and stood from his chair, making his way back over to the piano. He used a sleeve to dust off the keys, closed his eyes, and began to play.
It was an old piece, so old it was engraved into his fingers more than his mind. When he was eleven, he composed a piece for Aline and Renoir's fifteenth wedding anniversary. He worked endlessly hard on it, practiced it day in and day out with his bedroom door closed and the dampner pedal on so no one would hear it. He'd been so nervous before performing it at the party that he cried before he walked up to the piano, then played it flawlessly.
His parents applauded, eyes shining with pride. Verso was brimming with enthusiasm and missed what, in hindsight, inevitably came next: they asked him what it was. He'd tripped over himself to tell them he wrote it himself, all for them, and he nearly missed the shift in maman's expression.
She turned slightly to papa, shooting him a smile that meant something Verso hadn't been able to interpret at the time but would learn meant something specific— see? You've indulged her too much. "It was lovely, sweetheart. It explains why you hadn't finished that sketchbook, hmm?"
She'd laughed, because it was a joke, she meant it as a joke, the same way she meant the compliment — he knew that now. Verso had laughed with her and nodded and locked himself in the bathroom to cry for the rest of the evening.
Alicia was probably too young at the time to remember the piece now, but she moved in time with the music as Verso played, a little smile flickering onto her face. As the music drew to a close, she applauded, and Verso realised he'd been so focused on his parents at the original performance that he had no memory of how Alicia reacted to it, back then.
'That's yours,' she signed, and Verso nodded. 'I like it. It…' She paused. She probably didn't have much experience describing music through sign. 'It flows like a river. It's very pretty.'
Verso smiled, and a little fire of pride started in his chest. It wasn't the rekindled flames of the excitement he'd felt as a child, but it burned on top of those ashes. New memories with his family, patching over old wounds. Only weeks ago, he wouldn't have believed himself capable of it.
"It's an old one," he said. He'd compose it differently, if he set his hand to it now, but it had been a long, long time since he finished a piece that was all his own. And performing; how long had it been since he really performed for someone? Without knowing the exact number, he knew it was too long. "It's a little clumsy, but I'm glad you liked it."
Alicia's brows furrowed. 'You still can't accept a compliment,' she signed, her knuckles brushing against each other.
Verso laughed; he didn't even know why. He just felt it bubble up inside and couldn't keep it hidden. After a beat, Alicia laughed with him, and it was the most alive his home had felt from the day he moved in.