dessendre apologist

Verso sags, exhausted, against Simon's side; to any other, it would be a burdensome weight, but leaning against Simon always felt like leaning into a pillar of stone. Unbending, unyielding, as steady as they come —— and yet not like a pillar at all, for he loosened an arm and curled it around him, a calloused palm with long and strong fingers winding into the hair at the back of Verso's neck and anchoring him there.

Leather. And sweat. And dirt, and blood, and salt and copper and iron and chroma and it was all around them, and they were all filthy and exhausted but there's nothing Verso wanted more than to press his face into Simon's neck and breathe him in.

"You okay?"

The words were simple, soft, deep: a reverberation that Verso could almost feel more than he could hear. He swallowed. "No." His voice was raw, a husk. His uniform felt little more than a costume, a farce, stiff and ill-fitting; he was a pianist, he was never meant to do this. "Not in the least."

It was a rare flicker of exhausted honesty: for the entire Expedition, he'd put on a brave face, a bold face, a cock-sure face. Confident and sure. Hiding his terror because they all felt it, what good would it do? His father ——

"Me neither." Simon's admission came soft and as almost a whisper, low and barely there, but even in that he sounded so desperately solid. Calm. Verso wanted to badly to hang on to every part of his unwavering solidity because it was the only thing that hadn't fallen out from under him. Simon, as though sensing it through him, wound his fingers tighter and leaned in to press a ghost of a kiss against his temple. "But we will be. I swear it."

Verso swore softly, turning his face roughly into the coarse leather of Simon's coat: it was rough and cold, but he didn't care. It smelled like him and he wanted to keep it. "You don't know that. Simon, I——"

And the tall man drew in a deep, long breath, exhaling it in a slow, slow sigh. "I do know it."

"How?"

"Because, Verso," and if Verso had been looking up, maybe he would have seen that exhausted smile, so pained and knowing. Instead, though, Simon just sighed into his hair. "I have to believe it."

Verso, soothed by presence and comfort, just smiled hazily, distantly. "Ever the optimist."

"Ever the optimist," Simon echoed, carding his fingers through Verso's hair; he smiled crookedly at the soft noise he made, and was rewarded eventually with the gentle loll of Verso's weight against his. Carefully, he shifted until he was more comfortable, and his gaze traveled 'cross the horizon to the jutting Monolith where an unsettling 100 had blazed across overnight. "You'll be fine," he reassured softly once he was sure Verso slept — and that utterance came adamant, fierce. "I'll make sure of it."

you, forever

The dirt was rock-hard, cold, and fuck, it made Verso’s fingers ache as he dug. He alternated between a knife that did little, a rock that did more, and numb bleeding fingers that did even less. He should wait until spring, when the ground softened and ice turned to mud and the ground yielded easier.

But easier wasn’t what he wanted; this felt more like penance or judgment or whatever word he could fucking give that did so little to describe the guilt clawed into his heart like a desperate animal fighting to avoid being shoved away into that void of feeling where he put everything else.

“I’m still fucking angry,” he hissed, the words gritted between his teeth like venom. “You left. You left me. You left us. Without a word, without a ——“ His finger caught on a buried stone, and he gasped, swearing as he jerked it back, shaking it even as blood oozed from the gouge.

Cold stung his cheeks, and dimly he was aware tears were slipping down his cheeks, freezing on skin. “You asshole. You died and left me here ——“ Words stuck in his throat, and the wind whipped through the valley, buffeting the furred collar ‘round his neck. His chest felt like it was caving inward, inward, coiling and crashing and how much more could he take?

The hole was big enough now; it didn’t have to be deep, because he had nothing to put in it. Nothing aside from a matchbox with a curved ’S’, beautiful, something he had gifted years and years ago, and a golden ribbon with a neat and sharp zero embroidered on black — that he wrapped around the matchbox, tight and neat, with the bitter knowing that the ribbon didn’t even fucking belong to the one he was burying because that disappeared too.

It was his own armband, because that's all he had.

“Fuck you for making me do this,” he hissed again, the anger clotting in his throat and feeling like it was choking him, even as he pushed it all into the shallow grave, fingers buckling. “I loved you and you left.”

Silence. The wind whistled through the trees, and a few errant flakes of snow drifted from the trees onto his shoulders, and in that moment all his anger curdled into nothing: nothing but grief and heartbreak and an agonizing pain he didn’t know how to deal with, and so his fingers just curled into frozen earth and he wept like a broken child.

“—— he’ll be fine.” The voice at Simon’s shoulder was calm, even: even now the chroma whispered between them, warm and dancing and almost playful. Simon felt —— strange, now, changed. It was small, distant, and his thoughts were muddy and hard to parse; it had been happenstance that he had seen this — or perhaps Clea had wanted him to? — but her fingers on the back of his neck were warm and reassuring even as some old memories surged and guilt clutched at his throat like a vise.

“Maybe I should——“

“No, you shouldn’t,” and her words were sharp but not unkind. “Come, now, Simon. We have much to do.”