Non-casual Verstave Lover

He understood that now — that the distinction his mother had drawn so carefully had never existed at all. That every choice worth making had wanting at its root, and every want worth having demanded the courage to choose it.

Sooooo …. something wonderful happened and I need to share it with all of you 🥹

I commissioned art of the first kiss from my Verstave fic Of Pride and Promise — a Belle Époque arranged marriage AU for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, featuring Gustave and Verso falling in love over trains, tea, a storm, and one very inconvenient cotillion.

The art is by the phenomenal Nyoom (@thunderstyled) and it captures THE moment from Chapter 5 — the workshop kiss. The one where Verso, who has been valiantly holding himself together through sheer force of will for five chapters straight, finally snaps because Gustave is standing there in his rolled-up sleeves with grease on his face talking about valve mechanisms and has absolutely no idea what he is doing to this man ;D

I am still not over it. I may never be over it. Please go and shower Nyoom in the love they deserve because this art is a MASTERPIECE!!!

AND BECAUSE I HAVE NO CHILL: this commission inspired me to write a bonus chapter 📖✨

Chapter 11: Of Wanting and Worth is up on AO3 now — it is the workshop scene and first kiss rewritten entirely from Verso's POV. After ten chapters inside Gustave's head, you finally get to see what was happening behind the mask. You get the ball from Verso's side. The conversation with his parents. His sisters teasing him mercilessly. The burgundy coat he spent forty minutes choosing. And everything in between (spoiler alert: there is a lot if simping and yearning in this one. Who would have guessed :D)

If you have not read Of Pride and Promise yet: it is a completed 11-chapter slow burn historical romance about an arranged marriage between an engineer who thinks he is unremarkable and a Painter's son who has been losing his mind over said engineer since minute one. It has: yearning, letters, a storm, Chopin by firelight, class politics, sisters who see everything, and a very slow burn that catches fire in a workshop. Pride & Prejudice vibes, Belle Époque aesthetics, yearning idiots 💝

🔗 Read on AO3 here

Verso/Gustave · Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 · Explicit · 4 chapters (complete, will update every 2 days)

This one is for @shinpm 💖

Belle Époque Paris, 1913. Verso Dessendre is very good at being wanted. It is, in fact, the only thing the world has ever been willing to pay a ruined aristocrat for, and he has made his peace with that.

Then Gustave Virlogeux — celebrated conductor of the Opéra, one hand of flesh and one of steel, immovable as a closed door — catches him breaking into the rehearsal hall to play a piano in the dark. Instead of calling the gendarmes, he offers Verso a real chance and an honest wage, and commits the truly unforgivable sin of refusing to be charmed.

This is a story about a maestro who won't play along, a brat who won't behave, and a grand piano that did not consent to any of this. It is also, underneath all that, a story about being wanted for the whole of yourself — scars, ruin, and all — by someone who refuses to let you sell the one true thing you've got.

Or: a maestro who conducts in bed exactly as he does on the podium, a pianist whose every seduction technique fails spectacularly and repeatedly (until it doesn't), and one grand piano that did not survive the experience.

Slow burn · hurt/comfort · praise · possessiveness · hopeful ending

Read Chapter 1 on AO3 now! <3