#lucstave

“I’m not saying we should do anything different,” he says. “Just, y’know. Keep an eye on him. Gustave doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.”

“He’s a grown man.”

“Sure,” Lucien agrees. He pretends his heart isn’t racing. “But if we want the Expedition to succeed, we need him alive. Right? He’s the only one who knows how the lumina tech works, so…”

“Lune does too,” Catherine points out. Lucien tries hard, very hard, not to flinch. Catherine rolls her eyes in the end. “Fine. I’ll speak to the others. We’ll watch out for him.”

“Secretly. You know he’d kill me if he knew I asked…”

The footsteps from behind him interrupt before they have a chance to react. “Asked what?” Gustave asks.

And, damn it, Lucien’s stomach still flips at the sight of him - just as it has since their teenage years, since Gustave first set that gentle smile on him and asked for his name.

He’s going to die out there, Lucien thinks, the horror that has been haunting him since Gustave first signed up to their Expedition. We’re both going to die.

Catherine rolls her eyes at both of them. “Lucien was asking if we can sneak some extra wine into the supplies,” she covers for him.

“Alan would never stand for it,” Gustave muses.

“Exactly what I said.”

“But maybe if we disguised the bottles as something else…” Gustave’s got that spark in his eye, thoughtful and serious about the most unserious things. His hand comes to rest on Lucien’s shoulder, delightfully gentle, as he pulls him back in the direction of his workshop. “Come on. I have a plan.”

The last sight in front of his dying eyes had been Gustave's numb expression; the last thought to cross his mind had been of Gustave too: pull yourself together; we've got to get out of here; you've got to survive.

Adrenaline floods through him all at once.

There are no monsters here, but try and tell that to the twitch in his hand that desperately wants to conjure a weapon - it doesn't care that they're safe, not when he's convinced there's still soemthing to fight.

"It's okay," Maelle tells him. "Take a breath. Take your time. It'll all make sense soon."

He doesn't need anything to 'make sense'. Not really. What he needs is…

"Gustave?" he asks, his first word upon his resurrection. That feels right, somehow.

Maelle's tired expression falls into a smile, and with a graceful wave of her hand his attention is directed towards the far end of the harbour: at a respectful, enforced distance, Gustave, Lune, Sciel, Catherine, Alan, and all of his friends are waiting. Watching. Some of them are milling about, talking to each other, their faces containing the same shocked-confusion that lives in his own chest. Maybe they're figuring out what happened to them all; maybe they're sorting out what they're supposed to do next.

Lucien finds he doesn't really care about that: all he cares about is the soft, broken look in Gustave's eyes as they finally make eye contact.

It's been weeks, Lucien knows; maybe it's even been months since that moment on the beach, ripped apart when he was doing his best to get them both to safety.

Something on Gustave's face tells him that it's been a long, hard few weeks; something tells Lucien that Gustave's been through more horrors than he'll ever say aloud.

And somewhere between looking at Gustave, and Gustave looking at him, Lucien breaks into a run.

He crosses the harbour and finds Gustave's arms already open, waiting; Lucien slams into him in a clumsy collision, a thunk of chest-to-chest contact. Gustave stumbles back a step on impact, but then his arms are wrapping tight around Lucien, clinging on with enough force to hurt - and Lucien finds that he never wants it stop.

"You're back," Gustave says, a slur of emotion hidden against Lucien's neck as they hug, his words marred by laughter or shock. "You're back. Lucien."

And Lucien should speak to him, his oldest friend, his right-hand man. Lucien should break their hug and shake his dearest idiot until Gustave promises to never run into danger again, to never make Lucien go through those horrors, to always, always be safe. For him.

He should break their hug and tell his friend that he missed him even when their hearts weren't beating.

But he can't say that.

He can't say anything.

Because the second he peels away enough to look into Gustave's exhausted, delighted face, something like instinct - something like fate - takes over. His hands cup Gustave's cheeks, feeling the burn of Gustave's beard against his palm, and Lucien leans in before he can overthink it.

His first 'hello'. His first 'welcome back'. His first 'I missed you'.

It all boils down to one desperate, furious kiss. He's spent years before their Expedition thinking about it, years longing for it, years imagining the cold wall of rejection he would face if he ever took what he wanted - but rejection is nothing in the face of death. Lucien knows what the cold really feels like now. There's nothing more to fear.

And what he feels, instead, is the warmth as Gustave welcomes him in. He feels a quiet sigh of relief against his lips, and a gentle tug around his waist as Gustave only pulls him closer.

They stand on the harbour together, stealing a kiss that this cruel world tried to rob from them; to Lucien, Gustave tastes of missed opportunities and the promise of tomorrow.

Around them, their friends chuckle and keep a respectful distance; with so many reunions happening today, maybe this one doesn't even raise an eyebrow. Perhaps one long overdue kiss by a set of childhood sweethearts is tame compared to some of the resurrection-fresh reunions they've encountered.

Lucien doesn't know the full story. In truth, he doesn't think he cares - not when he finally has Gustave in his arms after all these long years.

I tend to imagine them enjoying existing in one another's space, maybe co-creating. The pair of them sitting down on one of the benches on the harbour, Gustave leaning against Verso as he's writing in his journal while Verso is scribbling half-planned notes for a composition (or knitting, since I've recently tormented you with my head-canon that Verso learns to knit in Lumiere.) No pressure, no need to talk, no threats, no world-ending-chaos. Just the pair of them and some peaceful silence.

19.1 An ideal free day for them would look like? What are they doing on that day? (there are technically two question 19s, but someone else asked about 19.2 so I'm doing 19.1 here)

Coffee and pastries together on their balcony for breakfast; visiting friends during the morning; duelling with Monoco in the afternoon; back to Lumiere for a romantic dinner date in the evening, both of them trying to spoil the other. Finishing the day with embarrassingly sappy sex.

20. Who likes public displays of affection more?

I think they come far more naturally to Gustave and that he'll do them absent-mindedly, but once something clicks for Verso he's obsessed. He wants to be holding hands whenever he can, he wants to kiss Gustave's cheek even if he's just leaving the room for a second, he wants to basically have some form of contact between them at all times.

22. A headcanon you have for this ship?

I think that Verso read every page of Gustave's journal after he died and before he brought it back to Maelle. I think he read it and another part of him just died over what he'd done, or what he hadn't done (and then when Gustave gets brought back through whatever handwavey method you'd like, Verso's already fallen for him quite a bit through his words alone.)

23. Describe this ship in the most out of context way that you can.

Murder victim falls for murder enabler.

25. Who steals their partner's clothes in the relationship?

BOTH. I may have written a whole-ass fic about it because I am weak for this trope. I choose to believe that they share a wardrobe. And also that Verso absolutely tries to get Gustave to borrow his clothes because he just likes the look of him in them.

Restave

2. Favorite thing about this ship?

There's a moment in Stone Wave Cliffs where Gustave says: "Why are you doing this? We’ve done nothing to you. We should be on the same side," and for me that's the whole crux of the fascination of this pairing. I am fascinated by both characters separately - they're both principled, they're both dangerous, they're both stubborn - and while Painted Renoir is one of the game's antagonists I don't think he's in any way a villain.

There's such an allure for me in the idea of scenarios in which the pair of them have to interact in a way that doesn't leave one of them dead, because I genuinely think that there's scope for them to hugely respect one another.

4. How do you see this ship? Examples: "totally married", "besties who date sometimes for fun", "toxic exes that definitely shouldn't be 10 feet near each other".

My favourite setting to think about for them is some kind of post-game scenario where they've both been resurrected - in which case we're looking at some kind of "guilty situationship that might develop feelings in the long run".

8. If this ship were animals (if they're not already), what animals would they be?

Gustave is very dog-coded to me: he's the scrappy dog with a missing leg that will come for you if you mess with any of the other dogs it's adopted into its family. Renoir, on the other hand, in my head is linked with lions because of his majestic summons.

So I guess for Renoir I have an enormous chromatic lion cuddling up with a scrappy stray dog.

18. If this ship was a dessert, what kind of dessert would they be?

Lemon meringue pie: sharp/bitter at the core, covered with something light and fluffy, then gently and painfully toasted on top.

22. A headcanon you have for this ship?

If Renoir had actually talked to Gustave at Stone Wave Cliffs, he could have talked Gustave into joining them if he'd managed to persuade him that it was for Maelle's safety.

25. Who steals their partner's clothes in the relationship?

Oh no. Renoir just buys Gustave's clothes for him. No need for anyone to steal anything, and Renoir's going to make sure Gustave's very well-dressed.

Lucien/Gustave

11. Who's the big spoon? Who's the little spoon? Do they switch it up?

My anti-spooning agenda arrives when I say neither. I think they would probably switch it up. I bet they also fall asleep holding hands, like sappy nerds.

17. What are the colors of this ship and do you like them together?

In my head I have grey, gold and purple, the Expedition colours for an Expedition couple. Obviously stylish.

21. What would be some pet names they would give each other?

Lucien canonically refers to Gustave (and Catherine) as "les amis!" Casually friend-zoning himself.

He also calls Gustave "you weirdo", which actually fits in with my friends-to-lovers headcanon for them - I feel like they've known each other for so long and have fully grown up together, to the point that affection for them actually comes in the form of teasing and playing around.

22. A headcanon you have for this ship?

I think they've both had a crush on each other for years - and this is my head canon for Gustave even when I have him in other ships, actually. Growing up yearning, pining and wistfully sighing over each other, while always assuming it was unrequited so nothing ever actually happened between them until it was too late ("until it was too late" may mean that the night before the Expedition took off they finally made their first confessions to each other after all those years.)

25. Who steals their partner's clothes in the relationship?