Work Text:
Every fear that had ever crossed his path before that day would, in the years to come, seem small.
Verso thought he knew what it was to be afraid. He remembered quite clearly, one time, standing before his mother's easel as a boy with paint on the front of his shirt, where it definitely should not have been. Behind him was another giant splash of it, on the bottom corner of Aline's latest work, slowly drying.
His pulse had thundered so hard in his ears, the horror of one careless movement that undid hours of her labour catching up to him. That had felt, in its moment, like the end of the world.
It was not.
He learns the difference on a day when the sky was a flawless blue, and the sun sat mild and unthreatening above the roofs of Lumière.
You were only a few steps away, admiring a street painter's work with that particular tilt of your head he had grown so fond of; brows drawn in, corners of your mouth lifted ever so slightly, the way they always did when you got curious.
He turned around for no more than a mere handful of seconds, the coins in his palm had long grown warm. Sneakily, he was considering whether he'd manage to get away with stealing a bite of the sandwich he was buying you. Maybe she'll let me off the hook if I promise to play the piano for her later, he thought, a little smirk playing on his lips.
He did not really notice when the gentle warm breeze started to gradually dial down, and then dropped entirely, like someone just cupped a hand over the whole place. He was too busy, humming in thought while he decided between the creamy butter and turkey ham, or the herby tomato with goat cheese. Mmm, his mouth watered slightly at the smells. Everything was normal for a moment, idle sounds of life continued to fill the air from every direction around him; people chatted, and joked, and laughed.
The corner of the red cloth, hanging above the food stall, began to stir, catching Verso's eye. What started as a few sways as the wind returned with a colder touch, slowly picked up, and then the cloth was pushed, swinging to the side, wavering up and down against gravity. His hair was pushed back and away from his face too, the dark strands brushing the shells of his ears.
Above the rooftops, the sunlight dimmed.
"Hm?" Verso looked up, a frown pulling at his features. The weather was clear a moment ago, so what was this? But he couldn't find a cloud that blocked out the sun and cast it's shadow over them. It was like the sky had thickened with something else, something dark.
He hadn't had the chance to properly process the change, when suddenly, a low, distant groan, too long to be thunder, rose from all around, from the very air itself. His heart, which had been beating at a steady, ordinary pace, gave a hard thud.
Something was wrong, it dawned onto him.
He twisted around, eyes darting frantically for you. He could've sworn you were right behind him, you were right there.
The crowd was thicker now, people had slowed down to look up, hands lifting to shield above their eyes.
Putain, where--
His lips parted with your name, but he'd barely managed to call out, when the ground rumbled beneath him, shaking. His arms rose at once, one foot stepping to the side and legs bending at the knees to steady himself. He'd only just regained his balance, then in the very next moment, a man, wild-eyed and panicked, came pelting through, shoulder slamming into his chest with the force of a thrown flour sack.
Verso grunted and hissed through gritted teeth as the edge of the table dug into his back. His hands flew out, fingers clamping around stall's edge before he could go down completely. The coins, long forgotten, clattered somewhere at his feet.
A brief moment passed, when suddenly he didn't feel the ache of the impact anymore, taken away by the faces of his family flashing behind his eyes. His fear for them flared harder than any pain.
Maman. Papa. Clea. Alicia. They were back at the Manor right now. His chest pressed in with concern for their safety. He imagined his mother's open worry, his older sister's internal panic, his younger sister's quiet fear. His father would protect them, Verso was sure of that. His father would never let anything happen to them. You resurfaced into his thoughts and he was brought back, the unpleasant thumping of his own pulse roared in his ears, as loud as it had been in childhood before his mother's easel--
He tightened his grip and hauled himself upright, vision briefly blurred.
Where are you?Where are you?Where are you?
The painter's stand was half-obscured by the shifting knot of bodies and you were still nowhere in sight. He took two hurried steps in that direction, then you came into view a second later, squeezing sideways through the press of coats and elbows, just three stalls away.
Someone shoved past you and you flinched away, one hand catching a crate nearby to brace yourself. Your eyes were wide, darting over the chaos with a stunned, uncomprehending look that twisted something under Verso's ribs.
It took you a few seconds, but you finally found him.
Relief hit with such force it was almost painful. He could've fallen to his knees with it. The world was breaking around him, and yet there you were, and as long as you were there, he believed that nothing truly irreparable could happen.
He ran, and you moved too, at the same time he did. In that one, suspended instant, everything seemed to have pivoted around the space between you. It was just you and him, reaching out for each other through the parted sea of bodies. And then you collided.
His arms came around you firmly, and you clung on just as hard, so tightly, he thought for a second that you might've fused right then and there, became one shape in the middle of this whole mess.
"Verso--" Your voice broke. You drew back just enough to see his face, hands fisted in his collar. "What's happening?"
He did not know. And how could he? When his own heart was beating too hard, and his thoughts came in insufficient, useless bits and pieces. He knew only this; that terror had its claws in you, and that he would sooner let the world fall on his own head than see it sink any deeper into yours.
So, he smiled. So lightly, and so, so softly.
The kind of smile he used on quiet evenings when you worried over small things and he wished to make them smaller still. It didn't quite reach his eyes, but dear God, he prayed you wouldn't notice.
He let his hand rise, knuckles brushing your cheek. A stray strand of hair had slipped forward, he tucked it back with care, fingertips lingering against your skin. For that small second it was as if nothing had changed. This was just an ordinary afternoon, and he was only touching you because he wished to.
"It's probably just..." His eyes flicked up, then came back to you. The words died halfway. "It will pass, mon coeur."
The sky, however, didn't seem to like his answer. In response, sudden light above you fractured, followed by a loud crack! A hot white pain flashed in your ears, leaving behind an ache and an awful, high-pitched ringing.
Your body jerked in a flinch, fingers seizing in the fabric at Verso's shoulders and digging in hard. A distant part of you worried that he would bruise there later--if later still existed.
Between one breath and another, there was nothing but muffled sounds, like you were drifting underwater.
Then it all crashed back in at once.
The street erupted. Men shouted for their wives. Women screamed out names you don't linger on. Children shrieked for parents, for siblings, for the pets they refused to leave behind. Their throats were never made for this kind of panic.
The noises piled on themselves, layer upon layer, until they stopped sounding like individual people and became one continuous shriek.
A thin, dark break cracked in the stone. Your eyes followed it as it zigzagged rapidly along the path, to fast and too narrow to be perceived under the feet of people who didn't have time to look down.
A blurry movement of hair and a bright orange skirt ran past, the woman's hands outstretched, reaching for a small boy, no more than six or seven. The boy turned towards her at the sound of his name, thick tears streaked down his flushed cheeks. Her fingers almost brushed his sleeve... almost--
--the ground dropped out from under her, widening from the once small crack.
The boy yelled and fell backward as his mother? sister? aunt?--it could've been anyone--leaped forward with a short, raw sound, catching the crumbling edge with both hands. It was only for a few fleeting seconds that she hung there, legs dangling above the dark, but it felt like an eternity. Her scream tore through you like lightning. Her fingernails scraped through dust and grit as she struggled to cling onto something, anything, until she couldn't hold on any more.
And then she was gone. Swallowed by whatever waited below.
Your arms shot out on instinct, tearing free of Verso's hold as if, from several paces away, you could possibly catch her. As if you could reach down into that hole and pull her back into the light by sheer force of will.
Her scream faded into the general roar, but it did not leave. It went on inside your skull, looping, catching, refusing to finish properly.
"Stay with me."
Verso's voice was the only thing that pushed through it all, thinner than you've ever heard it, a small tremor running under the words, and your gaze dragged back to him.
His chest ached with this strange, helpless fury in him, at the sheer size of what was happening. At his own smallness. If he could stand between you and the sky, he would. If he could argue the earth into stillness, he would talk until his throat bled.
But he couldn"t do any of that. He could only hold you.
So he gathered you again, arms wrapping around you with such desperation. One hand cradled the back of your head, pressing your face into the warm hollow under his jaw. The other spanned the small of your back up to your shoulder blades, pulling you close enough that your spine curved into him.
He tried, stupidly, to make of his body a shell.
His nose buried into your hair, finding the warm, familiar scent of vanilla soap from this morning. He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to the crown of your head. It was a small, reverent thing, an apology.
"Hey, it's okay, my love.." He whispered the first words of comfort that sat on his tongue. "It's okay. You're okay."
You could feel his heartbeat hammering where his chest pressed against yours, proof that he did not believe his own words, but you clung to them anyway, because you had nothing else.
Above you, another ripple tore straight across the sky. Verso flinched under your cheek, the jolt running through his muscles and into yours. His hold tightened until it almost hurt, and he let his eyes slide shut. Black filled his vision.
If the world must fall away, let it fall in darkness.
So long as in that darkness, my last sensation was the feel of you in my arms.