[ This isn't Verso, but Aline had gotten some aspects of him correct. Like his tendency to deny and dance around any truth that he found unpleasant, as though he could force the truth to bend through sheer force of will. It was interesting that her brother had never taken to painting given how much he'd liked to rewrite history.
Clea's response is wordless. She doesn't need to speak. She waves a hand, Chroma pulsing, and gives him the rest of the memory. Unlike Aline, she doesn't stitch it onto his mind, doesn't pretend it's his own. He sees Clea's perspective:
Clea is 12 years old and she's a failure. She and the other girls had started their en pointe last year, and she'd been so proud, but it's hard to keep up. The other girls at the Opèra (because where else could she go - would a Dessendre go - except for the best?) are there every day, practicing for hours. Not splitting their time between dancing and painting, not trying to grasp more time using a Canvas and miscalculating how much practice they need with their real body. Not disappointing everyone.
She'd ruined the recital and made the school look bad. She knows it: That she's only there as an indulgence, that she can't actually dance, that she made a fool of herself and of Maman, who had looked at her with lips pursed in disappointment. She knows because she heard the commentary of the patrons backstage after the show: "Not the best dancer, but lovely to look at." And she knows hearing it makes her feel wrong, mortified.
Clea is a failure and she needs to fix it. So she does. She will fix it - she dances for hours, stopping only when she needs to sleep, locking herself in her room unless one of her parents extracts her for a meal.
"Clea?"
She's changing her shoes - once her feet started bleeding, the pointe shoes end up filling up with blood and she needs to change them. It throws off the balance. Clea is about to throw another pair onto the growing pile, but her brother's voice stops her.
He's looking at her in horror. At the shoes. He has that look on his face: the one that suggests he's about to cry.
"What is it, Verso? I'm busy."
"Clea, you have to stop." He goes so far as to put a hand on her arm, physically stopping her from tying up her next pair of shoes. From continuing.
She sighs. He doesn't understand. "Verso, I have to do this. I have to bleed if I'm going to be the best. Accomplishment requires suffering - I can't stop every time I'm uncomfortable." Clea parrots words their mother has spoken back at him.
"Will I have to?" That's the question that makes Clea freeze: those large grey eyes looking at her, wondering if he's going to be expected to do this to himself. 'No' her mind tells her instinctively. Not Verso. Just her. But how can she explain?
"No, Verso."
"Why do you?" Because she's not good enough. Clea moves his hand and doesn't answer, resumes tying her shoes. This time, though, he doesn't leave. Or cry. He grabs the shoe out of her hand and throws it at the door with a ferocity that makes Clea blink.
"NO." He says with such conviction Clea feels a wellspring of pride inside of her. "You stay, I'm going to get bandages." It's odd, to be given orders by such a suddenly serious little boy, with no sign of his usual laughter. When he leaves, he sprints, hurrying as though this was something important.
The memory fades, but it remains etched into Verso's mind. Just as silently, Clea reaches out and untangles his Chroma - the strands that are crossing over each other and starting to snarl - easing the pain in his head. ]
Edited (haha what are words) 2025-09-25 22:46 (UTC)
[ Verso spends a significant amount of time imagining how he might look in someone else's eyes, but this is the first time he's ever had the opportunity to really see it. Except—
It's not him. It's someone who looks like he used to look, acts like he used to act, but he knows deep down that their essence isn't the same. How could it be, when Verso has no recollection of this ever happening? It's not something he would ever forget, the sight of dark red blood pooling in one of his most beloved people's shoes, yet he must have. The memory is too vivid to be fake, in more clarity than most of his. He can hardly remember ever being that small, but Clea has his exact image in her mind's eye, down to the wavy strands of hair sprouting from his head that he hadn't quite figured out what to do with yet.
I have to bleed if I'm going to be the best. He wants to grab her and shake her, even now. She's Clea in appearance only, but suddenly that doesn't matter, fraternal feeling flooding him at the borrowed memory. She was right: he is tender-hearted.
There are a million questions on his tongue, but there's only one that seems most important: ]
[ The question shatters Clea's guarded heart into a thousand pieces. Hostility drains from her bearing, leaving only a look of pure and utter lostness on Clea's face, eyes haunted and hollow. Nobody had asked her about herself since... since the fire. Aline left. Renoir splits all his time between Alicia's bedside and staring at Aline in the Canvas. Sometimes he tells Clea to do something, or asks her to watch over Alicia.
Tears that she quickly wipes away well up in her eyes. The only person who had truly known and cared for her is dead, and he's never coming back.
Another memory enters Verso's mind, a fragment from Clea not closing the connection properly: Clea sitting and Verso wrapping what is truly an absurd amount of bandages around each injured foot with a nine year old's sensibility that more is always better. His small face is scrunched up with the utmost concentration, as though winding the bandages around her foot were as important as creating a great work. As though it mattered.
As though she mattered.
Clea forces herself to breathe - she doesn't technically have to here, but the act is grounding.
There's a rough edge to her voice when she answers. ]
Yes. It was idiotic anyway. Maman was correct: I lacked the attributes to be a truly worthwhile dancer.
[ Too tall, too muscular, too unwilling to give up her sculpting or Painting. Now her dancing was little more than a parlor trick done for her own amusement. She'd danced for Verso's music, but his appreciation aside, they both knew it wasn't actual art. ]
[ It's painful not to remember these things. To have— what, forgotten them? Never had the memory in the first place? Either way, it feels like a grave sin. Where he'd once smoothed over the gaps where his memories were absent, their nonexistence now feels stark. There are big, empty holes where there should be something, anything.
Not real, Clea had said. Is that what this is, then? A painting that he'd never wanted to admit was lacking in detail? The thought of verbalizing that aloud makes him want to throw up, so he doesn't. Instead: ]
Maman wouldn't say that.
[ Not to him, anyway. She'd always acted as if he hung the stars, as if he could accomplish anything he set his mind to. Frequently, she'd cooed about how bright his future was. ]
[ It's a splash of cold water on Clea's heart. This isn't Verso. He has no memories of her constant attempts to win Aline's approval, of the times he'd found her in this very Canvas working off her frustration after failing. Of the discussions they'd started to have once Verso had realized that his desire for music over painting was a disappointment: it had been the first time he hadn't been her golden child. He doesn't know that Aline's approval of Clea has always had conditions, unlike her love for Verso or Renoir's tenderness for Alicia.
She's known for years: If she doesn't achieve, she has no value.
Not that it had mattered in the end. She still doesn't - Aline abandoned them and Renoir is about to follow. ]
Not to you.
You can do no wrong.
[ Even now, even with him gone, it infuriates a part of her. Effort hadn't mattered: Verso had been charming and Alicia had been adorable, and that was all that mattered. ]
I'm surprised she bothered with a copy of me at all. It's not necessary.
It's shocking, and perhaps a bit uncomfortable, how badly he wants to take a step forward to close the distance between them. To take her by the shoulders and shake her, or maybe embrace her. To tell her that she's necessary to him, and that if she talks that way about herself again, he's going to play Chopsticks off-tune for a whole day and make her listen to it.
This is not his Clea, yet there must be some part of him, deep in his bones, that recognizes her anyway.
But there are greater things at stake here than a sister's feelings; he crosses his arms, worries his lip. ]
You called this all an illusion.
[ He can still feel every bit of logic in him resisting the thought, coming up with excuses, just as he's been doing every time something didn't make sense here. As he's had to do, to remain sane. ]
[ Clea is not known for being sensitive or delicate. Verso is the one who knows how to massage words, who is sensitive to other people's feelings. He also struggled with the truth because of it. Clea has always felt it was better to know the truth: She's never been able to stomach being condescended to, and lies meant to spare her feelings always reek of condescension. ]
Verso. - our Verso -
[ She clarifies. ]
He died. In the fire. Saving Alicia.
[ Clea crosses her arms, clearly agitated, fingers digging into her own flesh in displeasure. Alicia, who is on bed rest and about to be abandoned by both of her parents instead of one. ]
Maman couldn't handle that, so she decided the proper thing was to abandon us and create her own Verso. Create a city where he was alive and she could pretend everything was well.
[ Even now, he finds himself trying to reason around it: ]
Died— no, I didn't make it in time.
[ And Alicia was permanently marred for his mistake. It's one of the few moments in life that he can think back to as truly horrible, but as Maman has reassured him countless times, it was an accident. He isn't responsible for what happened to her. But if that's not true, and if this is all an illusion as Clea says, then— that means that Maman made that happen.
Verso shakes his head, violently rejecting the thought as quickly as it comes. There's another explanation, obviously. Maman would never be so cruel to her own child. A Dessendre would never be so cruel to another Dessendre.
A little exasperated: ] Even if your wild claims are true—
[ And he knows in his heart of hearts that they must be, no matter how hard he wants to fight it. ]
You made it to Alicia. You did not make it out of the fire.
[ It's easier to show him than to explain. Clea shows him flashes: her stumbling out of the house holding Francois close to her chest, coughing due to the smoke. Hearing her sister's screaming, Verso running back inside before she or Aline could stop him. Verso passing the charred and burnt Alicia to Clea through a window while Aline stands comatose in the background, only for a beam to crumble and pin him into place. Clea wishing Papa were home instead of curating an exhibit in Nantes. Clea's frantic efforts to try to press cold, wet cloths to Alicia's moaning form while Verso screamed in the background, knowing if she left one the other would die. The smell of Alicia's and Verso's burnt flesh.
By the end, Clea's fingernails have dug into her flesh so hard they've drawn blood, which she doesn't seem to notice. ]
I would let her stay. If she wants to abandon us, forcing her isn't going to change that.
[ Forcing Aline out of the Canvas wouldn't return her to normal. Wouldn't make her want to care for Alicia as she should. ]
Papa isn't. He's going to try to force her out. It won't work: She's stronger than he is. But it will rend this world beyond repair.
[ No, that's not how he remembers it at all. The memory of the fire itself is as vague as they come, but there's one part in perfect lucidity: he remembers bursting through the door of their home to try to get to Alicia, then immediately hearing Maman call that everything was all right, that they'd gotten her out. Now that he thinks of it, he can't remember how Alicia ever got out—just that she did. Dealing with her wounds in the aftermath had been so chaotic that he'd never thought to question it.
He's quiet for a moment. It's harrowing to hear your own voice scream with the agony of death.
Finally, the both of them curled in on themselves as they stare at each other, he asks, ] ...Papa, force Maman? He's never denied her anything.
[ He looks so much like Verso. That same curled in shock. The grey eyes looking at her like she would have all the answers. Every time, she wishes she did. She knows she's hurting him, telling him this, and seeing it rends her soul, tearing it imperceptibly.
It's hurting him, but he would be hurt either way. This way, he has a choice. This way, he wouldn't be blindsided by what might happen.
This way, he might understand and help. ]
The version of Papa she made has never denied her anything.
[ She can't help the anger that leaks into her voice, anger on her Papa's behalf. For Aline to so baldly show that she'd prefer a version of him without agency, without the ability to disagree with her... Clea doesn't know what that is, but it isn't love.]
There have been rifts between them before.
[ Even in real life, Verso had known less and Alicia even less than he. Clea is the one who saw the fractures, saw the changes in how they each spoke at the Painter's Council. ]
Obviously, he's always been aware of the reality that his mother will die before he does, but it's always been in a vague, distant way. Something that will one day happen once she and Papa have grown old and watched Clea achieve enormous success and Alicia come into her own and Verso live exactly the sort of life he's supposed to. It isn't supposed to happen before that, and it isn't supposed to happen because of him. ]
And you think your way of solving things is better than Papa's.
[ Not accusatory, just factual. Even his Clea is a bit of a know-it-all. ]
[ Clea doesn't deny it. Renoir and Aline aren't behaving rationally. Their judgement is impaired. She'd known this day might come eventually - Clea has seen her friends struggle with first grand-parents and, lately, parents who are unable to do the things they once could. She'd known when Papa had finally admitted to needing a cane. When she found a grey hair on her own head, feels the pounding in her skull after a night that, 10 years prior, would not have made a dent. She feels her flexibility waning instead of improving as it used to. Feels a new understanding that she needs to decide on whether to have her own children quickly - that time is not infinite.
Worries that Verso and Alicia had been too young for, but which Clea is becoming more acquainted with. Time stops for no one, including their parents. If they can't act, she must. ]
You must convince her to leave. At least long enough to stop her condition from continuing to deteriorate.
[ If she wants to spend all of her spare time playing with dolls, Clea isn't going to stop her. ]
If she and Papa are in here, I can't guarantee anyone's safety. In here or outside. The people who set the fire are still active. I cannot protect us from them, tend to Alicia, and manage all of our affairs.
[ There's already talk among the Council, a faction that wants to pin the conflict on their family and wash their hands of it to protect the rest of them. A faction gaining allies with Aline refusing to helm her post. ]
I have limits. If they attack again and succeed, the next time we may all die. If Papa enters the Canvas, he won't rest until its destroyed. I would prefer to prevent that.
[ She pauses, looking him over with that far-away look Clea gets when she's contemplating a plan or a piece of art. ]
I'll need to alter you so Aline doesn't simply remake you as she prefers.
[ Clea says all of this in such a matter-of-fact manner that he almost wants to believe it really is that simple, but his head begins to ache again as he tries to wrap his mind around it. Convince Maman to leave. Push her out from their home. Of course, he can't bear the thought of this world causing her to slowly decay, but it's difficult to tolerate the idea of a world bereft of her, too.
A world that, if Clea is to be believed, isn't even real.
He blinks a few times, shakes his head. What he needs more than anything is time alone to ruminate, to put all of the puzzle pieces together. ]
Alter me, [ he repeats, scoffing. ] Do you always talk about people like they're ill-fitting dresses?
[ She watches him closely, a stony look on her face. No, not always. Only when the risk of being too familiar would be ruinous. Only when they aren't actually people. She alters her clothing, her statues, her paintings. That's what he is: A Painting. A Painting tailor made to make her heart hurt, but a Painting nonetheless. ]
Only ones I can tailor.
[ Like him. Like his 'friends' and the rest of Aline's obscene fake family. ]
If you go back, she will erase knowledge of everything I have told you. You will wake up one morning, Maman will be gone, and your city will be ripped apart, and you will have no idea why it is happening.
[ Verso visibly stiffens at the suggestion of being tailored, an involuntary reaction to suddenly feeling like one of her sculptures. Malleable under her exacting hands. She'd always made sure they were just right. He says nothing on the matter, yet to internalize the truth—that he is a thing for her to tailor—even when it's been laid out in front of him in perfect clarity. There'll be time for that later, once he's alone with his own mind.
For now, he raises an eyebrow. ]
You talk about her so flatteringly.
[ There's clearly hostility between them. It's strange—while he can remember the two of them butting heads at times, he can't remember Clea ever regarding Maman with such scorn. ]
She's not as unreasonable as you're painting her out to be. [ Ha, ha. ]
She could have at least made you better at wordplay.
[ The taunt comes out without thinking. He's just as bad at it as her actual brother had been, always running straight toward the obvious. The only one of them with enough talent in the area for it not to be eye roll worthy is Alicia.
Clea crosses her arms. Of course he's defending her. What other option does he have? He can't think for himself. He was made to cater to Aline's wishes and in her world, she would be correct about everything always. ]
You're right.
[ Deadpan. Clea's preferred way of communicating 'you're an idiot and you're wrong.' ]
She's completely reasonable. Spending decades lecturing others on the necessity of attending to necessities and then immediately running away to leave them for others when she feels sorrow is reasonable. Ignoring her husband to go seek comfort in the arms of a copy of him who is neutered and cannot refuse her is reasonable. Leaving her youngest child, who has just been horribly maimed, is reasonable.
[ Clea's face twists with anger but her voice remains eerily calm. ]
Taking over the place I created with my brother and making it about her is reasonable. Creating a copy of me against my will, using my voice and body and intimate preferences to fuel her fantasies, is reasonable.
[ She'd seen her doll and her 'lover', walking through "Lumière". The way he kissed under her other self's ear the way Clea liked, the way he'd known she secretly enjoys somebody running their hands through her hair. Seen her other self run a finger along his jaw and tilt his chin up just as she does.
Clea visibly shudders. ]
Doing so in the place that holds my childhood memories is the epitome of reasonable. You're right, Verso. I'm simply wrong and overdramatic. I should have no feelings about this whatsoever as long as Maman is happy.
[ She's here to bleed until she's the best, nothing more, isn't that so? ]
[ Clea, even his Clea, has always been gifted at criticism. She can look at a piece of art and come up with fifteen different ways that it could be improved in an instant. He's reminded of that now, with the way she rattles off argument after argument, each one more piercing than the last. Even with his reluctance to accept that Maman—who he'd been convinced, up until this point, was an entirely rational and reasonable person—could really be as bad as she says, he can't deny that her points are... unpleasantly valid.
He wants to argue, still. Say that lots of great art is a recreation of reality. It is, perhaps, his psyche's only defense against the crippling realization that he's no more than a few of Maman's brushstrokes.
But there's something more pressing to hold onto. ]
Maimed?
[ A horrible choice of words. It brings back memories of Alicia when she'd first been burned, her skin raw. ]
[ An answer all its own. Clea remembers. Remembers him passing her down through the window while he'd been pinned, remembers Alicia's skin sloughing off in her hands and covering Clea in her flesh and blood. She remembers the smell and the desperation. ]
She'll never speak again. Or see as she should. She can't breathe without pain.
[ The only sign that Clea is bothered by what she recounts is the shortness of her sentences. Fragments and words that she can't bear to elongate as she tries to hold back the memories. ]
She still needs care. Renoir and I have been trading off the necessary care. I don't know if I can care for her and our parents. I don't know if I can keep everyone safe.
[ Renoir is so ready to leave her. The moment he thinks she Alicia won't immediately die, he'll come in after Aline. Even if he's right, Clea doesn't know what she's supposed to do. What does she tell Alicia when she wakes up and is finally lucid? Finally understands what had happened instead of spending every conscious moment moaning in pain? Will Alicia be able to communicate without pain?
Part of her is furious with her sister. How can she hold that back? Renoir is the understanding one, the one who has always coddled Alicia. And now that she desperately needs him for that, he would leave her.
How is Clea to explain that Verso is gone and their parents left? That all Alicia has is her?]
I'm trying.
[ The sentence is short, clipped and, to those who know Clea, full of self-judgement. She's trying but it's not enough. ]
[ She'll never speak again. Or see as she should. She can't breathe without pain. Images of Alicia flash in his mind: her first initial attempts to speak, the way she'd dropped her hand mirror in horror when she first looked at herself with her missing eye. Is it even worse, out there in Clea's world? (He can't bring himself to name it the real world, not just yet.) Surely Maman would make Alicia's suffering less here—surely her circumstances are only so torturous in here because it's even more intolerable out there. ]
Putain, [ he swears, horrified. So many times, he's scolded himself for not having been faster, convinced that he could have prevented her mangling. Now he knows that even if he had been there, it wouldn't have been enough. Alicia's life would still be irrevocably changed for the worse.
His eyes squeeze shut for a brief moment before he opens them again, mouth pressed into a thin line. ]
I know. I know you're trying.
[ Like he has any notion of what things are like outside of the Canvas. But this Clea is still Clea, albeit a much harsher version of herself, and Clea never stops trying. ]
Shit. [ This is an awful fucking situation. ] I should be there.
[ I, not him, because he hasn't yet reconciled the fact that they aren't one and the same. ]
[ He isn't Verso, but it hurts to see him look that way. So horrified and worried for Alicia, unable to do anything. Helpless. She knows the feeling and how it burrows its way into the mind. Not for the first time, Clea wonders how much better it would have been for them all if she'd been the one trapped in the flames and not Alicia. Verso could have left her in there and their parents would have the children they needed, healthy and whole.
It hurts to see even a copy of Verso look that way and to be able to offer him no answers. She's always had answers for him, from the earliest days she can remember, his bright little toddler face looking up at her almost constantly from the moment he could walk.
He's never going to look at her again. ]
You're not.
[ The truth does not care for their feelings. The truth must be attended to. ]
Aline isn't there either. Renoir is soon to follow.
[ Not 'Maman' or 'Papa'. Clea has started to put up her walls, to disentangle herself. It makes their abandonments hurt less. ]
[ A raised eyebrow, at that. How can she distance herself so easily from her family? This isn't his sister, and yet— it feels as if she is, feels as if his flesh and blood has just disavowed their house.
Maybe she has. Maybe their family is more fragmented than he'd thought. Maybe, he thinks, Maman had her reasons for hiding away in a Canvas. Is it so wrong to want their family to be whole again? They've been happy here, and from what it sounds like, miserable out there. It's no excuse for leaving Alicia uncared for, but he struggles not to justify it regardless.
And then, like a shot through the heart, he wonders if that's on purpose. Would he have criticized this outside of the Canvas? Did Maman make him this way, so that he would never question her? It's an awful, horrible thought, and he feels guilty as soon as he thinks it, like he's committed a terrible sin. To make up for his transgression, he defends their parents once again: ]
[ Even her Verso had always been sentimental. Emotional. Perhaps that is why Aline had favored him so, despite the differences between their temperaments. Renoir, too, possesses an emotional nature, and Aline had chosen him as a husband. Clea has never felt as comfortable with her emotions: From a young age, something about them has always seemed to be wrong. Her emotions are not the gentle, still lake or the bubbling stream but a raging river.
They must be controlled.
The question lies on the tip of her tongue: Are they? Clea's body language becomes stiff, her posture defensive. She crosses her arms in anger to stifle her ridiculous urge to hug herself. It is a childish impulse and they do not have the time for Clea to indulge her childish whims. ]
They do not wish to be.
[ The only testaments to the emotions beneath her surface are a slight break on the last word and the way her eyes refuse to meet Verso's. ]
I cannot force them to consider us worth their time, but they still have a duty of care to Alicia.
[ Verso tells her they're family, and Clea stiffens like he's just said something terrible. He knows it can't be true that they don't wish to be—Maman and Papa are dedicated to nothing more than they are to this family.
...To this family, anyway. Perhaps not to Clea's. ]
Yeah, they do, [ he admits, although he still finds it difficult to accept that Maman is shirking her motherly duties. She's always been doting, even overbearing. Difficult, sometimes, but 'neglectful' wouldn't have entered his mind. ]
You should come back with me. We'll talk to her about this together.
[ Convinced, still, that she'll understand if only she hears it from Clea's lips. Verso can be the mediator between them, as he's been many times between Maman and his own Clea. ]
Edited (i wrote 'family' more times in one paragraph than vin diesel says it in fast and furious) 2025-10-07 23:09 (UTC)
[ Clea's voice drips with a very familiar brand of sarcasm. She's never been shy about telling anyone she thinks they're being a moron, and the copy of her brother is no exception. ]
We attempted to talk to her. Do you really think this was my first choice for an option?
[ It isn't. She'd prefer to ignore them completely. Every minute she spends talking to him is a reminder of how little Aline cares for them, how easily each of them is replaced. How little Aline respects her and Verso's childhood together. How everything is always about her, rendering the rest of them nothing more than mere props in her own personal grand drama. ]
If you try to talk to her, she will either change you, or erase and remake you until you're compliant. Unless you allow me to protect you.
[ Which she is doing for her own purposes, but unlike Aline, Clea admits it. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
:> - sorry this got long
Clea's response is wordless. She doesn't need to speak. She waves a hand, Chroma pulsing, and gives him the rest of the memory. Unlike Aline, she doesn't stitch it onto his mind, doesn't pretend it's his own. He sees Clea's perspective:
Clea is 12 years old and she's a failure. She and the other girls had started their en pointe last year, and she'd been so proud, but it's hard to keep up. The other girls at the Opèra (because where else could she go - would a Dessendre go - except for the best?) are there every day, practicing for hours. Not splitting their time between dancing and painting, not trying to grasp more time using a Canvas and miscalculating how much practice they need with their real body. Not disappointing everyone.
The memory fades, but it remains etched into Verso's mind. Just as silently, Clea reaches out and untangles his Chroma - the strands that are crossing over each other and starting to snarl - easing the pain in his head. ]She'd ruined the recital and made the school look bad. She knows it: That she's only there as an indulgence, that she can't actually dance, that she made a fool of herself and of Maman, who had looked at her with lips pursed in disappointment. She knows because she heard the commentary of the patrons backstage after the show: "Not the best dancer, but lovely to look at." And she knows hearing it makes her feel wrong, mortified.
Clea is a failure and she needs to fix it. So she does. She will fix it - she dances for hours, stopping only when she needs to sleep, locking herself in her room unless one of her parents extracts her for a meal.
"Clea?"
She's changing her shoes - once her feet started bleeding, the pointe shoes end up filling up with blood and she needs to change them. It throws off the balance. Clea is about to throw another pair onto the growing pile, but her brother's voice stops her.
He's looking at her in horror. At the shoes. He has that look on his face: the one that suggests he's about to cry.
"What is it, Verso? I'm busy."
"Clea, you have to stop." He goes so far as to put a hand on her arm, physically stopping her from tying up her next pair of shoes. From continuing.
She sighs. He doesn't understand. "Verso, I have to do this. I have to bleed if I'm going to be the best. Accomplishment requires suffering - I can't stop every time I'm uncomfortable." Clea parrots words their mother has spoken back at him.
"Will I have to?" That's the question that makes Clea freeze: those large grey eyes looking at her, wondering if he's going to be expected to do this to himself. 'No' her mind tells her instinctively. Not Verso. Just her. But how can she explain?
"No, Verso."
"Why do you?" Because she's not good enough. Clea moves his hand and doesn't answer, resumes tying her shoes. This time, though, he doesn't leave. Or cry. He grabs the shoe out of her hand and throws it at the door with a ferocity that makes Clea blink.
"NO." He says with such conviction Clea feels a wellspring of pride inside of her. "You stay, I'm going to get bandages." It's odd, to be given orders by such a suddenly serious little boy, with no sign of his usual laughter. When he leaves, he sprints, hurrying as though this was something important.
no apologies needed... i am eating it up!!!
It's not him. It's someone who looks like he used to look, acts like he used to act, but he knows deep down that their essence isn't the same. How could it be, when Verso has no recollection of this ever happening? It's not something he would ever forget, the sight of dark red blood pooling in one of his most beloved people's shoes, yet he must have. The memory is too vivid to be fake, in more clarity than most of his. He can hardly remember ever being that small, but Clea has his exact image in her mind's eye, down to the wavy strands of hair sprouting from his head that he hadn't quite figured out what to do with yet.
I have to bleed if I'm going to be the best. He wants to grab her and shake her, even now. She's Clea in appearance only, but suddenly that doesn't matter, fraternal feeling flooding him at the borrowed memory. She was right: he is tender-hearted.
There are a million questions on his tongue, but there's only one that seems most important: ]
Did you stop?
om nom nom family drama - you broke her, good job
Tears that she quickly wipes away well up in her eyes. The only person who had truly known and cared for her is dead, and he's never coming back.
Another memory enters Verso's mind, a fragment from Clea not closing the connection properly: Clea sitting and Verso wrapping what is truly an absurd amount of bandages around each injured foot with a nine year old's sensibility that more is always better. His small face is scrunched up with the utmost concentration, as though winding the bandages around her foot were as important as creating a great work. As though it mattered.
As though she mattered.
Clea forces herself to breathe - she doesn't technically have to here, but the act is grounding.
There's a rough edge to her voice when she answers. ]
Yes. It was idiotic anyway. Maman was correct: I lacked the attributes to be a truly worthwhile dancer.
[ Too tall, too muscular, too unwilling to give up her sculpting or Painting. Now her dancing was little more than a parlor trick done for her own amusement. She'd danced for Verso's music, but his appreciation aside, they both knew it wasn't actual art. ]
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Not real, Clea had said. Is that what this is, then? A painting that he'd never wanted to admit was lacking in detail? The thought of verbalizing that aloud makes him want to throw up, so he doesn't. Instead: ]
Maman wouldn't say that.
[ Not to him, anyway. She'd always acted as if he hung the stars, as if he could accomplish anything he set his mind to. Frequently, she'd cooed about how bright his future was. ]
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She's known for years: If she doesn't achieve, she has no value.
Not that it had mattered in the end. She still doesn't - Aline abandoned them and Renoir is about to follow. ]
Not to you.
You can do no wrong.
[ Even now, even with him gone, it infuriates a part of her. Effort hadn't mattered: Verso had been charming and Alicia had been adorable, and that was all that mattered. ]
I'm surprised she bothered with a copy of me at all. It's not necessary.
[ She's not necessary. ]
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It's shocking, and perhaps a bit uncomfortable, how badly he wants to take a step forward to close the distance between them. To take her by the shoulders and shake her, or maybe embrace her. To tell her that she's necessary to him, and that if she talks that way about herself again, he's going to play Chopsticks off-tune for a whole day and make her listen to it.
This is not his Clea, yet there must be some part of him, deep in his bones, that recognizes her anyway.
But there are greater things at stake here than a sister's feelings; he crosses his arms, worries his lip. ]
You called this all an illusion.
[ He can still feel every bit of logic in him resisting the thought, coming up with excuses, just as he's been doing every time something didn't make sense here. As he's had to do, to remain sane. ]
Why would Maman do that?
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Verso. - our Verso -
[ She clarifies. ]
He died. In the fire. Saving Alicia.
[ Clea crosses her arms, clearly agitated, fingers digging into her own flesh in displeasure. Alicia, who is on bed rest and about to be abandoned by both of her parents instead of one. ]
Maman couldn't handle that, so she decided the proper thing was to abandon us and create her own Verso. Create a city where he was alive and she could pretend everything was well.
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Died— no, I didn't make it in time.
[ And Alicia was permanently marred for his mistake. It's one of the few moments in life that he can think back to as truly horrible, but as Maman has reassured him countless times, it was an accident. He isn't responsible for what happened to her. But if that's not true, and if this is all an illusion as Clea says, then— that means that Maman made that happen.
Verso shakes his head, violently rejecting the thought as quickly as it comes. There's another explanation, obviously. Maman would never be so cruel to her own child. A Dessendre would never be so cruel to another Dessendre.
A little exasperated: ] Even if your wild claims are true—
[ And he knows in his heart of hearts that they must be, no matter how hard he wants to fight it. ]
—She's happy here.
[ They're happy here. ]
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[ It's easier to show him than to explain. Clea shows him flashes: her stumbling out of the house holding Francois close to her chest, coughing due to the smoke. Hearing her sister's screaming, Verso running back inside before she or Aline could stop him. Verso passing the charred and burnt Alicia to Clea through a window while Aline stands comatose in the background, only for a beam to crumble and pin him into place. Clea wishing Papa were home instead of curating an exhibit in Nantes. Clea's frantic efforts to try to press cold, wet cloths to Alicia's moaning form while Verso screamed in the background, knowing if she left one the other would die. The smell of Alicia's and Verso's burnt flesh.
By the end, Clea's fingernails have dug into her flesh so hard they've drawn blood, which she doesn't seem to notice. ]
I would let her stay. If she wants to abandon us, forcing her isn't going to change that.
[ Forcing Aline out of the Canvas wouldn't return her to normal. Wouldn't make her want to care for Alicia as she should. ]
Papa isn't. He's going to try to force her out. It won't work: She's stronger than he is. But it will rend this world beyond repair.
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He's quiet for a moment. It's harrowing to hear your own voice scream with the agony of death.
Finally, the both of them curled in on themselves as they stare at each other, he asks, ] ...Papa, force Maman? He's never denied her anything.
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It's hurting him, but he would be hurt either way. This way, he has a choice. This way, he wouldn't be blindsided by what might happen.
This way, he might understand and help. ]
The version of Papa she made has never denied her anything.
[ She can't help the anger that leaks into her voice, anger on her Papa's behalf. For Aline to so baldly show that she'd prefer a version of him without agency, without the ability to disagree with her... Clea doesn't know what that is, but it isn't love.]
There have been rifts between them before.
[ Even in real life, Verso had known less and Alicia even less than he. Clea is the one who saw the fractures, saw the changes in how they each spoke at the Painter's Council. ]
He thinks she'll die in here.
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Obviously, he's always been aware of the reality that his mother will die before he does, but it's always been in a vague, distant way. Something that will one day happen once she and Papa have grown old and watched Clea achieve enormous success and Alicia come into her own and Verso live exactly the sort of life he's supposed to. It isn't supposed to happen before that, and it isn't supposed to happen because of him. ]
And you think your way of solving things is better than Papa's.
[ Not accusatory, just factual. Even his Clea is a bit of a know-it-all. ]
I don't know what you want me to do about it.
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[ Clea doesn't deny it. Renoir and Aline aren't behaving rationally. Their judgement is impaired. She'd known this day might come eventually - Clea has seen her friends struggle with first grand-parents and, lately, parents who are unable to do the things they once could. She'd known when Papa had finally admitted to needing a cane. When she found a grey hair on her own head, feels the pounding in her skull after a night that, 10 years prior, would not have made a dent. She feels her flexibility waning instead of improving as it used to. Feels a new understanding that she needs to decide on whether to have her own children quickly - that time is not infinite.
Worries that Verso and Alicia had been too young for, but which Clea is becoming more acquainted with. Time stops for no one, including their parents. If they can't act, she must. ]
You must convince her to leave. At least long enough to stop her condition from continuing to deteriorate.
[ If she wants to spend all of her spare time playing with dolls, Clea isn't going to stop her. ]
If she and Papa are in here, I can't guarantee anyone's safety. In here or outside. The people who set the fire are still active. I cannot protect us from them, tend to Alicia, and manage all of our affairs.
[ There's already talk among the Council, a faction that wants to pin the conflict on their family and wash their hands of it to protect the rest of them. A faction gaining allies with Aline refusing to helm her post. ]
I have limits. If they attack again and succeed, the next time we may all die. If Papa enters the Canvas, he won't rest until its destroyed. I would prefer to prevent that.
[ She pauses, looking him over with that far-away look Clea gets when she's contemplating a plan or a piece of art. ]
I'll need to alter you so Aline doesn't simply remake you as she prefers.
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A world that, if Clea is to be believed, isn't even real.
He blinks a few times, shakes his head. What he needs more than anything is time alone to ruminate, to put all of the puzzle pieces together. ]
Alter me, [ he repeats, scoffing. ] Do you always talk about people like they're ill-fitting dresses?
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Only ones I can tailor.
[ Like him. Like his 'friends' and the rest of Aline's obscene fake family. ]
If you go back, she will erase knowledge of everything I have told you. You will wake up one morning, Maman will be gone, and your city will be ripped apart, and you will have no idea why it is happening.
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For now, he raises an eyebrow. ]
You talk about her so flatteringly.
[ There's clearly hostility between them. It's strange—while he can remember the two of them butting heads at times, he can't remember Clea ever regarding Maman with such scorn. ]
She's not as unreasonable as you're painting her out to be. [ Ha, ha. ]
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[ The taunt comes out without thinking. He's just as bad at it as her actual brother had been, always running straight toward the obvious. The only one of them with enough talent in the area for it not to be eye roll worthy is Alicia.
Clea crosses her arms. Of course he's defending her. What other option does he have? He can't think for himself. He was made to cater to Aline's wishes and in her world, she would be correct about everything always. ]
You're right.
[ Deadpan. Clea's preferred way of communicating 'you're an idiot and you're wrong.' ]
She's completely reasonable. Spending decades lecturing others on the necessity of attending to necessities and then immediately running away to leave them for others when she feels sorrow is reasonable. Ignoring her husband to go seek comfort in the arms of a copy of him who is neutered and cannot refuse her is reasonable. Leaving her youngest child, who has just been horribly maimed, is reasonable.
[ Clea's face twists with anger but her voice remains eerily calm. ]
Taking over the place I created with my brother and making it about her is reasonable. Creating a copy of me against my will, using my voice and body and intimate preferences to fuel her fantasies, is reasonable.
[ She'd seen her doll and her 'lover', walking through "Lumière". The way he kissed under her other self's ear the way Clea liked, the way he'd known she secretly enjoys somebody running their hands through her hair. Seen her other self run a finger along his jaw and tilt his chin up just as she does.
Clea visibly shudders. ]
Doing so in the place that holds my childhood memories is the epitome of reasonable. You're right, Verso. I'm simply wrong and overdramatic. I should have no feelings about this whatsoever as long as Maman is happy.
[ She's here to bleed until she's the best, nothing more, isn't that so? ]
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He wants to argue, still. Say that lots of great art is a recreation of reality. It is, perhaps, his psyche's only defense against the crippling realization that he's no more than a few of Maman's brushstrokes.
But there's something more pressing to hold onto. ]
Maimed?
[ A horrible choice of words. It brings back memories of Alicia when she'd first been burned, her skin raw. ]
No, you said I saved her.
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[ An answer all its own. Clea remembers. Remembers him passing her down through the window while he'd been pinned, remembers Alicia's skin sloughing off in her hands and covering Clea in her flesh and blood. She remembers the smell and the desperation. ]
She'll never speak again. Or see as she should. She can't breathe without pain.
[ The only sign that Clea is bothered by what she recounts is the shortness of her sentences. Fragments and words that she can't bear to elongate as she tries to hold back the memories. ]
She still needs care. Renoir and I have been trading off the necessary care. I don't know if I can care for her and our parents. I don't know if I can keep everyone safe.
[ Renoir is so ready to leave her. The moment he thinks she Alicia won't immediately die, he'll come in after Aline. Even if he's right, Clea doesn't know what she's supposed to do. What does she tell Alicia when she wakes up and is finally lucid? Finally understands what had happened instead of spending every conscious moment moaning in pain? Will Alicia be able to communicate without pain?
Part of her is furious with her sister. How can she hold that back? Renoir is the understanding one, the one who has always coddled Alicia. And now that she desperately needs him for that, he would leave her.
How is Clea to explain that Verso is gone and their parents left? That all Alicia has is her?]
I'm trying.
[ The sentence is short, clipped and, to those who know Clea, full of self-judgement. She's trying but it's not enough. ]
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Putain, [ he swears, horrified. So many times, he's scolded himself for not having been faster, convinced that he could have prevented her mangling. Now he knows that even if he had been there, it wouldn't have been enough. Alicia's life would still be irrevocably changed for the worse.
His eyes squeeze shut for a brief moment before he opens them again, mouth pressed into a thin line. ]
I know. I know you're trying.
[ Like he has any notion of what things are like outside of the Canvas. But this Clea is still Clea, albeit a much harsher version of herself, and Clea never stops trying. ]
Shit. [ This is an awful fucking situation. ] I should be there.
[ I, not him, because he hasn't yet reconciled the fact that they aren't one and the same. ]
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It hurts to see even a copy of Verso look that way and to be able to offer him no answers. She's always had answers for him, from the earliest days she can remember, his bright little toddler face looking up at her almost constantly from the moment he could walk.
He's never going to look at her again. ]
You're not.
[ The truth does not care for their feelings. The truth must be attended to. ]
Aline isn't there either. Renoir is soon to follow.
[ Not 'Maman' or 'Papa'. Clea has started to put up her walls, to disentangle herself. It makes their abandonments hurt less. ]
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Maybe she has. Maybe their family is more fragmented than he'd thought. Maybe, he thinks, Maman had her reasons for hiding away in a Canvas. Is it so wrong to want their family to be whole again? They've been happy here, and from what it sounds like, miserable out there. It's no excuse for leaving Alicia uncared for, but he struggles not to justify it regardless.
And then, like a shot through the heart, he wonders if that's on purpose. Would he have criticized this outside of the Canvas? Did Maman make him this way, so that he would never question her? It's an awful, horrible thought, and he feels guilty as soon as he thinks it, like he's committed a terrible sin. To make up for his transgression, he defends their parents once again: ]
'Aline' and 'Renoir'? They're your family, too.
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They must be controlled.
The question lies on the tip of her tongue: Are they? Clea's body language becomes stiff, her posture defensive. She crosses her arms in anger to stifle her ridiculous urge to hug herself. It is a childish impulse and they do not have the time for Clea to indulge her childish whims. ]
They do not wish to be.
[ The only testaments to the emotions beneath her surface are a slight break on the last word and the way her eyes refuse to meet Verso's. ]
I cannot force them to consider us worth their time, but they still have a duty of care to Alicia.
[ Who is a child. ]
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...To this family, anyway. Perhaps not to Clea's. ]
Yeah, they do, [ he admits, although he still finds it difficult to accept that Maman is shirking her motherly duties. She's always been doting, even overbearing. Difficult, sometimes, but 'neglectful' wouldn't have entered his mind. ]
You should come back with me. We'll talk to her about this together.
[ Convinced, still, that she'll understand if only she hears it from Clea's lips. Verso can be the mediator between them, as he's been many times between Maman and his own Clea. ]
2 fast 2 Verso
[ Clea's voice drips with a very familiar brand of sarcasm. She's never been shy about telling anyone she thinks they're being a moron, and the copy of her brother is no exception. ]
We attempted to talk to her. Do you really think this was my first choice for an option?
[ It isn't. She'd prefer to ignore them completely. Every minute she spends talking to him is a reminder of how little Aline cares for them, how easily each of them is replaced. How little Aline respects her and Verso's childhood together. How everything is always about her, rendering the rest of them nothing more than mere props in her own personal grand drama. ]
If you try to talk to her, she will either change you, or erase and remake you until you're compliant. Unless you allow me to protect you.
[ Which she is doing for her own purposes, but unlike Aline, Clea admits it. ]
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sorry for musty and crusty old tag!!!
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Et fin?