Expedition 33 AU. Gustave remembers. He remembers arriving to the paintress’ world, fighting the nevrons and befriending the gestrals and growing as close of a bond with his adopted daughter, Maelle, as possible. He remembers resting at the camp at night with Maelle and Sciel and Lune, and writing in a journal at night, and dreaming of a handsome man with black and grey hair. He even remembers meeting the stranger, who calls himself Verso, late in a few occasions and dancing with him to soft music playing, talking about being stranded in the foreign and hostile land. Gustave insists that the beautiful stranger joins them and stays in safety. He is denied, which is a little strange and sad, but the two always grow closer and closer at night. Verso is defensive and so beautiful and defeated, where Gustave is optimistic and chatty and bubbly and kind with the stranger. He tells the group about the mysterious man. No one believes him. Gustave is only 32. Was 32. He remembers the beach, the panic in seeing the man who killed the whole expedition, Renoir, approach them. He remembers fighting so hard to keep everyone alive, only for Renoir to stab him and kill him. The last thing he sees is Maelle screaming and crying in grief as the light leaves his eyes. He died. And he should have stayed dead. But no. He is resurrected. Alive and well. Sort of. Lumiere is fixed, and Maelle is safe and crying and so scared and traumatized and alive and happy to see him. Gustave is bewildered and disoriented, and he hugs Maelle with heavy tears. And then he sees Verso, the handsome man, and there is a strange tension between them now. It’s made worse when Maelle told Gustave the truth of Verso’s life, how he is a sort of the painter world just like they all are, and how he is the so. If the man who killed him, and he didn’t want to save him out of selfishness and fear, and he’s so sorry. Which is sad, because Gustave and Verso began to get so close and now Gustave wants nothing to do with him. And Verso is hurting and apologizing and trying to make up for the pain he’s inflicted.

Chapter 12: A Week of Adjustments

The lavender scent in the apartment was thickest in the mornings, a sweet haze filtering through sunbeams that caught the dust motes dancing like forgotten paint particles. Verso woke to it, his body aching in a new, profound way. Not from injury or fear, but from use. From life.

His first week back in the painted world, the world of the living, was a strange adjustment.

He’d ventured out alone to the corner marché, needing to feel capable. The looks were subtle but there. A flicker of recognition, then a frosty withdrawal. A whispered, “C’est le fils de Renoir, non?” that sliced through the chatter of produce vendors. He was a ghost wearing a man’s skin, a living reminder of a nightmare everyone was trying to forget. He kept his head down, his hands—pale and trembling slightly—clutching the handle of a woven bag.

He tried working. A few small jobs to remember the feeling of contributing, of being more than a beautiful regret. He painted a floral mural for the back wall of a tiny café, the owner’s wife watching him with nervous eyes. He repaired a broken spindle on an antique chair for a widow who thanked him profusely but didn’t invite him in for tea. In the evenings, he played the piano at Le Petit Bistro, his fingers finding Chopin études in the smoke-heavy air. The patrons clapped, but their applause felt like a pardon, not appreciation. He loved those three things—the smell of turpentine, the grain of wood under his palm, the cool ivory keys—because they were silent. They asked no questions.

Gustave watched it all, his kind hazel eyes missing nothing.

“This is absurd,” Gustave declared one evening, rolling up a sketch that had paid their monthly utilities. He made so much as it is. “You’re stressing yourself out for centimes. Stop.”

Verso, curled on the sofa in a soft grey sweater that was still too dark, shook his head. “I need to… I can’t just be here, Gustave. A kept thing.”

“You won’t be.” Gustave knelt before him, taking his hands. “We’re applying for disability benefits. The trauma, the… everything. It’s valid. You don’t have to stress about it. Let me handle this.”

The paperwork was a humiliation Verso bore silently, his signature a shaky scrawl. Gustave filled out the rest with efficient certainty, his chatty optimism a bulwark against the form’s cold, bureaucratic boxes. When it was done, Gustave celebrated by dragging Verso to every boutique in the village.

“Pick anything,” Gustave said, his voice a low rumble in Verso’s ear as they stood before a display of delicate lingerie. “Everything. Whatever makes you feel like you.”

Verso’s throat tightened. He pointed, voice barely a whisper. “Pink.”

Gustave indulged him. He bought him everything. Pink dresses in chiffon and cotton. Soft, lace-trimmed bras and matching panties. Satin nightgowns that slithered like water over his skin. Risqué lingerie with straps and cut-outs. Sheer stockings and chunky, platform heels. Adorably oversized shirts and pretty, fluttery skirts and wide-legged palazzo pants. All in pink, Verso’s request. He couldn’t stand to wear black anymore; it was the colour of his father’s palette, of expeditions, of death. He just wanted to be soft. A happy omega.

They returned to the apartment, arms laden with bags. Gustave emptied them onto their bed, a mountain of rose and blush and candy-floss. Verso stared, his icy blue eyes welling up. He cried, great silent sobs that shook his slender frame.

“Mon cœur,” Gustave murmured, pulling him close. He kissed away the tears, salty on his lips. “My beautiful, beautiful boy.” His hands slid under the new, pink sweater, finding the softness of Verso’s breasts, the puffy nipples that pebbled instantly at his touch. “You look like a dream.”

He backed Verso toward the bed, the pastel fabrics a cloud beneath them. He undressed him slowly, worshipfully, his mouth following the path of his hands. When Verso was bare, flushed from head to toe, Gustave just looked, his gaze hot and possessive.

“Gustave, please,” Verso begged, spreading his legs, his pink cunt already glistening, aching.

Gustave smothered his adorable Verso in kisses—down his neck, across his collarbones, sucking his nipples until sweet, thin milk beaded on his tongue. He fucked him gently then, every other hour it seemed, a constant, claiming rhythm. He laid Verso on his back, pushed his thighs up toward his chest, and sank into that tight, fluttering heat with a groan that was pure reverence.

“This cunt,” Gustave panted, driving deep, his own massive cock stretching Verso exquisitely, “this perfect, hungry little pussy is mine. You take me so well. So deep.” He bred him, piston strokes that pushed the air from Verso’s lungs, filling him with hot, thick spurts of cum that leaked out around his shaft, painting Verso’s inner thighs white.

Later, cleaned but still feeling the phantom stretch, Verso dressed in a pink sundress and the chunky heels. Gustave took him to the evening market, his large, warm hand resting possessively on the small of Verso’s back, fingers splayed over the swell of his ass. He showed him off.

“My omega,” Gustave would say to the cheesemonger, to the florist, his voice firm and proud. Verso would blush, a pretty pink to match his dress, and preen under the attention, leaning into Gustave’s touch. Unclaimed for now, but they thought they’d be mated shortly.

At home, sated from food and admiration, Verso would kneel by Gustave’s chair, nuzzling his hard cock through his trousers. “I want to be round,” he’d whisper, his voice husky with need. “I need to be pregnant, Gustave. I want to be stuffed with your babies and your cum at all times. Please. Make me full.”

Gustave could easily fulfill that wish.

He returned from a trip to a discreet adult shop with a small box. Inside, on velvet, rested a fat, silicone pussy plug, tapered and flared, a pale rose colour.

“For you,” Gustave said, his eyes dark.

That night, he kept Verso on his cock for hours, as he did most days of the week. He bent him over the kitchen table, the balcony railing, the arm of the sofa. He fucked him hard and slow, in every position, until Verso was babbling, his mind empty of everything but the feeling of that monstrous cock rearranging his insides, battering his cervix, making his womb pulse with empty need.

“Gonna fill you up, pretty thing,” Gustave grunted, his knot beginning to swell at the base as he hammered into Verso’s drooling cunt from behind. “Gonna pump this filthy womb so full of my seed you’ll slosh when you walk.”

He came with a roar, his knot inflating fully, locking them together as pulse after pulse of cum flooded Verso’s deepest channel. Verso screamed, his own dry climax tearing through him, his body clenching viciously around the invading knot, milking it.

When Gustave finally softened enough to slip out, a gush of cum followed. Immediately, before more could escape, Gustave took the plug. He pushed the thick, rounded tip against Verso’s well-used, gaping hole, smearing it in their mixed fluids.

“Push out,” Gustave commanded, and Verso obeyed, his body exhausted but pliant. The plug slid in, the thickest part stretching him anew, the flare settling snugly against his outer lips. It sealed everything inside.

Gustave helped him up. Verso stumbled, a hand flying to his lower belly. It was distended, slightly but noticeably round, heavy with the quart of cum trapped inside him. He could feel it, a warm, sloshing weight. His nipples, sore and puffy from Gustave’s constant attention, ached, a few drops of milk staining the front of his pink camisole.

“Perfect,” Gustave breathed, kissing his sweaty temple. “You look so perfect. My bred, plugged omega. Keeping all my babies in there where they belong.”

He led Verso to the full-length mirror. Verso stared at his reflection: the beautiful, ruined man in soft pink, with a rounded belly and leaking tits, a plug keeping his alpha’s claim buried deep inside him. He saw not the son of Renoir, but Gustave’s creation. His future. A sob of pure, desperate happiness caught in his chest.

He was alive. He was owned. He was, finally, becoming something new.