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 2: The Last Dance Before Dawn

The warmth turned to salt.

It stung the back of his throat first.Then it was in his nostrils, thick and metallic. The amniotic dark of death bled away, replaced by the granular grey of pre-dawn light filtering through worn canvas. He was back in his bedroll, the rough fabric scratching his cheek, his body heavy with a deep, satisfied exhaustion.The ghost of a touch still lingered on his skin.Verso.

He could still feel him. The exact weight of him, draped half across Gustave’s chest, the soft, impossibly full press of his breasts against Gustave’s ribs. The memory of his mouth, slack and sweet from sleep, where Gustave had kissed him goodbye not an hour before. The lingering scent of him—frost, damp earth, and something uniquely, addictively Verso—was woven into Gustave’s own skin.

They’d been good.Finally. After months of scrabbling in the dirt, jumping at every shadow, they’d found a rhythm.Sciel had mastered the local flora, brewing poultices that actually healed. Lune’s quiet watchfulness had morphed into a strategic genius, spotting Renoir’s traps before they sprang.Maelle had stopped flinching at loud noises. She smiled now, a real one, not the grimace of a terrified kid. And Esquie, that bizarre, chittering creature with too many legs and eyes like polished obsidian, had become their odd mascot, leading them to clean water and safe paths through the petrified forest.

A family. He had a family again.

He’d wake up and for a fleeting second, he wouldn’t remember the freezing dirt of his girlfriend’s grave. He’d just see Maelle trying to braid Sciel’s hair, hear Lune humming some old Alpine tune, feel the simple, solid rightness of it all.And then there were the nights.The nights belonged to Verso. His lonely, beautiful ghost.His not-ghost. The doubt Sciel had planted had withered and died.Verso was real.The slick heat between his thighs was real. The choked little cries he made when Gustave’s calloused thumbs brushed over his puffy nipples were real. The way his body opened for him, desperate and welcoming, was the most real thing Gustave had ever known.

They never spoke of the future. It was too fragile a thing, out here.But Gustave dreamed it anyway.A cabin, somewhere the trees weren’t stone. A bed that didn’t have to be rolled away at dawn. Waking up with Verso in his arms in the actual sunlight, not just the eerie blue glow of fungi. He’d trace the lines of Verso’s face in the dark and think, Mine. I could have this.Last night.The memory surged, bright and painful. Verso hadn’t just slipped from the shadows. He’d crashed into camp, nearly stumbling into the fire, his breath coming in ragged, visible puffs in the cold air. He’d been wearing a soft, rose-colored sweater, the collar stretched, his hair a wild storm of black and grey around his pale, panicked face.

“Gustave.” Just his name.A plea.

He’d caught him, held him.Verso’s body was rigid with terror.“What is it? What’s happened?”

“Don’t go,” Verso had begged, his voice cracking. He’d pressed his face into Gustave’s neck, his words hot and wet against his skin.“The beach. You cannot go to the beach tomorrow.Please, mon cœur, stay here. Stay with me.”

Gustave had tried to hold him at arm’s length, to see his eyes. “Verso, why?What’s on the beach?Is it Renoir? Did you see him?”

But Verso just shook his head, a violent, frantic motion. Tears tracked clean lines through the fine dust on his cheeks.“There is nothing for you there.Nothing but blood. I can feel it.Please, just listen to me.”

He wouldn’t explain. He just clung to Gustave, trembling, repeating his warnings like a prayer. And Gustave, stupid, hopeful Gustave, had kissed him instead. He’d kissed the salt from his lips, the fear from his mouth. He’d pushed the soft sweater up and cupped the heavy, perfect weight of his breasts, feeling the nipples pebble instantly under his palms. He’d wanted to drown the dread in something sweeter.They’d made love with a desperate, quiet intensity. Verso had been silent except for his hitched breaths and the slick, obscene sound of Gustave’s cock pushing into him, over and over, until his knot swelled and locked them together. Verso had come with a muted sob, his body clenching around Gustave in rhythmic pulses, his fingernails digging half-moons into Gustave’s back. Gustave had followed, whispering into his ear, promises he couldn’t possibly keep.“I’ve got you. I’m here.It’s okay.”

At dawn, Verso was gone. The only proof he’d been there at all was a single, long strand of silver-grey hair coiled around Gustave’s index finger, and the deep, bruised ache of affection in his chest.

Then, the beach. The memory didn’t fade. It sharpened.

The amniotic warmth was gone completely now.He was back in the cold clarity of that last day. The crunch of black sand under his boots.The wrong, flat grey of the sky. Maelle was laughing, skipping ahead, pointing at a strange shell. Sciel and Lune were bickering about the best way to chart the tides. Esquie scuttled along the waterline, leaving delicate, complex patterns in the wet sand.He was beaming. He remembers the feeling—the hope so expansive it felt like his ribs couldn’t contain it.They would find a way out. They would take Verso with them.They would live.

The man appeared from nowhere.

One moment, the beach was empty. The next, he was just there, standing between them and the low cliffs. Tall, impeccably dressed in a dark, old-world coat, his hair the same severe black as Verso’s but without a trace of silver.His eyes were the colour of a deep, stagnant lake.

Renoir.

He didn’t speak.He didn’t need to. The intent rolled off him in a wave, cold and final.Gustave’s body moved before his mind did. He shoved Maelle behind him, hard.“Run!” he screamed at her, at all of them. His knife was in his hand, a pathetic sliver of steel against the presence confronting them.

Renoir moved. It wasn’t a blur; it was a transition. From one point to the next with no movement in between. Gustave’s knife lashed out, meeting only air. Then pain, white-hot and profound, erupted in his side.He looked down. Renoir’s hand was buried in his ribs, up to the wrist.There was no blade. Just the man’s elegant, bare fingers, twisting inside him.The sound was the worst part. A wet, tearing pop he felt more than heard.His lung collapsed. The breath left him in a surprised gurgle.He stumbled back, Renoir’s hand sliding free, dripping. He tried to raise his knife again, but his arm wouldn’t obey. He saw Sciel lunging, saw Renoir backhand her without even looking, her body crumpling like a doll’s. He saw Lune trying to pull a screaming, thrashing Maelle away.

“Papa!” Maelle’s shriek cut through the roaring in his ears.“PAPA!”

He fell to his knees. The black sand was warm and sticky underneath him.He tried to crawl towards her. His body left a thick, glistening trail.Renoir stood over him.He looked… bored. He raised his foot, clad in a pristine, polished shoe, and brought it down on Gustave’s outstretched hand.Bones snapped, a clean, dry sound.The pain was gone now. Replaced by a spreading numbness.He was so cold. He lifted his head, sand sticking to his cheek. His last sight was Maelle’s face, contorted in agony, her mouth open in a silent scream as Lune finally dragged her out of view. He wanted to tell her it was okay.He wanted to say he was sorry.Then, nothing.

The warm darkness rushed back, but it was different now. It wasn’t peaceful. It was a prison. He was trapped in the loop, the perfect memory of salt and terror and Verso’s rose-colored sweater. His future, stolen.His family, shattered. His love…

His love was the son of the monster who did this.The darkness began to churn. A pressure built, not from outside, but from within.A fierce, impossible refusal.No.

The thought was a spark in the void.Not like this.The warmth turned sharp, luminous. It wasn’t liquid anymore; it was a thousand points of light, piercing the black. He felt a pull, a violent, beautiful reeling-in, as if he were a fish on a cosmic hook.

And then he was choking.On air.Real, cold, mushroom-scented air.

He slammed forward onto his hands and knees, vomit burning up his throat—a clear, bitter fluid that splashed onto moss and stone.He gasped, each breath a searing miracle. His body vibrated with the shock of it.Alive.His heart was a frantic, stumbling drum against his ribs.

He stared at the moss.At the vibrant green of it.At the tiny, real insects moving through the blades. He was in a clearing. The petrified trees stood sentinel, their fungal hearts pulsing gently.It was here.He was back here.

“How…?” he rasped, his voice unfamiliar, raw.A soft sound made him look up.

At the edge of the clearing, near the base of the largest petrified trunk, a figure sat frozen. He was wearing a soft, flowing top the colour of blush, the fabric draped over the generous curve of his hips and chest. His hair, that beautiful mess of black and silver, fell around a face that was all pale skin and stunned, icy-blue eyes.Verso.

He was staring at Gustave as if seeing a ghost.His lips were parted, trembling. In his hands, he clutched a small, half-finished basket of woven reeds.It shook.

Gustave stared back, the memories colliding—the desperate kisses, the frantic warnings, the shoe coming down on his hand, Maelle’s scream, the absolute, world-ending truth.The son of Renoir.

The air between them crackled, heavy with everything unsaid, everything dead and now painfully, impossibly alive.