Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 G/t Fanfic
Hi! This is a little gift from me for @cathianemelian to thank them for their wonderful comic, which I’m absolutely obsessed with and which inspired me to play Expedition 33.
This is basically a “What If” scenario from the first chapter, where Verso wakes up before Gustave can leave.
I hope you like it!
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The first thing Gustave perceived as he began to regain consciousness was warmth. It wasn't a heavy or oppressive sensation, but rather a soft, warm caress welcoming him back into the real world.
Comfortable and enveloping.
His eyes slowly opened, and he had to blink several times to clear them of the heavy veil of sleep and exhaustion that still weighed on him, allowing himself to fully wake up. The man sat up and brought a hand to his still-aching head, his mind in a state of confusion as he tried to piece together his last memories before losing consciousness, like trying to put back together the pieces of a puzzle scattered throughout every corner of a house turned upside down.
He remembered the expedition. He remembered the manor. He remembered Maelle's smiling face beside him, and he remembered how quickly that happy expression had transformed into one of terror when it appeared...
He suddenly flinched when he finally realized it.
Something was wrong. Something was missing.
Immediately, his eyes darted downward, and it quickly became clear to him what was missing. Where his arm had once been, there was now nothing but a stump ending around the level of his bicep, tightly wrapped in bandages whose pristine whiteness had been stained red with blood where they came into direct contact with the wound. Gustave let out a trembling sigh as he gently took hold of the stump with his remaining hand and pulled it close to himself, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he tried to hold back the tears beginning to form in them.
Finally, all the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place.
Now he remembered the ground trembling slightly beneath his feet to the rhythm of four paws sprinting toward their group at full speed. He remembered the loud bark the dog had let out when it spotted them. He remembered Maelle screaming his name in panic and, finally, he remembered those enormous jaws opening wide above him like a gaping chasm, inevitable and deadly.
And this was where the story stopped making sense again.
Gustave was alive. Certainly, he was missing an arm and had acquired a brand-new collection of traumas, but he was alive.
By all logic, he should have died the exact moment he found himself trapped inside the cramped, slimy, foul-smelling space of that dog's jaws... and yet he was still breathing. His body was still mostly intact.
So how was it possible that he was still among the living?
The borrower received his answer less than a second after asking himself that question, when he heard the sound of fabric brushing against fabric. Something extremely large was moving very close to him.
Gustave's eyes immediately snapped forward, locking onto whatever was so close to him while, only a few seconds earlier, he had been in his most vulnerable state. His breath caught in his throat when he saw it.
There, slumped over the desk upon which the borrower had just discovered himself, was one of the beings that had tormented him and his entire species in their worst nightmares for years. The monster parents used to frighten their children with when they misbehaved. Their greatest danger: a human.
He appeared to be sleeping, his large head resting on his equally enormous crossed arms, his raven-black hair falling slightly over his face.
Gustave remained there, staring at him for what were probably only a few seconds but felt like hours, not moving a muscle for fear that even the slightest noise might wake him from his sleep. He swallowed nervously, feeling his mouth suddenly become extremely dry, and eventually managed to tear his gaze away from the giant being only a short distance away from him so he could look around and get a clearer idea of the bizarre situation he had found himself in.
It didn't take long for him to realize that somehow the human must have found him and brought him inside the manor, probably to his room judging by the furnishings. And after bringing him here, the human had... treated him? Gustave found himself shaking his head in disbelief at the thought of this titan trying to take care of a being no taller than one of his fingers, a creature he could crush in a fraction of a second.
And yet, there was no other explanation.
The other members of the expedition would never have been able to retrieve him from that animal's mouth, and even if by some miracle they had managed to do so, they would never have had enough time to treat him before Gustave died from blood loss or an infection.
The human had saved his life, as absurd as that seemed.
With some difficulty and a grunt escaping his lips, the man managed to get up from where he had been sitting and stand. It was only when he reached his full height that he noticed his makeshift bed was nothing more than an empty matchbox softened by a large piece of fabric.
The borrower didn't take long to find his uniform and backpack, as they had been neatly placed beside the matchbox. Gustave let out an amused snort at the mental image of the human carefully folding what, to him, were essentially doll clothes.
Where was the catch?
There was always a catch.
And yet, this time Gustave was having a hard time finding it.
Simply because this behavior was the exact opposite of what one would expect from a human toward a borrower. Humans were cruel, violent, deceitful, and ruthless. That was what he had been told ever since he was a child.
And yet, this... this one was different.
The engineer let out a small sigh before climbing over the edge of the matchbox and crouching beside his belongings to make sure everything was there, intending to take everything and leave before the human woke up.
However, this plan fell apart at the exact moment when, while rummaging through his backpack with his back turned toward the sleeping giant, he suddenly heard the sound of fabric moving again, this time accompanied by a sleepy mumble typical of someone who had just woken from a nap.
Gustave froze in place, his heart skipping a beat, and for an instant he felt as though the air had been knocked from his lungs.
The human had woken up.
He remained completely still as he heard the human mumble something under his breath and stretch. Yet he forced himself to look back when he heard the human suck in a surprised breath as his eyes fell upon the tiny being he had taken care of, now completely awake and staring back at him.
His eyes were blue, Gustave noticed. An intense, almost piercing blue, a color he associated with ice but which lacked the coldness one might expect. It hardly mattered, however, because at that moment, with those two eyes fixed upon him, Gustave felt as though his heart were about to explode from how quickly it had begun beating, as if it were trying to escape his ribcage.
He couldn't see the softness in that gaze or the relief in those eyes when the titan realized that the little borrower was still alive. All his fear-distorted vision could perceive was a malicious and curious glimmer in those blue pools.
Like a cat playing with a mouse before eating it.
He had no idea how long this staring contest lasted, whether seconds or entire minutes, but the human was the first to break the silence.
"You woke up! Thank heavens. I was afraid I hadn't gotten to you in time." The human's voice was calm and even, and his face was relaxed in an expression of obvious relief, a patient smile tugging at his lips. "You were losing a lot of blood, and I thought you were already..." He didn't finish the sentence, seeming extremely uncomfortable at the thought.
Gustave remained silent and simply continued staring at the giant being sitting at the desk.
He felt that he should do something.
Run, scream, curse... anything, damn it!
But he couldn't.
All he could do was stand there, staring at the human as though he were afraid that the slightest movement, even something as small as a blink, might be enough to make the giant abandon his "kind" facade and reveal his true intentions.
The expression on his face must have been one of pure terror, because the human furrowed his brow, troubled by the silence and the obvious fear practically radiating from Gustave's tiny body.
"Hey, are you all right? Do you feel sick? I tried to be as careful as possible while treating you, but..." He lightly bit his lower lip. "...you're so tiny compared to me."
At that moment, the borrower caught sight of something moving from the corner of his eye.
A huge hand was slowly, but inexorably, making its way toward him.
That sight was enough to awaken his body from its frozen state and make it do what his mind had been screaming at him to do from the exact moment the human had woken up.
Run!
Without thinking twice, the man spun on his heels and began running in the opposite direction from the hand, straight toward the edge of the desk. If he could reach it, he could jump down and hide somewhere he would be safe.
Maybe underneath the wardrobe.
He heard the human say something, his voice urgent and clearly worried, but his brain didn't register a single comprehensible word. His mind was in complete turmoil, trapped in the primordial chaos that only fear could cause.
At that moment, he wasn't the brilliant engineer of Lumière.
He was prey running from its natural predator.
He saw the enormous hand descend toward him, trying to catch him, but he managed to slip away before those fingers could close around his body. His breathing became short and ragged from fear and exhaustion, his heart feeling as though it were about to explode, and his mind dragged him back to the streets of their old home, darkened by the shadows of the two gigantic monsters that had taken everything from him.
That day was burned into his memory like an indelible mark: the screams, the people urging him to run, the sound of bodies hitting the ground, the feeling of that familiar hand tightly clasped in his own, and the sensation of despair gripping his heart.
The feeling that perhaps this world was not made for people like them.
The edge of the desk was close now.
One final sprint and he would be free.
Or at least, that had been the plan, because when the edge was only a few steps away, something large suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his path.
It didn't take long for him to realize that it was a hand.
Between the panic and his balance being completely thrown off by his missing arm, Gustave couldn't stop in time and slammed straight into the soft, living wall that was the human's palm.
He cursed under his breath and tried to run in the opposite direction, but before he could take more than a few steps, a second hand appeared, blocking that path as well, effectively trapping the borrower between the two hands.
He was trapped.
Overcome by despair, he took a few steps backward and let himself fall into a sitting position on the surface of the desk, defeated. He wasn't in any condition to keep fighting.
It was simply better to let the human do whatever he wanted and hope that he would survive.
"Hey... it's all right," a voice murmured above him.
Gustave immediately looked up, expecting to see the human's face twisted into a malicious grin or a displeased frown at his attempt to escape.
Instead, all he saw was a patient, gentle smile and warm, soft eyes.
"I don't want to hurt you," the man reassured him before his smile became slightly more playful. "It wouldn't make much sense for me to put so much effort into treating you only to hurt you afterward, would it?"
He felt his face grow warm with embarrassment at those words because he finally realized how true they were.
If the human had truly intended to hurt or kill him, he would have already done so. Or he simply would have left that dog to finish the job.
But that wasn't the case.
The human had literally saved Gustave's life.
At this realization, he felt his body slowly relax, all the tension in his shoulders fading away.
"Yes, you're right. I'm sorry."
The human's smile widened slightly when he heard the borrower speak, and a glimmer of wonder appeared in his eyes.
"No, you don't have to apologize. I understand. Waking up like this must have been quite difficult for you."
"If anything, I should be the one apologizing for... well, you know." His smile faded slightly, the guilt obvious in his voice. "Monoco is my dog, and I can't help but feel partly responsible for what happened. You have my sincerest apologies, even though I know they can't give you back what was lost."
Gustave looked at his stump with an expression of sadness and pain and let out a trembling sigh.
"I'm alive. That's what matters," he said before looking back at the human. "And I have you to thank for that."
He finally managed to offer him a small, grateful smile.
The titan smiled back, and at that point his hands withdrew from where they had been positioned on either side of the tiny man to keep him from escaping.
However, one of them didn't move away.
Instead, it advanced toward Gustave, who couldn't help but flinch.
The hand stopped abruptly a few centimeters away, its palm facing upward.
"Sorry... I wanted to introduce myself properly. My name is Verso," the human said with a hopeful smile.
The borrower looked uncertainly at the offered hand before extending his own, incomparably smaller one, and placing it on the tip of Verso's index finger.
The difference in size was staggering.
Gustave had always known that his species was incredibly small compared to humans, but now that he realized he could literally run his fingers through the grooves of Verso's fingertip, he understood just how small he truly was compared to everything in this world.
"I'm Gustave," he finally announced.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Gustave," the human said before withdrawing his hand. "Though I would have preferred to meet you under different circumstances."
"Yeah, same here," Gustave replied with an embarrassed little laugh.
This conversation was going... surprisingly well, the borrower realized.
Verso genuinely seemed like a friendly person, probably the first human he had ever met who could be described that way.
Perhaps he could simply ask to be let go.
Verso wouldn't say no, right?
He was about to open his mouth to say something, but the human beat him to it.
"I'm sorry if this question seems rude, but... what exactly are you, Gustave?" Verso asked curiously. "It's obvious that you're not human, and I've never heard of tiny people before. Are there others like you?"
Ah.
There it was.
The second reason humans were the greatest danger to borrowers, besides the obvious difference in power and size: their insatiable and ever-present curiosity.
A human was already an enormous danger in itself, but a curious human was an even greater one.
Gustave cleared his throat nervously at those questions, struggling to figure out how to answer without sounding suspicious. Obviously, he couldn't tell the truth. That could potentially condemn everyone else in the expedition, and although Verso seemed like a good person, Gustave had known him for far too little time to take such a risk.
It didn't help that Gustave was terrible at lying.
"Um... W-well, you see—"
His nervous babbling was interrupted by a sudden and surprisingly loud growl coming from his stomach.
He felt his face turn red with embarrassment and immediately wrapped his one remaining arm around his middle, absolutely mortified.
The human seemed to find the whole thing amusing, as he let out a quiet chuckle.
"Looks like someone here is hungry. I can't blame you. That experience must have taken a lot out of you," Verso said in a playful yet patient tone. "I can go get you something to eat from the kitchens, if you'd like."
A tremendous weight lifted from Gustave's chest.
This was his chance to leave.
He immediately nodded.
"Yes, thank you very much."
The human nodded in return before getting up from his seat at the desk and heading toward the door, leaving the room.
The moment the enormous door closed behind Verso, Gustave sprang into action.
He didn't know how long the human would be gone, so he had to hurry.
He immediately rushed toward his equipment, putting on his uniform as best he could and taking his grappling hook out of his backpack.
Only a few seconds later, he was at the edge of the desk, but now there was no giant hand there to stop him.
Nevertheless, he hesitated for a few seconds.
Verso deserved at least a proper thank-you.
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Verso returned a few minutes later, holding a small plate containing various kinds of fruit cut into small pieces.
"I didn't know exactly what you could or couldn't eat, so—"
His sentence was cut short when his eyes fell upon the desk and he immediately noticed the tiny man's absence. He quickly approached the desk, setting the plate of food down on it, and began looking around to see if the little guy had hidden somewhere.
"Gustave?" he called, but there was no answer.
Realizing that there was nothing on the desk, the man began looking around the room, carefully watching where he placed his feet to avoid any accidents.
That was when he noticed the open window.
Verso had probably forgotten to close it after airing out the room.
Now it was easy to understand what had happened.
Verso let out a slightly disappointed sigh as he sat down in the desk chair.
He had been sure he had made a good first impression, and yet Gustave had still escaped through the window the moment he had gotten the chance, without even saying goodbye.
He only hoped he was all right, wherever he was.
It was then that he shifted his gaze back to the desk, and his eyes widened in surprise when he saw the trail of ink staining the wood and the pen abandoned beside a small piece of torn paper.
Verso picked up the little scrap, and his smile returned.
A single word was written on the tiny piece of paper: Merci.
