loveauthority | [r8] talking head: gustave

[ hello you pathetic man ]

Gustave-san! It's nice to meet you! Are you ready to fall in love all over again? To take that second dive?!

[ WOW? HE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING YET?!

Well, okay, he looks a little bedraggled. Understandably so, perhaps, given he was certain he was dead meat not so long ago. He's always tried to be a man of logic; internally, he suspects this all might be some kind of dying dream, a weird hallucination his brain cooked up in its final throes. But it's awfully realistic.

He's still worried about Maelle. Then again, that's why he's here, isn't it? If there's a chance to make sure she stays safe, he has to take it. Even so, he seems rather unfocused as he sits across from... a teenage girl, of all things. Someone is not matching her enthusiasm. ]

Uh. Maybe? I mean... [ a beat. ] ... Listen, forget about that. Is this real?

Want me to pinch you to find out?

[ she'll do it. she's reaching out already to do it. ]

[ Gustave squishes his eyes shut. ]

Can't hurt.

[ holding out his non-prosthetic arm. Please. ]

[ sick she loves causing men pain. who said that.

reaching out to give him a firm pinch!!!!! it hurts. ]

It's real! What makes you think it wouldn't be? Did you just escape a cave in or something?

[ freaky ahh anna...

he winces, as expected. All right, yes, this is real. Inexplicable, but real. ]

... I didn't escape the cave, actually. That's... why I'm confused.

[ oh

he really was in a cave??? crazy. anyway ]

Well... Let's say that Cupid saw you fit to give you a second chance at life, so you've got four weeks to find a roomie to go back with! And maybe kiss!

[ bringing someone back sounds like an absolutely terrible idea, but he appreciates the sentiment. ]

And... you're Cupid?

[ raising an eyebrow. ]

Sure!

[ why not. it can go under her other title of [redacted]. ]

Or his assistant, anyway! Love comes in a lotta different shades, after all!

[ even if she's cheering on romance, ]

Right...

[ this is so surreal. help him. ]

Miss Assistant, I'm -- not really looking for love right now. [ sounding slightly solemn. ] But I would like to go back, or... at least make that wish you all mentioned.

Boooooo.

[ yeah she's straight boooooooing him. it's fine she doesn't seem actually offended or annoyed. ]

That's fine, plenty of people come here for the wish -- and end up leaving with both! [ a lot of her group did, actually... a small smile. ] Sometimes love happens whether you're looking for it or not, so even if it isn't on your mind... don't close the door on it completely. Okay?

Hey, don't boo me, [ he protests, although it does get him to smile a little. ] I guess anything's possible.

[ considering the situation back home, he kind of hopes romance doesn't happen, but, as Anna says, it seems he's willing not keep that door open just a crack. ]

Rough night, huh?

[ last night... being the sober king you are. like her night was not also rough because of the results. ]

I think you've got some admirers though, Gustave-san. From an outsider's view. Whatcha think about that?

[ tfw booze won't help your sadness. okay actually he was mostly just trying to be responsible. ]

Yeah, I've noticed. [ blowing a sigh. ] I'm flattered, I really am. But...

I know, I know, you aren't really here for romance. But is there any harm in, you know...

[ nudging him a bit with her foot. ]

Having some fun with it anyway? Enjoy being liked and the apple of someone's eye?

... To be honest with you, no. Not really.

[ he frowns, letting her nudge at him while he shakes his head glumly. ]

I -- before I came here, I lost someone... special to me. And everything just keeps reminding me of her.

[ oh.

her nudging stops, foot back to herself, and she'll lean into her hammock. ]

Sorry to hear that. [ sincerely. ] What was she like?

[ a sigh. It hurts to talk about her, a little, but at the same time, he likes to do so. It helps keep her around, if only in memory. ]

Smart. Beautiful. She always knew how to make me laugh, always had something clever to say that I'd never thought of before. [ he looks down at his hands, fiddling with the edge of one of his prosthetic finger joints idly. ] It didn't work out between us, but I never stopped missing her. Then I was with her for her Gommage.

[ it always hurts to talk about the people you miss. anna... hasn't lost anyone herself that way, not yet, and she's thankful for it -- but she thinks of lemon and her grandmother, of her own, of will and the dangers that still lie in euchronia...

...

ugh!!! she's still so mad at him!!! ]

Sounds like a fancy cheese. But I'm guessing... it's not?

[ that gets him to smile, at least, though it's a bitter one. ]

No... I wish. [ #french #mycheese ] In my home, you only live for so many years before you disappear, and the terminal number ticks down every year. If you're that age when the number changes, you're erased - gommaged. It dropped to 33 this year, and she was 33 that day, so... that was it.

[ ...

yikes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ]

So, like... when it hits those single digits, your future's pretty much done?

[ the children are it, after all. would kind of... wipe out a lot of potential. and what happens if it hits zero? does it just-- stop? can people live normally again? so many questions. ]

[ thinking about it puts a little pit in his stomach; he nods, albeit stiffly. ]

We just have to stop it before that happens.

[ he doesn't want to imagine a future full of children who can hardly care for themselves, helpless and alone and dying from a threat they can't even comprehend - he unconsciously grips his hands into fists. ]

[ ...

anna's laying in her hammock dm her, but her head'll turn at gustave. ]

Soooo. Have any hopes for who the light was about?

[ like it's the question she's been asking everyone ]

[ girllllllll don't come at him immediately like this ]

I mean - of course I hope my choice was right?

[ that's normal?! it's normal! ]

[ so normal! ]

I hope so too. You and Date-san...

[ a wiggle of her fingers. ]

Really seem to be getting along.

[ he sighs, and tilts his head back, somehow feeling both exasperated and embarrassed. ]

I know. I mean, I don't really know, but...

[ that makes sense, gustave. ]

Am I crazy? He - his main hobby, it's looking at dirty magazines, he said it himself. That's disgusting. But then he keeps saying all these things to me...

You're not crazy! He's a totally disgusting man who's got depraved hobbies, no filter or ability to read a room, and a totally dishonest heart. But...

[ hmmm. ]

But, he's also surprisingly cute, sweet, and definitely a devoted kind of guy if he's got a daughter that terrorizes him as much as it sounds. If she didn't want anything to do with him, she wouldn't. [ simple as that. a shrug. ] So he's a faceted guy. I knew someone who was unbelievable sweet, cooked well, and always put others before himself -- and he regularly got nosebleeds around the girls we knew and was a real creep unless you understood where he came from.

[ she loves sanji, she does. but these are facts. ]

He got his girl, too. But Mii-chan's a piece of work herself, I guess... [ .... she loves asa but-- ] Anyway, I'm just saying-- it's gross, he should totally get a new hobby, but is it a dealbreaker that he's a freak?

[ augh!!

hearing someone else say out loud the things he's been thinking is somehow mortifying - it makes them all the more real, not just off-handed idle thoughts that nobody needs to know about. It is factual that Date is both a nasty freak and a devoted sweetheart who's friendly, thoughtful, and surprisingly adorable when he's flustered. Horrible. Gustave swallows, looking down at his shoes while the tips of his ears burn red. He should have better taste than this. Sophie would bully the hell out of him for it.

The fact that he can think about both of them and not feel the grief overpowering him is a good sign. Or a bad one. Probably a bad one, if he's being realistic, because he, quite literally, does not have the time. ]

It - it feels like it should be? I'm, you know... People respected me back home - I have a daughter, more or less, and I'm an Expeditioner now, so - [ so what?! Gustave shakes his head, gesturing vaguely. ] - I-I shouldn't be telling you all this, Yanachan, you're half my age. Sorry.

Edited (style clarity...) 2025-09-21 19:29 (UTC)

Oh, don't worry about that! Okay? My age aside, I am your guide to a happy end. Or, well, I'm doing my best to be.

[ not everyone agrees.

but... it's a good sign for date, she thinks, that gustave is even speaking on any of this. considering it. even if it's slow, even if it's hesitant -- it reminds her of someone dear, and anna can't help but sit up properly to talk. ]

What's keeping you from it? Your reputation? That frommage thing? The cave-in you're not surviving?

[ anna remembers how her joke landed flat. ]

[ he can't even laugh at "fromage thing" because the whiplash of fretting over Date straight into the bleak reminder of his own demise has him tongue-tied for a good moment. ]

... The last one, really.

[ he shouldn't be scared. But he is very scared. He wouldn't change anything he did; as it turns out, death is terrifying no matter what you die doing. Gustave seems like he wants to talk about this even less than he wants to discuss his burgeoning feelings, given how he tries scurrying back to that topic instead. ]

No, I... I don't know if I'm ready, anyway. To care about someone like that again, I mean. I'm not sure how you're supposed to tell when you're ready. [ he shakes his head. ] And... I don't want to hurt more people when I go.

[ ... well. anna watches him draw back from the conversation, then sits up and folds her hands in her lap. ]

You're ready when you are. [ it's soft. ] But it's scary, huh? Realizing you don't feel the same grief you used to.

[ she'll get to the death in a second. for now-- ]

Before Will, I was in love with someone for over a decade. But he didn't feel the same, and he went with another girl. [ ... ] I think I was more upset realizing I wasn't upset anymore than anything, as time went on.

[ because it's scary, in a way, to move on. but anna chose to, because will loved her back and made it known in every possible way.

her voice turns harder, more convinced. ]

But you're not living on borrowed time, Gustave-san. Plenty of people have walked away from this formerly dead, now alive, in other worlds or because they wished it so. You can do the same.

[ a decade?! It must have started as a little kid's crush, then; she's not old enough to have a failed relationship that long. Then again, he wasn't exactly Mr. Popular when he was younger - maybe it was real, for whatever definition of real one can apply to a courtship between middle schoolers. It's at least real enough for her advice to ring true, though their circumstances were very different. He still loves Sophie, and she'd still loved him, he thinks. It had simply failed because of their circumstances. It's hard to admit he might feel attraction to someone else when he never stopped feeling it for her at all.

Alas, these thoughts stay in his head, because they're back at his mortality. Anna is very much more convinced than he is, judging by his grave expression. ]

It's not like that. I'm not ... using my wish for that. The problem I need to fix, it's bigger than just my life. That's a trade I agreed to already. [ a beat. ] ... And I don't want to live without my family. I'm not abandoning them and going somewhere else.

Edited (BECAUSE I FELT I HAD TO!!!!!) 2025-09-22 05:59 (UTC)

So bring them with you. Even if production doesn't go out of their way for you, which they usually do, I will.

[ no one's messing with a teenaged girl on a mission. and she's very, very serious about it.

still... even if she can seemingly leave her own world so easily (it won't be easy, when she comes to the date), for others... ]

Don't you want to live in the world you've changed, Gustave-san? You can have both, promise.

[ slightly exasperated: ] Of course I do. Putain, I'm scared shitless of dying, but I've only got the one wish! And even that's up in the air, considering what happened the first week.

[ Date did offer to cover him if his wish did happen to be the one they lost, but 0+1 is still 1 -- plus, he's not too keen on taking somebody else's away from them. He's sure Date has plenty to wish for, too. ]

[ whoa french ]

Don't worry about that. Okay? It's handled. [ or will be. ] And-- to be honest, people will always use their wish for others if they don't need it themselves.

[ eugh, he shouldn't be getting this worked up talking to Anna, but this topic stresses him out. He's been spending most of his time trying not to think about it. ]

... Sorry, I shouldn't have... [ he shakes his head. ] I want to trust you, I do. It's just... I have to be ready for what's probably going to happen.

[ it's hard to be an idealist about getting a hole blown through your torso. ]

If you trust me, then let's keep your worries to this room and live like you're not dying the moment you leave outside of it. Just like you have been, but I don't mind hearing you out, Gustave-san. I've seen waaaaaaaaay worse now.

[ torso blown out is small fry compared to ritsuka's dolls. ]

Kiss the guy you like and tell him how you feel. Or switch the order. Just be happy about things going well, since you deserve that as much as anyone else -- your future needs to include a second person, at the very least, no matter what.

[r8] talking head: gustave

arrival!

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week one!

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wdym it's been 3 days

week two!

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e33 spoilers if u haven't reached act 2... beware

blessed...

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