#here have a quick plotless xavier moment

[lewistan]

“You were broken to begin with.” (Xavier and Edgar)

This had been brewing for days, weeks if Edgar was being honest, like a storm hovering over the ocean’s surface biding its time before making landfall, maximum destruction guaranteed. It had been two weeks since the semester had ended, two weeks since he’d bid New Haven farewell and headed back to his beloved Avignon. Only, the Avignon he’d returned to was not the idyllic one of his memories. Time away had caused him to remember the vineyards with fondness. Each time Edgar had closed his eyes, the New England winter burrowing into his heart, he could picture the way the sun rose over the perfectly straight lines of vines heavy with varying types of grapes. He could almost taste them. In his memories, Edgar was a young boy running between those perfect rows, eager to pick the grapes and take them to be pressed. 

But two weeks home had reminded him of the darker aspects of his childhood -- of the perpetual fear, the constant pain, the hiding. He could feel his mood darken as the coil that was Xavier re-established its grip on him. It was almost as if the shadow he’d fought so hard to cast off, the one that had been his constant companion throughout his childhood, had slid over him like a familiar skin as soon as he’d stepped foot within the Manor’s walls. 

Edgar had tiptoed around it -- more for the sake of his mother than for himself -- but avoidance had simply served to put off the inevitable. And now, the storm was breaking, crashing, tearing apart everything in its path. 

“I can’t expect for you to understand the way in which business works. You’ve always struggled to make difficult decisions. I tried to save you from it, but I see now that it was a futile effort: you were broken to begin with.” His father’s words – delivered in a tone so commonplace he may as well have been discussing the weather – echoed around the walls of his study. The sunlight that streamed in through the windows was the antithesis to the chill that spread through Edgar’s body. He’d heard the words before in various contexts, and yet, they never ceased to sting. Regardless of Xavier’s faults, there was always a part of Edgar that believed that one day he’d do something to prove himself worthy of his father’s love. That day had yet to come.

“You’ve mentioned that before,” Edgar retorted. The words fell easily from his lips, lazily, as if they meant nothing to him. Edgar held his father’s gaze as he continued. “I suppose it’s a statement of my parentage.” 

In the past, those words would’ve warranted a slap. It had been a similar statement that had earned him the scar which permanently bisected his left eyebrow. Now, though, Xavier’s lips twisted in a macabre sort of smile. “It would seem as if University has injected steel into your spine in a way I never could.” 

Edgar couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be an edge of pride to Xavier’s statement. It was unlike anything Edgar had ever heard and it set his teeth on edge. “Don’t worry.” He spun on his heel dismissing himself from the conversation before his father had the opportunity to. “In three weeks, I’ll be an ocean away and you can return to pretending like your failure of a son doesn’t exist.”