#verse:twisted vines

[lewistan]

“I wanted so badly to tell Tiffany the truth about why I came here, but something was happening  – something I’d never experienced before – and I didn’t want it to end.” - Ji

[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.”

[lewistan]

Vines vines vines

verses + headcanons:

In the Vines verse, Edgar never has that moment where he leaves the family. There is no 18th birthday blowout that serves as the catalyst for him setting out on his own. Rather, in the vines verse, Edgar is the heir Xavier has raised him to be. Well, in word if not deed, since Edgar is both subtly and overtly unlike what Xavier dreamed he would be. At 33, Edgar knows the winery inside out from the bottom up and is poised to take it over when the time is right.

It’s also in this verse that the three Fortier siblings (or a Yang, a Yang-Fortier, and a Fortier) form an alliance. Though Henri did not spend his entire childhood with his siblings, he and Edgar have struck up a tenuous sort of bond where both boys have realized that they are, in different ways, products of their father’s desire to replicate himself. They are, as the Fortier siblings (usually, not including Henri) in every verse typically are, loyal to one another. It is, after all, Henri who inadvertently alerts Edgar to Liv’s return to Avignon. 

In this verse (as well as Sins of the Father), Edgar has something of an inkling of knowledge of just how nefarious his father is. He is beginning to uncover just how deeply Xavier’s treachery runs and the deeds that he and Theo have committed and attempted to bury. 

While Edgar has traveled extensively, the only time that he’s been away from home for a substantial amount of time was when he was off studying at University.

The majority of Edgar’s day is spent handling the business aspect of the winery -- getting to know the staff, being on the floor with them. He enjoys the comradery and the sense of family that they’ve established especially since the majority of them have been with the family for generations. It’s his hope that once he and his siblings have wrestled full control from Xavier (one way or the other), they can fully legitimize the business and make the workers partners in its continued growth.