Chapter Text
Luca’s memory is a tricky little thing. One could say it’s faulty at best, wrecked at worst. Some days, he forgets to put on his shoes, and muffled laughs welcome him when he enters the dining hall. Sometimes, he stares into the mirror and an unknown man stares back, glassy-eyed and red-faced. And some nights, he swears he dreams of his past life, because he wakes up in tears. But, when he opens his eyes, it’s all gone.
His brain may be falling to pieces, but it’s not completely broken. There are some memories he will never forget. The sound of those confident steps on the hardwood floor of the manor’s entrance. The earthy scent of linseed oil, and a twinkle in those blue eyes, tickling the back of his mind. The boy’s smile, bright as a thousand suns. That hug, pure undeserved warmth seemingly coming from nowhere. And his sudden frown, and his broken voice, and those first words of realization.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?”
Something about Edgar Valden’s arrival shook Luca to the core. It was as intense as a first impression can be, to the point he wonders if it even happened. After all, Edgar never acknowledged those events again. And, hell, anyone would laugh at him if he tried to explain how the heartless painter smiled at him, how that porcelain face blushed pink for a second.
The Edgar Valden everyone knows is a hermit, a selfish lunatic who spends hours on end in his room, refusing to humor anyone else. He won’t rescue them in games, he won’t talk at dinnertime. A rotten, stuck-up wretch. Edgar lives for his art, and every last drop of his soul is fully devoted to his creations.
The rumors run wild at the manor. It is said that the elusive painter doesn’t eat dessert; he lets the gardener have it. In exchange, she lets him take a fresh bouquet of forget-me-nots, the same color as his icy stare that no one can stand up to.
If those rumors are true, what does that say about the tiny blue petals that Luca keeps finding by his doorstep?
Ever since that first encounter, Luca knows there’s more to Edgar than meets the eye, but he can’t afford to think much about it. It gives him a headache. And it leaves a funny feeling, albeit disturbing. Like standing on the very edge of a cliff and looking down into the void. There’s only static down there.
No one else knows the painter’s voice. He won’t talk to anyone — not even Luca. And, by god, he has tried to. But Edgar only mumbles to himself in the waiting room, seated at the very end of the table, hands together as if saying a prayer. Luca shudders. Those whispers scratch a raw wound in the back of his mind. They reverberate deep in his memory, they overlap and turn louder and louder, and they sound like champagne bubbles and red velvet sheets. They morph into words of love, sighs of adoration. Then the smell of burnt hair, ringing in his ears. Emily shoots him a concerned look, and Luca weakly smiles back, a drop of sweat trickling down his temple. His heart is pounding.
Were those his memories, or a wild hallucination?
Did he imagine those lifeless blues shining bright like summer skies?
Having seen a glimpse of Edgar’s heart, it hurts to look at the husk of a boy sitting in front of him now. Surely that can’t be the real Edgar, Luca thinks, clinging to the fragments of a broken past. No, the real Edgar is the one he first met. It must be.
Because, if that memory is fake, he’s falling in love with an illusion.