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The quiet is what gets him the most.
This broken silence that not even footsteps break.
Verso sits in silence in the parlor as a steaming cup is placed in front of him. A splash of milk, four sugars for his unbearable sweet tooth. There is a lump in his throat as he sips at it and tries not to stare at the creature in front of him.
It is easier to think of him as a creature. It is a projection of will, a caricature of chroma, a desecration of the man he knows to not be his father.
It does not stop the desire to throw himself into his arms and cry like he is a boy again.
The creature cannot speak. It does not need to. It conveys everything it needs to in looks alone. Pity, first and foremost, accompanying a deep, ever-lasting sadness. A grief that feels too hollow to be grief. It lacks the desperation he felt from the Paintress. From his mother.
Not his mother. The other Verso’s mother. The real Verso.
Because it is not the creature that is a caricature, but he himself. He is not the boy who grew up playing in this Canvas. He is not the boy who grew up skiing with his mother or playing songs with Clea or teaching Alicia how to play safely with Gestrals.
No, actually. That last one had been him.
Verso doesn’t need to glance behind to know Alicia is nearby. She lurks whenever Renoir is close to the Monolith; she likes it even less than Verso does. He wonders if the bastardization of what he knew his older sister to be has told Alicia the truth as well.
She sits next to him and rests her hand on his. “Hey,” Verso says. Alicia looks at him, silent, from behind the mask she has taken to wearing at all times. “You know who he is?”
Alicia looks from him to the creature and nods. She waves, something small and shy and close to her body. Verso watches the creature’s body language soften, watches as it, carefully, waves back.
Always the favorite, she is.
The creature pushes the cup closer to him. Verso sips at it and tries to ignore the lump in his throat when it is just right. It brings to mind memories of sitting in the atelier while his father painted, of the wink from the corner of his eye as his father murmured, “Don’t tell your mother I let you drink in here.” It brings back memories of walking the dogs on the cool December mornings and discussing philosophy with his father, neither of them quite awake enough to have an in-depth conversation but both too stubborn to let the topic go.
Tears prick at the corners of his eyes. It’s not fair. The memories he has of easy mornings are not his own. The gentle memories of time spent with inside jokes and recommended books, those are not his own.
They belong to a dead man.
“I’m sorry,” Verso tells the creature. “I’m sorry I’m not him. I’m sorry that you lost him. It’s not fair.” It’s not fair. It’s not fair.
He screamed it from the top of one of the buildings tilted in the Fracture, partially crumbling under the weight of disaster. The disastrous weight of grief.
It’s not fair.
None of it is fair. Life isn’t fair, Verso is old enough to know this, but still he tries for a balance. He tried for a balance. The good and the bad. The happy and the sad.
The creature makes a noise like it is speaking. Verso cannot understand it, though he has tried. Alicia looks from the creature to him. “You can understand him?” he asks. Alicia nods. Verso smiles, unable to help himself, and tucks her hair behind her ear. She lets him—she’s always let him, even when she shied away from everyone else.
Because she doesn’t mind his touch, or because someone has painted her that way?
He ignores the pit in his stomach and turns his attention to the creature.
The creature, because if he calls it Renoir, then it’s all the more real.
It comes closer, approaching around the back of the sofa, before it rests a claw-like hand on Verso’s shoulder. It is almost familiar, an uneasy uncanniness to the touch. Against his will, he relaxes into it. “Do you miss him?”
The creature cannot answer in a way he understands. Still, the sudden tightness to the grip doesn’t need much translation.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m not him.”
The hand pats his shoulder. Verso laughs into the cup, jostling it enough to spill. “Ah, merde—”
The tea freezes in the air. Chroma suspends it until each individual drop is returned, one by one, to the porcelain cup held in his hand. Verso tilts his head up, scarcely breathing, and finds, in the creature’s eyes, a reflection of his father’s face. Careful, it seems to say.
Verso’s breath catches. “I am careful,” he says as his heart thuds in his chest. Alicia laughs. The creature shifts in a way that reminds him of his father’s laughter.
They almost feel like a family.
His gaze lowers to the cup.
They are not a family.
His family has been broken apart by this family of gods that masquerade in the faces of his own. His world is their sacrificial lamb. His life is their written law.
It’s not fair.
“I need to go.”
He’s halfway out the door before the words even leave his mouth, the ghost of Alicia’s hand in his own. The ghost of the creature’s hand on his shoulder. The taste of memory, sweet and hot, on his tongue.
It tastes like salt. Like tears.
Verso runs.