White Sheets - 6. Old Trouble, New Trouble

Seeing Anduin sitting relaxed between Cain and Flavius at the table, shoveling scrambled eggs and bacon into himself, thoroughly destroyed Remy's morning peace, even though none of the slaves spoke. That Flavius was already neatly dressed for taking Mistress Ellen for an appointment to Denser's Port made Remy kind of nervous; his cornflakes were unusually tasteless.

"What's Claire like?" Flavius asked then into the silence.

Remy, but also Marc, winced. He looked to Anduin, who shrugged.

"A spoiled brat."

"I know. She may come here rarely, but I've run into her a few times. What's she like on a day-to-day basis? As a mistress?"

"A spoiled brat." Anduin repeated, lips twisting mirthlessly into a sort of smile. "She can be a terrible bitch, but on the outside she's usually sweet and kind so she gets what she wants. Be warned."

"How long have you been serving her?" Cain asked calmly, eyeing his empty coffee cup.

"Only six months, but her grandmother told me right when she bought me that I would be Claire's pretty soon. She had cancer and wanted to make sure her favorite granddaughter had a good personal slave."

Remy choked on his milk and barely rescued the bowl onto the counter before Marc firmly patted him on the back. Somehow he doubted Anduin had a shiny file and heard praise.

Anduin instantly gave him a strange look too, but then changed the subject: "As for the girls... consent, condom, no toys, right?"

"Yeah..." Marc nodded and set his empty bowl down while Remy wiped a tear from his eye; his chest was on fire. "Works pretty good."

"Does the no toys rule apply just to us, or to them as well?" Curious, Anduin looked at them, and since no one had an answer at hand, Remy finally said, after clearing his throat:

"I guess you'll have to ask the mistresses. So far no one has asked such petty questions."

Now Anduin grinned. "Petty questions? Really, haven't any of you learned how to deal with women?"

Remy felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. All he had ever heard on the subject was: obey and only ask questions when absolutely necessary. Now the circumstance was different, but it didn't come with any new knowledge, and his shy nature took care of the rest.

"No.", Cain said seriously and clearly for all of them.

Anduin's grin faded, but he raised a brow in return. "May we ask one of the girls for attention, or must we wait for them to come to us?"

"You may offer yourself." Flavius replied with a faint smile that didn't really reach his eyes. "But of course you can be turned down."

"What about you?"

Remy's frown was partially reflected in Cain's suddenly tense shoulders. "The mistresses don't mind if we... well, deal with each other. But I'm not interested." He tried to make it sound friendly, but Anduin's subtle frown didn't escape him.

"Sorry, dude, but men aren't my cup of tea." Flavius shook his head and glanced at his small wristwatch.

"Not a chance," Cain said coolly as Flavius left the kitchen, and Marc shrugged.

"I don't have any experience in that regard. But I'm not keen on it either."

Anduin nodded, and the silence falling was tense rather than embarrassed.

~
 

Flavius was a pig. It wasn't the first time Remy had made the observation, although to be fair he couldn't actually determine any ownership of the sheet, except for the fact that Flavius' sheets somehow always looked disgusting. And smelled.

He was almost done by now, the last stains getting harassed, when footsteps approached and only moments later Anduin sat down on the pavement at a safe distance from the tub. With no one here to serve as a buffer if necessary, his pulse quickened, his lips tingling in memory of last night. "Don't you have something to do?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anduin shrug.

"Cain shooed me out of the kitchen and Claire is talking to Therese. No one has given me anything to do. Mind you, I don't feel like there's much to do here either."

"You could help Marc with the laundry," Remy suggested. It was true, although the villa was quite large, they weren't drowning in work. Many rooms were cleaned infrequently, or only when they were needed, and all the other chores were divided up fairly well.

"I could." But Anduin didn't move, just continued to watch Remy work the sheet.

There were a lot of questions in his head, about how Anduin had fared, when he had left the convent and all that, but he didn't ask a single one of them. He didn't ask about their parents and he didn't ask about their brothers, he didn't ask about the pretty novice from back then. He had left all that behind, the forced brotherly intimacies, Anduin's declarations of love, the orders, the women, the punishments, the blood. Only the sheets... the almost- oh, the definitely obsessive desire for white sheets, that had remained.

And so he scrubbed at the cum stains until he could bear Anduin's stares no longer and thoroughly washed out the sheet in the other vats. True, Anduin was still watching him, but in a moment, just a moment, he was done.

"Shall I pour the water down the drain there?" Anduin asked quietly.

"Please.", Remy replied simply, and set about bringing the sheet up the line. He could hear the water sloshing and splashing and Anduin rinsing out the containers with the water hose provided, and was still tugging unnecessarily at the sheet when Anduin stepped behind him. Way too close. "Don't." he muttered as Anduin stroked his back.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want you to." But he'd probably provoked it, somehow, indirectly, and having his big brother so close felt good. Safe.

Anduin took half a step back and Remy only now noticed that he was barefoot. Shoes- or rather slippers- had been given to them only in winter, and he had never really been able to get used to shoes; even thick warm socks were sometimes hard to bear. Anduin must have noticed it too, because matching his thoughts, his own bare foot was nudged by bare toes.

"I'm done out here."

"Some things apparently don't change, huh, Riri?"

He turned his head and frowned, all the more because Anduin smiled wistfully.

"I missed you, I really did."

He tried to avoid the look, but was as if locked in place. "I didn't."

The smile faded, giving way to hurt. "Not a bit?"

Now he did lower his gaze and took a step back. "Sometimes. At first." He had missed the security Anduin promised, the comfort. And perhaps the tenderness with which Anduin treated him most of the time, but he had learned and experienced so much since he had left the convent that not much good had remained of his mental image of Anduin.

"I missed you," Anduin repeated quietly. "I could have betrayed you, and then they would have brought you back to us- to me- but then they would have punished you. Probably hard enough to break you at last, and I couldn't have borne that." He sounded bitter, but also infinitely sad, and Remy lifted his gaze. Sure enough, tears shimmered in Anduin's eyes. "They said Remy was crazy, Riri. Ma said you shouldn't have been separated, but the High Mother... she punished him when he didn't comply like you always did. He killed himself."

Remy's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?" Ice water seemed to run through his veins, making his body tingle sickeningly.

"Hanged himself. Don't ask me how he knew how to make nooses like that, or how he managed those damn sheets-"

The rest rushed past him. With his mouth open in bewilderment, he stood there, staring at Anduin, yet seeing only his twin brother in a ghostly-mute vision pleading and begging, crying and despairing, washing and cutting a sheet. The real Remy had not been a wimp like Maurice had been, the real Remy...

The real Remy was dead.

He himself was merely... a liar. A traitor. An imposter.

Only when he felt grass on his hand did he realize that had sunk to his knees, his other hand pressed in front of his mouth. A sob burst from him.

Remy. Remy was dead. Remy was dead and it was his fault.

Tears streamed down his face and the crying fit left him gasping for breath. "He's dead... Great Mother... Remy..."

"Shh, Riri, shh..." Anduin pulled him tightly into his arms, pressing his head to his shoulder and cradling him gently.

"It's my fault... oh, Hell and Eden, Anduin, I... I made him-"

"No, Riri, it's not your fault." The embrace, the voice- it was so familiar and so hated, and yet the only thing that could give him support at the moment.

"Why... why didn't you say anything?" He had taken perhaps the only chance he would ever get, had started a new life and driven his brother to suicide. "Anduin, what have I done?" He didn't deserve the comfort Anduin offered him.

"The right thing."

"What?" He hiccupped and raised his head, but saw nothing because of all the tears.

"If Remy had left, they would have handed you his duties, and believe me, you wouldn't have stood up to them," Anduin said gently, stroking his wet cheek.

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"Because they would have punished you, and I couldn't have endured that. But also... because I saw how desperate you must have been, deep inside. Because I admired your courage. Because I hoped you would be happy out there, or at least have a better life. I love you, Riri, don't you understand, I let you go, that's exactly why..."

Again the sobs burst out of him, threatening to break his chest and throat in the process. He snuggled into Anduin's arms, just like in the past, letting his tears run free, and he knew he was understood. Anduin was the only one who knew what Maurice had been running from, even if he probably didn't realize- or didn't want to realize- that his own name was also on the list of reasons.

"I'm sorry... oh damn, I'm so sorry... Anduin, I-"

"Shh, Riri, it's okay, it's long over."

He sobbed into Anduin's shirt, holding onto him as if Hella would otherwise drag him alive to her realm for his offense. He would have deserved it. "I'm sorry, Anduin, I love you, I..."

"I know, Maurice, I love you even more."

~
 

"So, these are the last boxes." Mistress Therese put her hands on her hips and looked at the file boxes on the floor.

Remy stood by and waited, the file cart behind him, ready to load up the sorted out files and documents and then take them to the car. It was the same every year, and even his mistress's office here on campus always looked the same, except for the changing large calendars on the wall. The current sheet showed Farlough chiseling a sculpture of a naked Augusta, who in turn also held a hammer and chisel.

But instead of ordering him to load the boxes onto the cart, Mistress Therese tilted her head and looked at him. "Has something happened, Remy?"

He raised his brows in surprise. "What do you mean, Mistress?"

"Cain mentioned earlier about feeling certain tensions between you and Anduin, and then I have to hear that you're sitting in the garden crying and letting Anduin comfort you. So...?"

He swallowed and lowered his eyes. He was deeply reluctant to elaborate on his relationship with Anduin beyond "We know each other from the past." By now he knew that he probably hadn't officially begun to exist until the day Amaya had loaded her data onto the chip in his shiny new collar. He had no idea what was written in his file concerning his parents, and it probably wasn't a good idea to kick up dust by saying something that wasn't officially true at all.

"We had a very... ambivalent relationship... towards the end and...", he faltered and kept his gaze insistently on the file boxes, "he told me earlier about the death of an old friend.", he finally concluded.

And still more lies...

Mistress Therese sighed softly, sympathetically. "I'm sorry to hear that."

He nodded weakly and finally raised his eyes again, only to be met by a gentle encouraging smile that almost broke his heart. Great Mother, did he deserve such a good mistress?

"Are you going to get along?"

He nodded, though he actually doubted it. His morning breakdown in the garden might have bridged some of the years-big and years-old distance, but he was no longer the unworldly and somewhat naive boy who had left the convent back then. Thirteen years was a long time.

"Good." Mistress Therese nodded and relaxed her rigid posture, only to contort her face a little unhappily. "Remy, I'd like you to keep an eye on Claire. You know her, obviously Anduin, and the other slaves best, know me and Ellen best. She may be my niece, but she's a terribly spoiled girl and I really don't appreciate Christina just dumping her on me like that."

He nodded again. "What did she come for anyway, mistress? Apart from studying, I mean."

"So I could set her up as an heiress, of course." The corners of Mistress Therese's mouth pointed noticeably downward. "Harlaney is an old and well-known name, the house famous with its traditions. Since Ellen and I have no children, the thought is obvious. Although we had actually thought about adopting a girl."

A critical frown crept onto his face and he ventured to ask: "Do blood ties weigh so heavily, then, that you cannot refuse?"

She sighed a little resignedly. "No, goodness, it's not a commitment, especially since paternal bloodlines carry less weight anyway. But Christina has two older daughters besides Claire and wants all three of them well taken care of, which I can understand. My concerns are really about Claire herself, her character. That's why we agreed on two years of getting to know each other." She sighed again. "Please, Remy, keep an eye on her. We both know she can be a lovely girl if she just wants to be- or if she wants something. Report to me anything that doesn't go the way it should, will you?"

"Of course, Mistress." He nodded seriously. Was Mistress Therese worried that Claire might abuse her special position?

At least Mistress Therese looked like the subject was giving her a toothache, but for now she left it at that. "Now then... let's get these darned files into the car."

"Of course, mistress." He nodded and directly lifted the first box onto the cart, but out of the corner of his eye he noticed the thoughtful gaze resting on him.