The Conference Room in the Catacombs below the Thieves' street, as some called the street where the Thieves Guild clans had their ancestral homes, was rarely so full, although it rarely had a reason to be. Today it had. The man who had been their Guildmaster for more than eight decades had been assassinated three weeks ago.
"So, you think this one is going to be more productive?" Emil quietly addressed the teen to his left.
Lately, everyone with four and a half friends had been trying to call a general assembly for one reason or another. But this one had been called by the entirety of the council, so its importance had been rather obvious.
Remy shrugged weakly and immediately went back to looking a strange mix of catatonic and miserable. Emil hadn't actually expected him to answer. While Remy had seemingly dealt with finding his own father in a puddle of blood, it had only been a matter of time until something made his illusion of normalcy collapse. Apparently that something was the vote.
Emil would try to talk to him afterwards. He would probably need someone to confide in. Or yell at. The second one was much more likely, if Emil was being honest with himself.
The majority of the other Thieves in the room, what just might be the entire Guild, seemed unsure, although some wore disturbingly determined expressions on their faces.
Theoretically this should be a quick and easy decision, Emil thought, not a decision at all, really. Even Emil knew that he was fooling himself.
In the middle of the room a council member was going through the motions with a speech that might have been a eulogy. Even if it was one, the one at his uncle's funeral had felt more earnest.
While Emil was still looking for familiar faces in the audience, picking out peers, their parents, the speaker had changed.
While he missed most of the first part, he still got the gist about a necessity to find a new leader, and how important it was that everyone chose the person whom they were most willing to follow. In Emil's opinion it was pretty obnoxious. The victor was predetermined anyways, and the question was just how much, or how little, support he had.
"Then we shall vote. We'll count in ten minutes. Use the time to make up your minds." Councilmember Landry finished.
Emil was sure there were phrases, a script for this, but these weren't it. Maybe nobody had bothered to look them up. Maybe it was just Landry who hadn't cared enough.
The murmuring in the cavern became deafening. Good acoustics in the space, at least when you were trying to make sure one single speaker was heard by all.
"Do we all vote separately or together?" Clarence asked. The question wasn't explicitly directed at anybody but he seemed to still be expecting an answer from Francois.
"Do I get a vote?" Tav was swinging her feet back and forth.
Good question, Emil thought. It was the same thing he was wondering about, too.
"What are the options, anyways?" Clarence was determined to joke about anything and everything. At least, that was what Emil hoped was the reason for that question.
"What's going on?" Guiseppe looked up from his book a confused expression on his face. Emil decided that that must've meant that his older brother wasn't joking. How could anybody be that unaware of his surroundings?
Oli was clenching his hands over his ears and glaring at his mother.
"Oh, and do we raise our hands to vote, or shout or clap? I saw them clap at that one TV thing."
Mercy was simply rubbing Remy's shoulder.
"One after the other, kids." Francois sighed.
"Isn't that really slow?" Clarence looked horrified.
"What's slow?" Now Emil was the one confused.
"Like a really slow way to vote."
"You're slow!"
"The questions. One after the other." Francois was clenching his teeth.
"Clarence first, then Tav, then... Who else? Oh yeah, Guiseppe, please just pay some attention next time we're deciding the future of our Guild, would you? We're holding a vote."
Guiseppe snorted. He might've looked like he didn't care about being told off if he wasn't trying to hide his book behind his thigh. That just lead to it poking his wife. She grabbed the book, put it on her lap and held it there with both her hands.
While Clarence was still repeating his questions, Remy leaned over to Tav.
"You don't get to, yet. Only the adults."
"So what about us?" Emil didn't have to speak loudly to get Remy to notice him. After all, Remy leaning towards Tav meant, going right through Emil.
"We count as grown ups for this. Cause of the Tilling, you know?"
Emil's attention was pulled back to his brothers when Francois started speaking again.
"We're all voting separately, and by raising our hands. Not clapping. Clarence, you're insane."
Clarence tried to communicate something using only body language and facial expressions. In Emil's personal opinion, he failed miserably.
It wasn't like Emil really had to make up his mind. Or anyone else in his clan for that matter. The LeBeaus were his mother's clan. They wouldn't be better of under anyone else. And if he didn't vote for Henri there's be questions.
He was pretty sure that there'd be questions towards anyone who didn't vote for Henri. He also really doubted the hand raising thing was still a good idea with how large the Guild had gotten. If there was more than one plausible candidate, it would've been a mess.
When the vote was announced, he dutifully raised his hand for Henri. Unsurprisingly everyone around him did too.
All the other clans should've done the same. And most did. But terrifyingly, not all.
Emil tried to get a better look at the faces of the ones who had voted against his cousin. Most of the Guillory clan voted for their own patriarch. He also spotted some hands raised for him from the spot he remembered the Bordelon clan and the remains of the Hubbard having placed themselves. Most of the others were scattered, with a couple more than usual being near the Avanaults's place.
Traitors.
The result may have been clear before the vote was even announced, but it was still a good way to gouge support in the Guild at large. And it sure didn't look all that good for Henri.
Remy wasn't a hundred percent sure just how he'd ended up back in front of Emil, his and Etienne's secret room. He only vaguely remembered telling his Tante that he wanted to wander off a bit. She and Emil had both looked worried. Or maybe they were just busy.
It had been more than a year since Remy had last visited the little dark room in the unused part of the Thieves' catacombs. It just hadn't felt quite right, with Etienne dead.
As he pulled back the curtain that served in place of a door he was greeted with a small gust of dust and a slightly moldy smell. It was dark, even for him. -Everything is just the way Em, Et and I left it the day before Et's Tilling.-
It was supposed to be a rite of passage into what the Guild considered adulthood. Remy himself had only passed it two years before, but he'd already been chosen to sponsor his younger cousin. Someone sold them out, directing to the wrong property. It got them captured and sold to a slaver.
Their escape attempt had been the first time Remy got to use his powers for anything other than fooling around in secret. He still rarely used them. Possibly because while Remy was fished out after only a short time in the river Remy's explosions had landed them in, the next time he'd see Étienne was when his body was brought back two weeks later by Jean-Luc. Theoren never stopped blaming Remy for his little brother's death.
A mattress and a few blankets were piled in one corner, on the other side of the room a coffee table covered in pencils, drawings and tattered Star Trek comics. Stepping further into the room, Remy almost stepped on one of the action figures covering the floor. A G.I. Joe Pilot.
He didn't put the figure down again. Might as well have something to occupy his hands with.
The dim light coming from the hallway was now more than enough for the mutant to be able to see comfortably.
He sunk down among the abandoned blankets.
Sitting there, he'd once let slip to Emil and Etienne just what his life had been like before Jean-Luc took him in. Sure they'd known he was homeless, but he'd always made sure to only let them know about the parts he could romanticize. He didn't need his friends' pity.
Etienne had been complaining about being uncomfortable on the mattress and the thin blankets, maybe. Remy barely even remembered what had made him say it, or even what exactly he'd said. Something about them at least not being moldy, something about not being hungry. He was sure Etienne hadn't noticed. Probably just put it off as his older friends trying to scare him.
Emil asked him about it after they brought Etienne back home.
He'd yelled. Told him it wasn't any of his business. Emil hadn't asked again. Looking back, Remy thinks he might have looked less pathetic had he just told him.
But he'd never wanted to remember what his life used to be like. What it could have still been like, if not for Jean-Luc.
And now the man was dead. His father was dead. And Remy had been too late.
He stared at the pilot's small, wonky eyes. It had once inspired him and Em to steal a jet. They ended up crashing it. After all, they definitely weren't pilots. He hadn't been too happy about the chewing out he got from Jean-Luc then, but even that could almost pass as a happy memory with Jean-Luc dead.
He wished he could remember every second if it. Or at least assure himself that he wouldn't forget what his father's voice sounded like. It did feel like he was forgetting.
The vote had made all of it really sink in for the first time. Jean-Luc wasn't gone for a week or two. He'd never be back.
The Guild would have to adjust to him being gone, deal with it. Remy'd have to deal with it.
He would have been there just in time if he just hadn't dawdled, he would have heard the assassin if he had just been paying attention.
He could have saved his father, but he didn't.
Remy only noticed how hard he was squeezing the plastic toy when was only a couple moments short of starting to charge it. He put it down quickly. His powers had already gotten Etienne killed, no need to trash one of his last reminders of him with those same powers.
Remy hugged himself and tried taking deep breaths. At least nobody could see him. Him not being able to keep his shit together is already bad enough as is.
He just needed a little bit of time alone. Just a little time to breathe and work through it, and he'd be back to normal in no time.
He pulled the blankets a bit closer. The deep breaths didn't really help as much as he hoped they would.
The blankets were smelling slightly moldy, now that he was paying attention to it.
A/N: So… guess who's back? I'm a slow writer, I'm very sorry. Good news though, this fic is beta-ed by Kjam. Finally there's someone to tell me that no, not everyone has read every single comic book I have read, and I should just explain stuff every once in a while, even if it's canon.
In other news, I got my hands on Gambit #3 and #4. Now I'm excited for the finale! And the Dauterman variant cover. Come on, it's beautiful.
Btw. 'Discussions' is the working title under which this fic is saved in my documents. I picked it as a title for this chapter, because the first scene includes the very first tidbit I wrote for the story. How on earth this turned into what is clearly shaping up to be a long fic, I'm still not sure.