I, ASSASSIN
Chapter Three
When Remy returned to the LeBeau house, the lights in the house were all on, and Henri was sitting on the porch, drinking beer from a new six pack he'd apparently gone and procured when he'd left the meeting.
"Wondered where you had gone to," Remy said quietly as he approached the porch; it had rained in his absence and his boots sloshed in the many puddles along the dirt path leading to the porch. "You mighta warned me that you were gonna take off. I had to catch a ride back with Talbot. That kid can talk, I tell ya," he sighed as he tossed the plastic bag he'd put his robes in onto the porch.
Henri frowned a little, but said nothing at first. Finally, after what seemed to be several moments of contemplation, he finally spoke. "So," he began, pointing a slightly crooked finger at Remy, reminding Remy that the very finger pointing had once been broken when Henri had caught himself from falling from a roof during a spectacular heist only six months before. The finger had never looked right since. "You're gonna join the Assassins. Traitor," he slurred.
"It ain't like I decided I wanted to do this," Remy reminded, he took a seat beside Henri on the porch steps and picked a beer out of the six-pack. There were only two left. He also noted that there was a bottle of Jack Daniels there too protruding from the bag the pack was sitting in, a quarter of it already gone. His brother definitely intended to get wasted tonight.
"I don't get it," Henri lamented bitterly. "Why the fuck you?! You're nineteen years old! Can barely tie your shoes! You don' even know how to count t' twenty-one without takin' your fuckin' clothes off!"
"I didn't pick me! They did! You want to ask someone, ask them, not me," Remy retorted coldly, he popped the beer open and then took a long drink. It was warm, which wasn't surprising given the stifling heat.
"He's always favoured you over me," Henri snapped bitterly, his brown eyes always seemed blackest when he was angry. It was funny, thought Remy, how bitterness could make even the most good-natured faces seem ugly and evil. Anger took its toll, hardened his brother's face to an almost alien state.
"You do this every time you get drunk," Remy grumbled, "you start feelin' sorry for yourself, and start blamin' me for everythin'."
"If you'd never come here-"
"I didn't want to come back, remember?" Remy snapped too, he gritted his teeth, "I had to."
"You didn't have to stay though," Henri growled.
"Oh fuck off," Remy rolled his eyes at his brother, "neither did you. I'm not the only one who took off and left the bum in the dust," he reminded.
"I came back!"
"Yeah, after the shit went down and I'd already saved his sorry ass," Remy fumed. "You didn't turn up until long after the dust settled."
Henri had no argument to this, the claim was true. When the hopeful Assassin initiates 'The Rippers' had kidnapped Jean-Luc, Henri had been nowhere to be found, and had been Remy himself who'd had to put his neck on the line. Henri had not turned up until weeks later, claiming to have never known a thing about the chaos that had ensued following his departure.
"Anyway, fuck it," Remy finally attempted to change the subject, "in the mornin', I'm goin'. You can take my place if you want, I've had it. I'm leavin'."
"Where the fuck you gonna go?"
"I dunno. Maybe back up north. I can find a way to survive. I usually do."
"You ain't gonna survive, Remy. You got no money, no job."
"I don't need a job," Remy responded coolly.
"Oh yeah, that's right. You can always kill people for money."
Remy stared down to the wet drive, occasionally a threatening drop of rain would fall from the dark grey sky and cause ripples to dance over a puddle. He tried to let the image of that rippling puddle calm his anger with his brother. He really hated Henri when he got like this. It was the only time he couldn't abide by his brother was when he was intoxicated.
Alcohol always left Henri LeBeau with a poisonous tongue and a tendency to lash out at anyone regardless if they wronged him or not. Normally, Remy was able to take the accusations and verbal attacks from his older brother with a grain of salt – years had given him time to accustom and harden himself to it - but after what had occurred at the meeting, he was highly on edge as it was.
"You think you could do it?" asked Henri with a sneer.
"Hmm?"
"Could you kill someone?"
Remy glanced up to the dark grey sky. He didn't want to admit the idea of trying to wipe someone off the face of the planet made him more uneasy than the thought of sticking his testicles in a vice and twisting the handle until they turned purple. "If I had to," he finally answered, trying to sound nonchalant. He supposed it were true in a sense. Self defence perhaps?
"This ain't about havin' the choice, Remy. You know that, right?" Henri grumbled.
"I know that," Remy replied quickly, trying to avoid sounding hostile. He watched the puddles as they continued to ripple from the drops of rain falling from the leafy canopy of oak trees lining the drive.
"You think you could take a gun...or a knife...or poison...a rope...a wire...anythin'..." Henri reeled off, "and do it? Really snuff someone out like a candle? Could you handle blood on your hands? Have blood on your hands for the rest of your life?"
"Yes," Remy sipped from his can of beer, deliberately drawing out how slowly he drank to avoid needing to elaborate any further. I could snuff out Jean-Luc for this shit for instance, he thought dully to himself.
Henri crushed his empty beer can and tossed it into the open trash can a few feet away, it landed upon the over-filled can perfectly, but toppled out a moment later, landing with a splash in a puddle nearby. "What if the guy – or the girl – didn't deserve it. What if you disagreed with what you were told to do. What then?"
Remy felt increasing uncomfortable with the discussion, and he was very aware that his brother was fully aware of it too. Why couldn't he just admit that Henri was right, he didn't like the idea of taking a life and he wasn't even sure he could do it. Would it be cowardice to admit defeat on the subject? "If someone willin' to put a contract out on someone, then they gotta have done somethin' to warrant it," he reasoned uneasily.
"You think so? How about maybe just someone makin' up reasons? Say for instance..." said Henri, getting himself a new can of beer, "that you were told to bump off this guy 'cause he had...I dunno, maybe raped your little blonde birdy, Bella Donna..."
Remy gaped at his brother, "Don't say that shit!" he smacked him on the arm hard enough to smart. "That ain't funny!"
"Weren't meant to be. Just hear me out," Henri warned, holding up his crooked finger once again. "So...you go to all this trouble...you follow the guy for weeks, figure out where he gonna be...how you're gonna do it. You got it all worked out...figured out everything to the letter..." he elaborated further.
Putting down his can of beer, Remy sighed.
"And then...you find out...the guy got kids. Not grown up kids...but proper kids...you know...maybe five year olds...maybe babies. That their momma is dead...and not only that but he's the only support they got. Only support they ever gonna have."
"I..." Remy tried, he couldn't find the words. He could almost picture those children who didn't even exist, he could practically see their big eyes looking up at him begging him to not kill their father. He could even almost feel guilt for a crime he hadn't even committed. How could you be guilty of a theory?
"Could you live with leavin' those babies daddy-less? Could you live with them endin' up in some god-forsaken orphanage bein' neglected by the people sworn to care for 'em?"
A lump developed in Remy's throat; having spent much of his early childhood in such a place, he definitely wouldn't wish such a fate on any youngster. Icy cold nun hands forcing him into icy cold baths, scrubbing him with icy cold washcloths, then making him kneel upon icy cold floors to pray to a God he wasn't sure even existed. "I'd find somewhere for them to go, somewhere good," Remy tried, "I'd make sure they had someone to take them before-"
"Assassins aren't all about the consequence of what happens after the contract, Remy. Wake the hell up. You think you're going to be given leeway to find the kids a new home? You're dreamin'!"
Glancing down at the wet ground unhappily, Remy swallowed the lump. When he spoke again his voice was thick. "I'd find time." Why am I tryin' to justify this?
"How about when you finally go to make your move to take the guy out...and you reveal why you're doing it to him..." Henri warned, "what if the guy tells you that actually, Bella Donna came on to him...and that he refused her. She got mad...got real mad...and decided to fuck with him...tell her daddy some sob story 'bout how he ruined her..." Henri shrugged. "What would you do, Remy? Could you still do it? You gonna believe him? You gonna believe her? Could you go on instinct?"
Remy stared down into his can, he didn't want it any more now. "We steal from the undeservin' all the time, Henri," he reminded, feeling very uncomfortable with this theoretical discussion.
"That's different, Remy! We don' leave them broke! We don't leave them homeless! We don't leave them widowed and fatherless on rumours and orders!" Henri smacked a fist into his own hand determinedly. "When it's killin' people, it's different! And I don' think you got the balls to do it."
Remy stood up slowly, he didn't feel like listening to this any more. "If I had to..."
"Exactly!" Henri hissed, "Remy, you're my brother, and I love you so I think it's better you hear it from me than anyone else...you're a fucking pussy when it comes to battle. You've been the only fence-sitting pacifist in this family all this time. Every altercation the Assassins throw at us, you always stay on the sidelines, tryin' to never get involved. You never get involved in the fight."
"That's a lie," Remy uttered, "I fight them all the time."
"Yeah, exactly my point. When you have to. When father is threatened, or one of us gets hurt, of course you'll fight. Or when they attack you. Self-defence, protecting the cubs in the pride!" Henri's eyes seemed to blaze, "You fight but you don't strike to hurt, you strike to defend or disable! You've never thrown a malicious punch or strike in your life! We're not talkin' about self-defence and trying to get a situation under control...We're talking about murder in cold blood for money. I don't think you're man enough to say who live and who die."
"You're wrong," Remy assured, he opened the front door and took one step into the house. "I'm man enough. I'm man enough to do whatever it takes to survive," he assured, he stopped from entering the house entirely, hearing the sound of a car engine approaching.
Jean-Luc's old black Pontiac pulled up the drive and came to a halt in the usual place he parked. He climbed out of it, looking between the two of his sons, Henri sitting getting drunk on the porch steps and Remy standing halfway between inside and out.
Momentarily, Remy forgot about going inside, he stepped back onto the porch and slammed the front door shut behind him, "What the hell?" he demanded of his father instantly.
Jean-Luc shook his head, "not in the mood, Remy."
"Yeah, you know what I'm not in the mood for?" Remy demanded, he had to restrain himself from punching the wooden pillar of the porch, "I'm not in the mood to be followin' Marius Boudreaux around waitin' to be trained like a fuckin' puppy just to make things easier on you."
"Stop bein' so over dramatic," Jean-Luc rolled his eyes.
"Over dramatic?" Remy nearly laughed in the absurdity of the accusation. "Can you blame me for bein' a little over dramatic? You didn't even have the nerve to ask me before hand! You waited...you stood there knowin' what you were gonna say in The Chamber and you put me right there on the fuckin' spot! You didn' even ask me if I would do this. You knew this afternoon this was gonna happen! You knew it and you said jack shit!"
"You know I can't disclose anythin' that happens prior to a guild meetin'," Jean-Luc responded calmly.
"Did you know about Bella Donna's initiation?" demanded Remy.
Jean-Luc gave a heavy sigh and looked away, pursing his lips tightly.
"Did you know?!" Remy asked again, more hostility in his tone this time.
"If I had, it's like I said...I'm obligated to be confidential regardin' anything that is said or arranged prior to a meetin'. You know this. It's law."
Henri stood up, swaying drunkenly; he always had been, in Remy's opinion, a lightweight and three beers and a few shots always seemed to do it. "How is he the one with the most potential anyway?"
"Christ, Henri," Jean-Luc headed up the porch steps, apparently in no mood to deal with this.
"I'm the one with the experience, the skill, I'm the one who trained Remy to pick his first lock, for Christ's sake!" Henri stopped his father from ascending up the steps. "If anyone should have been picked to go to the Assassins...it's me."
"I wasn't the one who chose him, Henri! Marius chose him."
"Why the hell would he even want me?" Remy demanded, "I'm not even your blood..."
"You're the obvious choice," Jean-Luc shook his head at his adopted son. "And you, Henri, it just as well he not pick you...you lose your temper...you're likely to start a war if I send you to Marius."
"I'd never lose my temper with them if I was there," Henri grumbled.
"You? You kiddin' me? You could start an argument in an empty room," Jean-Luc uttered coldly. " And your cousins? None of them got the patience to even stand in the same company as Assassins without it turning to a brawl either. Remy doesn't have grudges with them, and they don't have grudges with him."
Henri snorted, "Yeah, and the only reason for that is that they don't pick on him because he ain't a Thief by blood. He's just an outsider."
Remy was used to these jabs every so often from his brother and his father; neither of them ever let him forget he wasn't truly a LeBeau. Such words didn't hurt any more, they'd been used so much, but all the same, the words did nothing to help his temper right at this moment.
"You know why they want him?" Henri fumed. "It's because of that. 'Cause he ain't truly one of us. He ain't blood, so he ain't gonna be a problem. They can brainwash him and turn him against us. And lets face it, all they want is someone who's already willin' to off their whole family for a few coins."
Gripping the rail of the porch hard as he could, Remy wished his anger into the rough grain of the wood and he felt it warm slightly as the tingle of his powers began to travel through every tiny vein in his fingers. The rail began to slightly tremble and glow as the wood began to take on kinetic charge.
"Stop it!" Jean-Luc warned tersely. "And Henri, you shut up."
It took counting backwards from ten for the anger to die down enough for him to absorb the kinetic energy back. He struggled with the frustration inwardly as he examined the hard look on Jean-Luc's face, and the slight alarm on Henri's.
"I can't believe you want me to join them," Remy uttered under his breath once he'd calmed himself down enough to speak without screaming. "You hate the Assassins...now you want me to be one?" he tentatively let go of the rail, almost wondering if some residual charge might have remained within the wood grain and exploded upon release.
"This whole exercise is about diffusing a war that's gone on for centuries. This is the first agreement Marius and I have come to since we both became Guild Leaders and by far the best solution that doesn't involve any bloodshed."
Remy laughed incredulously, "you think there won't be bloodshed? Just what do you think Assassins do, father?" he demanded, putting emphasis on the word father due to the certain irony of the role. A father wouldn't trade his son. "Eventually..." he shook his head, "eventually there will be bloodshed."
"Yeah, but what do you care?" Henri shot, "You're 'man enough' to do what you have to 'survive'," he pointed out.
"And I am. I'm man enough to kill if I gotta. I just don't want to. I don't want to be one of them," Remy spat. I barely want to be one of you either, he thought angrily, wishing he had the guts to say it.
"You don't got much of a choice. When you took the blood oath on your initiation into the Thieves-" Jean-Luc began.
"When I took the blood oath, I swore I would uphold the laws of The Thieves Guild," Remy interrupted. "I didn't swear my life to the Assassins."
"You swore your life to us, and swore to follow whatever orders given to you regardless if you agreed with them or not," reminded Jean-Luc sharply. "This is an order."
"I can't follow orders if I'm not here," Remy clenched his fists; he wasn't sure what to do with his hands and he was afraid he may lash out if provoked. He didn't want to punch his father or brother, and he didn't want to hit any walls or the rail, or accidentally cause anything to blow up. Awkwardly, he folded his arms, he turned his back to Jean-Luc and Henri and sighed.
"You know what would happen," Jean-Luc stated calmly. "Defiance...they see it as dishonour, and you would pay dearly for it. They got the means to hunt you down, Remy...you know what would happen to you...and to us."
Remy grunted, "yeah, well, maybe next time they want to hold you hostage, I just won't come back. Let them slit your goddamn throat and be done with it, maybe then I can lead my life the way I want to."
"You don't mean that," Jean-Luc said softly.
"Don't I?" Remy mused. "You must be able to interpret my feelings better than I can then."
"Do you think I want to send you to them? To be a killer? Do you think I want to see you with blood on your hands?"
"I'd say you do, since you made this decision."
"There was no other choice. This was the only way. I'm doin' this for the best of the Guild. You think I like havin' my family responsible for the deaths of others? You think I wanna see either of you on the end of an Assassin's blade because you said the wrong thing?! I want this war over. If you got a better idea to stop the Guild feud, then I'm all ears."
Of course, Remy had a better idea, and that was to leave. But leaving would mean one of the biggest sacrifices he would ever make. Jean-Luc was right. To leave for good would an invitation for his family to be slaughtered and for himself to be on the run for the rest of his life. Being on the run for the rest of his life was one thing, he could handle that. But allowing his family to suffer because of what he'd done? He wasn't sure that was something he could live with.
"You know, he may be drunk..." Remy frowned, "but Henri is right. You agreed to givin' me over to them because I'm expendable. I ain't your real son so it ain't gonna sting much. That's why I was chosen, and not because I was the so called better choice," Remy hissed.
"I don't want to see either of you there," Jean-Luc reiterated, with that tone of voice that almost caused Remy to doubt his own words for just a moment.
He never once said I wasn't expendable, Remy realised. Didn't deny that.
"I didn't make this decision, Marius did. He chose you, Remy."
"And you chose Julien?" Henri snapped at his father furiously, "We're supposed to seriously believe that? He's a fuck up! He can't take a piss without gettin' it over his own shoes."
Jean-Luc's expression changed, dark, calculating. "I got my reasons."
"I'll tell you why he's takin' Julien," Remy glared, "it's like you say...Julien's a fuck up. There's gotta be repercussions if he betrays us."
"So suspicious," said Jean-Luc, sounding quite cold towards the both of them suddenly. He brushed by both sons and went inside.
Remy pushed through the screen door to follow at his adoptive father's heels, "I got a right to be suspicious. Everythin' you do has a catch! I know you. You're an underhanded son of a bitch."
"Don't you speak to me that way," Jean-Luc warned. "I'm still your father!"
"No. You're no father! You see, a father wouldn't trade his own son like a goddamn Pokemon card!" Remy spat. "I ain't a son, I'm an investment, and one that you expect is gonna pay off somehow. You know what, maybe I'm better off with the Assassins, maybe I should join them, maybe they'll be up front and won't fuck me around like you have since the day you took me in."
"Fucked you around?" scoffed Jean-Luc. "I clothed you, fed you, trained you. I made you what you are."
"And what am I?" Remy asked.
"You're my son."
"No. If I was, you'd have never agreed to this. Never," Remy headed towards the stairs.
"Where the fuck you goin'?" Henri asked, Remy noted he'd come in with them, but had decided to linger at the door, watching the argument.
"To pack. I'm goin' there tonight. This is the last you gonna see of me in this family. I've had enough," he grumbled, he stopped to glare at Jean-Luc. "And you..." he hissed. "I'm done. You adopted me solely to use me for your own gain. You turned me into a Thief, you ruined my childhood, you took me out of school so that even if I had wanted to be somethin' or someone, it was never gonna happen. You constantly guilt me into stayin' here. You've never been a father. You've been an owner and you've never thought of me as anythin' but a slave. And now..." he shook his head in disgust, "now you're turnin' me over to someone else. A new owner. Fuck you. Both of you," Remy threw one last look between them, then slammed the door behind himself as he went into pack.
End of Chapter Three
Admittedly, a long wait between the posting of this and the previous chapters, had some personal issues (new anti-depressants, took away my ability to focus on working on stuff). Anyway, I'm not actually sure if anyone is even reading this, as the reviews have been few, but hopefully a few more find it interesting once it picks up and a few more chapters get posted (just hoping I find the focus to edit them and get them up, lol).
Anyway thanks to anyone who reads and takes the time to review. For anyone wondering, yes I have done some work on the sequel to Magnetic Attraction (onto part 4 already) and possibly considering posting some although have never run two unfinished stories at once so am a little doubtful I'll be able to pull it off (usually try to only run one story at a time). Going to see where the mood takes me in a week or so, lol. 33