Disclaimer: I don't own Beyblade.
A/N: Third installment of Majestic Affair. I hope you enjoy and feedback is greatly appreciated.
--
The door to the library creaked open for the third time in as many hours and by now Bryan didn't even have to guess who it was. Setting aside War and Peace printed in Russian he focused his gaze on the door, waiting for Gustav to walk in. Sure enough the butler stepped in, this time with a dusting cloth and can of cleaner in his hand.
He paused for a moment when he caught the teen watching him before he moved to the shelves and began dusting the edges and anything else he thought needed cleaning. The room was full of small trinkets made of expensive metals and other small objects that would fit in a pocket and fetch a hefty price in the right market.
The first time Gustav had been in was to return several books to the shelves. The second he had come in claiming a storm was coming and that he needed to check and make sure all of the windows were locked. And now he was back, in the pretense of dusting. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the old man was thinking and his actions were starting to piss the lavender haired teen off.
"Look old man, I know what you're doing. I can promise nothing has gone missing. What would Robert say if he knew you were harassing me like this?"
Gustav sniffed the picture of disdain. "Lord Jurgen is young and believes in giving people second chances. It is only a matter of time until you slip up and fall back into your barbaric ways."
"And on that note, I'll leave you to your skulking." He got to his feet and picked up the heavy leather bound book he'd been reading. "This is coming with me and maybe if you get lucky I'll give it back before I leave."
Ignoring the angry German coming from the butler Bryan left the library, a harsh smirk curling his lips.
--
Robert climbed out of the limousine, dark leather satchel in one hand. It was shortly after ten in the morning and all he wanted was to sleep. He'd been up and going since four the previous morning and there had been no time to stop and relax. Between dealing with mounds of paperwork on the short flight to Denmark and then spending the rest of the day and most of the evening arguing he was ready to collapse.
He entered his home through one of the small doors, hoping to avoid any of his employees. If he could just make it to his suite of rooms without running into anyone he would be safe for at least a couple of hours. Everyone in the castle knew when he was in his rooms he was not to be disturbed unless it was an emergency.
However, in his need to get to a place of safety he had completely forgotten about his house guest. At least until he was greeted in the main foyer by a tall, irate lavender haired Russian who looked like he was ready to kill someone. "Next time a little warning would be nice before you run off. Even a note would have sufficed. But no, you're so caught up in running your little empire you leave me with nothing to do but read a book I hate and a butler who seems to think I suffer from kleptomania."
"I have a novel idea. Next time something blows up at two in the morning I'll wake you up and you can go deal with it while I sit around and do nothing. How does that sound?" Robert was too tired to care about his lapse in etiquette. There were no witnesses besides the Russian and after a little sleep his control would be back. No harm done.
The younger teen smirked, not at all upset by the noble's words. He could see how tired Robert was, in the dark circles marring the fragile skin below his eyes and the set of his body. The knot of his tie was loose and he looked like he would be able to sleep anywhere. "So the Gryphon actually bites back. Nice to see you are actually capable of showing emotion."
Ignoring the Russian's words Robert moved past him and up the stairs that would take him to his rooms. He could feel Bryan following him, knowing he was simply doing it in an effort to annoy him. Once he reached his room he whirled around so fast the other teen had to step back to avoid being hit. "If you disturb me once in the next five hours I will call the authorities and have you locked up."
Without giving Bryan a chance to speak he entered his room and barely managed to avoid slamming the door.
--
"Have you actually been sitting there the entire time?"
At the sound of Robert's voice Bryan looked up from his book to find the noble standing in the doorway, looking much more alive then he had earlier. Gone was the shrewd businessman in an Armani suit. In his place was a young man dressed in jeans and a long sleeved shirt, purple hair curling slightly at his temples from the shower. The signet ring on his finger was the only sign of wealth.
Bryan slowly got to his feet, wincing at the sore feeling in his ass. Stone floors were not comfortable for sitting on. "No. I disappeared briefly for lunch."
Robert shook his head and started down stairs, the Russian again following him. "I suppose this means you want to get started on straightening out the books?"
"As that is my purpose for being here yes. I figure the sooner I get it done the sooner I can get out of here and stop being your problem."
They entered a study dominated by a massive mahogany desk in front of a set of French doors leading out on to a balcony. Bryan took the large chair and watched as Robert moved over to a set of shelves lined with large leather bound books. The noble pulled down four of them and set them in front of the Russian, ruby eyes smug. "I fear you won't be getting out of here as soon as you think." He leaned across the desk to open the first book pointing out the date in the corner.
"You see, I first started suspecting his scam nearly four years ago but for all I know it started long before that. You will of course have to start out there and perhaps work your way backwards if you wish to actually discover when this all started."
Bryan bit the inside of his cheek, knowing yelling wasn't going to get him anywhere. When he finally managed to speak his voice was low, his accent deepened by the annoyance he felt. "And if you suspected this all then why didn't you tell anyone?"
The noble settled in one of the chairs in front of the desk, still looking pale and tired despite the few hours of sleep he'd gotten. "Because I was fifteen years old. No one was going to listen to me about finances. And it was right after my father's death so everyone was focused on his funeral and who was going to be in charge of everything until I turned eighteen." He had been trained his entire life to watch other people and he caught the pinched look that crossed Bryan's face at the mention of his father.
Rather then commenting Bryan picked the ledger up and held it out at arms length, silver eyes narrowed as he tried to read the numbers. "I guess I'll just start here and if I need to I'll take a look at the older books." He twisted it to the side and growled. "Who the hell writes this small and fuzzy?"
Robert frowned and got back to his feet. He'd been over the books several times in the intervening years and never had any problems reading any of it. Rounding the desk he leaned over the teen's shoulder. "I don't see any problems."
"Of course you don't. I'm sure you have perfect vision to go with your perfect, rich noble life." Bryan dropped the book back to the desk and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "I'm not going to be able to do anything until I get some reading glasses. If I try it now I'll just end up fucking you up even more."
Sighing Robert reached past the Russian to pull open a drawer. He pulled out a pair of reading glasses and set them in front of his companion. "And I'll again ask you to refrain from using such uncouth language in my presence."
Pale fingers picked up the golden frames and carefully unfolded them. He slid them on and blinked several times as his eyes adjusted to the sudden correction. "Not quite strong enough but they'll work until I can afford to get some with my prescription." Randomly opening a drawer he managed to locate several pens which he set next to the blotter pad. "Do you have an extra ledger I can deface?"
The knight opened one of the large drawers at the bottom of the desk and pulled out a blank ledger. "Anything else you need?"
Bryan waved one hand, already transferring the numbers from the old ledger to the new in short, sharp movements. "No. Go away so I can focus."
Pausing at the door Robert turned back to look at the desk, a slight smile curling his lips. Bryan was bent over the desk, tracing the numbers of the old ledger with his right hand, the left moving as he copied the numbers, mumbling in Russian as he went. For some reason, the sight of the Russian bathed in sunlight and doing his clerical work wasn't as unusual as it could have been.
--
Bryan scrubbed his hair with the towel, taking his anger and frustration out on the pale strands. He had indeed been forced to go even further back then the original four books Robert had pulled off the shelves. It was a wonder in the six years he'd been working on that no one had managed to catch the accountant skimming funds. It seemed the Jurgen family didn't believe in double checking the work of their employees. At this rate he wasn't going to be getting out of Robert's castle before his twentieth birthday.
Tossing the towel aside he pulled his shirt on and entered his room, pausing in the doorway. Amid the tangled sheets on the bed was a black glasses case that hadn't been there when he'd gone in to take his shower. Fantastic. Now they're breaking in when I'm in the shower.
He picked the case up and opened it, unsurprised to find a pair of fine silver rimmed reading glasses. "I bet the prescription is just right too." Closing the case he jammed it into the pocket of his cargo pants before seeking out Robert.
Sure enough the older teen was in his office, working his way through a mound of paper work. He didn't even look up when the glasses case dropped into the middle of the file he had been reading. "Yes?"
"Why?"
Robert set the glasses aside and looked up at the other teen. "Because I take care of those who work for me. And I know the other ones were giving you headaches." Every night for three weeks there had been pain lines radiating from the corners of the pale eyes and the Russian's temper had been even shorter then usual. "And the prescription is yours. The BBA was kind of enough to give the information to me when I called."
In three long strides Bryan was in front of the desk, anger radiating from his body. He slammed his hands down, causing the pencil holder to fall over and send pens skittering across the top. "Does it give you some twisted pleasure to know you can call up the BBA and learn everything there is to know about me?" He leaned forward until they were face to face, his voice low and deadly. "Did they tell you hell I went through, how many broken bones I suffered in the eleven years I was there?"
A booted foot slammed into the front of the desk, driving it back several inches before the Russian spun on heel and stalked out of the room, lean body tense with anger.
The door slammed shut and Robert sat back in his chair, rubbing at his face with one hand. While he had experienced some amazing outbursts of anger in his years of friendship with Johnny there was something enthralling and oddly beautiful about Bryan when he was angry.
Johnny was all fire and yelling when he was angry whereas Bryan was cold and calculating, like the falcon he claimed as his bitbeast. The knight touched the glasses case sitting next to his stack of paper with one finger. As much as he wanted to go find the Russian and apologize he knew it was better to wait for his house guest to calm down. It would be safer for both of them.
--
Darkness was fast approaching and snowflakes were dancing on the air. Bryan took a deep breath of the chill air before returning to scratching lines into the stone of the crenellations of the waist high wall with the tip of his battered pocket knife. He'd long since lost track of how long he'd been standing out in the cold air, trying to regain control of his emotions. The last time he'd snapped had been at the World Championships and he could still feel the small scars on his knuckles from savagely beating the concrete walls. He knew he shouldn't have been angry. Robert had only done it to help him but it was the idea of anyone being able to get into his personal records that had set him off. "You probably shouldn't be up here."
"I wouldn't be up here if I thought I was in danger." Robert moved to stand next to the Russian, bundled in a sheepskin jacket. "You're going to get sick from standing out here so long."
The lavender haired teen closed the knife and pocketed it before jamming his hands in his pockets. "I never get sick. Biovolt made as physically perfect as they could without genetic engineering. I don't know how they did it but none of us have ever had so much as a cold." No sickness, but that had been traded for broken bones and more bruises then he cared to remember.
They stared out over the landscape as it slowly faded into the darkness, the snow whirling around them as it was swept by the wind. "It wasn't my intention to upset you. I was simply trying to help."
Bryan shrugged and pulled one hand out of his pocket long enough to tap his temple. "Reasonably I know that, but being under the Abbey's control for eleven years left me more then slightly fucked up mentally. Sometimes their conditioning still overrules common sense." He paused for a moment before continuing. "Twenty."
At Robert's questioning sound he smirked. "Twenty broken bones before I was eighteen. I could tell you wanted to ask when I mentioned it in your office." Lighting quick he reached into the pocket of Robert's jacket, fingers sliding over the noble's hand as he pulled out the glasses case. Ignoring the older teen's startled look he turned to go back downstairs. "Anyway, since I've slacked off for the day I'm going to get something to eat and then get some work done. Night Robert."
If he'd stayed just a little longer he would have seen Robert rub his hand, ruby eyes thoughtful.