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Ludwig sat in front of the old Stein piano, his hands resting on his knees and one foot lightly canted against the aged foot petal. The black keys stretched for five octaves, the white accents bright winks of contrast in reverse of the grand piano upstairs. The wood had the high gleam of never going unpolished. The grain held graceful whorls of color. The scent of the polish still hung in the air.
He touched one key without pressing it, then removed his hand again to leave the room in silence. Only his breath echoed along with the softened roar of the retro-actively commissioned air conditioning that cooled the building. He remembered the silence of the room before modern conveniences had been installed, broken only by the church bells ringing distantly beyond the heavy window panes. The outside world still remained muddled behind now-primitive glass, but the silence was gone.
“Excuse me, Ludwig.”
Ludwig arrested the urge to jump, his foot slipping on the foot petal. A dull thunk came from within the Stein’s body as the dampener’s fell away to mute no sound. He glanced over his shoulder.
Roderich touched the edge of his glasses lightly, looking bare in just his white shirtsleeves and black slacks. Ludwig had yet to become accustomed to Roderich without a cravat around his neck. Without it, Roderich’s bare neck invited disaster. He was so very breakable.
Roderich’s lifted brows gave way to a pointed stare, and Ludwig rose with a sharp screech of dragging chair feet as the bench shoved back behind him. “My apologies, Aus--Roderich. Is there something that I may do for you?”
“Your brother is being a menace to the house help. You should restrain him,” Roderich replied archly, arms folding together. The gesture was eloquent, but Ludwig knew how to read the defensiveness in it and in the straight backed position Roderich held. He bit down on the inside of his cheek.
Gilbert.
The usual frustration rose up, and Ludwig rubbed a hand over his forehead.
“My apologies for his behavior. It is not--easy for him, to adjust. I will have a talk with him about--”
“Talk? Ludwig, he’s acting out like a child who is bored and simply needs direction. Direct him at something that isn’t skirts.” Roderich flicked his fingers at the floor, trying to shoo away the five minute old memory of Gilbert leering at anything with breasts within a five foot radius. “If you are to bring him here for visits, perhaps you should keep him with you instead of unsupervised. Its like an untrained dog.”
Ludwig bit back an angry, defensive reply, and swallowed it down behind a still face. He carefully rearranged the words into, “If he’s restless, than that can only be expected.”
Austria’s gaze flicked away from him to the piano.
“Regardless. Please retrieve him.”
Once, it would have been a subtle dismissal. Now, Roderich had no such power to order anyone away with the shift of a glance. Ludwig had to choose to leave, and instead of making any point of it, he headed for the door with footsteps quieter than his military bearing suggested. His pause said it all without speaking.
A headache was forming between his brows, pounding at the inside of his skull, as he passed Roderich. He caught in the corner of his eye the way the other man locked his knees to stifle the urge to step out of his way.
“I’ll take care of it,” he said, as he’d been saying for years. Roderich nodded stiffly, his silence a protest that echoed like the dampeners in the Stein piano.
Ludwig rubbed a hand over the back of his neck once he’d turned the corner out of Roderich’s sight.