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gellavonhamster · 5 years

Text

the eye of the storm, or a still life with pineapples

teen and up audiences (?) || Bertrand Baudelaire/Beatrice Baudelaire/Lemony Snicket + guest starring other ships and characters || pre-canon, canon divergence

ao3 link || originally posted in Russian

As famously said by a famous cartoonist and later by an even more famous musician and before them, probably, by many other famous and not so famous people, life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. For example, less than half a year ago I was certain that in a little while, I would marry the woman I love, and dance with her at our wedding, which would be held in a place called the Vineyard of Fragrant Grapes. A few months passed, and here I was dancing at the wedding indeed, but not as a groom and not with the woman I dreamed to marry. However, she was also attending the party, and radiating beauty in her refined wedding dress just like in my erstwhile dreams. It was her wedding – her and another man’s, and I didn’t doubt that many guests were surprised I was invited and, on top of that, entrusted with reciting one of the wedding blessings. Then again, there weren’t that many guests: only the trusted long-time associates, most of whom both the newlyweds and I had the honour to consider our friends. Some of them were familiar with the events which had resulted in my bride marrying someone else; as to the rest of them, I hoped they were too well-mannered to whisper behind my back. On the other hand, if they decided to spread some gossip, I would not have minded it much. In these latter days, all kinds of things were being whispered about me behind my back, said out loud, and printed in the newspapers. If I had a chance to choose between the discussions of my love life and the accusations of crimes I had nothing to do with, I would have chosen the former without a moment’s hesitation. Unfortunately, in practice, there were two options: either both the former and the latter or just the latter, and I had no choice anyway.

Even the celebration venue was not what I had expected. The Vineyard of Fragrant Grapes was undoubtedly very lovely at that time of the year, but just like many other gardens, libraries, restaurants, post offices, bookstores, and tailor shops, it had lately become unsafe for the members of our organization. It was far too risky to organize the wedding in a widely known place. That was why the ceremony itself, as well as the celebratory banquet, took place in a small hotel outside the City. It was called The Eye of the Storm, and that name was more than appropriate. “The eye of the storm” is an expression which means an area of calm weather at the centre of a hurricane, both literally and figuratively, and so the present celebration seemed a calm moment at the centre of the hurricane of feuds and treachery that was raging in my life, as well as in the lives of the groom, the bride, and all the guests. An attentive visitor would also notice another eye – the motif used in the design of the hotel, from napkin rings to the moulding on the ceiling. To paraphrase the definition provided above, one could say that the eye of the storm is an area at the centre of a hurricane where the world is quiet.

“Snicket, wake up!” called the lady I was dancing with. “Do you want us to bump into someone?”

“Sorry. I got lost in thought. And we wouldn’t have bumped into anyone: you’re the lead.”

“And good thing that I am. For a moment I felt like I was dancing with a coat rack or something like that. You alright?”

“Of course I am, R,” I smiled at my partner who was none other than R, the Duchess of Winnipeg. “How about you?”

“I’m fine, L. You know me,” she smiled back, but I saw it in her eyes that just like me, she couldn’t stop her gaze from drifting to the bride, who was dancing with her beloved in the centre of the ballroom. “It’s been long since I’ve come to terms with the fact that this is how it’s going to end. It’s only that when I used to imagine all of this before, it was you, not Bertrand, and it was easier somehow. But it’s nothing.”

When I first met R, she was yet to become the duchess and the renowned meteorologist and the multiple fencing champion of VFD. Back then she was just the daughter of the previous Duchess of Winnipeg, now deceased; just a little girl who had just got her volunteer’s tattoo and, being confused and a little bit scared, went to explore the infirmary in search of someone who would explain to her where she was, why she was taken away from home, and where her parents were. That evening, she didn’t find the answers to all of her questions, but she found a little boy – me – who, like her, had just been tattooed and didn’t understand what was going on. We were already friends when we met Beatrice, the woman whose wedding we were dancing at today. When we understood that both of us were in love with her, we promised each other that we wouldn’t let that circumstance ruin our friendship. There is an absorbing Gothic novel in which three friends propose to the same girl, and remain friends after she chooses one of them. Similarly, my friend and I both courted Beatrice, leaving it up to her to choose one of us and not expecting that in the end, just like in that novel, there would be three contenders for her heart, and it would be the third one that she would favour. One could only hope that at that point, the similarities with the novel would end, although taking into account Beatrice’s fondness for bats, she would surely be amused by the prospect of being turned into a vampire.

“I do know you, R,” I confirmed. “And that is exactly why I am worried.”

“Oh, come on. If you want to know, today I feel much better than over the last two months combined. Look around, L: even in these trying times we’re surrounded by noble and trustworthy people. My dear friend got married and is happy. I am dancing at her wedding in a wonderful dress and in an excellent company, and who knows,” she winked at me, “perhaps it’s in that excellent company that I’ll meet someone who would help me to let go of the past at last.”

“You will meet – or you have met?” I asked, intrigued. My friend smiled cryptically. “Who is she?”

“Look to your left. See a beautiful girl in a peach dress standing by the window?”

The girl was beautiful indeed. Something about the features of her face seemed familiar to me but I didn’t know her name, which was what I told R.

“Sally Sebald,” she told me, with the same conspiratorial look. “The little sister of Gustav, our Monty’s new… assistant.”

If “our Monty” had heard the way R had spoken the word “assistant”, he would have definitely pretended to be offended to the marrow of his bones. However, at that moment he was busy dancing with that very assistant. The music stopped, and the band bowed in response to the applause, then proceeded to flip through the sheets, selecting the next piece to play.

“I’ll leave you for a while,” R announced. “I must ask her for a dance. Promise me you won’t just stand by yourself ruining everyone’s mood with your long face.”

“I promise. Go for it,” I squeezed her hand, wishing her luck. “And I’ll go grab a bite.”

With that, I made my way to the cold table at the opposite end of the ballroom. “Cold table” is an expression which here means “a buffet-style table with the dishes that the guests are expected to help themselves to” not a table that is cold to touch, although I couldn’t have had any idea if that particular table was cold to touch before I ever touched it. As I was eating mushroom tartlets, I watched the dancers. Here was my brother waltzing with Olivia Caliban, and there was my sister, talking animatedly about something to her partner during the dance – and looking, as I was pleased to notice, like after all the recent troubles and worries she was finally at peace. Some of the guests might have been watching her too and wondering who she was dancing with: Frank or Ernest? That was, of course, the wrong question, while the right question would have been “How many Denouement brothers are there, actually?” I shifted my gaze to R, who was dancing with Gustav’s sister, then to Gustav and Monty and then to Ike and Josephine Anwhistle and so, looking over the dancing couples one by one, I finally met Beatrice’s eyes as she looked at me over her husband’s shoulder. My heart sank. That ballroom was full of people I held in great affection, and still I had to abandon them tomorrow, to flee abroad in order to save myself and everyone who was closely associated with me and could get in the firing line because of that. I didn’t know when I would see all of them again. Just the thought of it made me suffocate with grief.

“Snicket,” someone said. I turned around. There was a woman standing next to me, one that was different from the other guests for two reasons. Firstly, most of the invitees were the same age as the bride and the groom, while this woman was much older. Secondly, I have never met anyone with a hair as thick, long, and unruly, presently already greying. Even if she had tried to arrange it in some sort of a hairdo on the occasion of the party, all the pins and clips clearly were already lost, unable to tame this natural disaster. “Do you mind?”

“An interesting question. For a well-mannered person, there’s only one answer to it,” I observed, “which could be in equal measure correct or incorrect depending on how much…”

“Snicket,” my chaperone interrupted me, annoyed, “I asked because you’re standing by yourself ruining everyone’s mood with your long face. If you’re fine with being in such condition, I can leave you alone.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you, Theodora,” I objected. “Shall I pass you something? The salmon sandwiches are really good.”

“Thank you, I’ve enough for now,” she showed me a full plate. For some time we stood there eating and not saying a word, enjoying the music, the meal, and, to the lesser extent, each other’s company. Finally, Theodora said what she apparently wanted to say from the start.

“I grew wary when I saw you here, quite honestly,” she began. “I knew you were invited, as astonishing as it may be, but I was still surprised you’ve showed up. I’ll admit I feared that at the last moment you’d… pull some trick. I even told Bertrand about it, but he just waved it aside.”

“Well, that just proves the student has surpassed the teacher when it comes to getting other people,” I shrugged. “I suppose you wouldn’t trust me, but I didn’t even think of ruining the ceremony. Believe it or not, I sincerely wish Bertrand and Beatrice nothing but happiness.”

“You’re a peculiar person, Snicket.”

“Am I? I thought I am insufferable and lack respect for my elders.”

“And that, too. It won’t ever cease to amaze me that you and Bertrand hit it off.”

My brain instantly came up with a couple of presumably witty responses concerning how well we hit it off indeed – the champagne might’ve been to blame – but I restrained myself. There were some things she’d better stay unaware of.

“Life is full of surprises,” I observed instead. Theodora looked at me dubiously.

“I’d like to believe you’re telling the truth,” she said. “That you really came here to congratulate them on their marriage, and not to wallow in self-pity or make them doubt they made the right choice. You’re a peculiar person, Snicket, and that is precisely why I feel I really might be right to believe that. Care to ask the old hag for a dance?”

“With pleasure,” I agreed. This conversation was somewhat upsetting me, and it appeared I was already failing to keep the promise I gave R anyway. “May I have this dance, Theodora?”

The look on her face told me she was expecting some other answer, in which I would have pointed out, for instance, that I see no old hags here, but she still gave me her hand, and we went dancing.

***

The celebration ended late into the night. Many kind words were said to the bridal couple, many wonderful songs were sung, and the young Quagmire, evidently inspired by the example of his friend Bertrand, seized the moment to propose to his beloved. Finally the time came for everyone to head home. I was hanging around the hotel lobby and making my adieus to the guests: some of them were waiting for their taxis to arrive while some preferred to make use of the secret tunnel that connected The Eye of the Storm to a number of VFD buildings in the City. I was bidding farewell to my friends: sometimes a handshake, sometimes an embrace, and sometimes simply an exchange of phrases which would’ve seemed nonsensical to the uninitiated. My future appeared to me full of uncertainty and loneliness, and the volunteer’s work kept becoming more and more dangerous with every passing day. If I was destined to never meet my comrades again, then I wanted to remember them precisely the way they were that evening: happy, content, elegantly dressed, and with a newly found confidence that we may still be bound to witness the victory of nobility, valour, and erudition over cunning, avarice, and bad taste.

“We’ll meet you by the road junction at nine,” my brother said, clapping me on the shoulder. He was obviously worried. I didn’t want him to worry about me – I was doing that myself just fine. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave earlier? You could get there in time to catch the…”

“It is highly likely that our enemies have infiltrated the crew of the Prospero. You know that yourself,” I didn’t let him finish. “I’ll take the train. Don’t fret about me, Jacques. Better try to get some sleep. Or…” I cast a sidelong look at Olivia, who was standing nearby and apparently waiting for my brother, “spend the time until morning the way you see fit.”

It was twilight outside The Eye of the Storm, but I had no doubts Jacques blushed.

“You’re taking a lot of risk, L,” he said, displeased. “Are you sure it’s worth it? After all, everything has changed now…”

“I know,” I said. Deep down, I wasn’t sure indeed if it was a good idea. If it was appropriate now, no matter how much we wanted to believe it was. But I couldn’t act differently. Firstly, I had given a promise. Secondly, if I changed my mind, then – who knows – I might miss the last chance to feel happy that I’d get in my life. “I am only sure that if I leave now, I am going to regret it. See you tomorrow, Jacques.”

He frowned but said nothing more and, after hugging me once again, got into the car and left. I headed back to The Eye of the Storm. My brother and Olivia were the last ones to leave; presently the only ones staying at the hotel were the employees and the newlyweds. I sneaked a look into the ballroom and saw them talking about something to the hotel owner. The bride laughed at something and took her groom – her husband – by the hand. I was standing there in the dusk and thinking: what if my brother was right? Wouldn’t it be better for me to leave before it’s too late – just like that, without saying goodbye? I shook my head, chasing these thoughts away as if they were circling me like Snow Gnats, and hurried to the second floor. At the very beginning of the corridor, a bored-looking hall porter was sitting on a chair and cleaning his nails. I approached him.

“Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire are wondering if the still life with pineapples displayed in the ballroom is for sale,” I said.

The hall porter raised his head to look at me.

“Unfortunately it isn’t. It’s the only thing our owner has to remember his late grandmother by,” he replied, and gave me the key from the luxury suite. There was no further conversation between us; I took the key and headed to the suite.

I entered the room, closed the door behind me, and looked around. As it is commonly known, luxury accommodations differ from the regular hotel rooms in the number of amenities and the refinement of the furnishings. In the present case, one of the indisputable advantages of this suite in comparison to the other rooms was a bookcase with a great number of books on its shelves. I looked over the room, checking, among other things, the presence of weapons and fire extinguishing tools hidden under the bed in the event of the enemies of the bridal couple finding out where the wedding was taking place and deciding to pay a visit. Then I took a collection of poems by Oscar Wilde from one of the shelves and immersed myself in reading, hoping for once I wouldn’t get much time for that.

Indeed, I didn’t have to wait for long. There was the sound of steps and voices, and the just married burst into the room – it struck my eye that they were still holding hands. They didn’t notice me because as soon as Mr. Baudelaire shut the door behind him, Mrs. Baudelaire pinned him against that very door and kissed him. Since she threw off her high-heeled shoes the moment she ran into the room, she had to stand on tiptoe to kiss him, which looked absolutely adorable.

I watched those two who had clearly forgotten at that moment about the world around. Without a doubt, the Baudelaires were a beautiful couple. Beatrice was lovely even wearing an old tracksuit covered in dirt after the annual orienteering competition held in the city sewers – presently, in a white and golden wedding dress, she looked like an angel. Bertrand, handsome and well-built, looked dapper in a cream-coloured suit with a tea rose on the lapel. I was feasting my eyes on the both of them, all the while racked by doubts as to whether I’d better withdraw through the window before they noticed me. I even started to reflect on how wide the windowsills of The Eye of the Storm were, but then the Baudelaire spouses pulled away from each other and finally realized they were not alone in the room. My presence did not surprise them in the slightest.

“You’re here,” Beatrice said, and her face lit up with such joy that I shook all the thoughts about the windowsills out of my head.

I put the book back on the shelf.

“I asked the hall porter about the painting with pineapples,” I said. “It is not for sale.”

“What a pity,” Beatrice replied merrily, ran up to me, and kissed me on the lips.

I was not destined to tie the knot and start a family. When I was engaged to Beatrice, I tried to ignore the thought of it but it was always with me, in some hidden corner of my mind. It was there when Beatrice accepted my proposal and in the early days of our relationship and when I was twelve years old and Theodora was telling me that her previous apprentice, the same young man who was half-smiling now as he watched me kiss his wife, would become a husband and a father, while all that awaited me was loneliness. I was not destined to find the happiness harped on about by writers and telenovela characters and the designers of those advertisement posters that featured parents and two children, always a boy and a girl, carelessly consuming cereals or ice cream. But I knew happiness of another kind, and while the creators of cereal advertisements would hardly be able to appreciate it, I suspected that some writers could have understood me. I was kissing the woman that wasn’t mine in the eyes of the law and the society yet still was mine as much as I was hers – that is to say, with all her heart and all her soul – and I was happy. That was more than enough.

Beatrice pulled away from my lips.

“I was mad the whole evening I couldn’t just come up to you for no special reason,” she told me. “Couldn’t dance with you, not even once.”

“It is important that as many people as possible are sure we’re not together anymore,” I reminded her. “You have plenty of your own enemies, Beatrice. You shouldn’t have to deal with mine to boot.”

“I refuse to believe that any single one of the people who were here today…” she started, but stopped short. Perhaps she remembered how fragile the bonds of friendship can be, and in how much danger they can be put both by ambition and the sense of duty. Perhaps she remembered about the family whose manor she used to visit as a child and about a night at the opera and the poison darts; about the articles in The Daily Punctilio and the stolen sugar bowl. I pulled her close. I didn’t want her to think about those things on the day of her wedding.

Bertrand coughed. I met his eyes, and felt Beatrice softly push me away. It occurred to me that kissing the wife right in front of her husband’s eyes is extremely improper, so when he approached me I decided to atone for my behaviour, and kissed him too. If Beatrice always kissed with all the fervour of the woman who could fight off a giant eagle with her bare hands, then Bertrand always did it with all the thoroughness of the man who enters a lions’ cage without fear because he has studied their habits in all detail and thought out all the actions required in case the situation gets out of control. I didn’t see Beatrice’s face the moment my lips touched Bertrand’s, but I knew she was smiling.

I ran my hand over his chest and felt for the tea rose.

“Been wondering all evening if it’s natural or not,” I said. My head was spinning. I still hadn’t fully got used to the effect these two had upon me, and this might have been our last night together.

“Artificial,” Bertrand said, took the flower out of the buttonhole, and put it into my pocket. “Take it. As a keepsake of this day.”

“Thank you,” I said. As I was looking at him, I hoped yet again that if Beatrice’s children (who were bound to be born one day: she’s always wanted to become a mother) take after their father, they’ll inherit Bertrand’s features, not mine. I wouldn’t mind to pass on the colour of my eyes or my hair, but certainly not my innate tendency to corpulence that created certain inconveniences when it was necessary, for instance, to exit the building through the basement window. As to Bertrand, he was outrageously good-looking from head to toe – I remembered vividly how it used to annoy me back when I had just met him. I used to be itching to hit him even though he never actually provoked me in any way. I didn’t want to admit for a long time that what was hiding behind that was simply the longing to touch him. “But I think that can wait. I am not leaving yet, after all.”

“Will you stay till morning?” Beatrice asked hopefully.

“I am to meet Jacques and Kit by the road junction a mile from The Eye of the Storm at nine o’clock. They’ll take me to the railway station – not the nearest one, but the one after – where I shall board the train at nine twenty-nine.”

“It’s five minutes to two now,” Bertrand observed, glancing at his wristwatch.

“About seven hours,” Beatrice said, taking a step towards Bertrand and me, and put her hand on my cheek. “Almost the whole night.”

“Your wedding night, by the way,” I reminded. “Are you sure that…”

“Lemony Snicket,” she interrupted me petulantly, and slapped me on the lips lightly with the tips of her fingers, “yes, we are sure, we’ve discussed all that more than once, we told you the password that got you the key to our room for a reason. If the world was simpler and quieter, you would’ve been getting married today as well. Consider this as your wedding night too. And before you’ve managed to make some other silly statement: yes, we’ve discussed that as well.”

I looked at Bertrand. He nodded without thinking twice.

“The fact that Beatrice and I are married now doesn’t change a thing,” he said. “Remember that when you return to the City. You will return one day, won’t you, Snicket?”

I was about to answer honestly, “I don’t know”, but I just couldn’t.

“I’ll try to,” I said. That was also true. I would have given anything not to leave the people I loved more than anything else in the world, but since I had no other choice, all that was left to me was to make every effort to come back to them sooner or later.

“All right,” Beatrice said. “All right,” she repeated, and it seemed to me I saw tears glisten in her eyes and I felt scared. She stopped me with a motion of her hand before I could say anything to her. “We’ll talk about that later. Are you feeling sleepy?”

“Are you suggesting I go to sleep, Beatrice?”

“I suggest you accept that you’ll only get to sleep on the train.”

With that she pushed me to the bed – a large bed, the kind that three people would fit on with ease. Beatrice moved towards me and I moved back until I fell on my back right on the blanket. Beatrice lifted her skirt a little and climbed first onto the bed, and then on top of me.

“Careful, Snicket,” Bertrand said as he noticed that my hands slid under her skirt. He sat on the bed and bent over me. “She’s got a dagger in her garter. Sheathed, of course, but you never know.”

I grabbed the tip of his necktie and pulled him closer.

“How interesting,” I said. Beatrice was straddling me, rising a little and then pressing herself to me again, and I was moving towards her in sync. “Do you also have anything hidden underneath your clothes, Mr. Baudelaire?”

“See for yourself,” Bertrand offered, and kissed me.

The storm was raging outside the hotel, yet only figuratively. Clouds were gathering over all the fearless and well-read people who have dedicated their lives to science, literature, and keeping the world quiet. But I and those two that I loved were in the eye of the storm: literally, because that was the name of the hotel, and figuratively, because that night we weren’t thinking about the schemes of our enemies and the everyday dangers that befell our friends. I was happy in a way the one whose beloved has just married someone else rarely is, and here, in the eye of the storm, nothing could take that happiness from me – at least not until the morning.

#asoue #a series of unfortunate events #lemony snicket #beatrice baudelaire #bertrand baudelaire #duchess of winnipeg #s. theodora markson #jacques snicket #lemonberry ice #beatrice x r #snicketverse #my fic #gella talks snicketverse #tbh i really didn't even try to fit it into canon timeline #i just wanted to write some light-hearted self-indulgent ot3 fic and i went for it

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