Me: I'm going to bed.

Lemony Snicket: When one claims they're "going to bed," more often than not, it's to say that they're going to get into bed, lie down in a horizontal position, and let themself slip into an unconscious state that we know as sleep. The sleeping part of this ordeal is typically implied, and the audience assumes the speaker means they are about to go to sleep, as that's what a bed is for. However, in this particular instance, Jack did not mean that they were going to sleep, but instead meant that they were literally going to bed. And while they did lie down in a horizontal position, they opted to not sleep, but instead read a 700 page book on cryptology, even though they had to get up early in the morning to go to school.

Me: How did you get in my house?

close encounters of the sibling kind

written for the following prompt on @asoue-network: 5 times Jacques and Kit narrowly avoided each other in the city streets, and the one time they ran into each other.

also on ao3

1. The first time Kit sees Jacques since the last proper meaningful conversation they had, it’s barely a notable encounter. He’s walking in the streets, sharply dressed in a suit that is both impressive and hopelessly out of place in a dingy part of town. She looks more suited to her surroundings in an old shirt and trousers she’s had to bring in at the hem, cardigan loosely hanging over her shoulders. She’s always been a better chameleon than him, even if he is the perfect spy. She can’t see his face. He’s just narrowly avoided her, and all she sees is the flick of his suit jacket and his foot (light step, pointed inwards a little, he had never got that looked at), disappearing around a corner. It’s a flash of a person that no one but a twin could have identified in the short time they occupied the same space, but she knows him like she knows herself. She doesn’t follow him because she is busy, because he is probably busy too. Because there is a grease stain on her cardigan and she wants him to think she has her life together. Because of the schism, because of fights from years ago, because of rules she can’t remember but follows anyway. She lets him go and holds onto the moment like a charm. 2. The second time, Kit sees his face. He is in a coffee shop, sitting at a bench by the window (they always sat at the window when they were together, opposite each other with legs too long for their bodies squashed against each other and Lemony hooked under one of their shoulders) and he’s frowning over a notebook. He’s grown into his body now, like she has, but his expression of anxiety hasn’t changed. He still chews on his lip, furrows his brow. She does the same. It’s comforting to carry that with her. When he looks up, probably seeing that the shadow hasn’t passed the window like all the others, that the light hasn’t flooded back onto his paper, she turns away, pretends to be watching the roads for a taxi. Her hair dyed and sunglasses on, it’s doubtful he’ll make the connection. Then again, she always has. She doesn’t look back, so she can’t be sure if he looks up before she steps away. 3. The third time, she doesn’t actually see him. She’s in a seedy cafe, bothering some poor hapless waiter for information about a recent customer, when she hears his laughter in the kitchen. Kit looks up, recognises the raucous laugh instantly. She wonders who he’s talking to that makes him laugh like that, because it sounds real, and she knows when he’s faking his amusement. The waiter looks at her questioningly, and she tries to turn her attention back to him, listens to her brother’s dry chuckle and words she can’t quite make out. Before she’s done, she hears the back door open, then swing shut. She’d be lying if she pretended she hadn’t wished he would come out through the front and see her, just so she could know his reaction, but he is gone and the place is dead silent. The mission comes first, so she pushes it to the back of her mind and carries on, but sometimes when she speaks, it’s his words that come out of her mouth. Twin things. 4. Kit doesn’t find out about the fourth time until a little later. At the time, the day had been unremarkable. She wasn’t working, so she had spent it with Dewey in his library because Frank told her he was lonely. Then she had stayed the night. Then the next day, only leaving a few times for meals and a breath of fresh air. “I think I probably have to leave today,” she tells Dewey in the afternoon whilst he’s swinging around on a high shelf and she’s sitting with her back against it eating strawberries. “I fear I left some food on my table before I visited you, and I don’t like to think of the state it’s in now.” “Oh,” Dewey says, frowning, and she hopes he isn’t too disappointed. “I thought you might have sent J back there.” “What?” Kit frowns, tips her head back to look at him. “I haven’t seen my brother in years, Dewey, what are you talking about?” “You haven’t-” Dewey’s frown deepens, and then he groans. “Kit, he was here yesterday!” “He was what?” “He stayed last night, his name is in the books,” Dewey says, looking despairing. “He had something to attend to nearby. We thought-” “You thought what?” Kit asks, then realises. “That’s why Frank invited me here, isn’t it?” “What else would he have said?” Dewey blinks. Kit waves him off. “I thought you were seeing him when you went upstairs,” Dewey says miserably. “Stupid cryptic VFD shit.” He sounds angry. Kit hasn’t heard him sound like that before. “It’s fine, Dew,” she says gently. “I can’t see him anyway. The schism is...bad.” “I live with Ernest,” he shoots back. “I know what the schism is like. He’s your brother!” “It’s not that simple.” “Yes it is,” Dewey says bluntly, then drops his files onto the floor next to her. She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she just leaves, and can’t help but search for his car outside, even though she knows he’s long gone. 5. The fifth time, she nearly runs him over. She’s driving like she always does, which is to say, like she has nothing left to live for, and he is crossing the street nowhere near a crossing and not looking for oncoming traffic, which is also what he always does. Neither of them will break a habit. Kit swerves away and screeches to a halt before she actually realises it’s him. Thankfully, she recognises her brother right before rolling her window down to yell either an apology or expletives, she hasn’t decided. She’s not a perfect person, admittedly. He doesn’t recognise her past her tinted windows, although he might recognise the car and the dents in it. She doesn’t wait to find out, just screeches away and watches him hurry across the street in her rearview mirror, and thinks that objects in the rearview mirror are closer than they appear, whatever that means here. 1. Fate intervenes the sixth time they’re in each other’s orbit. Kit walks into a bar (and this sounds like the start of a joke, but it isn’t) and scans the room for an empty seat. She’s not here for a cheap hookup or a crazy night, just wants one drink to take the edge off, put the fuzzy borders back on the world instead of the sharp edges she could cut herself on. There is exactly one seat left at the bar and of course, it is next to her brother. She considers going straight home, but the empty silence of her apartment seems horrifically unappealing right now, and here she can at least be around other people for a bit, bathe in their smiles and laughter, even if they’re not directed at her. She takes her seat. “Are we going to keep pretending not to know each other?” Kit asks, not turning to face him. “That seems as much your decision as mine,” Jacques says drily, then turns to her. “Hello, dear sister.” “I keep seeing you,” she blurts out. “Just in the street. And we were in the hotel at the same time.” “Well,” he says. “That explains some things.” “I suppose,” she says, and Jacques orders her a drink whilst she stares at her hands. “You look tired,” he tells her. “I am tired.” She’s not a good liar around him. “It’s good work,” he says. “Worth it.” “I haven’t seen you in years. Properly, I mean.” “You’re seeing me now.” “Yep,” she says, rapping her fingers on the glass. “I’m sure we’ll face the consequences. Someone will be watching.” “Someone’s always watching,” Jacques sighs, and the bartender gives them a peculiar look. “Do you remember waiting for the bus?” Kit asks, holding onto the hazy memory as she speaks. “When we were little?” “I remember,” Jacques says, smiling faintly. “You had very little patience for waiting.” “I haven’t changed,” she says, and he laughs. “I wouldn’t expect you to.” “Lemony could have stood there for hours,” she remembers, thinking of how small he was and how he’d stand in his brother’s shadow and peer out for the bus with big, dark eyes. “He wasn’t like us, was he?” Jacques sighs. “I miss him,” she admits, like it’s not obvious, and drains her glass. “Me too,” Jacques says gently. “I said only one drink,” she considers, partly to herself. “Why are you here? Waiting for someone?” “No,” Jacques says, amused. “Just stopping by. I don’t think I’d be picking anyone up at the bar.” “No, you’d prefer the penthouse, wouldn’t you?” Kit says, and they both laugh. “I have to go home.” “Need a lift?” Jacques asks. “I’m not drunk.” “I’m catching the bus actually,” she tells him. “Though they take forever around here.” “I’ll wait with you,” he says easily, and she likes the idea of not standing alone at the bus stop with a cigarette. This will not become a regular occurrence, but for one more day, she waits for the bus with her brother.