Disclaimer: I do not own A Series of Unfortunate Events or anything related to it. This was written for the 5th anniversary writing contest at the 667 Dark Avenue forums.
Thin Air
Kit is going to fall.
She can see it happening, as clear and vivid as a childhood memory. She watches her own body as it steps forward off this tiny ledge and plummets, skirts billowing around it, hair falling out of its loose knot and trailing behind her head like a comet's tail. She hears the guests and the concierges screaming, running to the edges of the lobby as she smashes across the tiles. She wonders how much it would hurt.
"Are you ready?" Dewey asks.
Kit blinks, back on the ledge, the rope twisted round her hands. The skin around it, where it presses into her, is white. Her mouth has dried out and frozen, refuses to work, and she has to swallow three times before she works up enough moisture to speak. "I'm not sure about the harness," she says.
"It might feel a bit awkward on you because of your hips, but I've checked it. It's fine." Dewey tugs on the cable connecting her to the wall. It holds, as it did the last time he did this and the time before that and the times that she tried it. "You see?"
"Are you sure you didn't dislodge it, doing that?" A young girl with a flame-red helium balloon pauses beneath them, looking round at the crowds. Kit hopes she holds on to the string. If she lets go, it will float up into the centre of the roof and be trapped.
"That's physically impossible," Dewey says, in the slightly too calm way of someone explaining something he knows she already knows. "Pulling on it makes it tighter. Kit, if you're not ready that's fine. There's no reason you need to be able to do this. I've been managing up here by myself for years."
Kit shakes her head. "I need to…" she says, but the end of the sentence eludes her. She closes her eyes and breathes in, out, in again, out again, waiting for her limbs to stop trembling. They won't. Gravity pulls at her, gently but unstoppably, waiting for its chance.
"I'm going to fall," she breathes.
"I know it feels like you're going to fall," Dewey says, still as patient as half an hour ago when they first climbed up here, "but you really, honestly can't. Trust me, I know how it is the first time, but you're not going to -"
His hand is on her shoulder and Kit shrieks, twisting away, "Don't touch me!" as the world spirals around her and her feet slip on the polished wood and she falls, down and down, screaming into the abyss – except not, because there's a hand gripping her arm and an arm around her waist and Dewey is pulling her toward him, holding her firmly against his thin body as she shivers and moans.
"What's wrong?" he asks, from far away, and Kit shakes her head, not knowing how to answer him. She can still feel his hand on her, the slim, bony fingers, the vicious strength in them as he pushed and sent her tumbling to her doom. Which never happened, never even started to happen, and would never happen because this is Dewey Denouement, who is kind and gentle and noble and who kissed her behind the filing cabinets in room 020 as if doing so were something rare and precious, something neither of them had ever done before. Maybe for him it really was the first time. She can't bring herself to ask.
Trust me. She knows she can. She knows she ought to.
She ought to like the way she can feel all the bones in his wrists, and the way that his collarbone sticks out and the way that if he holds her from behind his chin can rest on the top of her head. It makes her feel enfolded. These things used to appeal to her, and to some part of her they still bring pleasure. But underneath the pleasure is fear. He doesn't deserve that, but she can't help it.
Trust me, Kit. Don't you trust me? I thought you did. I thought you loved me. I thought you were different.
"Kit? Do you want to come down?"
She shakes her head. Her hair is falling down into her eyes, tears sticking it to her face. Dewey brushes it away. He's so kind. He's too kind to her, when all she can give him is suspicion.
"I can't do this," she tells him. "I'm sorry."
"Why not?" He tilts her face up, to look at him. His hands are warm.
Kit looks away, burning with shame. "Because I don't trust you."
He doesn't speak for a long time. Kit shuts her eyes again, not wanting to see him hurt. Too much of a coward to let herself see that. But it's best if she ends this now, before they've gone too far together. They can come down, back to solid ground.
She feels his hand on the side of her head, turning her to face him again. Her eyes open, because she can give him that much at least, and he smiles.
"Of course you don't," he says, just as patient as before. "No one ever does on their first climb. I didn't. But my teacher told me it doesn't matter. The important thing is that whether you believe it or not, the ropes are in position, the knots are all secure, and I'm right here holding on to you."
That's not what I meant, Kit thinks, but she looks into his eyes, and he looks back, and she thinks that maybe he already knows what she means. She looks down at the ground, letting out a breath she's only just realised she was holding.
It's a long way down.
"You still don't have to," Dewey says. "If you don't want to."
Kit shakes her head, and renews her grip on the rope. "Yes, I do," she says, and steps over the edge.