"The trouble with doing something suspicious for a living is that your coworkers will likely be suspicious, too, and you will find yourself entangled in a web of suspicion, even during your lunch hour." -Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
When Count Olaf remembered the night before the Baudelaire mansion burnt down, he still felt the weight of a glass of brandy slippery in his hand. He remembered the smoke that clung to his clothes as he had pounded on their front door, spewing every volunteer code he remembered in order to let them know he meant business.
He had been younger, much younger. His hair was darker and his stature was smaller although he still had the makings of a marvelous actor. Some things never changed. However, despite his bravado and flair and well-delivered lies, smooth as oil and just as tricky to hold on to, Count Olaf was deeply uncomfortable with murder.
Beatrice was always beautiful even when shocked and suspicious to find Olaf drunk on their front porch on a black winter night. Bertrand would always have a childish face, though his eyes were just as fierce and ominous and threatening as the lions he tamed. The man was careful to stand between Beatrice and the Count at all times.
The couple had corralled him like guards to the parlor. He didn't glance around the home much, the grandeur of it making him uncomfortable in the way luxurious spaces that didn't belong to him seemed to do. His shoes squeaked as he slipped against the intricately-tiled floor. When he glanced up the winding staircase, he spotted a pair of eyes peeping through the slats in the railing.
When he stumbled, Bertrand caught him against his shoulder. He led the Count into the sitting room where a large cherry table stood in attention. None of them sat, too anxious. A tension hung heavy between the three of them. Count Olaf was careful to keep both Baudelaires in his sight.
Beatrice moved to stand before the sitting room entrance, which led to the staircase. Olaf wondered at the tiny gaze he had noticed at the top of the stairs, wondered if that was what she was protecting.
"What do you want, Olaf? What made you show up shouting old volunteer phrases?" Bertrand's voice was hard and authoritative. His dark eyes stared at the Count ruthlessly.
Olaf licked his lips, which felt numb from alcohol. He gripped the back of a chair for support. The drunken swaying was beginning to churn his stomach. Or was that the wine?
"Could I-" He hissed in a sudden breath as his stomach heaved. "Could I have a glass of brandy?"
Bertrand immediately went red in the face. He pointed aggressively towards the front door, hissing, "Get out! Get out this instant!"
Seeing the alarm and surprise on Olaf's face, Beatrice clutched her husband's forearm. "Wait. He has more to say."
Olaf nodded, his grip tightening on the chair. His skin was paler than normal, his lips nearly white. The sight made every tiny scar on his face pop purple into attention.
"Yes, I do. Although, as you can see, I'm spectacularly drunk. The only way to cure an approaching hangover is with more alcohol. And I'm starting to feel horrid, so-" he waved a hand at Bertrand. "Get to it."
Beatrice and Bertrand exchanged a look. She headed off to the kitchen while Bertrand took her place before the staircase.
"Oh, impressive." Olaf jeered, a wobbling smirk on his face. "Communicating by a look. Did you ever have that with your old beau, B? Snicket? Whatever happened to him anyway?"
Beatrice returned with a glass of coppery brandy and set it on a coaster before him with a tense click. Her cheeks were slightly pink, her lips thinned into a pinched frown.
"That's not important." Beatrice muttered, eyes downcast as she took her husband's previous spot. "Just tell us why you're here."
Olaf sipped the brandy, relaxing just a bit as it burned its way down his throat. His liver would be woefully exhausted once he sobered up, but he found he didn't quite care, not when the dirty smell of ashes clung to his clothes and there was still charcoal beneath his fingernails. When he had finished half the small glass, he looked up to see they were both staring at him with identical expressions of suspicion and impatience.
And Count Olaf hesitated. He wondered, then, how to begin.
"I-" he sputtered. "There's going to-. There will be…"
He finally sighed, resigned. "The villains are planning to burn your mansion tomorrow night. I thought I should warn you."
For the amount of calamity the news suggested, neither Beatrice nor Bertrand reacted in any outward way. Olaf only noticed that Beatrice's eyes fluttered closed for the briefest of instances, before staring directly at him.
"Why would you tell us this? You've been a villain for years now." Bertrand said. Olaf and Beatrice shared a brief look. They both knew who could vouch for Olaf's scarce amount of nobility, but Kit Snicket was long gone, vanishing months ago to search for The Great Unknown with Captain Widdershins.
There was another reason, although the Count didn't voice it. He owed Beatrice a favor. This was his payment.
Instead of answering truthfully, Olaf growled, "Can't you just take a warning?"
He didn't know how to tell them that he wasn't fond of murderous arson. In time, of course, it would become as familiar as coming home. This young, though, the idea of taking a life, however distantly, made Count Olaf sick to consider.
"Why can't you tell us? It's a trap, isn't it? You want us gone so you can raid the house and steal our studies. That's it, isn't it?" Bertrand's voice grew louder with every word and every opportunity for rebuttal Olaf ignored.
"You've come to get something, haven't you? One particular thing. Don't think we don't know you and your troupe have been after it, Olaf. And with us fleeing, you'll finally have us gone, won't you?"
Bertrand snorted, a loathsome look on his face. The Count knew Bertrand had a special type of hate reserved especially for him. When they were in VFD training, he could work Bertrand into a screaming, scheming frenzy just by walking on the wrong side of the hallway or drinking a certain type of coffee. He remembered one August morning when they were both about sixteen, Bertrand seeing the smirking black cat on his coffee cup and how he had been sure the Count had only gone to Black Cat Coffee to dig through the mail upstairs.
In retrospect, Bertrand had been right. But it had been worth denying just to see his friends anxiously tug him away. He could still hear Dewey Denouement saying, "Come on, he's not worth it. Let's go visit the library…"
Olaf tipped back the last of his brandy, shuddering.
"It's no secret you've wanted us gone or dead since that night at the opera house. Is this your revenge? Scaring us out with some false threat only to kill us at the next opportunity? Something tells me you wouldn't prefer to use methods as instantaneous as poison darts."
Beatrice gasped at that, appalled and furious, and turned to glare at Bertrand. She opened her mouth to berate him, but her husband continued.
"Bet you'd love it, huh? Seeing us bleed out like that, already dead from the poison. You sick-"
"Enough!" Count Olaf roared, slamming his glass of brandy against the table, leaving a ring of pale grain on the cherry wood.
"If you're too stupid to take my warning, you deserve everything you get!" He let the words hang for a moment. Bertrand said nothing, his cheeks an angry red as he bit down his fury and snarled at the floor. Beatrice looked lost, her expression oddly guilty, although Olaf wasn't sure if it was because of her husband's outbursts or because of that night in the opera theatre all those years ago.
Olaf snorted and rolled his eyes, but gave a mock gesture of a bow. He sneered sarcastically, "The world is quiet here."
Spinning on his heel, he stumbled and pitched himself into the doorway to keep from falling. Standing before him in floral drawstring pajama pants and a pale t-shirt was the Baudelaire's oldest daughter. Her black hair was messy from fitful sleep, but her dark eyes were wide awake and curious. She peered at Olaf, who stared back, seeing double as the room spun.
She looked only about ten years old. Her eyes were intense and so curiously examining him, Olaf felt as though one more stumble and he would fall into her gaze, lost. Her cheeks were pink as rose veins. She seemed similarly vulnerable, but given her bloodline, the Count knew she was anything but. Deceptive thing.
He needed more brandy.
Beatrice went to Olaf, undecided if she should thank him, but then she caught Violet's eye and bodily forced her up the stairs. "Get back to bed, Violet. And stay there. I know you've made another hearing device, but I've got to insist that you don't use it for tonight…"
Olaf hummed to himself, remembering once Beatrice muttered it that the child's name was Violet. He wondered why he had forgotten, or if it had ever mattered.
With that, they disappeared up the staircase, leaving Bertrand to assist the Count to the door. Bertrand's hand was demanding on the Count's shoulder. He squinted into the biting wind as the door was opened. A flurry of snow hurried inside, the first real snowfall of the season.
Olaf shrugged off the man's hand roughly and stumbled onto the front porch. The frosty air felt good on his heated face. He loped off to his automobile which was parked inelegantly and crooked in the street. Without another word, Olaf clambered into his car, breath visible like smoke in the cold. Engine clanking, he glared at the Baudelaire mansion and told himself this was the last time he acted on his disgust for murder.
As he pulled away, Bertrand and Beatrice huddled in the doorway, he noticed a light coming from the second floor.
Olaf recognized the faint shape of Violet Baudelaire, silhouetted in a window, watching- still watching- as he drove away.