Ten-
Once they have ascended the ladder and the candles have been lit and there is finally a moment to speak, Olaf kisses her instead.
His hands are black with char and his breath smells of smoke, yet as soon as they are truly alone, the man takes her face in his dirty hands and kisses her as if she is the only thing he has ever wanted. To Violet, who had been about to spew some embarrassingly concerned question- Are you hurt? Do you need help?- the kiss is a welcome distraction, one that answers before she can even ask. The kiss is a relief, like the cessation of a pain she has grown accustomed to.
Her hands rise to fist in the collar of his dress shirt, but the fabric crumbles beneath her touch. The man backs her up to her shoddy workbench so fiercely Violet's back brushes the cool tower windows. One hand leaves her face to grab beneath a thigh, lifting her. She follows his direction, rising to sit atop the desk, uncaring of the mess of papers and boxes of nails that tip to scatter across the floor.
Only when she has been kissed breathless, lips swollen, her chin chaffed and slightly red from his facial hair, does Olaf pull away to look her in the eye. She wants to insist that he shut up, that he continue to kiss her so perfectly, but patience and curiosity outweigh the arousal that has been itching beneath her skin since the man had hurt Carmelita. Dazed and enraptured, she meets his eyes.
"My apartment was burned to the ground. With me unfortunately inside. Once I had made my escape, my very first thought was to get here to make sure you were safe. Allow me, please, Violet, to reassure myself that you are still very much alive."
"Go ahead." She mutters, pressing her lips against the smattering of wavy hair at his ear. A small shiver darts down her spine. She feels honored and lucky that she can touch this man so soon after last time. Violet wonders if it is possible to become gluttonous for a single person and as Olaf's hands ghost over her hips she realizes she already knows her answer.
"I've wanted you to touch me since I saw you choking Carmelita." Violet says and, at the Count's startled look, thinks she could have phrased things better. Slightly embarrassed, she tries again. "Uh, I mean… You just looked so powerful. And you were so close to her. It was-" She pauses, unsure of the correct word to pull from her mind. "Startling. Like, you were hurting her. And that's not a very noble thing to do, but I also thought it was sexy."
Understanding flashes in the man's eyes. Hunger replaces the confusion on his face and his grin is wicked and wonderful. "Ah. You saw me hurting a young girl. Threatening her for you. And it aroused you, Violet? How interesting."
Absent of response, she nods. Olaf brushes a grimy hand past her collarbone to circle very lightly around her throat. He settles his thumb at her pulsepoint, brushing back and forth. Voice quiet as if sharing a secret, the man asks, "Were you jealous?"
A violent blush overwhelms her so fiercely she blinks against it as if pained. The skin beneath the man's thumb is suddenly racing and he grins ever wider.
"I don't know." Violet answers, honest. "Maybe. But is that normal? Is choking a sex thing?"
As soon as the question leaves her lips and Violet hears herself speak, humiliation sinks her stomach. She can hear the innocence in her voice, the wretched inexperience, and that same frustration she had felt stripping on the beach finds her once more. Unaware of her internal frustration, Olaf nods. A new understanding softens his face yet his eyes are just as hungry.
"Oh yes." The man purrs, increasing the pressure on her throat very slightly. "But don't worry, it's a fairly common pleasure. Many enjoy it because of the powerlessness. Or rather the exchange of power. The first breath after a stretch of breathlessness is said to be very sweet. But I enjoy it because of the trust. You would be very literally putting your entire life in my hands."
Olaf removes his grip from her neck and plants a mess of slow kisses there instead. He mutters against her skin, breath hot, "But there's no need to consider any of that now. You still have much to learn from your obviously very willing teacher. The basics."
"Right." Violet agrees, wondering how they had gone from kissing very passionately to discussing sexual tendencies as if in a lecture. She realizes that she had given the man a very clear opening to ridicule her, to mock her cluelessness or make her feel immature and stupid and indebted yet he did not take it. Instead, she feels like she has learned something new, an interesting oddity about the world she had never expected. Count Olaf meets her where she is and expects nothing more. The thought is humbling and endearing. She meets his eyes, muttering, "Sorry. I didn't mean to turn this into a lesson. Go ahead. Continue, uh, seducing me."
Olaf laughs, startled. The sound is loud in the cozy little sanctuary. When the man finally gazes at her, his eyes are soft as broken bread.
"Violet Baudelaire, you are so very charming. Continue uhhhhhhhhhhhhh seducing me?" The man pulls an exaggeratedly confused face and Violet giggles, swatting him, "I don't look like that!"
The man glances around as if to an audience, face still contorted. "Count Olaf wants to seduce me? To get me uhhhhh naked?"
"I never said that!" Violet cries. She grabs for Olaf's clothes but he darts away and leaps onto the pink velvet chair, one foot on the cushion, the other propped on an arm. He looks like a captain at the helm of his ship, or an actor taking to stage.
"You mean he wants to uhhhhhh touch me inappropriately?"
"This is slander!" Violet shouts, unable to hide the amusement in her voice.
"Quiet, quiet in the audience! Allow me to begin my monologue-" Olaf turns with a dramatic flair, his back to her. He clutches his chest as if lovestruck, the other arm thrown dramatically wide. "Let the world know that I, Count Olaf, am delighted and frightened by the mere presence of Violet Baudelaire and any opportunity to touch her wounds me in a primal way I have never experienced before. It is a sweet pain, like removing a splinter! Like a tattoo! Ah, how does that poem go?"
The man scratches his head for a moment, thinking.
Violet, very slowly, reaches to untie her shoes.
"Ah! Body of my woman, white hills, white thighs, you look like a world lying in surrender… I was lone like a cave… Oh the goblets of the breasts! Oh the eyes of absence! Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!" Olaf pauses again, wracking his brain. Violet gathers her shed clothes and balls them into a heap atop her lap, waiting.
Finally the man gasps and shouts, "Oh, body of my woman, I will persist in your grace!" and turns with a flourish. Violet takes the opportunity to toss her shed uniform at his feet, like a flustered patron tossing roses to a stage. He goes still the moment he sees her completely naked sitting on her desk before him, expression serious and wanting.
He takes a careful step down from the chair. Violet reaches out. She grabs his fingers, tugging him forward like a pulley. When he stands completely before her, Violet parts her knees, hooking them around his legs, and reaches for his cheek. She grabs his reverent face with both hands, his facial hair pricking her palms, and brings him down to her own waiting mouth.
They kiss with violence. As if the bloodshed and destruction of the day could be collected and purged through the connection of their bodies. Olaf presses his thumbs against the sharp points of Violet's hips. She reaches past his face to grab tufts of that wavy hair and yanks, pulling him so close their teeth click.
Just to rile him further, she unhooks her knee from around him and begins to rub her kneecap maddeningly slow up his thigh. His hands slide up, dipping at the bend of her waist, before rising further to brush over her breasts. Instead of his soft touches at the beach, he runs his fingernails over her skin trailing faint white lines. When his mouth follows, he is more teeth than tongue.
Familiar goosebumps charge her skin. Already she is becoming familiar with this side of herself, with this sexual identity forming like a crystal in a damp cave deep with dark.
On an upswing, Violet lets her knee stray further, pressing slightly over the bulge in the man's trousers. He hisses softly against her lips. A subtle tremor causes his hands at her thighs to shake.
It is not long before Olaf grabs her beneath the knees and takes her into his arms. Startled, Violet pulls away to say, "Whoa!" and hook her arms around his neck. The man does not respond, merely stumbles away to kick her crate of blankets to the floor and lay her down atop them. He kneels before her, about to kiss her, to cover her body, but she stops him with a look and says, "I can't be the only one naked here. Take off your clothes."
He glares at her, annoyed at the interruption, but does as she asks. He unbuttons his shirt too quickly, hands shaking, buttons slipping. Olaf slides the grimy shirt off his head and throws it to the floor. His skin is covered in ash yet Violet does not mind even as he lies atop her, kissing at her neck. She knows she will be covered in soot just the same, but does not mind as much as she thinks she should.
"Hey-" Violet mutters, ignoring the slight hitch in her voice. She hooks a toe into a belt loop and tugs lightly. "What about these?"
The man shakes his head but does not stop kissing to offer an explanation.
"Why not?" She asks, trying not to whine. Olaf snakes a hand between her legs, applying twirls of pressure to her hooded clit and even through the heavy surge of arousal and sensation she can clearly understand his nonverbal: Shut up.
"But-" Violet begins, but her breath is suddenly stolen in a soft moan as the man increases speed. "You're trying to distract me, you fiend. I want to h-help you. Especially because I didn't the first time."
"There will be more time." Olaf says between kisses, voice as serious as if making a promise.
"I don't care." Violet says, hooking her other foot into his pants. "I want to now. Can't you let me uhhhhhhh seduce you?"
The scratch of his facial hair against her skin has Violet aware that he is smiling but the man does not allow himself to laugh.
"I just want to touch you, Olaf. Is that too much to ask?" Violet cries, voice brimming with drama and false sadness. When the man doesn't answer or give her pity laughter, she tries a different tactic. She tries her best to ignore the wicked work of the man's fingers. "I'm sure I won't be good at it, if that's what you're worried about. Not the first few times I do anything to you, I bet. But that's why you'll have to teach me. And then I can get better for you. But if you're worried you'll be disappointed, the only way for me to get better is to practice so-"
"Will you shut up?" Olaf hisses. Violet shuts up, but brings her knee between his legs again, noticing the obvious effect of her words.
Feeling sneaky and seductive, she runs her hands up and down his bare back, delighting in the goosebumps sprouting beneath her touch.
"Violet-" Olaf says, her name on the tail end of a desirous pant. He grabs beneath her knees and drags her sharply closer, leaning back until their bodies are flush. Her hips slot against his. Even through the fabric of his trousers, Violet can feel the heat and hardness of him against her. A feeling like emptiness opens in her body. She presses softly against his trapped erection, hips moving in slow, teasing waves.
"Why are you tempting me?" Olaf asks, sounding strained and distraught with arousal. "Violet, you must know- there is nothing I would rather do than fuck you. Make love to you. Long and slow and well." He grabs her hips and meets her with a thrust of his own and even that pressure has Violet moaning, that empty feeling growing more desperate like an itch she could not reach.
Without asking, without preparation, he slides two fingers straight into her and Violet loses her breath for a moment in pure satisfaction. She feels as if her brain has been unhinged from her body. He works them as deep as he can before pulling out and in, pushing his wrist with his hips. It is as if he is fucking her already.
"But. These things take time. Surely you would like for me to learn your body before you learn mine? To feel less responsibility for my pleasure so soon? I'll tell you, sneaky girl, that I find you very desirable. Once I have you tending to me, I will not hold back."
"I-" Violet gasps, that same teary catch in her voice. She knows she is close to orgasm because she feels like weeping with gratitude, with pleasure. "I didn't mean you had to sleep with me now. I- oh!- I just meant that I want to… to see you. To get acquainted."
Olaf grins. A wicked amusement plays at his lips. He slips a third finger into her and Violet has to bite back a shout. Her legs tremble fiercely at the man's hips.
"To get acquainted with what, dear thing?" Olaf croons, sounding innocent and sweet even as that desire rasps in his throat.
"Your cock." Violet says, even as embarrassment colors her face.
"Good. What an obedient little orphan you are." Olaf says, using his other hand to pass rapidly back and forth over her clit even as his fingers still dive into her.
"Do you want to see my cock, Violet Baudelaire?" The man asks, voice soft and suggestive.
Before him, Violet is rising, back arching. Her hands have come to cover her blushing cheeks. She gasps and he can see the dips of her ribcage. Her legs tremble at his sides. Growing pressure builds.
Unable to speak, Violet nods and keeps nodding.
"Do you want it in your hands? Your mouth?" He asks, and Violet, embarrassed, throws an arm over her eyes, but does not stop nodding. Tiny moans fall from her lips. He leans over her, close to her ear, and asks, increasing the speed of his fingers, "Your cunt?"
And that is all it takes.
The speed and depth of Violet's orgasm takes her by surprise. Her muscles lock and her breathing stops and there is a blissful moment of absolute pleasure where she cannot feel her body beyond tingling, as if her unhinged mind has gotten lost in the skies.
Her heartbeat thrums in her chest, almost painfully fierce. She sags bonelessly against the blankets. Her breathing is rapid, her body weak. Olaf slides his fingers out of her and Violet feels their loss acutely. He settles beside her on the nest of blankets, sighing.
When Violet can think again, she places her head on his chest, throwing an arm around him. Only once she feels the man relax does she trail her hand slowly down his chest, past his stomach, and brush lightly over the erection still swollen in his trousers.
Olaf gasps, starts to say, "Violet-"
But she cuts him off, praying she does not make a fool of herself, and whispers, "You just saw how badly I want to touch you. Just let me."
Like Violet, he does not take much time. She palms him for a few minutes through the ashen material of his trousers. Even then he is hot and hard in her hand. Violet wonders if it is the teasing that brings him off. If it is the fact that she never quite touches him skin to skin, always hovering on the fine edge of true contact, always treading that line that gets to him the most.
When she reaches for the button at his zip, Olaf groans as if frustrated. He had been silent the last few minutes, only shuddering beneath her, never making a noise, always biting back some kind of reaction. The noise startles Violet so much she flinches. Her hand at his button freezes but she does not pull away. The other hand continues its steady motion.
The man hisses, "Don't, just- let me-" and that sudden twist of her hand is all it takes. Instead of blissful as she had been, orgasm makes the man look stunned with anger. His eyes are screwed shut, his mouth frozen in a frown. His shoulders bunch and his body locks. A small damp patch appears where her hand had been.
As soon as he is able, Olaf groans and scrubs at his face with harsh hands.
Confused guilt makes Violet wish she were no longer so naked.
"Did I do something wrong?" She asks, hating the whine in her voice.
"No." The man mutters. "You did perfectly fine. But perhaps it could have crossed your mind that I did not want you to insist on my pleasure because I have just today escaped the hellish trap of a burning building. I would have prefered a shower before any kind of sexual act towards me. Towards you? Anytime. Anywhere. Burning building or not, I am always willing to assist you. But as it would have been your first time experiencing my body, I didn't think a grimey, ashen man would be much fun to romp with. Understand?"
Violet almosts smacks herself out of embarrassment and idiocy. She bites her lip and tries to look him in the eye, but the man is still rubbing wearily at his eyes.
"I'm sorry." She says, voice quiet and genuine in the little attic. "You're right, of course you would have wanted a shower. You could have told me that, y'know, but… I was, uh, too excited I guess. I'm sorry."
Olaf sits up so quickly she flinches yet again. He places a hand at her thigh and, realizing she has gone cold, throws a blanket over her head. Violet grunts at the heavy blanket, but wraps it around her body, grateful.
"Do not apologize. I cannot tell you the pleasure I received from hearing you begging for me. I mean-" He waves to the damp spot at his crotch. Violet, embarrassed and proud, blushes and lets out a nervous giggle. "You made me cum in my pants. I can assure you that I have not done that in a very long time. Think early puberty. That long ago. If anything, just consider it a testament to how very enamored I am with you."
Violet reaches for his hand, giving it a quick squeeze. "I'm enamored with you too. Obviously."
"Great. Now that we got that passionate, gross, mushy crap out of the way-" He stretches his arms high above his head, bones snapping into place as if he had just woken from a long nap. "Let's find something to eat."
They dress and descend.
And this is where things go wrong.
If Olaf had the ability to reach into his past and litter it with premonitions and warnings and omens, there are plenty of instances he could pick. The night of his induction. The night of his parents' deaths. His very first burning building. Yet, out of all of them, he would want to change this afternoon discussion. He wishes he had found a note in the costume rack, something written in his own hand saying: Do not drink the wine, do not eat the puttanesca, do not open Violet's eyes to clarity in all its terror.
Yet he finds no note, no warning. No premonition hits him with unease. The only feelings Olaf has at the moment are motivated by primal urges- hunger and the postorgasmic need to care for his partner.
He listens to these. What follows is not without consequence.
Olaf leads her to the furthest depths of the backstage halls where a small kitchen and dining area border the costume room. He flips the lights and leads her to a table, muttering, "Ah, Fernald left the milk out. Idiots, all of them-" and sets a pot of water to boil atop a small stove.
He strips as he goes, slipping free the crumbling buttons of his ruined dress shirt, and shucking his favorite shoes that now bore melted soles. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Violet examining the Punctilio atop the table, her expression drawn. He has already studied the front page photographs for himself. He has spent so long studying them, in fact, that if anyone had asked, "Count Olaf, could you sketch the night that the entire east district of the city burnt to the ground?" he could have done so. It was as if the photograph was printed behind his eyelids. Everytime he tried to sleep, all he could smell was smoke and all he could see was the flicker of flame.
Dread sinks his stomach for a moment as he sees her lips purse in distaste. He quakes at the thought of Violet's displeasure directed towards him and falls on the easiest role he knows how to play: sleazy and dramatic and just charming enough to woo.
"Ah, Violet. My dear thing. We'll have to play around with these costumes sometime. I know I would love to see you in this-" He tugs a holey linen dress from the closet and swings it through the air.
Surprise cracks her drawn expression. "I don't know if that's my thing."
"No? I could picture it. You, on your knees, begging. Oh sir, could you spare some change? I'll do anything, anything! Even-"
"Oh, shut up. Your pot's about to boil over." Violet mumbles. Olaf darts over to pour pasta into the water and says, "Suit yourself, orphan." before heading into the back towards the mens' costumes.
He feels more himself when he returns. He has taken the time to scrub the char from his skin and run cool water through his hair. The ruined clothes he has replaced with tight pinstripe trousers, a matching shirt, and a dark vest.
Violet has divvied the pasta, having covered it with a jar of sauce he had not noticed in the fridge. Despite the early afternoon hour, she had also rummaged an old candle from somewhere in the room. It burns at the center of the table between their two bowls. Violet has cracked and smoothed the Punctilio across the table, examining the photos exactly as he had.
"What is this?" Olaf asks, sitting.
"Puttanesca." Violet mumbles. Absorbed as she is in her reading, she misses the man's raised eyebrow and confused expression.
"What did you call me?" He asks.
That causes Violet to look at him, confused in her own way.
"Puttanesca." She repeats. "It's the sauce that was in the fridge. Do you not like it?"
"Never tried it." He says. The man scoops twirls a large portion onto his fork and jams it into his mouth, saying before he has truly tasted, "Loverly."
Although Violet's eyes show a hint of disgust she casts him a weak smile and turns back to the paper. Olaf eats his mouthful. It takes maybe a minute before Violet suddenly groans in frustration and tosses the paper to the floor.
"Do you have anything to drink?" She asks, voice annoyed as if he had printed the paper and delivered it himself.
Olaf waves to the fridge. "There are aqueous martinis, although I'm quite worn out by them. I'm sure somewhere back here is the grape juice served during communion. The blood of Christ bottled for your convenience."
Violet peers at him as if she has more to say. She looks him over, speculative. He tolerates this for a few moments before his patience wears thin and he finally asks, "Yes?"
"What about wine? I'm sure you have a stash."
"Ah. You're right, but…" He glances to the clock above the fridge. Knowing he is being hypocritical and not caring, he continues, "It's about 2:30 on a Sunday."
"And?" Violet asks. Surprise loosens the nervous tension in the man's shoulders. He had not expected to see Violet annoyed so soon. Where before he has grown agitated and explosive at the negative emotions of his partners, he feels himself slowing with her, calming where she does not. This change does not bother him as much as he thinks it should. Olaf twirls his fork between noodles, thinking suddenly that perhaps he could use a drink himself.
Instead of rising immediately to bend to the whim of his woman, Olaf reaches across the table and grabs at her hands from where she has tangled them in the tablecloth.
Voice soft, he asks, "Are you alright, little sneak?"
The moniker causes a grateful smile. She squeezes his hands once, hard, before pulling away and returning to the food before her.
"No." Violet says. "I'm not. Now that we've gotten our, uh, impulses out of the way, it's hitting me that your apartment was burnt down. That you were in it. That you could have… That you could have been hurt. And it worries me. So many people have been dying that Prufrock had to send us here. Now they're adding pews and desks all around the cathedral to compensate for even more orphans. It's- it can't be a random string of fires. Or bad luck. Isadora told me today that the public is starting to suspect arson. And I don't doubt it."
She says arson oddly, as if it is a piece of foreign dialect she has learned to define but doesn't quite know how to say. Violet's voice warbles around it. She is afraid to speak it, lest it be true.
Olaf rises and digs around to find her that wine. He can feel a cold sweat begin at the nape of his neck and the rapid lurch of his heart in his chest, but he cannot feel the fear his body is so obviously creating. A faint memory rises in his mind- the dizzy sheen of moonlight on grass, his head spinning, his throat a mess of trapped screaming, his ankles gripped by a pair of strangers hauling him away- and wonders if his every fear could be traced to high societies or housefires.
Olaf digs for the wine, a bit more frantic when every hiding place he had he finds empty. Eventually he stands atop his chair and presses against a square of loose ceiling tiles which give easily, and feels around until his fingers brush cool glass. He grabs the bottle by its neck, feeling his nerves untangle slightly, and pulls it from its hiding place.
The raspberry wine shimmers in the light. Only when he spots the small card looped around it displaying O in curly type, does he remember that it was a gift. A truce.
He does not have to read it to recall what it says: Do not betray me. I know your every weakness. -Esmé
Olaf rips the tag from the bottle and tosses it into the blackness above the other ceiling panels before replacing the one he had moved. He sinks into his chair finding that Violet has already prepared two glasses, their stems longer than his hand, the glass blown very wide. Ice cubes sit in their deep hollows.
Olaf pours Violet the wine his ex-girlfriend had given him and thinks that even though Esmé knows she cannot be aware of his every weakness, that after his violence towards Carmelita, she will be sure of his most treasured. He hands Violet the full glass and she does not comment on his trembling hands.
"And why don't you doubt arson?" Olaf asks. As opposed to Violet, saying the word feels too familiar. Uncomfortable. Like saying his own name.
"I just-" She pauses and glances away. Immediately, Olaf knows she is hiding something. "I just have a feeling. It's too convenient."
The man stares at her blankly until she squirms and finally concedes, "Okay, that's not all of it. Olaf, I really like you. A lot. And I don't want to lie to you. But I don't want you to think I'm crazy either."
The man laughs softly, eyes tender and slightly manic. "My dear, I have known plenty of crazies in my time. I once knew a hunchback, a contortionist, and an ambidextrous man who could use both his left and right hands equally. I won't think you're crazy. I promise. And I like you very much too, of course. Very much. Now-" Although he knows he is growing stiff and theatrical with nerves, he waves to her anyway and says, faux-dramatically, "Spill your every secret."
A smile does not cross her lips. Instead, she frowns in obvious displeasure and takes a sip of wine. "If I'm going to trust you with a secret this big, I'm going to need you to be serious. Not an impresario. Can you handle that?"
The last line irks him, but Olaf subdues it, cursing his nerves. He nods and steels his expression. "Of course. My apologies."
At her silence, the man then adds a line he has never said to any of his previous partners, "I'm listening."
"Alright. Well-" Violet begins before pausing. She glances to his face, nervous and obviously troubled, before glancing away. He wonders if it is like her to hesitate, to quell her tongue. "I have two friends here that I met when all the orphans were back at Prufrock. When we could still fit there. Their parents died in a house fire like mine. And they lost their brother Quigley."
Something in the name sparks a hint of recognition in him, but he cannot place it.
"Quigley?"
Violet nods. "Quagmire. That's their last name. Anyway-" the girl continues her explanation, but Olaf feels as though he has swallowed a lump of ice. He can picture it then. The last time he had seen the Quagmires, pregnancy had bloated the belly of the new bride. He had slipped away from the baby shower at a well-kept botanical garden among familiar voices gushing, "I can't believe you're having triplets! Three whole babies!"
"-the night of the fire, Isadora and Duncan went back to their house. There weren't any firefighters present or police or anyone, so the whole thing just burnt to the ground. They dug around searching for anything that might have survived, even when the embers were still hot. And they found a book."
Before she even speaks, Olaf knows what she will say. He hadn't expected the Incomplete History. Perhaps a corpse. But the book, no matter how supposedly fireproof, was not something he thought the children to find so easily.
"A book?" He prompts, encouraging and gentle even as a bitter sickness fills his stomach as if infused into the wine. He wishes then more than ever before that VFD had never existed. He hears Violet describe the desolate despondency of her friends, their shared grief, and feels resolution harden his resolve.
He feels no guilt, no glory. Only duty. Only mercy.
"A book." Violet repeats and that same hesitancy makes her look away.
"Violet. My dear thing." Olaf says. Through his jumble of feelings, he has an overwhelming urge to simply hold the young woman before him. "I assure you I am listening to every single word. And I am aware of your hesitations. But you look… drawn. Come here."
He pushes away from the table and holds his arms out in offering. Violet, looking grateful, shoves one last fork full of pasta into her mouth and hurries to his lap. There is a minute of clumsy fumbling in which she situates her skirt and tests her weight against him before she simply settles, her long legs crooked at the knee and dangling from the arm of his chair. He wraps an arm around her waist, the other playing with the deep drop of her hair which she has draped across the back, her head in her palm, elbow pressing against his shoulder. They are a tangle of limbs and although Violet's tailbone presses into his thigh, he gets his wish once she settles and sighs against him and feels no need to move her.
"The book. Was it a scrapbook or something?" Olaf asks, although he already knows he is wrong.
"No. Nothing like that. It's called The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations. And, before you ask, it wasn't some work of fiction. It… There were photographs in it. It's pretty badly burnt, but the Quagmire's recognize their parents when they see them. And fire is constantly mentioned as a tool or a weapon or a metaphor. Our homes were destroyed around the same time. I think, if the book hadn't been so burnt, then there might have been a photo of my parents in there, too."
Although he doesn't want to, Olaf remembers a portrait towards the back of the book, one that, along with countless fires, he can see when he closes his eyes through a wince: A large group of volunteers standing before the last safe place, arms around one another. He had been standing in the front, holding out a hand, Lemony grinning at his side. To the author's other side, Beatrice eyed him with obvious affection. Kit was beside her, at the end of the line, and behind them he remembers the monochrome faces of the future Anwhistles, the Quagmires, the Squalors. If he looked hard enough, he could even see the profile of the Duchess R, staring off camera, a plaintive look on her delicate face. Several other faces crowd the photo (the Juliennes, the Spats, the Remoras, the Orwells, the Morrows, the Feints all blurring with age and old ink) but he no longer cares to recall them. All he can do is wait in nervous apprehension for Violet to sneer, "And I noticed another picture you're in as well. Care to explain?"
He is suddenly, desperately grateful that the Quagmire's book burnt as thoroughly as it did. His heartbeat is so wild in his chest he wonders if she can hear it.
"So, my parents were in a secret organization. But I know none of the people left in the photograph or what the organization did. And the book was found in the Quagmires' home, not mine. They must have been in it too, even though I'd never even heard of them. The fact that their family died in a house fire too… It just doesn't settle well with me. Makes me itch. And feel-" Violet pauses, frustrated, searching for a word. "Conspiratorial."
"My little inventor creating conspiracies?" Olaf mumbles, running a hand through her hair to calm himself.
"Sort of. Does it count as a conspiracy if it's true?"
The man hums at that, debating. "Only if there are people in power dismissing it. Ever heard of the new world order?"
"The new what?"
Olaf frowns, annoyed with himself for distracting her. "Nevermind. This isn't about all that."
Violet sighs and runs her hands across her face. She seems wearied and worn, as if every family that perished had been a personal loss.
He makes up his mind in that instant. Watching her eyes flutter closed on a scowl, her lips pursed in frustrated mourning. He thinks that the unknown may be more painful than the truth- that realizing her parents were secretive and their duties had gotten them killed, somehow, by someone still killing, might cause her to fret even less. He could imagine that knowing you had to look over your shoulder to avoid malicious intent was better than not knowing and doing it anyway.
Although the man knows it is not his duty nor his responsibility, he wants to protect Violet from VFD the way no one had ever protected him or any of his associates. He can not control the family she was born into or the secrets she has inherited, but he can try his damndest to keep her safe from them.
Olaf wonders then how to begin. He had not predicted this conversation happening for a very long time. He would delay it forever, if possible. But Violet Baudelaire sits before him, wrecked with grief and misery, and he knows he is only wounding her further the more information he gives her, yet he cannot stop himself. He knows the potential violence, the potential backlash that grows at his back with every orphaned child and the threat it poses to Violet through their proximity. He can only teach and explain and then let her be.
"Violet." Olaf says. He has that same feeling in his gut as the very first time they had kissed- surrender as an action, like sacrifice. "When I was young, two men broke into my home in the middle of the night, carried me by my ankles across the yard, and threw me into a long black car. I was instructed not to scream."
Reliving it even in conversation is painful. He has to force the words from his mouth, a fine razor of determination scraping across his tongue. "And it was normal. I expected it. It was the beginning of my induction."
"Induction?" She repeats, very quiet.
Olaf downs his first drink and when he glances over, Violet is doing the same from the bottle, her glass forgotten across the table. He watches the working of her slim throat and sees the barest shadow of ash there.
"Have you ever heard the song The Little Snicket Lad?" He asks.
Violet nods through a wince and ponders this. "I have. But not in a very long time. I hate the tune. Why do you ask?"
Olaf pours himself another glass and keeps his eyes away from hers. "Think on the lyrics."
She ponders for a moment, but, quick-witted as her mother, makes the connection through half-hearted mumbling. "They took him, yeah, they took him. They took him far away. They took him in the dead of night, beneath a moon of grey…"
At her look, Olaf nods. Violet continues, "They took him from the kitchen like you'd take a midnight snack. The-"
She hesitates.
"The VFD they took him and they never brought him back."
Her face is pale and drawn when they meet eyes. Violet reaches out to snatch his hand in hers, but drops it almost immediately to grab the bottle and stand. She asks, staring down at him, "Did VFD take you?"
He wants to hiss like a vile old man then, cursing himself and everyone he had ever known. He wants to say, "They took every speck of nobility in me." or, as if in pain, "I was only a child."
He settles on facts, as flimsy as they are. "They did. And they took your parents too. And whoever is setting these fires. All of them were volunteers."
Violet, who had again been working at the wine in the bottle, stops. Her wide eyes search his face as if looking for a hint of humor. "You knew my parents?"
He reaches out to take the bottle or hold her hand or something, but she jerks away, her eyes still wild on his. The rejection stings worse than a dart minus the poison.
"I knew them. But-" He begins, and Violet interrupts.
"And you didn't think to tell me for, what, nearly two months?" The color has drained from her pretty pink face, leaving her washed out and highlighting the purple beneath her eyes. She glares at his plate of puttanesca, unable to look him in the eyes. Just the knowledge that he has hurt her so badly she cannot even look at him sends the man into a panic of his own.
Violet backs a few steps away from him. Her absence leaves his lap cold and his chest even colder.
"My dearest darling-" He begins, only realizing once it has left his mouth that the only person he has ever heard use that endearment is Beatrice Baudelaire. "I didn't intend to keep this a secret from you. I just didn't know how to begin. Your parents- I knew of them. But we were not close."
He knows that he is lying, but cannot find it in himself to care. Not when Violet Baudelaire stands before him looking as though she might start weeping any moment. He reaches for her hands and holds them as though they are very fragile. "I also didn't want to draw attention to my age. If you can believe that. Why would a pretty young thing like you want to know that I went to school with your parents?"
He gets a weak smile at that, which he had not expected. The sight makes the man's heart leap in his chest.
"I like how old you are." Violet says softly, as though she could barely speak through the emotional weight of their conversation. "I think it's sexy. But… Why wait this long? I understand that you might feel old, I guess. But why not tell me sooner? It feels like you've been lying to me."
Olaf rubs his thumbs along her knuckles, hoping to soothe, and only then realizes that she no longer wears gauze. The wounds have healed into large pink scars. He continues rubbing them as if to heal them further, thinking.
"When was I supposed to tell you? When I found you bleeding outside Nero's office? Or later with you bent over before me? What about our very first date? Or when I had you laid out on my car, waiting for me to touch you, should I have said, 'By the way, Violet, I went to school with your parents and it is possible I may know who is responsible for the deaths of your entire family. Just thought I should let you know. Shall I go back to ravaging you now?'"
"Why not that very first night when you met me on the stage?" Violet demands, refusing to react to his teasing.
"I didn't know who you were until Nero used your last name. You had never told it to me." Olaf says simply. He wonders if it is still too soon to tug her back into his lap. Violet shifts her weight, bites her lip. She seems as if she is struggling with what to ask or which mystery takes importance.
"You didn't recognize me?" She asks, very quietly. Her voice sounds almost wounded.
"No. But once I heard the name Baudelaire I realized. And then I saw them in you." Olaf says, voice just as soft. He tugs very gently at her hands and Violet resists until, all at once, she stumbles towards him and collapses into his lap.
She buries her head into his neck and her hands fist in his pinstripe shirt. Olaf winds his arms around her and presses their bodies further together, wishing yet again that he could tuck her into his chest like a second heart.
"Someone killed my family." Violet says, voice thick.
"Very likely." He says, tone quiet as a graveyard. "I'm so sorry."
As suddenly as she had collapsed, Violet rises yet again. Her face is red with fury and fervor. She is a trembling pire set to burn.
The wrecked and ragged grimace on her face has Olaf freezing in his seat. He wonders, panicked, if she has seen some hint of wickedness in him, some damning evidence to condemn him with.
Instead, she shocks him by saying, voice low and hushed as if plotting a crime, "You've got to know who did it then. You were in the very same organization. Who did it, Olaf? I need to know-"
A sudden tightness to her hands has the man recalling when he had burst into Eliade and found Violet standing in the hall, her chin tilted high, a crazed, manic look to her eyes as she welcomed a blow Carmelita never struck. In all the fervor- the threats, the sex, the secrecy- he had not yet asked about it. But Carmelita had been roughed up and bloody. Olaf feels as if he is seeing Violet Baudelaire for the first time as she truly could be- violent and self-sacrificial and fantasizing revenge. He wonders if this is hereditary.
"Violet-" He reaches out, takes one wrist in his hand and finds that she is flexed and poised as if about to reach or run. Olaf waits until she meets his eyes, finding hers burning and beautifully broken.
And he lies.
"I do not know who killed your family. There were hundreds of volunteers, so many I barely knew their names. Every year we recruited neophytes of a young age to join us and learn our codes. There was no way I could keep up with them."
He knows he is escalating the numbers, that he could list every volunteer by name and where exactly he last saw them. He downplays his significance in hopes that Violet believes him to be a small part of VFD, not a large part composing a narrowing whole.
"Well-" Violet sputters, deflated and choking on frustration. "You've got to know some of them. Someone who could have done it."
"I do." The truth feels easier than lies with her, as if he is avoiding his own traps. He is in such a habit of lying that, when presented with truth, he almost doesn't recognize it. It leaves him feeling unexpectedly empty. "Should be photographs. Here- look-"
He shakes the Punctilio until he catches sight of a familiar bowl-shaped hat and slaps the paper against the table. He shoves it towards Violet, who glances at the article as if it were dangerous, as if he had pointed a loaded pistol right to her middle.
"Do you recognize this man?"
"He did it?" She asks instead and, for a moment, Olaf boils with unjust frustration.
"Wrong question, Violet. Try again." He tries to keep the bite from his voice, but she hears it immediately and turns those wide, furious, scared eyes onto him. She speaks like a finality, the way one might read a fresh epitaph. Desolate. Decided.
"No." Violet says. Her hands are fisted in her skirt and one knee sock has slipped to loosely ring her left ankle. Distress radiates from her like heat, like desire. "I've never heard of Lemony Snicket."
This shocks him more than he would have admitted. Too many childhood memories are stained with Lemony Snicket's face, followed closely by Beatrice Baudelaire. Whatever happened between the two of them to make Bertrand father Beatrice's children and not Snicket had always been a mystery absent of a proper answer. Even Kit, in all the ways he could get her to spill her secrets, had never given him a conclusion. Although he wouldn't have expected Violet to be familial with Snicket, he wouldn't have thought she'd be unaware of the man entirely. This fact alone, this small way in which the late Baudelaires had surprised him, has him questioning how well he truly knew them.
Olaf scowls and flips the page. He finds the centerfold and two articles catch his eye. Years of searching for three particular letters have his eyes trained, his subconscious acting before he truly knows to stab a finger at an article entitled: LOCAL WAITRESS VISITS FAVORITE DELICATESSEN.
He sees a snapshot of Kit Snicket, chopsticks holding her bun, glancing away from the photographer. It is blurry and distant, but good enough. He shoves the paper towards Violet and points.
"Her? Or him?" He jabs a portrait of Larry impersonating a doctor for Heimlich Hospital.
A peculiar look crosses Violet's face. She leans over the newspaper, eyes scanning and frantic.
"I- yes. Yeah. I've seen them both. Um, the man was here for Duncan. Isadora's brother, he's sick with grief. With something. We're not really sure. And, oh god, Duncan's right. He told me and Isadora about the secret society and we didn't believe him at first. He had to deal with that man alone. They wouldn't let us see him. He- He was a doctor. Said he could give Duncan away to some volunteer family." Violet grimaces and runs her hands through her hair.
A desperate, ugly grief guts the Count. He can imagine the man twisting words, promising a happy life and a caring family. Familiar disgust builds in his mouth. He glances to Violet and sees the same emotion on her face.
"And this woman. She was my waitress when I got your cake. Kit Snicket. Oh god, she's a Snicket too? What, are they all in VFD? And what does VFD even mean? And why would they have killed my family?" Violet shoves the paper back at him and stands crookedly, hiding her face in her hands.
Olaf stays silent, unsure of what to address first. He sits like a powerless statue, immobile and wretchedly useless as a small cough hitches in her throat. Her shoulders tremble and she sniffs and then, quick and heavy as a lightning strike, she is weeping where she stands.
Watching her weep has Olaf feeling truly powerless for the first time in his life. In other situations he has had some semblance of understanding or control or brainless action. Dealing with the depth of Violet's grief is foreign to the man. He hesitates. He watches.
"Sorry- Olaf, I… Sorry." She hiccups, turning her back to him. He can see her shoulders quaking beneath her shirt. Her breathing is erratic, heaving from her lungs in great gasps.
Only once she seems truly lost, her breathing questionable to her safety, does Olaf have an idea. He stands and scoops her easily into his arms, hurrying from the rooms and onto the stage. Without grace, he dumps her centerstage and hurries to flip the lights. Her wailing echoes throughout the empty theatre like a mournful spirit. Olaf grabs a mic, double checks that it is turned off, and runs theatrically onto the stage, arms thrown wide like a seasoned performer, as if he was not brimming with nerves.
"Attention! Attention!" The Count cries to no one. It mingles with Violet's crying, echoing round and deep. "We have a very special treat today! You know her, you love her. She's the one who has entranced the hearts of many a bystander and stolen the breath right from their lips. It's Violet Baudelaire- the living, breathing inventor extraordinaire!"
He glances over to see the girl still sitting on the stage. Her red face no longer hangs in her hands but looks him full on. Her complexion is red and ruddy, her eyelashes thick with tears, her throat still a mess of quiet crying. They meet eyes and he sees Violet try to calm herself, holding her breath at odd moments.
"Soooo, oxygen. How's that feel?" He asks, bending to place the microphone before her.
"Like… Like having an alien in your chest." Violet mumbles, forcing a shallow sigh. She casts a grateful look to him and it melts the worry in his chest somewhat.
"Well, we all know why you're here. Let's get to it then. Go on! Lung up!"
Violet sucks in a deep, shuddering breath, holds it for a few seconds, and exhales. Olaf claps, wild and so loud his palms sting, cheering, "And there she goes! God, the sheer talent! This is a legendary occasion, folks! Keep 'em coming, Violet, slow now, calm-"
So she does. Every breath, the Count cheers as loud as possible and claps until his hands grow red. They have been at it for a few minutes when Violet finally feels calm enough to say, "I can even hold my breath- and whistle- watch this-"
Olaf pauses to listen and the only tune Violet can think to whistle is the very same one Kit Snicket had loosed upon the air. A shaky rendition of Mozart's 14th Symphony quivers in the theatre.
Very faintly, Olaf hums along. Halfway through, Violet stops as if her throat has closed. When she looks up at him, her face is red and her eyes are just as broken and confused.
"Kit Snicket whistled that a few days ago. What does it mean?"
Olaf looks away, mouth pinched. When he first realized Violet was a Baudelaire, he vowed to keep her safe and ignorant. Now that he knows she was already onto VFD, he feels trapped by his commitment to her safety and comfort dueling with his desire to spill his guts, to tell her everything about the evil organization that seduced her parents and ruined him.
Finally he sighs and mutters, "It's a coded song. It meant she had a message. She must have recognized you."
"Recognized me?" Violet mutters, voice breaking. She says quietly, as if insulted, "But you didn't. Why would she?"
"The Snickets were on good terms with your family, I think. She must have seen you before, somewhere." Olaf says, unsure of what else to say. He feels bizarre standing on the stage, seeing Violet quietly cry at his feet, his hands still stinging. He feels empty and vaguely disgusted- with himself, with VFD, with his secrets he should not share.
Violet flinches as if he had struck her.
"Seen me? That feels… treacherous. Like a violation. To think she could have- have known something about my family-" Violet stops and when she looks at him that same fury burns on her face quick as oil, violent as a funeral pyre. "I had a little sister. Her name was Sunny, and she was just a toddler. A bright little girl who was smart and funny and would gnaw things like a dog and your people, my parents' people, took her away from me. I had a brother, Klaus, and he was the most clever kid I'd ever seen. Could read anything and just understand. He knew so many words, and was always teaching me something. My little brother and sister are dead because of these people." Violet looks away, a reckless, wild flex to her jaw.
Fresh tears glide down her cheeks. Her shoulders shake with the force of repressing the grief he can see bending her spine.
"And my parents-" She sniffs, that same brutality in her voice, "They were the ones that joined VFD in the first place. They- they should have known this was a threat, should have done something to keep us all safe."
Olaf bites his tongue. He wants to tell her that Beatrice and Bertrand were absolutely aware of the danger of becoming volunteers. How fire was almost guaranteed. He aches with the need, but keeps silent, bites back the words that would only twist that knife of despair deeper beneath her ribcage.
"And you. You're part of it too. Or were. I don't even know." Violet turns that sharp glare onto him. Olaf feels rooted in place, a waiting victim welcoming the hurting hand. "I don't even know you, do I? How do I know you're not against me? How do I even trust you anymore? How- Why-" Violet wants to continue but fear and betrayal steal her voice. She curls in on herself, drawing up her knees, bowing her head as if in prayer, shoulders shuddering, breathing ragged.
"You're right." He says and his voice splits like glass.
It seems that is all it takes.
Despite the time and the breathing, Violet weeps as bitterly as she had moments before and, seeing this, a strange epiphany blooms in Olaf's mind yet it is not the warm, joyous realization of an easy answer to a longstanding issue. It is dull and corporeal as a lost limb.
He wants to say that he likes Violet for their potential understanding, for the way they could connect and bond over their history of victimhood at the ashen hands of VFD's many volunteers. Or he could profess his initial feelings for her had been purely aesthetic- the long cut of her dark hair, her wide doe eyes, the thin curves of her legs beneath such a tiny skirt. Olaf has always had a weakness for powerless women, especially the pretty ones. The further he thinks, he is unsurprised to realize that he could list thousands of reasons to be smitten with her and he feels all of them, absolutely. Yet...
He sees her crying and knows the truth. The reason he has become so infatuated so immediately with her is simply because he shouldn't. He knows how twisted, how absolutely nefarious his actions are given his history with the Baudelaires, the Snickets, with every single volunteer or villain that had learned to fear his name.
He shouldn't want her so badly. And still he does.
Olaf reaches down placing his fingers softly at the crown of her head. The gesture feels as shameful as an apology. Ash grits beneath his fingernails. Her dark hair is clean and silky against his palm.
"I am so sorry." He says, apologizing for everything and nothing, not even sure Violet hears him over her weeping.
It is not often he feels as if a memory is being made. So many times he has been on the run, the present blurring past like a photograph snapped too quick. There are several days and nights he can no longer seem to recall in detail even though he knows they are crucial to his identity: the night of his parents' deaths, picking poison darts from their necks, blood gushing to the opera floor. He cannot remember his induction, does not know when he first kissed Kit Snicket or when exactly it all went to hell.
Yet he hears crying in the little theatre echo round like the wailing of a phantom, feels the high stage lights like sunburn at the back of his neck, feels his heart shriveling at the evident grief of a girl he cannot save from the truth.
And he knows he will remember his shame at the very least.
Body of a Woman by Pablo Neruda is the poem Olaf somewhat recalls and butchers.
Some of you may recognize the Count's pinstripe getup from the original front cover of The Bad Beginning.
"I once knew a hunchback, a contortionist, and an ambidextrous man who could use both his left and right hands equally." is a reference to Hugo, Colette, and Kevin who made their expositions within The Carnivorous Carnival.
My Dearest Darling, is the beginning to Beatrice's letter to Lemony explaining exactly why they could not be wed within The Beatrice Letters.
The Little Snicket Lad is a song published in The Unauthorized Autobiography, which Violet would have an instantly dislike simply because it follows the tune of Row Row Row Your Boat, mentioned as her least favorite song.
The conversation between V and O atop the stage, mirrored in Chapter One, is, again, quoting Dana Levin's Banana Palace.
Let me know what you think!