She sat propped up in the bed, her back pressed against the headboard. She was curled around a thick book, but her head was swimming too hazily for her to read a single word. She held it close to her, trying to find comfort in the weight against her hands and soft whisper of the paper. She had always been able to find solace between the pages of a book, but right now, she was too tangled in her own world to enter another. She curled her cold feet beneath her legs, tucking them in.
She heard him coming a while away, the floor groaning under his feet as he more pulled than walked himself up the stairs. She shut the book, sighing, resigned to her incapacity for attention at the moment. She needed answers.
She looked so delicate, he thought as he entered. The pale cotton of her nightdress only seemed to highlight the worried luminescence of her skin- she was practically see-through, her blue veins discoloring the circles beneath her eyes. He fell into the bed beside her, not bothering to undress.
"You're still reading that damn book?"
She clutched the literary brick in her folded arms, her body wrapped around it like a nest of cotton and body heat. He envied it.
"No, it's a different one."
She held it up with both hands so he could see the cover- It was a worn, paperback copy which sported a rich indigo blue cover. "One Thousand and One Nights" was written across it in embossed gold letters. He frowned, laying his head back down.
"Sounds treacherous."
"It is." She looked back down, laying it back in her lap.
He smiled, teasingly. "See, for all your talk, you're just as fascinated with villainy as everyone else."
"But there's the difference-" she looked back down at him, "I know it can never win."
He traced a few fingers up and down her leg lazily. "Can't it?"
She pursed her lips but didn't respond.
He continued tracing indolent circles against her skin, not really aiming to do anything but occupy his hands. She took a deep breath in.
"What did you mean by 'she's a Baudelaire'? Who are these people? How do they know me?" He didn't look up, watching his own hand, trying to find the right words.
"They were associates of your parents once upon a time."
"Associates in what?"
He glanced up at her, weighing his options. "An organization. People who came together to trade secrets and abilities and books, mostly."
She frowned, confused. "My parents never mentioned any such organization- you must be confused."
"They wouldn't have. Probably wanted to keep you out of it. Understandable, if impossible, really."
"No, they would have mentioned it, I'm sure. They were always honest with us-"
He groaned, sitting up.
"Not to doubt the snug closeness of your little picturesque unit," she leaned away at the biting sarcasm in his words, "but there are some secrets they clearly kept."
"You're wrong- what reason would they have to do such a thing?"
"To keep you from being grabbed up by your ankles and carried away to an almost certain death at the hands of a false ideal of nobility." She stared at him, not comprehending. He shrugged. "And perhaps to protect you from the truths of what their false nobility entails."
She shook her head. "I don't know what you're suggesting, but-"
"You're so quick to judge, but did your parents ever mentioned to you the price of their so-called goodness? The trade-offs they made to keep the world a quiet place?"
She stared at him, unwaveringly.
"Prices beyond lying to their children." He waved the words away with his hand. "Everyone does that. Did they ever tell you about how one decides what's just, and furthermore, who is the swift hand and executioner of the kangaroo court?"
"You're not making any sense, stop talking in circles. Who are these people and what did they have to do with my family? In the plainest terms possible, please." Her jaw was clenched tightly, a familiar anger in her eyes.
"They worked within a group to perpetuate a defunct sense of justice, sometimes mortal, using any means necessary."
"Stop lying!" She raised her voice, her pitch going up with strain.
"It's not a lie, I was there!" He raised his tone to match hers, ending spittingly into an uncomfortable silence. Her face paled.
"You worked with my parents? And you never told me?"
He snorted, leaning back against the headboard. "No, it was too late by then." She watched him, silent, waiting for him to continue. He hesitated. "There was a massive split within the organization- a schism, if you will. Both sides began with the secrets and abilities and book sharing, but that was all ruptured in a murderous, burning mess." She looked down, quiet, trying to process everything she had just heard.
"And that's why you need this information?" He pressed his lips together.
"It's much deeper than you understand, but in a word, yes."
"So I'd be working directly against a cause my parents' championed?"
He sighed, folding his hands together.
"It's not as simple as in your books." He reached out briefly to tap the cover of the book she still held. "It was, and is, a cause that is as indiscriminate in its use of secrets and poisons as in its use of those piles of books and codes." He paused, holding his words behind his teeth. "They expected you to die for them, and your parents did."
She looked down, staring at the book between her hands. He pushed himself off the edge of the mattress, treading across the room to get ready for bed. She didn't move, still stuck on everything he had said. Even when he made his way back, she was still frozen in place, her knitted brow pressing together as she tried to untangle everything she had learned.
"Here," he took the book from her, placing it on the table beside them, "we can talk more tomorrow. But for now, I'm fucking tired, and there's a lot to do still." Gently, he made his way across her, climbing into the bed, pulling up the covers across his shoulders so that it came to her knees. She still didn't move.
Groaning, he sat back up, and sliding his arms beneath her, lifted her just enough to place her back down on her side. She pushed off of him indignantly, but let herself be moved. He turned his back to her, shoving the blankets up around his shoulders, trying to ignore the gripping feeling in his gut.
He lay there sleeplessly for hours.
He was alone, save for the cold arm she had pressed against him after her breath had become heavy with sleep. She had moved closer to him unconsciously, trying to get warm in the cold room.
Perhaps he had told her too much.
Perhaps he should have told her more.
There was no way to know.
He wanted to turn, to look at her face, to try to gauge the nature of her dreams, but he resisted the urge, shoving down the heaviness to the base of his spine, bottling it up.
She moved closer to him, resting her head against his back, sighing in her sleep. He leaned into the touch reflexively.
It felt like he would never sleep again.
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AN-
I can't believe y'all are still reading this. What a fucking trip.
Keep talking to me- I love hearing everything y'all have to say. It literally never ever gets any less exciting to get a comment from you dudes.
Cheers