You don't get to die and be born the same.
You come back, but you come back wrong.
This is the price you pay for resurrection.
-Nathaniel Orion
It happens on the anniversary of Violet's death.
One year and Sunny still wakes with dirty sheets tangled around her ankles, a scream caught somewhere inside her throat. Still fights to convince herself that it is sweat instead of blood on her hands.
If reasoning with panic ever worked before, it doesn't anymore. She spends the remainder of bad nights curled into the corner of the bathroom, pressed tight against the wall or crammed beside the toilet, cheek lulling on the cool tile. Hours pass like that, each one interchangeable as the last, a kind of dizzying blur.
But for as loud as the world gets in those moments, Sunny always notices when he comes. She doesn't hear him, not unless he wants her to. She just knows between one blink and then next that he's there. Like lying under a bright sky with head tilted up towards the sun, eyes closed, and still noticing the clouds that pass unseen overhead. But Olaf isn't the sun. He's something else entirely, a thousand times more complicated, grey and murky, uncomfortably raw like a nerve laid bare. Look away. Look away. She might be disappointed if he weren't.
In the six months she's spent in his company, Sunny has finally decided that there ins't yet a name for what Olaf is to her. Perhaps she might sleep better if she were able to pin one on him, quantify him or dissect him like Violet would do to her projects. But Sunny has never had Violet's proclivity for numbers and figures, for black and white. Sunny wasn't fated to live a life dictated by moral simplicity and it seems Olaf wasn't either.
It's unsettling- the way that life has bound them together with that particular string, especially since Sunny doesn't want any kind of connection to the man, no matter how faint. Doesn't want to pity him or understand him, but more often than not, Sunny feels herself tipping in that direction. The once easy grip of hatred has distanced, harder to reach, harder to really mean. She never knew how tiring it was to keep resentment alive until it began to flicker out.
Fine tremors run through her body when he opens the door. Only the dim light of stars spill through the windows, caked with pale dust, a hundred skeleton fractures.
One year.
One year and the only thing left of Violet was ash. Maybe a few bone spinners, barely a handful. Scattered among tall trees, blown to and fro by the wind and Sunny feels a sharp pang of regret that she hadn't thought of keeping Violet's ashes, of carrying them with her in some jar where she could set them on the floor by the head of her bed. At night, she would even be able to stretch out her fingers and stroke the glass casing. Violet being dead certainly hadn't stopped Sunny from talking to her sister incessantly but it would have been nice to have something of Violet to look at while she did so. Might soothe that pestering, feverish voice in the back of her thoughts that said she was this much closer to losing her mind. Her sister's life gone in a flash like it was never there at all. And Klaus- there were hundreds of possibilities, countless nights spent in speculation over his death. A betrayal from inside VFD itself because for as many friends they had made, there were just as many enemies. A horrible accident or an attack from a wild animal would be anti-climatic considering all the dangers they had faced and triumphed over prior but entirely plausible. And then there was Olaf or one of his associates, a nighttime visit suspended under the cover of darkness. A knife or a gun or poison or the blunt force of something hard and heavy. All possible, all too easy to imagine and Sunny would spend the rest of her life not knowing.
Even worse, maybe Klaus had gotten tired of waiting. Her brilliant brother who craved connection, who found solace among the pages of other great minds. Her sensitive brother who had been alone for so much longer than she. Who might have sought escape in a moment of weakness and when it was all done and over with, a lost stranger might have stumbled upon the body and dug a grave, buried the boy without even knowing his name. Might have said a prayer over his body, might have tried to clean the blood and dirt off him, might have chosen that spot under the tree because in the summer it would bloom so beautifully.
Sunny only hoped it had been painless when it happened, not that it offered much comfort but she still remembered Violet's messy end, full of panic and desperate flailing limbs. Wanting something better for her brother seemed a small consolation prize.
Sunny had begun her day with the burn of alcohol that was growing more and more familiar. As soon as she realized what this day was, she searched out a bottle with fumbling fingers and hadn't stopped.
It was gin that she chose, told herself that it was a testament for Violet but that fantasy hadn't lasted long because Violet wasn't here. Hadn't been for one year. It was unthinkable and so Sunny drank more, to make sense of it all, of how she had survived this long without her siblings when her entire life had been set before her feet by them. Violet and Klaus had been the two reasons that she made all other decisions by and now, Sunny felt adrift like a compass spinning round and round with no point of origin. No North Star. Nothing but violent Counts and empty rooms, each crammed full of more memories than the last.
The excuses to drink only lasted as long as it took the drink to kick in and once it did, Sunny didn't need a reason other than the fact that it took all her reasons away.
Choked on the burn of alcohol inside her throat, forced her stomach to hold it, to keep it down, to let it seep past her veins. The second bottle came easier than the first. A few hours later and her body had given up, raised a white flag and succumbed to blissful darkness.
Sunny is still drunk when she is dragged back to consciousness by the weight of his eyes on her. His tread on the floor is silent even though the floorboards groan something horrible. On nights filled with thunderstorm, the house reverberates like it is likely to fall apart around her at any given moment.
He pauses at the foot of her bed and the urge to flinch is there because she knows what he sees. Silly drunk girl who is wrapped up in self-pity, unable or unwilling to get out of bed more days than not. Even in the darkness, her face burns with shame. There are circles beneath her eyes because though she might lay in bed for hours on end, it is a rare thing to actually sleep. Her hair is tangled because she can't be bothered to run a comb through it. Because the last time she looked in a mirror, her hair had been so much longer than she remembered and for a moment it had been Violet looking back. Sunny had shattered the mirror with her fist, shards of broken glass stuck inside her palms, little white scars still dotted her fingers like pale freckles.
The fear she holds for Olaf is a distant thing these days, easily ignored. A quiet pestering in the back of her mind that rears its ugly head on rare occasions. Just not when she's drunk because that's when Sunny likes to push him. Nothing else makes her feel so wonderfully and horribly alive. Nothing else seems so vital in those moments as searching for the limitations of his control. And wondering what he will do should she ever find it. There have been a few close calls, moments where his restraint has frayed to the barest edges but Olaf always manages to check his temper. They both know that the day he finally loses it, the day he allows himself a second of reprieve, she is dead. Most nights Sunny wonders why but this night, she has no energy for the games they play.
Instead she fumbles around the floor, searching for another bottle and makes a self satisfied noise when she fishes one out of the darkness. Then with her eyes screwed tight against the sting, she lifts it to her lips. Before she can gets more than a mouthful, the bottle is snatched away. Olaf hurls it across the room where it smashes into the wall, a hundred shards catching the moonlight on the way down.
Olaf's voice has reached a deadly hiss before she realizes he is speaking to her. The world shakes beneath her. Hands drag her upwards, hands that hold her steady despite the swaying of her own limbs. She ducks her head to the side when her stomach protests and gives a steep lurch but Olaf is already dragging her out of her room, down the stairs, out into the cold night. She stumbles after him, unable to do anything else, a sudden dizzying fear sweeping through her that he will release his iron grip around her wrist and she will float away into the dark sky. A balloon untethered.
It's the middle of the night and there is no one around to gawk at the man pulling a girl with unwashed clothes and long tangled hair behind him. She trips over her own feet, drunk and woozy and floating but Olaf doesn't slow, doesn't give any indication that she is there at all other than the way his fingers clench tighter and tighter until she can feel the bruises forming beneath her clothes.
When they finally pause, it takes Sunny several long breaths to center the world, to stop its swaying. Only when she feels as though her stomach has stopped trying to escape through her throat, she looks up and freezes.
Because past the glass and her own murky reflection, Sunny sees rows and rows of books. Olaf has taken her to a library and she has the bizarre urge to laugh. But she bites it back down because she isn't sure she could stop once she started.
They are all alone on a deserted back street, Olaf standing directly behind her, so much taller than she and Sunny's eyes latch onto him in their reflection, studying the way his jaw flexes beneath skin, always in motion, never content to remain stagnant. Never content to let anything happen to him. Olaf must be the one moving the pieces, scattering them across the board, one bump and they fall over the edge. It's a long way down and peering into his eyes, Sunny thinks she may have caught sight of the bottom.
The silence between them doesn't last long, it never does, and Sunny thinks that maybe he's about to kill her because he's reaching inside his pocket, fumbling for something. She waits, doesn't even consider running and that should probably worry her but it doesn't because she's about to die and she just wishes that Olaf would hurry up and get on with it.
But when he unfurls his fingers, there is no knife. Just a packet of matches.
"Burn it." He tells her, notching his head at the building beside them in a decidedly impatient manner, like the thing itself is doing him a disservice by not already being covered in flames.
Sunny lets out a sigh that sounds like a band aid being ripped away because this, this is what she's been waiting for.
She stands up straighter, emboldened because she knows what to do now that the world has righted itself. Before she can form her face into a snarl, before she can spit out her rejection, he jerks her forward. Closer and closer until she can feel his hot breath pour across her face. "This is why your brother and sister are dead. Because they refused to see the world as it is." The words erupt from his throat in a spew of rage, an old hurt that goes beyond her. "Violet and Klaus were good and it got them dead. Is that what you want?"
She is struck dumb with doubt and maybe that's why the truth spills from her mouth. "I don't know."
Olaf falters, just for a second. The cogs in his head are still turning, taking in this new information, trying to figure what to do with it, how to use it to make it hurt. It's not fun to murder something already dead.
"None of this means anything. That's the point." He tells her, soft now, hand reaching out to trace the sharp slope of her cheekbone. And more than the sharp words and the white hot rage, this is infinitely worse. She trembles beneath his hands, can't remember the last time someone touched her like this. Maybe never. The alcohol still tingles in her blood and she leans more of her weight against Olaf, dizzy.
He opens the matchbook and pulls one out. The night is quiet around them, still, holding its breath. Sunny's eyes are still fixed on Olaf's face when he lights one and she catches the look in his eyes, the light that spills across his features.
Sunny sees.
And then it's a floodgate let loose.
Remembers Violet burning. Remember the fire that they lost Klaus in years before that. Recalls the remains of their first home after it had been turned into a skeleton. Her life's memories, the vital ones that had shaped her have all pivoted around what Olaf is offering. Fire and flames and heat. Bile churns deep inside her stomach.
Slowly Olaf turns her towards the building once more, voice low next to her ear, warmth spilling from his body to hers. Strange that she always assumed he would be so cold. But right now, he's a live flame and she has to hold herself back when all she wants is to push further into the warmth. Her teeth begin to chatter.
"Do you see now? It's all ash already." He presses closer. "There's no changing it. No wishing otherwise."
"Klaus would have loved it here." she hears herself say from a long way off. Only partly because it's true. Through the stain glass windows she can see thousands of books, all crammed together, stacked one atop the other, spines that are old and bent and lovingly careworn, others that are new and proud and straight. Scattered in dark nooks are faded leather couches draped with fuzzy blankets. A thin layer of dust covers the lights, fingerprints smudge the windows. It is a well used bookshop, sings of love everywhere. A treasure that one might stumble upon some back road on a rainy day. "Klaus would love it here." she repeats, like a mantra, looking harder, trying to place her brother inside the room, trying to breathe him back to life with the force of her will alone.
But the room remains empty and dark, not a soul stirs. And Sunny comes back to herself shivering with cold, just noticing that the fog has turned into a thin sprinkling of rain. Her breath hangs in the air, fogging up the window when she leans in closer.
So caught in her musing, Sunny is unable to keep from gasping when Olaf throws a brick through the glass. He smiles his crooked grin before stepping through the window, kicking more of the shards down. When he offers his hand, Sunny takes it without thought, without blinking. It is warmer insider, sheltered from the rain, the sound of it faint and echoing against the roof. The air smells of coffee beans and dust. A safe haven.
The library is good as most are. No doubt owned by a good person, maybe even one with delusions of making the world a better place. Filled with mostly good people on a daily basis, people who appreciated poetry and history and those romance stories that would make most people blush scarlet.
And that goodness still doesn't stop her and Olaf from being there, from staring at it with ill intention. The library being good does nothing at all except provide a target for bad things to go.
"Klaus isn't here, is he?" Olaf whispers, pressing closer still. "But you are."
He takes her hand in his, grips her fingers too tight, enough for a whimper of pain to escape. But she doesn't struggle, caught entirely in Olaf's web, blood already draining from her face.
He places a match in between her fingers, lets her grip the seemingly innocent stick and then in a motion too fast for her to follow, turns the red head into a little flame.
"No kindling more perfect than books." He tells her, pushing his chest against her back. She takes in a deep breath, feels him.
Her head rolls back to meet his shoulder, skin on fire already, the last of gin in the back of her throat. Just like Violet. Oh God. Oh God.
Squeezing her eyes shut didn't help. Just makes her even more aware of the man behind her. Nothing goes away, nothing fades. It all grows more heightened.
Olaf shushes her soft sound of protest, a habit more than anything else.
"You know you want to do it." He whispers, even though there is no one else in sight, because there words are meant for Sunny alone and no one else. No one else could understand them, no one living. She wonders if Violet or Klaus ever wrestled with this temptation, with the sensual pull of darkness, the ease that it creeps inside. "I see it inside you."
And it's that more than anything else that breaks her. Being seen, being understood, even when she doesn't want to be. Maybe especially then. She is only vaguely aware of the tears that run hot down her cheeks, of her breath that comes in short panicked bursts, sounds like a dying animal might make.
Olaf brings her back when he lights another match, her hand still captured in his, keeping her steady. She has a vague notion that if he were to let her go, she would vanish into the air like smoke. And this time when he reaches forward, towards the paper, towards the kindling, she doesn't protest.
This time she reaches too.
Sunny imagines this is what dying must feel like.
It's such a small start, barely an anything. Weak flames that could be killed with one quick blow, the slightest breeze. A little brightness that sheds light on more of the store, mugs stacked on the counter near bags of coffee, carpet beneath that looks to have been stained by footprints and spilt wine.
But the seconds tick by and it gains strength, reaches higher, little spirals of smoke that make her eyes water but she doesn't step away. Neither does Olaf and she feels heat burning her from both sides.
But Sunny is outside herself now, light and liable to float away without the weight of the bones inside her. Watching herself from a great height.
Watches the flames consume everything. Watches the destruction, listens to Olaf calling it beautiful, reverent and awed. This is what he worships. The inevitable chaos that comes from allowing yourself to be more human than not and the crushing realization that comes along with it that people are more bad than good. But along with that comes something else too, just as shocking and freeing. The world is mostly bad and you don't owe it to the people that live there to be good.
The fire is out of their control within minutes just as it's supposed to be, a weight falling from her shoulders because Sunny couldn't stop it even if she wanted to.
She doesn't.
Sunny feels freshly birthed, new to the world and old at the same time. She doesn't bother wondering how such a thing is possible because in the past hour, everything has changed. Up is down and people are so very bad. It's something she's seen evidence of her whole life- violence and death and a selfish selfish world but to take all that proof, all those facts and come out with the glaring observation that Olaf has bestowed upon her hadn't occurred to her until this very moment. And it hits her with the force of a gunshot.
It's like a simple math problem that Sunny has been doing wrong her entire life. One plus one equals two. That simple. The world is bad and so can she be.
She swears that for a moment she can see her siblings through the flames, seized by the bizarre desire to charge through the wall of orange and red. Olaf's hand holds her back when she tries to steps forward and reach out, a reflex that's so deeply engraved inside her Sunny doubts it could ever be cut out. A sounds like a sob escapes her lips as she watches the library burn. Olaf pulls her outside slowly enough that the heat is still painful, a brand against her reddening skin. She doesn't struggle, doesn't try to rush him. If anything, she drags her feet, unwilling to leave, trying to linger just a few seconds more. Afraid that her newfound epiphany will be lost with the fire.
And as if Olaf could hear her thoughts, he buries a huff of laugher into her hair. "Don't worry so. There's always more to burn."
For the first time in as long as she can remember, Sunny smiles and means it.