A/N: Written in response to a challenge set on theperiscope at livejournal entitled "Before the Fire". Something relating to those three words was the only specification. My twisted mind came up with this.
Enjoy and, as ever, based entirely off the movie.
Fire destroys. Fire ravishes. Fire consumes.
Klaus had been thinking about fire a lot recently - would have read about it too, if there had been any reading material in Olaf's dirty, dried out husk of a home. Down on his knees, scrubbing at the filthy floor with a putrid, steaming solution, grey rag over his nose and mouth to keep the noxious fumes from suffocating him, his mind was immersed in fire. Up on the rickety ladder, scraping thick grime off windows which hadn't shed light into the gloom for years, hand clenched white knuckled on the sill, his eyes were watching the flames as they licked up the walls of his house, the cream wallpaper crackling and bubbling in the heat. Out in the Count's graveyard of a garden, blankly raking up the wet, rotting leaves, back aching as they were shovelled into the cold metal of the rusting wheelbarrow, his ears were filled with the dying screams of his parents, eaten slowly alive by the hungry blaze.
There was no escape from the creeping fire. Not for his parents, and certainly not for him.
It had started out as a spark in his mind, eating away gluttonously at his brain matter, fanned into a burst of flame by his oxygen-like hatred of Count Olaf and the situation his siblings and he were in. It crawled up the sides of his skull, a prickling feeling so much like an uncontrollable itch, gathering heat and speed as it went, consuming scraps of memory, destroying before-time images, the thick, cloying smoke contaminating and dirtying his very thoughts.
His parents had been killed in the fire, and now it had returned to eradicate all trace of them, bending and twisting the reminiscences which it couldn't quite reach in the mind of their only son.
Klaus fought it every step of the way.
The fire wasn't their fault. If they were being secretive, it was to protect us all. Just because they didn't make any plans for our future, doesn't mean that they didn't love us. They couldn't possibly know that Olaf would treat us like this, because if they had they certainly wouldn't haven't sent us to him. They loved us very much – they'd kiss us, hold us, send us letters. Parents who don't love their children don't do that sort of thing. They wouldn't lie.
I loved them with all my heart.
But as the dreadful days dragged on with no foreseeable end in sight, the fire grew stronger and Klaus lost the tight grip on his memories of the time before the fire. Loving glances from his parents were covered with choking black smoke, their eyes which had once held only affection now held cold hatred and spite. The beautiful memories of trips to Briny Beach, of delicious ice creams shared and eaten, of sand getting into the picnic sandwiches and their mother laughing good naturedly were eaten up by the voracious flames, smouldering wreckage left in its wake.
And Klaus began to despair, his life stretching out like a long, grey, worn out worm, before and after him, unpleasantness lying in every direction.
And one terrible night, the fire consumed him, possessing him, threatening to destroy him. The night in question started with puttanesca sauce and ended with the Count's cold, long fingered hand slapping him about the face, the man's gleeful laughter echoing in his ringing ears. With his cheek still burning, he had run up the stairs, the footsteps of Violet following only just discernable through the roaring in his mind. Once in the dark, dingy confines of their shared room, he moved swiftly to the window, pulling off the warped, wooden boards nailed to the frame, anger and hatred burning so brightly inside him that he failed to notice when he tore his thumb flesh on a particularly vicious splinter, blood dripping in a warm ooze down his thumb, his mind riveted on the Count and his parents, their images melding into a blurred mixture in his mind's eye.
He hated them. How could they have left him here to deal with all this? He was only twelve years old, for God's sake! Too young to be dealing with murderous Counts, dangerous chores and puttanesca sauce. How could his parents have done this to him and his sisters?
Violet's hand on his shoulder stopped his angry, jerky movements. Violet's concerned questioning calmed his pounding heart. He stood outlined by the faint light from the window, hands trembling at his sides, anger slowly melting into shamed sadness and confusion, and he told his sister about his parents - about the uncaring and unloving people they had been twisted into by the malice of the fire, whose blazing tendrils were still interwoven with his very thoughts.
Violet had looked at him sadly, and had told him the truth. Reminded him of the truth he had always known.
Our parents aren't like that. Remember before, Klaus. Remember the letter from Europe. Remember the times from before the fire. Don't you dare ever let Olaf ruin them for you. Don't ever forget.
You love our parents.
And it was like an ocean of blessedly cold water had been sloshed into his mind, extinguishing the flames, the wreckage of his mind black and steaming but no longer glowing with fire. The damage was great, but it was salvageable, his memories not all destroyed in the inferno, his thoughts not irretrievably contorted in the buckling heat.
He could remember from before the fire.
He loved his parents.
A/N: Any reviews would be very much appreciated. Next story I write is going to have at least an insy weensy bit of fluff/humour in it. Promise. I dislike depressing my readers with all this angst. :D