Disclaimer: Everyone knows that A Series of Unfortunate Events doesn't belong to me. Listen to everyone.
Author's Note: The time jumps are a bit weird, but hey. That's how it goes. Now this chapter is also a bit of an "R", but don't tell me no one does these things. From personal effing experience, I think I know female anatomy and what we girls/women do with it. Oh, and "Call Me Irresponsible" is wondrous if Dinah Washington sings it.
Nny11: Seriously. Can you fuck a poet? Haha. Sorry. I shouldn't talk. Anyway, oh lord, the whole drunkenness issue. I swear it's going to be relevant soon, I promise. I'm not much of an "imitate Lemony Snicket" writer myself, so I do try to elaborate on the characters and their situation. But I seriously do not think I can write creative "Oh my, that devious Count Olaf, look what he's gone and done now" chunks. So for obvious reasons, he's dead.
Goth Flamango: Oh my, thank you. You are a wonderful reviewer, if I do say so myself. I will try to shit the chapters out as fast as I can, and I promise to try not to bore of this story and stop updating completely. That would be quite asinine of me. But then again, that's who I am.
Chapter Seven:
Unreliable
"Call me unpredictable-Tell me I'm impractical
Rainbows-I'm inclined to pursue
Call me irresponsible-Yes I'm unreliable
But it's undeniably true-I'm irresponsibly
Mad About You"
-"Call Me Irresponsible"
One day slowly eased into three, three days passed into weeks, and weeks changed into two and a half months. Autumn leaves, golden and gleaming, drizzled down until the quiet frost saturated the once September weekends. The transformation was decidedly sluggish, but not quite deliberate.
There were some instances, for example.
But nothing too important.
Sunny frowned, the corners of her mouth pulled down by the same unknown weight her brother carried in the wake of the recent turn of unfortunate events. He now almost always had a shot glass in one hand and a bottle in the other, his eyes glazed over in deep thought. Sunny involuntarily shuddered at his familiar blank stare, a stare that she had witnessed ever since she had been but a small child.
It was wonderful how the mind worked, she thought, quite pleased and amazed that a memory so far in the past could just jolt back into her head in the present, as if there had been no space between that time and that at all.
Of course, the downside included sudden nightmares, of being sucked into gaping holes where a cackling old man waited. Another included an array of spiders secretly crawling into her bed and sometimes she lay awake at night, still feeling the sensations of a million tiny feet. Whatever the nightmare, though, it could never compare to her older sister's dreams of hell.
Such lay the devolution in memory.
She remembered her sister's bruised lips that one autumn evening and endured through frosty silence after frosty silence. She sat through the tension-filled dinners and ignored her peripheral vision and feigned sleep even though all she could do was lay awake and listen to all the arguments between the triplet and her brother and then, after all that, reassured James with a convincing face.
And Sunny Baudelaire was even less a fool than the rest of them.
Whenever she watched, a skill that she had long ago perfected as a baby, she understood more and more. Whatever she watched, she disbelieved less and less.
Something was bothering her brother. Any fool could see that. Something was bothering Isadora. Any fool could see that. Something was bothering her sister. Any fool could see that.
And, since she was about three or four, she knew that her sister and her brother were both "bothering", a word completely taken out of regular context.
That she knew for a fact.
Not that it particularly bothered her. Anyway, their childhood had been anything but normal.
And Sunny Baudelaire was a very clever and strange girl.
So all she could do was sigh and stare out the window and try to ignore it when Isadora entered the "living" room, her fringe in disarray and angry eyes fuming.
Klaus glanced up, nonchalantly, at the change of movement, but quickly dropped his drunken gaze to the floor once he had seen her contorted face.
She waved a stack of papers in her hand, shaking them profusely in front of his face. The new breeze drifted across the room's empty space, and Sunny realized that they must be letters, considering the blur of sentences and typewriter ink. The letters themselves were cream-colored, and as she continued angrily shaking them, they seemed to imitate the oriental fan that she had seen in a history book that Klaus had shown her, many years ago.
She recalled only the information that some fans were used for concealed weapons, the only use besides adornment, which she thought, was never useful in any situation at all.
"You've been reading my letters," she accused, thrusting the papers in his face. "You've been reading my letters, Klaus!"
He pointedly looked away, which seemed to aggravate her even more. Either way, she started to cry.
"Klaus, how could you?" Sunny watched as her brother tilted the glass to his lips.
"How could you?"
He glanced once at Isadora, but Sunny quickly evaluated his look as one of feigned apathy, the emptiness that a child used when in the presence of a murderer to convince him of ignorance. There was something else also…something behind those glasses that Sunny only recognized as the fleeting looks her brother now shot her sister, and perhaps always had.
"I won't kill him, if that's what you mean," he drawled finally, examining the bottle in his hand. His wrist flicked up and allowed the glimmer to settle throughout his skin. Glassy light reflected everywhere. A star spangled burst drifted on Isadora's forehead, a lone star among pale seas.
"Or I'll try not to."
Sunny involuntarily winced.
"Try not to? This is my brother, Klaus! My brother! He's done nothing to you, you sadistic-"
The bottle dropped to the floor and jumped up as he himself jumped up. Sunny didn't even see him jerk out his arm, but when she did, it hovered in mid-air for a second, five inches from Isadora's gaping mouth. Sunny would have also jumped up but he only cracked his fingers and let his arm drift slowly down.
"You don't know anything," he hissed, the once sharp Baudelaire teeth evident in his sneer. "You don't know anything."
Sunny could close her eyes and shut her ears with her palms and yet still be able to see her brother's face and whitening knuckles and the only thing keeping him from becoming someone so horrendous: the memory of the late Count Olaf. She could scream and flail but could not avoid her brother's twin eyes, and the way they engraved themselves into her mind.
But Isadora apparently tried. She tried everything that Sunny knew couldn't and wouldn't work.
"I don't know anything?" Her demeanor and her voice broke. "I don't know anything?"
Her voice dropped to a suspicious, quieter tone, but since her hair draped, like velvet rain, over her face, Sunny could not see her expression.
"Maybe I don't." Her pale hand trembled in the half-light. "Maybe I'm not a scholar. Maybe the only thing I do read is poetry. And maybe…" She trailed off as papers slid to the floor.
When she did glance up, her eyes were rimmed red.
"Maybe I'm not a fucking inventor."
The next sound Sunny heard was the sound of a fairly heavy chair slamming into the ground.
"The hell did you say," he whispered, voice dangerously low. Isadora refused to back down but shifted her body uneasily, like she unwillingly stumbled unto something stranger, something that Sunny could feel, a seed planted somewhere in that poet's brain of hers. Sunny felt her stomach drop.
"The catalyst, Sunny. It's something that causes something else to react."
"Klaus, she's just a baby. She probably can't retain any of the information you're giving her."
"Well, it's nice to actually learn. You should try it sometime. Anyway, Sunny, 'catalyst'. Remember that."
But before either of them could say anything and before Sunny could jump in, the little figure at the door made a sound. It was not a word, but some type of mangled phrase.
"Yarrghal…" He clutched a plaything in one hand and a small book in the other. Klaus immediately snapped out of his anger to pad over to him, James' tears threatening to fall. Klaus bent down, and when his face met James', he forced a smile.
James still looked unconvinced. "Are you and Izzy fighting?" His small voice was quiet and raspy, as if he'd just been crying. From the looks of his eyes, similar to Isadora's, he probably had been. Klaus tentatively placed a hand on the boy, who flinched a bit, as if he were still afraid of the Klaus he had seen earlier, certainly too much of a villain to be his uncle.
"No, James, we were just talking improbably loud." James grinned a little at that, but as if he didn't want to, and quickly forced the frown on his face. Klaus smiled, genuinely this time, and continued, "I'll tell you what. If we go outside and play, Izzy and I won't be talking anymore. That way, it will be impossible for us to fight."
James' face crinkled into a handsome smile. "You'll play with me? Like football and everything?"
Klaus Baudelaire, suddenly stripped of any drunkenness and conflicting feelings, smiled back.
"And everything."
"Yay!" James speedily zipped to the door and out, then back, peering through the crack just in case his uncle was lying. "I'm coming, kid! Just wait for me outside!"
He took one backward glance at the standing, apathetic Isadora. Her lips pursed, she appeared to be deep in thought. Her pretty face revealed nothing now, so he shared a glance with his younger sister. She was curled up, her bare feet sticking out from under her summer dress and her golden hair in abnormally juvenile pigtails. He seemed to have remembered that she was in the room and most likely listening, and she stared back, feigning ignorance, not necessarily for him, but for Isadora's sake.
However, it did not stop them from sharing a glance that only siblings could possibly understand. Klaus found himself looking away because of the present knowledge and understanding in Sunny's eyes.
"I'm off then," he said to no one in particular.
He walked to the door, but as the door creaked open, Isadora spoke.
"You're really bonding with him, aren't you?"
He ignored her as he stepped into the thickening sunlight, each step a temporary imprint in newly sprouted frost.
Violet wandered around the house's attic, shivering as the front door slammed shut for the second time that day, the first being a particularly messy incident involving two individuals yelling, a broken plate, and a thrown notebook. The vibrations from the slammed door reverberated throughout the whole house, showering Violet softly with dust.
James had been asleep at that time, thanks to a helpful invention or rather, improved upon recipe consisting of warm sweetened milk, cocoa powder, and a dash of cinnamon. He continued to snore lightly throughout the entire argument, although Sunny and Violet weren't so lucky.
"They always fight now," she groaned, trying desperately to muffle the sounds with pillows and extra bed sheets. The bed creaked under her older sister, yet not in a very unpleasant way. Violet had turned over, preferring to try to ignore both the bed and noise together without any help.
It was all to no avail, because she heard her name anyway.
She shook her head in the frosty sunlight lining the walls of the attic. 'Not now,' she told herself. 'There'll be plenty of time for thinking later.'
But as she looked down at her gears and pulleys, in the makeshift lab she constructed in their attic, she found her mind drifting to other things.
Violet definitely preferred the attic.
The air was cool there, and the world, quiet. The floorboards squeaked as the heels of her laced boots continuously rapped atop the polished wood, and her dress floated behind her while her feet followed her hands. The rafters flapped occasionally in what light wind passed through the single window embedded in the wooden side of the attic, and the blood rushed to her face and netted arms with every strenuous movement she exercised whilst tweaking a bolt here and there.
She reached her arms behind her back, sweating a little, and unfastened some of her corset hooks, leaving in place, a bare "v" of skin. Violet arched her back and moaned lightly, running the back of her hand over her moist forehead. She found her dress quite cumbersome in instances like these, but truly could not strip down further, her reasons being ones regarding safety in the laboratory area.
'One could never be too safe,' she mused, screwing the square shaped bolt unto the triangular plane of wood. 'Accidents always happen.' She also took into consideration her very young son, assuming that her responsibility concerning the act of being fully clothed in the lab area was successful, that he unconsciously emulated older, wiser people, and would therefore avoid mistakes by learning theirs.
'Perhaps it would be helpful if some of the so-called "older, wiser people" were not drunks that swore like sailors, and poets who can't mind their own damn business…' She quickly banished the last thought, shaking her head. Isadora Quagmire had been nothing but hospitable to her-if not a tad standoffish, but she couldn't live with the guilt, really, if she badmouthed her, even in the recesses of her mind.
It was true, but trite. Ever since that last incident-which Violet refused to think about consciously-Isadora had been acting a bit strange, from picking fights to talking excessively, albeit secretly, on the phone with her triplet and Violet's ex-boyfriend, a certain Quigley Quagmire.
Sunny, however, summed up the poet's change most effectively.
"She doesn't even look at you now, Violet! It's as if she's afraid of something, but she can't quite grasp what it is. She zones out sometimes when I call her; it's as if she's not there, but stuck somewhere else."
That alone would have been enough information for Violet, who had been quite tortured, knowing for a fact how clever women and girls were, but Sunny had to press on.
"Violet, at least talk to Klaus! Look at him! He's been drinking so much, lately. Whatever happened out there can be fixed! Whatever happened six years ago can be fixed! Violet, there's always a way. There's always something."
She slammed her hands down on the table, a vial spilling its viscous contents onto the wood. She did not want to think about anything else, especially him. But just as her sudden bout of stomach anxiety was quieting down, a waylaid fuse lit on to her unattended Bunsen burner, shooting a light spray of sparks in every direction.
A spark flew up and bit her finger, and she instantly regretted not wearing more protective gloves. Her finger-less ones worked fine for lace, and she preferred them because of the advantage of unrestrained joint mobility. She liked the freedom in her fingers, enjoyed it, really, because truth be told, inventing things relaxed her.
Instinctively, however, she drew her slightly burnt fingertip up to her lips, pausing a bit as she touched the soft flesh there.
"Favorite food?"
"Strawberries."
The soft, once bruised, trembling, sinking, muddy, dusty…
Suddenly and again, everything changed and she watched as her head with all its inventions and practical ideas swam away. The memories always had a funny way of coming back.
A flutter of sudden sensations overwhelmed her, and she was altogether aware of her back's exposed skin and the butterfly strokes of her dangling earrings, which she was abruptly and very recently aware of.
"Favorite flower?"
"You."
She gasped for air as the immediate sensations provoked its consequences.
It was as if someone was showering her with phantom kisses, ghosting down her earlobe to her collarbone, then to her wrist, the lace the only intimate discretion between the air and her bare skin. The attic spun in circles, or mismatched patterns, around her, and she squeezed her thighs, like her eyes, together, in a half-hearted attempt to banish all the incoming thoughts and rough caresses of memories.
"Do you think we're wrong, Klaus? Do you think this is wrong?"
"No, no," she exhaled, turning her head rapidly, claustrophobically, as if there actually was a way out.
Gasping, Violet shot a hand out for support, the dust collected there dirtying the inside of her palms. Her hand kept slipping, so she allowed her back to collide with the adjacent wall, splinters and cold wood prickling shallowly into her skin. Her mind was spinning, like the attic, but she resisted vertigo by chanting softly, incomprehensible words of reminder and insult.
"Stop, sick, normal, not normal," she breathed, her lips trembling with anticipation and fright. She slid down the wall, fighting to keep her hands to her sides, all while her body resisted with all its might. The slide, however, undid the corset further, prying open the fabric so that it exposed an even greater "v" of skin. Her right breast peeked out, the rosy tip hardening, involuntarily, in the freezing atmosphere of the attic.
"Does it hurt?"
"Just a little. But keep going."
There was no going back now and she knew it.
Is thisGingerly and reluctantly, her hands gently pushed up the brocade of lace adorning the lower half of the dress, until the hem, ruffled, sat on her waist. She ran a hand through her hair, the netted knuckles buried in her dark strands. Her flighty fingers rested at the base of her satin ribbon, and she lolled her head back, savoring the attic's saturated quiet.
What it's like to be lonely.
Her left hand, however, trickled like warm water, down to the resistance of her clenched, shaking thighs.
She tipped her finger below the elastic cotton, and sunk under, her mind flashing alarm codes in black and white, until she became lost in memories long since past.
Violet's right hand drifted downwards to the curve of her ear, and she trailed the tip of her finger to the puckered, slight skin of her earlobe. Her other thumb poked its tip into her, and Violet's thighs trembled, milky and taut, in the confines of the creaking attic.
The earrings dangled dangerously in the frosty light, and she closed her eyes to another time and another room.
"Klaus! Klaus!"
Her legs thrashed, milky white like a mermaid's limbs, under the aquatic conditions begetting the basement. He struggled to keep her at bay, finally heaving one leg over her body, and pinning her wrists down with his hands.
She kept twitching her head slightly as if something was slapping her with invisible palms. Under the dusty rain and shallow urine light, he marveled at her refusal to comply.
"This is just going to hurt a little bit," he murmured into her neck, dipping his head a bit as his lips grazed her satiny earlobe. A warmth surged through her body, spreading throughout her collarbone and shoulders. He laughed quietly, reveling in the quiet harmony of her breath and awesome discomfort.
"You said you wanted it," he whispered, edging her legs apart so that his own wedged in-between, filling up nonsensical cracks. He arched his torso up, nose brushing against her cheek. He found her eyes clamped shut, breathing uneven, and blushing.
He frowned.
"Vi? I thought you said you were fine with it."
His knee pushed forward with his new ministrations, merely adapting to his new position, and Violet gasped suddenly, her eyes shooting open. She peered at him with wavering eyes, much like the seemingly underwater room, when he realized his foot was falling asleep. He reluctantly let her wrists go and sat up, sighing slightly.
"Look, Vi. You said you wanted it, and what's more, you wanted me to do it." His glasses were slipping down the bridge of his nose and he pushed it back up. "Don't go changing your mind now."
They were both quiet for a while, floorboards squeaking as (he strangely noted) Violet's legs pressed and rubbed together. Violet, propped up on her elbows, bringing her breathing back to natural, avoiding anywhere but the gaze of her confused, oblivious brother. He stared back, arching an eyebrow in confusion.
She traced the squares of sunlight on the grimy floor. "Fine."
He grinned and she felt her neck heat up again. "Excellent." The silver glinted between his fingers. "Just close your eyes, Vi. I read about it in a book. I promise it won't be bad. I promise."
She complied, her lids fluttering shut. She wore a faint smile as she felt her brother's rough fingers pinch the skin.
"You promise?" she murmured, yet already knowing the answer.
"I promise."
And he was right.
A sharp pinch here and there, and it was all over. He gingerly lifted up her torso so she sat in an upright position. His hand fitted perfectly in the small of her back and she blushed again, her blood meeting his similar warmth. His other hand fingered the safety pins dangling from her newly pierced lobes.
"You look so beautiful, Vi. Like a real woman." She stopped herself from swooning (from the slight pain and from sitting so close to another boy when hormones were clearly raging, be it her brother or not) and she tilted her head and kissed him, gently, on the cheek.
"Thank you."
Now it was his turn to blush.
She convulsed, clenching her free fist tighter so that the knuckles shone white. The dust floated around her as her foot arched, and finally relaxed. A final wind breezed past her collarbone, and the rafters shook with dust.
"Klaus," she whispered, the face of that strange man flitting across her mind's vision.
My invention, she thought, removing her sticky fingers from herself and the underside of cotton.
My fault, she thought, tears just as sticky trailing down her face.