Disclaimer: I own nothing at all. Everything belongs to lemony snicket, except for the two songs I included, which are in order, "I hate everything about you" by Three days grace, and "Take me" by papa roach
A/N: Time is really... a relative concept? Look, I know timing is not exactly on, but just do what I do: ignore it. Just go along with it. Also, every line represents a break in time,a passage. It sepperates events. The songs are what inspired me during this chapter. I think they deserve a place here.
12 months earlier.
Kit Snicket was 24. Looking in the fogged bathroom mirror, she saw the eyes of a person who had seen many hardships in her life. She had just received a dispatch yesterday saying that one of her brothers was missing and presumed dead.
The VFD organization let her take a short leave. Fresh tears were forming in her eyes as she remembered last night. The coded letter sent to her door. How would she be able to withstand all this?
She had purchased a room for the night in a small town hotel, far away from anything, where people did not look. It was in the slums, practically the middle of no where, but it was her safe place for the moment.
In her hotel room, she took the first hot shower she had had in ages. Getting out, she toweled her long dirty blonde hair dry. She stepped out of the bathroom in a robe. It was new years eve and she was spending the night out of the country, away from everything and everyone she knew.
But as she stepped out of the bathroom, she saw someone whom, though she had never met him, had never wanted to see.
She had only ever heard of him. Other volunteers had spoken of him, however. Some said he was a bad man, some said he was a good man. She had never wanted to know. The way he wobbled, though, she could tell he was a bit drunk. He was standing in her room as if he owned it, smoking a cigarette.
Personally, she hated the smell of smoke. But she disliked this man more. Tightening the strings of her robe, she stood her ground.
"Can I help you with something?" She asked coldly from the bathroom doorway. He seemed to take notice of her, and she was a bit disturbed by this.
But he put out his cigarette in a nearby tray, took a seat at the foot of the bed, and began to slur words.
"I've been watching you. They told me to. I didn't want to at first. Stupid work. But then they told me about you. About the poison darts. And I didn't like you then. I wasn't supposed to like you. You helped kill my parents. But then, I should have listened to them. To the villains. They said you were all the same. So I watched you. I've been watching you. I kept wanting to hate you. But now I can't." He turned to her. "I don't want to. I told them any code you've discovered, any evidence you had. I wanted to run things, and they said I could if I did this right. I hate following orders. I don't like people telling me what to do."
Kit, herself, felt like getting drunk. Someone had been following her as she tried to help the organization. She always felt like she was being watched, but she thought perhaps in was members of VFD making sure she was doing everything right. That's how they did things.
But now she saw Olaf on her bed, confessing everything. Drunken men tell no lies, dead men tell no tales. Someone had told her this once. She looked at the Count, who was bent over. He looked about a few years older than her. He had some stubble on his face, the forming of a goatee, she guessed. The hair on his head was a sort of faded brown, like years of stress had taken it's toll on it. She could imagine herself in that way in a few years.
His body was loose now, but looked like it would usually stand erect, it was wiry. His face was still young, with few wrinkles on it. But the look in his eyes was equal to hers. The look of long hardships. And sorrows.
A few hours later, she found herself drunk, on the floor, with him, talking.
"Yes, damn all those organizations to hell! Why follow them? We could form our own!" She slurred, a half empty vodka bottle in her hand.
"Yes! Yes! W should... make our own! And no one will tell me what to do!" Olaf said, then snickered as Kit knocked over one of the empty bottles.
"Yes! And you will be the absolute best leader in the world! And... no one will die!"
"Only the people we don't like. And you can help! You'll be... my app-appr- apprencite!"
Kit's nose scrunched. "Don't you mean apprentick?" Then her brow wrinkled in confusion, and she moved her mouth in different ways, making different sounds. Then she began to giggle nonsensically.
Olaf, in a moment of rare lunacy, said "You know, your very pretty."
"Oh, thank you." Kit said, smiling sweetly. "Well, so are you. You're very pretty." Then her brow wrinkled again. "Or maybe that's another word. Not pretty. Men aren't pretty." Without warning, Olaf kissed her.
After a moment, her body jerked as it came to the realization of what was happening, and she pushed him back. "No!" She cried, pointing a finger at him. "No! You're... a bad... man, bad! I, I can't"
"Oh. I understand. You're right." He said, looking away. "I... I shouldn't either." He let out a snort. "What was I thinking. I can't love you. I can't possibly love you. You're one of them. I'm not supposed to... love anyway."
Kit turned to him curiously. "Well.. that's wrong. Love is... love is good."
"Exactly! It's good! I can't do something..." He made a disgusted face. "good. That would be... bad."
"Well, aren't you supposed to be bad?"
"...Yes." He said in an odd voice. Then he continued, getting exited. And no one should tell ME what to do. So if I was in love, it would be bad. And I am bad. So I can love!" He said, only making sense in a drunk man's logic. Kit nodded her head aggressively, getting exited with him.
"Yes, yes, that's perfectly sensible." She agreed.
He grabbed her head once more to go into a kiss. She reacted more quickly this time. "But I would be bad if I loved you." She said, punching her hand on the rug to make a point.
"But you said... love... was good." He said slowly, trying to remember.
"Yes, but"
"-And you ARE good."
"Yes, but"
"So there for, you can love!"
"But not you!" She cried, backing away to the wall, her eyes getting teary.
"Oh." He said quietly. "I, I'm sorry. Don't cry. You don't have to cry. Your good. You only cry when I want you to cry."
"But your bad. You always make me cry."
"You don't know me!" He said defensively.
"Your people killed my brother!" She yelled accusingly.
"But I didn't kill him. And if I didn't kill him, that means it's not my fault." He sniffed. "Besides, you helped kill my parents, and made me an orphan."
Her eyes watered even more, and she shook her head. "I didn't mean to... I didn't mean to. They were bad. Your people killed my parents first."
"How did yours die?" Olaf asked quietly.
"In a fire." She said harshly.
"Oh. I... I'm sorry."
"Why, it wasn't your fault." She said bitterly.
"No, but you said I was bad, so everything's my fault. And I think I love you anyways, and your just making me sad because you don't want to love me back." Kit looked at him slowly.
She crawled on her hands and knees over to him from her corner, to where he sat on the floor, and kissed him, to which he responded readily. Then she pulled back.
"It's not that I don't want to. It's just that in the morning, everything will be different." She said, looking more lost than ever.
"No it won't." He said, his hand pushing back some loose strands of hair behind her ear. "I don't want to hurt you, Kit."
"But you have to. They're telling you to." She said simply.
He sniffed indignantly. "Well, tomorrow, I'll tell them I want to make my own group of people... who take orders only from ME. Then, I can do whatever I want!"
A tear slipped from Kit's eyes, as she looked down, lost and forlorn. "But I can't leave my people. I'm good. I'm supposed to be strong. I'm supposed to be noble!" A sob escaped and she tried to cover it up.
He took her chin and raised it. "Well, then, just one night." He said, kissing her, after every sentence, every break, all over her face. "And then I'll leave, and you can forget, and I can forget, and we'll do what we want to do, but we'll just have tonight." And then he kissed her again on the lips, and she couldn't deny that it felt good.
He slipped off her robe clumsily, as she reached for his shirt, and just like that, they fell on the floor, tangling into eachother.
Every time we lie awake,
After every hit we take
The next morning, Kit had the hangover of her life. She was alone on floor, her robe a few feet away, but the empty bottles cleared. She was trying to figure out how she had awoken on the floor, bare of all things. But then it hit her, like a bucket of ice cold water.
Trying to shield her eyes from the sun of the windows, she went to get her robe, and reached to close the blinds. She looked at her clock. The hands pointed to 9 and 4. 9:20.
One of her associates was coming today, she remembered. To send her a new assignment. Wearily, she began dressing. She took two pills and downed them with water to relieve the headache. Then she went downstairs, and sat at the cheep restaurant table.
A waiter came. "I didn't realize this was a sad occasion." He said automatically, tonelessly, as if he were a machine. Kit took a deep breath. She had to go back into the world now.
Every feeling that I get,
but I haven't missed you yet.
As she was expected to, she responded. "The world is quiet here." She closed her eyes sadly. The volunteer in disguise nodded, and gave her a letter.
She looked at the letter bitterly. Another letter, another code to decipher, another deed gone wrong, another noble person lost, another day gone by.
Kit was in her tent two nights later, reading over new information she had recorded. She was cold, wet, and hungry. She hadn't had a whole hot meal for three days. The last time she had slept in a bed was months ago. That night at the hotel, she had slept on the floor, the most comfortable thing she had slept on in years.
She had hardly gotten any sleep, and was looking forward to finally putting the lights out. Maybe catch a bit of shut-eye...
Then she heard her tent opening.
She reached for the knife she always had at her bedside table, raising it to the intruder. But looking upon his face, she automatically began to put it down.
Looking up at him she saw the face of Count Olaf. Sober, and focused.
"Get out." She said tonelessly. Instead of answering, he reached down for her head, entwining his hands in her dark blonde hair, and pulled her lips to his. She struggled, but he didn't relent.
She finally pushed him back, and stood. He tried to grab her arms and pin them to her sides, but she fought, and pushed him out of the tent. Forgetting about her research, she ran into the forest. The rain had stopped, but the mud still remained. Branches ripped at her clothes, but she felt someone behind her, so she kept on. Then two hands grabbed her. One arm snaked around her neck, the other around her waist, hugging her to a warm body.
"No!" She screamed. But it was no use, no one was here, not for miles.
He kissed her neck, her shoulders, he turned her quickly and hugged her to him, pinning her arms at her sides effectively.
"We... agreed! One night!"
He pushed her down on the muddy wet ground, ripping her dirty black shirt off. Suddenly her body was on fire at his touch, against her will.
He was on her, and she couldn't move. But suddenly, he put his hand around her neck, and spat harshly.
"Do you thing I WANT this? How do you think it feels? I hate... wanting you! But... you can't expect me to just walk away. After having you. You don't understand how horrible this feels, I don't understand... why? I don't understand what I feel. I hate you. I'm supposed to hate you!" She was turning blue, she was choking, and suddenly, she was released.
"We... agreed... just one night." She gasped.
"Didn't you say that you wanted to love me?" he said mockingly, bitterly.
"We were both drunk. Who knows if what we said was true. We both made a mistake."
"A mistake? A mistake is what you call it?" He sneered.
"Olaf, I will kill you." She said, upset. "I will kill you if you do not release me." But he continued to ravage and invade her mouth, but what was worse was... she enjoyed it.
The next morning, she knew he wouldn't be there. But all that seemed to matter was right now.
A week later, Kit was walking down the street from a dairy shop, having gotten a series of verses from poems which had a secret code which would tell her the password of a VFD lock that would lead her into a room with a very important laundry hamper.
Every room we kept awake
By every sigh and scream we make
But suddenly, someone grabbed her sleeved arm, and she was pulled into an ally, behind a large dumpster. She was not at all surprised to see Olaf. As he kissed her, she responded. He pushed her up against the wall, inching her skirt up her trim legs. She ignored the voice inside her telling her this was wrong. She no longer felt her conscience.
All the feelings that I get,
But I still don't miss you yet
Lying on a motel bed a month later, Kit was aching. They had tried something new last night, it had been much rougher. But as she woke and turned, she was surprised to find Olaf next to her, sleeping. He had come to her last night, once again drunk for the second time, and took her into a nearby motel room. She began to gather her things, but he grabbed her wrist. "Stay." He murmured. She surprised herself by doing so.
I hate everything about you
Why do I love you
In her coat, in the closet of a local hotel, they were doing those things that they never mentioned. As he kissed her, however, it was different this time. More tender, not sloppy like their first night, but not unlike it in feeling. Kit put it aside. She was here because they both felt the same urge, desire, need. They screwed each other for a good screw. There was nothing more to that.
But as they reached there pinnacle of pleasure, Olaf suddenly gasped. This one was the most intense either had experienced. Then he uttered a whisper, could have been a moan or a grunt, but she made out the words, and gasped.
"What?" She whispered. His eyes widened in shock as well.
"I didn't say anything." He said, breathing as hard as she was.
"You said 'I love you'." She said in daze.
She began to quickly reach for her coat at her feet, and put on her clothes.
"Where are you going?" He asked, in a loud whisper. They were in a coat closet, and didn't want to risk being overheard.
"I'm leaving. We can't continue this Olaf. I just realized that."
"Tell me you don't love me." He said darkly.
She continued, picking up her things and dressing. "I believe we have too many differences, and that consorting with the enemy is not the right course of action for either of us."
"Look at me, Kit." He said sternly.
"And also, you would want to start a new life, a new crew of villains, but I'm still part of the VFD." She gave a little unworldly laugh. "What were we thinking. This could never work."
"Kit." He said seriously, putting a hand on her now sleeved arm. As if startled, her head snapped up, and looked into his eyes. They stood there for a few minutes, then, as if his touch burned, she yanked her arm out of his grasp, and opened the door quickly, shoving it open, and leaving in a hurry. Olaf was quick to get dressed, however, and chased after her, taking her arm which stood still at the car door.
She had just stood there, not knowing why. And even when she heard his footsteps, she hadn't tried to open it.
And now, he was staring her cold in the eyes, turning her around. "Tell me you don't love me."
"I... I have to-" Before she could finish that sentence, he was kissing her furiously, and she could no longer ignore the scream that wanted to surface from her calm exterior. She wasn't in control. She didn't know what feelings she had. But someone loved her. She needed this now.
The next thing she knew, they had a room, and he was keeping her there that night. She would have to forget about codes for the day. What was she doing? She was hurting the good people, helping the bad people. She wasn't being noble. But he kissed her, and she forced everything away. Life shouldn't be this way.
Take me and let me in
Don't break me and shut me out
This was her refuge. It made the world seem like a better place. Because if she had Olaf, there couldn't possibly anything worse, anything more sinful. This was the way of the world to show her she could never reach rock bottom.
So take me and let me in
Don't break me and shut me out
She knew he didn't love her. Not really. They both hated the world, the people in it, they hated how life had gone for them. They were each other's punishments. He was attracted to her pain, she craved a punishment for living. Both of their lives were crap. His parents had died by darts, hers by fire, both by their opposite organizations. This was also revenge at them, at the people above them, who had only salted the wound.
I lit my pain on fire
And I watched it all burn down
Now I'm dancing in the ashes
And theres no one else around
As they took each other that night in the hotel room, Kit was no longer confused. She was past the point of trying to figure things out. She was just indifferent. The world is not full of fairytales. They were just two people, damaged beyond repair by a world that didn't care.
Cause I wanna be apart of something
This is just a story of a broken soul
She was indifferent now. She hated it. She wanted to feel revolted, or at least some sort of feeling letting her know she was still human. But all she had was the basic urge, need, for how he touched her.
As days go by, my heart grows cold
I can't seem let this all pass me by
The good people VFD, they only saw her as the good Snicket girl, the lonely sibling, just taking her share of misery in the world, as they all did. All those in VFD felt a sort of pain now, and it seemed normal. So normal, in fact, that no one seemed to notice when another was oddly quiet, or distraught. But she didn't have a conscience, so nothing seemed to weigh on her. Underneath Olaf, she was just a woman. She chose her pain. She chose it, in her own pit of her self made hell.
I'm burning in the heavens
And I'm drowning in the hell
My souls in a coma
And none of my friends can tell
I'm reaching out of getting something
This is just a story of a broken soul
As she fell asleep beside him, she thought wistfully. She didn't love him. She hated him. If it came down to it, she could probably kill him without a feeling. But she trusted him for some reason. And she was close to feeling another emotion she thought she might never feel: love.
Take Me
Don't Break Me
The next morning, he was still there. She took this time to study his sleeping form. Stubble was still growing. His medium length dark hair was tangled amidst the pillow case. His wiry body was still pale, suffering effects of stress. She assumed hers would be the same soon.
His grey eyes snapped open, as if sensing her eyes on him. He grinned, flashing white teeth. She gave a small smile of her own.
Then he sobered. "Kit, we have to talk about something." She looked at him questioningly.
"What is it, Count?" She smirked. "Do we need to improve our sex life even more?"
"I'm going to form my own group of villains." In a heartbeat, Kit was ramrod straight and attentive. She let him continue. "I want you to come with me. You can me my... my girl." He said hopefully.
"I can't leave..." She said, now feeling a small world crashing down. Well, that's allright. Just another good thing lost.
"Please, Kit. I want you to come with me. We... we can hurt anyone who ever hurt us. Anyone who ever made this world the way it is. We'll get them back."
"VFD is my home"
"I'll be your home. Please, Kit." He took her soft frail hand.
"I... I can't." She said, shaking her head, and withdrawing her hand. His eyes clouded over, and his eyebrows furrowed.
"Kit! Don't you understand? No one to tell us what to do! Make us do what we hate! Everyone be damned, this is the only real thing, Kit. Don't you feel it?" He was half yelling, half pleading.
She closed her eyes. She wanted to so badly. She couldn't hear this. She couldn't go.
Then she looked up, something working in her mind. "What did they make you do, Olaf?" She asked wearily, in hardly a whisper. Now he was shocked, and his eyes widened.
"What did they do that made you do this, finally. What broke it?" She was looking at him with large piercing eyes, totally open to him, to let him take or break her.
They looked at each other, into each other, right through each other, and then his resolve broke.
He looked down. "I'm sorry, Kit." He said.
"What? Tell me!" She was yelling now.
"They, they made me do it..."
"Do what?" She asked sternly.
"All your files, your information. Everything you ever told me. They told me to tell them." She looked down, her mind trying to figure everything out.
"But... how did they know I was speaking to you... unless..." Her head snapped up.
He nodded. "One of my... associates saw us once." He said bitterly.
"Since when?" She asked, her voice breaking. She was looking down again, trying to hide tears. He knew what she meant.
"If you remember the second time I was drunk, a few months ago. I had just found out what I was supposed to do..." Kit audibly gasped. The first night he had stayed with her. "... Kit?"
"I see." She said, in a broken whisper. Then she got up, and began dressing.
On the way to the door, she turned. "Don't look for me, Olaf. I'll get transferred. I'll have VFD personnel escorting me. I'll have you dead. But don't contact me. Don't even try to see me. I'll know, Olaf. I'll have you watched." And with that, she left, leaving behind her a shattered world. Life has a strange way of punishing people.
She was staying at Hotel Denouement a few weeks later. She was dispatching a message to a VFD member, and was supposed to meet an associate about certain catalogs.
She stood at the lake, and saw someone coming from the Hotel. As he approached her, he spoke. "I didn't realize this was a sad occasion."
"The world is quiet here." She replied solemnly. Then he offered his hand, and grinned.
"Dewey Denouement." And Kit couldn't help but give a small smile of her own, taking his hand.
She was kissing him, and she didn't regret it. She didn't hate him. Like has a strange way of punishing people, but it also has a strange way of balancing things out. She knew once she was outside the safe room, and entered the real world, pain would return, and she'd have to be noble, strong, and brave.
But here, in this room with Dewey, she was happy for the first time in years. Really, and honestly happy. And she thought she might love him.
It was November now. She hadn't thought of Olaf for a few weeks now. Only when she received messages about his progress regarding the Baudelaire children. He had started this pursuit, she noticed, a few weeks after she had left. He really had formed his own group of villains, she saw.
Dewey grinned down at her, now, his eyes adoring her, drinking in her body, and she felt herself grinning back. He treated her as if she was precious, gold, sacred, holy, fragile. As if she were something to be worshipped. He said she was noble enough. And that meant everything.
He fell down beside her. "I love you." He sighed into her ear, as he fell asleep.
"I love you too." She said, leaning into him. She was about to fall asleep as well, but then a sort of nausea overtook her, and she ran to the bathroom, and began to throw up in the toilette.
She felt a warm hand on her back from behind her, pulling her hair back, and cooing comforting words into her ear.
This was so right, but this was most definitely very wrong. And then with dread, as she spilled her stomach into the toilette, she thought back to her last night with Olaf, and her body suddenly filled with cold dread at realization.
A/N: This, in my opinion, was a very interesting chapter in the making. My computer even froze while I was in the middle of it, and I had to take a digital picture of my work so it wasn;t lost. Then I zoomed in the pictures I took when restarting the computer, and typed the last part again, because the rest of it had been saved/recovered. Also, i respect Dewey as much as the next person, I cried at his death, and more when I found out he was in love with Kit. But I had to play with this, when I didn't know who the father of the child was at the beginning. And the harpoon thing was such a dramatic chapter, one of the most dramatic I believe Lemony has written, and I just thought about Kit.
-Ash