Chapter Text
No one told him what he was meant to do now that he no longer has to run away. He has a home now, for the very first time in his adult life. It's an old, shabby house at the end of an abandoned road. There's a wood-burning stove in the kitchen, and it's where he spends most of his time. He has no use for a dining table, so he chucks it out onto the pavement, and he drags in a warm rug and two armchairs to replace it, and then his books pile atop one another in disorganised heaps, and then, only then, does Lemony realise that the space is his, truly his.
No one visits. He doesn't invite anyone either. For a whole year, he has only himself to keep him company. And what dreadful company it is.
In his addled dreams, he welcomes Beatrice home; and it's hers as well as his. They never sit in the kitchen. He never sees his book, or his blasted typewriter. He sees pale skin and dark hair on ivory pillows. He sees a pair of bright eyes, alive and adoring, and they don't look away, and they keep him there, where all is beautiful and soft and warm; and then there's fire, and melting skin, and the horrible smell of burning hair and charred flesh; and then there are his screams, which force him awake.
Lemony doesn't sleep much.
He is thinner than ever. His under-eyes hurt to the touch. But he still brushes his hair neatly enough. In his kitchen, he sits in front of the fire, in shirtsleeves and braces, and he keeps a hand on an unopened bottle.
The first time Violet comes to visit, he freezes at the door. His eyes sink under a barrage of emotions, wet and blue-grey. 'Violet,' he breathes out. He has never seen her before in the flesh, but he would recognise her anywhere.
She looks just like Beatrice. Taller, maybe. Thinner. Less trusting of this world and its people. But her hair is just as dark, and her skin is just as pale, and she is around the age Beatrice was when he and her parted. Perhaps a bit older. Yes, older. He never knew Beatrice to be as tired and grave-looking as the young woman in front of him.
He lets her in.
They talk, for hours and hours and hours. He is hungry for conversation. She has questions.
She sets a frayed, leather-bound book on the table between the two armchairs. The firelight softens her face, but her eyes condemn him. Lemony leans all the way forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands in his hair. He draws in a sniffling breath and straightens up. And he takes the compiled book he wrote about the Baudelaires into his lap.
'I meant well,' he says, his voice as thin as a reed. His eyes burn. He swipes at the wetness with his callused thumb.
'Tell me why you did it,' she says softly.
He tells her. He tells her about VFD, about her parents, about him and Beatrice. He lingers on Beatrice; shamefully exposes himself.
'Your mother... Beatrice... I...'
She already knows. 'You loved her.'
He swallows. 'Very much.' The book falls carelessly to the table, some of its pages detaching and floating to the ground. 'She was my whole world. She still is. Never ceased to be. Not when she left me. Not when she married Bertrand. Not when she had you. Not when she...'
His hand slams the table in a clumsy tumble as he rises to his feet.
'Are you drunk?' she asks, a bit concerned, mostly wary.
'Not yet,' he says bitterly. He pours himself a glass of whiskey, and after a moment's thought, pours her one too. 'You're old enough to drink, I believe... Christ, I can hardly believe it... How old are you? How old am I? Never mind, don't answer any of these questions.'
She takes a sip and stares down, smiling humourlessly. A mouse scurries into view and disappears before either of them could do anything about it. Violet looks around, and notices the leaky ceiling and the drafty windows and the dripping faucet.
'Why do you live in this house, Mr Snicket?'
'Lemony,' he interjects. 'Please.'
'Lemony,' she amends.
He heaves a dull breath and takes his time picking his words. 'I'm alone and deeply unhappy,' he says at last. 'I don't see that changing anytime soon. I wanted a house that suited my temperament.'
'So you're punishing yourself.'
'So I am, Miss Baudelaire.'
'Violet.'
'Violet.' He waves a dispassionate hand. 'A lovely house with all the amenities would have protested my inhabitancy. I've no desire to make a house sulk.'
Her left eyebrow twitches, and he finds out what she looks like when amused. She stands up and examines the surfaces and devices, gathering her hair up in a satin ribbon. 'I think I can fix a thing or two for you. Nothing that would change the disposition of the house. But you'd be less likely to freeze to death if a snowstorm hits.'
'A tragic prospect.'
She gives him a full smile, which he assumes is her version of a laugh. He grimaces in response.
That day, she fixes the drafty windows. He observes her as intently as a scholar would. In a way, she is his subject, his niche, his field of study, his muse. He notices how her ribbon is askew, and how strands of her hair manage to escape their confines. He notices how she focuses and how she thinks, and how she is the spitting image of Beatrice when the sun has set.
Violet runs a candle over the seams of a window, memorising where the flame flickers. Then she searches his cabinets, and, miraculously, finds shrink wrap. He flinches when she uses a blow torch to fix it to the window gaps. She puts the torch away very, very carefully.
'There are all these small cracks everywhere,' she says, pointing at invisible fissures in the glass. 'I can fix them with clear nail varnish, but I don't have it on me right now. I'll have to come back some other time.'
That's an excuse. Both of them know it.
She leaves then, and comes back another day. And another. And another. And when she runs out of things to fix in his house, she keeps coming back anyway.
On a stormy night, he stokes the dying fire and awkwardly fusses over Violet. She stares up at him as he hovers, his fingers clutching the edges of a blanket, and she shifts in discomfort. He wraps the blanket around her before she can register the jerky, ungainly movements.
'Thank you,' she says.
He overfills her glass.
'My neighbour, that prying Mrs Simms, asked about you the other day,' he says, settling into his seat.
'Oh?'
'Indeed. "What business does that lovely young woman have spending so much time with an old bum like you," she said.'
Violet sips. 'Mrs Simms is quite rude.'
'What she lacks in manners, she makes up for in astuteness.'
She waits for him to get to his point.
He softly says, 'What are you doing here, Violet, in this miserable hovel? Surely there's a better world for you out there.'
'Surely?'
'Yes, surely. Anywhere other than here would make for a marked improvement.'
'I'm not so sure.' She gazes at the rug she's patched up. 'Anywhere other than here asks too much of me.'
He doesn't ask about her siblings. Violet never managed to find them after their boat crashed when they were leaving The Island.
But he does have a concern that he needs her to dismiss. 'Are you in trouble at all? Running away from something? Hiding from someone?'
She hugs herself and looks away, hurt. 'Do I need to be in distress to be here?'
He thins his lips and closes his eyes. He was insensitive. 'Of course not. You're always welcome here.'
Violet looks up again, and she's soft with the most tender vulnerability. She sinks to her knees, sitting on the rug. 'Tell me more about mom.'
What a wonderfully cruel request.
He obliges her, sitting beside her on the rug. The fire warms his skin just as the mention of Beatrice warms his heart.
'Your mother was quite fond of daylilies,' he begins solemnly. 'It was the most inconvenient preference. They only last twenty-four hours; did you know that?'
She shakes her head.
'Yes, well, it was an ordeal to make an enduring gesture of affection out of them.'
'Why not dry them?'
'I didn't enjoy mixing beauty with death. I preferred to leave that to the Romantics, who are, of course, dead themselves, and for that reason very unlikely to be beautiful.'
She laughs, and he startles at the sound, so uncomplicated it is in its joy.
Lemony tells her more stories. Nostalgia compels him to stretch out whatever small memories he has into long and winding tales of mutual devotion. It disarms Violet, though she also becomes pensive.
When he finally stops talking, he makes the mistake of turning his head towards her.
Soft lips land on his, and the kiss is sweeter than sweetness itself. Their lips remain locked for five long seconds before he stumbles back on his hands, gasping for air, eyes flung wide open. Violet takes stock of him, his laboured breathing, his shock, the question in his eyes. But only when he whispers a distraught, 'Violet?' does she flee.
The door closes firmly behind her.
Lemony doesn't get off the ground.
Then the agony starts in earnest.