#Also I thought up spare-ow literally on the spot and now it’s canon to me

[viva-la-bohemia]

The Aftermath

“Come on, get up.”

Lark groaned and clasped the outstretched hand of g-man, his gun-buddy, the man he had done Fortnite dances with at prom while nick and marco laughed from the side Grant Wilson to pull himself up. He looked around slowly at his friends co-workers and made a mental note to take care of the definite concussion that he had. Grant was unloading and reloading his handgun, a nervous tick that had somehow become normalized over the years. TJ, the man who got drunk with him for the first time on the roof of DADDIES and took all the blame when darryl found them, the man that convinced him to be the Ryan to his Sharpay in bop to the top when they auditioned for mamma mia in high school Terry’s glasses were broken in both lenses somehow, and he was flexing his arm in the way that he had done ever since his elbow had gotten popped out of the socket, oh so many years ago.

Lark’s brother was sat on the stairs, twisting his ring and glaring at his shoelaces, for some reason, as if he wanted to ground them into next month. Lark couldn’t quite say he disagreed with the sentiment. The next time he saw his nephew, ooh boy. No more late night Uncle-Lark-Can’t-Sleep-And-You-Spend-Too-Much-Time-Hyperfixating-On-Random-Shit-So-We’re-Going-To-Get-Ice-Cream trips, that was for sure.

He was snapped out of his stewing by Grant lightly hitting him in the arm.

“What the hell even happened, man?”

Lark dragged a hand across his face. “Nick’s kid broke the glass on the Whale’s tank,” Sparrow and Terry’s heads both snapped to him. Lark winced. “And then I ran in, slipped, fell into the tank, and shattered it.”

Grant’s jaw was practically on the floor. “Holy shit dude, how are you even moving right now?”

Lark smirked. “Dunno, but what I do know is that I’m gonna kill that teenager.”

The walk to the parking lot was silent, none of them wanting to actually admit that they had gotten their asses handed to them by their own kids. Lark pushed the door open into the parking lot, sopping wet, sore, and pissed.

He locked onto the kids and opened his mouth, about to relish in the rare gift that was yelling obscenities and Sparrow not scolding him for it. However, his joy and anger vanished quickly and his mouth closed with an audible click.

From behind him, Lark vaguely heard Grant’s gun drop onto the pavement in surprise and Sparrow gasp out a “holy shit”. Then Terry let out an anguished sob and Lark thought that that about summed it up.

their captor, the mean one, the head purple robe, the one who forgot to feed them, the one that tried to kill their dads, the one that tried to kill “spare-ow” because having two backups was unnecessary, the one that gave him his first scar that even henry didn’t know about, ron’s deadbeat dad that tried to kill his own son, the one who killed a man in front of his nephew, the one manipulating terry’s daughter

Willy.

Willy Stampler was holding the headless body of the very sixteen-year-old that Lark had been planning to yell at until he was blue in the face. Like watching a train crash, he followed the trail of blood to Taylor Swift’s head at the feet of Scary Marlowe, who was gripping a net so tight that her knuckles were white. Her jeans were splattered with blood. She looked horrified, and mere seconds away from sobbing.

Normally Swallows-Oak-Garcia normie, norm, his nephew, his star, his kiddo, his ice cream partner, Teeny the Teen was shrieking nonsensically on the ground, his knees appearing to have given out entirely, and he pulled at his hair as tears streamed down his face.

Lincoln Li-Wilson link, his godson, the kid who he’d watched take his first steps, the kid who’d somehow gotten taller than him in the years that he’d been banned from the Li-Wilson household, in all of his six-foot-three glory, was glaring at Willy with an intensity that could’ve killed a man.

Lark wondered why he hadn’t jumped at the man already, and then saw the cause. He was supporting the small DC-obsessed kid, the one that had spent two months monologuing himself into identity crisis after identity crisis and also apparently had a crush on his nephew? who was leaning his entire body weight on the taller kid, face blank except for a few stray tears working their way down.

Willy looked bored. Taylor’s body thumped on the ground as he checked his watch. “Ugh. I really thought that this would be faster, huh kiddo? Guess some parents just don’t care.”

Scary Marlowe teresa, terry the third, terry jr jr, the emo one, mini-him, edgelord supreme, the one he somehow knew the least even though they had sat at the same table at the wedding squeaked.

Her fingers flew free from their fisted prisons and Lark could see both the indent of the netting and the bloody crescents from her nails etched into her palms.

The net dropped heavily onto Taylor’s head (Lark choked back the bile rising in his throat) and his stupid pork-pie hat tipped off and onto Scary’s shoes.

Normal had stopped shrieking and was full-on sobbing into the ground. And then Row, his better side, his beautiful half, his twin, his six-minutes-older brother, the man that had saved his life time over time, the man that had taken him in without a second thought when he realized that Lark was sleeping on the streets, Sparrow Oak-Garcia stepped forward. His foot caught on a loose piece of gravel and it skittered across the blacktop, catching the attention of everyone.

Lark managed to drag his eyes away from the decapitated child in front of him and lock them onto Sparrow as he addressed the children with what he hoped would be their saving grace.

“Would this be a bad time to say I told you so?”

[thecloserkin]

fic rec: Dante’s Stars by Pretani

fandom: A Series of Unfortunate Events

pairing: Violet Baudelaire/Klaus Baudelaire

word count: 94k, complete

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: Yes

Is it endgame: Yes

Is it shippable: I’m fucking crying it’s so beautiful

Bottom line: The one and only Violet/Klaus epic, read it and bawl your eyes out (def read the warnings first tho)

It’s a canon-divergence AU where the Baudelaires stage their own deaths to escape Count Olaf. In canon the three Baudelaire orphans—inventor Violet, bookworm Klaus, and baby Sunny—are hounded from guardian to guardian by cartoonish villain Olaf, who will stop at nothing to get his hands on their fortune. Olaf murders or incapacitates every single adult who spares two seconds of sympathy for these kids, leaving a wide swathe of destruction in his wake. In this fic the Baudelaires have decided to wipe the slate clean and assume new identities.

I have mentioned in the past how salty I am about the Baudelaires’ characters being sidelined for Snicket the narrator, Olaf the villain, and/or sundry other bit-players (in the Netflix show the Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender p much steals every scene they’re in). In canon we’re not really privy to the kids’ inner lives. This fic avoids that pitfall by sticking with tightly focused third-person Violet and Klaus POVs.

The thing this fic does really well is instill a pervasive sense of dread/paranoia which is remarkable because for the first 25% absolutely nothing ominous happens. The orphans get taken in by a slightly addled, very nice old lady and they just … live in her house. For free. While she cooks for them. And every morning Violet and Klaus hook up in her barn.

Ok back up so the ship they’re passengers on goes down in a storm, all hands lost, the Baudelaires are presumed drowned with the rest. Which is positively providential. The first event of any import to occur is that Klaus swipes some cash from a dead man’s wallet. Violet has ethical qualms but Klaus quashes them by pointing out that Sunny’s starving:

”I’d do anything for her,” he said. “Even become a thief or a murderer.”

Then his dark eyes found Violet’s. “I’d do it for you, too.”

So on the one hand I think this is rather extra. I mean, what possible use could a dead man have had for that money? Money that could put actual food in Sunny’s stomach. The Baudelaires are keenly aware that justice does not equal unquestioning obedience to authority and I think their exposure to a raft of tyrannical and unjust authority figures has hammered that home. They’re down with bending the rules because they know the rules are never even-handedly applied anyway (ie. the show trial at Hotel Denouement, the farcical final exam at Prufrock Academy). On the other hand I remember how uneasy they felt about stealing Hal’s keys in Hostile Hospital, and that was barely a misdemeanor! A friend of mine astutely pointed out how Violet is always trying to behave in any given situation the way their parents would have wished, whereas Klaus takes a pragmatic approach: do whatever keeps his sisters safe. And that is a very interesting contrast and one I want to see explored further.

They get on a train. Things that happen: Klaus notices when Violet is down in the dumps or angry or upset or in this case, wistfully jealous of other people who lead “normal” lives, bustling all around them. He’s not in love with her yet but noticing is the first step. Violet atm is super focused on being the elder sister, the adult in the room, the One In Charge. They get off the train and as soon as they blow into town Violet gets catcalled and propositioned. One of the themes of this fic is the horrendous baseline level of violence against women, some of it normalized and casual like the catcalling. The Big Bad Villain of the piece is literally a guy who’s murdered multiple girlfriends on account of them fridging his ass, since he appears to think that women owe him sex. And this man’s driving ambition is to add Violet to his list of conquests.

So often, men treated her as little more than an object … Klaus was different. He saw her, the woman she was inside.

HOW COULD SHE NOT FALL FOR HIM?? Is there another man she could learn to trust enough to fall in love with? However I’m getting ahead of the story. Klaus is still in the phase where he’s awakening to his attraction to Violet:

She was mother and sister, soft skin and tender strength, and he hid his face in her neck. Like a child, she rocked him gently, cradling his head.

I have to protect her, even if it’s from myself.

He couldn’t take this, his brave, beautiful sister, so near … the knowledge of what those men wanted to do to her. I”ll kill them … And what he wanted …

God but it kills me, Klaus thinking that his attraction to Violet is as noxious as those vile men and their rapacious stares. Klaus himself otoh is president of the Violet Baudelaire Fan Club. The contrast could not be more marked. Look at him building her up when she’s about ready to to give up on picking a lock because she’s lost her hair ribbon:

”I’m done, Klaus. I don’t have anything else to give”. ”Vi … “ he was pleading, willing her to believe in herself again, because he did. “You’re a brilliant inventor,” he told her. “It’s who you are. Nothing can take that away. You don’t need your ribbon.”

The unwarranted parallel that he draws between himself and a bunch of sexual predators is the source of so much angst and pining:

Is that what I am? A pervert?

She’ll blame herself for this

Well, well, well, if it isn’t ye olde I’m-Leaving-Her-For-Her-Own-Good-Lest-My-Perverted-Attraction-To-Her-Despoil-Her-Innocence. I am absolute trash for it every time, film at 11.

”I love you, Vi … I’m in love with you.” He said it like he was confessing to a crime, and she wanted to scream, to laugh and cry all at once.

THEIR LOVE IS A CRIME!!! Could these babies be more pure??

They’d always had an extraordinary connection. It was the reason for their seamless partnership, their ability to support one another … But now, the bond that had kept them alive was killing him. How could anything ever be right again?

”Vi, I’m sorry … I want to be your brother, but I can’t … I want to be more than that … I don’t know what to do.” ”Kiss me,” she said, “and be both.”

THATS IT THATS A WRAP I CAN NOW DIE HAPPY. That “kiss me and be both” is PERFECTION.

And she knew she’d never willingly give herself to anyone but him.

she’d loved him even then. Who could tell when they had crossed the line? It was already too late.

cross the line what line??? they were made for each other.

”You know, we missed the sunrise,” he said, nose to nose with his sister.

Violet and Klaus carve an extra hour out of their morning to go make out in the barn. I shit you not these kids spend a whole month without progressing past first base because Klaus doesn’t want to “pressure” Violet into anything she’s not ready for. Violet, for her part, is beginning to suspect there’s something wrong with her person; why hasn’t he even tried to take her top off? Thank you #Patriarchy for teaching us that desirability is the measure of a woman’s worth. God they are so thirsty. This bitch almost fell over the first time he touched her tits:

“Vi,” he spoke into her hair, voice breaking. “Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me to —“ But she only titled her head, to meet his mouth in a feverish kiss.

So Klaus and Sunny are having a snow fight and Violet tugs her glove off to tousle his hair and it’s THE SEXIEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN BYE. True story after I read this fic I legitimately thought that “Vi” was a pet name Klaus called her by in canon, and when I finally finished the books much much later and realized that it wasn’t—well, it should have been.

There is a fairy tale about a princess who disguises herself in the skin of a donkey to escape the attentions of her lecherous father the king. Violet and Sunny discuss it. Violet points out that rape is wrong because rape is rape, because it is coercive, not because it’s incest. I love it when fic highlights the fairytale parallels to the Baudelaires’ situation, and I feel like Donkeyskin was such a spot-on choice because it’s all about surviving sexual assault and learning to make oneself vulnerable again afterwards? Klaus is the prince who sees through her disguise and falls head over heels in love with her CHANGE MY MIND. On the subject of happily ever after:

”Is that what you think I want? A fairytale? A walk down the aisle in a white dress?" He felt a lump forming in his throat. "Most girls think about those things, don't they?" "I don't," she told him. "I prefer not to. And as for children…well…I love them. That's why I don't want any of my own … how selfish would I be, to bring another little life into this? Another hostage they could use against us. Imagine how awful it would be if…" She shook her head. "No children… not ever. I couldn't protect them." And she turned to him with a soft look. "It's no sacrifice, Klaus. Not for me. I've already been through a… a wedding, you know." He felt her shudder, and she averted her eyes. "I won't be sorry if I never see another wedding dress again."

My dudes, when you have children each and every one of them is a hostage to fortune because of course they are. Also, Violet’s traumatized by the whole idea of being a bride, after going through the wringer of her fake wedding to Olaf. Olaf put Sunny in a cage to compel her compliance, and that’s what the Big Bad in this fic does too. He says things like “You’re a sick little bitch, aren’t you? Spreading your legs for your own brother” which turns their beautiful relationship into this ugly depraved thing to be ashamed of. I mean, this guy was literally a voyeur who would watch them from his hidey-hole while they were being intimate?? My god I would feel so unclean. And the worst part is, he overheard them calling each other by their real names not their aliases, so now he knows who they are and since the Baudelaires are still on the lamb this is bad. It gets pretty dark pretty fast.

“He won't want you anymore! No one's gonna want you when we're done!"

So he kidnaps and rapes Violet. Klaus and Sunny rescue her, dispatch the villain (Klaus’s earlier “I’d do anything” for his sisters, including becoming “a thief or a murderer,” acquires sudden resonance), and that’s when fucking Count Olaf shows up!!!! These kids just cannot catch a break. Turns out the Big Bad was actually working for Count Olaf all along. Olaf’s plan is still the same plan from The Bad Beginning where he plotted to steal the Baudelaire fortune by marrying Violet. Since Count Olaf has never in his life paid a henchman a salary, he was keeping the Big Bad sweet by promising to let him ravish Violet first. Let the full enormity of that sink in. Oh wait a minute Olaf isalso bent on knocking Violet up asap so the union can’t be dissolved on non-consummation grounds, or somesuch:

"You look at me as if I were a usurper, boy, about to steal something of yours. Tell me…" He gestured at Violet. "Is she yours?"

Why would you do this to me??????? This is so, so painful. Olaf uses an electric cattle prod on Klaus and makes Violet watch??? It’s ok though the Baudelaires prevail in the end, and emerge from the bloodstained ordeal as the family they are. My kink will forever be Violet and Klaus praising each other’s bravery and resourcefulness. They! Are! So! Proud! and! Supportive! Of! Each! Other! This line from earlier in the fic gets me every time:

I’ve failed them. This was his greatest fear, worse than death or any torment fate could devise. In his head, he imagined the struggle, saw his girls beaten and shot, felt each blow and bullet as if his own body were the target instead.

Klaus Baudelaire laying down his own body between the world and his sisters is really the only thing I care about:

And then her gaze fell to the marred canvas of his body.

I bet his back is a mess of burn marks ugh. Four weeks after Violet’s discharged from the hospital (practical Violet made sure to get the green light from the medical professionals) they finally have sex again, which is a relief—after the rape they were both hesitant to initiate sex because she thought she was damaged goods and he thought she wanted space? Silly kids. Oh and and here they are being mistaken by strangers for a pair of lovebirds:

One of the women sighed dreamily. "Did you ever see a more likely pair of turtledoves?" "Of course not," Mr. Poe sputtered, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief. "The very idea!" And he excused himself hurriedly, to make some phone calls. "Don't be silly," said the other. "They're siblings. Haven't you heard? … They're the Baudelaire orphans." "Well, I daresay," the first one went on, "anyone would've taken them for sweethearts."

I CANNOT WITH THESE TWO

The Baudelaires finally, finally come into their fortune free and clear. They put on their parents’ wedding rings and move to Canada. A cat (!!!) leaves baby Beatrice II in a basket outside their front door, and that completes their family. Nobody deserves good things more than these kids, and this fic ends exactly where it ought, describing “a rural life of moral simplicity.”

I read this fic years ago and it was w i l d rereading it again, thanks for coming along for the ride. If anyone wants to scream/cry about this fic in particular, or Violet and Klaus in general, feel free to send me an ask or message me ANYTIME