#GUYS ITS STILL TECHNICALLY WOEVEMBER DAY 1 RIGHT

[jacobsnicket]

fictober day 11: "well, that worked out great + @asouefanworkevent woevember day 1: violet's inventions | a series of unfortunate events | T

read on ao3

As soon as he smelled the smoke, Bertrand had jumped from his seat in the parlor. There were multiple fire extinguishers in every room, but he made sure to take an extra one with him as he followed the smell, just in case. You never knew what could happen in these cases, especially since the smell seemed to be coming from Violet’s room—

Oh, goodness, Violet. Was she alright? How large had the fire gotten? Has it already reached her?

Violet was smart, Bertrand reassured himself, and old enough to take care of herself. If she hadn’t put it out already, she probably would have gotten to safety by now.

He didn’t want to consider what would happen if he hadn’t.

The door to Violet’s room nearly flew off its hinges as Bertrand burst in, fire extinguisher aloft. “Violet? Are you in there?”

There was no fire, at least as far as he could see. The smoke was coming from the toaster sitting in front of Violet, half-deconstructed and looking very angry, or at least as angry as a toaster could be. Violet, for the matter, just looked sheepish. “Well… that worked out great.”

“What on earth were you doing?”

“I was just trying to disassemble the toaster, Father, I’m sorry—”

“Before you touch anything, you need to take the power source out first, Violet. You need to be careful with these things.”

“I know, Father, I did! I don’t understand why it’s still doing that.”

“Let me take a look,” he said, gently taking the toaster out of her hands. The metal was still hot, but Bertrand was used to it. “You really need to be more careful, Violet. What if you had set off one of the smoke alarms? We’d all end up sopping wet.”

He really needed to go in and remove those, they were useless. Half the time they knew there was a fire long before the alarms noticed, not to mention the dangers they posed to books. An old friend had told him about that once.

Bertrand did not want to think about him at the moment. He needed to focus on this damn toaster. “What were you trying to get from the toaster, anyway? We might have it in a place that’s easier to reach and won’t set the house on fire.”

“I thought I might repurpose the heating coils for the incubator I’m building for Mrs. Gershwin’s chickens.”

“Oh, goodness. Well, at least let me help you get them out then.”