#hotel denouement bridge session tag

[beatricebidelaire]

balancing

The keyword is balance.

~1.8k, Frank-centric, ensemble cast

written for day 3 of woevember of @asouefanworkevent, Hotel Denouement

I don't want to fight but I'm constantly ready and I don't rock the boat but it's always unsteady -- That Old Black Hole, Dr. Dog

The keyword is balance.

Of course, there used to be a set of words that defined Hotel Denouement. Library. Dewey Decimal System. Organized. Last safe place. Which are all still true, theoretically. It's still a library, in more ways than it looks on the surface. A library that uses the Dewey Decimal System, both for the rooms of the hotel, and the books in the underwater library beneath the hotel. It's still - thanks to the hardworking hotel managers - very much organized, even as their lives have been throw into chaos so many times.

As for the last safe place - well, it's intended to be. But this is the kind of thing that no one really ever can be sure if it'll work out until the actual moment of truth arrives.

The set of descriptions is mostly true, but the keyword of the hotel these days is balance, at least to Frank. The balance is a precarious one, as if walking on a tightrope hanging between two buildings, about 13 floors above the ground. Any little thing can possibly upset the balance. To ensure things are balanced, therefore, everyone has to play their own role, and adjust fast to cater to any emergency situations when someone, or something, ruins the balance.

The balance, simply put, is this: Frank is a volunteer of VFD, and Ernest is an enemy of VFD. They run the hotel together. They are also identical, and people can't tell one from another. Therefore, the hotel is neutral ground.

At least, that's the official statement.

The truth, as usual, is more complicated than official statements.

[continue reading]

[beatricebidelaire]

Fernald still kept a commonplace book from his volunteering days even though he hadn’t written in it since he switched sides. There’s a picture of baby Fiona he used as a bookmark. He still occasionally reread the poems he’d written in it when he’d been seventeen and the piano notes he learned from his mother. There’s also a page where he pasted the article Jacques Snicket wrote about him on it.

Hector had one where he documented the process of building the hot air mobile home and the methods he’d tried and which ones failed. It’s all written in code in fear of the elders reading the book and finding out what he’s doing. There’s a crow on the cover of it to show his loyalty to the village of fowl devotees.

R had a bats-themed commonplace book which was a birthday gift from Beatrice. She had a page dedicated to Lemony’s current whereabouts and she added to it whenever he contacted her. There’s a map on the next page where she would mark the places and the dates he told her he’s at. She also had notes about meteorology and bridge hands from the times she and K&B and the denouements played at the hotel.

Volunteers and common place books hcs?

[beatricebidelaire]

some headcanons about jacob snicket and his longtime bridge partner for @asouefanworkevent’s woevember event, day 4, unseen characters

jacob’s longtime bridge partner is not a vfd volunteer, but he is on the outskirts of vfd and knows of its existence - similar to charles’s relation to vfd, where he sometimes worked together with some vfd members

he met e snicket earlier than he met jacob, as he had worked with her on some projects before

even though he’s technically not a vfd volunteer, he also goes by his initial most of the time, and both jacob and e called him c

c was the only person to call jacob as jake, it’s a long running inside joke between them, which started after c and another person named jake registered for a bridge tournament (it was a swiss pairs tournament), but jake was suddenly unavailable and jacob substituted for him that day, playing with c. they didn’t change the name on the registration, and this ended up becoming an inside joke of theirs.

c and jacob played natural 2/1 system, using the standard carding in the early days but later switched to udca

jacob’s bidding is more solid, where c can lean a bit on the lighter side, and very occasionally he would make psyche bids, but he has a fairly good judgement of it and about 80% of the time it pays off

they’ve played together for a long time and have a pretty good understanding of each other’s styles when bidding, and when defending they always cooperated really nicely that made people think they’re minds are in sync, though it’s really just longtime partnership and experience and a well established carding system and having discussed various scenarios between them

kit and jacques had met c when they were little, when c came around to visit jacob and e. sometimes c would bring a few friends around and when they have 4 people they’d play a couple of boards together. young kit was very interested and would often sit on jacob’s lap, watching them play and trying to understand what’s going on

jacob taught kit about the concept of finessing, a declarer technique he thought that’s the easy enough to understand for a beginner. he pointed to the ace and queen of hearts in the dummy’s hand laid out on the table and as he played the 7 of hearts from his hand, explaining to kit that if the king of hearts was with the LHO (left hand side opponent) who has to play before the dummy does, then the queen can win the trick, but if it’s with the RHO (right hand side opponent) who plays after the dummy, then the queen will not gain a trick. by finessing, the queen has a chance to become an additional trick. young kit was very excited at the concept.

sometimes kit would sit by c’s side and watch him play too, and jacob would say “if she grows up to have a wild bidding style then i know where she learned that from”. after she grew up, sometimes she would remember this fondly.

jacob has many bridge books in the house, and kit managed to take two with her after she and her siblings got recruited and took away from their home. one is a book on probability calculation and another is on defense. she treasured both of the books as she didn’t really have many things from her parents that she still carries with her into adulthood. frank borrowed the probability calculation one from her once and took many notes in his notebook during reading.

jacob and c shared some tournament stories with her that she still remembers when she’s older, and she also shared what she remembers with her own bridge friends who regularly meet up to play bridge at hotel denouement (bertrand, r, the denouements). frank and ernest play a lot more than dewey does but dewey likes watching them play.

[beatricebidelaire]

saw this on facebook and got very excited .... two of my interests combined .... bridge and vintage vfd-esque aesthetics

[beatricebidelaire]

ok so!!!!!! jacob snicket played bridge ........ i feel absolutely delighted at finding this during my reread. and like, maybe lemony was too young when jacob was still around to have learnt bridge from him, maybe kit and jacques weren’t, so i’m definitely deciding that kit learned from her father!!! 

anyway as i’ve already wrote several headcanons in my hotel denouement bridge session tag and a full fic where nothing happens except kit and r and bertrand and frank or ernest played bridge in a room in hotel denouement i feel absolutely validated right now, like the feeling when you found your highly self indulgent fics actually have some canon backup (not directly, per say, but still!)

anyway when k&r&b&f(e) were playing bridge at the hotel denouement k sometimes remembered jacob, and like even if when he taught her she was really small and they hadn’t gotten to too much besides the basic, she still thought of him sometimes

[beatricebidelaire]

teenage kit and bertrand playing bingo headcanons

it’s started out as one time when they went to one of beatrice’s soccer game and got bored of watching and listening to olaf criticizing how beatrice kicked the ball or lemony’s cheerleading moves, and decided to play a 7x7 bingo and take turns saying numbers back and forth

later beatrice complained about them not watching and they decided that they could change the game a little and put the players names in each box on 5x5 bingo square and cross the players name off when they scored

“hmmm so exactly how many players are on each team?” kit asked. “is it twelve? we could leave the middle box open as blank space and put the other 24 players name.” bertrand asked. “but i think each team also has a goalkeeper and i don’t think they can score? can they? so each team twelve isn’t enough.” “beatrice can we see the team members list?”

beatrice, usually eloquent, just stared speechless at them and finally said “it’s 11 including the goalkeeper so it looks like you won’t be able to play! time to watch me perform.”

“oh cool we could do 4x4” “i was just thinking about that”

very soon they were having different versions of bingo games. some played long term and require some action to be done before crossing the item off and some quick with then just take turns naming stuff. from the names of historical vfd volunteers to 17th century scientists to gay poets to operas

also bridge contracts. 1H, 4S, 6NT etc. used when they played bridge at hotel denouement with r and frank (or sometimes ernest). both of them would try to get to the contract they needed to cross the box off by not bidding exactly correctly occasionally and r and frank or ernest, realizing they were playing their bingo game would sometimes try to influence the result by their bidding too.

at some vfd meetings with a lot of attendance they would put 25 out of 26 letters into the boxes and cross the letter off when someone of that initial spoke in the meeting

actually that was how one time kit was rereading the meeting transcript and discovered the secretary had documented it wrong because “i remember i won this round because M said something so this line was actually said by M instead of G like the meeting transcript said”

also once bertrand realized kit was putting several J’s in the 5x5 grid and said “hey that’s cheating” and kit said “technically we never stated in the rules it has to be 25 different letters so that’s not cheating besides whenever a J speaks i only cross off one of the J instead of all of them so i’m completely playing by the rules. also, we both put same bridge contracts more than once in the bridge bingo too.”

“.... but that’s different,” bertrand argued weakly and kit said “not technically” and he had to concede he couldn’t really argue with it

and so they both started putting a lot of J’s into the 5x5 grid for it

they each had a bingo commonplace book to keep track of their long term ones and each of the long term game has different prizes/consequences for winning/losing ranging from money bets to loser has to wear jacques’ cow disguise, which after playing for a while they decided they’re going to change the consequences to something simpler and not involving the cow disguise and jacques said “you’re both cowards” “but at least we’re not cows”

[beatricebidelaire]

it arose in the annual match between the reporters and the actors at the tv station. the reporters like working out a bridge deal as much as getting to the bottom of a story. the actors take to the psychology aspects, trying to get into the minds of their opponents.

i..... love this line a lot i’m going to save it here. also reporters vs actors gives me. general snicketverse vibes.

[beatricebidelaire]

sometimes after kit & r & bertrand & frank’s bridge session at hotel denouement ended on a saturday afternoon, ernest and dewey would come and join them and they would bring some board games left by hotel guests over the years and they would all play, but not always using the rules provided by the instruction notes included sometimes they played with rules dewey found in a book in the library about some totally different game but they just like, improvised with all the cards and tokens and stuff about what matches what in the rules they were following and they’d played late into saturday night and then all went to grab some sandwiches or stuff for half an hour then came back to continue. 

one time they got as late as 2am and kit was insisting she was not too tired to drive and give other people a ride back if they needed too and ernest was like “have you considered other people might feel safer to let you drive when you’re tired” and r raised an eyebrow “you think just because she’s too tired to drive that means she’s too tired to break the speed limit wow you really have no idea do you” 

and frank just rolled his eyes and cut across everyone impatiently ‘just stay the night in case you haven’t noticed this IS a hotel” then dewey’s eyes lit up and said “oh if you guys need some clothes to change into after shower i remember monty and gustav left a box of their reptilian band shirts in one of the rooms and also beatrice and esme stuffed a whole room of costumes here one time too” then r said in a totally unironic way “i would love to sleep in one of beatrice’s costumes” and then everyone stared at her and r added quickly “i mean there must be some that are comfortable to wear to sleep right they’re not all like wings or something” and dewey shrugged “i could show you and you could see for yourself”

so after they all visited the costumes left by beatrice and esme and the band merch left by monty and gustav, frank tossed kit and r a key and said “well ladies i trust you could find the room by yourselves” and kit said “do you tell all the guests to find the rooms by themselves too” and ernest and dewey said together “yes he absolutely does” and then when he was about to give bertrand a key too ernest interrupted really quickly and said “oh bertrand there’s this room with a theme i think you’ll like let me show you” and bertrand said “that sounds great” and ernest immediately led him away and everyone else stared at them leaving and r finally said “do they think they were subtle” and frank said very gravely “unfortunately they do”

and then r woke up the next morning seeing kit in the reptilian band t shirt and a pair of red pants r felt like she saw esme wore once on stage probably like it was very mismatching all things considering but then kit was stretching her legs and then climbing out of the bed slowly her hair falling over her face and telling r after a night’s dream she figured out how to declare one of the bridge contracts yesterday and starting to make some tea. and then there was a moment when r very suddenly felt how close and how real and how domestic this scene and kit felt and also much, much closer to her literally and figuratively compared to beatrice and everything suddenly felt brighter but then she realized it was just kit pulling the curtains of the window

[beatricebidelaire]

to elaborate on the kit and r and bertrand and frank (and sometimes ernest and very occasionally dewey) play bridge at a room in hotel denouement regularly headcanon

they played at the hotel weekly, usually saturday or sunday afternoon. sometimes they played pair tournaments or team tournaments in The City. while in the case of team tournaments at most 6 players were allowed per team and they could rotate and switch which 4 players get to be on per round, they usually just registered for 4, though occasionally they would switch one denouement out for another in secret but it’s not like other teams would realize.

when playing at the hotel, most often, kit and r partnered and so did bertrand and frank, though they occasionally mixed things up a bit as well. in team tournaments most of the time they went with the same pairings. however, when frank was busy with hotel business and r was busy handling duchess duty, kit and bertrand sometimes went out to play pair tournaments themselves.

kit and r had a very detailed convention card with lots of different and sometime artificial conventions used on top of natural 2/1 system as basis. they had also discussed many different bidding scenarios that they thought would come up and r had an extensive and organized list written in her notebooks about different bidding sequences they’d discussed and different conventions they’d tried and which worked well and which didn’t and boards they’d played before. kit kept the printed out results of each board from the tournaments in a special folder, along with some notes about different conventions she’d typed out using typewriter.

kit and r liked trying out new conventions they’d discovered or seen people proposed and also sometime the ones they came up with themselves. their convention card was constantly updating due to this, usually adding in more stuff but also taking away the ones they’d agreed that didn’t fit them.

bertrand and frank’s convention card looked quite different to kit and r’s, mostly because they didn’t play a lot of newly introduced artificial conventions because frank generally liked to stick to traditional ones that have been used by lots of people for a long time. frank also thought that a lot new stuff some people were using they were just doing it to be trendy and those weren’t actually that good which bertrand agreed was true for some of the conventions, he also felt some of those were actually good and could be really useful while bidding. but when he tried to convince frank, most of the time frank didn’t cave.

kit and bertrand also had a convention card since they played in pair tournaments together sometimes. the system they played was similar to what kit and r played, and it looked mostly liked kit and r’s except with some latest new convention r and kit were trying taken out, but also adding in some things that kit was interested but r, after trying, didn’t think it was for them, and some conventions bertrand wanted to tested out how effective those were but frank wouldn’t agree to. they were usually quite flexible in testing out some totally different things and sometimes even switching to completely different systems such as the precision, but agreed that they still liked natural 2/1 better, though they would play that once in a while just for fun and also for better understanding of what decisions the opponents using precision might make.

when frank and r played they usually just used the same system as what frank and bertrand played, and since frank did not play most of the elaborate conventions r was using at the moment r sometime would try to make a bid and then remembered oh frank and i didn’t play that i need to bid naturally here, though sometimes the natural bid expressed her hand better, and she would remember this kind of sequence and the hand she held and discuss with kit whether they need to reconsider on the convention they were using or make slight changes to it to make it more useful and cater to more cases.

the system r and bertrand played were actually quite similar to r and kit’s one as well, or just a subset of it but slightly different from what kit and bertrand played. which did not happen very often because kit and frank did not particularly enjoy partnering because they disagreed on which convention s to use a lot and then went ahead and bid what they thought they should’ve agreed on but did not come to a conclusion, and also frank felt kit’s style was too aggressive at times with tendency to overbid. (which was not an issue with r because she was familiar with kit’s style and played with her enough to take that into account and still fairly able to get a good grasp on what kit’s card holding might be like during the bidding phase, plus r liked to say that since she was conservative in bidding kit’s style balance her out. it was similar with bertrand and kit as well.) kit and ernest actually did enjoy partnering together style-wise but due to personal principles they liked to pretend they didn’t. dewey only played very very occasionally and said he preferred to watch the others play.

in carding during defense, kit and r played udca and then lavinthal for notrump contracts, frank and bertrand played the standard for all, and while bertrand did not particularly mind either standard or udca he did quite want to play lavinthal because he thought it was quite a clever design and felt effective as well but frank refused to play “some fancy carding just because it looks clever”.

while it was generally not easy to convince frank to try out new bidding conventions bertrand did manage to succeed a couple of times, like when he made a list of pros and cons to convince frank on a competing against opps opening 1NT system he wanted to use and while frank initially resisted he reluctantly agreed that covered lots of cases and seemed effective. he also convinced frank to switch to answering the spot of King rather than the numbers when responding to 5NT which frank admitted was useful in deciding slams. they’d tried out bergen once and got some very mixed results and after two weeks of trial bertrand had to admit frank was probably right about not using that. 

after playing with frank for years, bertrand had learned how to increase his chances of convincing frank something. mostly because he tried playing a convention with kit first and testing it out extensively and then making the pros and cons list which he discovered more easily appealed to frank, and he learned that random new conventions that probably wouldn’t work out but he wanted to try for fun would be immediately rejected so he knew to leave those out.

ernest, on the other hand, was way more flexible than frank and when he and bertrand partnered it was like more like when bertrand and kit, they liked testing out different conventions. like k&b they also sometimes bid something quite risky when they felt it had a certain chance to work out, which admittedly wouldn’t always work well and for some hands would be disastrous (which wouldn’t be so disastrous if they’d bid standard/normally). bertrand said he liked playing with both of them but enjoyed it differently though kit thought he probably enjoyed playing with ernest more and it was hard to say which one of them was right.

when declaring, frank and kit both had probability table of card distribution memorized in their head, from the most basics of 3-3 being 36% chance and 4-2 being 48% to some extremely rare cases, and they also memorized the play with the highest chance to win the number of tricks they wanted with a certain combination for lots of different combinations. bertrand and ernest and r memorized only the exact chance of the most basic and most often seen distributions, but they felt they didn’t need to know the exact number in every percentage they just needed to know which distribution’s possibility was relatively higher to decide which route to play. and they could usually figure out most of that by deduction and counting some possible combinations in their head and visualizing the probability. frank and r were best at figuring out opponents’ card distribution as a board progressed. kit and bertrand and ernest were not quite as good as them in that aspect, but they were more proficient in false carding as declarer and making plays to mislead the opponents. 

[beatricebidelaire]

sugar honey ice & tea

featuring: Kit Snicket, R, the Duchess of Winnipeg, Bertrand Baudelaire, Frank Denouement, Ernest Denouement

summary: Kit, R, Bertrand and Frank (or Ernest) play bridge in a room in the Hotel Denouement.

word count: ~2.6K

title from Bring Me The Horizon’s song

alt: ao3

[01]

Frank and Bertrand reached 5D, and Bertrand laid out his cards as R led the King of Hearts.

“Thanks,” Frank said curtly, frowning a little.

“Good luck. I considered trying for slam,” Bertrand admitted, and then studied Frank for a moment. “And your expression is making me thinking I should have.”

“I’m just planning on how to play this hand,” Frank replied evenly. “Low, please.”

“Yeah, that’s just his usual thinking expression,” Kit assured Bertrand. “It’s close, though I might’ve cuebid the spades.”

“I think you meant certainly,” R raised an eyebrow. “And the results might’ve paid out.”

“Only when I’m feeling bold,” Kit laughed. “Which I guess, when playing bridge, is fairly often.”

They continued with the hand, and 5D made eventually.

“6 Diamonds is cold, isn’t it?” R questioned, counting the tricks in her head.

“If I finesse the right side for the club queen, then I’ll be making 6,” Frank said. “There’s not enough clues though.”

“I always feel like you’re great at finding the queens at times that matter,” Kit sipped the ice tea and chewed on the ice cubes while R redealt the cards. “Like, not when it’s just overtricks, like now, but if it’s a matter of make or going down, then you guess the correct side more often than not.”

“Sometimes it’s also because when the contract’s on the line, you could only finesse for a certain side, though,” Bertrand said, thoughtfully. “By the way, stop stealing my tea, K.”

“Mine ran out of ice cubes,” Kit shrugged.

“I’m half-convinced that Frank’s just great at peeking,” R handed out the newly dealt cards to everyone.  Her face lit up slightly at her cards, and opened 2NT.

“Please,” Frank rolled his eyes, “if anyone ever saw me doing that, then it’s Ernest they saw.”

“You really need to stop using that line every time someone accuses you of something,” R said, unimpressed. “No one else does that.”

“Yeah, not even me, and I have a twin,” Kit shook her head. She responded to R’s 2NT with a 3C, and looked glad to see the 3H response.

“Because no one confuses you and Jacques,” Frank argued. “Besides, I’m pretty sure Ernest does that.”

“Technically, I don’t think he ever said ‘if anyone ever saw me doing that, then it’s Ernest they saw’,” Bertrand countered.

“Actually, he might’ve when he’s pretending to be Frank,” R said thoughtfully. “But I guess that still files this under Frank’s unique traits if people are only doing this when pretending to be him.”

R and Kit reached a small slam of hearts after a series of cuebids and asks, and Bertrand considered over which card to lead.  

“Though I suppose in a similar situation, I could say that ‘if anyone saw me doing that, that’s Beatrice disguised as me’,” Kit mused, laying down her cards for R. “Good luck, I think this one has great chance.  Don’t you love my nice club suit?”

“Ohhh, thanks, that definitely looks helpful,” R grinned as she studied Kit’s hand. “In all honesty, that does sound like something Beatrice would do.”

“I disagree, B wouldn’t want to do some action that K doesn’t want to be associated with as K --  not for K’s sake, but just because it’s probably something she would love to be attached with her name and won’t want someone else taking the credit.”

“Classic Beatrice,” Frank shook his head roughly.

“What latest thing in the hotel has she broken lately?” Kit asked, half-amused.

“Well, not lately, and let’s hope it stays this way,” Frank sighed, and Kit laughed.

“Well, I suppose Bertrand have a point,” R tilted her head, pausing a bit after throwing in Frank with the Ace of Spades, looking a little dreamy.  “She is rather bold and iconic that way.  It’s her charm.  Very delightful in her own style.”

The other three people stared her, and R flushed. “I’m just stating a fact!  Anyway, whatever Frank returns, you’re either giving me a ruff and discard or leading into the table’s Ace and Queen. Making six.”

“I suppose it makes it so much possible for things to happen the other way, like Kit doing something and later claiming it was Beatrice,” Frank said logically.

“Except I don’t do high profile dramatic stuff like she does and if something didn’t look dramatic enough, nobody’s going to believe it’s her, so it won’t work,” Kit said. “Beatrice and I would make great partners in crime though, balancing each other out this way.  All elements of personality traits there.”

Frank and R exchanged a look, the expressions on their faces indicating they’re thinking about the same thing.  Bertrand, on the other hand, teased directly, “Ah, your favorite brand of romance, isn’t it, K?”

“Shut up, B,” Kit glared at him.

“She’s not here now, you don’t need to tell her to shut up,” Bertrand said slyly, and R’s and Frank’s smiles turned into outright laughter.

“Shut up, all of you,” Kit huffed.  She turned her attention to the bidding sequence, ignoring them, and then studied the hand she had.  After some consideration, she doubled the 3NT.

“Wow,” Frank said, raising an eyebrow. “there’s no need for that.”

“Oh, this is absolutely just about the cards,” Kit smiled, a little sweet and a little menacing. “I compartmentalize well.  You’re going down, boys.” She drank the ice tea from Frank’s glass this time, crunching on the ice cubes.  All others passed, and Kit led the Diamond King.

Frank laid out the Dummy’s hand and Bertrand studied it in concentration, planning out his route. “Well,” he said slowly, deliberately, “game on, Snicket.”

[02]

R and Kit settled in 3S, and Bertrand led a small diamond.

“How are things in the hotel lately?” R asked. “King please.” She directed Kit.

“We finally got a new popcorn machine,” Frank said, covering the K with Ace.   He surveyed the Dummy, and decided to switch to a heart.

“This is a hotel, not a movie theater,” R pointed out, reasonably. “What do you need it for?”  She counted the number of hearts in both dummy and in hand, and frowned at the card Frank returned, then looked at Bertrand suspiciously.

Bertrand met her gaze and calmly ruffed the heart.

“Good thing I didn’t go game, though it seems like 3S is in danger as well,” Kit commented. “Also it’s for movie night. By the way, I think it’s my turn to pick what to watch again.”

Frank tried to remember who picked the movie for the past couple of times. “... I’m quite certain you just like, skipped Ernest.”  He paused a little, studied the cards, and then played the King as Bertrand led a club, looking relieved when it held, then returned a heart ready for Bertrand to ruff again.

“Oh yeah, that was intentional,” Kit informed Frank. “He has bad tastes in movies.”

3S went down one at the end, and Bertrand gathered the cards together and shuffled them.  The next hand was dealt, and R preempted a 3H at the first seat. Bertrand looked conflicted for a while, but eventually decided on 3NT.

“Well, this looks like it could be fun,” Kit said as everyone else passed.  She led a heart dutifully, and grinned at R, “as the lady requested.”

“Good luck,” Frank said, “don’t know if my hand’s going to be much of use.”

“Thanks, well, it -- ”

“Might be more useful if we’re in a different contract?” Frank guessed.

“Yeah,” Bertrand admitted, “doesn’t mean this doesn’t have a chance though.  Play the jack.”

After some struggles, 3NT eventually went down 2. “Perhaps double would’ve been better,” Bertrand mused. “We could get to 5C that way.”

“Well, for this hand, probably, though 3NT could easily be the better choice if my hand my club King and Queen were hearts, so it’s really hard to say,” Frank shrugged. “Better luck next time.”

[03]

“Did you guys change the ice tea recipe?” R asked, putting down her glass after drinking it. “It tastes differently today -- oh, it’s honey, isn’t it?”

“City’s latest fashion at the moment, so I’ve been told,” Kit said wryly. “It’s very in, apparently.”

“At Hotel Denouement, we cater to our guests’ ever-changing fashion choices.” Frank said smoothly.

“Well,” Kit said archly, “I prefer my tea bitter.”

“Unfortunately,” he countered easily. “You’re not a guest here.”

The two of them engaged in some silent fight of frowns and challenging stares while Bertrand and R focused on the cards in hand.  Bertrand opened 1C, and Kit took a break from the silent fight to cover with 1S.  Frank bid 2H almost immediately.

They reached 4H fairly easily, and it was a straightforward contract that eventually went over one. Kit dealt the next hand, then opened 1H.  Frank overcalled 1NT.  R bid 2H and ended up as the final contract.

R watched in interest as Kit played, feeling something was off.  Kit should be finessing Frank for all the high spots cards, considering his overcall, yet she wasn’t doing that. And Bertrand did turn out to have some of those spot cards too, which was … interesting. “That’s a really light overcall,” she said as they finished up the board, the clues clicking in.

“We’re nonvul,” “Frank” said, as if that explained the situation. It did sounded like a legit explanation, but also an evasive enough one.

“True,” Bertrand agreed easily, “pass the sugar, will you, E? Hope both honey and sugar are enough to stop K from drinking my tea after she finished all her ice cubes.”

“Frank” -- well, Ernest, really -- blinked for a moment and then shrugged. “Fine, I guess the light overcall really gave it away.  Frank doesn’t do that, does he?”

“Frank might lean on the aggressive side when trying for game, but he sticks to certain principles,” R said, “And Dewey bids more conservatively, so I’ve started suspecting it’s you halfway through this board.”

“Amateur,” Kit scoffed, “I noticed the moment he sat down, try to keep up.”

“Me too,” Bertrand chimed in. “Though admittedly it was only because K gave him a deathly glare. Why did you think I just passed 2H?”

“Good decision,” Ernest smirked. “We cooperate so nicely.  I should come play with you guys more often.”

The bidding for the next board got really competitive, everyone having something to bid.  The contracted ended up as R declaring 5H doubled, though she wondered if she should’ve doubled Ernest’s 4S instead, considering the difference between E and F’s style.

Ernest doubled R’s 5H immediately when it was his turn, giving R a sharp grin, and the fact that Kit didn’t redouble made R feel like the contract was definitely going down.

It did.

“Would 4S have make?” R asked, already suspecting the answer.

“Absolutely not, with the hand E has,” Bertrand said, amused. “Thanks for saving us from that.”

“Sorry,” R told Kit, and Kit waved it away.

“It’s fine,” she said, “hmm, I feel like you’re always quite hesitant to double though. You should try a little more, it adds to the fun.”

“Like playing with knives,” Ernest added, “figuratively.”

“Speaking of literally and figuratively, I heard about what happened last week to Gustav’s script, did Beatrice and Olaf really changed all the ‘literally’ and ‘figuratively’ in the script because they didn’t like their roles?” Kit asked.

“They did,” R said. “Crossing out everyone one of those in the script from typewriter by pen.  Like … read through the whole script in one night and finished changing all of them.”

“That requires some dedication,” Ernest commented. “Wish they do these kind of things more often instead of experimenting with, I don’t know, our new hotel popcorn machine. I don’t want it to explode.”

“Dedication? More like pettiness and too much time on hand,” Kit shook her head.  She saw R’s expression, and said drily, “and now R’s thinking that it’s dedication on Beatrice’s part and pettiness and too much free time on Olaf’s part.”

“Well, am I wrong?” R asked defiantly.

“Only 50%,” Ernest said smoothly. “The Beatrice part, in case you’re wondering.”

[04]

Frank and Bertrand reached 3NT, and Kit tried to get Bertrand to tell her why he and Beatrice got briefed with a secret mission last week.

“I don’t even need to know what the mission is, I’m just, out of professional, non-personal interest, want to know why they choose you and Beatrice to work on it. Well, and knowing what it is would be a bonus too, but not strictly necessary.”

“And people said I’m the one who couldn’t get over Beatrice,” R whispered to Frank.

“Not mutually exclusive,” Frank told her, in an equally low voice.

“No offense but that,” Bertrand said drily, “sounds like the exact opposite of professional and non-personal.”

Kit considered a bit, then said slowly, “You know how J still thinks you’re the model driver you let him think you are on your first date? Like, no clue at all about how you actually drive?  And I can rectify this situation any second?”

Bertrand narrowed his eyes slightly, “Don’t play your trump card too early, K, you never know what you’ll force out.”

“This is a notrump contract, there are no trump cards to play,” R interrupted them.

“Did Gustav convince you to join in the literally versus figuratively agenda?” Frank asked, hiding a laugh.

Kit and Bertrand ignored them, and R told Frank, “we should get some popcorn, this looks like it’ll take a while.”

“It’s right next door, I’ll go grab it really quick,” Frank said quickly, hurrying out of the room.  When he came back, someone else was with him.

“I heard there’s drama and popcorn and I don’t want to miss it,” Ernest said cheerfully, grabbing a chair.

“I’m just saying, I’ve got secrets on you too,” Bertrand said to Kit calmly.

“Can I interrupt? Because if this is in reference to Beatrice, then we all knew about it, not just you,” Ernest pointed out, then grabbed a bite of popcorn.

“To be fair, isn’t Jacques still the only who doesn’t know how he drives either?” R said.

“Ah, so everyone’s just keeping quiet for potential blackmail material, my favorite kind of scene,” Ernest nodded sagely. “Continue.”

“Frank, hand me some popcorn so I can throw it at your brother,” Kit said.

“Does Beatrice really not know?” Frank asked sceptically, ignoring Kit’s request.

“Beatrice is … surprisingly unobservant in certain aspects, all things considering,” R said neutrally.  Everyone turned to stare at her. She blinked. “I mean like, just in general, you know, not particularly referencing anything.”

“Makes one wonder if she would believe it coming from someone else, doesn’t it? She must’ve already heard all sorts of rumors about people having a crush on her.” Ernest mused. “Which might turn Bertrand’s leverage into nothing substantial.”

Kit slowly grinned. “Wow, I’m hiring you as my next scheming consultant.”

Ernest raised an eyebrow, and saluted her half-mockingly, “Ernest Denouement, at your service, Ma’am.”

Bertrand turned his gaze on Frank, “Why did you have to bring him in?”

“I’m wounded, and we partnered so well together last time,” Ernest said, shaking his head, putting one hand on his chest dramatically.

Kit looked at Bertrand, a smile playing on her lips. “So?”

“Okay,” Bertrand sighed. “You win, I’ll tell you about the mission later, alright? Just. Don’t tell Jacques ….. Please. And I don’t just mean the mission.”

“Deal,” Kit said immediately. She picked surveyed the table and the already played cards. “Well, let’s get back to the board, shall we?”

One of the Denouement triplets stood up, “I’ll leave you guys to it, then.  I should get back to work.”

“So,” R said brightly, “who wants more ice tea?”

[beatricebidelaire]

more kit & bertrand & r & frank (&ernest & dewey) play bridge in a room at hotel denouement headcanons:  kibitzing

while usually only four of them had time to attend, mainly because dewey’s usually at his secret library and one of frank or ernest had hotel matters to attend to, so all four people get to play, occasionally frank and ernest just let the concierges do the work and they’re both at the bridge session and sometimes dewey ventures out of his library and there’ll be more than 4 people so some have to kibitz instead

r was a very attentive kibitzer and she generally picked a person to watch and put herself in their shoes and imagine what she would do if she were the one holding the cards. she would be very focused as if she herself was playing the hand. when r sat behind kit, since r was taller, she occasionally liked placing her chin on kit’s shoulder

dewey was a kibitzer with expressive emotions which everyone else kind of noticed. when he has certain feelings about the layout of cards he sees he often shows his shock or frown or any other emotion in his face. his emotions were frequently used to other people’s advantage because they could guess the cards of the person dewey was watching behind sometimes.

once when kit&r partnered to play frank&bertrand and dewey was looking at frank’s cards and while frank kept a neutral expression throughout and gave nothing away, kit took one look at dewey’s deep frown that said “with these cards frank’s very likely to get endplayed” and decided to go with the route of throwing in frank and endplaying him rather than finessing bertrand twice and the route she chose made the contract. after the board bertrand, sitting opposite of frank, said, “dewey i think you sitting behind frank is very distracting for me because of the it’s like double the amount of handsomeness in front of me so could you do me a favor and go sit behind kit instead” dewey was like very baffled “are you flirting with me?” and kit who knew exactly what bertrand was doing interjected immediately “yes he is which is why you should go sit behind him instead” and bertrand glared at kit and dewey’s like “???” and r rolled her eyes and explained “dewey you’re giving away too much information every time you look at someone else’s card”

and then there’s ernest who’d gotten inspired by dewey and decided to fake his expressions which have nothing to do with the cards he saw, sometimes he would pretend to be shocked or excited when looking at very plain cards and sometimes he would lean in and fake whisper to bertrand suggesting which route to play but what he said was actually totally not applicable and he was just doing it for the chaos

frank was a good kibitzer during the time a board was being played because he could keep his expression completely neutral and devoid of information unlike either of his brothers, who either accidentally gave away truthful emotions or deliberately created false ones. but after the board, he often immediately listed out the mistakes made by people who played and how they might’ve played differently. sometimes an argument ensues “that’s speaking from hindsight” “it’s not the route with best probability that only worked since ...” “i did this move for [inserted reasons] and i think it made sense ...”

bertrand and kit generally did not prefer to kibitz and much preferred to play because they felt like they got easily distracted if they’re just watching. bertrand would have some desire to multitask and tried to watch the others play and read some coded letters at the same time and then the two tasks would distract each other. if he was playing with the cards actually in his hand he would completely get in the zone and focus on the game and calculated different odds and routes but he when not actually holding the cards or being the one playing it suddenly became harder to focus. kit was similar though she usually did not take out a letter to decode much as slip into her own thoughts and started designing a submarine in her head or other things like that and when she zoned back she’d often missed a couple of cards that were played. they both felt it was very easy to be super focused when they’re actually playing but not so much when they were just watching others play.

frank, when kibitzing, sometimes during boards which were more boring he would also do other things like trying to balance the hotel checkbook but he seemed to be able to balance between switching tasks well and not only could get some stuff done but he also didn’t miss the more exciting parts and k&b envied him for that. dewey didn’t really focus on the game sometimes either when watching and just concentrated on his library book instead and completely forgot about everyone else but unlike kit and bertrand he didn’t particularly mind nor try to focus on both the game and something else at once.

r and ernest were generally most attentive but r was much less chaotic as ernest was largely attentive because he wanted to calculate best way to make things chaotic

[beatricebidelaire]

goddddd do i rly want to write some less than safe for work stuff for the hotel denouement bridge verse in a tournament situation with all that “you’re stressed out about vfd related stuff you won’t tell anyone and also the stress is intensified by the fact you haven’t got laid in a while so you’re playing badly and im walking on eggshells around you while playing as your partner which is making me play badly all in all the team scores are suffering because we both are like this and well there is a way to fix this before next round starts in 8 minutes and your office with high privacy is right there im willing to be a team player and resolve this quick and dirty if you’ll let me” or do i just want to check off the third and last box on that very specific checklist im honestly not sure

[beatricebidelaire]

an actor, however, might regard the falsecard as too obvious and lead the nine as a double bluff

it arose in the annual match between the reporters and the actors at the tv station. the reporters like working out a bridge deal as much as getting to the bottom of a story. the actors take to the psychology aspects, trying to get into the minds of their opponents.

i..... love this line a lot i’m going to save it here. also reporters vs actors gives me. general snicketverse vibes.