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Sometimes villains need a rest, too. They don’t often get one. There’s always another volunteer to frame, a smoky crime scene to steal away from, a fortune to steal, a piece of a tea set to steal back. But they can try. Despite everything else, and themselves, they can try.
After all, the moments that Olaf will be remembered for are the farthest from rest. He knows in years to come when people whisper his name it will conjure images of theatrical weddings, dramatic disguises, of fires burning and a cutting laugh, of knives and blood and poison. Moments that play out in front of villages and volunteers.
But there are other moments, moments that will make his cheeks burn when he remembers them, as if he can still feel the heat of the fire on his face, and make his throat tighten like he can still taste the whiskey.
(There are moments that she will remember too, when she’s curled up by the window in the middle of the night, watching the black rain lash the glass. Her head will be pounding and her heart will be shaking and fluttering too fast, and the half-healed burn scars that dance up and down her arms like ugly lace will sting. The taste of vodka in her throat will burn too, and she will remember.)
They’re fleeting, these moments. The brief snatches of rest – both literal and figurative – that Olaf and Esmé Squalor find together are hardly grand or fulfilling. Sometimes they’re tiny things – little quiet moments sandwiched between arsons and murders, like the short sharp breath you take before you scream or the heartbeat before you throw a punch. Like the brief time you spend counting, between the thunder and the lightning.
She’s on the back of his motorcycle, her arms wrapped tight as a vice around his waist. The wind is fierce in their faces as the rustle of crow's wings crowd the air, and their hearts pound almost as madly as the birds flapping in simmering red sky. Dust billows up from the screeching wheels and the shouts of the mob in their wake begin to fade.
When they’re far enough away that that vile village is nothing more than a black smudge on the distant horizon, he feels her hand creep under his costume jacket and press against him. He can feel her long nails through the thin fabric of his shirt. It’s the smallest gesture, the only thing she can really do right now.
And then he can feel her pressed tighter against his back, and her voice against his ear, breathless, tired, utterly exhilarated – “Well done, darling.”
“We lost the orphans,” Olaf breathes, and his words are snatched up by the oncoming wind.
“But we’re still here, aren’t we?” Esmé says, and he can almost hear the look on her face. Her breath is warm against his cheek, and where her arms are wrapped around him, the wind doesn’t tear at his clothes and make him shiver. "And you know we're the winners in the end."
(He pretends so well sometimes he convinces himself, but he doesn't know, not always, not whole heartedly. Not until he hears her say the words.)
They’re in the car, Heimlich Hospital burning behind them, and the leather seats still smell faintly of smoke. Olaf grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turn white. Ahead, the road is empty and the land is flat. One by one, they get their breath back.
It’s only when Esmé starts coughing from the passenger seat that he really comes back down to earth. One hand leaves the steering wheel and comes to rest on her knee. He ends up gripping just as hard, but she’s never minded that. He thinks it grounds her too. She squeezes his shoulder as he speeds them away from the scene of the crime, and he swallows back a grateful smile.
They're tangled up in an uncomfortable bed a thousand miles from the safety of the city, a mess of legs and hands and moth-eaten blankets. Outside, the wind whistles through tent flaps and unsteady rollercoasters groan and creak, but in the dull glow of the lamplight, with the warmth of her body against his, all of that seems very far away.
“Did you really have an affair with Lulu?” Esmé asks with a twist of a smile. She’s stretching her neck to one side, pushing out her lower lip. Sleepy and soft-skinned with her hair falling loose and rarely tousled around her shoulders, she looks almost harmless.
Almost. There’s a glint of jealousy in her eyes, hard and sharp and trained on him like a gun. There’s tension in her shoulders. She runs a nail back and forth across his chest and it’s too casual, too calculated.
“Affair implies there were other partners involved,” Olaf points out distractedly. “That’s your speciality, dearest.”
Anyone else might have been offended. Esmé just smirks to herself, eyes lighting up with genuine mirth. Her head tilts again, her eyes – still gleaming dangerously in the dim streaky light - find his like a bullet. “And aren’t you glad about it?”
“For now.” He allows himself something close to a smile. The annoyance that’s been building up like a sticky residue inside his chest for the last few days is starting to unstick. He finds himself wrapping his arm around her, tracing a path across the back of her shoulder with his thumb. “While I’m getting the good end of the deal.”
A long, languid grin spreads over Esmé’s lips. “Darling,” She teases. “Are you scared?” One thin eyebrow lifts slightly, and her mouth pushes into a pout. “Scared I’ll leave you for someone else?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Olaf says, a bite of something genuine in his voice.
His fingers still against her back and press harder against her skin. You wouldn’t leave me, he nearly says, but she would. In the right circumstances – the wrong circumstances – in a world cluttered up with sugar bowls and sapphires and secrets from years gone by, she is fully capable of leaving him, as he is capable of leaving her. He knows this.
He knows this in the part of him that sneers at the words he whispers into her hair in the dead of the night; the part that wants to set something on fire every time she talks back or challenges him in front of the troupe; the part of him that can’t stand her clothes or her drinks or the dark things within him he sees shining out of her eyes like a broken mirror. That part of him knows they are fully capable of leaving one another, if it came to it.
Being capable of a thing and actually enjoying it are two very different things, however. (Being capable of a thing and dreading it are not mutually exclusive.)
“No,” Esmé says, and a manicured nail finds its way underneath his chin. She tilts his head up towards her, and her hair streams down around them like curtains and cuts off the rest of the world. “You’re not scared of anything, are you?”
She’s teasing. Her red lips are curled into a smirk, her eyes are bright with the excitement she gets from pushing too far. He’s scared of a great deal and she knows that and he does too. But even so, there’s a glimmer of respect in her eyes, a spark of admiration in her voice.
“Nope,” He hisses, and his hand finds its way up to the warm back of her neck, pulling her down for a short, searing kiss. His eyes close in spite of himself. When they part, their noses bump and her breath is warm and ragged against his lips. “Nothing.”
“Liar,” Esmé says, her red lips curling around the word. When she kisses him again it’s hard and helpless, and her teeth tug at his lip until he wonders if she’ll draw blood.
His breath comes hard and his unshaved cheek rasps against hers as he turns his head to whisper roughly in her ear. “Takes one to know one.”
“You never answered my question,” She hisses back, lips against his skin as his fingers burrow into her hair.
He tugs sharply at her hair and his breath hitches when her nails catch along his stomach. “You wouldn’t like the answer.”
Esmé jerks back from him like she’s been burned, her eyes sharp, brows furrowed, hair falling back from her face like the mane of some great predator.
He can’t help but laugh at the look on her face. After all, she’s not the only one who likes to dig too deep. “Relax. You look like someone smashed up your stupid tea set.”
“You’re not funny.” Esmé says accusingly, still sitting back on her knees.
“Liar,” He says back to her. For a moment he thinks he’s actually pissed her off. Then he sees her eyes crinkle before her laugh lights her up. It’s infectious – he can’t help joining in, and then they’re both laughing low together and his chest feels full of light, and heavy and hard at the same time.
(Even in this ragged place, in the middle of all this, Esmé’s laugh is bright and cutting. It makes him remember the bold-eyed girl who marched right up to him and demanded acting lessons, even though he could see the fear jump in the pulse at her throat.)
Trying not to think, he pulls her back down into his arms and for a moment she allows herself to rest there on his chest with her cheek against his beating heart, his fingers still rooted in the spill of her hair. For a moment they are both quiet and their breathing is gentle and out of time. The way they touch is nearly soft.
Because when the harsh words and hidden meanings and hopeless feelings go away, when the sharpness that cuts between them sometimes is gone, this is what remains. Two people who have done terrible things, tangled up in a carnival caravan, hands resting, feet touching, breath slowing down. They remain. And, for a while, they rest.
He brings her a bouquet of ivy.
It’s such a small thing, with everything else that’s going on but in spite (or perhaps because) of that, it makes something turn over in Esmé’s gut. Things between them have been more thinly strained than usual, thanks to Lulu and the rest (thanks to selfishness and circumstance and scars too, although when do they ever address those?) but things are looking up for them now.
Esmé smiles at him, with his grubby shirt and rolled up sleeves, dirt under his fingernails, his shiny eyes wide and somehow uncertain.
“You remembered,” She says, squeezing the stems in her hand. “Regular flowers are out.”
“Hmm,” Olaf shrugs his wiry shoulders awkwardly and glances down at his scuffed shoes for a second. “Regular flowers are ugly. And there weren’t any around, anyway.”
Esmé looks at him, this strange man, this study in contradictions. He looks oddly tense, as if he’s trying to play something off, annoyed and hopeful all at once.
“Come here,” She says, and however much he hates her telling him what to do, he does.
She leans forward and takes him by the chin and kisses him slowly and purposefully until he softens against her and brushes his hands up her arms. Biting her lip, Esmé winds her arms around his neck, clutching the small bouquet of ivy behind his head, and grins until, begrudgingly, he does too.
“You’re shivering,” Esmé murmurs, breath warm against his neck. She looks up at him, and there’s that fevered gleam in his eyes that makes her heart race with excitement. “Now, what do you say we go and warm the rest of this dismal place up a bit?”
“My love,” A slow smile creeps across his tired face. “I would say that’s the best thing I’ve heard since those lions started growling.”
“Well,” Esmé smirks, tilting her head to the side. “I try.”
Grinning, Olaf reaches for a torch and lights it off the flaming lamp behind them, his free hand never leaving her hip. His fingers are warm even through her dress. She watches the orange glow shift over his face and wraps an arm around him, pulling him close with one hand and holding tight to her ivy with the other.
“Come on, Esmé,” Olaf says, as they head out of the tent. “Let’s go have some fun.”
The night Caligari Carnival burns is something near to magic.
Olaf is preoccupied, of course, making sure everything’s in place – that the freaks are all in the right places, that the baby is in the right place, that the plan, this time, will not fail. But there’s a moment amidst the chaos where it’s almost like time stands still.
It’s just for a second. Around him, the carnival burns. Flames leap and lash and crack flumes of glowing sparks into the night air, while smoke billows up like ink blotting out the moon and stars. The burning rollercoaster creaks and groans like some huge dying beast. The world is lit up every shade of orange and gold, metal poles glow red as the canvas of tents collapse and burn.
He watches the flames billow higher and higher into the glassy black sky and breathes in the smell of smoke, and allows himself to feel the satisfaction, the purpose. This is his work. This is his glory.
Across the field, he can see Esmé. She’s laughing wildly as the flames around her, vicious in her triumph, the golden light of the fire washing over her skin and catching in her hair. She’s part wildfire herself, he thinks, and in that moment he sees it clearly. She is a force of nature, utterly uncontrollable, utterly uncontainable. (It’s what he loves about her, and what he hates.)
When she comes to him, the light of the fire blazing in her eyes, he takes her by the hand and for once he doesn’t hold too tight. She squeezes his hand in hers and for one fiery moment he is not a failure and more importantly, he is not alone. For one breathless second, he turns to catch her eye and the smile flickering across her mouth catches on his own lips and blazes within him. Around them, the carnival burns and groans and crumbles. Soon white ash will drift down and they will be long gone. But in this instant they stand smiling, hand in hand, the heat that they started bathing over them.
(Years later, she will remember this moment. The look in his shiny eyes, the way his breath fell fast from parted lips. The crack of the flames against the sky, the shower of sparks and ashes that rained down on them like scorching snowflakes. She will remember the way her heart pounded and her blood sang and she revelled in her victory, his victory, their victory. She’ll remember the feel of his hand in hers.
And then she’ll remember another fire, a different smoke. She’ll remember watching the huge orange flames roar up in front of her. How her heart raced with shock instead of triumph. She’ll remember a time her skin burnt and her breath came short and her eyes streamed as she tugged a different hand – a little girl’s hand – and ran, and how different that was to the night she had Count Olaf beside her as they burnt up the sky.)
It’s cold in the mountains, and things between them get colder still.
Between the tension in the troupe, the blasted baby, the sugar bowl, the fortune(s), the scouts, the gnats, the weather and everything else, it’s hard to keep their issues contained within the lines they have drawn up for them. So though they are still a comfort to one another, there are just a few more snapped comments, a few more seconds of strain in the thin cold air between them.
And yet, every night, the inside of Olaf’s ratty tent is warm.
Sure, the snow piles up outside and the mournful hollow call of the wind winds through the trees below, but the canvas walls are thick and they don’t stir. The musty furs on their makeshift bed are still soft and hold in the heat. But Esmé’s mouth is the warmest thing of all, and her skin is like a furnace.
“How are you always so hot?” Olaf whispers one night, teeth against her ear.
Esmé gives a small, breathy laugh and takes his face between her warm palms. She’s straddling his lap, her knees pressed against the outside of his thighs, and her the heat of her seeps into him and takes some of the chill from his bones. She shrugs, her loose hair falling across her shoulders. “It’s a special talent of mine.”
“One of many,” Olaf adds, gripping her by the waist and trailing his mouth down along her jawline.
She chuckles, a low, smoky sound as warm as she is. “One of many,” She agrees, her hands moving up to thread through his hair, her long manicured nails tugging slightly. And for a while, at least, the frost is melted and he feels warm all the way through.
Then the bearded man and the beard-less woman show up and things start to freeze over ever more rapidly.
They’re on top of the world, and they’re not.
The sun gleams off the endless sheets of snow, the tips of frosted evergreens, the frozen rivers that snake like silver ribbons across the valley. The winter wind blows fierce. The sound of it prowling and howling through the mountains is thin and mournful. His fingertips are numb, and the bottle in his hand feels cold enough to crack.
She turns her face to look at him, and the look on her face is blunt and unapologetic. She doesn’t offer him kind words and wise counsel, as someone else might have done. She doesn’t try to make him laugh or make him strong or make him forget. She just looks at him and lets him sit with it, and then she holds out a gloved hand. “Well, don’t keep it all to yourself.”
Wordlessly, he hands her the bottle. As she takes a deep drink, he watches the way the light glints off the frozen streams and the distant waterfalls. It’s practically blinding. It’s annoying, really.
He nearly jumps when out of the corner of his eye, he sees Esmé draw back the half empty bottle and hurl it over the edge of the cliff. For a second it spins and sparkles in the dazzling winter sun, before smashing on a rock somewhere thousands of feet below them.
“What did you do that for?” Anger flares in him and rises in his gullet, no matter how he tries to choke it down.
“Because it’s not good for you,” Esmé snaps, sitting back as if that’s the end of that.
Something shifts inside his stomach, but he couldn’t say what. In response, he leans over and snatches the ridiculous cigarette from between her elegant fingers. It goes over the cliff too, but it falls softly, lands silently.
He doesn’t need to turn his head to see the angry look on her lovely face. “I told you, I only did that for your own good –”
“So did I.” Olaf snaps back, and this time he can’t help but flick his gaze towards her.
Esmé blinks her wide eyes and sighs a small sigh that mists white in the frosty air. “Oh.” She says, and her voice is changed. Then she smooths out her frown and raises her chin, surveying the snowy landscape laid out beneath them. “Still wasn’t very nice of you.”
Olaf almost cracks a smile. “If I was nice you wouldn’t be here.”
This time when he looks at her she’s smiling, a small, begrudging smirk that makes her eyes shine in the winter sun. "You do know me, don't you?"
He doesn't smile, but he thinks about it. “For the record, that liquor was keeping me warm. It’s freezing up here.”
Almost abruptly, she tosses her hair and scoots closer to him, until her hip is touching his and their thighs are pressed together. “Well,” She says. “We’ll have to find another way to warm you up, won’t we?”
He turns to her, and her lips are right there, waiting for him.
Their makeshift bedroom in the submarine is far from cosy. So far under the sea, even the artificial light seems murky and mottled, the metal walls green and grey and harsh. Somehow the press of all that water is tangible even inside. It’s unsettling. It makes the back of his neck itch. He thrives on fire, and nothing burns below the sea. It makes it hard to sleep. Harder than usual, anyway. (Even above sea level, he needs at least a bottle of whiskey to get him snoring, and that’s on a good day.)
It’s hard to tell what time it is down there, but he guesses it’s pretty close to morning. Soon, he will get out of bed, put the troupe to work and capture that silly submarine and the three wealthy brats for good – his own good, that is – but for a few more blessed minutes, he gets to lie on his back and breathe.
Esmé is asleep, of course. Esmé sleeps like a rock. Every night without fail, it only takes a few minutes after she rolls over for her eyes to shut and her breath to slow and soften. (Part of him is jealous.) She doesn’t snore, but she mumbles sometimes, bits of words that he can’t ever really make out. He thinks it’s probably better that way. Who knows what he might hear?
Some nights she falls asleep clutching him and climbing all over him, which is annoying. Other nights she tosses over and mutters angrily and shoves him away when he tries to hold her, which is more than annoying. This morning, she is laid out at his side, her head resting against his chest, an arm slung across his stomach.
Asleep and silent, she looks far younger and oddly peaceful. Her lips are parted, her chest rises and falls gently with every breath. With the kind of care he doesn’t really allow himself when she’s awake, he brushes an errant curl of hair back off her face. She’s so pretty, he thinks. (He doesn’t deserve her.) Prettier than – well, some women – and much, much uglier. (So maybe he does.)
Sometimes he lays like this, watching her breathe in and out so gently, and wills her to stay asleep just a little longer. Asleep, there are no complications, no problems – well, not comparatively.
Sometimes he thinks watching her sleep is the closest he gets to peace.
By the time they reach the blasted hotel, things are already falling apart. They’ve been falling apart for some time, really. It was never going to work between them – it never did. They’re too alike, and too different all at the same time. They want different things with the same violent determination.
(And the minute words like family and kids start cropping up, well. Some words can tear holes like a shot from a harpoon gun. Even the good moments now are hot with all the things simmering in the air between them.)
But still, still –
They’re finalising their plans for the cocktail party and his forehead is still creased with worry, with the grim determination to get this right at last, and his whole body feels tight and tense, until his back smacks against the ugly wallpaper, and Esmé’s body is pressed against his.
“Relax,” She hisses into his ear, one hand slipping against his neck, her thumb rubbing circles against his skin. There’s a bite of annoyance in her voice though, and her light touches are more sharp nail than soft skin.
Something surges in him and he grabs her, one hand at her throat, the other at her hip, and kisses her fiercely. It’s not like the way they often kiss in the morning, soft and languid, or the way they often kiss at night, hungry and purposeful. It’s all teeth and tongue, clashing noses and shoving, hands tugging hair too sharply, nails scratching skin too deeply.
Her teeth scrape over his lip, and he shudders, and it might not be the same as holding her as she sleeps, or dancing in her apartment, but it is rest none the less. A different kind of rest. Just one of many ways they have of helping one another forget.
And when, after a few minutes, she crosses the room to fix her lipstick and tidy her tousled hair, she throws a glance over her shoulder and they share a breathless smile. There’s still a current of tension in their air, but there’s everything else, too. Olaf shakes his head, rubbing her smudged makeup off his face with the back of his hand.
“Come on,” He mutters, pulling open the door. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
What happens after is not very restful at all.
And when it’s all over, and the headlines argue with black shouting letters about the details of his death, it’s not the big memories that haunt her.
When Esmé Squalor wakes breathless in the deathly still night, it’s not the raging fires or the daring chases that flash through her head. She doesn’t ache for the screams and fights, the awful words they hurled at one another on mountaintops and in hotel lobbies. The parties, the schemes, the disguises, the dramatic entrances, the adrenaline-buzzed exits – they don’t hurt her. She doesn’t care. Those things are public property anyway.
No, what sticks in her chest like mud or cold snow, what tingles along her skin and over the gory map of her burn scars like sandpaper – it’s not any of that.
It’s laughing together a hundred miles below the sea, really, genuinely, madly laughing.
It’s spinning and dancing around her husband’s apartment with the flush-faced joy of plans planned and long awaited reunions and his rough hand in hers.
It’s lying with their legs and fingers tangled up together in makeshift beds across the country, in ragged tents, in dusty villages, in submarines.
It’s the look in his eyes and the breath behind his smile when the glowing sparks rained down around them both. When they brought a carnival to its knees.
It’s clinging on tight to one another, speeding towards the flat horizon on a motorcycle with his heartbeat under her hand.
It’s kissing out their anger in a dingy hotel room, nails scraping, hands tugging, backs shoving against ugly wallpaper.
It’s plans made in the middle of the night, with her knees against his hips, his hands on her back and in her hair, her mouth against his ear. Their voices hushed in the dark. We’ll get the sugar bowl, darling. Whispered promises, hissed plans. And the fortune too. Rushed kisses, and the ones that were allowed to linger, warm and close. All the fortunes you could want.
(But she already had a fortune.
It was him she wanted, in the beginning. Since she was eighteen and stupid and hungry for everything she wasn’t ready for. And then she had him and she loved him and she loathed him, and in the end she wasn’t sure if she wanted to marry him or murder him but for a brief shining time, as bright and chaotic as a flame dancing on the end of a match, she had him. They took it in turn to play the spark and the gasoline. The bigger the fire, the more destructive and self-destructive it becomes. And brighter, too.)
In the end, what it all comes down to, is liquor out of the bottle at three in the morning. It comes down to Esmé sitting alone in a huge empty room in the dark, drinking with hard eyes and a heart burnt wide open. Her scars itch and she hates herself for it, and him. He might have been the reason she needed those moments to stop and breathe, but he gave them to her too, when he could.
And these are the moments she thinks she may never quite lay to rest.