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Partners.
For good or for bad, for better or for worse, that’s what they are.
Partners.
He doesn’t quite know when it started. Was it 25 years ago, or was it ten? Whatever calamitous event had thrown them together, it was the unseasonably long Driveway of Bad Ideas that led them to owning the Lucky Smells Lumbermill. Through better and for worse, through Baudelaires both young and old, they had stuck together.
But now? Now Charles doesn’t know.
Sir has left him for greater climbs, and Lucky Smells is crumbling around him. What he had- what they had hadn’t been much, but it had been home.
A broken-down lumbermill with hypnotised employees in the back of beyond? At least it had been something.
His kitchen, with the best pan for frying eggs and the one nook above the stovetop where he could hang his tea towel – the library, with multitudes of copies of the same book, one page removed – the smell of Sir’s cigar smoke hanging in the air…
He slams a palm over his eyes, and drops his travelling case to the ground, not willing to let the trees around him bear witness to his malcontent. Be it eight years, or 25, or simply a season, he’s never truly felt so alone. He pulls his cardigan tighter around himself but it does little to soothe the ache in his chest.
It hadn’t been good, what they had. Co-dependency? Not quite. More accurately, Sir was too bloody self-contained to care for anyone else around him, and didn’t have the emotional range to even try. And yet, Charles had held on, hoping for the impossible.
He’d cooked, he’d cleaned –
Damn. He huffs, only partly in anger. He’d practically been a bloody maid!
But he wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, it had almost been a marriage of convenience and he had been too blind to see it. But, he doesn’t think he would have left.
He doesn’t think he can leave. Despite whatever he tells himself, he’s tried. There’s no place better for people like him. They get a cottage, a nice kitchen, and someone who loves them.
If they’re lucky. He doesn’t think he’s very lucky any more.
He sniffs, sucks in a melancholic breath and picks up his case again. The road is long and confusing, and his destination more so. And yet, he keeps walking.
Years ago, there’d been another man. After the Paltryville fire, he had come poking about, looking suspicious and very film-noir-esque. Charles hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, being far too preoccupied with trying to wean Sir off the cigars (with mixed results), but the man had seemed strange.
Charles had helped him carry his abnormally small bags to a taxi, one day, and the man had looked at him with some semblance of weary regret. “I’m sorry.” He had said, “If it’s any consolation, time is a healer of most things, even hearts.”
And before he could even learn his name, the taxi had roared off, leaving a cloud of dank smoke in its wake.
Charles supposes he understands now. All this time, has it really been that obvious? His (ridiculous, melodramatic, silly) crush out for all the world to see. He supposes he’s made an impression on someone, at least.
Sir is elsewhere, now. He mightn’t even find him. This quest is impossible and maybe it’s a sign.
Time for him to move on. Time for him to leave the past in the past. Love is best reserved for pop songs and the trappings of children’s books. Charles has other things to do.
He has questions, and he hopes the Hotel Denouement has the answers.
A stiff wind blows past as he picks up the pace.