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pipbellerophon · 1 month

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sometimes a family is three orphans, their adopted daughter, one not-so-sad writer, and two triplets

frank, beatrice the second, the baudelaires, lemony, ernest, implied ernest/lemony

gen

3,598 words

In the grand tradition of all parents, the extended baudelaire family find themselves trying to pull a fast one.

for @asouefanworkevent's woevember day 4, the hotel denouement! some rambling headcanon nonsense half-fic about post-canon family that i had great fun doing. my favorite thing in the whole world is post-canon babybea interacting with her absurd enormous family. i love them all so much.

okay. so bear with me here

so i think most parents/guardians are at one point or another faced with Pulling The Ultimate Fast One on their children. this is related to Your Beloved Pet Died But We’re Telling You We Sent Them To Live On The Farm, but this version, in particular, is infinitely easier and harder. this one is The Switch. The Replacement. The Double. when the intrepid parent or guardian, under the cover of night, goes to the pet store to purchase The Exact Same Animal because the first animal had an untimely death. i will admit, this is the easiest with like, a goldfish, or something else small where you can usually get one that looks very similar.

now, for babybea, it’s a pumpkin.

so babybea (who is twelve at the time this story takes place), at the very end of september, carves a pumpkin, and she goes in with a VISION. she spends a couple hours on this pumpkin, carving an owl. It’s not, yknow, a realistic owl, but she adds a lot of tiny details, lots of lines for the feathers, and she carves a little mouse on the side too, and even gets the side of a tree in there, and the pumpkin carving kit the baudelaires purchased that year came with these little stick lights, to put in the owl eyes after carving, so it has orange eyes!! this is!!!! The neatest thing babybea has ever seen, and she is so thrilled with the results and very proud of this pumpkin. (for the record – violet carves a few pumpkins into a starry night with a moon, klaus carves monstera leaves, and. let’s be real. sunny bites a series of turnips into jack-o-lanterns.) (and then she stabs a couple white pumpkins into bigger jack-o-lanterns, for variety. all of them get different expressions!

sunny, arranging her carved vegetation on the baudelaire porch in order of emotion: perfect.) (no, i don’t know what order of emotion means. But sunny does.)

Then they all pile into violet’s car – pumpkin included!! – and drive almost an hour out of the city to the bildungsroman bed and breakfast. (frank and ernest decided, at this point in their lives, if they were going to commit to anything, it may as well be The Bit.) (it has a local reputation as a place with solid wifi, stellar bread, and great mattresses. The owners are considered minorly eccentric, mostly for the portrait they have in the lobby, of, just one of them.

some impassioned yelp review: okay so the stay was great big recommend PLEASE try the bread but i cannot figure out the story behind the portrait in the lobby????? it's just one one of the owners?????? but I don't understand why bc they're twins and it's just ONE of them?????? and he's wearing this frog-patterned tie in the painting and when you see them like in person. neither of them wear the tie. what's the deal here

the locals are sure it's not an ego thing, bc the owners don't seem to be self-centered or anything like that. In fact, if asked about the painting, both of them will say, “oh, that's a painting of my brother.”

an additional yelp comment: I think. there's THREE of them a third yelp comment: don't be silly, they're definitely twins.)

frank and ernest have a very elaborate series of outdoor autumn decorations, with lots of pumpkins and mini gourds and hay bales over the front steps and corn stalks on all the porch posts, and babybea wants to not only show her uncles her hard work, but also put the pumpkin on their steps where everyone can see it!!

(her uncles also include lemony, of course – I think he did live with the baudelaires for some time after reuniting babybea with them, but has recently moved into ernest's side of the private apartment at the back of the hotel. this was mildly distressing to babybea, who likes everyone she loves under the same roof, but she can't deny that lemony is very happy. and so is ernest. and now she can see all her uncles in the same place whenever she wants!! so the baudelaires tend to spend weekends at the bed and breakfast, because they also miss lemony. and they get to know frank and ernest better, which is very important to them, as people who are important to babybea, and to lemony, and, to the baudelaire's past.) (not to like, detract from the sentiment here, but i do need everyone to know that i imagine ernest spends like, 80% of his working hours just making out with lemony.) (okay maybe not 80%. ernest does legitimately get work done, it’s his hotel too. ………but like, a lot of time.)

AND SO. the baudelaires arrive at the bed and breakfast, and frank and ernest and lemony are very proud of their niece's pumpkin. they take a lot of pictures. (re: my previous post-canon thoughts, frank has actually acquired a phone now, and does text. it is a flip phone.) babybea places it, very gently, on the third front step, and is so pleased. sunny steals two mini gourds while looking ernest dead in the eye. ernest approves.

But october turns out to be unseasonably warm, and babybea’s pumpkin, while lovingly carved but now lacking the support an uncarved pumpkin has to keep itself A Pumpkin, does not take kindly to the weather, and babybea actually becomes very distressed at the smallest signs of rot beginning to form in her pumpkin, when it is only the second week of october. She doesn’t TELL anybody, because there’s not really much you can do about a pumpkin doing what a pumpkin does in warm weather, but she’s very upset. (almost uncharacteristically so. usually she’d say, oh, well that’s how it happens, and rather pleasantly move on, but lately, she’s been kind of. quieter than usual.) And frank, who spends a great deal of time at the front desk, closest to the pumpkins, becomes Concerned.

now, in general, babybea’s family is like, pretty good at being realistic with her. She is of course an optimist, but still Aware of a great deal of the ways of the world, given her family, her upbringing, lemony’s books, her own adventures, everything. You can’t really shield this twelve year old from the ways of the world, even if that way of the world is, a rotting vegetable. All things have their time, and it cannot be stopped. Including seasons, and in-season foods.

However. She put SO MUCH WORK into that pumpkin, and as the week goes by and the pumpkin starts to shrink in on itself, turning all of babybea’s work black from the inside out, those charming little glowstick eyes CAVING IN, and the baudelaire’s weekly weekend visit grows closer and closer, frank has been imagining her devastated reaction when she sees the pumpkin, and decides, He Must Pull The Fast One. he will re-carve the pumpkin, exactly as babybea carved it, replace the pumpkin, and no one will be the wiser. They get a little more time with the pumpkin, presumably at least until halloween, and his niece gets to see her beautiful handiwork as much as she likes. Maybe, you know, there is a little magic in the world after all, to make a pumpkin look so nice.

(also, i think frank has. A shaky relationship with babybea, from his end. She loves him, as much as she loves everyone else in her family, and babybea herself would NEVER rank her uncles in order of how well she knows or admires them, but i, lulu vandelay, putting this together, have no qualms in saying she knows lemony the best, bc she has spent the most time with him, between trying to find him and both of them trying to find the baudelaires and all of them having lived together, and she’s rather deeply attached to him – ernest is very personable, and funny, so he’s easy to get along with – and she and frank both like tiny detail work, so they have things in common, but frank always seems very awkward around her. And he is. It’s bc he’s very nervous around her. Frank doesn’t think he’s good with kids. And he is usually acutely aware that in an ideal world, he isn’t the one she’d be spending her time with, that dewey would be so much better at all of this than he is. A better parent, a better brother, a better everything. Because dewey always was, to frank. but, dewey would probably want frank to do as much as he could for her, and would believe him absolutely capable of doing it, without a doubt. So he wants to be a proper uncle to her and THIS is his opportunity, he thinks. He so desperately wants to do something kind and considerate and important for her, like family is supposed to do for each other.)

the thing about pumpkins, though, is that, for some reason, mid-october, THEY ALL DISAPPEAR. I’m serious, you ever try and find a good pumpkin even like a little over halfway through october? It can be hard.

frank: i need your assistance. ernest: i’ve killed my quota for the month. frank: i – ernest, please. ernest: alright, my apologies. What do you need? frank: a pumpkin. lemony, from the kitchen: jarrahdale or red warty? frank: no, i mean a carving pumpkin.

The three of them take a good, long look at babybea’s pumpkin. Uncle Instincts Have Activated. They, very solemnly, bury the pumpkin in the back garden (lemony is the one who takes one for the team and removes the glowstick eyes from the depths of sad, sad pumpkin). And then embark on a mission. Please imagine the three of them packed into a mint green 1960 chevy corvette. Sunglasses optional. Who’s driving? That is up to you, my friend. Oh, google informs me it is cascade green. Imagine accordingly. (yes, no corvette has ever been made with more than two seats, but isn’t that just funnier? They really are packed in there. Lemony sits in the middle.)

The hunt for the right pumpkin is long. Grueling! Kinda chilly! This is october!! Much comparison is made between potential pumpkins and the pictures they took of babybea’s pumpkin. Snacks are purchased. (lemony, who has recently been introduced to instagram, posts a picture of his pretzel. [ernest is out of focus in the corner, eating a chocolate ice cream cone.] [#pretzel.]

sunbad: what is that lemonysnicket: I have purchased a pretzel sunbad: without me sunbad: you’re dead to me.)

(it was actually not sunny who introduced lemony to instagram, although she was his first follower. It was klaus.) (klaus uses instagram mainly to never post anything ever, just to follow his favorite authors, so he wanted lemony to have an instagram, especially since he just moved out.) (klaus……..my heart………..) (oh, frank bought chex mix. he likes those gross rye bread pieces.)

(don’t get me started on lemony with an instagram……….I think this is a hilarious but also heartwarming thought – this man who has avoided being photographed for years and years and years and YEARS (yes that much repetition was in fact necessary) is at a point in his life here he is not only comfortable of taking pictures of his life, but he is capable of doing it, he’s allowed!! It’s still probably mostly food and it’s so good!!!!!!!! and think of the amount of pictures he keeps just in his phone gallery, too!!! violet’s inventions and klaus’ library displays and sunny’s baking and babybea’s school projects and ernest’s record collection and frank’s breakfast spreads, and nature shots with lemony’s thumb in the corner, AAAAAAAAAAAA) (uh, anyway, these men are on a mission. back to the mission.)

Eventually, they do find a comparable replacement pumpkin! Does it fit in the car? Lemony, by virtue of sitting in the middle, holds the pumpkin.

They return to the bed and breakfast. Between the three of them, many different knives, and all of their photos, frank and ernest and lemony painstakingly recreate babybea’s pumpkin, down to the last, smallest detail. Including the little mouse and the side of the tree and the feathers and everything. (frank does do most of the work, because ernest and lemony very much see that this is important to him, but he doesn’t mind them helping, because, yknow. This is about family, and babybea is their family too.) (frank feels like he owes lemony a lot. for trying to set the record straight about their past. or as straight as one could try and set it, with what all of them did. for their niece. for making ernest happy.) (ernest deserves to be happy, with everything they put each other through. ernest thinks the same for frank, too.)

(ugggggg if you told the three of them when they were so much younger that one day they’d stay up late recreating their niece’s perfect pumpkin masterpiece so she’s not upset about the passage of time………..)

(who’s in charge of the bed and breakfast while all of this is happening??

ernest: mallory, you’re in charge. mallory, a twenty-two year old with a major in hotel management who runs the front desk when ernest and frank can’t: sounds like a plan.

mallory has a deep respect for the denouements. meanwhile –

mallory: so you’re lemony snicket. lemony: i am, yes. mallory: you don’t look like your photo. lemony: that’s my legal representative. he has a stamp.)

meanwhile meanwhile – it is not necessarily about the pumpkin.

For babybea’s part, she already firmly believes that there is some sort of magic in the world. Even at twelve. Especially at twelve!! Look, she knows it wasn’t magic that reunited her with her family, that it was her and lemony’s hard work, but she wound up with SO much more family than she expected, when she first contacted lemony. And like, that is what there’s magic in. this whole group of people who care about her and love her and want to spend time with her. Babybea thinks she has the best family in the whole entire world. (AND SHE’S RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!)

But that is also babybea’s problem right now. She loves her family so much, and she loves having them, and it’s been a couple months but she is still not entirely comfortable with people she loves being so far away from her. Not now! Not when they’re all supposed to be in the same space, like they’re supposed to be!! And some kids at school have teased her, not so much about her puzzle-piece family but that she talks about her uncles so much. She’s just proud of her family and she loves them!! But middle schoolers are like, rude as fuck sometimes, okay. And they don’t even think they’re saying anything wrong, just offhand comments about how much she talks about them. They don’t even know anything about her parents, not really, but babybea starts to feel like, it’s the unspoken throughline in what they’re saying, why doesn’t she ever talk about them? Why only her uncles, her guardians? They’re her family, but –

she feels almost guilty, that she goes through periods where she doesn’t even think of her parents at all, and periods where she can’t stop thinking about what they would look like and what they would be like, and that makes her feel like she doesn’t value the family she DOES have. So it’s not necessarily about the pumpkin starting to rot, what’s making her upset. It’s that, the pumpkin is another thing in a line of things babybea is Thinking about, things that aren’t Going the way she thought they were supposed to go. Her uncle moving out, missing somebody who was supposed to be there, her pumpkin not staying like it’s supposed to, she’s SUPPOSED to love her family but is she loving them right? Is she loving the right people right? Can you miss people you didn’t even know? And babybea has it very set in her head, the things she knows and is supposed to do – this is something she hasn’t quite worked on, but she’ll get to it eventually, she is still twelve – and they keep not happening like that. And now. Something else she worked really, really, really hard on, that isn’t going right either.

So she spends the week a little gloomy about her pumpkin, and worrying the whole ride friday afternoon after school to the bildungsroman bed and breakfast. Violet and klaus and sunny are very aware of babybea’s mood, and try to cheer her up by asking her about what she’ll be for halloween, but babybea’s heart is not super into this conversation. (she has ideas about a big group costume where they’re all different local birds, but now she’s not even sure about that.)

And then! She sees her pumpkin!! Glowy eyes and all!!!!! And, mysteriously, those little spots of rot she’d noticed the week before are gone, and, in fact, it looks a little sharper than it had before? And she didn’t think she’d cut the lid quite like that, but! That’s her pumpkin, exactly where it’s supposed to be!!! And it makes her feel just a little better. That’s good. That’s right. But she still can’t, entirely shake off all her previous feelings, about family. But. right now. Her pumpkin still looks very special.

Later, babybea can’t sleep. So she sneaks out of bed and goes down to the lobby, and sits down on the floor in front of the front desk, and looks at the big painting on the wall, that ernest did of her father.

This, of course, is where frank finds her. (because frank has never been very good at sleeping consistently, even when there’s nothing to worry about now, and he likes to walk through the hotel to make sure it’s secure.)

(ernest would say something very clever, like, aha, with a raised eyebrow, but all frank says is – )

frank: hello, beatrice. beatrice: oh! beatrice: hello, uncle frank. frank: may i sit down? beatrice: yes, please.

They spend a little while looking at the portrait.

beatrice: um – beatrice: does it –

What she wants to ask is, does it look very much like my father, which she then realizes is such a STUPID question if her father was a TRIPLET and she has a mirror image of him right in front of her, who acts like she thinks a father is supposed to act, so, but, it’s not like that doesn’t mean dewey didn’t look like dewey. Just because dewey looked like frank doesn’t mean he only looked like frank. And beatrice forgets, sometimes, that he would’ve just looked just like her uncles. But still!

beatrice: i mean – the painting, is it –

But she thinks it’s such a terrible thing to ask!! But frank knows EXACTLY what she means.

(some time ago, when the hotel had just opened and ernest had just painted the portrait of dewey –

ernest: i wanted it to look like him. And, it’s not like i, don’t know what he looks like. Looked like. I mean – that could just be me or you up there, couldn’t it. It doesn’t look like it’s him. frank: no, it does. frank, knowing exactly what he means and feeling like, he needs to make ernest Not look so abjectly miserable: you don’t look nearly as happy. ernest, in tears, very amused and touched and still terribly upset: wow!

The point being, god of course it looks like dewey. It couldn’t be anybody but dewey, even if dewey looks like other people. Dewey looks like himself, he looks like his family, he looks like beatrice, around the eyes. And family means lots of things. It means your guardians raising you, and your uncles raising you, and your father’s portrait on the wall and never knowing him at all, and loving so many people and being loved back by them, whether or not it’s Supposed to be a specific way, and sometimes it means missing somebody, sometimes it means missing different people, sometimes it means being sad for something you’re not sure if you should or could miss, sometimes it means not missing anyone at all, sometimes it means your uncle going to live with his definitely boyfriend even if they won’t say the words out loud who’s also your uncle just on the other side of your family and that doesn’t mean anyone’s going anywhere. Sometimes it means your pumpkin rotting, because things change. uh, does this make sense.) (admittedly, i put a lot of things in this.)

frank: yes, it looks very much like him. frank: i think about him a lot. beatrice: ......would he like my pumpkin? frank, without hesitation: absolutely. beatrice: do you like it? frank: i do.

of course babybea already knew that, but it's nice to hear. it's just. nice. it's not, like, everything? just like before. but beatrice is loved by a lot of people, and she loves them, too, and. she feels loved, right here, like she's supposed to, and that's what's Supposed to happen.

beatrice hugs him, and it's not the first time she's hugged frank, but it means more? frank hugs her back.

beatrice: thanks for fixing my pumpkin. frank: i’m sure i don’t know what you mean, beatrice.

beatrice hugs him again, and then goes back upstairs. frank looks a little longer at the portrait, and then goes to bed himself, and doesn't get back up until his alarm goes off.

#this is the funniest fic ive ever read im obsessed with them #asoue #fic #very sweet many feelings about it but the three uncles out in their mint green corvette. giggling fr

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