#also bertrand gave like 20 different reasons for wanting to do this and i only believe the one about wanting a finders fee lmao | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

beatricebidelaire · 5 years

Text

Brighter Days

pairing: Bertrand Baudelaire / Dewey Denouement

summary: Dewey pines over Bertrand. Beatrice and Ernest ride horses.

word count: ~2.2k

alt: ao3

Kit was speeding through the traffic, breaking several traffic rules under one minute, but Dewey’s mind was barely there. As they drove through a tunnel, he remembered that night all those years ago, in the dead of the night, the first time his friend without a license drove him all the way to another city just to visit a library that was rumored to only open from 10pm to before dawn. (Though, on another note, Dewey realized he couldn’t be actually 100% sure that Kit had a license now.)

Dewey remembered Bertrand had been driving far more carefully at that time than Kit was doing now, with the explanation of not wanting to draw attention and get stopped by a cop, but Dewey had been quite excited and a little scared anyway. The thrill of the late night adventure and sneaking out had been fun and an everlasting memory that made him nostalgic until today.

They were fourteen, and Bertrand somehow managed to convince his chaperone to let him borrow the green roadster for the night.

Dewey had read books on driving before, but his experience with actually driving was quite limited – well, none, in fact. Unlike Bertrand, who just shrugged and said “yeah my chaperone lets me drive the roadster sometimes” when Dewey first found out Bertrand had already done this several times.

“So, tell me about this night time library,” Bertrand asked, sounding curious, and Dewey latched into an excited explanation about the rumors he heard of, and the scraps of information he gathered from newspaper and magazines.

“One of the magazines says they have lots of books about vampires, don’t know if that’s true or not, but it sounds pretty interesting.”

“Hmmm,” Bertrand said, sounding amused, “if it’s true, those bunch of theater kids would be so mad you didn’t invite them.” They both laughed.

Dewey noticed Bertrand had quite a nice laugh.

They continued the drive, a drive that would, at some later point in time of Dewey’s life, made him wonder if this was the start of his attraction to people who would take him on adventurous car-rides, while he studied maps and inaccurate tour books info beside them. People who’d been on many missions out in the city and other places while he spent most of his time in the library – they had a certain kind of appeal. Though the drive with Bertrand wasn’t as dangerously speedy and rules-disregarding as the later ones he would have with Kit, the night time sneaking out was enough for his 14-year-old self.

Later into the night, Dewey would get excited over all the new books he hadn’t seen in other libraries before. He would memorize every piece of rare edition of classics he found, while Bertrand trod patiently alongside of him and seemed visibly more excited when he reached the engineering section.

“I take it you’re not much of a classic literature guy?” he asked later, a little curiously, as they stepped out of the library.

Bertrand considered that. “Let’s just say I enjoy building things more,” he said.

“And yet you drive me all the way here, to a library in a different town.”

Bertrand hesitated, and Dewey couldn’t really see his expression in the dark of night. “The library doesn’t just have classic literature, Mr. Denouement.”

In retrospect, Dewey desperately wished he’d seen his expression.

During their teenage years, Bertrand would sometimes escape his group of theater friends he often help build sets with and join him in the library. Occasionally, he brought some fancy shape chocolates R made for everyone. “You can’t just stay in the library for 12 hours and not eat anything,” he would say, slightly disapprovingly, but would give in easily when Dewey claimed he’s ‘almost finished with this book’.

They would carefully eat the chocolates together, trying to not to drop anything, and Dewey would finish his book while Bertrand did Sudoku puzzles beside him.

He couldn’t remember exactly which time they started leaning against each other.

If he wanted to pinpoint exactly where things started going downhill, Dewey would probably say a certain night at the opera, one he hadn’t actually attended himself. Everything became a little off after that, though he didn’t immediately notice. By the time he heard about what happened that night from other people, it was already too late.

He remembered, clearly, their first fight that happened because of that. It was probably not big enough of a fight in other’s people’s eyes, but it was bad enough, considering how they usually were.

“Maybe you’re right, but I don’t want to – I can’t talk about this anymore. And we’re not going to change the past by talking about it.” Bertrand said before he left.

It was, as he feared, all downhill from there. Some days he wished he’d told him his feelings, some days he was glad he never did. On the day Bertrand came to tell him he and Beatrice were leaving The City, he kind of wished he had.

“What about all the volunteer work?”

“There are more important things, Mr. Denouement,” Bertrand replied, and Dewey hated the formality that he’d found endearing all those years ago.

“That’s not what you said when we were kids,” he argued, weakly.

“We were never kids,” was the answer he got, and also the last words he’d ever gotten from him.

[A timestamp, between the present and the memories]

“Hey, Frank,” Beatrice greeted him as she climbed onto a horse cheerily. “Ready to admire my speed on the horse from far behind again today?”

“Hello, Beatrice,” Ernest nodded curtly, thinking that was probably how his triplet would’ve greeted her, if he was the one talking to her here right now. From Beatrice’s delighted laughter, Ernest knew he got this one right. After all, it was fairly easy to impersonate someone when you knew of all their mannerisms and ways of speech. Oh, the being identical thing helped too, of course.

He climbed onto the horse he’d seen with Frank in the photo taken by Monty, pleased that he did his research thoroughly. He’d been on a horse before, so even if he didn’t go on monthly horseback riding adventures with the city’s most famous opera actress like Frank did, Ernest liked to think he could manage this just fine.

“See you at the lake!” Beatrice yelled, and her horse echoed her yell enthusiastically. Before he could say anything, they were already getting further and further away. The city’s most famous opera actress did like her speed, alright.

He chased behind her, but it took him a while to adjust, and he briefly wondered if horses could distinguish between triplets. Was it possible they were that smart and intuitive? Not even most humans could do that.

This was fun, he thought. The wind blew past him sharply, a rare enjoyable treat that felt so different than the staying at the hotel 24/7, and he let himself immersed in that feeling. Beatrice and her horse were now a small figure amidst the grasslands. The rhythm of up and down and going forward fast in the same time was another delight, too. Wow, he really had been stuck at that hotel for a long time, hadn’t he?

He allowed himself, for a while, to pretend that he didn’t come here to do something important. That they were just old friends going horseback riding together. Like normal people who didn’t have secret information to pass do, probably.

When he finally arrived by the lake, Beatrice was waiting. She stood beside the horse, leaning down slightly to prop an arm on it to support her chin. She was looking at him, almost too thoughtfully.

He realized his cover was blown. Well, better now than earlier, he thought. He needed to tell her eventually, anyway. Preferably at some faraway lake where they could talk without prying eyes.

“Ernest Denouement,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “It’s been a while.”

“Beatrice Baudelaire,” he returned smoothly, “Always a pleasure. What gave it away?”

“Apparently, even triplets ride horses in different manners. I’ve been doing this monthly thing with Frank for a while now, I know his style. Unless you’re Dewey, I suppose, but then you would rather invite me to your library to talk instead of, hmmm, intercepting Frank’s letter saying he had some urgent matters to attend to and couldn’t come, and come meet me yourself instead.” She looked at him questioningly. “Did I guess right? I love guessing other people’s plans!”

“Well, I’m afraid I come bearing news about a certain nefarious plan, therefore reducing the guesswork you’ll need.”

The corner of her lips quirked up slightly. “We can play 20 questions, that’ll be fun! Question one – does it involve an unhygienic Count?”

Only Beatrice Baudelaire, Ernest thought, could be enthusiastically playing 20 questions with someone who was known to be on the other side, at least publicly. “Yes,” he played along. “Very much.”

“And … what do you have to gain by telling me this?” She asked shrewdly.

He blinked, not expecting her to bring up this question so fast. Then again, it did seem very – Beatrice, for lack of a better description. “I’m just – wait, open-ended questions aren’t allowed,” he tried.

“But you were planning to tell me before I suggested the game,” she countered immediately.

“Not including my motive,” he argued, not even sure why he was arguing.

“Then how should I trust you?” She asked, reasonably. “I mean, I think I probably do know, talented detective that I am –”

“You played the role of a detective once in an opera –”

“—But still, I’d rather hear you confirm it, or I might need to fight you and then throw you into the lake. Oh, did I tell you I could guide a second horse at the same time while riding the first one?”

He was beginning to wonder why he didn’t just pass this piece of information to his brothers and asked them to relay the message. Of course, he didn’t want his brothers to possibly mention this to more people, people who might not necessarily need to know, which might lead to higher chances of the firestarting side suspecting him.

Besides, it was cool to have an excuse to get out in the wild once in a while, even if the only person he needed to justify this to was himself. His triplets probably thought he was back in his room watching black and white old movies.

“I just thought, I’d do this for Dewey, and – and he would’ve wanted you to know. Though I didn’t tell him because I don’t think he could be that much help in this situation.”

“Bertrand,” Beatrice nodded, knowingly. “So he still hasn’t …”

Ernest hesitated, “I mean, I think he’s moving on, it’s just I know he’ll still care, and …” he trailed off.

“And so do you,” she commented. He shrugged, noncommittal.

“And well, he has been spending a lot of time with Snicket lately, so …” he directed the topic away from himself, and she let him.

“Jacques?” She questioned.

“Kit,” he corrected her.

Beatrice frowned, then sighed. “Alright, next time we meet under layers of disguises, we’re discussing Kit’s taste in men.”

He studied her, interested. “Why do you care so much?”

“I don’t,” she said, almost too fast. Then she added, primly, pushing a pair of imaginary glasses up her nose slightly. “I’m just a thorough detective.”

“Shouldn’t’ve worn contact lenses if you wanted to do that, Madam Detective,” he quipped.

She rolled her eyes. “Now that reminds me, J would be joining us for a while from a boat, so when the time comes you either need to act like Frank or reveal who you are.”

“Snicket?” he questioned.

“Anwhistle,” she corrected him.

“Ah, I see your point. ‘Shouldn’t’ve’,” he said wryly. “I might make an early leave then, perhaps. Something that’s suddenly came up at the hotel sounds like a very realistic excuse.”

“So, O’s plan,” she reminded him.

“He was bragging about finally getting the evidence on you and Bertrand’s involvement of the opera night,” he was speaking fast now, wanting to finish before Josephine’s arrival. “I don’t know where the evidence is but Esme does. They would probably do something with it very soon. I would suspect blackmail if they were sensible and love money the same way the rest of us do instead of having a personal vendetta against you or obsession with a piece of teaset, so …. honestly … probably arson.”

She mulled over the information, frowning hard. “Perhaps we could plan something too, even striking first.”

“I think the less I know, the better.”

“Very true,” she smiled a little, “fragmentary plots.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and he wondered, if she was thinking about Lemony. He didn’t ask anything.

They saw a boat was now moving closer to them in the lake, and Ernest nodded, “Well, it’s time to leave. Give Josephine Frank’s regards.”

“Of course,” she hesitated. “Well, thanks for the information.”

“Be careful,” he blurted out, and she nodded solemnly. He took one last glance at the lake, before climbing back onto the horse. “See you around, Beatrice.”

#ok i did not expect the b&e part to be ... that long #it just happened #asoue #dewey denouement #bertrand baudelaire #bertrand x dewey #beatrice baudelaire #ernest denouement #stuff i write #mine #oneshot #i only proofread real quick once cuz its like. 3am #good night

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