Normal (The Quintessential Question Remix) [A Series of Unfortunate Events; Violet/Klaus]
Title: Normal (The Quintessential Question Remix)
Author: magistera
Summary: It is, one might say, a perfectly normal thing for teenagers to do.
Rating: R
Fandom: A Series of Unfortunate Events
Warnings: Incest
A/N: Thanks so much to my beta TWW, and to Sarafu for the original story to work with!
Original Story: Normal by Sarafu (obsessivemuch)
If you have ever been a teenager (and many people have), then you will surely remember that being a teenager is fraught with many earth-shaking concerns. For example, you may worry about the condition of your skin, or your standing within your peer group (a phrase which here means, 'people who are frequently unkind to you about the condition of your skin, but whom you inexplicably want to please anyway'), or whether you will be able to dislodge the boulder currently pinning you to the ground before the vultures circling overhead either pluck out your eyeballs or alert your enemies to where you lie, chained hand and foot in the middle of the Sahara Desert, where you were dumped and left for dead by a woman who had told you that she loved you only hours before. But if you have ever been a teenager, your will certainly remember that one of the things many teenagers spend an inordinate portion of their day at is wondering whether or not they are normal. It is, one might say, a perfectly normal thing for teenagers to do.
This may seem, to non-teenagers, to be a readily soluble problem, requiring only a simple survey of those around one to determine what they are like, and perhaps a quick check of the world at large to be sure that one is living in a relatively standard community and not, say, a fanatical cult dedicated to the worship of taxicabs. But being a teenager is rather like being an international spy, in that one must constantly be concerned with keeping even the most basic information away from everyone, and rather like being a world-renowned savant (a word that here means, 'terrible bore'), in that one cannot ever, under any circumstances, admit that one does not know everything, and so, for teenagers, the problem of normality can become all-consuming in its ineluctable mystery.
For all that she had attained her eighteenth birthday and claimed her inheritance, Violet Baudelaire was undeniably still a teenager, and so she frequently found her mind returning to that pesky, nerve-wracking question. “Am I normal?” she muttered to herself as she signed yet another check-in card at yet another hotel. “Am I normal?” she wondered, as Sunny helped her unfold their neatly-packed clothes and hang them up, clothes hangers hanging from her teeth as she gave them a bite for old time's sakes. “Am I normal?” she asked Sunny, drawing a strange look that made her wonder just how much her sister knew about her.
“Mmph-HNG-n-m-mph,” was all Sunny said. Even though Sunny mostly spoke English these days, Violet still remembered how to translate for her, and so she knew that what Sunny meant was, “I can't talk right now, there are hangers in my mouth.” So Violet sighed (as teenagers frequently do), and turned away to retrieve the next piece of clothing from their luggage.
And later that night, as her fingernails scrabbled for purchase, first against the slick wet tiles of the shower and then against the slick soapy skin of Klaus' waist as he pushed her farther and farther up the wall with the force of his thrusts, she stared at him, hoping to find the answers to her questions in the screwed-up ecstasy of his face. Even later, when they were dry and dressed and she was crawling into bed next to Sunny (who squeezed her eyes shut and pretended very hard that she was asleep, as one does when one does not want to have a conversation that includes the question “Why do you and Klaus always shower together? Is he suffering from a degenerative nerve disease that means that you must wash his back for him?”), Violet laid still for a long, long time, curled into Klaus' side, wondering, yet again, “Am I normal?”
***
To be sure, all of the Baudelaires had any number of reasons for suspecting that they might not be quite like everyone else. They had, after all, had a somewhat unusual upbringing even before their parents died, and what came after that was even more irregular. They felt very keenly the differences between themselves and most people, even if they only had a vague idea what those were. Sunny was fairly certain that most people did not live in an endless succession of hotels, moving from city to city the way that a bee moves from flower to flower. Klaus knew that most people hadn't spent several years of their childhoods on the run from a master of disguise intent on stealing their fortunes. And Violet, still lying awake on the too-comfortable hotel room bed, wondering yet again if she were normal, knew that most people whose brothers did not suffer from degenerative nerve diseases did not shower with them, and that even if they did, it was only to wash their backs for them, not to wrap their legs around those backs and cling desperately to them, keening (a word which here means 'making high-pitched, gasping noises of the sort that result from passionate, frenzied sex) in helpless pleasure as they rut with those brothers while their young sister sleeps in the very next room.
As she thought that word, 'rut' (which here means 'hold fast to each other as though nothing else mattered in the world, and rock together, slowly at first and then more quickly, until Klaus's breath is rasping through his lungs and Violet has to bite her lip to keep from waking Sunny with her moans, biting harder and harder each time he surges into her, until she swears the next time she will taste blood, and something inside her breaks with a sharp cry that she can't bite back behind her lips, and she's shattered into a million pieces that melt back together under his piercing eyes, staring at her and whispering “Violet” over and over as he follows her over the edge into climax'), she heard a gasp escape her mouth, and her hand flew up as if to push it back in. She could feel Klaus' eyes on her, watching her sleep, and she didn't want him to know she was awake and thus, available to be asked uncomfortable questions. But Klaus only shifted slightly, gathering her closer against him, and murmured “shh,” sleepily as he pressed a kiss into her neck, and she relaxed again.
***
It seemed as though she had only just managed to fall asleep when Violet awoke with a jerk from a dream about the day Count Olaf had finally gone to the costume-shop in the sky (a phrase which here means, 'kicked the bucket'). She had tried so hard to be strong for her brother and sister, but afterwards, she had fallen apart, and it was Klaus' strong arms and too-thin body (a legacy of their years of flight and fear) that had put her back together. That day, and the long years after until the Baudelaire orphans were finally able to come out of hiding and claim their inheritance (itself a tale of woe too baleful for this story), it had only been Klaus that kept her sane and whole.
Instinctively, she reached out with both hands, touching Klaus and Sunny to be sure that they were both still lying safely beside her in bed. Thus reassured, her mind returned to its ever-present, annoying question. If she were Klaus, she would have gone to the library and conducted a research project into 'normal', until she was able to define it in five languages, discuss the history of the concept of normality, and say definitively whether it applied to her or not. If she were Sunny, she would simply bite anyone who accused her of being abnormal, and if that failed to silence them, she would invite them to dinner and poison their soup, and that would be the end of that. And of course, if she were Mr. Poe, she would tote up endless sums of numbers until giant money symbols danced in her head, and then go home to have a coughing fit and never once worry about whether or not she was normal.
But she was herself, Violet Baudelaire, and no matter how she wracked her brain, she couldn't seem to invent a machine to measure the amount of normal in a person, or to separate them into normal and abnormal pieces that could then be weighed against each other. So she was doomed to moon about (as teenagers often do) hotel room after hotel room, asking herself over and over whether she was quite a usual person.
Beside her, on the other side from Klaus, Sunny began to whimper in her sleep. Each frightened little sound was punctuated by a chopping sound as she bit fruitlessly at something in her dream. Violet knew instantly that she was not the only one who still dreamed of Count Olaf, even as her hands smoothed over Sunny's hair, soothing her back into sleep. “How can we ever be normal?” she thought as Sunny quieted. “We're lucky to be alive, and in possession of our inheritance. No one could possibly ask any more from us than that.” She felt a sudden relief wash over her with that thought. They would need a house, and a yard, she considered, and Sunny absolutely had to go to school. Maybe they could get a dog. Turning back to Klaus, she pressed her lips against his forehead. “Wake up,” she said, and smiled as he stirred, blinking sleepily at her. When his gaze had cleared, and he looked at her quizzically, she began to speak to him about the future.
Author: magistera
Summary: It is, one might say, a perfectly normal thing for teenagers to do.
Rating: R
Fandom: A Series of Unfortunate Events
Warnings: Incest
A/N: Thanks so much to my beta TWW, and to Sarafu for the original story to work with!
Original Story: Normal by Sarafu (obsessivemuch)
If you have ever been a teenager (and many people have), then you will surely remember that being a teenager is fraught with many earth-shaking concerns. For example, you may worry about the condition of your skin, or your standing within your peer group (a phrase which here means, 'people who are frequently unkind to you about the condition of your skin, but whom you inexplicably want to please anyway'), or whether you will be able to dislodge the boulder currently pinning you to the ground before the vultures circling overhead either pluck out your eyeballs or alert your enemies to where you lie, chained hand and foot in the middle of the Sahara Desert, where you were dumped and left for dead by a woman who had told you that she loved you only hours before. But if you have ever been a teenager, your will certainly remember that one of the things many teenagers spend an inordinate portion of their day at is wondering whether or not they are normal. It is, one might say, a perfectly normal thing for teenagers to do.
This may seem, to non-teenagers, to be a readily soluble problem, requiring only a simple survey of those around one to determine what they are like, and perhaps a quick check of the world at large to be sure that one is living in a relatively standard community and not, say, a fanatical cult dedicated to the worship of taxicabs. But being a teenager is rather like being an international spy, in that one must constantly be concerned with keeping even the most basic information away from everyone, and rather like being a world-renowned savant (a word that here means, 'terrible bore'), in that one cannot ever, under any circumstances, admit that one does not know everything, and so, for teenagers, the problem of normality can become all-consuming in its ineluctable mystery.
For all that she had attained her eighteenth birthday and claimed her inheritance, Violet Baudelaire was undeniably still a teenager, and so she frequently found her mind returning to that pesky, nerve-wracking question. “Am I normal?” she muttered to herself as she signed yet another check-in card at yet another hotel. “Am I normal?” she wondered, as Sunny helped her unfold their neatly-packed clothes and hang them up, clothes hangers hanging from her teeth as she gave them a bite for old time's sakes. “Am I normal?” she asked Sunny, drawing a strange look that made her wonder just how much her sister knew about her.
“Mmph-HNG-n-m-mph,” was all Sunny said. Even though Sunny mostly spoke English these days, Violet still remembered how to translate for her, and so she knew that what Sunny meant was, “I can't talk right now, there are hangers in my mouth.” So Violet sighed (as teenagers frequently do), and turned away to retrieve the next piece of clothing from their luggage.
And later that night, as her fingernails scrabbled for purchase, first against the slick wet tiles of the shower and then against the slick soapy skin of Klaus' waist as he pushed her farther and farther up the wall with the force of his thrusts, she stared at him, hoping to find the answers to her questions in the screwed-up ecstasy of his face. Even later, when they were dry and dressed and she was crawling into bed next to Sunny (who squeezed her eyes shut and pretended very hard that she was asleep, as one does when one does not want to have a conversation that includes the question “Why do you and Klaus always shower together? Is he suffering from a degenerative nerve disease that means that you must wash his back for him?”), Violet laid still for a long, long time, curled into Klaus' side, wondering, yet again, “Am I normal?”
***
To be sure, all of the Baudelaires had any number of reasons for suspecting that they might not be quite like everyone else. They had, after all, had a somewhat unusual upbringing even before their parents died, and what came after that was even more irregular. They felt very keenly the differences between themselves and most people, even if they only had a vague idea what those were. Sunny was fairly certain that most people did not live in an endless succession of hotels, moving from city to city the way that a bee moves from flower to flower. Klaus knew that most people hadn't spent several years of their childhoods on the run from a master of disguise intent on stealing their fortunes. And Violet, still lying awake on the too-comfortable hotel room bed, wondering yet again if she were normal, knew that most people whose brothers did not suffer from degenerative nerve diseases did not shower with them, and that even if they did, it was only to wash their backs for them, not to wrap their legs around those backs and cling desperately to them, keening (a word which here means 'making high-pitched, gasping noises of the sort that result from passionate, frenzied sex) in helpless pleasure as they rut with those brothers while their young sister sleeps in the very next room.
As she thought that word, 'rut' (which here means 'hold fast to each other as though nothing else mattered in the world, and rock together, slowly at first and then more quickly, until Klaus's breath is rasping through his lungs and Violet has to bite her lip to keep from waking Sunny with her moans, biting harder and harder each time he surges into her, until she swears the next time she will taste blood, and something inside her breaks with a sharp cry that she can't bite back behind her lips, and she's shattered into a million pieces that melt back together under his piercing eyes, staring at her and whispering “Violet” over and over as he follows her over the edge into climax'), she heard a gasp escape her mouth, and her hand flew up as if to push it back in. She could feel Klaus' eyes on her, watching her sleep, and she didn't want him to know she was awake and thus, available to be asked uncomfortable questions. But Klaus only shifted slightly, gathering her closer against him, and murmured “shh,” sleepily as he pressed a kiss into her neck, and she relaxed again.
***
It seemed as though she had only just managed to fall asleep when Violet awoke with a jerk from a dream about the day Count Olaf had finally gone to the costume-shop in the sky (a phrase which here means, 'kicked the bucket'). She had tried so hard to be strong for her brother and sister, but afterwards, she had fallen apart, and it was Klaus' strong arms and too-thin body (a legacy of their years of flight and fear) that had put her back together. That day, and the long years after until the Baudelaire orphans were finally able to come out of hiding and claim their inheritance (itself a tale of woe too baleful for this story), it had only been Klaus that kept her sane and whole.
Instinctively, she reached out with both hands, touching Klaus and Sunny to be sure that they were both still lying safely beside her in bed. Thus reassured, her mind returned to its ever-present, annoying question. If she were Klaus, she would have gone to the library and conducted a research project into 'normal', until she was able to define it in five languages, discuss the history of the concept of normality, and say definitively whether it applied to her or not. If she were Sunny, she would simply bite anyone who accused her of being abnormal, and if that failed to silence them, she would invite them to dinner and poison their soup, and that would be the end of that. And of course, if she were Mr. Poe, she would tote up endless sums of numbers until giant money symbols danced in her head, and then go home to have a coughing fit and never once worry about whether or not she was normal.
But she was herself, Violet Baudelaire, and no matter how she wracked her brain, she couldn't seem to invent a machine to measure the amount of normal in a person, or to separate them into normal and abnormal pieces that could then be weighed against each other. So she was doomed to moon about (as teenagers often do) hotel room after hotel room, asking herself over and over whether she was quite a usual person.
Beside her, on the other side from Klaus, Sunny began to whimper in her sleep. Each frightened little sound was punctuated by a chopping sound as she bit fruitlessly at something in her dream. Violet knew instantly that she was not the only one who still dreamed of Count Olaf, even as her hands smoothed over Sunny's hair, soothing her back into sleep. “How can we ever be normal?” she thought as Sunny quieted. “We're lucky to be alive, and in possession of our inheritance. No one could possibly ask any more from us than that.” She felt a sudden relief wash over her with that thought. They would need a house, and a yard, she considered, and Sunny absolutely had to go to school. Maybe they could get a dog. Turning back to Klaus, she pressed her lips against his forehead. “Wake up,” she said, and smiled as he stirred, blinking sleepily at her. When his gaze had cleared, and he looked at her quizzically, she began to speak to him about the future.