For Isa-

Sometimes, when he is alone, Count Olaf will consider time.

It never seems important until he actually thinks about it. Then, when he is alone, activities halt and words drift away and time presents itself, ready for inspection.

As Count Olaf crouches in the dark attic above the eagle perches, inhaling dust and stale air, feeling the thrum of thousands of feet too close, he sees his life like a series of black and white Polaroids.

He sees the parents who ignored him out of selfishness; remembers how he had actually preferred that over getting too attached to leave them when he was inducted to VFD as a neophyte. Emotional distance, the Count was sure, made it easier for his parents to give him up to a life as uncertain as the food at the Café Salmonella.

He sees his induction, his best-of-the-best mentor, his fleeting introductions to the other neophytes. Remembers Kit Snicket's confused glances as rumors of his villainy began. Remembers her scribbled note that he found on his tray one morning at breakfast. "Is it true? -K"

He remembers Lemony's venomous stare when he was told that it had been Count Olaf who had helped Kit with her fountain while he had been busy with VFD business at Stain'd-by-the-Sea. Remembers the way Kit's lips had felt against his the day the fountain was completed.

Olaf remembers the sight of his first act of villainy, watching the sun dip behind Heimlich Hospital as the fire within it grew, eating away at hospital beds and vital medicine and prayers that had swollen against the ceiling. He remembers hearing weeks afterword that people had died in that fire and how his gut twisted as he laughed victoriously with the others. How he felt bitter guilt in his mouth- the new taste of collective murder. How that taste, over time, grew normal and forgettable. Became a part of him.

But that had been years ago. Lifetimes and crimes and heartbreaks ago. Time, he had learned, changes people. And he could again feel the ashes between his teeth. Again, he regretted turning breathing people to skeletons in the ground.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Crowding between each tooth as he smiles.

"Can you feel it in your hands still? In your teeth, in your gut?" He asks her, fingers trailing over her ribs as she sighs in postcoital calm. Violet shakes her head and croaks, "No. We burned down one hotel. Unsure if anyone died. We wouldn't have escaped any other way. It was necessary. I don't regret it."

Seeing the look on his face, Violet rolls onto her stomach and begins guiding kisses up his chest. He doesn't remind them both,"You're not yet an adult, Ms. Baudelaire."

"Time will help." She insists, pressing kisses into his throat as if those alone could save him. "Time will heal you."

And he had responded thickly, running his hands up her bare back, "There is not enough of it."

He remembers that first time Kit and Violet had met, Kit's shocked face and Violet's thoughtful one. He remembers birthday parties and funerals and the seconds between catastrophes. He remembers dark hair beneath his lips and ribbons around his fingers, and remarking that one of her feet was paler than the other. He remembers wondering how that could be.

Count Olaf considers time.

And he realizes it is fickle, careless of who notices it and who does not.

And activities begin, words are directed to him and around him, and time moves on.

She finds him brooding in the attic above the eagles' perches, playing it off as an inspection.

Violet kisses him on his cheeks, on his nose, on his lips. She grabs his hands and leads him to where those thousands of footsteps still clatter.

And time moves on.

This was written for Isa as a prompt about time. It's in a different tense than I usually write, which was a nice exercise for me.

Let me know what you think!