As Sunny Baudelaire looked tentatively over the precipice, a word which here means “edge of the extremely steep cliff that was the only thing keeping the youngest Baudelaire from her siblings and from a very injurious fall,” she heard a frustrated voice behind her exclaim “OUCH! Stupid fish!”
Turning, Sunny saw the hook-handed man struggling with a partly frozen salmon he had just caught from the Stricken Stream. He had clearly been trying to debone the fish carefully, but he was encumbered by his hooks, and so he had torn at the fish clumsily, accidentally cutting himself with his own hook in the process.
He threw the fish down in frustration and nursed his wound. Glancing up, he made eye contact with Sunny.
“What are you looking at, baby?”
“Batali,” said Sunny,which meant something along the lines of, “I’m looking at a cook who has made many avoidable mistakes.”
“Well if you think you’re so smart, you prepare it then.”
Sunny walked over to the fish, and after sanitizing her mouth with some clean snow, went to work cutting the fish precisely with her extremely sharp teeth. Her cuts were so precise that she was able to debone the fish easily.
“You’re much better at that than I am, baby,” said the hook-handed man, after a period of silence. “Back when I used to associate with more noble people…when I had my hands…I used to love to cook.”
“Iago!” Sunny said, which meant something like “But you’re a villain who betrays the people who love you! The only thing you’re good at cooking is schemes!”
“No!” said the hook-handed man, “I’m not a villain, I’m just….a complicated person! I’ve lost many people that I love, and loved many people that I’ve lost, and that has made the world a scary place. I’m just like you. Can’t you understand that,baby?” and when he said, “baby,” it wasn’t in the threatening voice Sunny was used to hearing from Olaf’s troupe. It sounded like the same tone Justice Strauss had used when she begged the Baudelaire siblings to stay with her. It sounded like the tone that Klaus had used when defending the Incredibly Deadly Viper against accusations of homicide. It sounded like the tone that Jerome had used when he pleaded with Esme to let him continue drinking aqueous martinis, even when they were “out.” It sounded like the tone of her mother’s voice when she asked Sunny to never grow up.
“I know I know, I have metal utensils for hands and I chase young children as part of my job. I associate with a group of other sinister people, and I run around on metaphorical islands trying to escape the ticking clock that has chased me since the day I burned down the place which I had called home. I assuage my guilt with sea shanties and occasional bowls of salmon soup. But you must believe me, baby.I’m not a villain.”
“Pan,” said Sunny again, and gestured to the metal pan that lay in the snow next to him.
“Oh,” said the hook-handed man, and picked up the pan and put it over the fire. Sunny placed the cleanly-cut salmon fillets on the pan.
“Lemon?” she asked, and the hook-handed man produced a few old pockets of soy sauce and honey from his pocket.
“Fleming,” said Sunny, which means something along the lines of “That’s a happy accident,because soy sauce and honey will make a perfect caramelizing marinade to pair with the smokey flavor of the Stricken Stream salmon.”
“You’re pretty smart, for a baby,” the hook-handed man said sheepishly, handing her the packets.
“Hookie,” she said, and bit the hook-handed man’s wrist affectionately.
“Fernald,” he said. “My name is Fernald.”
“Fernald.” Sunny said,and then, after a pause, pointed to herself. “Sunny.”
Fernald looked down at the searing salmon fillets – which had begun to caramelize nicely – and as the steam from the pan drifted lazily through the cold air, just like the smoke drifted above the cold sea all those years ago, he felt, for the first time since that day, like he was no longer looking over the edge of a precipice. “Thank you for your help, Sunny.”
Thanks @virtualfindingsdocumented for sending me this prompt! I had tons of fun writing this…got teared up a bit at the end there.
Send me a pairing and a number and I’ll write a short fic!