Chapter 11 #3
Bastien shifted on his feet. “Well…I have to do something—take you somewhere, at least.” He craned his neck to check the end of the street for…
there! The pharmacy sign was barely visible amidst the other shops’ awnings, but it was right on the corner.
Careful not to touch the wound, Bastien crouched slowly and brushed a tear away from her cheek.
“I’ll be right back, okay?” He glanced at the blood. “Try not to die.”
He returned quickly, carrying a bag filled with everything he could find for mending wounds. Celine was still curled over herself by the back door. She looked up, rivulets of tears marring her cheeks. Her eyes glistened like two chips cut from the sky.
“Bas—” she choked.
“Hey, it’s going to be all right. You will be all right. I’ll fix it,” he said, returning his focus on the task at hand. “Let me see it. I’ll pluck it out.”
“You will what?” Celine began moving frantically. “Don’t you dare touch anything! I mean it, Bastien.”
“You won’t even feel it. It will be like a bee sting.”
She wasn’t listening. The strain she was putting on her wrist to release it from his grasp caused more blood to sputter out of the wound, speckling the pale chiffon of her dress with red polka dots.
“Alright, alright,” Bastien assured, carefully matching her movements and wrapping an arm around her waist so Celine wouldn’t get up too fast and faint. “I won’t do anything without your consent, you have my word. But close your eyes. Looking at it will make you more scared.”
“I am not scared, Bastien—I am in pain!” she bellowed, dropping down again on the hard marble steps. But she heeded his advice nonetheless and closed her eyes.
“That’s the spirit. For a moment I thought my quarrelsome Celine was lost to panic forever.”
“I am not yours, either.”
“You are when you’re furious.”
She scoffed, her eyes still closed. “And how did you figure that out?”
For someone who had run a needle through her finger and was literally sitting with her hand dripping blood, she sure had the audacity to forget about the pain in seconds if only to chide him.
But that was just the reaction Bastien was looking for.
If he could keep her talking, long enough for her thoughts to scatter away from the needle, then he could remove it without her notice.
“Am I not the one person who vexes you the most?” he asked.
“Do I really need to answer that? I thought it was already established as fact.”
Attentively, Bastien ran his thumb along the soft skin of her wrist, giving her something else to focus on while he held her hand steady.
“And what is the one thing that occupies your thoughts at that moment?” he went on, keeping her attention fastened on working through an answer.
Her lips quirked. “The thought of strangling you with my gloves does cross my mind a lot.”
“There you go. All those moments are mine. Every second you spend thinking about killing me and quarrelling with me—they belong to me, Celine darling.” He gave himself a little push on his knees until he got closer, his lips grazing the shell of her ear.
“In those seconds, simply put, you are mine.”
He could see she was already getting enraged by the way her brows furrowed and her nose twitched excitedly at the prospect of making true on her threats.
Without giving her another second to process what was happening, Bastien pinched the thickest end of the needle and slipped it clean out of her finger.
Then immediately pressed a cotton pad over the wound to stop the bleeding.
“First of all…” Celine broke off. Any further protests died on her lips when she glanced down at her hand. Her expressions flitted from anger to relief to confusion. “Wha—”
“Would you look at that? It’s gone,” Bastien interrupted. “And you didn’t even scream.”
Celine sniffled, still staring at her finger. “I reckon you would have enjoyed that.”
“In different circumstances, I would have,” Bastien hummed. “But not when you’re in pain.” Releasing his grip on the handkerchief, he wrapped the cloth around her finger, tying it in a bow and giving it a small kiss. “There, that ought to heal it immediately.”
“Why? Are your kisses magical?”
“Yes, I’ve been told numerous times they have magical properties.”
“My, I wonder why they haven’t crowned you town doctor yet,” she said drily.
Seeing that she was smiling, Bastien relaxed his spine at last, and slumped on the steps next to her.
A second later, he felt Celine’s head on his shoulder.
He heard her breathe in deeply, then let it out in a long, trembling exhale.
She was still shaking a bit; the walls of the building blocked out the sun on this side of the street.
Bastien shrugged off his jacket and threw it over her shoulders.
“You can stop being nice to me now,” she said. “I’m not dying anymore.”
“It’s sad that you doubt my intentions.”
“Shouldn’t I?”
He hadn’t exactly made it easy for her to trust him—he knew as much.
But he was beginning to wish he had spared Celine from getting roped into his game.
Bastien had broken far too many hearts for his own to start growing a conscience now, but judging by Celine’s short fuse, he didn’t suspect her heart was all that fragile for him to break.
They lingered on the steps of the back door for a while longer, until the sun fully disappeared behind a rooftop and Celine’s initial shock had died down.
“Thank you for that,” she muttered absently, scratching off a dot of dried blood on her skirt. Hugging her knees to her chest against the cool breeze, she rested her cheek on them. “How did you know to distract me like that?”
“Believe it or not I have stitched through my finger when I was younger, too,” Bastien replied.
Celine nudged him to continue. “Reckless child that I was, I fancied myself capable of using my mother’s sewing machine.
The needle stitched right between my thumb and pointer finger and she did the same thing I did with you.
I still have the scar.” He turned his hand over to show her.
“See? You’re not the only one who has sewn their finger. ”
Seeing that she was feeling better, Bastien opened up the aid kit and began cleaning the dried blood from her hands. He was cautious not to go over the puncture wound until the very end. Luckily, the needle had only pierced her skin while her nail remained intact.
“I think your mother would have delighted in seeing you here at Maison Baudelaire,” Celine said softly.
Bastien didn’t reply immediately, letting silence stretch between them, filled only by the sound of scissors running through gauze.
He scarcely mentioned recollections of his mother to anyone—mainly because he couldn’t fully dissociate her image from the rest of his family, despite his many attempts.
It felt like half of the happy memories he had with his mother still lingered inside the Ménard mansion, even if everything she had owned had been thrown out long ago.
Bastien let out a shaky breath as he wrapped the gauze around Celine’s finger.
“I highly doubt that,” he said, his voice calm, oddly serene. He was sure his mother would have hated everything he had become.
“I mean it,” Celine said. Reaching out with her good hand, she flicked away a piece of hair that had fallen over his eyes.
“Think of it this way. You get to relive that part of her life you only heard about in stories. Monsieur Baudelaire seems to own more of her memorabilia than I do. It wouldn’t be so bad to get to know more about her, don’t you think? ”
Bastien wasn’t sure how to reply. Although he knew Celine was right—all that he could remember about his mother was the drama his grandfather used to cause on the daily. Nothing worth preserving.
He was spared an answer when Celine apologised. “It’s none of my business, I know, I’m sorry. I just—if it was me, I would have considered it a great gift.”
“I know,” he said softly. “Come on”—looping his arm through hers, Bastien brought them to their feet—“we need to finish the dress. I’ll help you.”
“Oh…” Celine hesitated, the colour draining from her face again.
“What’s wrong?”
“The dress is ruined,” she said mournfully. “When I tried to hide my injury I got blood all over the fabric. And according to the challenge’s specifics we can’t get any more.”
Bastien latched his eyes on the splatters that were also marring the dress she was wearing. Something sparked in his mind.
“Do you have your cosmetics compact with you? I have an idea.”