coprime_recs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
coprime_recs) wrote2005-08-09 04:48 pm
coprime_recs) wrote2005-08-09 04:48 pm
Entry tags:
Nero Wolfe: The End by sam_storyteller
The End (ensemble | PG13 | 3,157 words) is an exploration of what would happen if Archie ever died. It's more than a litte odd and depressing, but it really is good and works with Stout's universe. And the end is just... damn. I want to believe it so badly.
Excerpt:
"How are you?" he asked, which was about the last thing I was expecting. A rage, maybe, or why I couldn't help Archie out, or why couldn't it have been me shot -- the kinds of things I was asking myself.
"My head hurts," I said. Wolfe looked at Fritz, who nodded and vanished into the kitchen. He reappeared a minute later, carrying a bottle of beer, a glass, and a second glass of gin on a tray. I took the gin; Wolfe poured the beer deliberately, like he always did.
"How long has it been?" he asked. "We become set in our ways, and the world sometimes passes us by. How many years, Saul?"
I don't know what came over me, but for the life of me I couldn't recall when we'd started in this business. For a second it seemed like maybe Wolfe had started up during the depression, but other times it seems like Archie and I had a lot of work through the fifties. And Orrie had died in '74. But if that was true, we couldn't have started in '30...
"A long time," I said finally.
"Yes."
We sat there, him staring at nothing in particular, and me watching him, and Fritz making quiet noises in the other room, although God knows we wouldn't have expected him to cook dinner. I was worried; I knew that no matter how screwy my memory was, that it had been a damned long time since Archie first started work for Wolfe, and he was a part of our lives so ingrained it was like breathing. If the president of the United States had died, we wouldn't have been this silent.
Excerpt:
"How are you?" he asked, which was about the last thing I was expecting. A rage, maybe, or why I couldn't help Archie out, or why couldn't it have been me shot -- the kinds of things I was asking myself.
"My head hurts," I said. Wolfe looked at Fritz, who nodded and vanished into the kitchen. He reappeared a minute later, carrying a bottle of beer, a glass, and a second glass of gin on a tray. I took the gin; Wolfe poured the beer deliberately, like he always did.
"How long has it been?" he asked. "We become set in our ways, and the world sometimes passes us by. How many years, Saul?"
I don't know what came over me, but for the life of me I couldn't recall when we'd started in this business. For a second it seemed like maybe Wolfe had started up during the depression, but other times it seems like Archie and I had a lot of work through the fifties. And Orrie had died in '74. But if that was true, we couldn't have started in '30...
"A long time," I said finally.
"Yes."
We sat there, him staring at nothing in particular, and me watching him, and Fritz making quiet noises in the other room, although God knows we wouldn't have expected him to cook dinner. I was worried; I knew that no matter how screwy my memory was, that it had been a damned long time since Archie first started work for Wolfe, and he was a part of our lives so ingrained it was like breathing. If the president of the United States had died, we wouldn't have been this silent.