andhiswife | Just a Little Bent

As far as Darrow antics go, this one might top the list for bloody eeriness. At the cottage, they can almost pretend nothing's happened. Between the garden, the chickens, and the staples she always keeps well-stocked, there's no immediate threat of starvation. The power hasn't failed yet, but even if it does, she thinks they'll be able to work around it — neither she nor Anne are exactly accustomed to being without it anymore, but that doesn't mean they've forgotten how to get by.

And surely things will go back to normal sooner or later. They always do, and she refuses to believe that—that whatever this is might be special in that regard.

But it's still unsettling. Even though it only seems to be the locals who have vanished, there were always far more of them than anyone else, and never has she felt the difference so keenly. Whole blocks are abandoned, shops either permanently shuttered or, more often, left unmanned mid-shift: the lights still on, but no one at home. But what she hates most are the littler signs of lives abruptly interrupted. A lone briefcase sitting at a bus stop; half-drunk beverages glued to their coasters by dried condensation; shopping carts left idle halfway down an aisle.

Regan is taking it especially hard, and no wonder.

It would be easier to avoid town entirely, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't tempted. But she can't abide the thought of hiding out in the countryside when there are still plenty of people who need help. Not when her hands still remember how to feed a Village.

So she's stolen a bakery. Or, well... borrowed. She's borrowing a bakery.

It hadn't been hard to find. Even cleaning it up hadn't been too much of a challenge: people had already made off with the displays' contents, so there was little rotten food to be dealt with. Obviously there were no fresh ingredients worth salvaging, but things like flour, baking soda, and spices don't go bad overnight. There's plenty to start with, at least.

Getting the word out had been the bigger challenge. She's texted everyone she can, and Saoirse has made some very colorful signage to post in the bakery windows and in other places around the city, letting people know that there are fresh-baked goods available. She can't imagine charging for any of it, but after the first few hours (and some discussion with Anne), she'd added some signage suggesting that she wouldn't question where any raw ingredients might have come from, if people wanted to bring some.

It's mid-afternoon when she slides two more trays of muffins into the oven, sets a timer on her phone, and then steps out of the kitchen for some slightly cooler air. Her hair is falling out of its bun and she's probably a mess, but it's satisfying to see people eating something she made: something fresh and good that hasn't come from a bloody can.

[ooc: a mini-gathering for the vanishing NPC plot! If your pup knows Greta, you can assume they've received a text; otherwise, there's plenty of signage letting people know there's still one functioning bakery in town.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Two things that Jyn has never been good at are small talk and vulnerability. For that matter, friendship in general isn't exactly a strength of hers — not the social aspects of it, anyway. Once she cares about someone, there's little she wouldn't do for them, but loyalty strikes her as probably a bit different than friendship, or at least how most people would consider it. Martin is a friend, though, and friends do this sort of thing. She just has to remind herself of that sometimes. Lately it's been especially easy to lose sight of that, quiet as the city is, easy as it's become to withdraw as a result.

"Probably just a matter of time," she agrees with a nod, sincere rather than dismissive. That does tend to be the way of things here. Something happens, and then it rights itself, and usually most of the people here carry on as if nothing ever happened. It doesn't usually last this long, but it has before, so it could again. "Even knowing that, though, it's still... weird."

"Yeah," he says quickly, flashing a rather nervous smile. He redirects his gaze out the window, looking over the uncomfortably empty streets. "Yeah, and it's..."

He gropes around for what he wants to say. He's been trying very hard not to think about all this, really, the implications and the questions it stirs up in him. A lot of tension and fear that's sort of always there, operating on a low enough frequency that he usually doesn't have to think about it.

It is terrifying, though, how little they actually know about this place that's taken them all. How arbitrary its whims. The seemingly unflappable native population has always felt like a fixture, easy to trust and easier to ignore, and now? It just feels like a reminder how tenuous this really is.

But he doesn't know how to voice all that. It feels too grim, too real, somewhere beyond his growing preference for honesty. In the end he looks down at his feet and coughs out an awkward laugh. "Sorry," he says, though he's not sure what for. He thinks for a moment, then says, "I feel like it's a lot harder to trust the whole... thing when there are visible gaps in the foundation right now, you know?"

He looks away, toward the more active center of the bakery. Wanting to pull away. With another, even more awkward laugh, he says, "Sorry, let's... d'you want to get some pastries, or something?"

That subject, at least, is an easier one, something Jyn knows how to respond to. She doesn't intend to ignore the rest, but it's a trickier thing, difficult to sort out her own feelings on and even more to express those feelings. For her part, she's never trusted it all that much anyway. She's lost far too many people, both before and here, for her to put any sort of faith in a place where anyone can disappear at random, often against their will. Still, she knows, too, what a change this is, shifting the entire nature of this place. The unpredictability, she doesn't mind much, when most of her life has been like that, but it's still strange to be in this sort of limbo when at least certain aspects of this place have been fairly consistent.

"I always want to get some pastries," she points out, giving him a small little smile, warmly teasing. She's been told before that she could always eat, and while she's pretty sure that was meant to be a joke, she also doesn't think it's very far from the truth. Just what it is, she couldn't say — maybe some sense of making up for all the time she never had enough, or wanting to take advantage of what's available to her in case it runs out — but either way, she's hardly going to turn down food, especially not pastries made by someone she knows to be an excellent baker.

A moment later, not wanting to disregard what he's said, she shrugs. "And you don't need to be sorry," she adds. "I get it, I think. There's one thing that can generally be counted on here, and now suddenly it's... not there."

He steps over to the counter where Greta's laid out some fresh items, and throws her a grateful smile as he swaps out his offerings for a few items, some he plans to take back to John. He's a little surprised when Jyn responds to his fumbling comments after all, and after a moment he shoots her a quick, grateful smile. "Yeah," he says softly. "And I think I'm always a bit in danger of getting too complacent, so..."

He trails off, not sure where he was going with that thought. So, what? This was somehow a good thing, because it shook him out of some sort of stupor?

He huffs out a breath and shrugs. "I guess I wonder how many rude awakenings it'll take before I just... toughen up, or something."

It's probably a strange thought, and one she knows better than to say out loud, but instinctively, Jyn thinks that it's sort of nice that he hasn't. Not that it's probably easy to be on the other side of that, but she had to toughen up too much too early, without ever having a chance for anything else. Although she knows the way she lived is what kept her alive — although she would still, after everything, say that Saw was a better father to her than her own father was — it's hard not to wonder who she might have been had all the softness not been drained from her when she was so young.

"Well, you'll probably find out at some point," she says, optimistic rather than unkind. "I don't think… strange things like this will ever stop happening here. Might not always be like this, but I think there's always going to be something." Grabbing a muffin from the counter, she takes a large bite out of its top. "This is good."

He casts a thoughtful sidelong glance in her direction, turning that over in his mind before accepting it. She's probably right. He'd like to think she's right. It's encouraging rather than dismissive, the way she says it. But at the same time, he can't help but wonder. She doesn't know what he's already been through, both at home and here. And he's still... this.

That feels far too dark, though, so he smiles as she enjoys one of the muffins, reaching out to take one for himself. "I'm not surprised," he offers. "They're made by Greta, after all. Do you know Greta?" He asks that suddenly, a little surprised he doesn't already know. She could be here because she knows Greta, or it could just be having heard there was mutual aid happening. He sometimes forgets how small their community really is, and that all his friends might actually know each other to some degree. An oddly bolstering thought.

There's something about the way he changes the subject that makes Jyn feel like there's something going unsaid. Even if it weren't for that segue, though, it wouldn't seem like her place to push. She likes Martin — would consider him a friend, and there aren't many people about whom she would say that — but despite having encountered each other in awful situations, there's still only so much she even knows about him. He can say whatever he's comfortable with, but she's not going to press him for details.

The question distracts her quickly enough, anyway, a lopsided smile spreading across her face as she nods. "I do, yeah," she says. "We've known each other for a while now." They've come a long way from her awkwardly staring at Greta at a party that took a turn for the chaotic, in the wake of her stint on Bake-Off. "That mean you know her too, then?"

"Yeah," he says, smiling softly. "She's the first person I met here, actually. She happened to be at the train station when I arrived, and..."

He shrugs. It's a bad memory, but Greta is the reason it wasn't much worse. "I was not in a good place. Before I came here, I mean. And the transition was... bad. Difficult. But she took care of me. And she was the first person in a really long time that I... that I let take care of me. I suppose I didn't really have a choice, but I think it was something about her, too, like... I can't really explain."

He can. He's known since his week as a little boy, since before that, if he's really honest with himself. It's because she reminds him of his mother, or rather, a mother he would have liked to have. But he can't just say that. He looks at the floor for a moment.

"I think I'm very lucky that it was her who met me there," he says quietly.

Just a Little Bent

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