(no subject)

[sunbaked_baker]

Some time after this conversation, Sunshine brings a basket of small jars to the Bar. The jars are filled with various fruit jams and preserves, as well as things like peanut butter, Nutella, lemon curd, applesauce, pimento cheese, and hummus.

The basket is left with the Bar, The note with it reads:

Good on toast.
-Sunshine

Basket delivered, Rae orders a cup of tea for herself, and goes to settle on the couch in front of the fireplace with a copy of this summer's Professional Baker's Quarterly.

Comments

[street_sparrow]

Gavroche is already there, curled in an armchair with a history book. He looks up at the footsteps, then lowers his book slowly.

"Rae."

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae pauses, tea in one hand, magazine in the other, and blinks at him.

"Gavroche," she replies, hesitating. "Hey."

Once again, Milliways weirdness makes conversation difficult.

[street_sparrow]

"I'm sorry", he blurts out. "That whole thing just... went really wrong."

[sunbaked_baker]

"Don't worry about it," she shakes her head quickly, setting down her tea and taking a seat on the end of the couch closest to his armchair. "It was a misunderstanding, nothing more."

[street_sparrow]

"I should have thought about what I was saying." He shakes his head in turn. "But I was worried about you. That you."

[sunbaked_baker]

"I doubt there would've been an actually good way to frame the situation," she says, sighing. "That me wasn't in the best mental space. It was an all-around bad year."

[street_sparrow]

"Seemed like it", he agrees. "And you were trying to deal with it... one way."

[sunbaked_baker]

She chuckles very slightly, dry. "I was trying to escape it because I couldn't deal with it."

[street_sparrow]

"It's an option." He smiles fleetingly, unamused. "Not a good one for the long term, but look at you now, you learned that in time."

[sunbaked_baker]

"I am, apparently, susceptible to bribery," she says with a dry smirk. "My step-father said that if I could clean up and manage to graduate high school, he'd create the position of Head Baker at the coffeehouse for me. I found something I wanted enough to risk falling to pieces."

[street_sparrow]

"Sounds like a good man", he says with approval. "And he knew you well enough to choose the right bribe. You already loved baking by then?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Oh yes," she smiles. "Charlie... he's been one of the major positive forces in my life ever since I was little. He pulled me off waitressing in the coffeehouse when I was sixteen or so, because it bored me silly, and gave me a real function back in the coffeehouse's kitchen. He also gave me the opportunity to experiment some, with baking, since it was obviously where my real interest was."

[street_sparrow]

He smiles back.

"Good for him. Sounds more like an adoption than a lot of stepfathers."

[ostro_goth]

There is a little grey cat who comes and rubs his face on the magazine.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Hey you," says the baker, tickling the cat's eartip with a finger. "Thinking about trying your paw at baking?"

[ostro_goth]

The cat closes his eyes and leans against her finger.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Shameless beggar," she remarks with a smile.

Just because she recognizes that fact doesn't mean the cat's strategy doesn't work, however. The ear tickling transmutes seamlessly into ear rubs.

[ostro_goth]

And the purrs grow so loud, Teja looks up from where he has been scribbling things on some wax tablets, nearby.

"He is," he declares. "Greeting, Rae Seddon!"

[sunbaked_baker]

"I don't think shame is in an cat's repertoire, anyway," she grins over at the Goth. "Hi there, Teja."

[ostro_goth]

"Only small, hurried protestations of innocence," Teja says.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Or, if innocence is impossible, insisting that their cuteness outweighs any crime they could ever be guilty of," she says, scritching down the grey cat's back.

[ostro_goth]

"Even while the stolen moretum still quivers upon their whiskers," Teja agrees.

[sunbaked_baker]

"But we wouldn't begrudge them such a little thing, surely!" she says, chuckling and ruffling Count's whiskers.

[ostro_goth]

"I would not have them dunk in their noses and tongues while I am still dipping in my bread, or that odd twice-baked bread that my forge helper is so fond of making," Teja says.

Since Javert introduced him to it the other day, he has found the concept of 'toast' quite sensible and edible.

[sunbaked_baker]

"Twice-baked bread?" she asks, eyebrows raised.