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[sunbaked_baker]

It was a dumb thing to do, but it wasn't that dumb.

Well, it kinda was, but there's only so much adrenaline-fueled paranoia a body can take before it overrides your conscious mind's fight against exhaustion.



So there's a baker asleep in the kitchen. Thankfully, nothing was in left in the oven to burn.

The cinnamon rolls continue to rise slowly and complacently in their covered tray on the counter.

(OOC: All threads will be millitimed after the thread with Slenderman.)

Comments

[dont_turn_around]

[sunbaked_baker]

Of course, it's one of the many coughing fits she's suffered in the last couple of weeks that wakes her. They wrack her hard enough that she sees stars behind her clenched-shut eyelids, hard enough to leave her shaking and light-headed, and not just from the cold or the continuing exhaustion.

One hand covers her mouth as she coughs, the other grips the edge of the table so she doesn't fall out of her chair. It's only as the coughing fit starts the pass that she opens her eyes.

[dont_turn_around]

He's here.

[sunbaked_baker]

And this is terror. A (mostly) normal, (mostly) well-adjusted member of the (mostly) secretly-magic-handling human populace, worn down by fear, paranoia and exhaustion, giving in to terror.

Rae shrieks and throws herself blindly backwards, away from the towering figure (as though a few more feet of distance would make a difference), barely managing not to trip over her overturned chair.

[dont_turn_around]

[sunbaked_baker]

She can feel the handle of the oven digging into her back, the radiant warmth from inside. Some part of her conscious mind is trying to reassert itself, trying to remind Rae that she's faced terror before. Faced evil. Touched it. Burned it. Survived.

It's only partially working.

Sunshine's shields go up in a translucent golden wall around her, even as she's shaking, sick and half out of her mind with fear, staring wide-eyed at the figure before her. It's between her and the door to the rest of the bar - not the door to the outside, but going out there is hardly an option, now is it?

[dont_turn_around]

He doesn't move as tentacles begin to unfurl from his back.

[nerves_of_ice]

The latest waitrat to bring him coffee had scampered back to his table, chittering wildly and waving its paws at him.

Unable to speak rat, Bucky stares at it for a few seconds in confusion before giving up and getting to his feet. He shrugs his rifle onto his shoulder and starts after it, toward the kitchen.

He's maybe three-quarters of the way there when he hears a feminine shriek, followed by a crash.

Bucky covers the rest of the way at a run, sidearm drawn as he slams the kitchen door open.

"Christ -- Sunny!"

[sunbaked_baker]

The kitchen is a mess. One of the large baking trays is lying near the far wall. The unbaked cinnamon rolls it previously contained are strewn about the floor, around the figure lying crumpled in the middle of the room. A knife, an open pocket-knife of the Swiss Army variety, lies near her hand.

[nerves_of_ice]

He scans the room, making sure there's no sign of anyone (or anything) present before he holsters his gun and scrambles across the floor toward her.

"Sunny, Sunny-girl, come on, it's okay, you're okay--"

He reaches to check the pulse in her throat.

[sunbaked_baker]

It's the touch against her throat, more than the words, that begins bringing her back from wherever she was. Her eyelids flutter, but her returning consciousness and waking terror is quickly more preoccupied with the pressure against the side of her neck than actually getting her fully back towards wakeful coherence.

(- pinned her to the ground and buried its fangs into her neck -)

In the sudden rush of fear (it doesn't have very far to go, after all) that opens her eyes and throws Bucky back against the far wall as she scrambles away from him.

[nerves_of_ice]

He manages to twist mid-air so that he doesn't slam into the wall with the rifle between it and his back, but he can't do anything about how hard he hits.

Bucky drops to the floor with a groan, and immediately starts trying to push himself back to his feet, despite being a little dazed.

"What the--"

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine has her back against the cabinets by the time she's awake enough to recognize the other person in the room.

"Bucky," she breathes, a bit horror-struck as she moves to pull herself to her feet. "Oh gods, Bucky, I'm so sorry."

[nerves_of_ice]

"It's okay-- it's okay," he assures her, only a little breathless.

"I've taken harder hits in the ring."

Even if never quite like this.

"Are you okay?" He gets the rest of the way to his feet and starts toward her, much more slowly this time, hand outstretched to help her up.

[pickledtribute]

So, yes.

He stands in the doorway, quiet in a way that no one from Twelve would really recognize (the camera usually cuts away before this bit).

There's no howls for vengeance, no weeping, no wailing, no sarcastic remark and salute with the nearest open bottle of alcohol.

He's just there.

[sunbaked_baker]

There's no blood, at least, despite the knife next to her hand and the signs of struggle.


And the crumpled figure is breathing the slow, steady breaths of the truly and utterly unconscious.

[pickledtribute]

If he was younger, if he was alright in the head, if he was... Not Haymitch Abernathy, he'd probably see that. Comprehend that.

Instead, he almost delicately skirts the scattered debris, and starts helping himself to a glass of milk and a muffin that hasn't gone hard yet.

He doesn't do cleanup. Not anymore. Otherwise that's all he'd do.

And yeah, now he's on his way out.

[sunbaked_baker]

It's one of the rats that scampers over to her, chittering - they'd soon come back from wherever they had hidden when the thing had appeared. The weight of the tiny paws against her shoulder makes her shift slightly, drifting upwards from unconsciousness as though coming up from deep water.

[pickledtribute]

He shudders heavily, seeing the rat and her resulting... he hated it when they flopped, afterwards. Too much like life. If anything, he hurries faster out of the kitchen, taking his snack with him.

Well.

This just... seems like his life.

[katyafeline]

Katya doesn't really actually care that she's caused some minor ice damage to the counter she's now perched on. She's too busy studying the scene, like a crime scene investigator studying blood spatter.

So messy.

[sunbaked_baker]

Cinnamon roll spatter is a much narrower field of study than blood spatter. It takes a lot of research, and investigators often get distracted by the gooey treats before they can come to any helpful conclusions.

At least there is no blood, here. Just a crumpled figure, unconscious but breathing steadily, with a ensorcelled knife - now looking like a completely normal knife - by her hand, and numerous uncooked cinnamon rolls strewn across the floor.

[katyafeline]

And the magic, the sense of 'other', the things not so easily tracked by eye... she eyes that, shaking her head. There's a faint flicker, and she's back on the counter, now with one of the unbaked rolls. She entertains herself by spot-cooking the thing, bite by bite, with controlled bursts of heat.

It's not bad.

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine's brain isn't much caring at the moment how it gets the rest it needs. She's been running on empty these past few weeks, and beggars can't be choosers. Passed out from terror is just as good as natural sleep.

It's one of the rats that scampers over to the fallen baker, chittering - they had soon come back from wherever they had hidden when the thing appeared. The weight of the tiny paws against her shoulder makes her shift slightly, drifting upwards from unconsciousness as though coming up from deep water.

[katyafeline]

"The knife was sloppy. Too far, too much time for him to see it coming." Her Muscovite accent, calmly dissecting the fight (such as it was), probably isn't the most reassuring thing to wake up to.

Katya would apologize, if she remembered to worry about being scary.

[sunbaked_baker]

...for him to see it coming.

"Hrn?" Rae's head is throbbing where it hit the floor, even as she swims slowly towards consciousness. She can't place the voice or accent right away, nor is she trying to - she is currently trying to make sure she's in one piece and (mostly) sane.