Bread!

[dog_eat_dog]

WHO: Tess and youuuu.
WHERE: A grocery store in Heropa.
WHEN: Afternoon.
WHAT: Getting a little bit emotional about fresh bread.
WARNINGS: None yet.

A few days after arriving in Heropa, on her first run for groceries, Tess finds herself utterly lost in thought in the bakery section. Everything feels off.

She can remember herself last doing this some twenty years ago, when she was complaining about it, wondering why she had to help get groceries when she could just help her parents unload them once they got home. Did her mom and dad really need her running across the store to get this and that just to make the trip faster? So what if going with them meant she could maybe pick out a few things her parents wouldn’t get otherwise? She had a part-time job. She could buy whatever snacks she wanted.

That was a long time ago.

Now, Tess is just standing in front of the bread racks in a sort of fascination. There’s baguettes and ciabatta and pumpernickel, and a half-dozen different flavors of bagel, and cheese sticks and croissants and all those things. Tess can’t even fathom turning down an opportunity to get groceries, now. It’s something like pornography, now, where she can just stand there in front of the shelves like some slack-jawed idiot, getting strange looks from people who just want to get to the sesame-seed buns but can’t as long as she’s in the way.

She feels like a fucking idiot for wanting to cry. It takes every ounce of her being not to grab things by the armload and run, run, run with them. Jesus christ, she can still taste bread from the Quarantine Zone in her mouth if she thinks about it, with that awful heaviness and coarse texture, and that sour aftertaste. Good bread was expensive for the military to produce, and not hearty or filling enough to bother with in any significant quantity at that. Even with her relatively "comfortable" lifestyle in the Quarantine Zone, Tess hadn’t tasted good, fresh bread in decades.

Tess allows herself to reach, to touch –– she puts her hands against the waxed paper bag to feel that the bread inside is still warm, as it’d only come out of the oven hours ago. That does get her eyes a little misty, and her heartbeat picks up.

Jesus christ, it’s stupid to be so sentimental about bread, but these people don’t know what they’re missing.

Have at, fine people of Heropa –– there’s a woman getting emotional in the bakery section.

Comments

[hostage]

Yeah... That's how I feel about pizza.

[Jesse's standing a couple feet away, a box of cheap glazed doughnuts in his hand. He's been kind of watching her for the past half-minute. One of the new ones, he can tell. He's not really making fun of her, just trying to lighten the mood a little. Otherwise he's scared she might cry or something right there in the store.]

[dog_eat_dog]

[Tess turns, taken only slightly off guard. Amazing, how proximity to the things you want can lower your defenses. But facing Jesse, she pulls herself together a little more –– chin lifting a bit, hand moving off the bag. Everything about this situation is strange to her, including being spoken to by strangers. Normally people in the QZ keep to themselves, and if they don't, they know they need an introduction.

Pizza, though... that's a whole other thought process for Tess. She denies herself the thought of it and instead finds her voice again.]

What the hell are you talking about?

[As if she hadn't been getting misty-eyed over the goddamn bakery section.]

[hostage]

The... Nevermind.

[He's not looking to embarrass her, and she's on the defensive already. These doughnuts sure are fascinating all of the sudden. He turns the box in his hands, fidgeting with it.]

I like the one with the seeds on it. Just, you know, if you were having trouble picking one. That's a good one.

[dog_eat_dog]

[He backs down, and Tess takes a second to remind herself to breathe. This guy is probably just like everyone else she's watched since arriving here: painfully normal, blissfully ignorant. She doesn't need to rip him a new one.]

Poppy seeds?

[She still says it like she's surprised it exists. What are some others? Sesame? Caraway? Is that a thing on bread? Remembering each one feels like weight she's missing off her body mass.]

Do you always give strangers grocery advice?

[hostage]

Not always. Just sometimes.

[He holds up the box in his hands with a sheepish little grin.]

Maybe I oughta shut up. The crap I eat, right? Two-for-one. They can't give this stuff away.

[112ounces]

It just feels so surreal. He thought fresh bread would be long behind him. Bread is one of the first that's taken when walkers first took over. He assumed because it is there, but also because people knew bread won't last as long as canned beans. It's so weird to be in a city filled with people. To see electricity running through every building. To see running water.

In some ways he's attracting more attention from other shoppers than Tess. He just arrived about several hours ago, and it shows. His blue shirt is grimy from sweat and dirt, his shoes caked in mud and blood, and his jeans equally dirty. He has a tactical holster, wrapped around his left leg, and in it an old Beretta pistol (empty of bullets, but nobody knows that except Carl). The only remotely clean thing he has on him is his hat, a sheriff deputy's hat. But like Tess, he's looking at the fresh bread in awe as well, like he's certain this is all a dream. Heck, he's still certain he's in a dream. This can't possibly be true, can it?

He reaches out to a loaf, one that is cheerily labeled as cinnamon and raisin bread. He notices another woman close by who looks just as awed as he is by the bread. Carl wonders if she's like him, another survivor of the walkers. She had the hard look, like many survivors do. Like he does, on dark days.

[dog_eat_dog]

Carl looks out of place in this particular grocery store, but definitely not in Tess's experience. She sees him and she sees every single other kid she's seen in the past couple decades, scuffed shoes and ratty clothes and smudged skin. Even the holster doesn't surprise her that much, though it certainly should in a place like this.

And even if she could dismiss all that, she knows the look of someone who hasn't seen good food in a dog's age, and that tells her everything she needs to know about this kid. She turns towards him. Far be it from her to suddenly become benevolent without something in return, but stranger things have happened in the past few days.

"Hey kid," she says. It's not meant to be intimidating, exactly, but certain things come naturally after twenty years. "Do you even have money for that?"

[112ounces]

He jerks in surprise when he realizes someone is talking to him. The hard woman, actually.

The question is so random yet it fits so well. It is so random in that he never thought he could hear a question like that again. He can't help himself but laugh. It's a disbelieving laugh, as though he can't really understand it himself.

"I just got here. I have no money."

He just lifted his arms slightly and shrugged, still with that stupid half-grin that basically says "I give up. Nothing makes sense anymore."

"I honestly did not think I had to worry about money again. I don't know why I'm here."

Here he meant the grocery store. He just couldn't believe that grocery stores exist.

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess understands the laugh. It's all ludicrous –– all of it. Having to deal with money isn't even the start of her problems, and she hasn't even gotten over still being alive, let alone what any of this could mean. Money. To buy bread. She's spent the past few days feeling like an alien from another planet, or a refugee from some backwards country, or something, and worst of all it's been spent under the impression that she's the only one.

And then there's this kid.

"Pick something, I have money," she says. She only has what little stipend the government/military has given her to get her on her feet, as well as some wallet she took out of an unattended purse in a grocery cart. It's enough for now. "You look like hell. Where are you from, kid?"

[112ounces]

There's a look of surprised confusion on his end. He's still confused, actually, but now he's more taken aback of someone offering to give him food. And a total stranger at that. He's about to protest when he realizes that he basically up shore on a river without a paddle. Might as well take the help that's offered, as he haven't even tried to go to Maurtia Falls to his assigned apartment.

"Thanks," he says, completely sincere. He picked out the cinnamon and raisin bread. He can't remember the last time he tasted cinnamon.

"Um, Georgia. I was in a small neighborhood before I got to that weird underground place."

[bioenergy]

Jessica's not shaken, exactly, but she hasn't really left the house. A lot of it means she hasn't been sleeping, hasn't really let herself — the constant thought that there's a problem, there are Skrulls, that nobody is who they say they are and the scope of their problems are so much larger than they think. It leaves little time for taking care of herself, but Jessica also knows that that's— bad. It's sort of bad.

Her hair is still wet, fresh from the shower when she goes to the store. One of those plastic baskets hangs limply in her hand as she stands behind Tess.

"Hey, um." Jessica sounds— apologetic. She scratches her nose, tries not to shift her weight from foot to foot and fails miserably. "Sorry. Can you grab me one of those?"

It sounds more polite than saying 'you're in my way'. Jessica Drew is the last person to point fingers at getting emotional in public places.

[dog_eat_dog]

Whoops. Tess is officially getting in the way, and she feels almost sheepish for it. She's worried she must stick out like a sore thumb, like she doesn't know how to be a human in a grocery store anymore.

Instead of handing one over, Tess abruptly steps out of the way so the woman can grab it herself.

"Sorry," she mutters.

[thebestseller]

Castle had decided to go grocery shopping. It was necessary to have food in the house, of course, but he was used to having it delivered, and working for the police department meant a lot more takeout was consumed. However, this time, he wanted to get out of the house for a bit.

It wasn't because he was lonely. Certainly not. Not because it was really quiet and he was worried about Isabelle and Levi, either.

Why, he just wanted to make sure they could have a hot meal when they got home from Alaska. That wasn't so bad, was it?

"That one's good for french toast," he commented cheerily to a woman in the baking section. "In fact..." He reached for a loaf himself.

[dog_eat_dog]

It takes Tess a solid moment to try to remember what french toast tasted like, much less good french toast. She just ends up staring like a deer in the headlights, and then she manages:

"I don't think I could make it if I tried."

It's not like Tess has done much cooking outside of boiling cans and cobbling together meals from rations for most of her life, anyway. Hell, it's not like she's done enough eating, either. She even looks it, in the way her clothes sit and the sharpness of her face.

[thebestseller]

Castle noticed the expression, but he shrugged it off. He hoped he hadn't startled the woman- or worse, been One Of Those People who chatted to strangers in stores.

"Not much of a cook, huh?" he wanted to know, trying hard not to take in her appearance- that is, stare- as he placed the bread in his cart. "Didn't become one til my daughter was born myself."

[dog_eat_dog]

"Terrible," she admits, and though this whole affair makes her feel like an alien, she holds her ground exactly where she is. "Probably never going to be one."

[thebestseller]

"Bummer," Castle replied easily. "Would your powers help any? ... If you're an imPort, that is. I shouldn't assume. Me, I can create stuff out of thin air, but I'm still getting used to it, so if I try to make food... it just comes out all wrong."

[somethinghidden]

Simon paces the grocery aisles and wonders what he should have for dinner. If he grabs a little more than that, then he won't have to restock for another week. Or so he thinks. He's rather new here and trying, trying to gain his footing and some sense of normalcy. But there's a lot weighing on his mind, and it's quite difficult to cope.

Having traversed the aisles several times in self-conflict, he finally notes a lady who's been staring at bread for some time. And it's not that she's just staring at bread. No, she appears somewhat shell-shocked, an expression Simon can't help feeling a little on-edge about approaching.

He leans in slowly, carefully, afraid of startling her. Hopefully he's not coming across the wrong way.

"Hello? Excuse me?" His voice has a Scottish accent. "You all right?"

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess leans back, sharply, almost startled, and the alarm of having a stranger in her personal space comes about five seconds too slow given how enraptured she is by real, live food. And then there's the fact that Tess hasn't heard an accent like that in a long time –– it's so foreign to her ears that it even takes a moment to register what it is he said at all.

"I'm fine," she says, a little too quickly, moving back a step to put space between them. "Jesus christ."

[somethinghidden]

"Sorry, I didn't mean to... you know," he says, also taking a step back and seeming a little more than bashful after her reaction. "You just seemed a little bit out of it. So, I thought I should check on you. Quite sorry about that."

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess shakes her head.

"Do you always get in peoples' personal space?"

[givetheslip]

[Maria has long since trimmed her market trips to a manageable length, though when she first arrived, they took overlong because of uncertainty and confusion instead of sentiment. There was irritation, too—why did the people of this land need so many choices? It struck her as gluttonous.

So while she doesn't recognize the exact nature of the woman's expression as she passes by the bread, she does see something different, and pauses a moment.]

Are you looking for anything in particular? I know it can be a bit overwhelming.

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess glances over. How many ways are there to explain to someone that no, she's not overwhelmed by choice so much as that she has a choice at all?]

Uh, no, thank you... it's just been a long time since I've seen fresh bread.

[givetheslip]

Oh—really?

[Immediately, she feels a little foolish. It's not as if she's really been here long enough to be some kind of expert.]

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have disturbed you..

[dog_eat_dog]

It's fine.

[She does give the woman a glance-over, though.]

Are you one of the, uh...?

[Imports?]