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[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

Toby slept most of the way from wherever it was Mr Venom picked him up until they reached the farm, and even then, he was still pretty groggy. The washroom was pointed out to him (and what a wonder that is, all shining and clean and good clean hot water right there without having to pump it or heat it on the fire or anything), and Toby did manage to scrub the mud off his face and shuck the outermost, muddiest layers of his clothes.

The kitchen seems like the best place for him, but when he finds it, he decides that it, like the washroom, is too posh for him to use much unless he has to or he's told to. Besides, there's not a proper fire going anywhere in the kitchen, and if there's one thing Toby really wants to find, it's someplace warm. A lot has happened lately-- too much to really, really take in, even-- and if he could just find somewhere warm and easy to sit for a while, to think things through... well, it can't hurt and might help.

He figures, though, that nobody's going to miss just one apple from the bowl, not if what Mr Venom told him about how many people live here is true.

If someone should wander in to tell the lad otherwise, he'll be most appropriately shamefaced-- especially since he's already taken a great big bite out of it.

((The usual note about spoilers applies-- let me know whether you want them or not or don't care.))

Comments

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

Mr Todd didn't talk much, either, unless he was trying to get you to go away. One way or another. So it's a little troubling, true, but not as strange as it should be.

"Said you was the one to speak to if I wanted to stay. I haven't anywhere else to go-- don't rightly know where I am-- and I'm willin' to work to earn my keep."

[littlestcooper]

Oh, that.

Nod!

"Stay."

...she could've been friendlier about that, possibly, but really. He got what he wanted, did he not?

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

Roof, amazing kitchen, amazing washroom? Oh yes, he got what he wanted. From there, he sort of figures he'll let Mel boss him.

"Thank you, miss. It's much appreciated."

[littlestcooper]

This slight smile stands for the phrase 'no problem'.

No, really, it totally does.

Honest.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

"Um."

Boy has forgotten something, see.

"Is there somewhere I can sleep? I'd just make up a pallet in the kitchen, only..."

Only this is certainly not the sort of kitchen one makes up a pallet in, much less expects to find the help sleeping in. Toby's face says he knows it.

[littlestcooper]

"The earth bunker. Outside."

If he needs more description he'd best ask someone who doesn't treat every syllable like a precious treasure, to be dispensed reluctantly if at all.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

"Thank you, miss. I'll be sure to inquire there."

He hasn't seen it, but he was totally half asleep when he was ushered inside. It was only when he discovered the washroom was a total posh fantasy paradise washroom that he started to wake up.

And hey, course she doesn't want the likes of him staying here, even if they're working here. He probably wouldn't either, if his house were this fine. That's just how things go.

[littlestcooper]

It's not so much that she doesn't want him as that there isn't room.

Various people crash on the couch in a seemingly endless cycle, but since the bunker it's just easier if they go find their own rooms.

Nod.

Applemunch.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

... Was that a dismissal nod? It's a bit hard to tell. New person and all.

"Lovely house," he tells her, and means it really really hard even if he's not sure if he's supposed to go now or not.

[littlestcooper]

Happy smile!

She doesn't look dismissive.

Just... quiet.

And: "It is."

Considering pause.

"Was my sister's."

Until Anne died.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry," Toby offers, less because he instinctively understands what happened than because if Lucy's sister had married or been evicted or something, Lucy wouldn't be the lady of the house now.

And people do have a distressing tendency to die.

[littlestcooper]

That they do.

This nod is a little bit sad, but Lucy's better about these things now. Comparatively.

Different thread, same spoiler.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

"Mrs Lovett passed on, just before I..." bang flash and the lightning crashed and this'll happen often never mind anyway "... came," Toby concludes. "She was a baker-- made meat pies, mostly. I was her apprentice."

[littlestcooper]

"Sorry," says Lucy, who is at least fairly certain that it wasn't her fault, but aware that it's what one says.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

Toby knows exactly whose fault it is, and also knows very firmly that it's been set as right as he could set it. (Which he didn't like, no, but it needed doing.)

"Thank you, miss."

[littlestcooper]

Soft nod.

Yeah, Lucy knows what it's like to lose someone.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

Like a mother to him. He'd've been back in the workhouse without her. Treated him nicer than she needed to treat an apprentice or shop boy-- not one lashing.

There might be an underlying note of still-slightly-confused anger, but hey, it all happened very recently.

"This is your world, then? Miss Jona explained that much to me." Hullo there, subject change, how nice to see you at a time like this. Probably.

[littlestcooper]

"Yes."

Like a mother to her: Renee, whose claw-carved gravestone Lucy still visits, up in what's left of New York. And Anne, out back of the house in a little overgrown part of the field.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

Being local doesn't seem to help being uprooted, at least in some ways, does it?

"S'pose you know how to work the oven, then?" It's a hopeful sort of question, if also slightly doubtful-- she's the lady of the house, and it's a fine house, she probably doesn't need to know how to work the oven. "I'm happy to cook for folk, only there's no fire in."

And he's not dumb enough to try to build one in there, either.

[littlestcooper]

Nod!

"This," she says, tapping the appropriate dial. "It turns. Further around, more heat, after you wait for the oven to catch up."

...what? Lucy totally knows how to cook. Or at least how to help Anne cook, and that's the same thing, isn't it? Yes. Right. Mmhmm.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

Of course it is! And just because Toby doesn't know how to make sausages doesn't mean he can't just chop up meat for pies. (He'll know what's in the pies that way, too.)

But he pays completely rapt attention. "Like stoking the fire, then," he guesses. "What's all the numbers for?"

[littlestcooper]

"How hot it gets."

She really doesn't know much more than that, alas.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

Toby goes wide-eyed. He does this rather a lot in the kitchen. "Cor. And you can just keep it as hot as you want?"

Or let it go totally cold so it doesn't make the kitchen stifling all day! WOW.

[littlestcooper]

"Yes?"

She doesn't really get the attraction. It's an oven, for heaven's sake. You cook things with it.

[bakers-boy.livejournal.com]

"All we used back in London was wood fires, miss," Toby explains. From talking to Mel, he understands this is not how it works everywhere. "S'a bit like magic, really."