Blood and Cupcakes - 1/2
Blood and Cupcakes - 1/2
Rating: Gen, R, Death fic
Characters: Dean, Sam, The Woman formerly known as Martha, and a special guest appearance by The Fonz.
Word Count: 5,379/11,261
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchesters for fun and angst. Sorry about the holes.
A/N: Coda to 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked
A SPN/HD multiple (depending on how you read the time changes) death fic crossover (but not).
For slazersc who asked for a sequel to Bread and Circuses “with Sammy never letting Dean live down the cupcake moment.” This did diverge a little from the original request - for which I take complete responsibility I blame my muse (she’s fickle, emo, and entirely too attached to angst-bunnies)
Apologies for the gratuitous misuse of HD’s lyrics, and some of the Fonz’s more famous sayings. But none at all for the character death(s), or screwing with the internal timelines.
Thanks to the fantabulous secret-seer for creating a retro banner that truly rocks.
Setting: Milwaukee, Wis., and elsewhere, 1955/July 2008
Summary: What do you mean, “I look like a chick in my apron?”
Sequel to: Bread and Circuses - Part 1 | Part 2
Part 1 | Part 2
Part 1
Place the dry ingredients into your mixing bowl.
‘Hey!’
Richard re-combed his hair, smiled at himself in the mirror taped inside his locker door, and tried again. Once more with attitude.
‘Heyyy!’
Darn. He just couldn’t get it right. Felt like he’d been standing here practicing forever. Well, days at least. Lots, and lots of days.
Best days of his life they kept telling him. Happy days.
Huh. He’d be a whole lot happier if he could be the cool one for a change.
He’d tried. The jeans. The t-shirt. The boots. The hair-he’d almost got that casual sweep back mastered, even if his hair was red…reddish fair instead of dark. The jacket? That was a sore point. Melting down onto the kitchen tiles in this freakish heat wave, and he still desperately wanted a brown leather jacket to complete his look. His sweater was just all wrong. Richard knew that if he had the jacket he could go ‘Heyyy’ with the best of them.
He peered more closely at himself in the badly foxed mirror. It wasn’t the mirror. It was him.
‘Oh, God. Kill me now.’
There was one thing he couldn’t change. One awful, tragic, gut-wrenching thing. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the cook’s annoying snickers behind him. He was doomed to be a dateless high school nerd for life. Even worse? He didn’t own a car.
He blamed it on his freckles.
Scrape down the side of the bowl with a spatula.
Richard didn’t know what it was about the kid. No one talked to him apart from The Fonz-who didn’t let anyone intimidate him-and Richard himself. The carhops orbited cautiously around him on their skates, attentive smiling satellites shepherding him rather obviously towards wherever Richard was when he came in, but they never said a word directly to him. The Cook just kept complaining about having to increase the order for chocolate whenever he spotted him through the kitchen hatch. Even the innocuous, if somewhat batty, Mr Balam had moved his position from the centre stool to one at the opposite end of the serving bench from him. Strangely the kid seemed to prefer the increased distance too. Richard would have thought they were all a little jealous of the fact that the kid had somehow managed to co-opt all Richard’s spare time in the afternoons, if it wasn’t for his boss’s reaction.
There was no doubt about it, she disliked-no, it was stronger than that-she hated the kid. It only took Richard a day to figure it out. She always nodded and smiled thinly at him, same as any other customer. But every evening after the kid left Richard found himself being politely, but thoroughly, grilled about him for hours. At times Richard felt that if she could have gotten away with chaining him up to a wall and torturing the answers out of him her smile would have widened like a shark’s. It didn’t matter though, because Richard wasn’t telling her anything. Not about the kid, the cupcakes, or how he sometimes crazily wanted to grab the kid’s hand and drag him outside so they could run, and keep on going until they both got away.
The kid never said anything to him about how everyone’s conversations died as soon as he entered the diner. He just came in the door at 4.01 pm every afternoon, shoulders determinedly straightened against the silence, grinned down-damn it-at Richard, and put in his usual order for cupcakes, and sat there with his head buried in piles of boring library books until forced to leave at closing time.
Richard felt sorry for him, and just kept trialling more, and better cupcake recipes. It was the only thing that he knew how to do. He only hoped it helped.
Don’t let the mixture come to a boil.
‘Yo, Red!’
Oh my God. He’s talking to me! The Fonz was talking to him. Who cared if he couldn’t remember his name? ‘I’m more of a strawberry blonde,’ Richard responded giddily before he realised he should never try talking to his idol without practising what he wanted to say first. Possibly years of practise would be a good idea. Years, and years.
‘Whoever heard of anyone called Blondie?’ Fonzie said dismissively. ‘Got a name, kid?’
‘Richard,’ he murmured sheepishly, wishing it was cooler. He almost said Richie because that was sounding better by the minute, but he didn’t want to be accused of being a copycat. There was only one Fonzie after all. ‘Richard. Or Dick.’
The Fonz looked him up and down carefully. ‘No, I don’t think you’re a dick, Shortcake.’
And that was it. The Fonz had spoken. Richard was no more. He was Shortcake. The only thing he could be grateful for was that it hadn’t been prefixed with Strawberry.
Place the butter, hot water, and vanilla in a small saucepan.
Richard happily ducked and weaved through the after school chaos that was Arnold’s on a Monday afternoon. A group of giggling girls from his English class were inexpertly meandering a conga line past the Guys and Dolls rooms and up to the counter singing,
‘…if the band slows down, we'll yell for more.’
Unfortunately, every time they tried to kick out their right legs when they got to ‘ROCK!’ they kept tumbling over into an incoherent muddle of skirts and tanned legs on the floor.
Richard appreciated the view, though it was awkward to have to step over them to serve the customers in the booths by the windows. He really did have the best job ever, even if the boss kept insisting, ‘Bigger smiles. Show me your happy face.’ and the cook just grunted, ‘Order up!’ faster than Richard could bus the tables.
God, it’s hot. Richard didn’t care if it was the middle of July. This was a searing, strangely dry and acrid heat that was not the Wisconsin norm. Thank goodness for those fans scattered around inside the diner. Otherwise he’d never get through the seemingly endless shifts without sticking his head under the cold tap more than he did alrea…
‘Paper! Paper! All your questions answered! Paper! Paper!’
Richard swore, and ducked a little too slowly as a rolled up newspaper was fired with deadly accuracy through the open door to whack him on the forehead.
‘Son of a … gun!’ Tomorrow I’m gonna get you. Every darned afternoon for the past month that gangly newsboy had come cycling by at 3.16 pm, and thirty seconds later he always hit his own personal Cunningham bull’s eye. Richard was the least paranoid person he knew, but he was starting to think that maybe the Johnson kid didn’t like him.
Prepare tins: either use cupcake liners or grease with butter.
It was the best thing he’d ever built. It was…
‘C’est magnifique!’ Cook said, kissing his fingers with scary Gallic abandon. His broad New Jersey accent ruined the effect only slightly.
Stupendous. That’s what it was. Richard knew he’d outdone himself this time.
‘Richard? What is this … contraption?’ His boss’s suspiciously straight nose was twitching with distaste as she gingerly prodded his centrepiece.
‘Watch out! It’s…’ fragile.
Richard crouched on the ground surrounded by the scattered shards of the invention that had taken him months to scrounge the parts for and build, and rebuild till it was perfect. ‘It was my automated breakfast machine.’ Made the coffee, toasted the bread, flipped eggs and bacon and slid everything onto a tray in ten minutes, and then asked if you wanted fries with that. Or it had until five seconds ago. Right about then Richard decided he almost hated his boss.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to cowboy up, and shoot someone. He went and got a dustpan and brush, and cleaned up the ruins of another wasted dream instead.
If using a lower-grade of cocoa than Callebaut you will need to add 2 extra tablespoons.
The Johnson boy loved chocolate, in any way, shape or form. But more than anything he adored chocolate cupcakes. The whole town knew it. The cook knew it. Richard knew it.
The first time the kid had opened the brown paper bag containing his lunch and proudly brought forth a cupcake decorated with some strangely squiggled pattern on the top, the whole school had laughed at him. Except for Richard.
He remembered the way the kid had ducked his head, hiding behind that mop of brown hair as if the bangs could protect him from the instinctive cruelty of the modern American teenager. Richard had felt sorry for him; he knew what it was like to get laughed at, his Mom made him embarrassing lunches all the time. He’d nudged the kid over on the bench, sat down beside him, and quietly offered him half of his own baloney sandwich in exchange for the some of the cupcake. The kid had beamed up at him, selflessly giving him the top half, which Richard thought was dumb, but he’d eaten it, and it had been awesome, especially the frosting.
The kid hadn’t left him alone after that, and after a few weeks Richard eventually became resigned to having a second shorter shadow following him around the schoolyard.
In hindsight, it was probably silly of him not to have realized that the passing years had made no difference to his whither thou goest attitude-except for the fact that the kid had shot up to great heights on what seemed to be a diet of pure chocolate. In the three months since Richard had gotten the job at Arnold’s, the kid had become as much a permanent fixture in the diner after his paper run as Mr Balam was.
Richard kept having to remind himself that the kid was probably really only there for the cupcakes.
Using your electric mixer beat on a low speed for 5 minutes.
Plans take time, weeks; months even. But Richard was patient, secretive, and very perky. He was doing his best to do everything his boss asked him to do, although she seemed to want an awful lot. Richard had had no idea that work was quite this hard. Still, for the car he’d had his eye on for the past five months, it was worth it.
And if he was very good, and didn’t break anything at all for the next two days the cook had actually promised to teach him how to make pastry.
Richard couldn’t resist bouncing a little in his sneakers. Pastry. Next stop, pie! As he lugged the bucket of scraps towards the back door he didn’t care if that exciting thought put more of a girly skip into his walk than usual.
Apple or cherry? It was going to be hard to come up with the perfect choice of filling for his first pie, but Richard knew he was up to the challenge. The Cunninghams were known for their ability to rise to the occasion. That, and a distinct talent for hardware.
‘Maybe chocolate,’ Richard debated as he struggled to nudge the door open with his toe. Rats. He kicked the door. Hard. Ow. He wished he had some of those boots like…
Like… like… What was I doing? Richard looked down at the heavy container in his hands. Full of meat and bones, and blood. Eww. Cook had probably shoved it at him and forgot to tell him where to take it. Most likely it was one of those jokes on the new guy. Run him ragged on the first day. Take this here, take this there. Richard sighed; then grinned as he turned away from that strange nothingness outside, and carried his burden back to the kitchen to await his next order. He could take the hazing.
First day of the rest of his life.
Dust with flour.
‘What are we looking at?’
‘Hush, Richie.’ Wendy and Marsha had their faces pressed to the door looking out into the darkness. ‘Just wait.’
Richard tried not to pout. He hated being called that. It was a stupid abbreviation, and not manly at all, though a step above Shortcake. He was tired of waiting; it had been a long first week. But the girls were cute, and maybe if he hung around and stayed with them for whatever had them twirling their hair around the fingers as if they were about to get asked to the school’s Spring Hop, just maybe they’d talk to him, and he could buy one of them a milkshake and… kissing. Maybe there would be ki…
A loud, throaty roar shook the building, and again. It was getting closer.
Holy Mother of…
A herd of wild beasts had just erupted around the corner of the main street and was charging towards them. Fur and gleaming yellow eyes…teeth…claws…power…rage…and a ravenous need for blood.
‘Fuck! Coming for me. Samm…’
The glowing lights swept past them and sped away to drop off the edges of his world leaving an unforgettable memory of rubber, steel, and chrome; black and gold symbols writhing over the darkest of red paintwork, all controlled by lean, leather-clad, helmeted figures glancing sideways at him with anonymous mirrored eyes. Marking him.
‘Cool.’
‘Yeah,’ they both sighed simultaneously as the glass softened and buckled for a second underneath their clawed hands
Richard struggled to hold on to his vision of that car he was working for, but those guys and those bikes… ‘Wow.’
He flushed when he realised his right hand was uselessly trying to twist a strand of his own too-short hair as he stared wistfully off into the distance. Maybe it would be best if he concentrated on pies from now on.
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees (allowing at least 20 minutes to reach correct temperature.)
Fruit. The kid had brought him fruit.
As a present.
He bought me fruit.
‘Picked em myself,’ the kid said shyly, stubbing his sneakers up against the metal rungs of the stool he was draped all over.
Six minutes earlier he’d run inside, as if the hounds of Hell had been nipping at his heels trying to prevent him turning up at his usual time. But the moment he’d got to Richard’s side all that fear and desperation had melted magically away.
No. That wasn’t right. Richard looked closer at his young shadow. It wasn’t gone; it was still there. Hiding. The kid had forced it down out of easy sight, as if he was used to turning part of himself on and off at will as he needed to. He was pretending everything was all right. Pretending. For me.
Why? What was out there that was so terrible that this kid thought he had to be protected from?
‘You couldn’t come with. So… I… uh… got you some.’
What could he say?
‘Um. Thanks.’ Clever, Richard. Very clever. I’m an idiot. He’s just a kid. And he’s being nice. And there’s nothing out there. I’m just imagining things.
He peered inside the bucket. Huh. Not apples. Weird-looking whatever they were.
‘Biked all the way to Asia for them. Fruit of the Gods, you know. All kinds of legends about them.’
Nerd.
Still. Present. Richard smiled, and didn’t ever want to stop. ‘Thanks!’ he said with more warmth than he’d meant to let show. ‘I guess I could make something with them.’
‘Cupcakes!’ The kid demanded single-mindedly. ‘Cupcakes would be…’
‘Awesome,’ Richard finished, trying hard to banish all thoughts of a deep-dish lattice-topped pie instantly from his head. Cupcakes? Real men didn’t eat cupcakes. Real men ate pie. He wanted to make pie, he loved pie, but he knew that if the kid wanted cupcakes, the kid was going to get his damned chick-flick cupcakes. Richard wished he wasn’t such a pushover for kids. He needed to be more like the Fonz. The Fonz wouldn’t make cupcakes. That leather jacket and those engineer’s boots were definitely cupcake deterrents. Plus the Fonz didn’t have the added disadvantage of freckles. The Fonz didn’t know how lucky he was. Richard wondered if there was any point in him practicing his finger snapping or that double thumbs up thing. Probably not.
‘Yeah. Awesome.’
The kid had dimples for Heaven’s sake. Dimples! Richard thought the Gods surely knew how to fight dirty.
‘Well? What are you waiting for? Get out of here! I’ve got cupcakes to make. Can’t have foolish people cluttering up the diner wasting my valuable cooking time.’
‘Jerk,’ the kid said, wrinkling his nose with derision as he turned and walked out cheerfully out the door.
He stuck his head back inside a few seconds later. ‘Promise me you’ll save some of the seeds for yourself? Please? I’ll tell you why later.’
Huh? Oh well. Best to humour the kid. ‘Okay. Now scram!’
‘Fine! I’m scramming,’ the kid said, holding up both hands in mock surrender and backing up towards his bike with a grin. ‘But first I just have to say,’ he paused for greater effect before blowing him a mock goodbye kiss. ‘You look like a real chick in that apron.’ He snickered and was gone.
‘Bitch,’ Richard said softly to himself as he was left alone once more.
Alone.
With fruit.
Whisk well to aerate and combine ingredients.
Batman rules! Richard loved the Batman strips. It was just a shame that he had to read them every day with a headache. He didn’t know what it was. He’d be sitting on one of the bar stools reading the funny pages during his break, and he’d find himself turning around automatically to recap the next thrilling instalment, saying ‘Look at this, Sa…’ when everything would just stop for a second, he’d be doubled over biting his lip with pain while all he could see was a black sky overhead and rivers running red, then the world would shudder back on track as the jukebox changed records, and he was still in the diner getting weird looks from old Mr Balam who always sat on that same stool from 2 through 4 pm drinking Earl Grey tea with his toasted English muffin.
As he sat there trying to smile as if he wasn’t choking on the taste of his own blood Richard wondered if comics really were bad for you.
Set aside to cool before icing.
Richard couldn’t remember when his after-school job had metamorphosized into what seemed to be a 24-7 marathon. It didn’t matter. He was supposed to be here. He knew that. It was one of the few things he was sure about. Arnold’s was his life. He was here to work. For Her. He was meant to be here. She kept telling him that. So it must be true. He did his job. He was good at it. He could stay as long as he liked. I’m lucky.
There was a time and a place for everything. That made him feel safe. He needed that so very badly. He knew it; he just wished he could recall why.
He knew every single customer, their names, their regular orders, and their families, their whole lives. He had a home, and a history here in Milwaukee. He was a great assistant cook, and one day he’d be in charge of the kitchen. He was happy. It was all he’d ever wanted.
He didn’t need to glance at the clock to know it was almost time. The kid was never late.
Richard shivered as the ubiquitous background growls of those damned dogs from down the block lifted to new heights. He hated those dogs. He knew he shouldn’t. He could just barely remember loving dogs once, playing with them, naming them, he and someone else -who?-running wild through a metal wilderness… So long ago. Must have been a dream. Didn’t matter. These dogs? There was something not right about them. The sound kept echoing through him. It reminded him of blood and a long time dying.
He heard the clock tick over. Time. It was time. Don’t be late.
The decibel level rose even higher, and Richard couldn’t forget that long ago glimpse of a hunting pack that had melted into bikes and men so fast he’d doubted his own senses. He remembered eyes reflecting firelight and knew enough to be afraid.
He couldn’t go out. It had been so long that he couldn’t even remember what the street looked like past the sightlines of the diner’s windows. A part of him wondered why it felt like he’d never been outside. Ever.
He couldn’t leave.
Can’t go. Just… can’t.
He looked at the clock. Another minute had died while he balanced fear over… What? Friendship? This weird sense that he knew that kid better than anything in this world? That he was in trouble and needed him?
He couldn’t… go…
He went.
Running out into the furnace that was the limits of his world, as the breath was scorched from his lungs, his skin dried to leather, and salt rose to the surface of his skin then flaked away to nothing.
Ran. Finally knowing where he was, and who he was waiting for.
Ran. To find the kid tearing through the ever-shifting embers towards him with Hellhounds at his back.
And Richard stepped between them.
Screamed, ‘Run, Sammy! Run!’ and let them take him instead.
Heard his brother’s voice send his name down with him into the darkness.
And he knew.
Before starting, check to see that you have all the required ingredients to hand.
‘So, what do you want to be when you grow up?’ The kid asked indistinctly through a mouthful of Richard’s Tuesday invention-initially christened the Chocolate-Caramel-Coffee Cupcake Delight (he’d run out of words beginning with “c”), and as of two cupcakes and three seconds ago instantly renamed by the kid the “Cha-Cha-Cha.”
For a strange moment part of Richard wanted to yell that he’d never had a chance to want something for himself. That in all the worlds there were he was only ever going to be one thing. His throat closing up with bitterness, disappointment, and pain because fate was a jealous bitch, Richard locked that thought away fast along with all those other oddities that had turned too many of his dreams to nightmares lately, and took a restorative sip of his root beer float. If it wasn’t for wanting that car so bad he’d have cut back his hours weeks ago. Something about this job was getting to him. He couldn’t even talk to this kid without spacing out and feeling like the walls were about go up in flames around them both.
He took another breath. Richard. I’m Richard. That’s just a dream. This is real. I’m Richard. This is my life.
The kid was still sitting there, shaggy head calmly tilted to one side as he fastidiously picked all the silver cachous off the frosting and carefully rearranged them on his plate into another, even stranger, configuration.
‘Pick a career. Any career. Say whatever comes into your head first. There isn’t any wrong answer you know.’ He grinned at Richard and started reeling off a long list of increasingly more outrageous suggestions as he reached out a long finger and knighted each decoration in turn. ‘Tinker? Tailor? Soldier? Spy? Fireman? Florist? Mechanic? Hunter?’
Brother. Richard didn’t know where that came from as the kid touched the final silver ball, and just looked up at him in silent query. Brother. Brother. Brother…
God that was weird. He definitely had to stop licking all the frosting out of the empty bowl. The sugar was getting to him. It was probably best if he reverted to a healthier diet of pies instead of this kid’s evil cupcakes from now on.
Tell him the truth. Tell him you want to be a writer. No, that didn’t sound respectable enough-Richard had given up on hoping to achieve Fonzie’s coolness (and that leather jacket), and had lowered his expectations to something more achievable. He shrugged. ‘Thought I might eventually go to Law School,’ he lied in the hopes of impressing the kid.
The kid choked on the last bite of his cupcake, and Richard had to spend some time patiently thumping him on the back before Junior’s face became a little less purple, and he settled back down onto his stool, wheezing sporadically, and looking across the counter at Richard as if the sun had suddenly been sliced open and started raining blood down onto a parched and barren earth. Or he’d caught him telling a big, fat, juicy fib. Whatever.
‘Writer,’ he admitted when those big innocent hazel eyes finally forced the truth out of him. He went back to idly spinning the last cupcake around and around on the platter. If he looked down into that silver design long enough hopefully everything else would go away and he wouldn’t really be sitting here feeling as if he was taking part in one of those nightmarish blind date question and answer sessions.
Maybe it would be less painful in the long run if he just stabbed himself with a silver cake fork instead?
Add the sugar, melted butter mix, buttermilk, and egg.
‘Yo, Shortcake!’
Richard frowned. He’d been flattered when Fonzie of all people had given him a nickname, but after two months it was beginning to grate, he just wished he’d been crowned something more exciting like, ‘The Caped Avenger!’
‘Ehhhh! Sounds more like a cat,’ Fonzie said as he propped his Harley-Davidson up inside the front door.
Sh… sugar. Richard resolved to keep his mind as well as his mouth firmly shut from then on, right after he tried to brazen it out. ‘You want a piece of me, Bucko? The Avenger takes on all comers.’
Fonzie punched Richard very lightly on the chin. ‘You’re okay, Cunningham. You’re okay.’
Richard grinned and went back to his usual 3.55 pm job; leaning on the counter rearranging his latest cupcake creations artistically on a cheerful red anodised aluminium platter, and trying not to look like he was peering through the smoke-grimed windows for a certain customer to turn up.
‘Aaay. You dreaming about a girl?’ Fonzie’s smirk was simultaneously teasing and supportive.
For a minute Richard wondered if this was what it would have been like if he’d had a big brother before he clamped down on the suddenly painful thought. He might have a great life here in Milwaukee with his Mom and Dad, but there were days when he wished he wasn’t an only child. He was sure he would have been an awesome brother if he’d had the chance.
Fonzie bumped shoulders with him companionably. ‘A real girl? Or a girl you’ve never met?’
Oops. ‘Come on, Fonz. Haven’t you ever dreamed?’
‘Hey, I’m not the dreamer! I’m the dreamee!’
Richard slumped against the counter dejectedly. Now wasn’t the time to say he’d been having weird dreams about someone other than a girl.
Fighting side-by-side with his other half…Running…Hunting… Dying for someone he couldn’t remember. All mixed up with broken fragments of mirrored glass that twisted through his mind reflecting back a face he almost knew… And there was a name that kept slipping away from him in blood, slivers of light, and never-ending screams…
‘It’s all right, Shortcake. We’re all allowed one thing to dream about,’ Fonzie said much too compassionately.
Apparently Richard didn’t have a good poker face.
But, as he looked down at the photograph of the Lone Ranger that the Fonz proudly unearthed from its hiding place in his wallet next to his library card, Richard realised that everyone had secrets.
Richard was only just beginning to understand that his own were much darker than he could have ever imagined.
Check your recipe to ensure no steps have been missed.
Richard wasn’t afraid to admit that he was hiding. It was 3.02 pm and he was skulking like a girl behind the window frame. He took another swift peek through the oddly distorted glass. ‘There! Him.’ His target was cycling ungainly along the opposite sidewalk-legs far too long for his small bike-briskly tossing his deliveries safely down onto each doorstep.
‘The paperboy?’ The cook’s tone was just this side of scathing. ‘You hauled me out here in the middle of baking cakes to get me to look at the paperboy? The ‘Are you completely insane?’ was left unsaid. The cook was obviously restraining himself.
Richard ignored him. He knew the cook liked him, and not just because he ate everything the cook slipped him when Martha wasn’t there. Richard had a way with people. Everyone except that kid. ‘Who is he?’
‘Duh!’ The cook whacked him on the head with a hot and floury hand. ‘That’s the Johnson boy. Lives three blocks over. You’ve known him since you were both in short pants. He’s a few years behind you in high school. You’ve seen him every day of your life.’
The thought of shorts frightened Richard for one brief dark minute before he toughened up and cast it aside. That name, it sounded right somehow. John’s boy… ‘Yeah, sure. What was his name again?’
The cook gave him a look like he was born stupid, which Richard could work with. There was something about that kid that bothered Richard. He just needed to find out what it was so he could go back to concentrating on his secret master pie pla…
‘Richard, dear. Do we have a problem?’
His boss was good at sneaking up to people. Richard couldn’t figure out how she did it in heels that high. She’d given him a shock for a minute. Even the cook seemed scared, which was odd because their resident culinary genius looked better suited to life as a bouncer for a Hell’s Angels Halloween party than the ordinariness of Arnold’s.
‘Uh.’ Nothing. I’m just looking at the paperboy. No. That came out as if I’m mooning over him like a girl. Richard wasn’t sure how to phrase it without sounding like an idiot in front of the best boss he’d ever had. He waved a hand vaguely towards the window. ‘Just saw someone who looked familiar. Got a real bad memory for names, thought Cook could refresh it for me.’ Richard shuffled his feet and did a good imitation of shy and embarrassed, which he hoped worked with women. He hadn’t tried it on purpose before.
It went down a treat. His boss looked like she was about to pat him on the head like he was one of her annoying fluffy dogs. Richard edged a few discreet inches further away from her. She was great and all, but he didn’t like this feeling he was getting that she thought he was her pet. Next thing he knew she’d be checking him for fleas and wanting to brush his coat hair till it shone. He smiled back at her widely though, because? Boss. Besides, someone that blonde, smug, and nice probably had no idea that her behaviour was making feel like a kept man.
Unfortunately that self-satisfied expression leached instantly from her face as soon as she saw who they were looking at.
‘Ah yes, the Johnson boy, back home at last. Don’t worry about him, Richard. He’s not supposed to be here right now. I’ll deal with it. I think the two of you should be getting back to work.’ She stood there smiling blandly out into the unrelieved night, one red-talonned fingernail tapping tensely against her watch face. ‘It’s almost 6 am. Time for the before-work rush hour. You don’t want to start your first day at work off by being late, do you, Richard?’
‘No, Ma’am.’ Richard said brightly, turning back to glance around the diner. He knew it so well. Been coming here all his life, but now he was about to start work it all looked so different to the memories he had. First day. As he felt the harsh morning sun begin to beat unrelentingly down against his back he was filled with hope. He had so much to look forward to.
Part 2
Rating: Gen, R, Death fic
Characters: Dean, Sam, The Woman formerly known as Martha, and a special guest appearance by The Fonz.
Word Count: 5,379/11,261
Disclaimer: The characters are sadly not mine. I’m just sticking pins into Winchesters for fun and angst. Sorry about the holes.
A/N: Coda to 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked
A SPN/HD multiple (depending on how you read the time changes) death fic crossover (but not).
For slazersc who asked for a sequel to Bread and Circuses “with Sammy never letting Dean live down the cupcake moment.” This did diverge a little from the original request - for which I take complete responsibility I blame my muse (she’s fickle, emo, and entirely too attached to angst-bunnies)
Apologies for the gratuitous misuse of HD’s lyrics, and some of the Fonz’s more famous sayings. But none at all for the character death(s), or screwing with the internal timelines.
Thanks to the fantabulous secret-seer for creating a retro banner that truly rocks.
Setting: Milwaukee, Wis., and elsewhere, 1955/July 2008
Summary: What do you mean, “I look like a chick in my apron?”
Sequel to: Bread and Circuses - Part 1 | Part 2
Part 1 | Part 2
Part 1
Place the dry ingredients into your mixing bowl.
‘Hey!’
Richard re-combed his hair, smiled at himself in the mirror taped inside his locker door, and tried again. Once more with attitude.
‘Heyyy!’
Darn. He just couldn’t get it right. Felt like he’d been standing here practicing forever. Well, days at least. Lots, and lots of days.
Best days of his life they kept telling him. Happy days.
Huh. He’d be a whole lot happier if he could be the cool one for a change.
He’d tried. The jeans. The t-shirt. The boots. The hair-he’d almost got that casual sweep back mastered, even if his hair was red…reddish fair instead of dark. The jacket? That was a sore point. Melting down onto the kitchen tiles in this freakish heat wave, and he still desperately wanted a brown leather jacket to complete his look. His sweater was just all wrong. Richard knew that if he had the jacket he could go ‘Heyyy’ with the best of them.
He peered more closely at himself in the badly foxed mirror. It wasn’t the mirror. It was him.
‘Oh, God. Kill me now.’
There was one thing he couldn’t change. One awful, tragic, gut-wrenching thing. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the cook’s annoying snickers behind him. He was doomed to be a dateless high school nerd for life. Even worse? He didn’t own a car.
He blamed it on his freckles.
Scrape down the side of the bowl with a spatula.
Richard didn’t know what it was about the kid. No one talked to him apart from The Fonz-who didn’t let anyone intimidate him-and Richard himself. The carhops orbited cautiously around him on their skates, attentive smiling satellites shepherding him rather obviously towards wherever Richard was when he came in, but they never said a word directly to him. The Cook just kept complaining about having to increase the order for chocolate whenever he spotted him through the kitchen hatch. Even the innocuous, if somewhat batty, Mr Balam had moved his position from the centre stool to one at the opposite end of the serving bench from him. Strangely the kid seemed to prefer the increased distance too. Richard would have thought they were all a little jealous of the fact that the kid had somehow managed to co-opt all Richard’s spare time in the afternoons, if it wasn’t for his boss’s reaction.
There was no doubt about it, she disliked-no, it was stronger than that-she hated the kid. It only took Richard a day to figure it out. She always nodded and smiled thinly at him, same as any other customer. But every evening after the kid left Richard found himself being politely, but thoroughly, grilled about him for hours. At times Richard felt that if she could have gotten away with chaining him up to a wall and torturing the answers out of him her smile would have widened like a shark’s. It didn’t matter though, because Richard wasn’t telling her anything. Not about the kid, the cupcakes, or how he sometimes crazily wanted to grab the kid’s hand and drag him outside so they could run, and keep on going until they both got away.
The kid never said anything to him about how everyone’s conversations died as soon as he entered the diner. He just came in the door at 4.01 pm every afternoon, shoulders determinedly straightened against the silence, grinned down-damn it-at Richard, and put in his usual order for cupcakes, and sat there with his head buried in piles of boring library books until forced to leave at closing time.
Richard felt sorry for him, and just kept trialling more, and better cupcake recipes. It was the only thing that he knew how to do. He only hoped it helped.
Don’t let the mixture come to a boil.
‘Yo, Red!’
Oh my God. He’s talking to me! The Fonz was talking to him. Who cared if he couldn’t remember his name? ‘I’m more of a strawberry blonde,’ Richard responded giddily before he realised he should never try talking to his idol without practising what he wanted to say first. Possibly years of practise would be a good idea. Years, and years.
‘Whoever heard of anyone called Blondie?’ Fonzie said dismissively. ‘Got a name, kid?’
‘Richard,’ he murmured sheepishly, wishing it was cooler. He almost said Richie because that was sounding better by the minute, but he didn’t want to be accused of being a copycat. There was only one Fonzie after all. ‘Richard. Or Dick.’
The Fonz looked him up and down carefully. ‘No, I don’t think you’re a dick, Shortcake.’
And that was it. The Fonz had spoken. Richard was no more. He was Shortcake. The only thing he could be grateful for was that it hadn’t been prefixed with Strawberry.
Place the butter, hot water, and vanilla in a small saucepan.
Richard happily ducked and weaved through the after school chaos that was Arnold’s on a Monday afternoon. A group of giggling girls from his English class were inexpertly meandering a conga line past the Guys and Dolls rooms and up to the counter singing,
‘…if the band slows down, we'll yell for more.’
Unfortunately, every time they tried to kick out their right legs when they got to ‘ROCK!’ they kept tumbling over into an incoherent muddle of skirts and tanned legs on the floor.
Richard appreciated the view, though it was awkward to have to step over them to serve the customers in the booths by the windows. He really did have the best job ever, even if the boss kept insisting, ‘Bigger smiles. Show me your happy face.’ and the cook just grunted, ‘Order up!’ faster than Richard could bus the tables.
God, it’s hot. Richard didn’t care if it was the middle of July. This was a searing, strangely dry and acrid heat that was not the Wisconsin norm. Thank goodness for those fans scattered around inside the diner. Otherwise he’d never get through the seemingly endless shifts without sticking his head under the cold tap more than he did alrea…
‘Paper! Paper! All your questions answered! Paper! Paper!’
Richard swore, and ducked a little too slowly as a rolled up newspaper was fired with deadly accuracy through the open door to whack him on the forehead.
‘Son of a … gun!’ Tomorrow I’m gonna get you. Every darned afternoon for the past month that gangly newsboy had come cycling by at 3.16 pm, and thirty seconds later he always hit his own personal Cunningham bull’s eye. Richard was the least paranoid person he knew, but he was starting to think that maybe the Johnson kid didn’t like him.
Prepare tins: either use cupcake liners or grease with butter.
It was the best thing he’d ever built. It was…
‘C’est magnifique!’ Cook said, kissing his fingers with scary Gallic abandon. His broad New Jersey accent ruined the effect only slightly.
Stupendous. That’s what it was. Richard knew he’d outdone himself this time.
‘Richard? What is this … contraption?’ His boss’s suspiciously straight nose was twitching with distaste as she gingerly prodded his centrepiece.
‘Watch out! It’s…’ fragile.
Richard crouched on the ground surrounded by the scattered shards of the invention that had taken him months to scrounge the parts for and build, and rebuild till it was perfect. ‘It was my automated breakfast machine.’ Made the coffee, toasted the bread, flipped eggs and bacon and slid everything onto a tray in ten minutes, and then asked if you wanted fries with that. Or it had until five seconds ago. Right about then Richard decided he almost hated his boss.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to cowboy up, and shoot someone. He went and got a dustpan and brush, and cleaned up the ruins of another wasted dream instead.
If using a lower-grade of cocoa than Callebaut you will need to add 2 extra tablespoons.
The Johnson boy loved chocolate, in any way, shape or form. But more than anything he adored chocolate cupcakes. The whole town knew it. The cook knew it. Richard knew it.
The first time the kid had opened the brown paper bag containing his lunch and proudly brought forth a cupcake decorated with some strangely squiggled pattern on the top, the whole school had laughed at him. Except for Richard.
He remembered the way the kid had ducked his head, hiding behind that mop of brown hair as if the bangs could protect him from the instinctive cruelty of the modern American teenager. Richard had felt sorry for him; he knew what it was like to get laughed at, his Mom made him embarrassing lunches all the time. He’d nudged the kid over on the bench, sat down beside him, and quietly offered him half of his own baloney sandwich in exchange for the some of the cupcake. The kid had beamed up at him, selflessly giving him the top half, which Richard thought was dumb, but he’d eaten it, and it had been awesome, especially the frosting.
The kid hadn’t left him alone after that, and after a few weeks Richard eventually became resigned to having a second shorter shadow following him around the schoolyard.
In hindsight, it was probably silly of him not to have realized that the passing years had made no difference to his whither thou goest attitude-except for the fact that the kid had shot up to great heights on what seemed to be a diet of pure chocolate. In the three months since Richard had gotten the job at Arnold’s, the kid had become as much a permanent fixture in the diner after his paper run as Mr Balam was.
Richard kept having to remind himself that the kid was probably really only there for the cupcakes.
Using your electric mixer beat on a low speed for 5 minutes.
Plans take time, weeks; months even. But Richard was patient, secretive, and very perky. He was doing his best to do everything his boss asked him to do, although she seemed to want an awful lot. Richard had had no idea that work was quite this hard. Still, for the car he’d had his eye on for the past five months, it was worth it.
And if he was very good, and didn’t break anything at all for the next two days the cook had actually promised to teach him how to make pastry.
Richard couldn’t resist bouncing a little in his sneakers. Pastry. Next stop, pie! As he lugged the bucket of scraps towards the back door he didn’t care if that exciting thought put more of a girly skip into his walk than usual.
Apple or cherry? It was going to be hard to come up with the perfect choice of filling for his first pie, but Richard knew he was up to the challenge. The Cunninghams were known for their ability to rise to the occasion. That, and a distinct talent for hardware.
‘Maybe chocolate,’ Richard debated as he struggled to nudge the door open with his toe. Rats. He kicked the door. Hard. Ow. He wished he had some of those boots like…
Like… like… What was I doing? Richard looked down at the heavy container in his hands. Full of meat and bones, and blood. Eww. Cook had probably shoved it at him and forgot to tell him where to take it. Most likely it was one of those jokes on the new guy. Run him ragged on the first day. Take this here, take this there. Richard sighed; then grinned as he turned away from that strange nothingness outside, and carried his burden back to the kitchen to await his next order. He could take the hazing.
First day of the rest of his life.
Dust with flour.
‘What are we looking at?’
‘Hush, Richie.’ Wendy and Marsha had their faces pressed to the door looking out into the darkness. ‘Just wait.’
Richard tried not to pout. He hated being called that. It was a stupid abbreviation, and not manly at all, though a step above Shortcake. He was tired of waiting; it had been a long first week. But the girls were cute, and maybe if he hung around and stayed with them for whatever had them twirling their hair around the fingers as if they were about to get asked to the school’s Spring Hop, just maybe they’d talk to him, and he could buy one of them a milkshake and… kissing. Maybe there would be ki…
A loud, throaty roar shook the building, and again. It was getting closer.
Holy Mother of…
A herd of wild beasts had just erupted around the corner of the main street and was charging towards them. Fur and gleaming yellow eyes…teeth…claws…power…rage…and a ravenous need for blood.
‘Fuck! Coming for me. Samm…’
The glowing lights swept past them and sped away to drop off the edges of his world leaving an unforgettable memory of rubber, steel, and chrome; black and gold symbols writhing over the darkest of red paintwork, all controlled by lean, leather-clad, helmeted figures glancing sideways at him with anonymous mirrored eyes. Marking him.
‘Cool.’
‘Yeah,’ they both sighed simultaneously as the glass softened and buckled for a second underneath their clawed hands
Richard struggled to hold on to his vision of that car he was working for, but those guys and those bikes… ‘Wow.’
He flushed when he realised his right hand was uselessly trying to twist a strand of his own too-short hair as he stared wistfully off into the distance. Maybe it would be best if he concentrated on pies from now on.
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees (allowing at least 20 minutes to reach correct temperature.)
Fruit. The kid had brought him fruit.
As a present.
He bought me fruit.
‘Picked em myself,’ the kid said shyly, stubbing his sneakers up against the metal rungs of the stool he was draped all over.
Six minutes earlier he’d run inside, as if the hounds of Hell had been nipping at his heels trying to prevent him turning up at his usual time. But the moment he’d got to Richard’s side all that fear and desperation had melted magically away.
No. That wasn’t right. Richard looked closer at his young shadow. It wasn’t gone; it was still there. Hiding. The kid had forced it down out of easy sight, as if he was used to turning part of himself on and off at will as he needed to. He was pretending everything was all right. Pretending. For me.
Why? What was out there that was so terrible that this kid thought he had to be protected from?
‘You couldn’t come with. So… I… uh… got you some.’
What could he say?
‘Um. Thanks.’ Clever, Richard. Very clever. I’m an idiot. He’s just a kid. And he’s being nice. And there’s nothing out there. I’m just imagining things.
He peered inside the bucket. Huh. Not apples. Weird-looking whatever they were.
‘Biked all the way to Asia for them. Fruit of the Gods, you know. All kinds of legends about them.’
Nerd.
Still. Present. Richard smiled, and didn’t ever want to stop. ‘Thanks!’ he said with more warmth than he’d meant to let show. ‘I guess I could make something with them.’
‘Cupcakes!’ The kid demanded single-mindedly. ‘Cupcakes would be…’
‘Awesome,’ Richard finished, trying hard to banish all thoughts of a deep-dish lattice-topped pie instantly from his head. Cupcakes? Real men didn’t eat cupcakes. Real men ate pie. He wanted to make pie, he loved pie, but he knew that if the kid wanted cupcakes, the kid was going to get his damned chick-flick cupcakes. Richard wished he wasn’t such a pushover for kids. He needed to be more like the Fonz. The Fonz wouldn’t make cupcakes. That leather jacket and those engineer’s boots were definitely cupcake deterrents. Plus the Fonz didn’t have the added disadvantage of freckles. The Fonz didn’t know how lucky he was. Richard wondered if there was any point in him practicing his finger snapping or that double thumbs up thing. Probably not.
‘Yeah. Awesome.’
The kid had dimples for Heaven’s sake. Dimples! Richard thought the Gods surely knew how to fight dirty.
‘Well? What are you waiting for? Get out of here! I’ve got cupcakes to make. Can’t have foolish people cluttering up the diner wasting my valuable cooking time.’
‘Jerk,’ the kid said, wrinkling his nose with derision as he turned and walked out cheerfully out the door.
He stuck his head back inside a few seconds later. ‘Promise me you’ll save some of the seeds for yourself? Please? I’ll tell you why later.’
Huh? Oh well. Best to humour the kid. ‘Okay. Now scram!’
‘Fine! I’m scramming,’ the kid said, holding up both hands in mock surrender and backing up towards his bike with a grin. ‘But first I just have to say,’ he paused for greater effect before blowing him a mock goodbye kiss. ‘You look like a real chick in that apron.’ He snickered and was gone.
‘Bitch,’ Richard said softly to himself as he was left alone once more.
Alone.
With fruit.
Whisk well to aerate and combine ingredients.
Batman rules! Richard loved the Batman strips. It was just a shame that he had to read them every day with a headache. He didn’t know what it was. He’d be sitting on one of the bar stools reading the funny pages during his break, and he’d find himself turning around automatically to recap the next thrilling instalment, saying ‘Look at this, Sa…’ when everything would just stop for a second, he’d be doubled over biting his lip with pain while all he could see was a black sky overhead and rivers running red, then the world would shudder back on track as the jukebox changed records, and he was still in the diner getting weird looks from old Mr Balam who always sat on that same stool from 2 through 4 pm drinking Earl Grey tea with his toasted English muffin.
As he sat there trying to smile as if he wasn’t choking on the taste of his own blood Richard wondered if comics really were bad for you.
Set aside to cool before icing.
Richard couldn’t remember when his after-school job had metamorphosized into what seemed to be a 24-7 marathon. It didn’t matter. He was supposed to be here. He knew that. It was one of the few things he was sure about. Arnold’s was his life. He was here to work. For Her. He was meant to be here. She kept telling him that. So it must be true. He did his job. He was good at it. He could stay as long as he liked. I’m lucky.
There was a time and a place for everything. That made him feel safe. He needed that so very badly. He knew it; he just wished he could recall why.
He knew every single customer, their names, their regular orders, and their families, their whole lives. He had a home, and a history here in Milwaukee. He was a great assistant cook, and one day he’d be in charge of the kitchen. He was happy. It was all he’d ever wanted.
He didn’t need to glance at the clock to know it was almost time. The kid was never late.
Richard shivered as the ubiquitous background growls of those damned dogs from down the block lifted to new heights. He hated those dogs. He knew he shouldn’t. He could just barely remember loving dogs once, playing with them, naming them, he and someone else -who?-running wild through a metal wilderness… So long ago. Must have been a dream. Didn’t matter. These dogs? There was something not right about them. The sound kept echoing through him. It reminded him of blood and a long time dying.
He heard the clock tick over. Time. It was time. Don’t be late.
The decibel level rose even higher, and Richard couldn’t forget that long ago glimpse of a hunting pack that had melted into bikes and men so fast he’d doubted his own senses. He remembered eyes reflecting firelight and knew enough to be afraid.
He couldn’t go out. It had been so long that he couldn’t even remember what the street looked like past the sightlines of the diner’s windows. A part of him wondered why it felt like he’d never been outside. Ever.
He couldn’t leave.
Can’t go. Just… can’t.
He looked at the clock. Another minute had died while he balanced fear over… What? Friendship? This weird sense that he knew that kid better than anything in this world? That he was in trouble and needed him?
He couldn’t… go…
He went.
Running out into the furnace that was the limits of his world, as the breath was scorched from his lungs, his skin dried to leather, and salt rose to the surface of his skin then flaked away to nothing.
Ran. Finally knowing where he was, and who he was waiting for.
Ran. To find the kid tearing through the ever-shifting embers towards him with Hellhounds at his back.
And Richard stepped between them.
Screamed, ‘Run, Sammy! Run!’ and let them take him instead.
Heard his brother’s voice send his name down with him into the darkness.
And he knew.
Before starting, check to see that you have all the required ingredients to hand.
‘So, what do you want to be when you grow up?’ The kid asked indistinctly through a mouthful of Richard’s Tuesday invention-initially christened the Chocolate-Caramel-Coffee Cupcake Delight (he’d run out of words beginning with “c”), and as of two cupcakes and three seconds ago instantly renamed by the kid the “Cha-Cha-Cha.”
For a strange moment part of Richard wanted to yell that he’d never had a chance to want something for himself. That in all the worlds there were he was only ever going to be one thing. His throat closing up with bitterness, disappointment, and pain because fate was a jealous bitch, Richard locked that thought away fast along with all those other oddities that had turned too many of his dreams to nightmares lately, and took a restorative sip of his root beer float. If it wasn’t for wanting that car so bad he’d have cut back his hours weeks ago. Something about this job was getting to him. He couldn’t even talk to this kid without spacing out and feeling like the walls were about go up in flames around them both.
He took another breath. Richard. I’m Richard. That’s just a dream. This is real. I’m Richard. This is my life.
The kid was still sitting there, shaggy head calmly tilted to one side as he fastidiously picked all the silver cachous off the frosting and carefully rearranged them on his plate into another, even stranger, configuration.
‘Pick a career. Any career. Say whatever comes into your head first. There isn’t any wrong answer you know.’ He grinned at Richard and started reeling off a long list of increasingly more outrageous suggestions as he reached out a long finger and knighted each decoration in turn. ‘Tinker? Tailor? Soldier? Spy? Fireman? Florist? Mechanic? Hunter?’
Brother. Richard didn’t know where that came from as the kid touched the final silver ball, and just looked up at him in silent query. Brother. Brother. Brother…
God that was weird. He definitely had to stop licking all the frosting out of the empty bowl. The sugar was getting to him. It was probably best if he reverted to a healthier diet of pies instead of this kid’s evil cupcakes from now on.
Tell him the truth. Tell him you want to be a writer. No, that didn’t sound respectable enough-Richard had given up on hoping to achieve Fonzie’s coolness (and that leather jacket), and had lowered his expectations to something more achievable. He shrugged. ‘Thought I might eventually go to Law School,’ he lied in the hopes of impressing the kid.
The kid choked on the last bite of his cupcake, and Richard had to spend some time patiently thumping him on the back before Junior’s face became a little less purple, and he settled back down onto his stool, wheezing sporadically, and looking across the counter at Richard as if the sun had suddenly been sliced open and started raining blood down onto a parched and barren earth. Or he’d caught him telling a big, fat, juicy fib. Whatever.
‘Writer,’ he admitted when those big innocent hazel eyes finally forced the truth out of him. He went back to idly spinning the last cupcake around and around on the platter. If he looked down into that silver design long enough hopefully everything else would go away and he wouldn’t really be sitting here feeling as if he was taking part in one of those nightmarish blind date question and answer sessions.
Maybe it would be less painful in the long run if he just stabbed himself with a silver cake fork instead?
Add the sugar, melted butter mix, buttermilk, and egg.
‘Yo, Shortcake!’
Richard frowned. He’d been flattered when Fonzie of all people had given him a nickname, but after two months it was beginning to grate, he just wished he’d been crowned something more exciting like, ‘The Caped Avenger!’
‘Ehhhh! Sounds more like a cat,’ Fonzie said as he propped his Harley-Davidson up inside the front door.
Sh… sugar. Richard resolved to keep his mind as well as his mouth firmly shut from then on, right after he tried to brazen it out. ‘You want a piece of me, Bucko? The Avenger takes on all comers.’
Fonzie punched Richard very lightly on the chin. ‘You’re okay, Cunningham. You’re okay.’
Richard grinned and went back to his usual 3.55 pm job; leaning on the counter rearranging his latest cupcake creations artistically on a cheerful red anodised aluminium platter, and trying not to look like he was peering through the smoke-grimed windows for a certain customer to turn up.
‘Aaay. You dreaming about a girl?’ Fonzie’s smirk was simultaneously teasing and supportive.
For a minute Richard wondered if this was what it would have been like if he’d had a big brother before he clamped down on the suddenly painful thought. He might have a great life here in Milwaukee with his Mom and Dad, but there were days when he wished he wasn’t an only child. He was sure he would have been an awesome brother if he’d had the chance.
Fonzie bumped shoulders with him companionably. ‘A real girl? Or a girl you’ve never met?’
Oops. ‘Come on, Fonz. Haven’t you ever dreamed?’
‘Hey, I’m not the dreamer! I’m the dreamee!’
Richard slumped against the counter dejectedly. Now wasn’t the time to say he’d been having weird dreams about someone other than a girl.
Fighting side-by-side with his other half…Running…Hunting… Dying for someone he couldn’t remember. All mixed up with broken fragments of mirrored glass that twisted through his mind reflecting back a face he almost knew… And there was a name that kept slipping away from him in blood, slivers of light, and never-ending screams…
‘It’s all right, Shortcake. We’re all allowed one thing to dream about,’ Fonzie said much too compassionately.
Apparently Richard didn’t have a good poker face.
But, as he looked down at the photograph of the Lone Ranger that the Fonz proudly unearthed from its hiding place in his wallet next to his library card, Richard realised that everyone had secrets.
Richard was only just beginning to understand that his own were much darker than he could have ever imagined.
Check your recipe to ensure no steps have been missed.
Richard wasn’t afraid to admit that he was hiding. It was 3.02 pm and he was skulking like a girl behind the window frame. He took another swift peek through the oddly distorted glass. ‘There! Him.’ His target was cycling ungainly along the opposite sidewalk-legs far too long for his small bike-briskly tossing his deliveries safely down onto each doorstep.
‘The paperboy?’ The cook’s tone was just this side of scathing. ‘You hauled me out here in the middle of baking cakes to get me to look at the paperboy? The ‘Are you completely insane?’ was left unsaid. The cook was obviously restraining himself.
Richard ignored him. He knew the cook liked him, and not just because he ate everything the cook slipped him when Martha wasn’t there. Richard had a way with people. Everyone except that kid. ‘Who is he?’
‘Duh!’ The cook whacked him on the head with a hot and floury hand. ‘That’s the Johnson boy. Lives three blocks over. You’ve known him since you were both in short pants. He’s a few years behind you in high school. You’ve seen him every day of your life.’
The thought of shorts frightened Richard for one brief dark minute before he toughened up and cast it aside. That name, it sounded right somehow. John’s boy… ‘Yeah, sure. What was his name again?’
The cook gave him a look like he was born stupid, which Richard could work with. There was something about that kid that bothered Richard. He just needed to find out what it was so he could go back to concentrating on his secret master pie pla…
‘Richard, dear. Do we have a problem?’
His boss was good at sneaking up to people. Richard couldn’t figure out how she did it in heels that high. She’d given him a shock for a minute. Even the cook seemed scared, which was odd because their resident culinary genius looked better suited to life as a bouncer for a Hell’s Angels Halloween party than the ordinariness of Arnold’s.
‘Uh.’ Nothing. I’m just looking at the paperboy. No. That came out as if I’m mooning over him like a girl. Richard wasn’t sure how to phrase it without sounding like an idiot in front of the best boss he’d ever had. He waved a hand vaguely towards the window. ‘Just saw someone who looked familiar. Got a real bad memory for names, thought Cook could refresh it for me.’ Richard shuffled his feet and did a good imitation of shy and embarrassed, which he hoped worked with women. He hadn’t tried it on purpose before.
It went down a treat. His boss looked like she was about to pat him on the head like he was one of her annoying fluffy dogs. Richard edged a few discreet inches further away from her. She was great and all, but he didn’t like this feeling he was getting that she thought he was her pet. Next thing he knew she’d be checking him for fleas and wanting to brush his coat hair till it shone. He smiled back at her widely though, because? Boss. Besides, someone that blonde, smug, and nice probably had no idea that her behaviour was making feel like a kept man.
Unfortunately that self-satisfied expression leached instantly from her face as soon as she saw who they were looking at.
‘Ah yes, the Johnson boy, back home at last. Don’t worry about him, Richard. He’s not supposed to be here right now. I’ll deal with it. I think the two of you should be getting back to work.’ She stood there smiling blandly out into the unrelieved night, one red-talonned fingernail tapping tensely against her watch face. ‘It’s almost 6 am. Time for the before-work rush hour. You don’t want to start your first day at work off by being late, do you, Richard?’
‘No, Ma’am.’ Richard said brightly, turning back to glance around the diner. He knew it so well. Been coming here all his life, but now he was about to start work it all looked so different to the memories he had. First day. As he felt the harsh morning sun begin to beat unrelentingly down against his back he was filled with hope. He had so much to look forward to.
Part 2