The Butcher, The Baker, and the Temporary Zombie Who Can Bake Cheese Buns (For 5 Days)

[zomboligist]

WHO: Ravi Chakrabarti
WHERE: Bakery
WHEN: August 19 / 20
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Ravi's monthly zombie time, so zombie topics about brains likely

---

The one thing Ravi truly hates about his monthly time is the period in which all regular food starts turning to dust in his mouth. It's not like they're sitting on a goldmine of takeout here, but it's still absolutely disappointing to have scrambled eggs in the morning and find absolutely no satisfaction in them at all, craving hot sauce to try and add some taste.

It's awful because he knows what that means. It's time.

He digs out his baseball cap and puts it on before perusing the options in the fridge, trying not to go wholeheartedly teeth-first into one of them, though plenty of them have already been sliced and diced what with the need to stabilize two and a quarter zombies in a limited population. Sighing, he decides that maybe it's best to go with what he knows (roughly), so he slides out Peeta Mellark's brain from the fridge and ends up having a secod omelette that day.

Ravi hates how god it tastes, he honestly does.

What he doesn't hate is when it starts to kick in. Sure, the whole romantically pining for someone bit isn't amazing (because he already misses Peyton and Helen enough), but when he suddenly gets the urge to make cheese buns, he'll take that over other weird personality traits. It's why he's fired up the bakery's oven in the dead of night, working through until the morning. Anyone who comes by would see the light, but into the morning, they'll also smell the aroma of fresh bread and cheese buns, though he's not working with exactly the right cheese. No matter. He's steady enough and he can roll with that.

Hat still securely on to hide the streak of white hair, he plates them all up and starts to stock the window display like he's been doing this for years. And, really, with the brain in his stomach guiding him? He sort of has been.

Comments

if you don't mind having 2 going with these idiots

[oorah]

Frank is always up early and wandering around, trying to find something or other to do. He's flanked by the dutiful bloodhound Aretha which may actually be the fewest dogs Ravi has ever seen in Frank's vicinity. At least she listens the best though when she smells the cheese coming from the shop she jumps up so her front paws are in the window, giving the other man a curious little look through it. He gestures for the dog to get down, but then he's smiling and waving when he sees a familiar face. He walks around to the front and makes Aretha wait for him to clear the door before he lets her walk up beside him, sitting politely so the adults can talk.

"You're busy this morning. I didn't even know this place existed."

I never mind!

[zomboligist]

"I mean, you do have to appreciate baking," Ravi says cheerfully, but he's already working the next set of dough with his hands in an expert way, like he's been doing this for, oh, say, approximately seventeen years and counting?

He really hopes the other perils of being a teenager aren't about to catch up with him, here. He does not want to go through the wet dream phase all over. "If you wait around a bit, first batch is coming out of the oven soon."

[oorah]

"I do, just didn't know you did." Okay, he's more of a cooking guy himself, he's sick of following rules and baking was so precise. It doesn't mean he can't admire the effort.

"What's with the sudden inspiration?" Frank tells Aretha to stay with a hand signal and moves around the room quietly, taking it in. He really has been out of it to not notice this place at all.

[zomboligist]

"Normally, I don't, but the mood really struck me," Ravi says evenly, because he doesn't want to get into the gory details, especially given how Frank had reacted last time they'd talked about this. "Oh, you know. Just hungry, I suppose," he says, reaching into the oven to take out the freshest tray, setting them down.

"You can't say no to fresh baked bread, can you? I mean, what kind of monster would you be if you did? Apart from the gluten-free kind, but I don't think the village accommodates for that."

[oorah]

He nods, picking up on it not being that simple. Hungry... for something besides food, he'd wager. Comfort, maybe.

"First you tried to accuse me of bein' a vegan..." Now gluten-free. Frank shakes his head even though Ravi knows about his monster status and it's got nothing to do with a wheat allergy. The man hadn't even reacted, only further reminding him of David. Maybe there's something of a monster inside him, too. A monster who makes... cheese bread. "I can pay you back in more cheese once I process the milk from our zalpaca. I'm also making wine, but keep that on the DL." Aretha is thumping her tail on the floor now in anticipation, no doubt smelling the wonderful smells coming from the oven.

[zomboligist]

"Maybe you can drink some of the wine in front of me before I actually drink it myself," Ravi says, because it's not Frank he distrusts, but the zalpaca things are...well, strange, to say the least. He wants to bring them in for experiments, but every time he tries, someone starts glaring at him like he's inhumane or something.

He's sweating, but he can't take off his hat, so he works to wipe his forehead while still protecting his hair. "I went out and got the cheese myself, wasn't too hard. Just dug into those old memories."

[oorah]

Frank snorts, shaking his head. "It'll take a few months yet, and I can't promise it won't be godawful, but I figured there should be an alternative to that poison the blue-haired girl makes."

He looks around, thinking about what kind of memories Ravi might be digging into now.

"I think I misjudged you, man. You grow up on a farm or something?"

[zomboligist]

He needs to be much more careful about this sort of thing, because he can't just speak freely around people like Frank and not expect him to catch on. "I'm a fast learner," he says, "and I've been here for a while, so I've had to become Farmer Chakrabarti once or twice, much to my dismay."

He works the dough, trying to avert eye contact, because he doesn't want to get caught just yet, but he knows he's not exactly on Super Spy brain.

[oorah]

"Oh, right." He takes that on face value, for now, but there's still something Ravi is acting cagey about. He thought he'd dissolved the 'narc' angle when he lit up a joint for the other man, so that can't be all it is. Narrowing his eyes, Frank decides to just be straightforward. "Are you afraid of me?" After what he told him, or maybe just because he is generally scary and he knows it.

[zomboligist]

Ravi glances up warily, and yes, there is fear in his eyes. The thing is, it's not about the violence and it's not about drugs or anything like that. "Frank, you're my friend, right?" Maybe it's time to bring someone else in on the secret. It was all about honesty back home, right?

Besides, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a man like Frank on his side in case someone like Blaine turns up and if that's going to happen, he needs to be honest.

[oorah]

That question is never a good sign in his experience, but he finds himself nodding numbly anyway. "Sure. Is there something you wanna tell me?" It's sure seeming that way.

[zomboligist]

Ravi nods slowly, making sure that none of the ovens are going as he pulls everything from them. If this devolves into a fight, he doesn't want to burn down the bakery just because he decided to get honest. Slowly, Ravi pries off his baseball cap to reveal the white streak in his hair.

"Remember how I told you about how zombies are real and you got a bit...weird?" Ravi suggests, like that's not an absolutely normal reaction to zombies, as opposed to Ravi's reaction, which had been an onslaught of questions.

[oorah]

"I didn't get weird," he insists, eyes crossing minutely when Ravi pulls off his hat. Was that white patch always there...? He's usually way more observant than this, but he was super high both times he spoke to Ravi before now. Something to ponder, at least, until he's working out what Ravi is saying. He's a- he's the zombie. "Oh, you were doing that thing." Where you ask about your friend, but it's really about you. Yeah, he was really high, holy shit.

"Was all that shit you said true? About zombies bein' people and whatever?" He sounds pretty calm, considering the reveal.

[zomboligist]

"I mean, I'm not the only zombie..." He leaves it at that, making a face, because the truth is, of the zombie population here, he's the least zombie of the lot of them. "It's absolutely true. Right now, for three to five days a month, I am a zombie. I eat brains, and if I scratched you, I could turn you."

"I'm still me," he says, but as he kneads the dough, he thinks that maybe he's also a little bit someone else, which is the next part of this. "The brains we eat. We get personality traits leaking in, but also...memories, flashes. For instant, I know what Peeta felt when he died," he provides. "Not a fun nightmare, but it's in there."

[oorah]

"Okay, but like, please don't." He shrugs, casting a glance back at Aretha who already looks like she's sleeping again. What a lazy, perfect animal. It is a lot to process, but it's also nowhere near the weirdest thing that's happened to him, not even recently. And it's not like there's anything he can do about it anyway, right? He's gotten used to accepting his own fecklessness here, at least, to the best of his ability. "Wait. You ate Peeta's brain? The kid that died?"

It might sound judgmental, and maybe it is, a little, but he's honestly just trying to understand. This is so far out of his wheelhouse it's not even funny.

"Well, uh. If that's how it works you might wanna avoid... doing that if I die." Fair warning, bro. You only know a small piece of what all has happened to him.

[zomboligist]

"At least I vaguely knew who he was," Ravi says, seeing as they're standing in a bakery and he's making cheese buns. He knew that there was some trauma in his life and while it's not exactly been Ravi's favourite thing, he can manage.

He knows Frank is giving fair warning, but all this talk about assigning brains is just making him think of Isobel and her insistence that it be Liv. He ignores the swooping and awful feeling in his gut to try and joke. "Don't want me to see how much you like me," he jokes. "Don't worry. I'll make sure it's part of your island will. Brain not to be touched."

Speaking of...

"Maybe don't go around telling people that we took the brain?" he asks, hopefully, not wanting a witch hunt to start.

[oorah]

"Yeah, that's it," he admits dryly, sticking out an elbow to lean on the counter separating them. He seems no more or less at ease than when he'd come in here a moment ago. Ravi isn't setting off his weird spidey senses, and for some reason he's come to trust those almost as much as his own gut. Actually, maybe even a little more considering his track record for trusting monsters. "You'd better or I'll haunt you."

But lbr, he probably would either way. The ask gets a quick nod, quid pro quo. He's also not huge on secret-spilling when he can help it. Except, wait.

"We?"

[zomboligist]

Honestly, if Ravi eats his brain, he will haunt him. Him and whatever awful memories are lingering in there, which Ravi only got a brief hint of in their conversations, so he's not about to ask for the rest of them. He's smarter than that.

Yeah, maybe not that smart. "I'm only a zombie for a little bit every month, like a zombie period," he explains. "There are others here who are more...frequent consumers?"

[oorah]

A zombie period. Wow, this is a lot. Thankfully, this isn't even the weirdest thing Frank has dealt with.

"So how often do you guys have to... eat?" He's not going to ask who the others are, he would actually rather not know if he could help it. He had learned how to compartmentalize information in Reims out of necessity, to only knew what he had to to survive. Kilgrave may not be here, but they're being watched by people all the same. People who want to control them. It's not so different, is it? "And how can you be... undead one minute and not the next?"

[zomboligist]

"Me? Once a month," Ravi says, which is the good news both because he really doesn't like the mental awareness that he's chomping down on brains. Technically, he should probably eat a few times during his "cycle", but they're limited and he needs to go easy, especially when he'll be back to normal soon enough.

"The others aren't my place to tell," he apologizes, because he doesn't plan on giving up Ravi or Major. As for the other question, this is where he smiles proudly. "I made a vaccine," he says. "My body cycles the virus in and out. It just doesn't work all the time, but still, better than nothing."

[oorah]

A vaccine. That gets all of his attention, right away. This is the guy he was meant to talk to all along, zombie or not.

"Smart," he says after too long a pause, something a little wild about his gaze suddenly. Frank knows he has to say something reactive, that the man is expecting it. He just doesn't strictly care, not after all he's seen. Still, he tries to inject as much of a fuck as he knows how to give anymore into his tone. "I don't care what you are, Ravi. I can tell you're not a threat to anyone here."

[zomboligist]

He's glad to hear that, because the last thing he wants is to lie awake at night and have to worry about someone killing him just because they don't like old zombie movies, so that's a relief? He actually sags a bit with it, turning away to fetch the buns so he can hide that fact.

"And maybe there are minor perks," he offers, given that he's pretty sure people like the baking. At least, the ones he's talked to. "Not for me, because I really don't like my monthly diet restrictions, but for others, at least."

[oorah]

"You're making cheese buns you can't eat," he translates, thinking that is a travesty. He remembers how Ravi had gone to town on that pizza and cake and it all makes more sense now. As with every other inexplicable thing in his path, he accepts it all at face value and carries on. There's something else on his mind now, something much more important, to Frank, at least.

"I had to take a vaccine. The last place I was..." Not for zombification, but something much worse, he thinks. "There was a man there who could control you just by telling you what to do. The vaccine made me immune."

Frank swallows. He worries daily about if it's active anymore, especially now that Kamala and Jessica don't have their powers that would protect them.

[zomboligist]

"I mean, if I make them at the end of the brains, I could enjoy them, but right now, it's not really satisfying at all," he admits, wishing that he could eat them and enjoy their cheesy goodness, even if a goat gave him the cheese for it. He narrows his eyes at Frank when he talks about a vaccine.

He would say 'that sounds mad', but honestly, it's not. Not when you factor in zombies. "What was the theory behind his ability to make people do as he says?" he asks, trying to figure out where he'd even start with something like that.

[oorah]

"It's biological. He's a walking virus, basically." There's no hesitation, Frank knows more about Kilgrave than maybe any other villain he'd faced. And if he comes here, with his powers in tact? He needs to know he can protect everyone. That's the kind of thinking that fucked him over in Reims, but maybe he can't turn that part of himself off as much as he'd really like to. He's circling back to what Ravi said. The end of brains, what a turn of phrase. "Is it... like having someone else in your head?" Guess who knows what that's like.