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

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

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.

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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.

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.

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.

"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.

"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."

"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.

"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.

"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?"

Edited 2018-09-05 20:28 (UTC)

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?"

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?"

"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."

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."

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."

"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.

"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.

"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.

Well, that, he could do something about, though he doesn't think that Frank will like the next part. "In order to make a vaccine against it, I'd need a bit of the virus to work with," he says, because without the tainted parts, then he's just making some kind of defense.

"I'd need some of the virus' blood," he says, wary because he's talking about a man that he doesn't even know. "Even with the zombie vaccine, I had to rebuild the infection first."

He sounds like he's willing to help already and it gets Frank's blood up. Finally, someone isn't calling him stupid.

"We made the first one with... a woman's blood. She's naturally immune because of the ability she's got." He worries his lip, he would never betray his trust with Jessica even if they're rocky now. Even if he doesn't necessarily expect the same from her. "Which here... she obviously doesn't got."

"If someone was truly immune, I could do something with that," Ravi admits, thinking of Isobel's brain and how they'd intended for Liv to eat it and learn more, but how it had actually led to a cure for one lucky zombie. It's only unfortunate that Liv didn't get to be the one to enjoy that.

"Can I ask," he says, a bit wary, "are you really worried that this walking virus is going to turn up here?"

"Yes," Frank answers without hesitation. He's afraid of that above all else. And if it's not Kilgrave then it will someone like him. Someone who can do what he does.

"She was given a version of the vaccine. At least, we think that's what it is. Could you test it?" Before they poison themselves etc. It should be easier to make more vaccine if it's real, right? Maybe. He only really cares about Jess and Kam being immune anyway.

Ravi gives Frank a wary look, because the trouble is he's not a genius. He's good at his job and clever, but he's been struggling to run his experiments with the rats. "If we were home and I had a full lab, then no problem," he admits. "I could test it, replicate versions, work with rats and develop something."

"Here?" He shakes his head. "Probably not much luck. I haven't even got a centrifuge, let alone half the equipment I'd need." It's why there are three zombies running around with no cure and no vaccine, because Ravi genuinely can't make anything work with the limited resources.

He appreciates Ravi being real with him, even if it takes some of the levity out of his demeanor.

"Well. If we find or get- something like that." Will you do it? When he thinks about it, he's not even sure how they managed in Reims to get a vaccine that worked, even with a tech genius and a resourceful nurse, it shouldn't have been possible. Maybe it gives him a more optimistic outlook than he should have. Then he remembers something. "You would be immune. At least, while you're... on your period."

Not that Frank is willing to be undead to escape Kilgrave, but it's still food for thought. And speaking of food, those cheese buns are starting to smell really good.

"If we had the capability, I'd be working on just about anything you name," Ravi guarantees, seeing as he's been veering on frustration for a very long time and he wants to avoid that any longer. "Honestly, you don't need to sell me."

"I know plenty of people I wouldn't want here and if I could come up with a vaccine against them, I would," he says, wishing that a Blaine-vaccine could somehow exist.

"Okay." It's good to know, that he has a real friend here. The rest gets careful consideration. "If someone shows up like that, for you, I'm in. I mean, that's all I'm really good at is fighting."

Maybe that was true once, but Frank is better at building things than dismantling them now. He doesn't give himself enough credit, as ever.

"The last place I was, we made a big book. Monsters, villains, you name it. Anything or anyone that could show up and wreck the place."

He'd considered putting together something like that here, but everyone seemed so secretive and to themselves. Even moreso than in a village where no one could speak aloud, go figure.

"I've got one entry, then. If ever you see a bloke with white hair named Blaine who tries to sweet-talk his way out of that fountain, you put him right back in it," Ravi says, and it might sound a bit much and it might even sound a bit murderous, but honestly? He's out of fucks to give when it comes to forgiving Blaine.

Somehow, he thinks that Liv and Major would also agree. "Trust me, we don't need his sort around here. He's a cockroach."

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oorah - 2018-09-14 20:56 (UTC) - Expand

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