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

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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

[zomboligist]

"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?"

[oorah]

"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.

[zomboligist]

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.

[oorah]

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.

[zomboligist]

"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.

[oorah]

"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.

[zomboligist]

"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."

[oorah]

"I will," he pledges without needing anything further to go on. "You have my word."