A/N:
Hey.
If you squint, this is sort of a Grand Budapest Hotel AU.
This is also a short first chapter. Like super short. But it's a way for me to get back into writing after an absolutely shittacular year.
My posting schedule tends to be...erratic. Just letting you know.
Many thanks to owly for help with the title!
Anyway, comments are love!
For as long as anyone in Takodana can remember, the pastries from Unkar Plutt's La Marjolaine bakery have made their way to various establishments in a royal blue painted pastry wagon. It's something of a local tradition, handed down from Unkar's grandfather, Grod.
Rey is...well, fairly indifferent to tradition.
However.
She hates the cart.
Well before the first rosy gold rays of sun crest the rooftops along her route, she wrestles and shoves the outdated, unwieldy piece of shit wood and iron barrow over cobbled streets, wheels screeching and clacking the whole way like some sort of demented clown car.
Whoever said the squeaky wheel gets the grease never had to push this ridiculous bloody thing.
Honestly, it's a miracle that any of her carefully crafted baked goods make it to their destination intact; that they do is a testament to her determination not to forfeit the already meager allotment of food that Plutt deigns to provide her. How such a crass, miserly bastard manages to produce the lightest, flakiest pie crust in three counties is simply beyond her.
By the time she steers her way up the delivery ramp at the back of the L'hotel du Premiere, her arms quiver with fatigue and she's perspiring, despite the cool morning air. Inside the cramped service elevator she leans back, rests against the wall with a drawn out sigh. She's almost done. The promise of sleep and food beckons to her.
Warm fragrant tendrils of vanilla and cinnamon waft upward as Rey grips the cart laden with the fruits of her daily toil - delicate cream filled pastries, lush layered cakes drenched in ganache, petit fours, eclairs, and at the bottom, baguettes, soft buttery rolls and flaky croissants. Her mouth waters and her stomach lets out a rumble of want, but she's grown well accustomed to waiting.
She hears his voice, then, deep and commanding, as the elevator descends to the kitchen level with a low, trembling whine. Her already hollow stomach churns. Damn it.
So much for slipping in to deliver her goods unnoticed.
She doesn't want to be noticed. By Monsieur Ren, especially.
She can count the number of times she's ever actually seen him on one hand - plus, it's been from a distance. However, something about him unsettles her. She isn't entirely sure what.
A nerve shattering crash from outside the elevator jolts her from her thoughts, and she draws a sharp breath as the sounds of bustling activity evaporate into a deathly silence. Oh, no. Apprehension coils up her spine. This can't be good. On the heels of that, without a trace of guilt comes at least it isn't me.
When the door slides open a second later, she is met by a tableau reminiscent of a scene from an Old Masters painting. Monsieur Ren is clearly enraged, looming at the center like some mythic figure casting judgement upon his flock - one arm outstretched, his face a mask of scowling condemnation. He barks out directions as workers scurry around him to do his bidding, backs hunched in submission. An enormous porcelain vase lays shattered across the tiled floor, but as if by magic several members of the staff produce brooms and dustpans, sweeping away the debris with startling efficiency.
Monsieur Ren's episodes of anger are legendary. Like, raging thunderheads and piercing, icy blasts of wind and lightning kind of legendary. Destructive. Catastrophic to those unfortunate or perhaps foolhardy enough to be caught within its grasp.
Rey casts a quick, fervent plea to the heavens to make her delivery as speedy and uneventful as possible. Get in, get out. She who hesitates is lost and all that.
Luck, however, is not on her side today. As she tries to propel the heavy cart forward, one wheel sticks, and the whole cart rattles noisily as she struggles with it. His head swivels toward her, then.
His eyes lock with hers and for the briefest of moments she freezes like a deer in headlights. His brow unfurrows, his thunderous expression sliding into an inscrutable mask as he regards her.
Oh, but he is striking. Unnervingly so. This is the closest she has ever been to him, and her brain clicks forward then, that his is not the bland, conventional handsomeness of men whose pictures grace the cinema magazines she occasionally pilfers from the library. There is an incongruity to it, an arresting combination of features that individually might not necessarily be considered beautiful, but as a whole is quite compelling. What is the saying? More than the sum of its parts. Yes, that's it. Coupled with the sheer forcefulness of his personality, he is...well, the only word she can coherently latch onto at that moment is dangerous.
A faint blush comes to her cheeks as she realizes that she's been caught staring. Under the guise of examining the pastries for damage, she reclaims her equilibrium, then breaks the spell by jutting her chin out just a fraction and heaving the cart forward without meeting his eyes again. She isn't sure, but out of the corner of her eye she thinks she sees the corners his mouth curl into a tiny smile.
Despite her best intentions, from the moment she wheels the cart out of the hotel, all the way back to the cold silence her dingy little room, she can think of little but him. His shock of thick, black hair. Eyes that remind her of dark, melted caramel. Dangerous. Curled under her threadbare quilt she gnaws on a slightly stale bread end and chides herself for her foolish fancy. He is a man - worldly and self possessed, while she...she is no one.
The next day plays out in a similar fashion, as does the day after.
For the rest of the week he is present in the kitchens, overseeing the menus or directing staff when she arrives. It can't possibly be coincidental. He's the general manager, surely he's needed at the front desk?
The swooping, fluttery feeling in her abdomen is just hunger. It has nothing to do with her noticing when he glances at her.
One morning he isn't there. It would be highly inappropriate, not to mention mortifying for her to ask after him, but as it happens she overhears the staff discussing their relief that he has been called away to a meeting.
The disappointment she feels at his absence shocks her.
She begins to understand why she avoided him to begin with.