Breakfast at Baratie's Chapter 4: concrete angel: iii, an one piece fanfic

Breakfast at Baratie's

by Memphis Lupine

(memphis_lupine@hotmail.com)

Story One: Concrete Angel

III

She spritzed a fraction of her orange-scented perfume into the air directly in front of her as she walked through the bathroom door boldly, having spent the past hour or so in self-exile within the stalled room. Wrinkling her eyes just so to avoid the droplets clinging to her eyelashes, she let the scent stick to her and the perfume serve as a final obscuring dose, ridding herself of the undesirable stench she had gained earlier. Students were straggling from the double gym doors a ways ahead of her, connected to the small commons area hooked also to the relatively spacious cafeteria, and she briefly considered the idea of whether or not the assembly had been important. Shrugging, she checked her crochet bag and swung it over her shoulder, briskly walking over the stone-pattern tiles set into the commons floor toward the cafeteria.

She resolutely swore she would not think of him all day, or at all, because it had been four years, after all, and she sidestepped a junior who tripped over a small rippled crack in the floor, idly grasping the handle on the door and yanking at it. "Lunch," she sighed with an overreacting cast of her shoulders, bag thumping her spine briefly. "Feel my yay." Escaping the crush of students noisily pouring in, she was beginning the simplistic process of moving to the table she had seated herself at the day before when a recognized voice called out to her.

"Natalie!" came a near-bellow from Ulan, and she stopped, turning to look over her shoulder. He slid around two boys much larger than himself, accidentally smacking one in the face with his elbow and ducking in defense at the returning swing the boy tried to merge with his face. "Yikes," Ulan muttered, steering around to her far side, putting as much distance between him and the fuming boy. "How ya doing?" he grinned as friendly as possible, grabbing her upper arm in his hand and all but dragging her across the floor to the table.

"Brave, art thou?" Natalie commented wryly, kicking aside one of the five chairs at the table and dropping her weight into it. Shedding her purse onto the table's sleek red surface, she raised an eyebrow at him in as sarcastic a manner as she found herself capable of while he grinned sheepishly. "Coward," she accused teasingly, wrapping her fingers in the strings pulled taut through the mouth of her knapsack.

"Did you even look at him?" he questioned disbelievingly, twisting his waist to point with deadly accuracy at the back of the burly young man's towhead. "That guy's wrist is three times the width of my skull!" he continued, letting his wrist fall back to his hip and absently adjusting the strap of his thin watch. Eyeing the line forming at the stretched lunch bar, not a server visible in sight, he cracked the knuckles of his hands, a chime of mild pops that caused her to grimace. "I go to fight the good fight," he declared aristocratically, pulling his hair free of the hair-tie to let it coalesce in a thick froth of tightly curled ebony and then nervously binding it back into a tighter knot. "I just wish," he sighed, "the good fight didn't involve so many people. Tally ho and get outta the way!"

Natalie rolled her eyes, swerving her gaze to flipping through the pages of her notebook as he half-sprinted, half-creeped to the tail end of the line, which was admittedly rather small as the students hurried along it. Sucking on the eraser of her pencil, biting into it with her front teeth and doing a fine job of ignoring the unique taste, she tried dredging up what little she knew on her subject. Gaul is France, France was overtaken by Rome, they were Celtic and didn't like the Romans, and then her mind went completely blank. "Peachy," she hummed in weariness, plucking the pencil from her lips and going over her name at the top of the page once more. The bold letters grew a bit thicker, blacker, as she waited for his return.

Finally, after what seemed like countless minutes of tallying her identity, he launched forward out of the milling crowd, dropping his tray with a semi-resounding crash and overbalancing. He yelped, a high-pitched sound that was cut short when, his momentum carrying him too far in the direction chosen, he tilted over. "Curse the blinding agony," she heard him grumble as he somehow twisted up into his seat, disoriented and sliding up the chair. "I think I hit my head on something," he informed her dizzily, and he shook his head, loose curls bouncing around his brown face. He glanced at her notebook and turned to the side, picking at what she assumed was his backpack and lifting a binder with a clear sheathed outside to plop on the table. "Check it out," he said with immense pride, twirling it around for her benefit. "There be dragons!"

She tilted her head to one side, judging the detailed and intricate design of a crawling dragon penciled onto a sheet of computer paper fitted into the front sheath. A few traces of color lit some of the tiny scales, faint glints of pale red highlighted with spots of blue, and she grinned. "Either you're a remarkably gifted speed-artist, or you have absolutely no life whatsoever at all. From what little I know of you, I'm willing to bet it's the latter of the two."

He raised his nose into the air, sniffing in wounded distaste and flipping his binder back to his angle. "Meddle not in the affairs of dragons," he said with a condescending tone, "for you are crunchy and tasty with ketchup." Before she had time to do much other than blanch and question his sanity, he snatched up a large plastic container filled with vegetable sticks and tossed it at her. She caught it and he lifted his fork, stabbing several pieces of light green lettuce in his overwhelming salad and shoveling it into his mouth. He popped his container of chocolate milk open as she shrugged and twisted apart the covering of the clear rectangle box. "So, I see you weren't at the assembly. I'll assume you know what you plan to be in life, and therefore don't need to hear those pretentious anal-retentive counselors yak for over an hour."

"No clue what I'm going to be," she said happily, sticking a chopped bit of radish in her mouth and chewing reflectively, quickly, then swallowed the small bit of food.

"You don't know what you're going to be?" he asked as if he could not believe what she had said, chewing the forkful of salad in his mouth with soft crunches. "Tell me you're kidding. Everyone," and he gestured lazily around them at the impressive maturity of the student body, currently embroiled in a cheering match over some unseen fight, "knows what they want to do." Decisively, he stuffed another set of tossed semi-fresh vegetables in his mouth and granted her an elaborate gagging scene before he swallowed and accepted her sardonic applause with a pleasant nod.

Chewing at the end of a carrot pried from the small plastic tub of assorted veggie sticks she had been presented with from his neon tray, Natalie tugged the lapels of her black jacket around her thin purple tube-top and reflected on his words. "Well, if you're so sure about yourself," she nibbled daintily and stuck it into her inner cheek, "then what, exactly, are you planning on doing?" She selected a celery stick and bit into it sharply, grimacing at her failure to whip out the threads lining its green crispness.

"Artist," informed Ulan succinctly, stabbing an awkwardly sliced radish and popping it into his mouth, working his jaw.

She grinned, having expected that answer based on her admittedly short acquaintance with him, and asked dryly, "Starving or non-starving?" A quick succession of zings noted her skinning the celery of its tiny veins, and she smiled in smug self-appreciation.

"And that is why I'll have a more prosperous career that uses my artistic skills and pays well," he announced cheerily, using the side of his fork to scrap together a large portion of his non-lethal salad. "I've already gotten a hefty scholarship for Luberston Tech in N-Y-C, and I'll be an official architect in," he glanced at his watch comically, "five years, if not less." He piled together the few scraps of lettuce clinging tenaciously to the Styrofoam bowl and somehow managed to scoop the entirety of the salad left into his mouth. "And if that fails," he added cheekily around his very full mouth, "I can always fall back on my naturally rakish good looks for acting. Haven't you even considered it yet?"

        "I've never thought about it, actually," she admitted in a light voice, pointedly ignoring his self-deprecating humor and the tingling memory of why she had avoided the prospect of college. You bitch, she let the memory roll for a few seconds and she bit her tongue angrily, choked back old hate. Now is not the time, she instructed herself firmly. Ulan was grinning slyly at her and she felt a chain of suspicious laughter in her throat, wary of why, exactly, he was looking at her so.

        "I know precisely what you happen to be suited for, Nat," he began in a purposefully infomercial voice, the sunlight outside grazing the trees and the abundant black curls twisted into a small bob at the dip in his neck where head flowed into throat. Natalie eyed him cautiously, slowly chewing the celery in her mouth and swallowing it as her face betrayed her distrust. "Blazing lights, pandemonium of the most glorious kind, singing!" He tossed one hand to the side dramatically, that sneakily innocent grin still on his face. "Dancing!" The other hand mirrored its partner's flashy motion. "Natalie Tartan, Vegas showgirl!"

        She was hardly appreciative. "Ulan," she started sweetly, pointing idly to the fork whose tines he was strumming his fingernails over, "care to find out how far down your throat I can shove that fork as opposed to how quickly through it?"

        He paused his miniaturized guitar antics, considering her threat, and thought it wise to offer an addendum. "Perhaps the career could be changed," he suggested and she nodded acceptance. "But seriously, all you really need to do is focus on your strengths and figure out what all they could be used for."

        She nibbled thoughtfully on a particularly thin carrot stick. "I like math of any sort," she mused out loud, "especially calculus and trig. Marketing and accounting classes have always been fun, too."

        "Accountant," he said immediately, sipping at the folded carton shaded into a darkness indicating he was indeed drinking chocolate milk. "Or an economist, or something having to do with money and earning it." Her answering look was of the no, duh variety, and he ignored her with stately grace. He enjoyed the flavor of the beverage for the briefest moment, keeping it on his tongue, and then swallowed, flashing his toothy smile at her and stretching his legs out, jogging pants crinkling noisily. "That or the world's scariest math teacher." He shrugged helplessly and she bared her incisors, presenting him her most evilly comedic look of pure horror film knowledge, and he threw his arms up over his eyes with a mock-howl.

        "Oh, God!" he cried in terror. "My blood!"

        "My ears!" she added, making a show of rubbing them as he subsided sheepishly.

--

        Natalie pulled free the large glass covering for the wide pan, wrinkling her nose at the familiar milky scent of stroganoff and grasping a large spatula to stir it carefully one last time. Yellow noodles and lumps of broken beef broke the creamy stickiness bonding it all together, and she tore apart the thinnest layer of clotted film lying over it all. Stirring it into a presentable, cleanlier form, she tapped the spatula on the sturdy edge of the pan and tossed it a foot to her left, the black plastic clattering in the metal sink. She lifted the pan, forgetting to stuff her hands into the oven mitts she had pulled out upon returning to their new home, and rolled her lower lip into her mouth. Biting, she shuffled hastily over the floor to the wide bar separating kitchen from dining room and slipped it onto the grill raised over the laminated wood. "Ow, ow, ow," she grumbled to herself, popping her fingertips into her mouth and suckling to nurse the reddening tender spots.

        It did fit in with her day for her to accidentally burn herself when making a dinner to be refrigerated for her elder sister's sake, an apology for taking such an early night out so soon after the move. She knew it was silly, as she gingerly removed her fingers from her mouth and shook them mildly, blowing a cool burst of air from her lungs to the wettened tips. After all, they had developed individual lives in Florida, and she had done the usual teenaged things there just as she would to the best of her ability here. But she doesn't have anyone else here, yet, and she groaned.

        Dropping her fingers to the faded blue of her tight jeans, rubbing the sensitized tips over the pebbly fabric, she looked resolutely into the mirror set over the glint of the sink. She saw a small girl verging into womanhood with large brown eyes set in a face colored like the soft pink surface of a peach, and fiery hair cut into a hairstyle that had always reminded her of Scully from the earlier seasons. Her mood lifted with that thought, a sense of personal levity, and she laughed, trying to imagine herself in a formal government outfit and finding it humorous. "All I need is Mulder," she murmured lightly, fiddling through one of the drawers for a box of band-aids and the long, slender box of plastic wrap.

        Finding the latter first, she struggled momentarily with the static-attracted plastic as it fought to cling to her knuckles, and pulled an admirable length from the box's perfectly cut opening. A few inches twisted in her hands, bunching against her will into silver clumps that curved in on each other, and she finally tore it free. Dumping the box back into the drawer and knocking it shut with her hip, she crooked her hand to avoid the wrap sticking to her sleeve.

        "You shall not defeat me," she informed the plastic and tucked it tightly over the top of the still warm pan, effectively sealing the heated contents for layaway. "And now the tricky part," she continued in a low voice, tender fingers wrapping around the edge of the pan with a firm if loose grip. Skittering back to the refrigerator deposited by the wall and near the stove, she shifted it between her hand and her waist, ignoring the radiating heat. She used her free hand to pick the refrigerator door open and she engineered the large pan onto an empty shelf in the relatively scant interior.

        "This deed is done," Natalie announced to the circulating air in the lower level of the townhouse, gesturing with a grand twirl of her hand to the sleek white machine. "But I must seek band-aids now," she added, turning on her socked heel and dashing past her discarded ankle boots to the carpeted stairs. Pounding up, she ran her healthy fingers through her hair, plying free the few tiny knots developing and checking the styled fall of red locks. The bathroom door hung open in invitation and she, not being a fool, promptly ducked in, jerking the narrow towel closet open and flicking her eyes from top to bottom.

        An inconspicuous white box, small and plain, caught her attention and she grabbed it, digging the folded top open. Three miniature bandages, tucked safely within their flat wrappers, were dug free of the box and she shoved the top back into place, tossing it in the closet and shutting the door with a hurried push. "Come on, come on," she chanted, peeling the first wrapper and flicking off the smooth plastic wings underlying the bandage's arms. It took some coordination to cup her first fingertip with the band-aid using only one hand and her elbow, but she did it and gloated for her own benefit.

        Another minute was wasted getting the other two fingers bandaged and she glanced impatiently at the wall before she remembered there was no clock unpacked yet. "Knowing the way my day's been headed, I'll probably end up late," she sighed, and she hesitated before the sleek mirror. Studying her appearance a second time, she held her arms slightly away from her body, staring at the curved body clad in a form-fitting top that exposed the upper, hinting curve of cleavage. "Jacket," she agreed with her previous addition to her attire. "If only to avoid that scene again."

        Out the door she sprinted, clomping down the stairs in her cotton-covered feet and swinging around the knob at the end of the stairs. She stooped by her ankle boots, forcing the mouth of each open wider and wriggling her feet into their corresponding sheaths. Quickly knotting the laces at the swell of her ankle, startling white threads in smudged black leather, she straightened and cast her eyes about for the limp swath of her abandoned jacket. It was waiting for her by the door and she picked her way over the tiles to it, lifting it and rubbing the sturdy feel of it between her fingers. She paused before she slipped it on, glancing straight down her own shirt and grimacing.

        Three minutes later, she left the front door of their diminutive townhouse, a scarlet dress Nolia had frequently complained was too small having been exchanged for her previous outfit, as common sense declared if it did not fit Nolia, then it ought to fit her. A slender high collar to it brushed the mid-point of her neck, and the thin weave belt was firmly encircling her waist tightly. Her jacket was still claimed, hanging smoothly over her crooked arm, and she tapped her dressy sandals on the cement platform connected to the sidewalks by a set of three steps. Fumbling with her key, she injected it into the matching slot and twisted stiffly, testing the knob and smiling when it refused to turn. The door thusly locked, she patted her key into the zipped pocket of her jacket and swirled the leather over her clothed arms. The gauzy hem of the loose sleeves peeked shyly through the black openings, tickling her palms at the soft contact.

        As she strolled at a more or less quick pace, she looked about her, at the rows of simple townhouses lining one of the several intersecting roads that connected the one residential area to the large square that was social life. It struck her as vastly different from the places she had lived in for the past four years, large cities one could easily avoid being found or recognized. This place called Winchester was small and easy to ignore on a map as the tiniest dot visible, the name an abbreviated Wnctr written in subscript wrapped around the circle. While walking, she started to smile, a secretive twitch of her lips moving up into a full-blown laughing grin.

        She turned a corner, tugging the zipper open and pulling free a crumpled sheet of paper, keeping the key still within the smooth pouch. Groups of teenagers were along this street, laughing and yelling and hugging, some walking toward the distant goal of the theatre, others simply having fun on one another's doorstops. Unfolding the paper, smoothing the wrinkles by placing one hand at its back and running the side of her other down it, she studied the detailed sketch Ulan had drawn for her at lunch once she knew he was capable of drawing. It was a map, with streaks of colored pencil showing her the different paths to take to landmarks, with scrawled titles dotting certain buildings: her house, as described to him, his house, the theatre, Baratie's, the two grocery stores, and so forth.

        Hurried footsteps sounded behind her, quick ones verging on a jog, and she stepped to the side, pressing to the bricks of one of the townhouses around her. A thin man with blonde hair swept past her, adjusting the buttoned collar of a semi-professional blue shirt and responding with a wave to the welcoming cries of several teens along the path. Rolling her eyes and returning to the sidewalk, abandoning the crushed grass where she had stood, she looked at the faded street sign at the end of the street, and turned another corner.

        The house addresses of the maintained townhouses, built and separated together, were written in the standard curved numbers painted dull gold in accordance with one of the Rules of Life. She held the paper up, the lapels of it threatening to curve away from her, and memorized with the movements of her lips the numbers of his house. "Four-oh-two-two-three," she murmured, glancing up at the buildings and scanning both sides, a twinge of frustration growing when she could not find it. Turning slightly, she started, seeing the building parallel to her stance sporting the desired address. "Oh, great, thanks," she offered to the sky, stuffing the paper back into her jacket and pulling the zipper shut, after checking to ensure the key was still within it.

        Crossing the cracked black pavement of the street, she checked to see if her jacket was buttoned, leaning forward to the door. She grasped the knocker, a carved swirl with a decorative cornucopia in the center, and knocked it politely on the red painted wood. Waiting in the slightly nippy March air, she exhaled and shifted her weight, looking to the clouds above and the faint line of a commercial plane soaring too high to be heard. She lowered her head and, leaning curiously to the side to check the window, glass obscured by lacy white curtains, shrugged, grabbing the knocker and heaving it a little harder.

        "Coming!" a by-now-familiar bellow came from somewhere in the confines of the white townhouse. She stepped down to the first step, viewing the ledges beneath windows painted a red stark against the ivory boards that formed it. "I'm com--ah, geez!" Faint mutterings emanated from near the door, and she heard the locks being turned. The door swung open, revealing a harried Ulan, streaks of something resembling dark chocolate decorated the side of his face closest to a giggling toddler he was holding. "Greetings, Nat!" he said dryly, and the toddler teetered in his arms, patting the chocolate on his face and scooping some into his chubby hand. Sticking the hand into his tiny mouth, the toddler shared a brilliant, adorable smile with Natalie and she studied him with an arched eyebrow. "Yes, Onion," Ulan said with a sigh. "Yum: nutella."

        He motioned for her to step into the hall, the yellow overhead light in the entrance struggling to beam properly, and she observed what little she could see of the inside of the Harris homestead. The right half, such as what was seen, was spotless, perfectly cleaned and all but sparkling with its lack of dirt, while its opposite was scattered with toys, an empty pizza box, and several sketches. An artist easel was erected in the corner of the small drawing room, and she grinned at her own double entrende.

        "Sorry for the mess," a woman's voice called from what she assumed was the kitchen connected to the living room on her right. "Ulan's been helping me watch his cousins, and they tend to be rather rowdy."

        Ulan beamed and winced as the toddler held in his arms tugged painfully at the loosening curls of his hair. "Ow, okay, let's not, ow," he fumbled with the tight grip to free his wounded follicles. "Onion, stop," he sternly ordered, and the boy let go, lower lip trembling sneakily. "Crying won't help, kiddo," and he set the boy on the floor. Immediately, the child stumbled to his feet and ran, wobbling, down the hall stretching to the staircase daggering into the second floor. Two yelling voices could be heard on the upper landing, and the third child clambered up the stairs.

        "Onion?" Natalie asked. "I'll bet it's a nickname."

        "I call him Onion 'cause he makes me cry," Ulan replied, waving for her to wait a minute as he dodged into the room leading to the kitchen. "His real name's Orion," he called, voice muffled by walls and meager distance. "Perro and Canaan are his brothers, but I call them Pepper and Carrot. Such is my sense of humor." There was a moment of silence broken by the sound of running water and something like a slap to his shoulder, complete with a soft ow.

        Natalie loved it. Inhaling deeply, she felt oddly cozy in the entrance, staring with fascination at the coats discarded carelessly near the door, muddied boots lopsidedly grouped together. This was what she wanted more than anything for herself, for Nolia, the enveloping chaos of a shifting family and the messy state of existence that came with it. Even the air smelled different, tugging scents of cinnamon hooked with the crisp essence of apple, and she shivered happily, arms looping around her abdomen nonchalantly. "Coming soon, Ulan?" she questioned loudly.

        "Almost done cleaning my face!" came the answer, and then a lower, "See ya later, Mom." He came back around the corner, large portraits lining the walls of the narrow hall catching her attention as she studied the painting mingled with photographs, and she tore her gaze from it. His fingers plied the hair-tie free, letting his tangled curls fall to his shoulders and slipping the tie around his wrist as he would a bracelet. The checkered bandana dwelling on a small square table in the entrance, next to the door, was picked up, and he tied it with a practiced flick of his hands over his bangs.

        "Can we go now?" she asked plaintively, giving him her saddest expression, and she grasped the doorknob, twirling the door open and gesturing broadly. "Why the bandana?" requested Natalie as they stepped back into the setting sun of Winchester.

        "Why do you think, foo'?" he answered congenially. "A thug's gotta have his threads, y'hear?" Ulan glanced at his watch and swore, causing her to blink and wonder if he had been bitten by something. "We're going to miss it if we don't hurry!" he yelped, snatching her elbow in his hand and running along the street. "Must! Run! Faster!"

        "It won't kill us to be late, you know!" she yelled right back, grumbling at the unwanted feel of a rock getting caught in her sandals and scouring her heel. "And besides, I didn't get to meet your family or anything. Well, other than your cousin, but that's beside the point." She ducked the whipping branch of a tree sticking prominently outside the boundaries of someone's cluttered yard, swearing under her breath and yanking her arm free of his hand. Running still, she hopped briefly on one foot, digging the rock out of her sandal and plopping her foot back to the ground.

        "It's only my mom and me, anyway," he said dismissively, turning sharply around a corner where the scarred pavement gave way to dusty cobblestones. "Cross the street," he called over his shoulder. "The theatre's right here." It was a wide building, of an old construction style with framed light and a jutting angle of white billing that featured the title of the evening's chosen movie in bold black letters.

        "Well, then, come on," she said cheerfully, breaking into a sprint and beating him to the ticket booth pinned betwixt the two wide entrances. "Two for the movie," she informed the teller breathlessly, and the elderly man nodded, smiling widely at them both. "How much is it going to cost?" she turned to Ulan.

        "Five-fifty, I think," he nodded decisively, and she dug into the second pocket of her jacket, peeling free a five and a one.

        She shrugged and handed both bills over in exchange for the twin gold tickets the man offered through the slit in the plastic paneling. "Here, take-ith it and come-ith in." She stabbed one of the tickets into her companion's face, and he jerked back reflexively, taking it from her at the same time.

        They snuck through the entrance, and he pointed silently down to one of the two theatres, his face a mask of solemnity and comedic seriousness. "Movie," she sang in reply and he stuck his tongue out with a wide grin.

--

        "You're late," Jonathon greeted him with his usual scowl, the dark-haired chef busying himself with the preparation for the usual influx of teens at night. While weeknights never had anywhere near the amount of teens as the weekends did, business was still due for a more frenetic pace as soon as the sun dipped beneath the horizon.

        "My car wouldn't start," he said pleasantly, offering his middle finger in apology, and the other man snorted rudely. "What? I couldn't make it in time," and he plucked one of the hefty white aprons from the sterilized hooks lining the door that opened into the kitchen. Currently standing in the wide backroom reserved for delivering food from kitchen to dining, the two men shared a thick feeling of hostility.

        "Car?" snorted the shorter of the two, quickly picking free the knot keeping his apron in place. The stained cloth was deposited without decorum into a deep, rolling hamper, collapsing limply amongst the other bits of laundry to be cleaned by the last shift. "You don't need a shittin' car. You walk outside, take two minutes to walk, and, wow, you're at work. It's the same for every moron who works here." He wrinkled his nose in arrogant distaste when the late arrival absently pulled a lighter from his jeans' pocket and flipped it open to reveal the flickering flame, singeing the end of the cigarette he had stuck into his mouth when Jonathon shed his apron.

        "Kiss my ass," he responded politely, inhaling one breath of the smoke and kicking the swinging door to the kitchen open. Vanishing into the heated room of boilers, stoves, and sleek metal countertops, he left the now off-duty man to his embroiled seething. "Evening," he greeted the others, and a few grunts came in reply as he briskly moved to his standard position.

        "Ten minutes," a gruff voice said to his left and he showed no visible reaction other than shifting the cigarette so it hung from the corner of his mouth instead of closer to the front. He, mimicking the motions of the others, scraped clean the cooking surface of the grill and spread the faint layer of butter needed on it, lathering it into a sticky bubbling. "You'll be working the open bar tonight," the voice continued and he spared a glance over his shoulder as he moved in an angle to one of the deep sinks scattered about the place.

        Washing his hands quickly, soaping the skin and letting the faucet pound it away with a harsh stream of near-scalding water, he blew out a slight puff of shaded smoke. "Point, old man?" he asked callously, rolling his blue sleeves past his elbow and yanking lightly until they could scale up no further. He chewed momentarily on the end of the white cylinder clamped in his jaw, an old habit, and accepted the metal bin of shrimp from the eternally grumpy veteran. "I'm here, I'm cooking, and nobody died. As an added bonus, I pissed Jonathon off three minutes earlier than usual." He grinned to himself, a nasty curve of his lips that more than exposed his dislike for the other man. "I've had a remarkably pleasant day so far."

        "I'm sure," Sef snorted uncaringly, readjusting his balance on the crutch that assisted his walking. The loose fabric of his trousers obscured the solid white plastic of his false leg, an addition to his person from just below his knee straight down into an unmoving false foot tied strongly into the brown leather of his shoe. "Don't let any ash get into the food, or I'll have you out on your ass before you have time enough to choke on the ash-ridden food I'll shove down your throat."

        "That's shit and you know it," replied the lanky cook in a foggy voice, more preoccupied with his job at the moment. A warning sizzle came from the grill, as it had been from the surrounding grills, and he flipped the bits of food over with practiced movements, leaning forward slightly as one of the many assistants bustled past. "Oh, and Mommy?" he asked cutely, turning slightly to flutter his eyelashes precociously at the unappreciative senior cook. "Is it okie if I talk to the girlies?"

        "Like you wouldn't if he said no," the compact man to his right said disparagingly, arranging food on a plate lining the bar ledged over the grills and traveling to the door. "It's never stopped you before." He shoved the edge of the plate, sending it careening in a controlled path down the rolling bar to a waiting assistant.

        "You're just jealous, dumbass," he retorted, moving briefly to the side and tapping a trickling stream of pale grey ash into the small trashcan placed there. Contented, he cast a critical eye to the shrimp gathered before him and nodded to no one in particular, motioning for one of the other cooks to toss him a plate. "And while my search for The One has yet to yield any satisfactory results," he persisted to the various rolling of eyes and obscene expressions, as Sef wielded his crutch and crossed the floor to yell at a clumsy assistant trying desperately to clean up a spilled container of cooking oil, "it doesn't mean I can't keep searching."

        "You're not looking for The One," someone yelled rudely. "You're just looking for a lay!"

        "Damn straight!" he agreed cheerily, tasting his cigarette's bitter tang and pushing the completed plate down the trail. "But, what the shit, if I happen to find The One during, it just makes it all the better." He ripped one of the tags of orders from the board they were posted on before him, crumpling it into a ball in his hand and dropping it into the slick black trashcan. A rag was utilized to clean the grill quickly, gathering up the streaks of butter and other unwanted waste products into the cloth, and he set it on the counter below the bar. "So get the hell off my back and let me be a normal man."

        The man to his right muttered something pointedly crude and proceeded to grill a large steak.

--

        "It is possible," Natalie insisted as they shuffled out of the darkened room housing one of the two screens, hands clenched in her jacket's pockets. The theatre was horribly cold and she was beginning to doubt Ulan being human, as the air conditioning had yet to affect him. They stopped walking in the lobby, taking in the warmer air circulating there, and paused before the snack bar lit by fluorescence glowing brightly. "Look, it just is, okay?" she repeated in frustration at his continued look of disbelief.

        "No," he replied, unmoving, and she threw her arms to the side, turning to walk out the double glass doors. "It's not possible, Natalie, and I don't know what crap you're reading," he sidestepped the swinging door she purposefully attempted to smack him with, "but it's lying." He shivered in the burst of dying winter chill, and she felt relief at it, both thinking over their argument.

        "I'll prove it one day," she stated loftily as they crossed the cobblestone street with the other teenagers making the migration to the shimmering windows of Baratie's. "I'll find someone who can bend their arms twice around their body, and then, oh then, I'm going to laugh," she drawled the word out into a mocking sound.

        "Good luck finding a contortionist," retorted Ulan, skipping ahead of her under the glimmering streetlights to haul the door open. "Hurry, before the heathen masses trample me," he added, planting his hand squarely between her shoulder blades and shoving her through the door. True to his word, a large group of loudly chattering teenagers followed, a few squeezing past him before he managed to nearly hurl himself forward, leaving the door to another hapless boy. Hopping on his toes and glancing around, he quickly spotted a laughing redhead on the opposite side of the flow of high school students into the erstwhile empty restaurant. He sighed and judged the depth of the crowd pouring in, shrugging and waving with a broad grin for her to come across.

        "What?" she demanded, popping her hands onto her waist and giving him a rather quelling glare. "I'm waiting for you!" she stressed, rocking back on her heels. He gave her an innocent expression suggesting he could not hear her, and she snorted skeptically, wading forth into the swiftly scattering teens as the door creaked dangerously under the strain. Elbowing a few of the more impatient teenagers directly in their ribs, causing hasty retreats on the part of most as they were unable to find their aggressor, she slid over the sticky navy leather of the barstool next to his. "Now I'm mad at you," she informed him, zipping her pockets and feeling it briefly. Her key was still safely locked within. "Why are we at the bar?" She glanced over the display of wine and beer stuck in the aged rack kept behind the bar a ways, and then spared a quick look at the television set in the corner blaring a college football game at them.

        "Silly Miss Tartan," he shook his head with a chortle, "why else would we be at the bar?"

        "Cigarettes, booze, and free crackers?" she suggested, picking one of the plastic-wrapped sets from a woven basket for proof of her claim.

        "I only get free crackers, unfortunately," he sighed, taking it from her hand and leaning to the side when she swung half-heartedly at him with the back of her hand.
        "What for?" she questioned around a mouthful of cracker, scraping her fingernail thoughtfully over the rippled end of the plastic she had not torn. The second cracker rested inside the wrinkled wrapper, snapped into crooked halves, and she absently filched one of the halves out, sticking it into her mouth.

        He swallowed both of his crackers, crumpling his own wrapper and tossing it expertly over the counter into a shadowed trashcan under the alcohol rack, the makeshift ball not even brushing the dark bag lining it.   While she clapped in approval, he bowed his head seriously, and then confessed, "I'm only seventeen. I have to wait until next Tuesday to be legally old enough for smoking, and booze is the Devil's drink." He sketched a quick Catholic cross between shoulders and forehead, as if to ward away the mentioned evil.

        "True words of a recovering alcoholic," she stated wisely, sagely nodding her head in slow knowing. Balling up her wrapper, she tossed it, one arm stretching under the other in playful athleticism, and she groaned when she missed horribly. Beside her, Ulan was making choked sounds suspiciously akin to muffled laughter when one has masticated food on the tongue. She scowled a dirty glare at him and he gave her an appeasing twist of his hands, palms lifted up. "Anyway, I'm only interested in the free crackers," and she ripped open another package savagely, breaking the first in half and nibbling hungrily at it. The glitter of a barely-touched water bottle she had brought with her from the theatre sparkled temptingly and she poked the other half into her cheek, daintily chewing as she twirled the cap off. "Feel like Spanish tapwater marketed as that of Colorado mountain springs?" she asked, taking a swig and washing it in her mouth to rid her teeth of the clinging crumbs.

        "Never," he gasped in shocked horror, and he filched her second cracker. Ignoring her deadly look, he shoveled it between his lips and chewed with agonizing slowness. When she pretended to wipe away his existence from her mind, he poked her shoulder strongly and she twisted around. Immediately, he stuck his tongue out, the remnants of the cracker displayed to her blatant disgust.

        "Ew, gross, gross, gross!" she all but yelled, grabbing the collar of her jacket and pulling up, creating a temporary shielding hood. "You are dis-gus-ting," she was careful to make sure he knew, wriggling her jacket back into place after a precautionary moment. As soon as she glanced back at him, he stuck his tongue out again and she made an obnoxious gagging sound.

        Swallowing the cracker, he nearly fell off his chair laughing at her, and she lifted her hand to place it near her eyes, cutting him from her vision. "I can't believe I'm being seen in public with you," she muttered.

        "We're in Winchester, the small town," he thought it worth mentioning. "It's not public: it's where more than three people can see you."

        Natalie flicked a relatively hefty crumb at him, her polished fingernail pointing a warning at his wrist, and he faked a graphic wound, clutching his wrist and making pitiful sounds deep in his throat. "It hurts so," he sobbed, letting his forehead smack the counter, and his shoulders shook in contrast with his gasping sounds of eloquent anguish.

        "Loser," she answered sweetly, peering into the wrapped yellow of the packed crackers and sighing. Pushing it delicately to the side, fingers brushing it with elegance and grace written in her every slender muscle as her hand touched it, she studied the wall before them with muted interest. "Nice display," she commented to herself, and a rough voice laughing behind their curved backs snagged her attention effectively. Listening to it carefully, she heard a feminine voice tinged with a gentle weariness, and she grinned.

        "Oh, Ulan," she sang and he lifted his head from where he had apparently begun to doze, blinking at her. "I wonder who just walked through the door."

        Obligingly, with an exasperated toss of his shoulders, he twisted around on the stool, froze while his eyes widened, and twirled back to face the bar with an extremely nervous expression. His face was tilted slightly to the shined bar, fingers tensing on the edge, and he glowered at her through the corners of his eyes. "That isn't fair, Nat," he groaned. "And I swear I'm going to tear my own throat out before I ever tell anyone about her again."

        "I dunno," Natalie shrugged teasingly. "I thought you'd like that Hawaiian muumuu on her. And that bikini top is just so darn cute, isn't it, Ulan?" She grinned in a most definitely feline swell of her lips, the gleam of straight teeth just barely hinted at in the slight opening. "Shall I call her over?"

        "Kill me now," he moaned pathetically, dropping his head onto his crossed arms, staring piteously at her when he tilted his face so his cheek rested on his forearm. "Take that basket," his eyes flickered to the basket she had moved, "place it to my temple, and apply swift, bruising power to it. Crush my skull. Take me away from this awful existence plagued with Joel and a friend who can do nothing but torment me. Oh, sweet Chamomile, I doth not deserve thee." He sighed, a look of comical self-pity adorning his swarthy face and a slight pout to his lower lip as he gazed longingly at the basket.

        "Death does not become you," she pointed out, casually picking another thing of crackers and popping it open. Grabbing one of the crackers, she shoved its salted goodness into his face, her arm straightened out fully and elbow locked determinedly. "Take of this sustenance and live once more," Natalie smiled in as divine a style as she could while wielding her bottle of water like she might a live stick of dynamite.

        Before Ulan could do little more than meekly accept her offering of cracker and water bottle for fear of her making good her threat of beckoning his personal goddess over, two long hands slammed crankily on the counter. One landing on each side of his head, he stared blankly at the pale hands decorated with a large class ring and a signet of unknown source, then rolled his eyes up to see better. Natalie was choking on her laughter, caused more by his startled look than anything else, and he sat up with a hint of irritated chagrin aimed not at her but the man currently glaring slightly evil daggers at him.

        "What the hell are you doing smudging my counter?" the man asked pleasantly, his jaw tensed visibly behind his thin lips over the end of his drooping cigarette. "Do you have any idea how long it takes to clean it? And then you go and lie on it like some dog?" He straightened his back and extended his body to his admittedly formidable height, pinching the cigarette's body in two knuckles and pulling it free to exhale the smoke as a dragon would.

        "You look as idiotic as always, Sandman," greeted the senior with a friendly scowl. "Is that curl in your eyebrow natural or do you need special attention for it?"

        "Do birds nest on your nose or is it just for decoration?" Sandman snapped right back, jabbing the cigarette back into place, the odd scent of pale apples following the wrinkling ivory cylinder. Ulan touched his nose self-consciously and grimaced, knowing the shot was fair in lieu of his own, but not appreciating it anyway.

        "I laugh when I don't mean to," Natalie explained unashamedly when he looked at her, and he made a quick face, jerking his head slightly toward the lanky man behind the bar while doing so. Still smiling broadly, she shook her head and looked up a bit at their unintended server. "Do you have any menus?" she asked brightly, ignoring Ulan's dark mutterings and promises for revenge at some point in the far distant future. A moment of very sudden silence befell her, and she shrunk back a little, playing her fingers together as she studied his funny expression. It struck her perhaps she had broken some unspoken small town rule, such as she might find out as of now, and she briefly wondered if he had stopped breathing.

        "Yes!" he finally answered, snapping his head as if tearing himself from an unexpected lapse in brain activity, and he flashed an utterly charming smile at her. "If you hold on just a minute, pretty lady," she steadfastly ignored the poorly disguised snort of yeah, and the Earth's flat from her left, "I'll have you one." With that, the tall man, dressed in a shirt of buttoned blue with rolled sleeves tucked inside black jeans, swirled on his heel and moved toward the back. A flash of an i.d. card from Joel, who had set himself up with Chamomile on the far end of the bar, distracted him momentarily, and he moved to check the doctored square of laminated white.

        "Who was that?" questioned Natalie with a raised eyebrow of sculpted sunlight.

        "Sandman," Ulan responded airily. "He's something of a rampant womanizer and since he hasn't had the chance to hit on the relative loveliness that is you," he granted her a soft grunt when she lightly socked his shoulder, "he won't let you a moment of peace all night."

        "So, what," she started cheekily, "it'll be like spending my time with you, only with a smoking blonde who cooks?"

        His was not a kind facial response. "He's twenty-two, at least, and we all know him," he waved around generally at the loud cacophony of teenage interaction. "And if he has his way, you'll know him as well." This was said in an enigmatic tone offset by the extreme waggling of his thin eyebrows, and she shoved him unceremoniously from his perch on the stool. His replying yelp struck her as rather satisfying and she sipped cherubically at her water bottle, taking small amounts of the falsely advertised clearness into her mouth and smiling to the bar alone.

--

Notes: It's a bit longer than I meant for it to be, and I didn't cover at least two of the scenes I wanted to. Alas, alas, but such it is. I know this is going rather slow, but the chapters (or, rather, bits of the stories) will be getting gradually larger. Just stick around a little, enjoy the lazy pace for the next few stories before summer hits and everything hits pandemonium level (more or less). Two very vague references were in this chapter to two other characters that won't be introduced for some time yet, and I'm only telling you because I'm evil like that. ;] My apologies for the rising level of profanity, but it is more or less in character for Sanji, at least.

Names: Orion, Perro, and Canaan are none other than, respectively, Tamanegi, Piman, and Ninjin. (Or, in their translated names, Onion, Pepper, and Carrot.) I didn't say the new name of Usopp's mum…but it's Bethany.

Pop Culture References: The Sandman again (let's just say that'll be there for every chapter and leave it at that), a particularly fun bumper-sticker about dragons and why not to mess in their affairs, The X-Files, that yummy chocolate-y spread Nutella, and the mysticism of college football. Go Dawgs!

Disclaimer: I'm a fifteen-year old girl of arguable talent, not a genius named Oda Eiichiro.

Feedback: I'll be your best friend! (Although, seriously, I don't have the advanced author thing, so I pretty much can only go by my reviews as to whether or not anyone is reading. A simple word or two would suffice: 'good' or 'you suck,' for example. *winks*)

Written: April 6-7, 2003.

Revised: April 10, 2003. (Really silly grammar mistakes. I am both chagrined and amused. Somehow.)

Thanks: To my one reviewer for chapter two. *^.&* Many thanks, Bialy, and here's to hoping I characterize Sanji decently next chapter. 0o; And that the plot starts working a little more agreeably with me.

Next: Ulan and Natalie talk in Baratie's, Natalie has a peculiar conversation with Sandman, and the nightmare occurs once more. A trip to NYC is planned. (If the chapter doesn't grow out of my control like this one did.)