[UNMODERATED - player memory] [CRITERIA: find the linchpin, minimum 12 tags]
The bakery is quiet and all of the lights but one are low. On the street, it's cold enough to make a person hunch their shoulders in, just a little, and late enough that the sky is black. The street is too. Black like the metal of the lampposts and the paint on the bench out front where there's a boy with his gaze fixed down the street, skinny and small, fidgeting with the hem of his sweatshirt, plucking at a loose thread and winding it around his finger.
It isn't startling, the black of the sky the asphalt the door behind him. Maybe because of the dark or maybe because that's how it's always been. That is how it's always been. All the world in contrasts of bright and dark and the shades of grey between them. The boy digs his teeth into his cheek and leans forward. Sucks in a breath and leans back almost as quickly, pulling a sneaker up onto the bench and retying his shoelace. Someone's late. (It isn't you. You're here. You're waiting. You're supposed to be here. To be still. To be waiting. It'll be fine. She'll be back if you can just—)
Behind him a bell jingles, chiming sound that startles him into straightening, toes of his sneakers skimming the floor and shoulders rocking back as a woman steps out the front door of the shop with her arms full and her wand tucked behind her ear. The slow build of panic in the air quiets like a candle that somebody's gone and taken a snuffer straight to. All covered up and choked.
"You still out here, honey?" she asks, all bright and polite like she hadn't seen him through the window all day, holed up between her pansies. Her voice is warm (warm like the cup she'd placed down on the bench that morning, like the brimming-full paper bag folded over in her hands right now) like he's a pleasant thing to see and she has a smile that makes her eyes crinkle closed.
Desmond nods. "Yes, ma'am."
There are splotches of white on the dark of her shirt, one streak of it left high on her forehead. She misses it by half an inch as she reaches up to run her fingers through her hair. "And you're sure you won't stay inside?"
For a moment, she looks like she might argue when he dips his chin and mumbles out a sheepish, "No, ma'am." Her lips turning down in a way that makes something squirm guiltily in his stomach. But she drops her paper bag onto spare bit of space next to him instead, her fingers skimming the tops of the little gray flowers in the pot next to the door.
"Alright," she says. "Well, you know where the key is."
MEMORY: Just Wait
[CRITERIA: find the linchpin, minimum 12 tags]
The bakery is quiet and all of the lights but one are low. On the street, it's cold enough to make a person hunch their shoulders in, just a little, and late enough that the sky is black. The street is too. Black like the metal of the lampposts and the paint on the bench out front where there's a boy with his gaze fixed down the street, skinny and small, fidgeting with the hem of his sweatshirt, plucking at a loose thread and winding it around his finger.
It isn't startling, the black of the sky the asphalt the door behind him. Maybe because of the dark or maybe because that's how it's always been. That is how it's always been. All the world in contrasts of bright and dark and the shades of grey between them.
The boy digs his teeth into his cheek and leans forward. Sucks in a breath and leans back almost as quickly, pulling a sneaker up onto the bench and retying his shoelace. Someone's late. (It isn't you. You're here. You're waiting. You're supposed to be here. To be still. To be waiting. It'll be fine. She'll be back if you can just—)
Behind him a bell jingles, chiming sound that startles him into straightening, toes of his sneakers skimming the floor and shoulders rocking back as a woman steps out the front door of the shop with her arms full and her wand tucked behind her ear. The slow build of panic in the air quiets like a candle that somebody's gone and taken a snuffer straight to. All covered up and choked.
"You still out here, honey?" she asks, all bright and polite like she hadn't seen him through the window all day, holed up between her pansies. Her voice is warm (warm like the cup she'd placed down on the bench that morning, like the brimming-full paper bag folded over in her hands right now) like he's a pleasant thing to see and she has a smile that makes her eyes crinkle closed.
Desmond nods. "Yes, ma'am."
There are splotches of white on the dark of her shirt, one streak of it left high on her forehead. She misses it by half an inch as she reaches up to run her fingers through her hair. "And you're sure you won't stay inside?"
For a moment, she looks like she might argue when he dips his chin and mumbles out a sheepish, "No, ma'am." Her lips turning down in a way that makes something squirm guiltily in his stomach. But she drops her paper bag onto spare bit of space next to him instead, her fingers skimming the tops of the little gray flowers in the pot next to the door.
"Alright," she says. "Well, you know where the key is."