The Bakery - a modern!verse short
That was Reggie talking, musing through bites of crusty roll and delicious filling about his twin’s sudden turn against having a bite to eat himself while they’d been at the counter of the little East End bakery they now stood outside of. They’d move on in a tick or two, once Reg was done fuelling up and Ron had let up on the window shopping. He was intent on it now, Reg noted; pawing over the pastries, pies, cakes, and ready-made sarnies on display with as much intensity as he usually did the morning crossword. And yet, when they were on the in, up had gone his nose at the very notion.
‘Sure y’don’t want a bite?’
Paper bag and sarnie were offered up gamely, but Ron just waved it off – too intent on the window, the display beyond it and, once he’d clocked it, his reflection in it to give Reg’s morning treat the courtesy of even a sideways glance. Ignoring how his stomach growled, Kray the Younger contented himself to window shopping at intervals; to straightening his tie and his jacket, and to making sure his hair remained as neat as it had been when he’d first combed it this morning. His brother didn’t know it, couldn’t tell for looking at him, but the world was a smidge noisier than it normally was by Ron’s reckoning. It’d been made so by the unfamiliar face behind the counter in the bakery who, though polite and kindly and through no conscious fault of her own, had derailed the little plan Ronnie’d had in mind for procuring a treat for his morning and had, by doing that, frayed his edges some; cranked the volume slightly. So it was, in the aftermath, Ron fixed on the window and what it showed him – the treats, the neat and tidy look of himself, the-
Blue eyes looking back at him through the pane of clear glass.
Noise escaped Ron without so much as a by your leave-
‘□︎♒︎ ●︎□︎□︎🙵 ♓︎⧫︎'⬧︎ ❍︎□︎■︎♓︎♍︎♋︎’
-an observation that his brother heard but couldn’t understand for dust.
‘Y’alright, Ron?’ Reg asked through a bite of his sarnie, both used and not to hearing Ron sound something like a skipping record and a VHS tape run backwards from time to time. There weren’t no one else around to hear him at the minute, so Reg didn’t think on evacuation plans to spare the public his brother’s brief dip into syllables and question marks. He just cocked his head at him instead, watched his face seem to slacken slightly, his brows raise, and lips twitch up lopsidedly at the corners.
Ron didn’t even hear him speak. There was an Angel beyond the glass, looking out at him; an Angel he knew by name and who he’d hoped to see when he’d been in the bakery a few minutes back now. It was from her he’d have happily ordered; her selections he trusted; her offerings that didn’t sit wrong with his Committee; didn’t turn to worms and poison the second he took a bite. She was safe to him in that sense, and that – Well, that was worth more than all the money in London to Ron. And she was here too; safe and here too, right now, beyond the glass. She was looking out at him, her hair pulled neatly back, eyes shining with affection and when she saw his face, his expression shift just like Reggie had, the sun may as well have risen in her smile it was that warm. It made Ron’s breath hitch to witness, drew his shoulders back, flashed his teeth briefly as he mimicked her and then…in a flurry…she was away and moving and coming outside with a wrapped package in hand.
‘Morning gentlemen’ she greeted politely, though barely glanced at Reggie as she passed him by and approached his brother, unveiling the package’s contents as she did. ‘I picked this out for you special’ she said, presenting her prezzie proudly to Ron who, for his part, hadn’t quite managed to look away from her face yet; that same soft expression on his. As she spoke on though-
‘Turkey with stuffing I made up this morning. If you feel-’
-and raised the package up a little for him to take, what she was asking of him processed. The paper-wrapped gift was accepted two-handed.
‘...⬧︎⧫︎♓︎●︎●︎ ⬥︎♋︎❒︎❍︎’ he mustered.
The Angel’s smile was beatific. ‘Still warm’ she said, leaning in a wisp to add – ‘And double-full, just like you like it’ – before departing with a little wink and making her way back inside the bakery. Ron stared after her for a full ten seconds before coming back to himself and tucking in with gusto; a burble of syllables that Reggie half understood escaping through a rough, rattly laugh as he did –
‘LookathisfuckinfingChristaliveshe’ssummatelseIjus-‘
Reggie didn’t have much to say to that.
But he did smirkingly point out, ‘She don’t double-fill mine.’
