bakerstreet | Dirty laundry

the LAUNDROMAT

Perhaps you live in a dorm or an apartment that hasn't seen renovations since the eighties. Maybe your luck has really dried up and your washing machine at home broke the night before a job interview and you haven't done a load of laundry in two weeks. Whatever your story is you've ended up at the local 24-hour laundromat. It could be creeping in on midnight or three in the morning. Either way, the place is a dead zone. Leaving you floating in a liminal space where reality has been stripped down to the sounds of clattering quarters and the continuous thrum of the machines under the buzz of neon lights. This would be a horrible time to bump into someone you know, or worse - a complete stranger while you're staring into the middle distance in nothing but your American flag boxers reading a paperback.

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You should just be glad someone knows what you are reading came before whatever those new movies were. She's heard the kids say 'Oh look, this is based on the movie,' and had to bite her tongue. Honestly, one should be surprised she even tried to bite her tongue. Lets be real. "That tells me it's not your first time reading it. Wha'sit? Just a random repeat choice, or a standard washing day novel to transport you out of the thrum of spinnin' machines and dull chores?"

She did a little hop as she pulled the sweats up right, looking down as she would be swimming in them, seeing as he's not nearly as Hobbit-like as she is. Tugging the front strings a bit, she smirked as he mentioned the proprietor. "It's a laundromat. I'm sure they've seen a fair bit of tush before." Not tying the pants, but just tugging them tighter, she nodded to them in agreement that they, again, would do. Then she looked up at him. "All the same, thank you Mr. Baggins. After the day I've had, a lecture is the last thing I need."

[That's a good point. There is the chance that nothing but good can come from this meeting! Maybe...]

"Barnes." He said by way of correction and introduction both, "James Barnes. Friends call me Bucky." A little tilt of his head and a flicker of expression that would pass for a smile in the right light, "And I figure, place like this, this time of night, that means we're friends or mortal enemies, and you definitely don't seem like someone to make a mortal enemy out of."

It wasn't his best work, but it wasn't his worst, either, but it was also one of those things that felt true only after he'd actually said it, "And it's definitely not that thought-out of a choice. It's just what I had on hand that would actually fit in my pocket." A quiet little noise and a half-shrug, "But I've made worse decisions for better reasons."

Barns? Like where they keep horses? But he said his proper name and she smirked. Ah, Barnes. With his comment on her seeming like someone to not make a mortal enemy of actually made her smirk a bit more, a small smile of amusement on her face as she looked up at him. As tall as Dream, she'd say.

"So long as you don't try to eat someone's soul or something just as moronic, we're good. No mortal enemies." She said it like some joke, smirking still, but she happened to be rather serious. "Constantine. Johanna Constantine. If I had friends, they might call me something inappropriate, so Johanna I suppose will do just fine."

As he spoke of his book choice, she glanced around a bit, before moving to try and hop backwards up on a sorting table, legs dangling there. "The Secret Garden. That's my Wash Day novel. I always get a few more chapters in each trip. When I bother to do a trip at all." It wasn't like her messy apartment back home had a machine. Then again it wasn't as if she were home often anymore.

He shook his head at the mention of eating souls, nose wrinkling a little, "Nah, not enough nutritional value in souls, definitely not worth the effort."

He just leaned back against the edge of the table, not bothering to sit on it himself, nodding at the book, "That's a good one, too. Enough of a story to keep you entertained, but not so complicated that you'll forget what you're doing." A half-amused little scoff, "And not so dense you get confused or bored and give up on it." He shook his head, "Made the mistake of bringing the Canterbury Tales once, not annotated. That was a 'sit and stare at the wall' trip."

"I am fairly sure no one eats souls for nutrition, but you do make a good point." She said as if this were fact, and in fact, it might BE fact. Funny that.

Resting her hands on the edge of the table, she leaned there, a moment, listening to him as she stretched her back. Her hand came to rub along her upper thigh as if to work a kink or sore out. She had a soft hum in her voice as she spoke. "Chaucer, hmm? Aye, my wee English heart. That is a classic, but even I don't want to wade through the original non annotated works. The key to reading his work? Read every letter. Silent letters meant nothing back then." She paused, then a smile spread just barely visible on her lips. "It is fun when you get the blokes at the pub to try to quote it through a drunken state."

He snorted a laugh, "How did you know that's how I got interested in it?" A little shrug, "Couple of the guys I served with would trade off lines when they were drunk enough." A head shake, "I'm actually surprised they only got told off for it once."

Though it was probably because it wasn't always Chaucer that Dugan and Falsworth -with occasional interruptions by Dernier and Jones- would get drunk enough to recite. He'd even questioned Dum-Dum about it once, how he knew Chaucer because he didn't seem the type. He didn't remember the answer, only that it had been good-natured annoyance, which was generally the best to hope for with Dugan.

Dirty laundry

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