In which Red and Timothy endanger the lives of train passengers.

"You dropped this,"

Almost reflexively, having been stopped en route to class, Red Jefferson's eyes darted to her partner in conversation's hand.

Said hand held out a flyer of sorts, but she didn't recall dropping it at all. Warily, she looked back at him. The young man who held out the flyer couldn't have been any older than herself, he wore a leather patch over his right eye and stings of black roots poked through the ashy brown dye of his hair. To add to it all, he had no eyebrows, which was one of the weirdest things she'd ever seen.

"What are you trying to do?"

The stranger broke into an awkward smile, "Oh well, it would be shameless of me to carry on like nothing so I'll be straightforward."

He stretched out his arm enthusiastically, possibly offering his hand for a shake. Red didn't take it.

"The name's Timothy Burke, and I highly doubt there's anything I can't do." He smiled, slowly moving the same hand to scratch his head.

Red blinked.

"If there's any job you need doing, I'm your guy...or if you don't have any pending jobs right now you can always pass the flyer onto someone else or something—"

Red took the flyer from him abruptly, "I'll think about it,"

And, with a curt smile, she excused herself before continuing her journey to class.

As for Timothy, he reminded himself to check the moon that evening in case it was in fact blue. This particular method of distributing posters had never worked until this particular occasion—

"She threw it in the trash," he observed dejectedly.

Unfortunately, this was true.

"At least I didn't litter," she mumbled to herself reassuringly, "although I didn't necessarily have to take it in the first place..."

Timothy, however, didn't share the same sentiment. He promptly decided to take the rest of the day off as an effect of his demotivation.

🔸🔸🔸

I'd assume it was a couple of hours later, possibly late afternoon when Red boarded the train back home. She wasn't coming from college, though--Her classes had ended about three hours ago--she'd just returned from running her own errands in behalf of her brother, Dante.

Why this is important is because these errands were for Dante's son, Jordan. It was his 5th birthday, and Dante wanted to make him a cake before he went to pick him up from preschool. As you would.

You might ask why Dante wasn't able to get the ingredients beforehand, well, I don't know. There must have been a reason since adults have their reasons for everything. It's likely he was a very busy man, and he probably struggled to think of what to do to make his son's birthday extra special this year-up until that very afternoon.

"Ugh," Red grunted, remembering the last-minute text she'd got from Dante earlier on, "Why'd he have to leave it till this late? I could have just brought a cake from the shop,"

The shop being Red's workplace. At the time this was written, Red worked part-time at a bakery in the city. However, Dante, picky as always, insisted that he baked the cake himself. He liked to think he had the Midas touch when it came to baking.

"He probably wanted something a little more heartfelt, " Red concluded.

Although, it's obvious that the kid wouldn't care where the cake came from, let alone be able to tell the difference.

As she thought these shady thoughts, she rummaged through the contents of her shopping haul just to be sure she had everything. By this time, the train had gotten quite far from the city. The trains also ran on a half an hour basis.

There was no flour.

"Did I really just-?"

Red forgot to buy flour.

Red Jefferson, at the age of 18, forgot to buy flour, in a recipe for a cake.

Cue the typical 20 seconds of anyone's life where, after registering the fact that they might have lost or forgotten something, they are possessed by a strong sense of denial in which they attempt to search for said item. It was a very long 20 seconds, and to add to insult, was fruitless.

"What am I going to do?" she mumbled dejectedly to herself, "I remembered to buy everything else-even these stupidly overpriced number candles-"

Almost too aggressively, she held the candles, before remembering something equally important.

🔸🔸🔸

Timothy was enjoying the impromptu vacation in his office. The young man was equipped with week old aloe water and chicken nuggets, ready to last him the entire weekend.

Minor update, although Timothy initially decided to take only the Wednesday afternoon off, he'd later figured, when putting the key through the lock, that the rest of the week was written off. The mere aspect of something he'd always wanted slipping through his fingers really--to put it lightly--pissed him off.

The record player eventually got around to playing the full record for the 35th time, and Timothy realised that there was only do much detail on the potted plants for him to stare at. This vacation began to hit too close to home.

"Who am I kidding, calling this a vacation," he asked himself. "I do this every day!"

That's when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

He didn't recognise the voice, and so a slight glimmer of hope flickered in his heart. Was this a possible client?

"H-hey, this is Timothy Burke's Oddjob Service, how may I help?"

"Uh..." there was a moment of hesitation, which led to Timothy worrying it was a prank call.

"Do you do deliveries?" the voice finally managed.

"What?"

"Like, if I asked you to buy you something and paid you back afterwards. Would you be able to do that?" The voice asked urgently.

"I can do that..!" he blurted, he was practically attempting to put his shoes back on and brush his teeth by that point. Presentation was a key part of professionalism, he figured.

"Alright, if it's okay, could you meet me at Sycamore Station? And can you do that within the next half hour?"

Timothy adjusted his patch, "Uh-huh,"

"Thanks!" The voice beamed, "You don't know how much I appreciate it!"

🔸🔸🔸

Eventually, the train rolled into Sycamore station with 5 minutes to spare. Red pretty much flew onto the platform anxiously, now looking for the eccentric from that morning.

It had been about seven minutes since Red arrived, and she began to worry about whether the instructions she gave were clear enough.

"When I called Mr Burke, I asked him to meet in 30 minutes...but that could have been after I made the call...and it's only been 24 minutes since then..." she mumbled to herself.

After another ten seconds, she decided to call him back.

"Hello? Timothy Burke speaking, how may I help?"

"It's me again, the one who called about the flour. I'm at the station now..."

"You are?.... wait,"

Red looked around for a second before the voice on the other end of the line suddenly amplified.

"You're here?!" Timothy asked incredulously.

She turned to meet his unpatched eye. Timothy stood not too far off holding a brown paper bag with a less than favourable expression.

"Ah, this is awkward," she just about made out. She slowly approached him as she ended the call.

"It only becomes awkward when someone says it is—but nether mind that, are you trying to make a fool of me?"

"A fool? What are you talking about?"

Stubbornly, Timothy turned away clutching the paper bag to his chest, "I saw you throw the flyer in the bin,"

At this moment the platform grew crowded, as those returning from work alighted a newly arrived train.

Red scratched her head, "Well, you know, the thing is—"

"This island may be blessed with an abundance of woodlands and forest, but we can't take the trees lightly. Do you know how much it cost me to—"

A rushing passerby jostled past, and in turn, accidentally shoved Timothy, whose arms jolted, releasing the paper bag from his hands.

Out of the bag slipped the flour, and onto the train track, it fell.

Timothy blinked.

"Are you done?" Red asked, with a less than impressed demeanour.

"I suppose I am."

She folded her arms in thought. Timothy observed that she appeared to be quite level headed, given she hadn't dropkicked him onto the track as well.

However that was not the case, as you may have realised by now, Timothy wasn't very observant. Red was more or less panicking, whilst also wondering if it was safe to go and pick up the bag of flour and run.

Spoiler alert: it wasn't. Please don't try this yourself.

"Now that it's come to this, I suppose we might as well clear things up."

Timothy turned to face her. She'd now taken on an air of humility but looked him dead in the eye.

"I'm sorry about the flyer. I threw it away because I was done with it."

"If you put it that way..." Timothy began.

"I memorised the details on the back, which is how I was still able to contact you," Red explained, eyes now on the district map, the two of them had moved out of the way of the commuters.

"There--we can still try the bodega on Birch street," she concluded pointing at a particular point on the map.

"We? Technically, I lost the goods and you didn't pay me in advance so we're done here--"

"Oh, C'mon!" she said, hastily grabbing his sleeve and dragging him along with her.

If you put it that way, I can't really get mad.

🔸🔸🔸

They eventually reached the bodega. Timothy, looking at his watch, began to wonder why Red was in such a hurry in the first place.

"It's my nephews birthday, so my brother wanted to make him a cake," she explained, darting into the confectionery aisle. She hoped that was all the explanation she needed to give.

"Okay..." Timothy failed to mask the judgment in his voice. Red failed to react to this within a reasonable timeframe, so he assumed she chose to ignore him.

Eventually, by chance, Timothy found the flour and so the shopping mission soon came to an end. As the two of them left the store, Red asked for Timothy's hand.

"My hand?"

"Just give it to me,"

He reluctantly complied.

She pressed a rolled-up banknote into his palm before closing it and stepping back.

She smiled before he could protest, "I better get going, thanks for your help today."

"I understand you're in a rush, but you still paid for the flour!" He called after her.

She stopped for a moment, returning the curt smile from before, "Think of it as a tip, then, for travel costs!"

And with that she turned on her heel, heading back downtown to the bus station.

On the topic of bus stations, Timothy realised he was very much outside his own neighbourhood. Clutching onto the banknote he'd been entrusted with, he made his way back to the train station in the opposite direction.

🔸🔸🔸

"I'm home!" Red chimed as she entered the apartment. Her voice echoed off the walls, probably because no one was in.

"He must have gone to pick Jordan up from preschool, already," she sighed, unloading her bag of shopping onto the dining room table.

She had a brief moment of genius, where she got the idea to organise and measure out the ingredients on the table.

Such a task then motivated her to decorate the place with the stuff shed bought earlier. However, this task then motivated her to lie down until the others got back.

When the others in question did return, they were taken by surprise. Dante noticed Red's organisation of the ingredients and suddenly wasn't so upset at her for being late.

Because if anything was more heartfelt and personal than making a cake for his son himself, it would definitely be being able to make a cake with his son.

The rest of the evening and celebration went well, which I suppose is good news. Red's parents even managed to throw in the typically spotty video call, and so after an hour of providing tech support, she was able to finally hit the hay.

But a question hit her spontaneously at about 3 past 2 the next morning.

🔸🔸🔸

"What happened to the flour on the train track...?" Timothy read through squinted eyes. It appeared he'd received a sudden text from an unknown number.

Said unknown number happened to have contacted him three times the day before, so he was able to guess who sent it pretty easily.

He went back to sleep.