Of Heat And Hunger || Rossian Snaps

Monday, January 9, 1922
Verrerie de Montreval (Glass Factory)
12 PM

The furnace hall was deafening.

Shouts rang across the space, nearly completely drowned out by the roar of the machines and the clanking of hot metal. Hisses permeated the hall, heat escaping the vents and pouring in to create thick walls of uncomfortable warmth. His undershirt clamped onto his skin uncomfortably, drenched in rivers of sweat that caused his body to glisten against the glowing liquid glass. The shirt he'd come to work with lay on the floor somewhere, long since discarded when the heat became unbearable. He would find it at the end of his shift, as he'd started doing. As he'd seen the other men doing.

It had already been a week since he started at the factory, and Cassian hadn't yet adapted the way he needed to but he wasn't giving up. The hours were long, often seeing him out of their flat some time after 3 AM to get to the factory for his shift at 4 AM. The early hours were a hidden blessing, before the sun rose to turn the entire factory into its own massive boiler oven. The work was hard. Hour after hour, he worked with the other cullet boys, hauling heavy buckets of broken glass to the furnace and sweeping away the broken shards.

Behind him, the foreman barked his orders, harsh words in a language he was still trying to learn. It had already been five months since he and Rosie arrived in France, and she did what she could to teach him, but it was his first real job fully immersed among the natives. Everything else had been quick odd jobs here or there as they moved from place to place looking for something more permanent.

He understood some of it now. Not much, but enough to know they were being rushed before—.

Phweeee!

Midday.

Everything staggered to a halt. Men carried their final buckets, swept the last of the broken glass that scattered the floor, exhaled the thick air as relief found them. It was time for lunch, and while Cass didn't have any, he was equally looking forward to some time out in the yard, where the cold January air might bring his body down from 'boiling'.

The heavy tools and machinery clinked down to rest. The blowpipes rested on their stands.

Cassian followed the small crowd through the outer door and into the factory yard where the town of Allonnes opened up. It was a small, industrial town, the factory its lifeline, with grey smog-filled skies and a frigid breeze that loosened his limbs. The cold struck him as hard as the heat had, disorienting for a moment while his body adjusted.

He sat in his usual spot against the factory wall, surveying the cuts and burns he'd gotten that day. He'd have to see if Rosie had any more of her pastes.

His stomach rumbled low. He was learning to ignore it. The men sat at the few tables provided or along the ground themselves with lunches packed. Some wandered off the factory grounds, headed for the diner not far down the street.

Only another four hours, then he'd be home with a warm bath and a hot meal. Just four hours. For now, he'd appreciate the peace that came with being removed from the constant din of machinery and the oppressive heat that invaded him on the inside. Much like many of the men in the yard, he'd taken off even his undershirt as he'd exited. It lay on the ground next to him, drenched with no hope of drying. Goosebumps rose along his exposed skin, his body shivering despite the way it craved the cool relief.

Just four more hours.

Madeleine Bernard was not the type of woman to back down when she saw something she wanted.

Raised an only child by two overly-indulgent parents, she had learned from an early age that if something was desired, all she had to do was reach for it. There was finesse involved of course - a little sweet-talking and dolled-up charm never hurt - but overall, Maddy never had to work overly hard.

Case in point, her role as a secretary for le régisseur (superintendent), had been awarded to her simply for the mere fact that her father was best friends with the man. Madeleine, never one to turn up her nose at a sweating, hard-working man had found herself at home within the factory. Helping the workers with their paperwork or pay issues had never felt like work. Not when she got to feast her eyes upon them in the times they made her way to the cool sanctuary of her office.

One day, one of them would be her husband.

And she already had her sight set on him.

An Englishman, one who had joined them only a week ago, but had eyes as warm as they were exhausted and a demeanor that always made her smile. The way he tripped over his French words was endearing, and once she'd revealed that she spoke fluent English they'd quickly connected - the young man obviously desperate for companionship.

She'd noticed the ring on his finger right away. He was only seventeen - awfully young in her mind to be married, but not completely unsurprising. Many boys his age made the same mistake, thinking their childhood girlfriend was the end-all-be-all until one day they woke up and...she wasn't.

The fact that he apparently had a wife was of no concern to Madeleine and certainly none of her business, outside of the fact that she noticed he never came to work with a lunch. Whoever his 'wife' was, certainly wasn't a good one and didn't care about him at all to send him to such a physically demanding job with nothing to eat.

Luckily, Cassian McCormick had Maddy. She had brought him lunch today, deciding she couldn't bear to watch the boy waste away into nothing. Her husband was going to be muscular and well-built, and that meant he had to be well-fed.

“Coucou, mon doux," she said playfully as she came upon him outside the factory wall - shirtless, God help her - and she slid down to sit next to him. She didn't typically take her lunch away from her desk, but Cassian needed food and, she figured, company to check in on him and make sure he was doing okay. The foreman could be a real dur-à-cuire.

Her gray eyes washed over him as she held out a little brown paper bag. "You never have lunch. Ridiculous. You will fade away into nothing and you're already so skinny." She smiled brightly, dropping the bag of fresh crepes, jam and a few slices of ham and cheese into his lap. "Eat. I made it all myself."

Madeleine leaned against the wall, pulling her light brown hair away from her back and over her shoulders where she could run her fingers through it. "Your wife, Cassian," she said, her voice heavily accented but coy and gentle in its prodding, "She does not have time to make you lunch?"

Time or will - it was no different to Maddy.

“Coucou, mon doux."

Oh, Maddy — OH, Maddy. Cassian scrambled for his undershirt as the girl sank down the wall next to him, taking a second to remember how improper it was to hold a conversation with a lady – even if she wasn't a real lady – without a shirt on. He'd seen some of the other blokes doing it from time to time, walking into the admin office with their shirt slung over their shoulder and a cigarette clenched between their teeth. While he'd never seen Madeleine make any particular fuss, it was clear that some of the other, older women in the office didn't appreciate such gestures.

One had been scolded for it just the day before when he went to enquire about his pay. Marcel had had to apologise and get dressed before Charlotte would answer any of his questions.

Maddy wasn't so stiff, but it didn't make him any more comfortable talking to her half-dressed.

The cool of the afternoon and the dampness of the shirt made it chillingly cool as he slipped it back into place. It was further relief as his body continued to come down from its earlier overload.

As his head popped up through the opening, he caught sight of the brown paper bag being extended to him. Hm? Cassian popped both hands through their sleeveless openings before gingerly reaching to take it. Confusion clouded his dark, earthy eyes as they rose to meet her smoky grey. Had he left something in the office? Was it something from the foreman?

"What...—"

"You never have lunch. Ridiculous. You will fade away into nothing and you're already so skinny."

His face flooded with heat, working at cross purposes to the winter morning that tried to cool him. It had been a week of sitting alone by his section of wall, waiting in his exhaustion for the workday to end. The hour that he got had always had Maddy locked inside the office with the other women. It hadn't occurred to him that she would notice such a small detail or that she would care even if she did. It was true; they got on well. Her English and her general sunny disposition helped with that, but Cassian had never for a second thought it should be her problem.

Already reeling from the embarrassment of having an almost stranger think it her duty to feed him, her comment on his thinness did him no favours. Cass had never been the muscular type, and he suffered for it in this new line of work. The blokes on the inside made their own jokes, ones he could barely catch the meaning of, but he got the words here and there.

"I—"

"Eat. I made it all myself."

"You...you really didn't have to," he tried to reassure her, setting the paper bag down between them. Maddy was already off on another line of conversation. It was true, he was learning. The French really were a direct people.

"Your wife, Cassian. She does not have time to make you lunch?"

He rubbed awkwardly at the back of his head, catching the implication laced within her words. "It's not like that," he insisted. "She works nights until late--that diner I was telling you about, remember? By the time she gets in, she's so tired she collapses, and then I'm up before she's awake, heading back here."

That was the hardest part. Not the gruelling work – though that was slowly eating its way through him – but how it felt like the two barely saw each other anymore. It had only been a week since they'd started this new chapter, but he already missed her.

Cassian couldn't wait for Sunday. Until then, they may as well have been ships passing in the night.

“Don’t be silly,” the young woman said, lamenting the return of his shirt but otherwise paying it no mind. She’d already seen what she wanted, and was sure she’d see it again soon enough. All the men around here removed their shirts when they came up from the trenches for air. Her desk by the window always provided her with the best view.

“We are friends, yes?” She picked up the bag again, opening it and discarding his polite insistence that she shouldn’t have. “We’ll share.” She smiled at him as she tore the bag down the middle and laid it between them, with all the goods she had packed. “My mama has a lemon tree in her garden and we spent all summer making jam.” She held up the little glass jar she’d packed, along with a butter knife.

She shoved them into his hands, busying herself with unwrapping the crepes.

"She works nights until late--that diner I was telling you about, remember? By the time she gets in, she's so tired she collapses, and then I'm up before she's awake, heading back here."

“That’s too bad,” Maddy replied, her tone showing no particular care one way or another, but it was polite all the same. “You must not see each other much then.”

If she were Cassian’s girlfriend or wife, she’d ensure she was home and had dinner waiting for him every night. She’d get up early to fix him breakfast and send him off to work with lunch.

And maybe a little something to keep her on his mind all day.

Meanwhile, he had a wife who did nothing for him and never saw him.

The poor boy must have been horrifically lonely, she imagined. “How are you adjusting to everything? Work? France? Rude French people?” She smiled impishly at him, her pretty bow-shaped lips pursing a bit with the joke.

She took the butter knife back from him, spreading the lemon jam onto one of the crepes, before holding it out to him. “Taste? Mama would be thrilled to know someone besides Papa likes her jam.”

Uh...friends...well...he supposed...they...huh?

Cassian blinked down at the jar and butter knife. He'd only known her for a week – barely a week. The first days hadn't been spent having any meaningful conversation beyond him expressing his relief when she helped him get his papers sorted despite his lack of French ability. Friendly hellos occasionally, a chat here or there, but he hadn't known she already considered him a friend and certainly didn't think they were close enough for this impromptu picnic.

Still, the way she rattled on made it clear she'd put some thought and work into her amicable gesture. Maybe they weren't quite friends yet, but she was trying to be, and Cassian thought it might have been rude to shut her down. A friendly face in a foreign country, one that he could communicate with, was hardly something to be squandered. If she had thought to bring him lunch that day...well...she'd already packed it. The whole thing would just go to waste if he kept refusing and Maddy didn't seem like she was willing to take no for an answer anyway.

"Friends, yeah," he conceded with a small nod of his head. His stomach grumbled, betraying any illusion he tried to present of being fine.

Just today. Just because his stomach felt like it had started to eat itself alive and the fresh scents rising from the packed lunch were making it twist harder – Merlin, were those crepes?

“That’s too bad. You must not see each other much then.”

"Hm? Oh, yeah. We've both got Sundays off. Otherwise...I guess we don't."

“How are you adjusting to everything? Work? France? Rude French people?”

Uh.

"It's...it's been a lot, I guess. I still don't understand most of what the others are saying, even the foreman. He usually just shoves me to where he needs me." Lots of yelling and gesturing while he did, as if the factory weren't loud enough. "Other than that," he shrugged, letting her have the butter knife back, "I get home, and I'm so tired that I usually just take a bath, eat dinner, then go to sleep. Don't reckon I've been seeing much of France with a lifestyle like that."

It was funny how quickly life could change. France didn't feel like this when they were still hopping around trying to find a place and steady employment. It had all felt like one big, uncertain adventure they were undertaking together. In only a week, his days had all blurred, and he felt like he'd been trapped inside a dream or a loop with no real end.

Maybe it would just take some adjusting. It had only been a week after all. Things might get better. He just needed to pull–

"Taste."

There was a crepe to his lips before he could question it. With his head already pressed into the wall, there was no way to pull back from the offered treat. "Uhh..." his eyes drifted to the side to look at her, already pooling with questions as he gingerly reached a hand up to take the crepe from her. There...was no need to be fed.

"Um, thanks," he said. Cassian took a bite, and his mouth exploded with flavour. He hummed his satisfaction before taking a second bite, his earlier apprehensions fading at the way the tart jam played off the pastry. "This is amazing. Tell your mum she really knows what she's doing."

A third bite. He was hungrier than he realised.

"And you said you made this yourself?" Fantastic. He'd have another if she packed more.

Friends. For now.

Madeleine smiled, her ears perking up lightly at his admission that he only saw his wife once per week. What sort of marriage was that? Certainly not one she would tolerate. "What is your wife's name?" she asked, breaking off a piece of the cubed cheese to pop into her mouth as she watched Cassian take his first bite of the crepe. Names were important. Without one the mystery girl was just 'his wife', and Maddy preferred to know who she was dealing with.

In any case, she was certain it wouldn't be long. Once Cassian understood what a real wife looked like, how she behaved and how she treated him, he would be looking for a new one. And she would be right there to scoop him up, last name and all.

No, they hadn't known each other long, but Maddy knew what she wanted. He was handsome, polite, a hard worker and had room to grow. She could certainly do worse.

"Don't let the foreman bother you. He's like that with all the new men," she said with a smile, watching as he took another bite and another. "Once you learn the ropes," she snapped her fingers, "he'll be off to shout at someone else."

But he was so tired, he said. All he did was bathe, eat and sleep. What a life for a boy of his age. With his wife gone at night, he didn't even...well, that was all the better for Maddy. If he wasn't sleeping with his wife, surely he'd want someone to sleep with.

Boys. Men. They were all the same. If they didn't get it where they were supposed to, they looked elsewhere. It was why her husband would always be properly taken care of.

"You know Cassian," she said rolling up a piece of the ham she'd packed and bringing it gingerly to his lips. "If you don't want to go home sometimes, you can always come out with me." She smiled, tilting her head a bit, "And my friends. They all speak English. Some better than others. But you'd be welcome?"

And it'd give her the opportunity to integrate him more into her circle, and less into his wife's.

Not that she was around anyway. Her absence simply made things easier to arrange. "We go out for dinner. Sometimes un cabaret," she shrugged her shoulders, "Sometimes just a drink in the park, yes?" Things young people their age did. Maddy was nineteen, but her friends varied in age from Cassian's up to their early twenties.

It was no big deal. "We even go to the - " she paused a moment, searching the English word for it, " - une salle de danse. A dance...place. Hall?" She laughed at herself nudging him slightly with her shoulder.

"You would be a good dancer."

"What is your wife's name?"

Oh. It hadn't occurred to him that he'd never given Rosie's name. Such was the brevity of most of their conversations, and the reason for his confusion surrounding their 'friendship' status. Nothing he couldn't remedy. "Her name's Rosie," he said, breaking into a grin. Just the thought of his wife was enough to lift his mood. Getting to talk about her? Forget it, he was already lost. "She's amazing. Real smart and kind, like you wouldn't believe. I think you'd like her."

Rosie wasn't bold in any loud sense of the word and wasn't as blunt and direct as Maddy had already proven herself to be, but his wife was a fiery one once you got to know her, with a real taste for adventure. It seemed like something the French girl might enjoy.

"Don't let the foreman bother you. He's like that with all the new men. Once you learn the ropes, he'll be off to shout at someone else."

"Well that'll be a relief," he said, finishing off the last of his crepe. "Merlin knows I don't know half of what he's saying, but he always seems so angry." At him? At being locked in with boiling temperatures all day? It was difficult to say without the right context, but Cassian had been doing everything in his power to avoid the man ever since he noticed. Not that it seemed to do him any good. It only ever worked when the man didn't actually need him, otheriwise he just tracked him down and went right back to the yelling.

"You know Cassian."

There was...something about the way she said his name that set off mini-alarm bells. Nothing extravagant, but enough to draw his notice. The undertone seemed like the sort better avoided, but before he could be sure he was hearing it at all, there was ham at his lips.

As he'd done before with the crepe, Cass took it from her, determined to feed himself. She was...kind...very sweet, but it really wasn't necessary.

"If you don't want to go home sometimes, you can always come out with me. And my friends. They all speak English. Some better than others. But you'd be welcome?"

Oh, thank Merlin, she had other friends.

Okay. That was fine. That wasn't problematic vixen out to ruin his whole damn marriage territory. The boy felt silly for thinking it. Typical, wasn't it? A girl showed some attention, did a nice gesture here and there, and it became easy to jump to conclusions. He was relieved to be wrong, finding it easier to relax there against the wall, knowing that any 'designs' his coworker may have had on him were platonic interest in helping him acclimate to the city a bit more. "That's actually pretty cool of you," he said, popping the folded piece of ham into his mouth.

"It'd be nice not having to return to the empty flat every night." something every now and then to break up the monotony he could already feel creeping in. "If you guys are ever out on a Sunday, I could even introduce you to Rosie. She's always down for a good time, too."

And she'd probably get a kick out of him misreading the girl's intentions and thinking she was into him. Get called 'Casanova' a few times, and you start seeing interest everywhere. Such an idiot, but happily an idiot. Thrilled to have misread the situation.

He really was grateful, though. A group of friends might be just what he needed to get his new life started. They'd already abandoned everything and everyone back home.

Rosie. So amazing. So smart. So kind.

Maddy had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. Well, it was obvious Cassian adored his Rosie, but that didn't mean anything. Plenty of men adored their girlfriends and wives and still had wandering eyes. It wasn't a deterrent for the young woman, who just resigned herself to having to play her cards a little tighter than anticipated.

"I'm sure I would like her." She wouldn't. Madeleine didn't like anyone or anything that stood in the way of what she wanted, but she knew how to play the game. No need to ruffle Cassian's feathers over the girl. "And she is pretty, no? You wouldn't marry a girl who wasn't, I think." How pretty was she, she wanted to know? Average? Uniquely pretty? Beautiful? Madeleine was beautiful, and that went without bragging. She saw the way the men looked at her.

"Merlin knows I don't know half of what he's saying, but he always seems so angry."

"No," she tutted as he took the ham from her. "That's just factory men. You'll be that way when you're a foreman." Hard worker that he was, with a few more years down there, Cassian would surely find himself moving up the ranks.

Her smile brightened when he'd accepted her offer to come enjoy himself with her and her friends. Perfect. Out amongst his peers with nothing to worry about other than having a good time, the two of them could really bond. She'd get him to open up more about his life, what brought him to France and...how much he needed companionship.

"If you guys are ever out on a Sunday, I could even introduce you to Rosie. She's always down for a good time, too."

She tsked, tilting her head slightly in faux disappointment. "Oh, we don't go out on Sundays. But I'm sure I'll meet her some other time." When he was moving out of Rosie's house and into hers.

"Come out with us Wednesday night, yes?" She nudged the rest of the lunch towards him as she brushed her hands and straightened her dress. "I'll bring lunch again tomorrow and you can tell me more about your Rosie." She smiled slightly, reaching over to squeeze his hand before he could pull away. Warm, calloused and scabbed over with cuts.

"See you tomorrow, mon doux."