Survival Of The Fittest

"Okay, that should be good."

((Micah Flanagan: Pregame Start))

Micah looked over his side of the table. Laid out near the front was a glass plate that had several wedges of cheese on it, each with a plastic knife stabbed into it. A variety of store bought crackers were also arranged lovingly around the cheese. Behind the cheese plate were a few bars of goat milk soap, each with the Flanagan Farms branding on the white sleeve in dark green font. Each colorful bar also had a description of the scent on it, including lemon honey, lavender, and his newest creation: apple spice. It was a bit of a challenge to get the balance correct, but it smelled awesome, and with autumn coming, he had to get the interest early so he could help make a ton of cash as autumn progressed.

Thursday afternoons, the Salem Farmer's Market opened in the afternoon. Micah tried to help his folks out whenever he could, so he was here with a few of his other siblings to help the farm make cash. Five college funds at once had to be procured somehow. Micah's third of the table was all set up to show off his goat wares, from four of his best goat cheeses to blocks of his awesome soap. His girls had to go through a lot to procure the milk for it, so it was up to Micah to show them off.

Micah continued to make minor adjustments to the placement of his goods. His folks had gone back to their van to get more stuff.

"Alright. I got my stuff ready," he said, quickly grabbing a cracker to get a quick sample of his herb goat cheese. "You guys good?"

"Yeah."

Languidly stretching on the single plastic chair between the two, Isaiah grabbed his phone from next to the box of beeswax chapstick to check his twitter feed.

"I still think you should've tried adding oreo to it, by the way. Not the cheese. The soap."

His finger rested over the button. Maybe if he was fast enough, he could get away with pinging everybody in the group chat to come here and give him a few bucks? Supporting small businesses and all that.

((Max McCormick: Continued from Skipping Leg Day))

When Max was out and about, it was rarely because he had felt an immense drive to wander. No, usually the reason he left his house was because he had been compelled to for some reason. Today, that reason was because it was Thursday afternoon, and his mom wanted fresh produce from the farmer's market. They had relatives coming over from Boston, which meant that actual effort needed to be put in here.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the crumpled scrap of paper he'd scribbled down what he needed on, then swept his eye across what he could see of the stands, then shrank back.

Micah Flanagan. Max had never really interacted with the man, but he was huge both upwards and outwards, spent a lot of time at the gym, and had a reputation for being somewhat... Gruff. Unfortunately for Max, there wasn't really any place for him to shrink away too, and with no periphery vision, he'd bumped back into another stall. Apologising profusely, he fell back on an old standby of his. Head down. Hair covering his eyepatch, walk forward, don't be seen, don't be seen, don't be seen...

[[Kyoto Aizawa continued from Historical Insignificance]]

It was probably weird that a farmer's market felt relaxing for Kyoto. Public shopping like this, after the Hot Topic incident, put him a bit on edge, and he just really wanted to avoid anyone like DeMarcus from now on, even if he wasn't sure that was actually the guy's name.

But getting caught in a farmer's market and getting caught in a Hot Topic were two very different things, chief among those differences being the actual embarrassment the latter caused and the lack of any in the former. Plus, with how that guy acted, Kyoto felt certain he wouldn't be showing up here. Hopefully because he was the kind of person already from a place like this.

So Kyoto felt a little at ease in this place. Not completely, but enough that he had no tension in his shoulders, and there wasn't an explicit frown underneath his mask as he browsed the various wares.

It was two things he was looking for; eggs and cheese. The latter they were generally low on, and while they had a good amount of the former, Sandra wanted to make some fancy dish she'd heard about online, and wanted to have more eggs in case things went wrong. Kyoto didn't feel like asking about details and just volunteered to get things.

And he had just the idea on where he should get the things from-or, more accurately, who.

The looks he gave the other stalls were cursory at best. He had a specific destination in mind. Even the acquaintance he noticed went unacknowledged-though in his defense, he was pretty sure Max didn't want to be noticed in that moment.

Instead his focus was on the Flanagan stall, specifically the cheeses in front of him. Goat cheese was pretty good from what he remembered, so why get some?

His attention turned to the standing Flanagan behind the table. His tone was neutral, but there was a small smile hidden under his face mask.

"So, how much?"

"Oreo soap?" Micah asked his brother. "Sounds like something you come up with while you're high."

Micah ate the cracker with cheese. Isaiah looked like he wasn't going to be doing much for the table, so it was probably on Micah to at least hold down the fort while the folks were away.

He glanced around the area. There were a lot of people passing around. He saw one guy who seemed like someone he saw at school, but he seemed to be ignoring the table. Micah continued to look around, while also adjusting things slightly on the table.

That's when a large Asian guy walked up, asking for how much.

Micah quickly glanced over the guy.

"Depends on what you're looking for?" Micah said. "Cheese, soap, chapstick, or eggs?"

"I swear it exists. Seen it on insta."

He popped a cracker in his mouth, letting it just break down into a sweet slurry. Isaiah scanned the crowd for the handful of people who always show up in markets like this- the grandma who always bought the little lavender candles, a kid who liked to buy honey and then- to everybody's horror- just slurp it down like it was a thick milkshake, y'know, people like that.

A kid with his hair covering his eye like some kind of 2010 emo caught his eye (his eye, hah.)

It took a few more seconds to realize that the guy looked familiar.

He held his gaze.

"Nonono, it's fine... nobody help me," Ruth grumbled and grunted as she hauled a milk crate full of egg cartons to the Flanagan Farms market stall. The more perishable goods like milks and cheeses had to be run to the coolers first, and since the soaps weren't that fragile, they were taken along for the first run. That left the eggs, which needed to be carefully packed and handled to minimize breakage. But since all her brothers were setting up their own sections, that left her alone to carry her own stuff while Mom moved the van out of the temp zone.

"Isaiah! Isaiah, do you already have all the honey set up?" She asked, red in the face and short of breath. "I need help with the egg display." There wasn't too much that went into the display in particular beyond tedium: grabbing the slanted bins, putting the cartons in the bins to make sure they were all nicely visible and easy to grab, and putting up the little sign that read 'Farm Fresh Eggs: $8/dozen'.

"Where the FUCK'S Zeb n' Josiah?"

((Matthew Bell continued from never skip leg day fellas ))

Man, he didn't even know farmer's markets were still, like, actually a thing. Holy shit. He figured they were either in the history books or like, only something the Amish or people who lived in Bumfuck Nowhere, Kansas actually did, but nope, Matthew just stumbled upon one in the middle of Salem. He had nothing better to do, so what the hell, why not check it out and see if these people sold anything interesting?

Strolling past the stalls, Matthew noted that it did kinda feel like stepping back into the fucking 1800s or some shit, but it had something that his dad would describe as a rustic charm, but not to Matthew. It sorta smelt. Not in a bad way, though; it was all like, uh, foody. Fruits and vegetables and meats and all that shit. Someone had actually been selling like, a bunch of baked goods and shit, so Matthew had picked up half a dozen choc chip cookies, munching on one as he strolled around the market. This was actually pretty fucking cool. The cookies and the market, because whoever made these cookies was an utter fucking god at baking, and he was totally gonna have to drop by again. Maybe pick some stuff up for parties.

Finishing his first cookie, Matthew was about to eat another when above the general din of the market a familiar voice, complaining about something, caught his attention. Navigating his way through the market, he came to a stall. Flanagan Farms. And sure enough, there was the Flanigan family setting up there, with eggs and honey and cheese and all that good shit. Huh. He knew they did, like, farm shit but he always assumed they just like, sold it to someone who sold it to like, the grocery store.

He was gonna check it out, but right now there was a guy in front of him, so he just stood behind him and ate another cookie.

Like any good prey animal did when caught in the gaze of a predator, Max froze. Isaiah was eyeballing (hah,) him. Eyeballing him like he was familiar. Max bit down on his lip, chewed a long-suffering corner of it a few times, internally debating what he was to do in this situation. Then, gulping down his concern, he turned on his heels and slowly approached the other guy. Once he was close enough for comfortable conversation, he tossed his hair back a little to keep it from sweeping over his good eye and managed to make eye contact.

"Hey." He said quietly, trying to figure out what his next words should be. "Do we.... Know each other?" There, that would work.

God, Kyoto fucking hated it when he felt nervous. And not the 'I didn't study and now I'm afraid I'm gonna fail this test' nervous or anything simple like that. The 'I'm not used to talking to people outside my family without at least sounding somewhat aloof' kind of nervous. It was dumb as Hell and it made him feel like he was some gross shut-in that made his skin crawl.

It was alright, he could this, he just needed a breath. Only one-two would make him look more nervous than he already feels. He already wanted to cringe out of existence, he didn't want make everyone else feel that way too.

"Cheese and eggs," Kyoto responded.

Then, a little bit lower, "But I might be convinced to get a little bit more while I'm here."

That wasn't too stupid of a response, he was pretty sure.

Micah ignored Ruth and Isaiah as they dealt with the other customers approaching. He was talking to the Asian guy, and he deserved all of Micah's attention. He was quite an imposing figure here, and so Micah would have to take care of him properly so others could approach the table.

The boy asked for cheese and eggs, and muttered something else that Micah could hear.

Micah hummed to himself and met the gaze of the boy.

"Well, my sister can tell you more about the eggs, but I have everything you need for the cheese."

Micah gestured to the cheese samples.

"I've made all the cheese myself from my goats. What do you like? Something creamy? Something with a hint of nuttiness? Or maybe something spicy?"

Micah met his gaze with the boy's. He was curious to know what interested him.

''I dunno. Maybe they ran late.''

Then, a bit louder at the eyepatch boy, ''Yeah! You're that guy from school, uh...'' He snapped his finers, ''Mac? No, wait, Max! Yeah. Max.''

Is nobody interested in the honey? Of all of his stuff on the table? Come on. Jeez.

Isaiah snapped a picture of his candles.

---

Izzy: 【Open Attachment】
@everyone YOU BETTER GIVE US SOME OF UR MONEY LOL

---

''I can call them, if you want, but you know how Josie gets sometimes.''

On second thoughts, the line was like, kinda long? He could just check it out later or something, maybe go explore the market a little more and then swing back around whenever he got the chance.

Finishing another cookie off, Matthew disengaged from the line, heading off towards what looked like some place that sold some dinky little candles. Mom always liked smelly stuff.

((Matthew Bell continued in Why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food))

''Wait hold on a second,'' he said, ''I gotta dip.''

And dip he did. Like, it's just that... nobody was paying attention to his stuff. And the whole thing is... slow, and it felt like he might've been able to rectify that once but now the whole situation is swimming through molasses, trudging in slow lines and he was bored, bored, bored.

''I'll be back.''

(He never returned.)

Micah continued to keep eyes on the boy offering to buy from his section. His radar was on, and he kept a gaze held as they finished the purchase.

Of course, Micah also slipped him a business card with his number on it. Naturally, this was so the guy could remember the name of Flanagan Farms. But really, Micah had other reasons, and the guy seemed to understand.

((Micah Flanagan continued elsewhere))