#riperuinstarter

Decaying boards creaked beneath his feet, the seagulls sweeping above his head. Roman remembered when the scent of cotton candy had overpowered the fishy seawater, when tourists covered the pier instead of only a stray bird strutting around here or there. Too many shops on the boardwalk had closed down in recent years; not enough business to keep most places afloat. Roman wasn’t even sure why he’d managed to wander all the way down to the boardwalk. He’d been reading too much Tennyson at work, he supposed. 

Quietness settled in the early hours of the Harbor fish market like a thick film of algae on the top layer of a pond; a heavy stillness rather than a peaceful one. A stillness waiting to be disturbed. The only thing that stirred the humid air of the small building was the steady movement of Sebastian’s knife through the morning’s catch. As his blade began to cut into the neck of a particularly large bluefish, the thin wound on the fish’s side opened slowly like a mouth about to speak, and Sebastian felt the familiar rumble of a fragment of something immense clearing its throat. “Yeah, yeah. Nothing I haven’t heard before,” he interrupted, before slicing another clean cut from head to gut and moving the fish to the side to be packaged. It was routine, of course, but he could still taste its fear on the roof of his mouth as it died.

“In some countries, it’s basically a crime to not tip people in the food industry,” Mal said pointedly, sliding the drink across the slick counter, amber liquid slopping out of the sides before it reached its destination. It was a slow night and he leaned against the surface of the bar, lips curling upwards. “Especially when you’re getting service with a smile.”