Orig Ficbit: Shrink
From the sci-fi/fantasy universe I've been poking at since forever. Working title of the verse is "Big Black." Doesn't really fit the story much anymore, but that's what it's labeled as in all my files so that's good enough for now.
Title: Shrink
Rating: G
Universe: Big Black
Characters: Cliff, Chase
Contains: Gen, gen, gen
Shrink
Cliff strolled through the small train yard, expertly avoiding harried workers and stacks of crates, the surrounding racket of shouts and bangs and booms of a new shipment being prepared a familiar background. Bright Mage lights from the ceiling two stories above lit the area well despite the rainclouds outside. Grimy windows lined the east wall, letting whoever was in the office and break room behind them look out on the yard. The blinds to the office were currently pulled shut.
Cliff worried habitually at the corners of the paystub he’d brought along in order to point out a small discrepancy in his paycheck.
The office door opened abruptly before his hand could touch the handle, nearly smacking him in the face. Cliff reeled back with a startled oath as a body, shorter than him, darted through. The door slammed shut and his bosses’ kid brother pinned himself dramatically back against it as if afraid whatever was behind the thing would come bursting out after him. Cliff thought he heard a single angry shout from behind the door.
Wide almond eyes stared up at Cliff from a face that was finally showing signs of reaching the other side of puberty. “Erin’s been looking at loss numbers again,” Chase informed him. “I wouldn’t go in there.”
Cliff pushed a hand through his dreads, eying the door with some trepidation and thinking of the shipment they’d lost to pirates just this last month. An outfit as small as theirs couldn’t afford heavy security. When pirates did manage to catch their small, fast trains, there wasn’t much they could do. They’d been lucky that the pirates had only been interested in the cargo.
Perhaps the paycheck problem could wait until tomorrow. No, no, he was piloting tonight’s train. Later today, then. “Right.” Cliff tucked his paystub into a pocket. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“No problem!” Chase pushed away from the door, overacted fear replaced by good humor in an instant.
Cliff rolled his eyes. Teenagers.
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A/N: This scene brought to you by the author’s increasing anger at steadily rising left levels at the store where she works. (Shrink being the name given to monetary losses such as theft in retail.)