Eric’s eye twitched as he stood in line. The slick slime that coated his body ran cold as he stood rigid. Oh man, oh man. He thought nervously, his three hearts beating rapidly in his chest. He could feel his scales bristling, as he tried to psyche himself out.
He leaned to his left, looking ahead in line, there were three other entities in front of him. His hearts seemed to speed up as he saw how close he was to the front.
“I can’t do this,” he said in a whisper, his gills flapping with the words. The large creature in front of him looked down at him with the eyes on the back of its head. Eric tried his best to perform an apologetic smile, showing his needle-like fangs as he shrunk back away from the behemoth. But, what he managed to do was bump into the creature behind him, who let out a hiss that made the air around him ripple. He gulped the slime ball that had manifested in his throat and dared not look back.
While Eric was quietly having a panic attack, he didn’t realize that the beast in front of him had moved up one space. The creature behind him quickly made him aware of it though when he felt a rough, clawed hand shove against his back, urging him forward.
Eric felt like his hearts were now beating out of sync. The anxiety of what he was about to do starting to set in little by little. Ok, ok, get it together. If you don’t do this you’re going to regret it forever. And you’ll never be able to talk yourself into doing it again. He thought to himself, making sure he didn’t accidentally say it out loud.
Eric clenched his fists, his slime-coated webbed fingers squelching. You’ve got this, you’re just gonna order something off the menu and say it real casual-like. There’s nothing to be worried about, As Eric was thinking this, he didn’t realize that he was now second in line. This is gonna be easy. Yeah, super easy. He thought with no confidence at all.
Then the giant beast in front of Eric walked to the side after completing its order, and he was face-to-face with her. The cashier stood there in front of him, her greenish-yellow disinterested eye staring into his blood-red one. His words were caught in his throat as he observed her. Her obsidian scales glistened with the combination of her slime and the ceiling lights. Her webbed hands tapped impatiently on the counter, a confused look slowly growing on her grotesquely beautiful face.
“Welcome to Franks, what would you like to order?” She said in an annoyed tone, her gills flapping with each word. Her words cut through the sea slime that was clogging Eric’s brain.
“Oh, um, yeah,” Eric said stammering. “Dagon, be with me,” he whispered.
“Did you say something? You’re gonna have to speak up,” She said, in a tone that made Eric think she was quickly growing annoyed with the pathetic attempt at ordering.
Eric was now looking at his webbed feet that shifted uncomfortably beneath him. In those few seconds, he questioned every decision that led him to this moment. It really didn’t help his anxiety that the monster behind him was now letting out a low growl that shook the scales on his body.
“Excuse me ma’am, but if you could be patient and just wait your turn.” The cashier said to the she-beast behind him.
The creature scoffed, “Don’t take that tone with me you minimum wage slave, I ought to call your manager out here to have him whip you.” The she-beast said in a growl that made Eric’s spine shudder.
“Well luckily for me, you’re speaking to HER,” She said without missing a beat, putting extra emphasis on the “her”. “Now, if you don’t have any more complaints would you kindly wait your turn, we are quite understaffed so please be patient.” She said with a smile that literally dripped venom.
“Now, back to you, would you like to order, or just look me in the eye all day?” She said in a nicer tone but still matter-of-factly.
Eric felt the slime on his body thicken as her attention snapped back to him. “Um, yeah l- let me get, the ah, Bleeding Heart Burger with the Finger Fries,” Eric said looking at the menu above her, already feeling the disappointment of knowing he wouldn’t go through with his master plan. “And, oh yeah no salt please, Dagon knows I already get enough of that.” He said without thinking about the last bit of his statement.
To his surprise, she let out a soft chuckle. It sounded like metal against metal. It was music to his ears. “I hear that,” she said tapping away at the screen in front of her, the sigils reflecting off her scales, with a small smile showing her dagger-like fangs.
“Would you like anything else with that?” She asked. Eric knew she was looking at him, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. The pressure of his disappointment in his own cowardice was like that of the Mariana Trench. “Yeah, let me get a medium Spleen Splash Slurpee.”
“Will that be all?”
“Yep,” Eric said, about ready to punch himself in the face.
“Okay, that’ll be eight H-leathers and fifty clots.”
Eric reached into the waterproof flap on the right side of his stomach and pulled out the currency. Handing it off, electric jolts ran through his system as their fingers touched for the briefest of moments.
Sniffing the leather to make sure it was legit, the cashier put it away and said. “Okay, I’m assuming that’s to stay, after all, no one likes a wet burger. That is unless you’re from Bikini Atoll.”
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“Yep, it’s to stay,” Eric said, wanting the interaction to just, end. He could feel his gills heating up from his embarrassment at the failed attempt. This was his fifth attempt at this and each time it ended with him, like the two eyes say, “chickening out.”
“Okay, take a seat and someone will be with you in just a moment.”
Eric nodded, taking his eyes from the cash register where they had been firmly planted for almost the entirety of the order. As he shuffled over to an open booth, he looked back at her. And their eyes locked for a split second before she was blocked by the giant monster that had been behind him.
Eric sat in the booth, rethinking the interaction. At that moment, hindsight was truly twenty-twenty as the two eyes like to say, he thought of how simple it was just to ask her out. It was just a string of words put together in a fashion to elicit a response, which was either yes or no. Or at least that’s how his brother put it. It wasn’t like it was impossible to talk to her, he had just done it after all. So why was it so hard for him to actually say what mattered?
He contemplated if he should just leave and not even get his food. Just simply walk out the door and find the nearest beach, sit on the sand, and wait for his slime to dry out, letting the sun beat down on his scales till they dried and cracked. Or, better yet, let a pathetic human kill him. So he could die the shameful death he deserved. If his father could see him now he’d probably kill him himself.
Though he probably would want to kill him for just eating at such an establishment. His father was a true hunter through and through. He could still remember how irate he got when he heard rumors of the first Frank’s Fast Flesh. “Humph! ‘Fast Flesh’ if I wanted fast flesh I’d just go and slaughter a human quickly, no REAL fish person would be caught dead eating at such a place.”
“Oh, if only you could see me now dad,” Eric said in a mockingly wistful tone, “Too bad you got run over by a speed boat on one of your oh-so-special hunting trips.”
As Eric sat lamenting his failure, he didn’t even register the sound of the wet footsteps coming towards him. He was only snatched out of his woeful musing when the sound of the plastic tray sliding across the table and the all too familiar voice hit his ears.
“Here’s your food.”
As Eric looked up, he was greeted by her. He basked in her glory, black scales and all. She seemed to stand there for a few seconds longer than necessary, their singular eyes locked on each other. Then she turned and began to walk away. Before Eric could realize what he was doing and before he could think better of it, he was bolting up from his seat, knocking the table, and spilling his Finger Fries. He didn’t know what gave him the courage, maybe his dormant hunter side, but all the same the words escaped his needle-filled mouth before he could stop himself, “What time do you get off?” The words weren’t exactly what he wanted to say but at that point, Eric felt as though if he had said more he would have had a stroke.
A silence hung in the air that felt like it went on for hours as she stood with her back to him. His hearts ran at a series of beats so loud in his ears that he thought he might go deaf. Time seemed to drag on and on.
She turned to him stone-faced. Eric could feel two of his hearts drop into his webbed feet and the third implode on itself, he had made a mistake. He was already thinking of how much work it would be to move out of his reef and never show his face again. He was sure as hell never coming back here. He would miss the Spleen Splash Slurpees but he would have to live with it. He was just happy he had gotten to try it, after all, it was better to have Spleen Splashed than to not have Spleen Splashed at all.
As Eric was going through a mental breakdown so powerful it could move tectonic plates, he didn’t notice as the small smile spread across her face. What did catch his attention was what she said, “Dagon, I thought you would never find the pearls to ask. I get off in an hour and a half meet me here thirty minutes after that.”
To say Eric was stunned, would be an understatement so grand it would be like saying that Antarctica was only mildly inhospitable, to anything other than Yetis that is.
He turned to sit down, a comically large smile spread across his face, a smile so wide you could see his double row of fangs. He stopped when he realized he didn’t know her name, employees didn’t wear name tags, that was for humans who felt the need to know everything and wanted to label themselves like livestock.
“What’s your name?” he asked, turning back to her as she moved to turn away.
She turned back, to him, “The name’s Velz,” So that was her name, Velz. Absolutely beautiful just like the owner. He realized that Velz was now looking to him to reciprocate with his name.
“Oh, my name’s Eric.” She looked at him, the singular ridge above her eye raising in a curious gesture. “Well my full name is Xybsinastroperic, but that's a mouth full so I just go by the last four letters.” He said, answering the question she hadn’t asked.
She gave a nod, thinking. “Well, I’ve got to get back to work, I’ll see you in two hours Xyb,” Velz said walking away. Eric sat down smiling at the use of the first part of his name. He had never thought about using it but he liked how it sounded. Eric picked up his Bleeding Heart burger put a few Finger Fries on it, and started to eat, two hours couldn’t go by fast enough.
~
“And as humans like to say, the rest is history. That's how your Grandfather met your Grandmother.” The green-scaled Fishman looked over at his offspring who looked back at him in disbelief.
“There is no way Grandpa Xyb was that nervous, that doesn't track at all.”
The father smiled at his son and shrugged, “Of all the stories he’s told me this one has always been the hardest to believe, but your Grandma backs it up, she said he was so nervous his scales were practically white. But I’m not just telling you this story for fun. We all have to take risks that seem scary at the moment, but no matter the outcome, we’ll be better for it because taking risks is how we grow. Well unless that risk is hunting in heavily trafficked speed boat areas, then you'll most likely end up like your great-grandfather. But that’s beside the point, you'll never know unless you take a chance, and not knowing is worst than any temporary pain that might happen.”
He could see his son thinking the words over. Then like claws on a werewolf, they seem to sink in and find some purchase, and he got a resolute look on his face. He got up from the booth that they sat at and walked over to one where a lone Fishgirl sat nibbling at some Organ rings. She had been sitting there for nearly the whole story, nursing the rings and glancing at his son when she thought no one was looking.
The Fishman turned back to his Bleeding Heart burger, which had long gone cold along with the finger fries he had put on it. He took a sip of his Spleen Splash Slurpee, thinking that the flavor wasn’t the same since they had brought it back from being retired, and took a bite of his burger, still as good as the first time he had tried one.
He glanced at his son one more time through his singular eye. He was sitting at the table having a full conversation with the Fishgirl. The Fishman smiled and continued eating.