Welcome to the Black Bird Part 7: A Butchery by Richard
Summary: Introducing Jack as Richard, the esteemed head chef of the Black Bird cafe. Genre: general Word count: ~800 A/N: Jack's art was commissioned from @crazycookiemaniac
..........
Feathers. Hide. Bone. Cartilage. Guts. Blood. Flesh.
Working at a joint slaughterhouse and butcher shop business, he was tasked with processing meat from carcass to sellable product. He prided himself in taking apart eerie, lifeless corpses. In a way, his job was destruction with a purpose. And it brought a smile to his face.
It used to at least.
Jack’s boss took notice of the young man’s dulled vigor. He didn’t scold Jack or tell him to “just get over it.” But instead, he asked Jack to help make a delivery to one of their buyers.
That’s how Jack found himself at the Black Bird for the first time.
After moving everything from their truck to the cafe’s walk-in freezer, the cafe’s matron had Jack and the boss sit at the breakroom’s table. Then, a burly young man sauntered in with a plate of steak strips laid over a bed of minced vegetables and rice.
All it took was for Jack to take one bite.
In a word, it was delicious. A kick that hit the back of his throat. The hearty flavor of vegetables to ground his palette against the heat. The tender meat was juicy, savory, and faintly charred in flavor. And maybe it was Jack but he swore he tasted a bit of iron too.
And there was a high likelihood that the beef he was served was prepared by his own two hands. The flesh he tore into, the carcass he destroyed, didn’t end with being a cut of meat. It was still on its way to being a delicious creation.
Jack put down his fork, looked at his boss, and said “I’m putting in my two weeks now.”
…..