The scent of warm bread and roasted yam clung stubbornly to Frasier's skin long after the last kitchen fires had burned down to embers.
It was a smell that seeped into his clothes, his hair, the creases of his hands.
It was an invisible shackle that marked him as belonging to this place, even when his mind wandered far beyond its walls.
He dragged the back of his hand across his flour-dusted cheek, feeling the faint grit against his skin, his gaze flicking briefly toward the swinging iron door.
Laughter drifted through it.
It was sharp, jagged laughter that cut as easily as any blade.
It was never kind laughter.
The kitchen hands, their aprons spattered with grease and their mouths full of cruelty, always found their pleasure in bullying him.
"Hey, glasses," one sneered as they brushed past his shoulder, striking Fraiser with deliberate force.
The scent of sweat and cheap tobacco clung to them like a second skin.
"Try not to cry into the soup."
The others snickered.
