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royalrastafariannaynays · 7 years

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Fiddler Not On The Roof (that short davekat superhero au ficlet i said i would write)

((also for @davekatweek 2017 day 2!))

“Shut your mouth,” you hear, before the first hit comes.

It’s dark, and dank, and the ceiling is gently dripping from the rain outside.

Oh man, if only some savior could come get you. Kidnapped off the street down by the pier after a movie with your friend. Maybe the Ghost will find you. Fucking superhero he is, gone for like three weeks now with no sign. Crime has spiked again lately. But hey. Maybe he’ll come back, just for you. Or maybe even… what’s his brother’s name? Fiddler?

Even in your shock at the whole situation, the thought makes you laugh. It gets you a nice foot to the gut. Thanks.

“A big iron cage? Really? Get some originality,” You find yourself snarking, even as warm blood drips from your nose. You’re punched again in the side of your head and. Ow.

That one hurt.

Ears ringing, you have to give it a second before you can keep talking. “What’s next, one of those hamster drip water feeders or whatever?”

The words come out with flecks that land on your bare knees and feet. They took your shoes when you got in here, and they took your hoodie to search it. Every pocket was ripped out before they gave it back to you, and half of the lining was ruined.

Cell phone smashed, wallet gutted and burned, even your shades were ripped and crushed underfoot to the tune of noiseless laughter amid the whimpering of the other people in captivity.

You’re tossed back into the cage, wrists sparking at the pain of the landing. Your knees are scraped, and your teeth hurt, and when you try, you find it hard to even lift your head.

“Stay quiet, worm,” the ugly head honcho snaps at you. “All the other animals manage somehow.”

The gated door slams shut. It vibrates the floor, shakes your soul, and makes half of the women scream.

They’re so scared. And they should be.

Women have so much to fear from strange men.

It’s a wonder they even like any of you.

It’s all women in here, except you.

From what you saw when you first got here, before they started putting the hurt on you, all young women, with decent figures and longer hair.

Women looking battered, looking scared and hungry and sleepless.

You know by now that this is slavery.

You’re going to be trafficked.

You knew you were a nubile young thing with a pretty face, but. This?

Dirk said you shouldn’t have been out alone tonight, that people were disappearing slowly in the city. Not abnormal by itself, but he has a cop friend. She said it was strange. For whatever reason.

You really wish you hadn’t been out alone tonight.

Just before you pass out from the pain in your skull, you try your best to catalog the area. Look for escape. Something, anything. Dirk always taught you to look for a way out if this happened.

But you fail him. All you manage is the ceiling.

And then you’re gone.

Fear washes up your nose and into your heart just before the lights go out.

~~~~~

-Four Hours Earlier-

“Hey, Dave, what the heck are you doing?” John laughs, pulling up behind you and slinging his arm over your shoulder.

There’s a brief pause before you reply as the Popsicle is knocked out of your mouth and onto the ground. Aw shit. You paid like two dollars for that shit. Ice cream truck special and everything.

“Dude,” you reprimand, as he guffaws and pats your back.

“I’m the one who should be scolding you,” he says, leaning down to pick up the fallen warrior, and toss it in the trash. New bird poop sprinkles and all. “You’re the one eating ice in the middle of January! When it’s raining!”

You shake your head. “That’s the best time, Johnny my boy,” you say, and turn to give him the absolute best noogie you can. He’s just stepped off the bus, backpack over his shoulder, selling attire exactly what he needs to do his job and not get caught. He just doesn’t look shifty enough, somehow.

Christ, you never expected John to be the type to sell pot out of the back of a van. Well, not out of the back of a van, but in his few little haunts. He doesn’t do any of the really bad shit, but with all the rich kids he knows, he tends to make a killing at parties.

“You ready for this movie?” you ask him. He nods, pulling you toward the theater a block down.

“Yeah!” he replies, heading that way. Squeaky new shoes, too. “Thanks for coming to this part of town, I didn’t want to get stopped by any customers while I was out.”

“No prob, John,” you say, waving him off.

He looks at your basketball shorts and snorts as you round the corner and go inside the theater. “Did you roll out of bed or something?”

“Laundry day,” you tell him. And he laughs again.

John is a fucking breath of fresh air.

“Can I help you two?” comes a growly voice from in front of you, and you have to do a double take when you see that it’s come from a short dude with a bush of dark hair on his head and the prettiest eyes you’ve ever seen.

Oh sweet Jesus he’s cute.

Buried most of the way in a sweater and a uniform that’s a little too big, with stout fingers and mouth curled in the worst impression of customer service you’ve ever seen. And he looks… familiar, somehow. His eyes are gray, and it’s very clearly the working of some fancy colored contacts, and he has what looks like a scar through his pouty lower lip.

John shoves you, and when you fail to pull your eyes away from the adorable gremlin, he orders the tickets first.

“Yeah! Two for the new Bourne movie!” he says, and you just nod dumbly.

The ticket guy’s name plate says “K” on it, like his name has been scratched out the rest of the way. Maybe people have a hard time pronouncing it?

Man and he’s the perfect height to tuck under your chin. But his arms, when he rolls back a sleeve to retrieve a fallen ticket from the trash, are… Holy Fuck. He’s… he works out. Holy Mary, Mother Of GOD.

It’s the express line to full facial blush town as you enter the movie theater, eyes matching just one more time with the fake-grey ones of uh. “K” before you follow sweet oblivious John.

And you swear the guy smirks at you as you move away.

Anyways, all that said.

You remember the thunderous scowl on his face a little more.

Since it was the last thing you saw as you waited at the bus stop, and a bag went over your head.

And you could have sworn his piercing eyes glowed red from that far of a distance.

Don’t the Ghost’s eyes glow red?

~~~~~

Present

Of course, maybe you just imagined that, since the next thing you remember was waking up being held by your elbows, getting frisked in literally every possible place, and then your shit getting destroyed.

Now, though, you’re opening your eyes to the feeling of long hair tickling your nose.

Three different ladies huddle around you, one of them with your head on her lap, gently forcing open your mouth and checking for. Whatever she’s looking for. Broken teeth? Bitten tongue, maybe. You feel like you’re on your back, and a few blinks confirms it.

The woman who’s cradling your skull speaks to you, softly. It’s Spanish, thank everything, so you know some of it. You think she’s asking if you’re alright, and you nod.

You attempt to say something you remember about your head hurting, and she nods, looking into your eyes. Checking for concussion? The other two women hover, remaining silent. The woman holding you has black hair and a comforting aura. She speaks softly, and looks like she’s been crying. A lot.

You’re able to sit up, however woozy it feels, and you look around. Thankfully the lighting is low, and thankfully the tough guys seem to be out of the room. There are a few different types of girls in here, you see. But that’s not important.

“How long have you been here?” you ask.

“Six days, for the earliest. Four for the latest,” a soft voice answers you.

You rub your head.

“You get food and water, yeah?” you ask, visually inspecting yourself. Your face hurts, your knees are bloodied but the bleeding has stopped, and you touch your eye. Okay, black eye. Cool. And… sprained wrist. Great. Toes and fingers all there? Alright. But a broken ankle, you find, when all you get is excruciating pain trying to twist it. Not so alright.

“Twice a day they give us enough food and water,” the woman who’d had your head in her lap answers.

You look at the gate of the cage. You look at the floors. You see a corner with some kind of bucket, you assume for waste, and a drain. It smells awful, like piss and shit and vomit and stale body odor.

“They come with guns,” the woman adds. “They have shot one who tried to escape already.”

Fuck.

So you’re not getting out of here.

Not without a miracle.

~~~~~

Present, at the hospital downtown

“Karkat, we haven’t worked in weeks,” Kankri sighs. “And I can’t be there to help you.”

Your brother adjusts his intravenous drip next to his chair, looks down, and reopens his mouth.

“I can’t be there to keep you safe.”

You clench your fists on the arms of the chair you’re sat in across from him. His hospital room is cold, and you’ve always hated hospitals. Your father and mother died in a hospital. Your inheritance is paid from the hospital they owned, a piece at a time.

Kankri is withering in this hospital while he waits for a heart transplant.

Nothing good comes from these places for you.

He doesn’t want you to go into this dangerous place by yourself. But. It’s not a question of him being there with you anymore. It’s a question of how soon you’re going to leave. You saw someone get taken. And you have to fix it.

You’ll need to stay alive for Kankri, but also…

“This is the human trafficking ring we thought we lost because they left town,” you tell him. “They’re good, but I’m better.”

Kankri sighs.

It feels like you’ve been arguing this for hours. It may well have been hours. He’s your brother. You need to keep him alive, and to keep him alive, you have to work that awful job at the theater. The inheritance only covers so much, and the theater manager owed the ‘other you’ and let Ghost convince him to hire your sorry ass for twelve dollars an hour.

That’s the ‘other’ you. Ghost.

But you haven’t been out and running the streets for nearly a month.

Kankri has a hole in his heart, the rare kind. And he’s waiting just a little bit longer for a donor for a new one. Bright and shiny and strong.

He was your partner before this. A good partner. He would scope out the buildings with his clairvoyance, always best on the full moon, and then he would let you do the dirty work.

Saving people. It’s what you do.

And you had needed to leave it to others so that you could live a normal life, just for a bit. But people had been disappearing. And then when you saw one disappear, right in front of your eyes?

It was that cute guy from your temporary job. He’d been at the bus stop, and you were going to ask him for his number or tumblr or whatever normal people do. And then…

He was pulled into a van.

You chased the van all the way to the factory district, keeping to shadows and rooftops. And you lost it.

“I was already going to go,” you tell Kankri, snapping and earning an alarmed look from the nurse as she comes in to drop off a tray. She leaves, huffing, and you flip her the bird.

“I just wanted you to help me sense out which building it was in,” you continue.

Kankri looks like he wants to tell you know. His brow furrows, his cheeks puff out, and he opens and closes his mouth a few times.

And then, the unexpected happens.

He sighs, his eyes go red, and you know he’s looking. He comes back to you sooner than you think.

Looking down at his hands, he says, very softly.

“The docks, warehouse 40013. I believe.”

You leap from your chair, wrapping him in a hug. Careful not to pull any wires, you hold him in your arms, and he weakly pats your back.

“Come back alive, Karkat,” he says, in that naggy way he does.

You ruffle his hair as you stand back, and run from the room.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you say.

You hear him laugh.

~~~~~

Three hours Later

Sollux managed to score some blueprints for you, coming through again. He lives with you without rent, so he does the chores and helps you on missions. It’s good shit.

Then, of course, this time, he had to do more than usual. Through his VPN and several proxies, he was able to disable the security cameras in the warehouse in question. He also managed to shut down the power in that block, temporarily.

It won’t last too long, but he’s done you a huge favor.

The blueprints creak as you push them into the pocket of your pants. And it, like all of your attire and body, turns to liquid with you.

In solid form, you can’t get through the pipes. But using your abilities? It’s almost too simple.

That’s why they call you “Ghost.”

You disappear into pipes and vents without a trace.

Even though you turn into blood.

The men you encounter at the entrance don’t get the chance to shout about the blood dripping from the ceiling until it’s too late. You land at their feet, black mask pulled over your head and symbol flashing on your chest, and knock them out.

It’s mercy, sure. Even when you drop them into a dumpster, it’s mercy.

There should be eight guards. A portion of a bigger operation, you’re sure. But you can only do so much.

Two down.

By the time you get to the doors of the main room, where the captives should be kept, you’ve removed seven obstacles from your way. You hit their break room, using your training to take care of them without killing. Bullets clink on the ground as they fall from your malleable flesh, having been caught just in time. And under the light of the moon, with your powers activated?

Most physical wounds just run right off.

The doors before you slide open slowly.

And there they are. Nine women, and one man. That guy from the movie theater.

You’re so glad you were right.

He’s badly injured, unable to stand it seems, and you feel yourself fill with anger. He’s only been here less than twelve hours. The anger turns into rage as a hand claps down on the front of the outside of the cage, and the women shrink in fear.

They look terrified.

“So, you found us,” the owner of that hand drawls, and you glare up at him. From the shadow of the door, you must just look like a pair of eyes. The building is dark. The cage sits in a shaft of moonlight, and the man stands in another. Warehouse windows.

How fucking cinematic.

“So you’ve taken out my men. It’s admirable,” he says.

You frown. “Can we skip the evil villain speech?” you ask.

The guy from the theater, in the cage, snorts.

A gunshot rings out.

The man by the cage has a gun out, and the women are screaming, and the guy from the movie theater is crying out, clutching his leg. It’s bleeding clean, fresh blood now, from a hole in the thigh.

Fuck.

“How about you shut up while I kill your hero so I can get my paycheck?” the man sneers, and.

Oh.

Was it a trap for you?

Shit.

Shit shit shit.

You should have listened to Kankri. You should have listened.

Before you can think, you’re shaking uncontrollably.

A taser has been fired at your stomach, judging by the location. And it’s a strong one, too. You can barely move.

SHIT.

If you liquefied right now, you’d get turned to sizzling garbage. And you can barely think to do anything. All you can do is fall forward. You can’t let them paralyze you. God, you can’t.

So you get what might be the worst idea in the world.

You haven’t ever done it before.

But somehow, it works.

You sprout goddamn blades from your chest.

“Holy shit,” the guy in the cage says, apparently the only one that hasn’t been broken, as the taser lines tether and you burst forward in a flash of speed.

The man who tased you is dead before he hits the ground, your arm pierced straight through his chest. It feels awful, feels monstrous. But it’s what had to be done. Better him dead, than all of the people in the cage.

You hear police sirens outside before you have the cage opened.

And before they burst through the doors, you’re through a grate in the floor and gone.

Outside the warehouse, you yank the hook out of the front of your suit. Shit. That’ll need a repair. And you’ve got a few new bullet holes, too. You’re out of practice.

You throw a sweater on over your “super suit”, and pull on the pair of pants you stashed outside, and remove your mask.

The guy from the theater is sitting on the back of an ambulance when you round the building. One of your brother’s friends is there, doing a report on the incident. She’s a detective. She’s on your side. It’s a long story.

She waves as you pass her, going over to the guy you saved, and waving a hand to get his attention past the paramedic.

He’s going to be taken to the hospital whether he likes it or not, judging by the stern look from the woman examining the bandages around his leg. The bullet passed straight through, apparently. And he’s got stitches, by the look of it.

How the fuck is he not already on his way to a doctor?

“Look, lady, I can’t afford the box car, so I’ll hitch a ride with a cop.”

“Sir, you’ve bled entirely too much for–”

“I insist. I’ll walk out of here on my own if I have to.”

She throws her hands up in the air, somehow taking this answer, and he’s looking at you.

“What happened?” you ask him.

“Like you don’t know,” he answers, and it’s.

What?

It’s so difficult to hide your surprise and apprehension that you almost forget to deny what he’s talking about.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you echo his thoughts.

He raises his eyebrows at you.

“Yeah okay, ‘K’,” he says. And you.

You forget to be under cover.

“How’d you put it together?” you ask him.

“Lucky guess,” he says. And if he didn’t have a black eye already, you’d give him one. Frustration swells up in you, and you bare your teeth.

“Are you kidding?!” you ask, and he laughs and holds up his hands.

“You show up out of nowhere right after Ghost disappears?” he says, like it answers everything. Yeah, that was a bad move on your part. “And those arms would be hard to forget.”

At this, you balk.

“Excuse me?”

“Do I get to kiss the hero?” he says then, and.

“Are you sure you’re not concussed?!” you demand.

He laughs.

“Yeah I might be. But you’re also cute.”

It’s. God.

“No,” you say, and turn, preparing to leave. He’s clearly fine. You’ll get to his hospital room tonight and convince him not to blab about you. You’re pretty good at that.

“Hey, what?” he asks, and he almost sounds sad.

“Maybe a date first, douchebag,” you say, taking a few steps toward Latula. Her eyebrows are up as she looks between the two of you.

“How will I find you then?!” he calls after you, and you turn to look over your shoulder.

“I’ll find you.”

…………………….

((i didn’t get everything but i did my best! hope you enjoy!))

#i tried to keep it short and failed #im sorry if it seems awkward or rushed im very tired!#i hope you enjoy it #and you have a wonderful day!#davekat fanfiction #homestuck #hs #dk #my short fics that i write #davekat week #superhero au #yeah this is about as much as im contributing to davekat week im sorry guys hahaha #love you all! <3 #violence #human trafficking cw

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