"Ah shit, there goes my wallet." The man sighed, despondently watching the kid sprint away, dodging pedestrians with a desperate grace seen only in the street orphans
“Hah, welcome to Vacuo.” His friend joked, “Getting your wallet stolen in the slums is practically a rite of passage.”
“Is it worth chasing him down?” The man asked, raising his head to see over the mass of people bustling around the market.
“If you can find him, but that kid is probably halfway to atlas by now, haha!”
“Typical.”
----------------------------------------
Cade finally stopped running after the 14th alley, it was both his lucky number and a dead end. Which he thought said a lot about his luck. But shitty luck wouldn’t keep getting its claws into him today, he just made twenty bucks.
To the probably 8-ish year-old orphan, that was everything. It was also everything to everyone else in the slums, so Cade kept the wallet stashed in a secret pocket under his shirt and tried to not look too excited. It would be a dead giveaway to the other street rats.
Speaking of rats.
“Yo, Cranky Cade. Saw you score something off that tourist, get anything good?”
Cobalt, another orphaned child of vacuo. Perhaps 4 years Cade’s senior, though still smaller than him, and weaker. He still carried the softness of a child who was new to cruelty.
“Fuck off Cobalt, whatever I did or didn’t get is my business. Unless you wanna bleed out next to a dumpster again.” Cade snarled, one scarred hand discreetly reaching for his shiv.
He watched Cobalt judge the distance between them, figuring himself safe with a good 5 feet. Idiot, Cade could cover that in less than a breath, he’d done it before.
“Geez, chill would ya. I don’t want whatever scraps you got that much.” Cobalt sneered, taking an extra step back when he saw Cade’s face darken.
“Not what you said last time. I’m surprised you’re even standing right now.” Cade said with a look of sadistic triumph. Cobalt reflexively covered his hip with a hand, probably remembering the dinner knife Cade had so generously put there.
He still missed that knife.
“A lucky shot, I’m here to warn you that Tyson’s men are asking about you, and they ain’t asking kindly. You give me that wallet and whatever else you got, and maybe I don’t tell them where I last saw you.”
So much for not wanting his scraps, Cade snorted. But Cobalt was relatively new to the streets, he didn’t know better like the other kids. Eventually, he would. Cade would make sure he understood, one finger at a time.
Though he did have a point, Cade might have been a little naïve to hope Tyson wouldn’t bother chasing down one random orphan.
“They’ll kill you, Cade. Nobody flakes on a delivery like that and survives for long.” Cobalt stared Cade in the eye, Cade stared back, he didn’t fear Tyson or his cronies.
Cade hadn’t found anything he feared yet, the old matron called him disturbed, but Cade thought himself dogged.
“Eat shit Cobalt.” Cade said, shouldering past the smaller boy as he started walking into the maze of alleyways, taking particular joy in how the rat flinched with their closeness.
But he had a point, Cade wouldn’t last long with Tyson out for his blood. He’d seen a few kids fuck up deliveries for the drug runner before, and he’d never seen them again.
He couldn’t fight off Tyson, between the fuck-ton of enforcers, firearms and Tyson himself, who Cade was almost certain had an unlocked aura, he didn’t stand a chance. No, a plucky attitude and overwhelming violence wouldn’t get him through this one, for once.
Cade considered his options as he made his way into the ‘orphan maze’, a section of the slums with an unusually high amount of street rats, hideouts and burrows, and where Cade hid what meagre belongings he didn’t want to risk losing in case he lost a fight. Which happened pretty rarely these days.
As he walked, Cade pulled up the ratty cloak he wore to cover his distinctive Ram’s horns and hunched over to try hide his rare size for a child. Hopefully he’d blend in with the other kids milling around, each trading dirty cash for dirtier food or trinkets.
He wasn’t going to escape Tyson in this city for long, so perhaps it was time for a change of scenery? He was admittedly started to outgrow the Vacuo orphan lifestyle. Literally, it was getting hard to slip through a crowd when you’re the same height as some of them.
Where did his last mark say he was from? Cade slipped the passport from the wallet stealthily into his hand, squinting at the now grimy card held between chipped fingernails.
Vale?
Fuck it, he was sick of the desert anyway.
----------------------------------------
Cade had two options to get to Vale, well technically 3, but the third option required him not to be an undocumented homeless orphan with no guardian. So, two.
He could pay a smuggler to ship him across the ocean with whatever contraband he was sending anyway. Or he could try to stowaway on a ship, somehow survive the month-long journey without being discovered or eaten by intercontinental sea monsters, and then sneak back off the ship at landfall.
One of those options required a hell of a lot more money than twenty bucks. So, stowaway it was.
With his mind set, Cade clambered up the wall of an abandoned warehouse, pulling himself up with a rusty drainpipe and the wiry strength of a kid raised on the street. Occasionally glancing around with each pull to see if any of the other kids were looking at him a little too closely.
Once he was over the lip of the roof, he breathed a bit easier. A few short hops between rooftops and he was… ‘home’.
A mouldy beaten down door hiding a rooftop gardening shed that hadn’t seen use in decades. Cade pushed the door aside, making sure to only touch the least mouldy parts lest that painful cough come back.
He’d thought about stealing a lock for it, but a locked door around here just tells people you’ve got something worth taking.
Inside was a ratty blanket, a pillowcase stuffed with old shirts and a book. All ‘donated’ from his fellow homeless orphans.
Ninjas of Love part 4, admittedly hard to follow since Cade never read parts 1 through 3, but it was something to do in between the knife fights and scrounging for food. Besides, literature is pretty scarce here, on account of most other kids being illiterate. Cade figured he might as well use the one skill that gods-forsaken orphanage had given him, other than how best shield himself from a beating.
And, hidden up in the hole-ridden roof that didn’t feel like it stopped a damn drop of rain, was a small lunchbox with his most prized possessions.
An emergency fifty bucks, or the price of treatment at old Thomas’s illegal clinic/chop shop. And a tacky fang necklace.
Cade used to think the necklace was pretty badass, but once he’d seen the same necklace in every tourist trap gift-shop in Vacuo, it lost a lot of its charm.
But apparently, it was the only thing his ‘parents’ had left him when they dumped their unwanted spawn off at the nearest orphanage. Cade thought it pretty obvious they grabbed the closest, cheapest thing and tossed it in with him, probably to assuage their guilty conscience. Fuck, just looking at it pissed him off.
He couldn’t bring himself to toss it though. Sentimental bullshit and all that.
He quickly threw it over his head, struggling a bit to work it around his horns and sweeping his greasy black locks aside to hide it under his shirt. Then stuffed his fifty bucks in his pants and prepared to book it. His hideout was fairly unknown, but over the eight months he’d been squatting in it, at least a few other kids nearby would know about it.
No Honor among orphans.
Sure enough, as he crept up to the lip of the building, his keen hearing picked up a troubling conversation.
“-aw him climb that building?”
“Yeah, up the drainpipe like a fuckin’ monkey. Where’s that five you promised?”
“You’ll get your money when I get the kid.”
Shit, well that’s why he made his hideout a couple buildings over from the pipe. Taking his time to make sure no one was beneath the other side, Cade started jumping rooftops. Taking a haphazard path toward the docks.
As he threw himself from a particularly high decrepit terrace to a balcony, he heard a voice cry out.
“Oh shit, HE’S HER-” With a speed borne from desperation, Cade hit the balcony, absorbed the landing with his abused legs and launched himself at the shouting teen he’d caught by surprise, the lucky asshole had been smoking just under an alcove on the balcony, shielding him from Cade’s sight before he jumped.
Luck didn’t save his teeth though, as Cade threw his entire weight into an overhand punch that neatly dislocated the older kids jaw and sent his skull crashing into the table next to him, knocking him out.
But the damage was done, shouting started filling the streets beneath Cade as he shook the pain from his hand and started sprinting across the balcony, leaping across to the next.
Stealth never was his strong suit.
----------------------------------------
Cade was a gasping, sweaty mess when he finally got to the docks, he’d ended up taking a long, winding route through the red-light district to shake his tails. On a Saturday night the hookers were out in full force, along with their clientele, allowing Cade to quickly lose his tails in the crowd. Now, he needed to find a ship to Vale.
Speaking of, he had no idea how to figure out a ships route. Cade pondered on this as he sat between a couple barrels to shield himself from view, around him dockworkers bustled about, carrying heavy boxes or yelling at people carrying boxes.
He supposed he could lurk about and listen for people talking about where their ship was going, though idle conversation wasn’t exactly trustworthy, and he didn’t want to bank his life on some guy’s Smalltalk. He could also sneak onto a ship and see if they had any documentation or travel plans, though it’d probably just be digital, and Cade’s experience with technology starts and ends with being on the wrong end of a taser.
Maybe he could threaten someone?
Cade’s planning was suddenly interrupted when a dockworker picked up the barrel he was leaning on, causing Cade to tumble backward to the dockworkers surprise.
“Oh, sorry lad, didn’t see ye’ there. Now, let’s see where this big bastards’ going?” The man said, his tall stature towering over Cade, who scrambled to his feet. Cade watched the sailor warily as he turned the barrel to read the previously hidden label.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Kuo Kuana, it’s been a while since I saw Menagerie. You alright there lad?”
Cade was staring at the label, feeling slighty dumb but mostly relieved.
“I’m good.” Cade threw over his shoulder as he walked away, leaving the sailor to his mystery barrel. The sailor in question shrugging and lugging his cargo away, muttering under his breath about ‘dock animals’ as he went.
Problem solved, now he just needed to find some freight destined for Vale and hang around nearby until they loaded it, leading him to his ship. Things were starting to look up.
“Cade?”
The voice put an immediate end to Cade’s good mood, he’d recognize that nasally high-pitch tone anywhere, he’d spent the last two weeks cursing it and himself.
“Cade, it is you! I’ve been looking everywhere for you, but you know Vacuo, finding anyone is like looking for a grain of salt in a sand dune.” Finn remarked, power walking over to Cade with his stick thin legs, looking like a stiff breeze might do him in. If Cade didn’t beat the wind to it.
Cade cursed and quickly scanned their surroundings, it didn’t look like anyone took interest in his name, but you don’t survive the streets of the desert city by taking half measures. Cade barked out a greeting consisting of dominantly curses and dragged the annoyance out of the open and toward a small alcove between some dock admin buildings.
That Finn offered no resistance as Cade dragged the dumbass into a dark alley served to offend him even more.
“The fuck you want Finn? And keep your irritating voice down, I’m a dangerously popular person these days.” Cade growled, holding the young man up when he tripped over some discarded rope. He turned away to scan the docks again while Finn muttered a quick thanks.
“I’ve heard, Tyson has been sending his goons across the city to find you, I’m sorry Cade.” There was a distinct look of discomfort and shame on Finn’s face.
“I was so caught up in those… those sugar pills that I didn’t even consider what risk you put yourself in, I think if Ma wasn’t bedridden, she would have killed me herself when she found out.” The guilt was plain on Finn’s face as he rubbed the back of his head, likely remembering his mother’s wrath.
“Bitch, I didn’t do it for you. It’s called professional pride, I was told I was delivering medicine and when I found out I wasn’t, I tossed it. Nothing more nothing less, so quit whining like a fuckin toddler.” Cade sneered, feeling his temper rising, glaring pointedly at a brick to the left of the self-righteous dumbass’s face.
Remembering the source of this entire mess only served to piss him off more.
Running drugs for Tyson was one of the best paying jobs a street rat could hope for, good pay and relatively low risk. Cade was on his fourth delivery at the time, several parcels of medicine for a clinic near the slums. This delivery was all fairly above board, unlike the three delivery’s before which consisted of some very below the board amphetamines, so Cade didn’t need to skulk around or use a dead drop, he could walk right in the front door.
He had been standing in line at the waiting room of ‘Sunny skies family clinic’ when a spindly annoyance walked in and lined up behind him, for some reason choosing the grubby, scarred faunus child to make small talk with. On and on he droned about how hard it was to find work, how he hardly got any sleep, and how overwhelmed he was caring for his recently orphaned nephew.
But mostly he complained about how his mother had been struck with a bad flu, which quickly developed into a fever in-amongst everything else going wrong with his ‘oh-so difficult life’.
Cade didn’t know why the distraught man thought a child was a good sounding board for his problems, and it was only Cade’s ironclad self-control that stopped him from ripping the mans tongue out. But with every word he inched closer to the possibility.
“Of course, the medicine doesn’t seem to be doing anything for Ma, because if things started going well for me then I’d assume the world was ending, haha!” The man, Finn remarked with a half-hearted laugh at his self-pitying joke. Cade couldn’t help but notice the lack of callouses on his hands, the relaxed tension in his shoulders.
Finally, he had enough. Cleary, his silent glaring had yet to get the message across, and being around all these people was starting to make his hands itch.
“I couldn’t give less of a fuck.” Cade spat in his scratchy, violent voice, such crude language from a child clearly shocking the man into silence, who finally seemed to notice Cade’s… everything.
With the man finally silenced, Cade was allowed to wait in blessed quiet, finally reaching the reception. Thanking his prestigious height that allowed him to see over the desk, Cade dropped the packages on it with a thud.
“Peramivir, medication from Jackson supplies.” He spoke clearly, quite keen to leave the stuffy room, uncomfortable with the amount of people behind him.
“Thank you, sweetie, could you be a darling and drop these off to Davey, his office is just three doors down.” The receptionist said, pushing the parcels back toward Cade with a complicated expression.
He took the parcels back with a grunt, walking down the corridor and pointedly not looking at the annoying man with his ‘multitude’ of problems. Whining like he didn’t have a roof over his head.
It didn’t take him long to find the third door, ‘D. Vella’ was written on it in a pretentiously flowery script.
Cade always hated doctors, and clinics in general. The only memories he associated with these places involved heavy blood loss, excruciating pain and new scars. Of course, the clinics he frequented were decidedly less… clean than this.
Though, this was primarily a family clinic dealing in infections and less threatening injuries. The proper emergency trauma clinics were mostly on the city outskirts, where grievous bodily injury was made far more common due to the Grimm. Cade had heard that Vale at least had walls to keep the beasts out, another point for the city of green.
Cade slammed the door open, not caring enough to knock. The two men in white coats jumped as he entered, the smaller weaselly looking one opening his mouth to take issue with the clearly homeless faunus child in his office, Cade didn’t give him a chance to.
“Peramivir, from Jackson supplies.” He said, tossing the parcels on the table as he slammed the door shut again. As he was about to leave, he idly noticed the laces of his left shoe had come undone. No, wait, had snapped halfway down the shoe.
Cade sighed and bent down to re-tie and attempt to salvage the decrepit shoe. It was quite difficult to find shoes his size, and he needed them in good condition to sprint at a moment’s notice. Slow kids tended not to last long on the streets.
As he did, the keen hearing inherent to all faunus picked up a hushed conversation on the other side of the door.
“I didn’t see an order for Peramivir on the order sheets? And besides, I thought we treated influenza with Oseltamivir?” One voice muttered, accompanied by the rustle of wrapping paper.
“Because this order was… off the record. This medicine is only for marked lower-income families.” An older voice replied, a noticeable edge to its tone.
“So… almost every family? You realize we’re next to the slums?”
“I’m aware, and yes that means most families. This medicine is much cheaper and allows us to medicate those families that otherwise couldn’t afford treatment.” The older voice said with a stiff tone.
“Right. I wasn’t born yesterday, Jackson supplies. Seriously?”
“Yes. If you have a problem with how we run the clinic, you know where the door is. Remember, your salary is only so high because of business… practices, like this.”
Cade frowned, slowly realising this probably isn’t a conversation he would want to be caught hearing and tried fixing his shoe with a heightened pace.
“Fucking sugar pills, whatever, wouldn’t be the worst thing I’ve done. Definitely up there though.”
Cade cursed, sugar pills. Well now it makes sense why a damn drug dealer was selling medication to ‘perfectly legal’ clinic. Forgery was one of Tysons specialties.
Cade had no short of experience when it came to morally questionable medical treatment, the illegal slum clinics and chop shops he went to for treatment were well known for their fake pills.
It’s why he only went in if he was actively bleeding to death, which happened concerningly frequently. Otherwise, whether it be an infected wound, high fever or venomous bite, his best bet was to hide in a hole somewhere and wait to see if he died. A clinic was just as likely to sell him phony pills that did nothing, as strap him down and start pulling organs out. Cade shivered as he recalled the last time he got sick, he was pretty sure it was a flu that went bad, really bad.
He had curled up in his rooftop shed for two weeks, trembling with pain and hunger that only got worse, barely surviving off the stockpiled water he gathered the previous week. Through the haze of pain, he shamefully remembered wishing he would die, that he wouldn’t have to feel so cold, so hot, so hungry for even another minute.
And now he had become a part of the shitty fuckers that caused him to go through that. He thought about the annoying man outside and his ‘Ma’.
His foot slammed once again into the office door, the handle noticeably denting the office wall as it swung open, ignoring the sputtering ‘doctors’, Cade grabbed all the parcels again, swiping the last right out of the younger mans hands.
“What? Excuse me you bra-” The older man was silenced when Cade spat on his shoe, the doctors face caught in between rage and sheer incredulity at the action.
“Deals off. No refunds.” Cade growled, stomping out of the room before the man could decide between anger or disbelief, throwing the obnoxiously labelled door closed with all his strength as he went. Everyone in the reception jumped at the sound, the door slamming that much louder.
Cade ignored the receptionist who watched him with confusion, and grabbed the annoying man by the arm on his way out, tugging the equally confused man out the door, shouldering aside the others in the room.
“Uh, what’s up kid?” The man, Finn asked once they had left the building. Cade thought he was a ridiculously trusting dumbass to allow Cade to separate him from witnesses, how soft the common man was.
“Shut up, and my names Cade not fuckin ‘kid’. Your mum had the flu right?” He questioned, keeping an eye on the clinic doors to make sure the doctors didn’t come looking for their ‘medication’.
“Uh… yeah?” Finn was definitely confused now and appeared to finally question why he allowed this strange angry child to pull him aside.
“She wasn’t getting better?” Cade continued, impatience colouring his tone.
“No, quite the opposite.”
“They were giving you fucking sugar pills, its fake medicine.” Cade said, tossing him a parcel of the ‘Peramivir’.
He watched Finn fumble with the parcel, almost dropping it. Then gradually grow red with rage as Cade’s words finally hit him.
“And you know this how?” Finn asked, seeing too many things make sense for it to be a lie, but clinging to the better possibility.
“Because I fucking delivered the medicine and heard them talk about it, dumbass.” Cade spat, still watching the clinic. He could see Finn about to question him more, but Cade had done enough, it was up to Finn whether he believed him, he wasn’t going to waste breath on this idiot any further.
“I don’t care if you believe me, I’m going to toss this shit in a dumpster and go make some honest money, probably rob someone. Go buy your mum some actual medicine, cheapskate.”
And with that, he walked away with a slightly hurried pace, keeping to the shadows of the alleys and leaving the confused, angry man behind.
Cade had hoped that would be the last he saw of Finn, unfortunately, fate was not kind to its favourite whipping boy.
Finn stood silently with Cade for a moment as they watched the dockworkers hurry about.
“Regardless, you put yourself at risk for my family. I don’t want to think what would’ve happened if I lost my Ma, or what it would do to little Sun. I owe you a great deal.” Finn said softly.
“Bitch you deaf? I told you I didn’t do it for your self-centred ass. Now fuck off, I’ve got bigger problems right now.” Cade muttered, pointedly not looking at the blonde prick.
“Okay Cade, but you helped my family, so let me help you. You’re here to board a ship right? I can pay for your passage.” Finn said, smiling with that annoying simple naivety like he just solved all of Cade’s problems.
“Do I look like a fucking charity case to you? I don’t need your money, you pathetic limp-dick son of a bitch, Fuckin Oum’ you could barely afford fake medication and now you wanna start tossing cash at the first street rat who didn’t piss on your shoes?” Cade spat out, pushing himself to stand at his full impressive-for-an-eight-year-old height, and cursed when he only reached the mans collarbone. Finn for his part was taken aback with the venomous tone Cade had used.
“I can’t believe my nephew is the same age as you… Cade, this isn’t charity and my Ma would kill me if she found out we prioritised her health over a child.” He spoke, slowly and calmly, like he was trying to stop a bull from charging him. An apt description as Cade felt his temper flare.
“Then fuckin lie to her, I ain’t taking your money. And if you ask again, I’ll ship you to vale in five separate boxes. I’m a lot of things, and a charity case ain’t one of them.” Cade spoke with a dangerously low tone, hands itching to prove his threat.
“Okay, Okay. I know when I’m beat…” Finn trailed off, a thoughtful look over his face.
“How about this, my uncle captains a ship from this dock. I haven’t spoken to him in a while since he’s somewhat estranged from the family, but he’ll let you aboard if I ask.” Finn said, his face lighting up again, quickly adding on when he saw the murderous look on Cade’s face.
“It wouldn’t be for free, and I won’t pay a cent. He’ll expect you to work your keep, and he wont be shy about working you to the bone, or further.”
Cade frowned and cursed the situation that made him… reliant… on the help of suckers like Finn. People he would otherwise be pilfering the pockets of.
“Fine.”
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Cade glared up at the grizzled old man, who glared right back, taking a slow drag of the cigar clutched between crooked yellow teeth. If he was surprised a child could glare into his remaining eye without flinching, he didn’t show it. Without breaking eye contact with Cade, the old man spoke to Finn, who watched the interaction with mild trepidation.
“You and my sister don’t reach out for years, not even a damn letter. And the first thing you ask of me, is to shelter some grimy street animal.”
Finn flinched, and anxiously waited for Cade to react violently to the faunus slur but was left waiting. After a sigh of relief that he wouldn’t have to pull the unusually eloquent-yet-violent child off his uncle, he spoke.
“Uncle, I’m sorry we haven’t been in touch. But Cade here put himself in a great deal of risk to help save Ma, he’s a good kid who’s too kind for his own good. I, we owe him.”
Cade continued glaring at the old man, determined not to lose this contest. Cursing the Vacuo heat when he felt his ears grow warm. Another point for the cooler temperatures of Vale.
“And what do you have to say, feral child? Why should I risk my boat by taking on some undoubtedly unregistered homeless runt?” The old man asked, finally blinking the pain from his eyes, noting the slight triumph on the kids face with some annoyance.
“I have a lot to say, I think your nephew is a naive trusting dumbass who shouldn’t have survived to adulthood, I think you’re one ugly son of a bitch, and I think your boat barely looks like it floats.” Cade said, watching the old man quirk an eyebrow at his words, frowning at the last few.
“But, I’ll work. I’ll work like only someone who knows real hunger can.”
The old man said nothing, merely watching Cade with a considering expression on his face. His eye took in the kids lean build and size, noted the calluses on his hands and density of scarring around his forearms and hands, and finally the hard edge to his unflinching eyes, eyes that didn’t belong to a child. What he was looking for, Cade didn’t know or care, but he apparently found it.
“Names Crozier runt, but if you call me anything except captain, I’ll toss you overboard for the rippers.”