kindkit | OFMD ficlet: Devouring

I wrote this for

ourflagmeansgay, which is running the first of a series of character- and pairing-focused prompt fests, the first character being Roach. Posted it, got crickets for twelve hours, began to think that maybe I was being a dickhead for posting something so dark to a community that's more about the fun.* (Also, because the format over there is commentfic, there was no way to put this behind a cut, which bothered me.)

So I've pulled it from the community and am reposting here. I may or may not ever post it to AO3.

Enjoy??

(*Roach is, canonically, at least interested in the prospect of cannibalism. It's played for laughs. I love OFMD very very much.)

Title: Devouring
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Character: Roach
Content notes: Enslavement, violence, cannibalism, horror. Stealth crossover/fusion with The Magnus Archives, but you don't need to know TMA to get this story.

Roach dreams of an abattoir. It's huge, much bigger than the big house, and its endless winding corridors and unmarked doors are like servants' passageways, but worse. Eventually he comes to a door that opens.

Inside are black men, black women, black children, all boxed into narrow chutes like cattle awaiting the slaughter. Their mouths are sewn shut.

At the other end of the chutes are white men with cleavers and saws.

Roach doesn't wake up then. He wishes, later, that he could have. But he sees what happens, all of it, and when he does wake he's shivering and sick.

He thinks about the dream for a long, long time. And then, a few months later, he tells the other kitchen staff what he dreamed. And they tell the house staff. And the house staff tell the grooms and the gardeners, who tell the field hands.

There comes a hurricane eventually, a bad one. The house is cut off from the world. There's just the baas and his family, and a few overseers. And all of the slaves, and all of the knives.

Afterwards everyone leaves as fast as they can, except Roach. He stokes up the ovens and prepares a feast. He lays it out in the dining room, with the finest tablecloths and china. He leaves it for whoever comes next to find.

He takes a single mouthful, chews it thoroughly, swallows.

And then he runs.