Chapter 8: Felix

Wolfgang held himself taut in the hospital chair, every muscle tense, like a guitar string poised to snap. Grief and pain rolled over him in heavy waves, threatening to consume him, engulf him in their suffocatingly dark grasp.

Fighting the undertow, Wolfgang stared at his hands.

But he didn't see them.

His sight was stuck, a broken film reel playing over and over.

"Please, can you help me?" The woman pleads, her face a perfect balance of terror and seduction.Wolfgang could see it now, the manipulation in her body language, in her every movement. But it didn't matter - because the glass of the door is fracturing over and over, an endless high pitched shattering. The bullet is destroying the pane, too fast for the eye to see - Wolfgang can see Felix's body flying back, sprawling dangerously, a collision of lifeless bones on splintering wood.

And a red puddle stains the floor, it stains Felix's body, it runs over the cloth Wolfgang is frantically pressing into the wound, staining his hands, running over…

And Wolfgang stared at his hands.

They were cold and white and clean.

But Wolfgang could feel them. They were warm and scarlet and viscous. The skin was hot, and the blood was running over the skin, coating it.

There's blood on my hands, Wolfgang thought.

Wolfgang looked up at Felix's features, his eyes tracing the tube pushed down his throat. He's alive. Barely. I need to snap out of it. I need to protect him.

And then Wolfgang paused.

Before, Wolfgang could only hear the ventilator, the steady beep of the heart rate monitor. But now… was that laughter?Wolfgang's eyebrows came together, his lips pursed in confusion. I swear I heard a crowd of people right beside me…Wolfgang froze, unsure exactly of what he was bracing himself against.

And then he is sitting somewhere yellow, somewhere significantly warmer than the stark environment of Felix's hospital room.

After being immobile at Felix's bedside for over ten hours, it took a second for Wolfgang to regain his bearings.

But, slowly, slowly, Wolfgang looked up, his body instinctively turning to face the sound of… sobbing?His eyes met the cool reflection of a mirror - and then - his eyes locked with her.

"My God," the woman whispered. Her eyes were shiny, puffy. Wolfgang's reflection didn't look much better. He was pale and drawn, an empty sort of sadness marking the lines of his face. Their gazes stayed linked a moment more, and -

"What happened to him?"

Wolfgang stared at the woman for an indeterminable amount of time, a lump suddenly constricting his throat, his voice. He looked down, unable to bear the full force of her compassionate stare. A sigh ran through Wolfgang.

Shifting slightly, he finally let himself unfreeze, just a little.

Wolfgang felt hours worth of stress collapse on top of him, an unsteady spire threatening to topple. A ripple of agony flowed over him, scorching and oppressive. As though unwittingly drawn in by his pain, Wolfgang felt the woman appear next to him, her face centimeters away from his own.

"It was… my fault." Wolfgang refused to look at the woman, unable to handle her seeing the truth of the statement in his eyes. He continued to look past the woman, to Felix's body, the beeping of the monitors torturing him with every pulse. "I wanted to prove something," he said, his voice too loud in the silent room. "I wanted to change something that can't be changed."

"What?" She asked Wolfgang softly, her voice so caring, so ready to understand.

Wolfgang was finally able to look at her, and he almost regretted it, the way he could see her goodness radiating through every pore of her very being -

"The past." He said, and he knew.

She was too good for him.


But Wolfgang was selfish. He was alone, afraid, and tired. He needed a friend. Just for a moment, he told himself. A moment.

So he continued to talk with her.

"You've known him a long time," she said, her sentence a statement instead of a question. Her slim hand felt warm on his back, comforting. Wolfgang nodded, his gaze flickering down. Her hand rubbed in slow circles, a steady pressure through his jacket. "How did you meet?"

Wolfgang looked up, remembering. He couldn't help but smile internally when he realized where the answer lie. "Detention," he told her.


"Welcome to my office, newbie. Have a seat." It was then Wolfgang first saw the smirk he grew to love. It fit Felix even then, self-assured and wry, as though the boy was in on an inside joke only known to him.

Young Wolfgang slowly walked toward Felix and his collection, his eyes skimming over the various cases and cigarette packs. "Have a seat," Felix continued, his smile firmly fixed on his face. Wolfgang slid into the chair across from the youth, his bag coming to rest next to his feet. Wolfgang warily settled in, ready for some type of twisted test, or, as per usual, a fight.

He was not ready for the hand proffered in front of him. Nor for the welcoming voice in which the other boy said, "I'm Felix." After a moment of hesitation, Wolfgang met the open gesture with a hand of his own.

"Wolfgang."

Felix giggled, unable to keep his composure. "Wolfgang?" He laughed. Wolfgang's face went flat, ready for insult. "Nobody's named Wolfgang."

Wolfgang felt his mouth twist a little at that, unsurprised at the proclamation. Felix took in the motion, and nodded to himself, his eyes still alight with mischief and good humor. "Ok… Wolfie. What are you in for?"

"Fighting."

"Cool." Felix mused, nodding once more.

Something untwisted a bit in Wolfgang's heart at that moment, making room for something else.

Someone else. "I'm Felix."


"Where are you?" Wolfgang deflected. Although Wolfgang hadn't spoken, he knew somehow that she had seen it too. But that wasn't the problem. Unburying the memory had caused too many feelings to well up within him, too fast. Wolfgang needed to concentrate on something else.

"At the movies," the woman answered, sighing. Previously, her expression was one of wistful pleasure but now the air around her radiated unhappiness. "With my family." She went on.

"Makes sense," Wolfgang said, nodding. His mouth quirked up a bit, a muscle ticing in his jaw.

"Why?"

Wolfgang shook his head a moment. He licked his lips, unable to answer. "Felix loved the movies," he replied quietly, unconsciously using the past tense. "We cut school to watch films all the time." Wolfgang lips moved unwittingly, the closest he had gotten to a smile in a long time.


"No one will remember if we were good men or bad. All that matters is that two stood against many."The quote echoed throughout Wolfgang's head like a mantra, pulling him back to a different memory.

He and Felix relaxed on a dirty sofa, backs against the rough unfinished wall of Wolfgang's house. The cola felt warm in Wolfgang's hands, the fizz bubbling pleasantly at the back of his parched throat. The feeling stood as a dichotomy to the twinging at Wolfgang's chin, a reminder of his recent altercation with his father.

"This film's a masterpiece," Felix said to Wolfgang, snapping him out of his thoughts. Wolfgang nodded agreeably at the statement, his eyes glued to the screen in front of him.

"So grant me one request - grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, to hell with you!"As Conan finished his declaration, Wolfgang nodded along with the phrase. His scrape decided to give off a rather hard throb of protest. Grant me revenge, Wolfgang thought. His father flashed through his mind, the sound of his closed fist hitting Wolfgang's flesh.

Revenge.


"I don't know why he liked me," Wolfgang said, a fond grin tugging at his cheeks. It vanished quickly as he continued. "In those days, when we moved from East to West Berlin, I was the kid everyone hated." Wolfgang let out a tense exhale. His stomach muscles tightened reflexively at the memories, ready for a fight.


"Hey you! Commie!" The tallest of Wolfgang's regular bullies, Kristian, stood up from his plastic chair. Not again, Wolfgang thought, glancing at Felix. Not in front of him."Your shitty country is ruining ours," Kristian continued, his four friends falling into step beside him.

They approached Wolfgang and Felix, chests puffed out, fists curled. One of the smaller boys, Marc, Wolfgang thinks, hissed, "Get the hell out! You don't belong here!" The five antagonists are now close enough for Wolfgang to see the baby hairs on Kristian's chin. Marc spat on Wolfgang's shoes, and Wolfgang felt a bolt of fear run through him.

But not for himself.

"You better go," Wolfgang said urgently to Felix, a strange sort of protectiveness running over him.

"No!"

"Go!" Wolfgang pushed the back of Felix's jacket, thrusting the boy away from the circle of Kristian's boys. The boys laughed as Felix ran away, but Wolfgang felt a strange sort of calm wash over him nonetheless. Nothing could be worse than father, he told himself, facing the boys in front of him. Nothing could be worse.He stared up at Kristian's hateful brown eyes, despising the way the circle slowly backed him closer to the wall.

"My dad says you're costing us billions in taxes," Kristian said, towering over Wolfgang. "You're going to start paying us back… now."

"Come and get it!" Wolfgang spat belligerently, and Kristian took ahold of his jacket, grabbing him. Then there were hands all over Wolfgang, on all parts of his body, jostling him, making him unsteady.

But Kristian's hard push is the one that sended him to the ground. Wolfgang fell with a grunt, and then there were bodies all over him, fists and limbs connecting with his body from in all directions. Wolfgang tried to guard himself with his hands, and somewhat succeeded, until the hard point of a boot crashed into his ribs, knocking the breath out of him in a painful whoosh. Kristian's foot came down on Wolfgang's side again, and Wolfgang thought not worse than father, not worse than father…He's not sure who he was trying to convince anymore.

Kristian's fist is unrelenting as it collided with Wolfgang's face, and Wolfgang can't help but let out a gasp. He saw stars as Kristian hit him a second time, his jaw cracking with an unhealthy pop.

But suddenly there's another noise, another harsh crack, one that Wolfgang couldn't feel. For a split second he thought he might be paralyzed, until he saw light brown hair, and the familiar black jacket. Mein Gott.

"Uhng!" Felix shouted as he swung the metal pipe, and Wolfgang seized his chance, his fist contacting with someone's face. There's the sound of feet on the cement, of running, and then - "No one will remember if we were good men or bad!" Felix's shouting rung out loud through the air, and more boys scrambled up from the ground.

"You're dead!" Kristian sputtered, hastily rising to feet. He ran off, and the last boy followed him in a clattering of sneakers.

Wolfgang stood next to Felix, feeling the blood from his nose drying quickly in the cool air. Felix leaned conspiratorially toward him, saying, "Only that two stood against many." Wolfgang panted in the silence, smiling through the metallic blood that coated his tongue.


"That was your childhood?" The woman asked, sounding incredulous and horrified.

"No," Wolfgang replied, his voice soft in the quiet of the hospital room. "That was nothing… compared to my father."


Silverware and peanut shells clattered as his father pounded the table once more, cracking another nut. Wolfgang's father's face was unnaturally red, sweaty, the byproduct of too much alcohol in too little time. "Life is simple, boys," he growled, stuffing a nut between his yellowed teeth. The cross tattoo flashed on his finger, a permanent reminder of the man's ties to the Bratva. He chewed on the peanut, taking a swig of his near-finished bottle of beer. "Life is just five things," the man said hoarsely, holding up his thick, calloused fingers. Felix's eyes were wide as he followed the man's movements, his body scooted as far back into the chair as possible. "Eating, drinking, shitting, fucking… and fighting for more." Felix cringed back even farther as the man's fingers stab the air near his face. Wolfgang made the mistake of making brief eye contact with the man, and his gnarled fist barreled into Wolfgang's collarbone before the boy could react, knocking him off his chair in a rush.

Wolfgang groaned softly from the ground. His bones felt pulverized under his clasped hands. He struggled to regain his breath as his father began to rise from his seat, soft sobs escaping from his wheezing airway.

"I didn't say anything about crying," his father said darkly, grounding his teeth. "Crying is for bitches." Wolfgang can feel hot water pooling in the recesses of eye sockets, his nose and throat filling with mucus.

His father ambled up from his chair, rocking menacingly towards Wolfgang. "That what you are?" He spat. His face flushed entirely scarlet. "A little bitch?" Wolfgang's eyes closed as the tears continue to flow, his mind already going blank in preparation for the agony awaiting him.

The sound of a bottle shattering intuitively had Wolfgang flinching away, his eyelashes blinking away shards of glass. Wolfgang's face in screwed up in distress, his chest throbbing with a deep-seated ache. "Conan, what is best in life?" Felix's voice sounds far away, somewhere above Wolfgang, urgent and fierce.


"He's crazy," she stated with a bittersweet laugh, and Wolfgang just smiled.

Felix hauled Wolfgang up from the floor, holding him until he's steady.

"To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you!" Wolfgang yelled, his head snapping towards his father, who lay on the floor in a daze.

Wolfgang and Felix ran out together.

Felix held Wolfgang's arm the whole time, and Wolfgang clenched back, just as hard.

The woman's eyes were alight with tears, but she was smiling through it all, her sight flickering towards the hospital bed. "He would do anything for you."

Wolfgang sighed, reaching out. "He's my brother," he said, his hand gripping Felix's wrist, a mirrored motion of the escape from his house. Wolfgang looked toward Felix's face, cataloging the various scrapes and cuts. "And not by something as accidental as blood… by something much stronger."

"What?" The woman asked, her voice gentle in its innocence.

"By choice."