warnings: mentions of blood, depiction of one minor character death and mention of others
Chapter 8: Capheus, Sun, & Wolfgang
In which Capheus and Sun save Wolfgang
Capheus knows a lot of things. He knows how to make money, waking up each morning before the sunrise and setting off in search of aluminum cans, pilfering through garbage and recycling bins and filling the bag that sits in the basket on the back of his bike. By 7 AM he's in line at the scrap metal recycling center, where he makes 55 cents for every pound of aluminum he brings in. He gets his money and buys his breakfast and then he's off again for another round of can collecting. There are always fewer to be found during the day, and more people around to tell him to fuck off and get a real job, but he usually manages to gather enough to buy another meal at least, and that's all he really needs.
Then it's night, and time to sleep, and Capheus knows every grate in the city, knows which ones are warmest, which ones are best if you don't want to be disturbed by police in the middle of the night. He knows just how to huddle into his sleeping bag to keep out the chill, knows where to place his head on his backpack so that it's most comfortable.
What he doesn't know is how to fall asleep without feeling overwhelmed by the desperate, crushing loneliness that he somehow manages to keep at bay during the daylight hours, how to fall asleep without thinking about his mother and father and sister and remembering how alone he is in the world and silently crying until sleep finds him at last.
o - o - o
Sun is sitting in front of the bakery this morning when Capheus steps out of it, a muffin in his hand.
They chat sometimes. Sun never really talks much, but there's something about her that Capheus is drawn to, something fragile and strong at the same time that fills his chest whenever he's with her, something like hope.
"Good morning," he says brightly.
Sun presses her lips together in an approximation of a smile. "Good morning."
He checks the lock on his bike, then sits down beside her, holding out the muffin. "Want it?" he asks.
Sun gives him a look. "I'm not taking your food."
"It's not— I already had one," lies Capheus. He's not quite sure why.
"You bought two?"
"Yeah, one for you," he smiles, pushing the muffin into Sun's hand.
She takes it gingerly. Peels back a bit of the paper. "Thank you," she says, frowning.
"No problem."
They sit in silence for a while.
"It's a beautiful day," says Capheus at last.
"It's cold," Sun counters, her mouth full of muffin.
Which is true; Capheus's ears feel like they're about to freeze off under his hood. But it's beautiful all the same, he thinks: the way the clouds are dancing through the sky in subtle gradations of gray, the way the trees on the sidewalk are starting to blossom.
"Cold days can be beautiful," he says.
Sun glances over, licking her fingers. "I suppose," she replies. "Sometimes they can be."
o - o - o
At Capheus's third foster home, or maybe his fourth, there'd been a boy named Jela whose favorite game was something he called "truth and truth."
"It's like truth or dare," he'd tell anyone who would listen, "except you have to pick truth, and the person who asks the question has to answer too."
Capheus explains Jela's rules to Sun one day in April as they share a bag of French fries.
For a moment she just squints at him skeptically. Then, to his slight surprise, she shrugs and says, "Alright. Truth."
He thinks briefly, trying to come up with something neither invasive nor boring. "When's your birthday?" he settles on finally.
"August 8th."
Capheus nearly chokes on the fry he'd been eating. "You're joking," he says. "That's mine too!"
"Sure it is."
"No, I'm serious!" exclaims Capheus. "How wild is that?"
She gives him a long, steady look. "It is wild," she concedes.
"Maybe it's fate."
"Maybe it is."
o - o - o
They spend more time together after that, sharing money and food and an anecdote here and there, something Capheus's dad used to do, something Sun's mom used to say.
As the weeks go by they share other things too: tears, and secrets, and pieces of their histories — the sad pieces, the hard pieces.
Sun's mother died of cancer. Her father committed suicide.
Capheus's father was shot. His mother died of AIDS. He and his sister got split up when they entered the system, because the only foster parents willing to take an HIV-positive baby didn't want to take her older brother too.
"Have you seen her?" asks Sun.
"Not since then."
"Do you wonder about her?"
"Every day."
"Yes, me too," Sun says haltingly.
Capheus glances over.
"My brother," she says with a small, sad smile. She doesn't explain, and Capheus doesn't ask, but they sleep side by side on the pavement that night, sleeping bag next to sleeping bag.
And for the first time in a long, long time, Capheus doesn't cry himself to sleep.
o - o - o
Capheus wakes to the sound of male voices floating over from around the corner. He sits up slightly, feeling his muscles tense as the sound of footsteps approaches.
"This seems like as good a place as any," a man is saying, and something about his tone gives Capheus goosebumps down his arms.
The footsteps stop.
"Okay, so what do you want?" asks a different, younger voice. "Blowjob? Handjob?"
"First," says the man's voice, "I want you to kneel down and close your eyes... That's it, there we go. Good boy. Close your eyes, I said. Good."
Capheus turns to nudge Sun, only to find that she's already awake. She nods once, and puts a finger to her lips.
The man continues speaking. "My name is Dr. Metzger," he says. "And you need to do everything I tell you to do, no fighting, no complaining. Do you understand?"
There's a long pause. "Yes," the younger voice says finally. He sounds scared. Capheus feels scared.
"Excellent. Now, open your eyes. You see this knife?"
"Jesus fucking—"
The sound of flesh slapping against flesh echoes down the street.
"Hush," says the man, "just look, don't talk." There's shuffling sound, and the man continues calmly:
"This knife is sharp enough to cut through human bone," he says. "I use it to cut through my patients' skulls and examine their brains. It's a beautiful thing, the human brain. Sometimes I wish I could have one to examine at home. One that I could truly pick apart."
Slowly, Sun sits up, leans forward a little, like she's getting ready to jump up and investigate. Capheus puts a hand on her arm. "Don't," he breathes. She shoots him a look, but stays in place.
Then there's a shuffling sound, and—
"You fucking— psychopath—" grunts the younger voice.
"Settle down. Don't make me—"
Thud.
"Get off of me!"
"Stop struggling."
"Fucking Christ, what're you— No! Stop it!"
There's a scream of pain.
Sun's on her feet in an instant, and this time Capheus doesn't try to stop her.
Together they round the corner to find a teenage boy lying on his back, his arms pinned behind him and a dark-haired man bending over, knife in hand.
"Fucking let me go," shouts the boy, struggling to keep the knife away from his forehead.
"I'm a doctor," replies the man. "I know what I'm doing."
That's when Sun tackles him. Dazed, the man tries to stand back up, but Sun kicks him firmly in the chest.
"Put down the knife," she says, standing above him, her voice deadly quiet.
"This is very routine," the man coughs as he struggles to his knees. "I'm a certified neurosurgeon. I—"
"Like fuck you are!" yells the boy, scrambling to his feet and lunging forward, but the man is too fast for him; he pushes the boy to the ground and dodges the punch Sun throws at his face. Unfazed, she grabs his arm, fighting to wrest the knife from his hand, but then he tackles her and—
Capheus knows he needs to do something to help, and he needs to do it now, but his feet won't move: He's frozen in place, unable to do anything but watch as Sun ducks away from the man's knife and somehow manages to seize it from him.
"Let go of me," she hisses, one arm holding the blade to the man's throat, the other twisted under his hand.
Then, almost before Capheus can register what's happening, the other boy emerges from the shadows and knocks the man in the head with a brick.
"Take that, you sick fuck," he yells as the man goes limp, collapsing onto the knife in Sun's hand. She cries out. Capheus darts forward and shoves the man's body off of her, letting him roll over onto the pavement like a rag doll, where he lays, eyes vacant and blood coursing from his throat.
Sun sits up, and the three of them blink at each other for a few moments with a mix of relief and horror.
Then they spring into action.
"No pulse," Sun proclaims, her blood-soaked hand on the man's wrist.
The other boy deftly searches his pockets. "Got his wallet," he announces after a few moments. "And a watch."
Capheus grabs the blood-covered knife. "Fingerprints," he says. He stares at it for a second — it's deadly-sharp, just as the man said, like something a surgeon would use — then wipes it off on the man's own shirt. "We take this with us. The brick too," he adds.
The other boy looks over at him, approvingly, perhaps admiringly, and picks back up the brick.
"Now what?" whispers Sun. She's breathing heavily. All of them are.
"Now," says the boy, "we get the fuck out of here." He stands up, then pauses. "You, uh. You guys have somewhere you can go?" he asks.
Capheus glances at Sun. "No," he admits. "Not really."
There's a moment of silence. Then the boy nods once and says, with sudden conviction, "Then come with me."