warning: description of sun's dad committing suicide

Chapter 9: Sun & Wolfgang

In which Sun and Wolfgang talk

Sun wakes up gasping for air, and it takes her a moment to orient herself, but then she remembers — the man, the knife, the boy, the church.

She sits up in her sleeping bag, and her eyes land on the boy — Wolfgang — sitting at the other end of the building, cross-legged in front of the broken glass windows.

She rises silently, pulls on her beanie. "You can't sleep either?" she asks, joining him, hugging her knees to her chest.

"I slept during the day," says Wolfgang, which, Sun thinks, isn't quite an answer.

She looks around the dingy church interior, lit by slats of moonlight coming through the windows. She can make out the dark form of Capheus in his sleeping bag, in front of the mattress heaped with a nest of blankets. There's graffiti on the walls and rotting wood strewn in the corners, but it's quiet and enclosed and somehow manages to feel like a home.

"This place is nice," she tells him.

Wolfgang shoots her a skeptical glance, like he's not sure whether she's being sarcastic or not.

"I mean it," she says quietly. "It feels... safe."

Wolfgang gives her a long look, then nods. "You guys should stay," he offers, like it's nothing.

"Oh. I'll ask Capheus," is all Sun says, but she has a feeling that Wolfgang understands the mix of emotions swirling in her chest, the pride and wariness that have a way of tainting her gratitude and making it hard to know how to respond.

Neither of them speak for a moment.

"So. Bad dreams?" Wolfgang asks at last, shrewdly.

Their eyes meet.

"Yes."

"About what, that psycho doctor?"

"I—" Sun glances at him, then back down at her knees. "My father committed suicide when I was twelve," she says numbly. "Carbon monoxide poisoning. He ran a hose from the exhaust into the car. I was the one who found him in the garage." She takes a deep, steadying breath. "I dream about it sometimes. About finding his body like that. Only just now it wasn't his body, it was Dr. Metzger's. He was covered in blood. And I looked down, and so was I. Then I woke up."

"That's definitely a shitty dream," Wolfgang says. Then, more softly, "You didn't kill him, you know."

Sun looks up.

"None of us did. I knocked him out and he fell on his own fucking knife."

"The knife was in my hand."

"He was trying to cut your fucking skull open; you don't need to feel guilty for grabbing his knife."

"Maybe not." Sun sighs. "But I do feel something."

Wolfgang looks away at that, shifts uncomfortably. "I don't."

"You weren't holding the knife."

"I killed my father."

Sun stares at him.

"I was thirteen," he intones. "I strangled him. Broke his neck. Then I put his body in a car and set it on fire." He glances at Sun. "Do you think I'm a monster?"

"No," she says softly. "But I'm guessing that your father was."

"He was," agrees Wolfgang. "But still."

There's a long, long stretch of silence, so long that Sun thinks maybe the conversation is over. Then Wolfgang clears his throat.

"Actually, I, uh. Used to dream about it too," he says. "About his eyes, right after I snapped his fucking neck. They were open, but they just looked so— dead, you know?"

Sun knows. Metzger's eyes were the same, wide open and lifeless. She nods.

"But those weren't the bad dreams. The bad dreams were the ones where he came back to life, while I was burning the car. He'd walk out of the flames and fucking get on top of me and—" He shakes his head. "I always woke up so fucking glad he was dead."

Sun nods slowly.

"But then—" He shrugs. "When I think about the fact that I killed him, I just— I feel nothing."

"Sometimes," Sun says, lacing her fingers together, "when I feel nothing, I think it's because my heart wants to feel too many things. So my brain doesn't let it feel anything at all."

Wolfgang frowns at that.

"You're not a monster," she tells him, and he lowers his eyes, but he seems to unfurl a bit, to breathe a bit easier.

"Thanks," he mutters. "And—" He looks up at her. "And thank you for before, too. With Metzger."

Sun nods. "Of course," she says. "Any time."

And she means it.