hes 8 the first time he sees sun boy

he's 8 and the older boys have him pinned down in the trash. he can hold his own against one or maybe two. but after that, he's forced face down onto the garbage, beaten and tormented, shorts around his ankles and humiliated. there's a point where if he wants to live, he has to stop fighting back, otherwise they will kill him first and just rape his corpse.

he's seen it happen to others. it will probably happen to him too eventually.

he almost misses it, the whimper of fear, over his own pained noises and the grunting of the bastards above him. he focuses on the noise those as an escape, trying to ignore the fire and pain tearing him up, and looks around the dirty alley for the sound.

he sees a tiny face, hiding only a few feet away, having hidden under the piles of refuse. the face of a kid maybe half his age, terrified amber eyes looking back at him, cries muffed by dirty tiny hands. the fear that peaked when their eyes meet, and all he can do is force his own hand up to his own lips, a single finger pressed up in a gesture to warn the kid to stay quiet.

selling the kid out might have given him a chance to run away; he'd only been targeted today because he was there and he was alone. but they'd already torn him up ... no point in setting them loose on someone instead now.

so they stare at each other until it becomes to much, and he passes out.

he wakes up - which always surprises him - but he wakes up alone in an alley. but it's not the same alley. he's been tucked away in the shadows, grimy torn blankets under him, old coat over him to hide him from passing eyes. his shorts and remaining shoe have been tucked in against him, he's curled around them like a lifeline at some point. now bloodied rags have been pushed between his thighs, he's still bleeding lightly, but it could be worse.

it hurts to sit up, but he doesn't know this place, and he doesn't know if it's safe. he pulls his cloths back on, pulls on his remaining shoe. replacing shoes was hard, loosing one of his was going to make things rough for a while.

then there was the kid. he shifted from where he was sleeping across the way, tucked away with his own torn coat. just a kid, a baby almost, soft round face, disheveled red hair haloed about him like a child's drawing of the sun.

Finely, the kid raised a finger, a mimic for his own gesture before. a promise of a secret.

he never tells anyone about that little hidy hole with the sun boy and doesn't think he'll ever see him again.

-

his desperate hunger has him following men home by the age of nine. he knows one day he won't walk back out again, but its been so hard to find enough to eat - the whole island it feels is starving. today's mark mistakes him for a little girl - a lot of them do - but he's too desperate to correct him.

The man plies him with food even before he's followed him home, promising more, and a bath, with a warm bed to sleep him. he scoffs at the man's back - he knows what a warm bed really means. but he'll let the man do what he wants for more food. he's got no shame left.

the man does feed him, then runs him a bath, just like he promised. the man wants to undress him, and this is where he's ready to run - he doesn't want to find out what it feels like to drown - but the man only looks embarrassed at himself when he pulls of his clothes, "A little boy... well, you certainly looked like little girl..."

and then gently helps him in the warm water, washing his skin and hair. "Young man," he asks as he rubs something medicinal smelling into his dirty hair, "i can cut this, if you want?"

he shrugs - the older boys cut chunks of his hair all the time, what does he care?

this strange man trims his hair, toweling it dry later, leaving it fluffy and soft. he's never really seen his face before, doesn't know the little boy looking back in the mirror and the man drys him off, touching his clean skin, hands roaming.

he keeps the man's bed warm that night, just the way he assumed he would. he makes the mistake of falling asleep there.

there are more men in the home home he wakes up - a different man watching him from the foot of the bed he slept in.

his mark from the night before wont look at him, as he passed from the bone crushing grip of one man to the next, and marched outside. he hears the sound of coin changing hands though.

he's being sold.

he gets one attempt at escaping in, nearly tearing his own arm out of socket to get free, only a few running steps taken before he's swept off his feet, thick arms putting him in a head lock as he kicks and screams bloody murder.

the pressure on his neck increased, it was harder to breath, and no matter how much he thrashed he couldn't get loose and his vision faaaadeddd....

-

he feels weird when he wakes up, head full of cotton and limbs feeling not quite attached. someone is standing over him - he tries to lash out but he's grabbed and shoved back down. a girl crouches over him, hands over his mouth to keep him quiet, "Shhhh. shut up newfish. shut up..."

he didn't released he was making any noise until then, but was quiet as she looked around nervously. satisfied, she looked back at him, "got a name newfish?"

he didn't, shaking no as she pushed away from him, sitting back and scratching ideally at her arm. "probably for the best."

he scowled at her, sitting up to look around, wincing at the pounding in his head. there are a dozen or so other young girls scattreed around the room, and a big burly man armed with a rifle at the door. the girl next to him, maybe a year or so older than him, short cropped brown hair and tan skinned. she wore a tattered yellow dress that had seen better days but was far nicer than anything he'd ever owned.

the room is the nicest place he's ever seen, soft carpets and plush chairs and ornately craved tables. even the armed guard is dressed nicer then he's seen before - shoes polished to a bright shine.

"never been to a boss party, have you?"

he shook his head no again - he didn't even know what that meant. "just..." she reaches out to grab his chin, tilting his head up to study his face. "look, newfish, just trust me on this. take the pills. it'll be better."

"pills?"

she lets his chin go, patting his cheek, before moving on to where one of the other little girls has started to cry.

eventually, they were fed, and then lined up against the wall. one by one, a man handed them two pills and a cup of water, watching them like a hawk. he looked at the girl from earlier, taking them without complaint. the next few took her cue, doing the same. one girl didn't want the pills, and he watched in horror as they forced them on her,  watched the men grin with glee as they held her down until he could look no more himself and turned away.

he felt yellow dress watching him when they stopped in front of him; he took the pills with no fuss and the drink smelled weird and burned as he swallowed it down.

everything was hazy by the time they were lead out of the room. he couldn't recall anything after that until someone was crouched over him once again.

everything hurt this time, and he felt like he might have been crying at somepoint, but he couldn't remember. familiar hands are over his mouth again, and shaking his shoulder. he opens his eyes to look up at the warm brown ones of yellow dress.

Her eyes are bloodshot, she looks shaky and unwell. the hand on his shoulder goes to raise a finger to her lips, and he nods he understands. she hands him a blue dress; he's not sure who it belongs to, or where he won cloths are gone, but it's easy to slip on, and she's pulling him to his feet, and sneaking them across the lavish room toward the window. bodes of girls and men alike are still sprawled out naked across the room, sleeping off a night of debatury. well... most are sleeping. a few are dead, one girl laying limp on a bed with her neck snapped, and yellow dress ushered him past before he can dwell on in.

one of the other older girls has opened a window and is shimming out, yellow dress pushing him out next after her. the three of them slip away into the dark. the older girl looks surprised to see him tagging along once they pause in the safety of the sewers. "Got a new freind there Vicky?"

yellow dress grinned, guesting between the two, "Quincy, meet Newfish. Newfish, this is Quincy."

"Newfish huh?" Quincy smirked, and then she was touching his face too, painted nails under his chin, turning him this way and that and he wanted to know why people kept doing that, frowning and twisting away. "She's cute enough, I guess. You got a place to go back to newfish?"

"I'm a boy." he mumbled finally, ignoring that he did not, in fact, have a place to go.

Quincy's hand hovered in front of him, and she frowned, squatting down to look at him better, "So you are. How old are you newfish?"

he shrugged, "nine.. i think."

Quincy picked at the shoulder of the blue dress he'd been given.

"It was better than what he came in wearing," yellow dress - no Vicky. she'd been called Vicky - defended.

"I beleive you," Quincy assured her, before turning back to him. "nine huh? where you sleeping right now?"

he shrugged again.

he spent the next few nights with them, before slipping off on his own once again. sometimes when the weather turned bad, he curled up between the two older women and somehow, somehow, he made it another winter to see the age of ten.

-

age ten brought sun boy back into his life.

the older he got, the fewer of kids younger than him seemed to be around. so he noticed them much more when their paths did cross. Sun boy was walking with an old man, slow moving and an easy mark for pickpockets or thugs. a six year old wouldn't normally be much of a deterrent, but sun boy was feral in the way he looked at anyone who drifted to close to their group of two.

he'd turned to petty theft many a times over the years, but he also remembered waking up in that alley, touched into the tiny bed of a stranger.  sun boy and his old man could keep their coins, he wouldn't steal from them today.

"Eustass!" one of the shop keeps greeted them, handing sun boy a candy, "and the kid, how are we today?"

Old man Eustass took the bag from sun boy as he eagerly bit into his sweets. "Doing well - just got some trinkets to sell," he shuffled though the bag, before pulling out some small shiny thing. He couldn't see it from here, but the shop keeps face went soft.

"Oh, that one turned out lovely"

he tuned them out as they talked shop, watching sun boy. he .. he didn't know why he was staring, but the kid seemed to realise he was, because those amber eyes turned to him. a street divided then, him hidden in the shadows, sun boy shining bright int he daylight.

he wondered if sun boy remembered him. probably not. most people didn't remember him, and few still did so fondly. it was whatever.