Chapter Text
1.
There was no signpost designating Little Tauron. You knew where you were going, unless you were stupid enough to get lost, and you knew when you got there. Downtown Caprica City looked the same block to block; dramatic architecture, city streets clogged with cars, near constant construction. Little Tauron was past the congestion. There were storefronts instead of high-rises, markets instead of superstores with self-service kiosks. Houses flanked the streets like a tiny suburb, shanties for people who never managed to scrape the cubits together to move away, or didn't want to.
It was quaint. Familiar, at the very least. Everyone knew his face, if not his name. Joseph could walk out of any store with goods on the promise of paying it back or working it off later. He rarely took advantage, though Sam did when he wanted some new and shiny that The People's Orphanage wouldn't dream of providing. He paid his debts by washing dishes, scrubbing windows, unloading trucks, else Joseph would have told him off, or at least watched him like a hawk when Sam neglected to care.
There were two sides to Little Tauron. A tourist wouldn't notice the difference. Taurons who didn't want to see things for what they were could turn a blind eye, live their lives, keep their heads down. The ha'la'tha inhabited bars and back rooms like a cancer, concealed amongst the normality of shops and produce stands. But once you went further up the streets, past the window dressing, reality was unavoidable. It was blatant; storage facilities, empty warehouses, none of them used for their intended purposes. It was the last place Joseph wanted to go, and predictably it was the place Sam ran to.
Finding him was easy. There were only so many places the ha'la'tha didn't utilize; this one, a condemned meat-packing warehouse where runaways camped out and kids liked to get high. The roof was caving in, but that wasn't enough reason to keep away. The transients dropped off during winter for obvious reasons, but Sam wouldn't let the cold deter him.
Some misguided soul had fenced the building in with chain-link, like that was going to stop anybody. The holes in it weren't easy to squeeze through; his clothes snagged along the way, and the cold metal bit even through his jacket. The graffitied door was locked, probably by Sam, but not barricaded. He had to bust it in, not the first person to do so by a long shot, wood splinters and discarded chains littering the ground.
Sam was in there, silent and sullen, sitting in front of a fire that smoked foul black and smelled worse; Gods only knew what was burning in there. Sam didn't acknowledge him, and Joseph stood there for a while thinking of something to say, but nothing came.
He sat down next to him, and Sam didn't move away, but he was like a statue, barely even blinking. They watched the fire crackle and hiss, Joseph rubbing his numb hands as close the flames as he dared.
Sam speaking was a surprise; it was well before Joseph thought he'd crack. It had only been an hour or so when Joseph noticed Sam was missing, but he must have been in there, freezing his ass off and stewing, for half the day. "They're not our frakking parents."
He kept his voice quiet and even. "I know."
"Don't you care? About what they would have wanted?"
He didn't turn and face his brother to try and say ugly verities to his face; the hunched shape of Sam beside him was hard enough. "I care about you eating more than one meal a day. I care about you going to school."
The same old argument. They'd had it a hundred times. Joseph wanted school, wanted college, and Sam seemed to take it as a personal insult that he wanted it for both of them. The hope of it happening was virtually worn down from fighting for so long, but something kept making him say it.
Sam tossed something into the fire. "I can take care of myself."
Telling Sam that he was twelve, had just turned twelve last month, would send him off. You're too young, you're not going to be some errand boy for the ha'la'tha, you can do more, be better. All of them were mines waiting to be stepped on. Joseph avoided them and tossed his own sliver of wood into the fire to watch it spit.
"You want to get rid of me that bad, huh?"
Joseph's mouth thinned into a brittle line, but he didn't take the bait. "Of course not."
Sam stretched out his legs in front of him, heels pressing hard on the concrete floor. His arms were wrapped around his middle against the cold, and Joseph noticed thought ahead and worn two coats, the outermost an old cast-off of his own. The sleeves were too short, ending before the knobbly bones of his wrist.
"But I can't stay with you because you're too chicken to go to the ha'la'tha--"
"Those people can give you a home." Any home the ha'la'tha could give them wouldn't deserve the name, and Caprica had made it abundantly clear that a poor twelve year old wasn't going to live in a shack with his even poorer older brother, not even when Joseph reached legal adulthood. "Our parents would have seen us split up before they saw us in debt to the ha'la'tha."
"They're dead. It doesn't matter what they would have done."
He nearly choked. Twelve year old shortsightedness. "Sam," he tried, trying to tip toe around calling him a hypocrite, "I thought you cared about what they would have wanted."
That shut him up. Joseph watched the side of his face, the tic in his jaw, the nose he hadn't quite grown into, waiting. "They're not splitting us up," he said finally, voice small. "I swear to Mars, I'll go to the Guatrau if you even think about letting them. Frak, I'd go to Canceron and become a street performer before I'd live with some akatadektos."
The Estorgs were a nice couple. They had money, which made them seem nicer. Meryem brought Joseph in to meet them and prove it, because she knew there was no chance of Sam going anywhere without Joseph's blessing. They smiled and shook his hand and said all the right things, but their eyes moved past him like he was barely there. They'd lost their daughter, and they wanted this vibrant, excitable twelve year old orphan to live in her re-painted room and fill up space at the dinner table. Joseph was fifteen, and he was about as personable as a rag, so of course they just wanted Sam, quick, distracting Sam. They'd give him a room to himself, their money and influence so Sam would go to college whether he liked it or not, and Joseph would stop in on holidays and send letters.
Or Sam would run away like he had, and crawl so deep into the ha'la'tha that he could never come out. He was serious about going to the Guatrau. Joseph wouldn't be able to stop him. Losing him to that life was far more indelible than his running away to Canceron.
"Wouldn't running away be the same as us being separated?"
"You'd come after me," Sam said, fierce with conviction.
There was nothing to say; it was the truth. He'd follow Sam and live like a fugitive in Little Tauron or whatever place would have them. He'd run again if the government tried to hunt them down. It was high on the list of worst-case scenarios.
"You'd make a horrible street performer," Joseph said eventually. "You'd quit after a day."
The corner of Sam's mouth quirked. He shifted closer until they were touching and secured his jacket tighter around himself. He knew he'd won.
There was a heavy, guilty weight in Joseph's stomach, twined with sick relief. He didn't have the heart to argue for something he didn't want, and realizing exactly how selfless he wasn't made it even worse. He didn't want Sam to live with the Estorgs. He didn't want to spend the next three years whiling away his time like an inmate inside the orphanage without his brother. Even if it meant Sam was nestled in a safe cocoon of the upper class, far away from Little Tauron.
The police found them a few hours later. Sam had all but fallen asleep against Joseph's side, and when they came in he didn't fight them. He watched Joseph sleepily while they were walked outside and thoroughly dressed down. Joseph did most of the talking and Sam did his best to look appropriately contrite.
When Meryem was called to come pick them up, they were standing together by the police car, Sam still tucked close to Joseph's side. She sat through paperwork and the cop's continued lecture; Joseph could see through her veneer of polite acquiescence to the irritation and impatience beneath. It made him want to laugh, but he stayed blank-faced.
When the cop was finally driving away, it was the three of them. Joseph and Sam were a united front, and Meryem's arms were crossed tight over her chest, her coat fluttering in the frigid wind.
She turned her narrow-eyed glare on Sam, who leaned in even closer to Joseph. "You don't get to do that again."
"Sorry," Sam said.
Meryem sighed, shoulders slumping. It put him off balance. Joseph was expecting fireworks, but she only looked tired. "By the Gods, what were you thinking?"
"We're not splitting up," Joseph said quickly, louder than he'd meant to.
Meryem just looked at him. "Yeah, I got that." Sighing again, she waved a hand. "Go get in the car. If we're lucky we'll get back before dinner." She went around to the driver's side and unlocked the door, back still stiff, and Joseph knew Sam would be lucky to see sunlight before his next birthday.
Settled in the back seat, Sam looked out the window as they passed through Little Tauron back into Caprica City, smiling.
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END 1/5.
My crappy Greek translation tells me that "akatadektos" is some version of "snob."