class of contempt | {wade/jane}

I'm sending a raven
Black bird in the sky
Sending a signal that I'm here
Some sign of life

He was fading.

It terrified him, but he felt it in the sunrise, in the daylight breaking through the windows and shining down on him. He felt it as the day turned to evening, fading from radiant gold to a nostalgic gray-blue, and then made the brave plummet into night. He felt it.

Weakness.

It called to him, made its home deeply within his bones and forced him to tell the trainers and the carers that he was just tired or that he'd eaten too much at dinner. It was easy enough to keep the hounds nose pointed in another direction so long as he kept fresh meat stuffed somewhere safe and away from him, but they were getting wiser. And he knew he had a choice to make, and he hated how unfortunate either option was.

He could stay the course, pushing himself well beyond the limits his fatigued body could handle. He could fight until his knuckles bled and his wrists snapped and he had to use every scrap of spare energy he had left to pull himself back into bed.

Or he could seek help and risk exposure. He could admit that he was sick, let his secret no longer be a burden he had to carry all alone. He'd held his tongue for this long because even if he could trust someone with such a poisonous whisper, it only meant endangering them as well.

He could ask for help, but it may have meant sacrificing more than just himself.

Wade's eyes, half open and begging him to let them sleep, darted to the green binder on his shelf. That had been his golden ticket; the one thing that was always promised to get him out of this place. He hated himself for taking those years for granted, for wanting more when, at the time, his life was pretty close to ideal. Good food, high-caliber training, several peers and state of the art facilities— he'd been a fool to want something like a family.

Maybe it had seemed innocent; maybe he was just spoiled once. But it was too late to change that now.

He'd slept practically the entire day, and hadn't even bothered to wake up for meal calls. It was a Saturday, rest day, and not that uncommon for a person to skip a meal if they'd managed to save up enough tokens to buy some junk food from their weekly commissary, but it was still a risky move for someone walking on such thin ice as it was.

His half-open, still sleepy eyes, then followed the shelf his green binder was on all the way to its far edge, then from there to the window, when the first few stars were beginning to appear. Even if he bothered to go out and see anyone this late, curfew would be soon and he'd be forced to return to this very room.

Still.

He was fading, and it scared him. Thus far, the fatigue had been manageable enough to keep at bay: maybe a nap or two during the day if his schedule allowed. But as time ticked on and days passed by, he found his energy levels seeping lower and lower.

He feared that, some day soon, he would go to sleep and never wake up.

It would've been a peaceful death. That was more than the alternative offered; perhaps he would've been smart to just keep his mouth shut and hope they didn't catch on until it was too late. Maybe—

None of the hopeful thoughts were enough to keep him from opening the door to his quarters and slumping down the hallway, past the common room, and into another hallway. He stopped at the mouth of an ajar doorway, pushed the cold, heavy metal of the door the rest of the way open to find Jane sitting in her bedroom floor. She wore ballet slippers; they suited her as easily as her legs and arms did.

"Hate to interrupt," he said, marveling at the stark contrast of a careless dancer's dress and a slumbering boy's bedhead.

He sat next to her and made it a point not to wince as his knees touched the floor.

"Um, I—" he tried to force the words out, but they hung in the back of his throat and refused.

"What? Were you planning on getting into bed via Grand Jeté?"

I'm sending the message
Of feathers and bone
Just let me know I'm not forgotten
Out here alone

song: far from home