letting them want for a home

[crusaded]

The lack of care that I've put into covering my tracks in Rapture might be inspiring. Time has won this battle; I grasp after every spare second with my hands, feet quiet as I race down the path, but not silent. I feel the sticky warmth of blood sliding down the length of my neck, the metallic tang clear against the line of my teeth, but I feel not the way that my lungs scream for air, or for the ache of bruises coming to the surface. Adrenaline has left no room for that. Somewhere in these depths, Jason is waiting, hiding, and there's a part of me willing to bet that he'd close himself down here entirely, given a source of food and water. But living by the skin of one's teeth has always been what I sought to help the boys avoid. Never letting them want for a home, for room and board, for a guiding hand.

And no matter how much I've failed with each and every one of them, there is always a greater depth to fall into.

I refuse to leave without laying a line.

Nearly an hour passes before I pick up the proper signal from the cowl. A young man of the right size, less than a block away. It might take me six minutes to get there. Five, if I press.

And every second counts.

Comments

[prodigaljaybird]

Everything feels wrong.

He thinks, maybe, he's been down here for more than a day now. He hasn't slept, hasn't in fact, stopped moving since Bruce left, and he's tired, exhaustion so deep it shouldn't be possible in a body as fit as Jason's, not after only one night's missed rest, but it's. Difficult. Half his energy has gone to keeping his head together - more than once he's found his own fingers curled tight around his skull, gripping like he can keep his mind in order when all it wants is to fly away from him.

Periodically, Jason comes back to himself, hears a whisper through the caverns that reminds him he's not alone down here, but he's careful. No one will find him. He needs that to be true, needs time to be okay. He shies away from the grind of the bathyspheres when they activate, hides as still and silent as death 'til any searching eyes have passed him by.

Only one voice speaks to him, the reedy whisper reaching out when Jason strays too close to the atrium of Fort Frolic. "Fly, little bird, fly," it tells him, so Jason does.

He doesn't feel so good.

Eat.

It's a good idea, and Jason feels the first measure of comfort he's had in many hours when he returns to his hiding place, picking up a tin of beans and peeling away the top. He knows this. It's been years since he was a boy living in the mildewed slums of Crime Alley, but here, in a dank and crumbling apartment surrounded by his few gathered provisions, he almost feels at home again.

Jason has a bite halfway to his mouth when he hears it. It's only the smallest scrape against the rock, but he knows the sound of that particular boot all too well. He puts down the can.

It's too late to hide the light. It's too late to do anything but get his back to the wall, gun arm braced against his knee and barrel aimed for the door. Jason's thumb pulls back the hammer with a sharp click.

It won't be enough. It doesn't need to be.

"This whole building is rigged."