FicWad

Chancing upon him high up in the rafters of the hangar where no one's supposed to be, now the floor's given way and the door mechanisms have jammed and the roof threatens to fall in with every step snuck across the complaining floorboards, not supposed to be there either but classes upon classes of dead soldiers' names and how to parse diurnal arcs in hyperspace would weigh down anybody's mind and now it's cold, cold outside and crisp with the smell of burning coming in from over the hills that he said means they're building something, they need the space and they're burning down the trees to build something and he said it was a waste but in that sleepy dreamy voice that means he knows what they should be doing instead but no one's going to listen to him, not a gangly teenager in cadet's jacket and boots too big for him and long eyes drooping already underneath his fringe that he grew out so no one could tell in class if he was asleep or not and the teachers all took their chances sneaking down the aisles only to pounce on him when they thought he wasn't listening but he always gave them the perfect answer anyway, he knows everything that's happened and sometimes it seems he knows everything that's going to happen as well but to find him curled up on a hammock someone else must have slung from a few good beams left up in that great echoing shell of a roof (someone else, not him; he'd never have found the energy) and to watch his breath rise and fall with the history of worlds sleeping beneath his skull and then his eyes slide open as though he can tell he's being watched and it's like finding an animal in its secret place and having it yawn and grumble at you and wanting to reach out and tickle it under the throat but an animal that's a person, all wrapped up in itself, maybe it would like to be touched but there's some distance between you that wouldn't let such a thing happen, oh no.