Who: Jerome and Oliver When: Late Forenoon Where: Kitchen (later town) What: Eating pancakes and visiting town
Pancakes.
Deeply lost in his thoughts, Jerome stared indecisively down on his bowl where his hands almost automatically were mixing the ingredients together with a stirring spoon, his glare stern and borderline-angry, glued onto the mixture of eggs, milk and sugar.
No, this wasn’t his bowl. This hasn’t been a dream, he still wasn’t at home, he was in the exact same foreign kitchen he had dinner with Pam in yesterday, and it was still impossible for him to wrap his head around this.
He felt… differently than yesterday, that much was for sure. After the break-down he had experienced yesterday, after the denial of the reality around him following that, fleeing into trivial conversations with a women he barely knew, the walls of separation from his situation had been torn down and he was ready to deal with this shit now. The memories of last night seemed weird to him in hindsight, and partially, he felt guilty for just having shut his brain down and experiencing a nice evening in his luxurious prison while his children probably were already worried sick about him.
He had cooked pasta for a woman. He should have cooked pasta for his son, telling him about how Cilia was doing, because at that day, Christophe hadn’t been able to visit her himself and-
He sighed, his expression getting angrier, his grip around the stirring spoon firmer.
That was all his brain did all morning to him. Showing him what he should have done instead of being here. Instead of idling precious time away, instead of shutting down. But underneath all his guilt, he perfectly knew that there had been nothing he could have done. Yet.
After going back to his room the last night, his walls already had started to crumble. Being alone again after indulging himself in the conversation with Pam allowed the situation to seem more real again, allowed the desperation back into his mind, allowed the truth to laugh spitefully right into his face, but he still hadn’t been ready to give in to the facts completely and made a list with all the questions he had with supplies from the art room without really thinking about the questions at all. He had retrieved his mental note checklist, he had written the points down, being just another way of distracting himself and keeping himself occupied, feeling detached and unreal.
Today it felt real, and the points on his list needed answers he was ready to take in.
And yet, he was here, making pancakes.
He slowly shook his head in an attempt to quietly comment on his own thoughts, trying to get them together once again. There was no doubt that he still was defying the possibility of having to stay here for an uncertain amount of time heavily, and there mere thought of people having this mindset to just comply with the rules of this house made him angry again, but he had himself together enough to not direct this anger towards the people living here. For now, at least.
He had contacted this guy whose name was apparently Oliver, because he seemed way more fitting than Pam to explain important things around this house and town. At his network post, Oliver had seemed competent and reasonable, legitimately criticizing his hot-tempered and rude behaviour, and most importantly, way more mature than Pam. If he would have to guess, he would say Oliver was at least in his mid 30ies. Contacting him felt weird at first, solely because this name rang a bell in the back of his head and reminded him at the worst person that had ever walked the earth, but obviously they weren’t the same person. He still hated that name though.
He poured the squishy mass that would be the first pancake into the frying pan and did not leave the contained space of his gloomy thoughts. He coughed, drank a glass of hot tea after that to ease his sore throat. Jerome was used to having minor or not-so-minor colds now and then, being a teacher surrounded by many potentially sick kids everyday, but more importantly, he was used to ignore any sickness that didn’t leave him unable to leave his bed. He just had no time to be sick, not at home, and especially not here. Having those symptoms of a fully developed cold right after waking up was indeed strange, but he shrug it off, obviously he had had other things to worry about than paying attention to the first minor symptoms of a cold yesterday. He was sure they must have been there and he just hadn’t noticed. It was February, so being ill at least once a month was the norm. And still, the timing was horrid.
Also he didn’t know if it really was still February.
His eyes glared at the frying pan.
He would have been okay with just a little snack for breakfast to immediately start the day with more important things like getting his answers and trying to find a way to escape, but he still felt horribly upset about the fact that apparently, there were young people here, too. This was something that hadn’t even crossed his mind yesterday, not taking Lucy seriously when he still tried to convince himself that she must be a bot messing with him, but in hindsight, she obviously seemed very young. Maybe a very young adult, maybe a teenager even? Jerome shook his head more violently this time, taking a deep breath while trying to get to terms with this disgusting information. When he had learned that Cilia and Christophe weren’t here, he didn’t spend a single thought on who the other captives could be, or how old they could be, but having experienced Lucy, who had been so cheery the day before, in such a distraught state, caused his heart to severely ache. This was not a place for children, teenagers or young adults. Hell, this was not a place for anyone, but how the hell were people so young supposed to deal with this bullshit? Especially considering that whoever sick bastards were behind this whole thing apparently enjoyed torturing them. Showing happy family videos when they were in such an unstable state anyway, being locked up in a mansion full of strangers, was undoubtedly the work of some batshit crazy sadistic assholes.
His glare got more angry again, not able to comprehend the thought process behind such cruelty. This poor little kid. He hadn’t even seen her once, but he still had a strong desire to help her feeling better.
Cilia would have loved pancakes for breakfast. It usually was nothing a typical German would eat for breakfast at all, and thus, there had never been pancakes for breakfast in the Estell family, but he made them for dinner sometimes, and Cilia loved them.
So his first idea to console Lucy and to make her eat anything on this stressful day that she must experience was making her pancakes. And in addition, himself and Oliver, too.
He was dead set on escaping this place, and he was dead set on getting help to free the others. He still couldn’t admit to himself that his plans seemed silly, that people would have already escaped if it was possible, that trying to just walk away even when electrocuted had absolutely no chance of working out, because he still wasn’t willing to accept that he would not be able to get back to his kids. Because it would be his own failure. His failure as a father, his failure as a human. His wife’s death was solely his own fault, that he was sure of, and he couldn’t neglect his remaining family the same he had neglected her. There just was no fucking way.
If there hadn’t been this powerful resistance in his mind, he probably would have made pancakes for the entire house just to keep himself distracted. Staying here would ultimately mean to be productive as hell to hide from his inner demons, but he wasn’t quite there yet.
So he continued making a bunch, but not too big of a bunch of pancakes, standing there with his tea, staring into the frying pan gloomily and waiting for Oliver to arrive. It felt somehwat strange standing at the stove with his quite formal outfit. Just added to the absurdity of his situation.