Who: Jerome & Lucy Where: Lounge, later searching the mansion When: around 11 am
Easter. Fucking Easter. It was hard to even believe that it was supposed to be Easter already, and who knew if it really was, which made the fact that they lacked any kind of calendar or a real knowledge about what day it was even more glaringly obvious than it had been before. And it had been obvious. Coming from having a tight schedule everyday to here with no such things as schedules at all still disturbed his organization-oriented personality by a lot, but keeping himself occupied with baking, cooking, or cleaning the mansion had proved to be a good tactic of battling the lack of a feeling of time. He had slipped into some kind of routine, which he allowed himself to break once in a while in favour of doing something with a fellow housemate, and with the help of his ability to force his overwhelming emotions back, the last few days hadn't been the worst at all.
Until today had decided to ruin all of that again.
Jerome was sitting in the lounge again, all by himself which had become a sad habit lately, as even when he didn't want to necessarily spend his time with someone else, his own room was suffocating like nothing else. Even two weeks after having been brought here, the resemblance this room had to one of his former bedrooms when his wife still had been alive was too devastating to develop any sense of calm and peace inside it, and other than sleeping or taking a bath, Jerome preferred not to be inside this room longer than necessary. Or drinking. He drank inside this room just to be invisible to everyone else.
He didn't drink now, but he already had, and it had cost him quite an effort to not take the wine bottle along with him again, reprimanding himself not only with his own, but also Pam's words, which still lingered in the air occupying this place, serving as an impactful means of self-control. At least here. But without a bottle or glass to hold onto, Jerome didn't quite know what to do with the burden of time this day had thrown right into his face. He had baked, he had cleaned, he had even cooked a little before feeling the mental exhaustion creeping up on him, forcing him to take a break. Sudden shots of panic that he would see his children never again, that they wouldn't be able to cope with him gone, that they would live their life without him, that his daughter wouldn't recover without him, all of these things surfaced today, mixing themselves into the sadness that he wasn't able to spend Easter with his children, for the first time of his life. And instead, these fucking assholes, these fucking taunting sadistic assholes had decided that instead, all of them should celebrate Easter here, as if this was just a normal thing to do. Being abducted, being watched, being forced to partake in weird tasks, being subjects of an experiment, being inflicted with fear and terror, and then celebrating Easter with a fucking egg hunt. A fucking egg hunt.
Those fuckers really enjoyed this behind their fucking camera, didn't They? They loved watching them suffer and the next day, giving them a piece of carrot by providing something positive to see Their lab rats brainlessly forget every bad thing that had happened while indulging in nice things. Jerome was so sick of it, and if he had a choice, he maybe would even prefer to be only subjected to some kind of fucked up experiment which wouldn't play good with him to show generosity. Because that would be way less taunting, and way less ridiculous, than this.
Of course, Jerome wouldn't wish this kind of thing for any other person inside this mansion. While furiously himself, he didn't think of anyone as brainless for embracing the joy They let them have, perfectly understanding that this was a good way to cope, and a much needed distraction from the horror this place was all about. He wouldn't want to take this away from anyone. Maybe he just hadn't been here long enough yet to abandon his anger and just take what was given to him, but as of now, it felt way too much like giving these dumb assholes exactly what They wanted, and Jerome wasn't willing to give them anything unless someone else was in danger. At least not by himself.
Thus, Jerome had ignored everything pertaining to this Easter event, pretending it wasn't there, trying to ignore the feelings of pain and loss, trying not to cry. Swallowing down his anger and just sitting around after working straight for three hours, feeling miserable.