the longest night Who: Lennon and Felix Where: the mill When: around 5:30AM Warnings: some morning friskiness (R)
Lennon had finally fallen into sleep on the bed of couch cushions and a blanket that he and Felix had made after spending hours worrying and vainly refreshing the network; it had been at least two in the morning. Normally he would have found the mill a neat place to sleep, mainly because of the background white noise of water splashing through the wheel, but nothing had been neat or even okay right then. Chase, Ivy and Scotty were out in the woods, there was something out there that had taken the former two away and there was exactly fuck all they could do about it. As much as he hated to admit it, even in his own mind, it would have been foolhardy to go out there. Maybe if they could have gotten every person left out of those who weren't out in the woods or missing and unheard from-- fourteen in all-- they might have stood a chance. Or maybe TPTB would have done something terrible to the rest of them for daring to make that kind of stand despite warnings. Maybe They would have decided to start all over with an entirely new group. It was impossible to say.
Throughout the rest of the night from about 3:30 on, it was an unending cycle: Lennon would start awake, knowing that something was terribly wrong, remember what had happened, poke at his phone to see what time it was, look futilely around the dark room where Felix slept in his bed and Shark slept in her pen and sigh softly and drop off to sleep again. Within three hours he probably woke up eight times, and finally he'd had enough and got up as quietly as he could and crossed to the door, slipped out and went into the bathroom. The mill was so quiet except for the running water outside that it was almost eerie, he thought as he did his business and then washed up. He splashed water on his face, raked his fingers through his hair and leaned closer to the mirror to rub at the vivid reddish mark on his neck. The lobe of his ear still looked a little red, too. That was the least of his worries right now, though.
Lennon turned off the light before opening the door again to return to Felix's room. Carefully, he settled back down onto his makeshift bed in the darkness, lying on his back with the phone on his stomach. Surely it couldn't be too much longer until daylight, could it? The entire night had felt like forever.