tobias kelly (hidingfromview) wrote in mountzenithrp, @ 2020-02-24 14:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | #day 041, lennon, tobias |
Who: Lennon and Tobias
When: around 1 p.m.
Where: their shared room
The walk back from the barrier seemed like a blur to Lennon. All that really registered was being tired and thirsty and loathing the smoky smell that had soaked into all of their clothes. At least he hadn’t gotten a bath in blood like Felix had. He was relieved to get back to the lodge and immediately zipped up the stairs to the second floor bathroom. Jack would probably be as eager to be clean as he was, but he could use the downstairs one. Edwin would be headed for the barn and Felix to the mill, so no conflict there.
Once in the bathroom he drank some water from the faucet, stripped off his clothes and climbed into the shower. It had been a long time since Lennon had soaped and scrubbed so thoroughly; somehow the sound of the water pounding down around him helped quiet his racing thoughts a little. It was white noise and he probably needed that. Maybe he wanted to avoid thinking about what he’d seen, how awful it had smelled and the fact that he’d lit a dead body on fire. It hadn’t been done to be malicious but he still felt weird about it. In a way it was good to know he could step up and man up when he needed to even though he wasn’t the guy anyone here in the house would turn to when they needed a hero type.
Once he was done in the shower he turned off the water and got out, toweling himself to reasonable dryness and then realizing he didn’t have anything to put on. “Well, fuck,” he grumbled to himself. He tied the towel around his waist and gazed at himself in the mirror. Paler than usual, dark solemn eyes and yep, three visible hickeys: one high on his neck, one on a collarbone and another on his chest. The towel covered the other ones, at least. Lennon dug his phone out of the pocket of his pants, chewing his lip as he thought of what to do. He didn’t want to bring the smelly clothes to his room but directly to the utility room to wash. Maybe Tobias would bring him something if he was around. So far as he knew, his friend hadn’t been planning on going anywhere in case Chase needed him.
He typed up a message to Tobias: what r u doing?
Tobias had indeed stuck around after the house after Lennon left and Chase and Kiley fell asleep. He'd wandered about aimlessly for a while before retreating to the room he shared with Lennon and trying to nap. He dozed on and off for a while, but he was too paranoid that he would wake up and find some hideous monster staring in the windows at him. So Tobias took to sketching, trying to pass the time by creating happier images to look at rather than focusing too hard on the horrible ones in his head.
At some point, he began to sketch the faces of his friends, comforted by something so familiar to him. It was easy for him to lose himself a bit when he was drawing, and his mind wandered to various things before he realized that the face he was sketching now belonged to Simms. The recognition of it was a bit jarring and when his phone buzzed beside him Tobias nearly jumped off the bed in fright.
Quickly closing the sketchpad, Tobias tossed it to the side and picked up his phone, relieved to see Lennon's message. His hands were shaking, so it took him a couple of tries to get a response sent. in the room. you back?
yeah. I’m in the bathroom - can you bring me the sweatpants in top drwr of my dresser? Lennon paused, knowing that Tobias would wonder why he didn’t come get them his damn self given how close their room was to the bathroom. have 2 go downstrs & put all my stuff in the washer. Maybe Tobias wouldn’t mind too much. Lennon felt both physically and emotionally exhausted and didn’t think he had what it took to go get something to put on and go downstairs to start laundry.
He scrolled through the network, smiling faintly at Felix’s fish photo and telling himself he’d comment on it afterwhile. That was one awesome thing that had happened today, at least.
Tobias had wondered why Lennon couldn't just come across the hall to their room, but his friend answered that just as soon as the question popped into his head so he climbed off his bed to find the sweatpants. Did he want a shirt too? He hadn’t asked for one, but he mentioned needing to put all of his clothes in the washer, so Tobias grabbed a t-shirt too, just in case. Had Lennon fallen into the river, or gotten muddy or something? Maybe he had been sprayed by a skunk... although that would have meant there were skunks in the woods and as far as Tobias knew, there were no animals, just like Zenith. Slipping his phone into his back pocket, Tobias carried the clothes across the hall and knocked on the bathroom door.
"Hey, it's me," he said, close to the door.
“Hey,” Lennon said, pulling the door open. “Thanks. I’m so fucking beat.” The acrid scent of smoke would probably be obvious now; he had to wonder if he’d ever get that smell out of his sinuses. “Just a sec.” He took the clothes and pushed the door closed just enough where Tobias wouldn’t have to look at his bare butt as he swapped the towel for the sweats and t-shirt-- which yes, he’d forgotten to ask for. He stuck his phone into one of the side pockets of the pants and gathered up his other clothes, then exited the bathroom.
“Not the best day ever,” he said wryly, not knowing where to start. It seemed bad to lead with we found a burned dead body.
Tobias stayed put, but yes he could smell the smoke now that the door was open. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to stick around or... go away now that he had delivered the clothes. But before Tobias could decide, Lennon was there, carrying an armful of stinky clothes. "What happened?" He was hesitant to ask, but it felt like he had to. After last night, everything outside of these walls felt scary to him, and he really didn’t want more reasons to be scared. "Did you find the others?" He couldn't hear Vanessa shrieking, so Tobias was guessing not.
“Come downstairs with me?” Lennon asked. “Just wanna put these in.” At this point in time he should be thinking about lunch, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever want to eat again. “I’m not sure,” he said in answer to Tobias’s question, heading for the stairs. “We found, um… part of a body.” There was really no way to sugar coat those words. “It was awful.” He knew Tobias would understand what he meant, given what he’d been forced to do to Simms. “Right at the barrier on the GPS thingy.”
"Sure." He followed Lennon to the stairs but stopped abruptly, nearly tripping over his foot in the process. Tobias grabbed the wall quickly with one hand to keep from toppling into Lennon. "Wait. What?" They had found a body? A part of a body, Lennon had said, which made it sound so much worse. His stomach flip-flopped immediately and Tobias wondered if he would have to sit down. "Who was it?" Jerome? Vanessa? Why had no one said anything on the network? Was that what the meeting was about? Did he really want to go sit in a room with everyone and hear about a dead body? No, no he didn't.
Lennon's free arm shot out to keep Tobias from taking a header down the stairs, and he swallowed hard as he remembered his first shocked sight of it. "We couldn't tell for sure," he said quietly. "A guy, but other than that." He felt sure he wasn't making things any better, but his only other option was to lie, and he didn't want to do that either. He watched Tobias anxiously to see if they could start walking again.
Tobias could only imagine what kind of condition the body was in if they couldn't even identify it past whether or not it was a man or woman. But knowing there were two people missing from the house, and the others had just found a body made him feel nauseous. What if They had let Jerome die? What if They had done it? Or those things that took Chase and Ivy? "Okay, but... no one said anything on the network. Is that what they're going to talk about at the meeting?" Tobias stared at Lennon. "Don't you think Chase and Ivy should know before it gets dropped on everyone at once? I mean... what if it's connected to those things that took them?"
"Meeting," Lennon said blankly. He dropped the damned clothes where he stood and pulled his phone out. Somehow he'd missed Pam's message on the first scroll-through. "Oh… I dunno," he said. A new message from Chase popped up; maybe he could address that once he put his clothes in. "I gotta see what Chase said when I get downstairs. You still coming with?" He started gathering the smoky clothes up again.
"Yeah." Tobias didn't really want to be alone now, so he followed Lennon, still feeling a bit wobbly on his legs. "So what happened to your clothes? Why do they smell like that?" Maybe if they changed the subject he could momentarily forget about the dead body thing. Was it someone they knew? Was it Jerome? Or someone who got taken out of the house before? Was it Simms? They didn't know what happened to his body... after. Tobias swallowed down the nausea that rose in his throat and tried to focus.
Lennon waited until they got to the bottom of the stairs and turned toward the utility room before answering Tobias’s question. “It was burned,” he said, keeping his voice low, not wanting to be overheard by anyone else who might be around. “There was, ya know… smoke in the air. It got all into our clothes.” Luckily the washer was empty when he got in there, and after a quick paw through the jeans pockets during which he pulled out the matchbook and stuffed it into the pocket of his sweats, he got the machine going. “Sorry I don’t have anything but awful stuff to tell you,” he said ruefully, grabbing his phone to check out Chase’s PM.
A burned body. Tobias focused on breathing and wished he could just be back in their room sketching some more and ignoring all of the outside stuff. "It's fine," Tobias murmured, watching Lennon on his phone for a moment. "That really sucks that you guys had to see it though. Did you bury... him?" He nearly said it but that seemed really callous. It had been a person, and Tobias hated to think of what might have happened to him. And would it happen to any of them? Was he ever going to leave the lodge again? Probably not. Not if there were monsters and crap out in those woods waiting for them.
Lennon answered Chase quickly and set the phone down next to him, then wrapped his arms around himself. “We talked about it but we didn’t have any shovels or, ya know… anything.” He would have preferred burial over what they’d done, but they’d had no real options for that. “Somebody suggested we put some kindling around him and sort of self-cremate him, so that’s what we did.” Self-cremate sounded so much better than burn him some more until he becomes ashes but it still felt harsh to say. “Um. Chase said he wanted to ask what happened but he didn’t think he could. That probably means we shouldn’t tell him, you think?” Chase would somehow find out, but Lennon wasn’t sure it was a good idea to inflict it on him via text message after he’d said that.
That made Tobias feel nauseous, and he was glad he hadn't gone. He had a feeling he would have thrown up, or fainted, if there had been any blood. Gore was not something he could handle. He blinked at Lennon's question and frowned. "I guess not. I think whatever happened last night really messed him up. Everyone will know eventually." Tobias slipped his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. "I wonder if it was someone we knew..." He exhaled sharply. "Never mind, I don't want to think about that. All of this really sucks. I kind of want to just be back at the house, you know? In Zenith. At least there weren't creepy tree monsters out there, and... bodies."
Lennon frowned slightly. “Does he know what actually happened? I mean, beyond the monster of it all? It seemed like he didn’t really remember much.” Maybe that was a good thing, but he felt like it would be unnerving to have a large blank spot in your memory. “I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to him,” he added dryly. He took a few seconds to rub his eyes and stifle a yawn; now that he was back, exhaustion was setting in. Not like he could exactly go take a nap since they were having a meeting. “Ya know, it’s sad that the house feels safe to us even though bad things happened there, too,” he said. “I’d like to be back there myself. I miss the days of having my own bathroom.” His phone buzzed, and he replied to Chase’s next message before putting it down again.
Tobias nodded, not really knowing what else to say about it. Chase didn't remember anything after being taken and it wasn't like pushing him to try to remember would help anything. Maybe eventually it would come to him, or Ivy, and they would know what really happened. Maybe not. It wasn't like they ever got any answers in this place. Tobias shifted from one foot to the other. "You want to go back to the room until the meeting? Unless you want to wait here for your clothes to be done..." Though that could take a while. But he didn't think Lennon just wanted to hang out at the laundry machine.
Lennon was both exhausted and restless, which felt weird. When Tobias asked about going back to the room, he pushed off from the washer and grabbed his phone. “Yeah, let’s go. We don’t have long but I guess there’s no point in staying down here.” He led the way back upstairs to their room and collapsed onto his bed, rolling onto his side with a sigh. It felt okay here, he thought. Their room wasn’t much decor-wise, not like the house where the rooms seemed to have been designed with them in mind, and there were all those windows. Still, he knew it could have been a lot worse. He pulled his duvet over himself and arranged the pillows beneath his head. “Do not let me crash out,” he instructed Tobias, giving his friend a faint smile.
Tobias sat back down on his bed, glancing at his sketchbook and trying to decide whether or not he wanted to keep drawing. "I won't. But I don't think it'll hurt if you get a quick nap in," he said. "I'll wake you up when we have to go downstairs." He was done sleeping, himself. At least until later. Tobias reached for his sketchpad and pencil, thinking he'd get rid of the Simms drawing later. His brain was clearly wanting to do its own thing. "I'll keep an eye on the network if anything else comes up."
“I can’t decide if a 40 minute nap would make me feel better or worse,” Lennon said. He’d gotten so little sleep last night-- like just about everyone else, he figured-- and then had walked for three hours or so round trip. There was so much going on in his mind that it wasn’t conducive to sleep at the moment, anyway. Probably best to wait until later. “Workin’ on anything special?” he asked when he saw Tobs pick up his sketchpad. He almost wished he’d brought a regular sketchpad instead of the art stylus, but he hadn’t. Doing actual drawing on Felix’s wall had reminded him how he liked using actual pencil (or Sharpie in that case).
Tobias felt his cheek grow hot at Lennon's question and he shook his head. He generally didn't mind sharing his art, but there were some things that were just weird and personal and he'd rather keep it that way. "Nah, not really. Just kind of sketching random stuff. It's not a mural or anything," he added with a slightly pointed smile. "I thought before how it'd be fun to take it out and draw the river or something, but now I'm not sure I even want to leave the lodge unless I really have to."
“Random sketches are one of the best things about having a sketchbook,” Lennon said. “I’m hoping we’ll end up back at the house at some point and it’ll still be there.” He had so much stuff in those pages. Not that it mattered right now, but he tried to think about how many blank pages were left. With a sigh, he propped himself up slightly and picked up his phone to scroll the network yet again. “The mural looks pretty good so far. There’s an owl.” A faint smile played across his lips as he thought about Felix asking Pam if owls had butts. It was probably one of those things where you had to be there. “You know what would be cool? To sketch the river and the mill building with that water wheel.” He left a random comment on the fish post, just because.
"I can always give you some of my paper if you want it," Tobias offered. Of course, sketching the river and the mill meant going outside again and he didn't want to do that. But maybe Lennon would. Tobias picked up his pencil and flipped open to a fresh page, quickly bypassing the drawing of Simms. "I kept hoping that maybe the weather would get really warm and we could go jump in the river. Now I don't know if that's a good idea. Maybe something's in the river too, and not just the trees." He shivered at the thought. Then he licked his lips and started to sketch, not really sure what he was drawing just yet. "So... are you and Felix... you know?" He knew Lennon had gotten upset with Kiley for pointing out the hickey, but Tobias didn't think Lennon was pissy about the whole thing. Besides, Tobias was just curious. He wasn't being snarky about it like Kiley had been.
Despite how awful today had been, Lennon wasn’t about to consider never going outside again. He figured he’d restrict it to daylight only, always leaving plenty of time to get back to the lodge. “Jumping in the river still sounds good, if it’s nice enough out,” he said. “There’s fish in it now apparently. Wonder how you catch ‘em without a pole or a net?” He placed the phone down next to him and snuggled up under his duvet. Maybe he was getting used to this place after all. Despite it being a twin bed, he was very comfortable. He watched Tobias sketch while he thought about the question, realizing he didn’t have a definitive answer. “We’re getting to know each other, I guess,” he said. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting that to happen when I went over, but it was awesome, and I’m pretty happy about it. If it happens some more, that’d be even better.” He figured it would, since they’d had some coy talk about him coming over until the mural was finished.
Tobias had seen the message about the fish, but that freaked him out too. What if the fish ate flesh? What if they were mutated Zenith fish designed to hurt them? Or maybe they had just been put there for the others to fish for and cook so they had actual food in this place. "Chase can probably make a pole out of a branch or something," he murmured absently, his hand flying over the sketch paper in his lap. Chase could create anything out of nothing, if you asked Tobias. Tobias looked up at Lennon's answer, feeling both happy for his friend and also... not. Which was a weird combination. "That's cool," he said finally, his gaze drifting back to the paper. "He's hot, so... awesome." He tried to think of how things might be if Lennon and Felix became an actual Thing. Like a Kiley and Chase Thing. Tobias wanted all of his friends to be happy and everything, especially in a place like this, but it still made him feel weird. His lips quirked. "Can't believe you got a hickey though."
“Yeah, he could,” Lennon said of Chase. “Easy. I didn’t even think about that. I was thinkin’ about using a t-shirt for a net or something.” He hadn’t yet entertained any paranoid thoughts about the fish, maybe because they were given their food and drink and as far as he knew there hadn’t been anything wrong with that stuff yet. The thought of grilled fish was mouth-watering even to his currently dulled appetite. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected Tobias’s reaction to be to what he’d said, but it was probably better than he’d taken the news of the Chase, Tobias and Kiley threesome. He still felt weird about that, but it was more difficult to mope when he had something else pleasant to think about. Somehow he didn’t mind talking about it to Tobias as much; maybe he just hadn’t liked Kiley’s approach and how pissy she’d been overall. That didn’t lead to him wanting to confide. A smirk curved his lips. “Uh, more than one actually.”
Tobias was not a fisherman. If the fish in the river were edible fish, as in they wouldn't make everyone sick, he was kind of hoping the more athletic people in the house would be able to catch them and do all the gross stuff. Chuckling softly, he glanced over at Lennon with a faint smile. "More than one, huh? Feels like middle school all over again." Chase had given him a hickey on his neck, where his mole was, which had been kind of funny, though it felt really good at the time. It was strange timing, that Lennon would hook up with Felix after Tobias told him about Chase and Kiley, but Tobias wasn't going to begrudge Lennon for doing something that felt good to him. They all deserved it at some point, didn't they? He tried to think of something else to say, something more clever, but he faltered and went back to his sketchpad.
“Believe me, I wasn’t thinking about middle school days,” Lennon said. It had occurred to him also that the timing was weird and that anyone knowing the whole story might think he’d been overly reactive or whatever. The thing was, he hadn’t planned anything out but had just gone with what had happened. Maybe he should have been doing more of that all along. He’d also discovered that Felix was fun to hang out with, hot sexy funtimes aside. Finding friends like that was worthwhile too. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, savoring the normalcy of this moment, the faint sound of Tobias’s pencil scratching over the paper. Today had been awful, but right now was okay. He’d take it.
Tobias focused on what he was doing for a few minutes, vaguely wishing Madison was still there. He thought about her a lot, usually when horrible crap went down and he kind of just wanted to be comforted. That was probably selfish of him. He could get that from Chase now, and even Kiley and Lennon. It just wasn't really the same. When he looked over at Lennon again his lips parted, a question teetering on his tongue before he swallowed it back. Instead he went back to his sketchpad. Apparently he was drawing the new cat, Bilbo. Which was an odd name for it, given how grouchy the cat looked every time Tobias saw it. Oh well, at least it wasn't Simms again. He realized he was feeling pretty content now. His friends were all back under one roof and they were all okay. Everything else was just noise.