Jean-Léon Duport (highfrequencies) wrote in zenithrp, @ 2015-10-24 21:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | #day 005, cecilia, jean-léon |
Who: Cecilia & Jean-Léon
What: Food supply?? Death???
When: Day 5, ~9AM
Where: Theater room
Not that this entire ordeal wasn't frustrating and horrifying, but today was the first day Jean-Léon felt himself start to fray. Felt like a scab being picked at, just around the edges. Yesterday he'd been forced to exert more physical effort than he had in the last decade.
Today there was The Noise.
And it wasn't ear-shattering, wasn't painful. It was just constant, and while Jean-Léon hesitated to say anything was more debilitating for him than others- everyone had their own handicaps and limits- this was stretching his nerves. An ever present ringing tinnitus that once he got used to it, got his breathing and heartbeat tuned to it, changed. The pitch, the tone, the volume, the rhythm.
It was a slow, agonizing type of torture. Echoed in his head, made him grind his teeth; rattled his bones. Reminded him that he'd been abducted and wasn't safe at home, that he was trapped, that so far no one had found a way out. Was his family safe? Were his friends? Were they in similar situations? Was time moving forward at all? Were they dea--
Reading the Network hadn't helped his mental state much either. With everyone griping, the environment would get hostile quickly. He couldn't even blame them. And then Chef Guy mentioned that he'd been making his way through the booze supply, and Jean-Léon was hit with a truth he hadn't allowed himself to consider.
What if the food ran out?
He paced. He showered and dressed; tried to get more sleep, paced, worked on some tracks in his head. Made a note to do laundry. Rearranged some decorations on the shelves. But it was there, in the back of his mind. What if, what if, what if. A litany of doubt that caught up with The Noise. There hadn't been this much overwhelming hopelessness in his life for years and years. Even then, it hadn't been the same. Couldn't have been.
He needed help. Just someone to talk at for a minute. Eddi was young, he didn't want to dump this on her. Marco had his own shit he was going through. Hell, they all did. But Cecilia. Cecilia seemed to have maintained her rock steady composure this whole ride. While they hadn't talked, Jean-Léon found it comforting. From her posts on the Network to seeing her helping out the Professor, she was a balanced presence. A grounding point.
I got something I wanna run past you, he told her before he could stop himself. He took a minute to get himself together, pulled on his striped tank over the sweats from the previous day. Didn't bother to pull his hair back, just let it flop around, because really, nothing was going to hide the bags under his eyes or the pallor of his face; his obvious need of restful sleep.
A quick pit stop in the delicious-smelling kitchen and a massive plateful of cookies later, Jean-Léon popped into the theater, hoping his theory that it would block out some of the noise was right. It wasn't, but the dim lighting and muted colors made it seem more tolerable. And Cecilia was still there, just like she'd promised, which was more comforting than she probably knew. Almost instantly, he felt guilt creep in over his shoulders. How could he possibly ask her to help shoulder his internal burden? How unfair, how selfish of him.
This wasn't his best moment ever.
"We haven't actually met," he greeted her, "but I'm Jean-Léon. You can call me JD." He extended the plate toward her, offering up the baked goods. "I don't know who made these but they're pretty damn good. I won't take up much of your time, no matter how much you got."