Endearment

Chapter 13: Late

Toby's POV

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that my room was significantly cleaner than it was when I last saw it. My clothes seemed to have been folded and my towels were on the chair by the desk, somewhere I never leave them. They're usually on the floor with the rest of my mess, which, now that I've mentioned it, was no longer there. Sitting up, my headache was back, the entire reason as to why I even fell asleep in the first place. "Fuck!" I cringed a bit as my screaming didn't make it any better. Besides that, the echo in my room made my tolerable headache into an unbearable one. Rolling my eyes, I got up from my bed with my white tank still on along with my batman boxers. Going to my closet, I picked up some old joggers of mine that I haven't worn since I got here and my regular old jacket. Slipping it on, I sneezed a bit at an unfamiliar scent. "Kinda smells like cologne," I thought to myself as I put on some shoes and walked out of my bedroom. 

As much as I absolutely love creaking doors and rotting wooden floors,  the creepy noises this house always gave off I will never adjust to. Closing the door behind me, I looked around and noticed that no one was around which was really weird. "Oh shit..." Then it hit me. It was almost  8:00 am, and our training started at 7:30 am which means, oh yeah! I'm fucking screwed! "Maybe they won't notice you're half an hour late!" A voice suggested in my head. "Idiot! You've been here for almost a month and by now you should know that tall Slender-dude is fucking strict as hell!" Another voice retorted. "I know you two are only voices in my head, but could you please shut the fuck up?!" Running down the stairs as quickly as I could, I lost my footing a few times and ended up falling down the stairs. Groaning, I got up and hit the wall in frustration. My headache got worse, and I'm sure if I could feel physical pain, I'd be in a twenty times worst situation. Getting back up, I could hear voices approaching from the hall I had to go through in order to get to the training room. Out of panic of Slender coming and noticing I didn't come to training, I opened the closest door I could find and stepped in, slamming the door behind me, not knowing how cramp it was. It was a small closet to keep the brooms and such, however it felt more cramp than it should be. I jumped up when I heard muttering and something moving against my chest. Backing up, I looked down to see a very short BEN breathing heavily like he had been suffocated. 

He most likely was by me.

"Whats your fucking problem man?!" He whispered loudly as he glared at me. "I couldn't breathe!"

"Well sorry. How the fuck was I supposed to know a dwarf would be in here?"
"You watch your fucking mouth, Rogers. I ain't in the goddamn mood. Slender's looking for his usual training skippers and I happen to be one of 'em. I am not going to get caught because some proxy wannabe couldn't find a better place to hide!"
"Like I want to be here stuck in the dark with some midget! I'm trying not to get caught either,  you know. I don't know what Slender does to guys like you and I don't even know if he considers me a skipper. If he does and I get caught because you can't shut your fucking pie-hole, I'm blaming this all on you and I'll spray you with a hose!" 

BEN turned completely white and stayed quiet for a bit with some occasional mutters here and there, but for the most part was silent. After the voices had gone away from the group who were just coming back from training, BEN stuck his head out and looked in both directions before stating that the coast was clear. Running out, I ran to the kitchen where there wasn't anyone. "So, you skipped out on training?" BEN asked as he floated around. "Not like I meant to. I overslept and by the time I woke up, looks like they finished." I sat at the table and groaned, massaging my temples in hopes my headache would go away. Looking down, I noticed some scattered papers on the table with files of each Proxy of the estate. One of them being myself. Picking up my file, I noticed a lot of scribbles and tons of post it notes on it with "bad behavior" notes along with "being a late slug" comments. 

"You're not supposed to be reading those," Masky said as he snatched the files from my hands. Looking up, I saw he had a bit of blood on his mask. "Where the hell did you come from, weirdo?" 

"Training. Unlike you."
"Like that's my fault. You should've woke me up!"
"I did wake you up! I tried to at least."

"Pour water or something on me next time then, dipshit!"
"I'm not much of an asshole to do that!"
"You're an asshole for NOT doing that!" Crossing his arms an most likely rolling his eyes (Its hard to tell, you cant see his eyes through his stupid mask) he gathered all the files and organized them, setting them aside. "Listen. I'm not your baby sitter. Most of us got used to the waking up routine after only 4 days of being here and you're the only one who hasn't got a clue as to what to do after a month! Its ridiculous! I'm not looking out for you or covering for you ever so you better get used to being on your own around here. In other words, don't get caught, do your best and don't get on Slender's bad side. Then you'll be fine." Picking up his files, he grunted a bit in pain and kept on walking.

Watching him go with my bored expression from the boring lecture I just got, I noticed that his knuckles were bleeding. Due to my curiosity and ONLY my curiosity, I ran to him and picked up his hand. "Gah!" He yelled as all the papers fell from me taking his hand. "What the hell, Toby?!"

"Your knuckles. Its bleeding."

"So?"

"Looks like there's a splinter or something." Looking at it closely, I could see actually several splinters lodged into his knuckles. "Ouch. That's gotta hurt. I wouldn't know but if getting a paper cut hurts others, then having about 3 splinters deep into your knuckle must be excruciating." He only looked blankly at me and didn't say a word for a few seconds. After a minute or so, he shrugged. "...so whats that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. I don't feel that much pain. Besides, I'm pretty taken aback that you, probably the biggest asshole I've known here besides Jeff, is showing concern to the dude he loathes."

"I don't loathe you. I just greatly dislike you."

"Loathe, greatly dislike, whats the difference? Anyways, I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

"For the record, I'm not worried. I just don't want your knuckles to not get infected from it bleeding and, oh, yeah, having three major splinters lodged into your fucking knuckles because it'll slow the others down. Won't it?"

"..I guess if I can't write their reports and turn it into Slender it'll be considered delayed and they wouldn't be able to get their credit for the day..."

"Exactly. And I don't want my credit to be delayed, for one. So you should let me help you get these out and patch you up so you can go back to the lonesome nerd you are."

"Fine. But I'm not going to do you any favors back since this is something I didn't ask for and therefore I don't owe you."

"Deal. Since this is only for my selfish reasons. Not like I care for you or anything."

"Of course not. Never even crossed my mind."

~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please leave a comment! Helps me out a lot <3 Sorry for being a horrible updater, but I got my laptop so I'll be writing more often hopefully!