3:27 AM, Clef’s bedroom, three years before Kondraki’s death:
A scream rips from Clef’s throat. Kondraki is out of bed and on the floor in seconds, except the floor isn’t as flat as he remembers and the walls are squeezing in on him and the very house feels alive and hungry.
Clef is writhing on the bed, clutching his head as antlers attempt to tear through his skull. Three parallel cuts appear on his back as if an invisible paw took a swipe at him. Any thoughts Kondraki had were immediately replaced with the need to protect.
Kondraki kneels on the bed, reaching over Clef to flip on the lamp. He throws the blankets aside and takes Clef in his arms. Clef tenses and then goes limp. His breathing is heavy and sharp.
“I am telling the truth. I am telling the truth…” he mumbles between painful gasps.
“I know. I believe you.”
Clef chokes on his own snot and mucus. Kondraki holds him even as his blood soaks into his clothes and it feels like the bed is trying to eat him. Ignoring everything else around him, he rocks Clef back and forth.
Clef can’t see, can’t breathe. He’s drowning, the lake is rising, boiling. He’s running up stairs that don’t stop, don’t end, impossibly tall. He can’t breathe, water fills the house. He holds his daughter above the murky surface but it’s not enough, the water is faster than him, the house is unrelenting. It doesn’t stop it doesn’t stop it doesn’t stop it doesn’t stop-
Clef opens his three, beady eyes. He squirms, nearly smacking Kondraki with his newly formed antlers. Kondraki tries to look comforting but it comes out more panicked.
“Can you hear me?”
Clef can’t speak, can’t breathe, his mouth too full of lake water and mold. He spits up on Kondraki’s shirt. He wants to scream, to beg for mercy. He is telling the truth, he is telling the-
Carefully, with a grace he did not possess, Kondraki drags Clef from the bed and into the bathroom. Clef vomits into the toilet while Kondraki runs a washcloth under warm water and cleans up the blood. Clef can’t quite look at him, can’t quite focus on anything.
Kondraki drops to Clef's side, pressing the warm cloth into the fresh cuts on his cheek. Clef doesn’t move, too scared to. He sucks in a sharp breath as the cloth runs down his neck. He breaks out into weak sobs, just a quivering mess on his bathroom floor.
Logically speaking, he knows exactly where he is. He’s in his home, a twenty minute drive from Site-19. He’s with Kondraki. He trusts Kondraki, whatever trust means these days. He’s safe here.
At the same time, over a thousand miles away, he’s also in an abandoned house. He’s still curled under the floorboards, breathing in the mold and dust, waiting for her to find him. For a moment, the man in the floorboards woke up, and Clef felt his terror.
“Are you okay?” Kondraki asks, sounding distant.
Clef nods, still not quite able to look at him.
Kondraki takes a cup from their nightstand and fills it with water. Clef drinks it- or tries to, most of it ends up on his chest.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Clef shakes his head. He’s not sure if he even can talk right now. The antlers are gone, and the cuts are closed, if still sore. Kondraki takes Clef’s hands and Clef leans in, resting his head on Kondraki’s chest.
“Do you want to watch a movie?” Clef had a couple of movies downloaded on his laptop that he liked to watch after moments like this. He nods.
Kondraki helps Clef to his feet, supporting him on their back back to their bedroom. Kondraki wraps the blanket around them, setting the laptop between them. They watch Animal Houseand Clef lets himself forget whatever had him scared.
He watches Kondraki sink into the bed, forcing his eyes open every couple of seconds before giving up and passing out. Clef drags the back of his knuckles against Kondraki’s scratchy beard. The laptop is put away.
This feels right. Clef is safe here. He’s earned this security, nothing can take this away from him.
…
9:16 pm, Clef’s office, two hours after Kondraki’s death:
Draven finds Clef on the floor of his office, stinking of beer and vomit. There’s something so sickly familiar about this position. God, how many times did he find his own father in this exact situation? Passed out in a pool of alcohol and his own filth? It even smells like the same brand.
He drops to one knee by Clef’s side. “Clef?” Clef lets out a soft groan, curling in on himself. “Alto?” Draven says, softer, laying a hand on Clef’s side. Clef flinches. Draven scoots in closer, gently leaning on him.
“They wouldn’t let me see him,” Draven says. “I guess I don't need to see it for myself to know what happened…” He’s imagined this scenario a thousand times, he can picture his father’s corpse with photographic clarity.
Clef mumbles something.
“Hm?”
“I couldn’t save him…” Upon closer inspection, Clef is wrapped around a ratty jacket, a green butterfly wing pinched between his knuckles. His father’s jacket. Draven swallows a lump in his throat.
“It wasn't your responsibility to save him.”
Draven won’t claim to know all the intricacies of the relationship between his father and his mentor. Frankly, he doesn’t want to. But he did, over the course of several years, watch Clef go from “that ugly bastard” to “my coworker” to “Dr. Clef” to “my friend” and then finally to “Alto”. It was Clef who took care of his father when Draven wasn’t there, and for that Draven could only be grateful…
He wishes he could say he was surprised to hear that his father shot himself. But that’s not true. His father was never a stable man. This made perfect sense. Anyone could’ve seen it coming.
Draven isn’t sure what he’s feeling right now… Hungry. He’s feeling hungry. Hunger is a feeling he can understand, something he can satiate.
“Clef?… Let’s get out of here.” Draven stands and watches Clef lay there for several moments. Finally, Clef drags himself off the floor. He won’t look Draven in the eyes. Whatever, emotions to deal with later.
He loops an arm under Clef’s shoulder and they walk in unsteady tandem. Draven remembers the hushed whispers as they pass, the prying eyes, the feeling that creeps in his veins. He remembers passing by the site director’s office, catching a whiff of blood, and swallowing the vomit in his mouth.
He doesn’t remember, as he drags Clef into the parking lot, making eye contact with the site director. He doesn’t remember how the site director’s eyes fill with momentary fear. He doesn’t remember the site director walking away, tense. He doesn’t even remember who the site director is.
There’s mold growing in Clef’s sink. Draven takes the time to wash Clef’s dishes while Clef stares off into space at the table. He jumps as something brushes up against his leg. He leans down to pat L.S.’s head, getting soap on its sunken face.
He makes food, using whatever he can find in Clef’s cabinets. It’s the least he can do, in his mind. Draven knows once he’s done eating he’ll be forced to feel everything he’s choosing not to. He knows when it’s time to put his father in the ground he’ll break. He knows it’s coming. But not yet, he won’t let himself break yet.
…
12:47 am, The Bitter End, one year and seven months after Kondraki’s death:
Jonathan Tucker did not like calling the cops on people. He worked the late shift at a bar outside of town, it was practically in his job description that he is expected to deal with dangerous, intoxicated people. Still, even if it meant he would be stuck here way past closing, he’d rather exhaust all other options before that.
“Is there someone I can call for you? Someone you trust?” He asks the red faced man at the counter.
“Hehe- sure. You got a- a fucking ouija board back there?” The man laughs; it sounds like nails against a chalkboard. Tucker puts his head in his hands.
“I’m not serving you any more drinks. We’re closed. Please either leave quietly or I’ll have to call the police.”
“Call the cops! I’ll fuck ‘em up!” The man punches the air with more force than Tucker is comfortable with. Tucker is reaching for the phone when the door creaks open.
“We’re closed?” Looking back on it, Tucker can’t describe what the new stranger looks like. He looks clean, out of place in a run down place like this. Tucker almost wants to apologize for the sorry state of this place.
The clean man speaks. Tucker can’t remember exactly what he says, but he thinks that at one point he’s asked his name. The man leans over the moldy counter and writes two checks. Tucker’s stomach drops as he reads the one written for him. That’s more than triple the tips he’s received since he got this job.
“Have a good night, sir!” He waves the two men off, heart pounding in his chest.
“This is kidnapping!” The drunkard screams, “You’re letting this guy kidnap me!” Tucker ignores him. He sees this type of behavior a lot and he’s not willing to consider this situation more than he has to.
…
1:09 am, Nobody’s bedroom, three months before Nobody smashes a bottle over Clef’s head:
Nobody is lying in bed when the door creaks open. He doesn’t move, pretending to sleep. Clef creeps up next to him, closing the door behind him. Nobody can’t see the expression Clef is making, he doesn’t have to.
Clef walks around the bed and crawls under the covers, his chest to Nobody’s back. Nobody chews his lip, tearing off layers of skin. Clef is warm, a little radiator. Nobody wants to get closer, wants to hold Clef like they love each other. That’s what Clef is offering.
He can’t, though. He’s frozen to the spot. Clef can close his eyes and pretend that he’s in bed with Kondraki, but Nobody doesn’t get that privilege. He doesn’t have false love to project onto Clef. He doesn’t want to be Kondraki’s replacement.
He made a promise to keep Clef safe. That’s why he doesn’t scream when Clef gets into his bed, that’s why he doesn’t elbow him in the face as he scoots closer, that’s why he doesn’t cry as Clef snuggles up and brushes his cheek against Nobody’s neck.
Iceberg stands in the corner of the room, just out of Nobody’s vision. Nobody can feel him there. Clef holds him close and Nobody tries very hard not to feel cold.
…
8:53 pm, Nobody’s kitchen, five seconds after Nobody smashed a bottle over Clef’s head:
“Why can’t you just be good?” Gears gasps, desperation and fury crawling into his voice. “Am I not kind to you? Have I not cared for you?” He drops the bottle, letting it clang against the floor.
Clef can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t speak. Blood pours into his face. It feels good when Gears attacks him, a split moment of pure bliss. And then the moment passes and he’s just standing there, Gears red faced and panting over him.
At this moment, more than anything, Clef wants to kiss him. He wants to wrap his arms around Gears’s waist and pull him in. He needs Gears to pin him to the counter top and lock their lips while he guts him with the broken shards.
Gears storms off. A door slams. L.S. skitters into the kitchen, claws tapping against the tile. Clef just stands there, eyes locked on the place where Gears should be. His head throbs, takes a hell of a swing to break a beer bottle like that.
He drags himself from the kitchen into the bathroom just to stare at himself in the mirror. Cold water pours from the faucet, Clef forces his head under the spout. It feels nice for a moment. He tries to fix up his hair only to slice his palm on a shard. He should go to the doctor.
For a moment, he stands in front of Gears’s door. He should say something…
The cold outside air makes his head throb even more. He sits in his truck, running his fingers over the leather steering wheel. The truck sputters to life. Clef wonders how far he could get in his thing, he could stop to get gas and just go until he’s far, far, far away from this damned house.
No one at Site-19 gives him a second look. Of course, that’s just Dr. Clef, he’s always walking around soaked in blood. He sits his ass in the nurse's office and waits.
The nurse picks out each piece of glass, wraps up his head, asks him a few questions. Clef resists the urge to tell her to fuck off, he doesn’t have to explain shit, doesn’t want to either. She gives him a packet of paperwork and leaves him alone.
Slipped in between the standard paperwork is a card. Domestic Abuse Hotline. Clef almost laughs. God, what a punchline, really caught him off guard. He crumbles the card in his fist and throws it on the ground.
Even if this was domestic abuse, which it isn’t, not to him, what’s some veiled hotline gonna do for someone who legally doesn’t exist? What’s any hotline gonna do against someone like Gears? It’s just a bad joke, something to keep up appearances rather than help anyone. Clef steps on the crumpled ball on his way out.
He returns home. Home… is that what he’s calling Gears’s house now? He lets himself in, locking the door behind him. There’s a glass of water sitting on his nightstand, which he appreciates. Maybe an olive branch.
L.S. curls up in his bed as he drifts off to sleep.
…
10:56 am, Site-19, two months before Clef has a mental breakdown in front of Adams:
Clef’s drop in energy is sudden. Anyone who works with him saw it, the bags under his eyes, the weakness in his smile, the way he would start sentences and then drift off, losing his train of thought. Adams would often find him face down in his desk, completely unresponsive.
At first Adams wondered what she had done to earn this blessing. Clef no longer made his weird, sexually charged comments, no longer rambled to her for hours, no longer spoke at all. She is finally free to do what she wants.
And then the silence gets to her.
It feels wrong to walk by Clef’s side in complete silence. The coffee in his hand isn’t doing anything for him. Adams feels antsy, like a zoo animal without enrichment, pacing around her cage.
“Sir…”
He perks up. “Hm?”
“… Did you know Britain's oldest woman turned one hundred and fourteen today?”
“Why would I give a shit about that?”
“Just thought you might want to know, given your age.” A grunt, good, she continues, “She claimed her age was because of a long walk she took every night. When she was asked if she was concerned about the increase in muggings in recent years, she said that she was not, and would continue mugging people as long as her health holds out.”
Clef blinks slowly, Adams can see the cogs turning behind his eyes. A grin slowly spreads across his face. “Adams,” he says, aghast. “Did you just dad joke me?”
“Did I?”
Clef shakes his head. “I’m disappointed in you. I know you can do better than that.”
“Guess I only have a poor teacher to blame.”
“Oh you’re bad today. Okay, I’ll give you one better.” He cracks his knuckles and takes a long gulp of coffee. Adams mentally braces herself for the worst joke in human history. “So a man and his wife are at a restaurant, and the husband keeps… He keeps staring at- there’s this woman at the other end of the…”
Clef stops in his tracks. The mug slips from his hand. Adams has all of three seconds to snatch him by the shirt before he hits the ground. Arms shaking, she slowly lays him down.
“This is Agent Adams, I’m on floor twenty-four B. Dr. Clef has just collapsed. He’s unresponsive. Over,” she says into her comms device. Clef doesn’t stir. It’s uncanny seeing him like this.
“Are you serious? Alright, sending a few men your way. Did he show any signs of injury or sickness before collapsing?”
“No- well yes? Kinda?” There’s not a good way to say she’s been regularly letting him pass out at work. “He’s seemed a little sick lately, but this is the first time he’s just- dropped.”
“Understood. I’ll contact the site director, let him know what happened.”
“Okay, thank you.”
Three guards in uniform show up and lug Clef down to the hospital wing. Adams is told to return to work, but she sticks around, eavesdropping in on two nurses.
“Yeah, apparently he came in a couple weeks ago, middle of the night, glass and shit sticking out of his head. Wouldn’t tell Vesta anything. I mean what are we supposed to do? Tell a guy who kills for fun to stay out of bar fights?”
“You think a head injury could’ve knocked something loose? Gave him a stroke?”
“I doubt it. Looks to me like he just took too much sleeping medication. Same thing kept happening a couple years ago when the Foundation was prescribing everyone those amnestics. Besides, I think a brain injury might improve his health.”
The nurses go silent as Clef drags himself out of the hospital room. His face is pulled in a tight scowl.
“Hey! You can’t just leave!”
Clef flips her off and storms out. Adams catches him in the hallway.
“What’s up with you! You- you freaked me out back there.”
Clef bears his teeth. His cheeks are red, that flush spreading up to his ears. He opens his mouth, as if to speak, only to close it, grind his teeth, and push her out of the way. Adam trails him to his office.
“So you’re just not going to talk to me? What’s going on with you?”
He sits at his desk and puts his head in his hands. His entire demeanor shifts. Adams blinks and for a moment she thinks she’s talking to a whole different person. Clef sucks in an audible, shuddering gasp.
“What’s wrong with you?” She meant it to come out a little firmer than that.
He shakes his head.
“Are you really not going to talk to me?”
No response. Adams chews on her nail.
“Is it that you won’t talk to me or can’t?”
Clef slowly drags a pad of sticky notes across the desk and scribbles down can’t. Adams sits down, twitching with nervous energy.
“Okay then… Why not?”
A shrug.
“You don’t know?”
Another shrug.
“Does this happen often?”
Clef thinks for a moment before writing: It’s not supposed to.
Alright, okay, so your boss has passed out and is now nonverbal at work. They don’t put these types of situations in the training booklets.
“Can I… help you?”
Just shut up about it. Don’t tell anyone.
“Fine. Fuck me for giving a shit about you.”
Clef grips his pen and scribbles something, and just as quickly scratches it out. He puts his head on his desk and huffs. He looks like an old dog.
Then, something else enters. Adams can’t remember who, but Clef straightens up in his seat and Adams follows suit. She remembers feeling afraid, and that’s not something she’s accustomed to.
The person says a few words, asks a few questions, Clef responds with nothing. He looks defeated, and Adams thinks this is something she’s not supposed to see. Even when the person leaves, the tension in his features remains.
They don’t talk about it. There’s nothing to talk about at all.
…
7:35 am, Clef’s office, two days after Clef had a mental breakdown in front of Adams:
Adams can forget about what happened. Clef doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being a stable person; it was only a matter of time until this place got to him in a way she could see.
When he returns from work, two days after locking her in a closet and talking to… seemingly Nobody, she’s ready to brush it under the carpet. Everyone’s boss starts screaming at the walls occasionally, water under the bridge.
That’s until Clef’s apologizes.
“I’m sorry,” he says, looking her right in the eyes, “that you had to see what happened the other night. Wasn’t in my right mind.”
There’s no joke, no prank, no code, nothing she could expect from Clef. Just a soft, genuine apology, and he moves on with his work.
That’s when Adams realizes something is horribly wrong.
But what can she do about it?
…
12:37 am, Site-19, three hours before the incident:
“Kondraki!”
Draven jolts awake. He’s in the back of a helicopter, which is now on a landing pad behind Site-19. He gathers up his bag and MTF helmet and steps off, thanking the pilot as he leaves.
It’s been a long time since he’s been to Site-19, a couple of months at least, maybe a year. He hasn’t been back since the site director transferred him away… who is the site director anyway?
Despite the time, Draven finds his way to his old dorm with muscle memory. He sets his stuff down on the stiff cot and slides his phone out of his pocket. It’s the middle of the night and his last message is still unread, but he texts Clef anyway.
After his father’s death, Draven spoke to Clef a lot. It was nice, not having to mourn by himself. And when Draven was transferred out, they tried to call or text everyday.
And then Clef stopped answering calls. He rarely responded to messages, usually only at sporadic times and never answering Draven’s questions. Draven, to his horror, felt another important person slipping from his grasp.
This time of year is difficult for Clef, Draven knows that even if, like most things, he doesn’t know the full context. Offering Clef some support is the least Draven can do for him.
Draven lays down on the mold stained sheets and stares at the ceiling. He’s not getting any sleep, is he? Damn.
He stands, spending an hour tidying up the dorm. Even if he won’t be here long, the next person will appreciate the effort. Then he makes his way down to the cafeteria, making light conversation with the other night shift workers. Feels like home.
Eventually, the boredom hits. He still hasn’t gotten a response on any of his messages. It would definitely be rude to just show up at Clef’s house at this hour, but in Draven’s defense, he did try to warn him. If he still has a key to Clef’s house he can just let himself in, because that’ll go down well.
“Can I borrow a car? Or a bike?” Draven asks, eyeing up the lot of Foundation vehicles.
“Where the hell do you wanna go at this hour?”
“If you need to know, I want to visit Dr. Clef.”
“You know you could just- walk over there, right?”
“Huh?”
“He lives just over- what the fuck?”
Draven turns around just in time to see a house shoot up into the sky. A great tower twisting upwards.
…
3:24 am, Site-19, Secure humanoid containment cell, three minutes before the incident:
SCP-166 shoots out of bed, pure terror racking through her body. She hunches over the side of her bed and hacks up filthy water. She stands up, knocking her bible onto the ground with a thump.
Something is wrong. She can’t name what, only that the feeling of wrongness is too much. Her legs tremble and something warm drips down her face. She drags herself to the wooden door of her containment cell and throws herself against it.
Her head throbs. She’s never had too much trouble with her antlers, but at this moment they feel so heavy. She jams them into the wall, tearing up the old wood. Something is pulling on her, she could really feel it now, and it’s agonizing.
Two figures in protective suits burst in. They speak to her, but she can’t make out a word over the blood rushing in her ears. They yank her out of the wall, boards and splinters tearing over with her.
Thick mold oozes out of the wall, it makes her dizzy and nauseous. The mold is in her, has always been in her. Growing and festering under her skin since her father dragged her, screaming, out of their house. Except, of course, there’s no mold in the Foundation’s walls, and the guards are shouting at her.
“What’s gotten into you!?”
She can’t speak, lake water and mold pouring from her lips. Don't they see it? Don’t they see the mold that’s growing between the cracks in the wall? It’s growing in them too, she can feel it, it’s settled deeply in their veins. How can they pretend to be okay with that?
In the distance, Nobody wakes up to the feeling of blood dripping from the ceiling. SCP-166 passes out.
…
???, Clef’s home, a kinder universe:
They’re in Clef’s kitchen, Gears’s face illuminated by the soft, warm light of a few scented candles. He looks good, better than good, he looks healthy. No longer the closed off, painfully skinny, lonely man Clef fell for oh so long ago.
Gears twirls a knife in his hand and with precise, practiced motions, cuts a bag of onions into even slices, and then those slices into even squares. He slides a cold bottle of Sherry towards Clef, something to deglaze the pan before they caramelize the onions. Clef pops off the cap and puts the bottle to his lips, savoring the sweetly sticky drink. Gears sighs, fondly.
“Please take care to not cook drunk,” he requests softly.
Clef laughs. “Right, right. Got a little ahead of myself there. Good thing I did, though. Way too sweet for this dish. I mean try it.” He holds to bottle up, jamming it into Gears’s face. Hesitantly, Gears takes a sip, letting Clef tip the bottle into his mouth. He lets it rest on his tongue for a moment.
“You’re right, far too sweet. Would be more fitting for a dessert.” He slides his tongue across his teeth.
Clef waves a finger at him. “See? This is why you taste a little bit of everything.”
“Apologies for grabbing the wrong wine.”
“Don’t apologize to me, you know I don’t like that. Besides, we can always run and get another bottle. No harm, no foul.”
“It’s a bit cold out… Are you sure you want to head out at this hour?”
Clef looks out the window. It is getting dark out, a thin layer of snow on the ground. He looks at Kondraki’s- at his coat hanging up next to the door. “I’m sure I could… get someone to deliver it here. Hold on.”
While Clef works on ordering a new bottle, Gears makes a beef broth for the soup. The broth is made completely from scratch, of course. Clef can’t help but be captivated as Gears works. To think, only a few months ago, it was Gears marveling as Clef showed him how a similar, smaller batch he made turned completely solid and almost gelatinous when chilled, a proper bone broth.
You’re beautiful, Clef doesn’t say, but he thinks it. He thinks it as a smile pulls on Gears’s lips, an absent, unconscious little motion. His mind elsewhere as he stirs spices into the broth. It smells great. Clef stands uselessly, leaning against the counter, only watching while Gears works.
So lost in thought, Clef doesn’t realize how much time passes until there’s a knock on the door. He shows his ID to the delivery boy, returning to the kitchen with a bit of frost on his hat, a fresh bottle of Sherry, dark chocolate, and strawberries. The too-sweet Sherry will go well with that, he thinks.
With the fresh bottle, Clef begins to caramelize the onions. Gears flips through a cookbook. It’s not one Clef bought him.
“‘S that new?”
“Hm? Oh this, yes it’s new. I saw it at the store this morning while shopping.” Gears runs his fingers along the smooth, unblemished pages. “I haven't gotten a chance to read through it in its entirety, but it’s quite fascinating. It discusses much of the science behind cooking!” Gears slides easily into discussion. Clef nods along, even if he’s not quite sure what a centrifuge is or what it has to do with cooking.
The onions join the broth. Gears slices up a baguette, slathering each piece in butter and herbs, lining those up on a tray for the oven. Clef sorts through his fridge for the gruyère cheese. Took him ages to find a quality block.
“Why don’t you just grab a different type of cheese?” Lament asked when Clef was complaining about this exact thing to Gears. Clef was about to tear Lament a new one when Gears caught both of them off guard, standing up for Clef’s honor.
“Every type of cheese is different in both make-up, texture, and flavor. Simply attempting to swap one cheese for another could throw off an entire dish.” He said it in his usual calm, flat voice, but Clef could see the light in his eyes. The passion growing inside of him. He looked so alive, he looks so alive right now.
Gears sips the soup out of a ladle- it’s the blue one Clef bought because it looks like a dinosaur. Gears reaches into the spice cabinet for the thyme, his sweater rides up a bit. Clef nearly slices his hand open on the cheese grater when he catches a glimpse of Gears’s stomach.
Clef ladles the soup into ramekins, and tops it with one of the toasted crostini and a heap of freshly shredded gruyère. They set it in the oven to broil, and watch intently as the cheese bubbles, blisters, and browns. Clef removes it with an oven glove.
They sit across from each other and eat. It’s comfortable, nearly silent. The only sound being Clef’s slurping and Gears’s soft hums of content. It’s perfect, not just the soup but this. Gears is perfect.
Once they finish, Gears gathers up the dishes for the sink. He decides he can wash those later, Clef is waiting for him on the couch, putting on a show for the both of them. Clef pours two glasses of the too-sweet Sherry and they toast to each other.
Clef is so very happy he invited Gears into his house- no, not just his house, his home, his life. He’s so captivated by Gears, by how far they’ve come to reach this point, that Clef doesn’t even notice what day it is. Well… no point in reminding himself now, he’s earned a good night.
The chocolate covered strawberries are perfect with the Sherry. Clef holds one out for Gears, and Gears, perhaps a little drunker than he intended to be, leans in and takes it with his teeth. Clef shudders as Gears’s lips brush against his fingers.
He mumbles something.
“What was that?” Gears is smiling. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it. He washes down the chocolate and licks his lips and smiles and it all feels and looks so natural. Clef forgets how to think.
“I love you,” he says. “I love you,” he repeats because it didn’t sound right the first time. “I love you.” No, that isn’t right either. It’s just not enough to convey what’s boiling inside of him.“I. I love you. I-”
Gears presses a finger to Clef’s lips before he can spiral further. “I heard you. I know.”
Gears once wondered if he’d ever understand Clef fully. Clef looks at him with wonder in his eyes, such a love he wasn’t sure what he did to deserve. He realizes, in this moment, that he’s not afraid of Clef anymore, of not understanding Clef’s inscrutable nature. It was no longer a glassy river surface, cracking beneath his feet, waiting to swallow him up. It was… well, he doesn't know what it is, but he knows it loves him.
“I love you too,” he says, breathlessly. Clef’s relaxes, melting.
Gears rests his head on Clef’s shoulder, and Clef wraps his arm around his waist. They’ve earned this peace.
…
3:30 am, Nobody’s house, during the incident:
Alison Chao walks around her father’s house three times, making note of every window, every wall, every crack in the foundations. Anything she can gleen from observation would help her. A sensor in her hand starts wailing, the hume levels are getting out of control. She can see movement in the second story window, and she can hear the yowl of a cat.
The door is locked, obviously, but there’s infinite Ways into a house, especially one like this. Alison presses her body up against the door, takes in a deep breath, and closes her eyes.
It’s dark inside, her flashlight doesn’t light up the space in front of her, almost like there’s a black veil before her, blocking out her vision. The floor creaks under foot. It’s cold too, her breath turns into vapor. This place feels alive and scared.
“Can you help me? I’m lost. I think my father’s here.”
“He’s upstairs.”
Alison’s heart skips a beat. It’s him. He who Alison has crawled through every tiny crack in the universe to find. He’s right within Alison’s grasp, she could practically brush her fingers against him.
Her legs shake as she forces herself deeper into the house. Whatever lives within the walls of this place is more intense than anything she’s ever encountered, at least this closely. He’s not safe here, hell, she’s not even safe here, this place isn’t safe here.
She drags her hand across the wall, using it as an anchor. The wall feels slick and sticky, for her own health she doesn’t shine her light at it. Something crunches under her foot. A glowstick?
Her fingers find a smooth countertop. Her father was here, just moments before. Her light does little to illuminate her surroundings, but it does help her notice where the counter opens up into another room. Distant voices echo towards her. She crawls over the counter and into-
Pure white.
Her eyes burn from the sudden contrast. Her thin coat is useless against the snow, and pulling her hat over her ears doesn’t block out the roar of the wind. Snow… why is there snow here? Wherever this is, it’s angry, and its fury pours out like an open wound.
She drops her flashlight, it wasn’t doing her much good anyway. Her aching fingers twitch towards her reality anchor. Not yet, she commands herself, not until she gets closer.
A gunshot pierces through the air. Alison stumbles against the winds and drops to her knees. Distantly, she can make out the figure of a man. She wants to scream for him, but her lips are sealed shut.
The figure moves away from her and suddenly the cold means nothing. She charges forward, gracelessly. Something, or more aptly, someone is lying on the stairs. Her father is just within her grasp.
She freezes. He’s looking right at her. He can’t see her, of course, but his eyes are trained on the exact spot she stands. She doesn’t dare to move, even as the frost creeps up her skin and around her veins. He looks… scared. As he travels up the stairwell, out of view, the blizzard stops, all at once.
Alison doesn’t recognize the body on the staircase. He looks dead, but he also looks like there was never much life in him in the first place. As Alison stands there, lost in a sort of trance, his body shimmers and melts, disappearing into the cracks between the floorboards. She blinks, and she’s standing in the middle of the living room.
There’s a centerpoint to this hole in reality, and it’s moving away from her, towards her father, or, perhaps with her father. She brushes the last, crumbling bits of frost off her coat and takes the first step.
The stairs go up, and then they go up, and then they continue to go up. Even when she’s sure she’s reached the next floor, they go up. When she’s sure she’s reached well over the height of the house, they go up. The walls groan, the steps creak, and the stairs go up.
Alison could try and count the steps, which are going up, but she loses track of the numbers. Her mind is focused on what’s waiting for her on the top of these ever upward steps. She’s going to get her father out, guide him down the twisting stairwell. She’s going to win.
“You thought if you sent me away I wouldn’t find out what you did? You were terrified of me, the perfect token of your guilt, of the promise you failed to keep.”
A moment's pause, followed by a weak sigh. “I did not kill your father.”
She’s close, so close, but something’s wrong.
“Yes you did. You may not have put a bullet through his head, but he’s gone because of you. You couldn’t stand to look at me, couldn’t risk that I would pick up on the mold that’s settled in your stomach.”
Alison starts running. Her body aches with the effort, her lungs burning with every breath. She takes off her hat, stuffs it in her pocket, and plucks out her reality anchor. It’s warm in her hands.
“I know what you’ve done. You can try and try and try to run and hide, but I know. And you know I know, you know I hate you for what you did. You know that one day, I’ll walk into your office and do this-”
There’s a man on the stairs, or, at least there’s something in the shape of a man on the stairs. It- he presses a gun to her father’s forehead. Alison activates her reality anchor. It feels like the ground has disappeared under her feet. She stumbles, pushing through the nausea, damn near slamming her full weight into her father.
“Dad-!” Oh god, oh god, it’s really him. He feels real under her fingers. She doesn’t have the time or the words to say what she needs to say to him. “-we have to get out of here!”
“No. No! Leave me alone!” His voice sounds wrong, weak and desperate. She can see the white of his bloodshot eyes. “Just go away!” Alison bites her lip until it bleeds.
“This place is too dangerous. I know there’s someone you care about in there but you can’t help him! Please, just come with me! My reality anchor is only so strong.” The small, handheld anchor pulses in her hands, like a heartbeat.
She grabs him, sinking her fingers into his forearm. She’s prepared for this, prepared to drag him kicking and screaming out of the gaping maw that snatched him from her in the first place. She didn’t prepare for the stairs to be so slick, or for him to be so willing to shove her.
If she thought the feeling of activating the anchor was nauseating then there was no way she would ever be prepared for the fall. It wasn’t like falling down the stairs, it was more like falling down a pit. You fall, and you fall, and there’s nothing to grab onto, not a sign that there’s ever going to be a bottom, that anything will ever catch you
You just keep going
D
O
W
N.
And then the ground crashes into her.
…
4:17 am, Nobody’s house, the extraction:
During this time of year, most people would chalk up Clef's increased irritability to any number of things. Clef was just an asshole, there was no point in psychoanalyzing his ever changing mood.
Draven didn’t have the same privilege of avoiding Clef whenever his mood spiked. If Draven wasn’t personally doing field training with Clef, Clef was in his home, pretending like he wasn’t madly in love with Draven’s father. Clef was an important, if only a consistent, figure for the last quarter of Draven’s life, and so Draven became intimately aware of the highs and lows of Clef’s mental state, and what to do about it.
That's why Draven was first to kick down the door to Clef’s house. He has to be first. He has to be there for a Clef
A corpse lies in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs. No, not a corpse, not yet, she’s still breathing. Not Draven's problem.
Clef’s upstairs. Draven’s been around him long enough to recognize this feeling. The hazy pressure of reality shifting slightly to the right. Ignoring the shouts from his fellow soldiers, Draven practically leaps over the body to get up the stairs. He has to be the one to get there first, there’s no telling what the others might do if he doesn’t.
Shoot first, ask questions later, one of Clef’s favorite things to drill into his student’s little heads. Well Draven has a lot of questions right now, and he’s not going to shoot his mentor. Not Clef, he can’t lose Clef.
He bursts through the door, using more force than he needs to. The thick, copper stench of blood clogs up his nose. He’s long past the point of being bothered by blood, but seeing it splattered across the walls and seeping out of Clef’s closed eyes leaves him nauseous. Draven should’ve prevented this, should’ve come in sooner, should’ve tried a little harder before he went a blew his fucking brains out-
Draven snaps himself back into focus. Clef is alive. Heavily injured, but alive. The Foundation will fix this, just get him out of here. The Foundation will fix this. He repeats those words over and over in his mind as he worms his arms under Clef’s and hoists him out of bed. Fix Clef, fix Clef, fix Clef, fix dad, fix dad, fix-
Clef’s antlers block half of Draven’s vision, and the sound Clef makes as he is dragged out of bed… will haunt Draven’s nightmares for the rest of his life, or at least until the Foundation amnestizes him.
As he settles into autopilot, Draven has to ask where he went wrong. How did this happen without Draven noticing? It’s not fair. None of this is fair.
…
4:36 am, the long stretch between a house and a home:
Alison wakes up to the feeling of a wet, sandpapery tongue dragging across her cheek. She opens her eyes for all of two seconds before they fall closed. Her anchor pulses near her head, and consciousness evades her.
The second time she wakes up she’s moving. It’s slow, but her body aches so much it feels agonizing. There’s some talking, but it’s all muffled. One blurry person stays next to her while the rest of the blurry figures run up the stairs. Someone says something that might be directed at her. They never get an answer.
The third time she wakes up it’s to the yowl of a cat. She opens her eyes in time to see the person in uniform snatch up a cat off her chest. It digs its claws into her chest and screams as it is lifted away.
“None of that now,” the guard says, turning his back to Alison. She stands up, using the wall as a crutch. Her head throbs, every movement sending a white hot stab of pain through her head and down her spine.
The cat squirms out of the guard’s arms, hits the ground face first and scampers out of the open door. The guard spins around, too focused on the cat to immediately notice that Alison is on her feet. They make extended eye contact, a beat passes, and Alison bolts out the door.
From the perspective of the guard, he picked up a cat that seemed tempted to eat a heavily concussed woman, dropped it, and watched said heavily concussed woman bolt out the door and disappear from view. He would have run after her, but the rest of his teammates come down the stairs with a screaming, bloodied man, and she quickly becomes his last priority.
Alison’s perspective is similar, but as she gets her hat on, she loses feeling in her legs and collapses in a field across the street from her father’s house. She’s had hundreds of injuries, fucked up a thousand times across a thousand universes, but this one hurts the most.
That cat is nearby, rolling around the grass. Alison forces herself back to her feet and stalks toward it. It perks up- likely just due to the noise, it shouldn’t be able to see her.
… shouldn’t be able to.
The cat runs. Alison runs too. She doesn’t know if she’s running after the cat or away from Site-19. Neither direction is safe, but if she stops and thinks for too long she might not get up again.
It feels like he runs for hours, and she just might have, her body fueled by pure adrenaline. The cat leaps through brambles and brushes with about as much grace as she does. Site-19, her father’s house, everything disappears from her view, replaced by a loved cabin.
She stops, making an active effort not to feel the weight of her body. The cat squirms into the cabin through a cracked window. She goes up the three steps and stands on the patio. The door creaks open without trouble. The house is empty, just a thin layer of dust covering its baren walls and floors.
This place feels loved. It’s a warm feeling that seeps in and soothes her aching body. It also feels sad and abandoned. A place like this can’t possibly understand why it’s been left alone for so long.
In the center of this room there’s a displaced floorboard. She approaches, drops to her knees, and pushes it aside. There’s a hole under the house, big enough for a full grown man, occupied by a fat, old cat. The poor thing looks filthy, covered in dried blood, dust, mold, and cobwebs. It looks at her, spit dripping out of its mouth, two different colored eyes seeing her despite her hat.
She laughs. She’s not sure what sparks it. Maybe it’s because she just noticed the hole in her own mind. She’s spent enough time in the anomalous community to recognize that something’s been taken from her, snatched right out of her psyche.
“I was so close,” she says to the empty air. “So close to… So close… So fucking close…” She sinks to the floor, breathing in the dust and mold, and laughs.
She drags herself into the hole and pulls the board over on top.
…
4:58 am, a lake in Cornwall, England:
A fish swims in slow, aimless circles, unbothered by the rising waters.
…
8:12 am, Site-19, four hours after the incident:
Clef isn’t in his office by the time Adams comes in. That’s normal, he’s missed plenty of days and Adams is used to doing work on her own. It was the site director’s job to get onto him for that, not hers.
What isn’t normal, is the group of armed guards and researchers poking around the cramped space. Did she miss an email?
“What’s going on here? Where’s Clef?”
A nerdy little man approaches her. “Ah, Agent Adams. You’ll find Clef in Humanoid Containment. I would suggest you hurry on.”
Humanoid containment? Must be some new, poor soul looking to worm their way onto Alpha-9. Seems like something Clef should have discussed with her beforehand, but, well, it is Clef.
It doesn’t take a genius to put together that Clef isn’t as human as he’d like people to believe. Even knowing that couldn’t have prepared Adams for the state of things in High Security Humanoid Containment.
The cell is way too small, for one. That’s the first thing Adams becomes viscerally aware of. It’s cramped, claustrophobic, just a miserable little mattress in the corner where a lump in the shape of Clef lays. He’s still, eyes closed, face devoid of any of Clef’s mannerisms.
He looks dead.
Even when she gets close enough to see the slow rise and fall of his chest, she can’t shake the feeling of looking at a corpse. It’s almost the opposite of uncanny, this is no longer the false caricature of a man, this is real. The realest she’s ever seen him.
“Dr. Clef?” She feels like a child calling out his name; he’s clearly unconscious. It’s more of a reassurance for herself. Yes, this is doctor Clef I am looking at.
“I wouldn’t get too close.” Adams jumps out of her skin. She was so deep in her head she forgot she wasn’t alone in here. A miserable looking boy sits in the corner opposite of Clef. He’s got bags under his eyes and the general vibe of someone who’s way too young to be in this position.
“What happened?”
He shrugs. “Complicated.”
“Complicated?”
“I don’t know, okay?” He huffs like a dog and slumps back in the corner. “You’re Agent Adams, right?”
“Yeah?”
“He talks about you sometimes. Only good things, I promise.” His eyes twitch, a tight, professional smile on his face. He’s not here as a guard, he’s here as a friend.
“And who are you?” He seems familiar, but Adams is terrible at putting names to faces.
“Oh- Kondraki,” he winces, “Draven Kondraki. Agent- ahem.”
“Oh! I knew your father.” Knew being a very strong word, but met once doesn’t roll off the tongue as well. Another wince, his poker face is horrible today.
“A lot of people did…” he looks ready to fold in on himself when his eyes suddenly widen. Adams turns in time to see Clef’s antlers scrap against the wall.
He howls. That’s the only word to describe this noise. The walls shudder and creak as grass and flowers force their way between the floor tiles. Vines and flowers coil around the security cameras and Clef’s antlers. Adams hunches over as a coughing fit overtakes her, flower petals spray out of her mouth.
There was one assignment Adams had before she was assigned as Clef’s assistant and her fate was sealed. She visited a house, in the middle of Cornwall, England. It was incredibly brief, two days if even that, and something that just as quickly faded from memory. But, at this moment, as her lungs fill with vines and plant matter, she’s standing in a dusty old bedroom, propped up on tiptoes, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the manifestation in the surrounding waters over the shoulders of the researcher in her way.
There’s a tiny figure in the lake, made even smaller by the tall woman beside them. And as Adams’s vision blurs and she falls to her knees, all she can think is: it’s him.
But, of course now isn’t the time for reminiscing.
When the reality anchors come on Adams hits the ground before Clef does. Draven darts past her to grab Clef. Clef vomits, gray water spilling from his lips. Adams reaches into the back of her mouth to yank out a chain of lilies.
What the fuck was that about?
Clef sobs, heavy, disgusting heaves. His lips move but he can’t form any words.
Adams pulls herself together and scoots to Clef’s other side. Clef’s eyes between her and Draven. He squirms, his antler leaving a thin scratch across Draven’s cheek. Adams backs off, instructing Draven to do the same.
Something’s different about Clef, besides the obvious. It’s hard to describe, but it reminds Adams of several months ago when Clef passed out in the middle of the hallway. This isn’t Clef, not entirely.
Clef wheezes, clawing at his throat and chest, leaving red lines across his skin. They both grab a wrist before he can damage himself.
“Breathe!” Adams commands, rather dumbly.
Clef looks at her for a long time before promptly passing out. They lay him on the sad slab the Foundation calls a bed. Neither says a word.
Adams and Draven spend the next two days in that tiny, soundproof cell.
…
8:46 am, Humanoid Containment, two days after the incident:
Clef stares at the antlers on the ground, expression unreadable. Adams wants to tear into him, but she’s tired. Everyone’s tired. A metal tray sits in between the three of them. Three syringes, three doses of amnestics.
“Are you fucking serious?” Adams isn’t sure who she’s asking. “This is- bullshit!”
Clef tsks. He looks like shit, not that Adams has any right to say that. “Site director’s orders,” some of the first noises that have come from him that aren’t pained whimpers.
“Let’s just get this over with, okay?” Draven picks up his syringe, as does Clef.
They both stare at her.
“I want to know why this is necessary. What about all the others observing us? Why does he have to take it too, huh?” She gestures to Clef.
“Adams.” The weakness in his voice makes Adams sick to her stomach. Where’s the force? The bite? Instead, all she gets is shame. This isn’t how she wants to remember him.
She takes her syringe. Clef waits to stick himself for both of them to finish.
He may get to forget the worst few nights of his life, but he doesn’t get the same benefit of forgetting everything. Even as the amnestics course through his veins, he knows nothing’s going back to normal.
…
7:20 pm, Kain “Pathos” Crow’s office, four months after the incident:
Kain is a very lucky man, if it's right to still describe him as such. He is lucky that, in spite of his situation, and the numerous problems he’s created for the Foundation, that he’s still useful enough to be kept alive.
His old bones don’t move as well as they used to. For all the intelligence he has, he never could put himself back together properly. Something he’s learned to live with, and will soon learn to die with.
There’s another person in his office. His body may be frail, but his senses are just as strong as they’ve always been. No, it wouldn’t be right to say there’s someone else in his office. There’s a space where a person should be.
This absence comes and goes. Kain can always tell when it’s left recently. The office will be a little cleaner, the many machines he’s made to keep himself going will be freshly oiled, and he’ll feel a pit in his stomach and a hole in his mind. A place where something should be, but of course isn’t, and will never be again.
One day, when he’s particularly aware of his surroundings, he catches the absence before it disappears.
“Thank you,” he says, “You’ve always been very helpful to me, even though I’m not the man, or dog, that I used to be. I wish I knew who you were. I think I’m supposed to.”
The lack of a person hovers before the doorway. “Me…? Oh, I'm really Nobody of note.”
Kain knows words have been spoken to him, until he doesn’t.
…
10:09 pm, O5-1’s office, one year after the incident:
“Quarterly report from Site-19, sir.”
Founder sighs. “Put it on my desk.” What was the point of all these blasted computers if they were going to keep printing out reports for every site?
The nameless factotum places the report on his desk. She pauses, brushing her fingers over the top page. She usually took care not to look too closely at anything meant for her Founder, but something caught her eye.
“Founder, sir?”
“Hm?” He grunts, casting his sharp eyes on her. She shrinks.
“Who is the Director of Site-19?”
He squints, eyebrows furrowed, and when he fails to produce a name he grunts and slams his fist against the table. “It’s not my responsibility to keep track of every employee here!”
She swallows a lump in her throat. “I just wanted to ask because there’s a name here- right here, but I can’t quite… read it?” The longer she stares at it the less sense it makes in her mind.
“Did I tell you to read my reports?”
She steels herself, standing up straight. “No sir. No, I’m sorry sir, you’re right, I shouldn’t have.” She quickly backs out of Founder's office, mentally punching herself. She’s worked here longer than most people have been alive, she should know better than this.
Founder shakes his head as she leaves, lips tightly pursed. Slowly, almost like he didn’t intend to, he drops his pen and grabs the report. He looks at the dotted line where the site director’s name should be.
There’s a hole in his mind, but why should he care if Nobody runs Site-19? As long as everything else is in order, it’s not his problem.
…
5:17 pm, house in the woods, ten years before the world ends:
A man steps out of his home and sits on a creaky rocking chair. He’s got a knife in one hand and a small loaf of bread in the other. He slices off the moldy crust and tears the bread apart with his fingers.
It’s late, at least it feels late. The sun is sinking, painting the trees gold and red. He’s tired. He barely sleeps these days, so every waking moment feels like he’s ready to go back to bed.
His appearance has changed a lot in the past couple of years. His hair is especially long, nearly reaching his hips. He’s long since given up on keeping it clean. His clothes are ratty, not exactly a washing machine down here, meaning he either has to steal clean clothes or make them. Though, he hasn’t quite starved off his beer belly.
A shotgun leans up against the wall next to him, probably the most well cared for thing he has anymore. Underneath the porch there’s a jar full of dead butterflies, buried in the ground. He wishes they could’ve had a better burial, but he has more important things to regret.
He feels a hole tear in his mind. He won’t realize the hole is there, but he feels its presence. There’s a reason he’s sitting out here instead of in a box, a person who helped him out. He remembers a person there, remembers how they helped him, but for the life of him he can not put a face to these memories.
He remembers Clef, the last words he said to Clef, and his stomach aches. There’s a mold settled inside of him, it’s been there for years, dormant but alive.
It begins to stir.