Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sometimes he doesn't get what he wants.

He wants many things and only some of them get approved. He wants to be normal, he wants the random switching to stop, he wants the nightmares of the smiling man to stop.
Sometimes when it's the middle of the night and he knows that soon he will find himself in some strange, unknown world again he wants to be back at the asylum. Wants the Doctors to tell him it's all just in his head.
Wants to be crazy. Wants the things he sees to be nothing but cruel tricks his mind plays on him.

But those moments pass like the morning hours and when he goes to get breakfast he hates himself for even thinking about it.

He wants many things and he knows that he will always just get some of them. Right, now he wants to die. Lying on the floor, hands pressed against his ears, tears running over his check he just wants it to end. He doesn't know how long he has been here. Doesn't really care anymore.

The screaming had stopped at one point but he could still hear it. Echoing in his head. Echoing in his small room.
Echoing, echoing, echoing...
He sobs loudly, presses his hands harder against his ears.

“SCP-507. 507. Can you hear me?”
The voice is like a lighthouse in thick fog. He knows it, remembers it, had answered its question after each trip.
And sometimes the voice gets him things approved. The plants' screams echo in his head and it's the middle of the day and he wants to be a crazy and be at the asylum and he wants to die.
He doesn't get what he wants.

"Can I... can I have a hug, please?" He forces it out between two sobs, not caring how it will look like, how it might be taken.
He doesn't want many things. He wants one thing.

Hands close around him and pull him closer to another warm body and he buries his face against a white-clad shoulder until the shaking and the echoes of the screams stop.

Sometimes he gets what he wants.

Chapter Text

“Now, now Maxwell, there is no reason to become angry.”
“We are not angry! We merely do not want to elaborate on the topic.”
“Geez talk about sensitive. Really what's with men and relationships.”
“This has nothing to do with our gender. And now leave us be.”
“Alright, alright. You know I've been married.”
“We do not care about this conversation round one.”
“Joshua, you know. That was his name. He died five years before I made the contract.”
“...”
“I thought this would be a great deal. Husband gone, family all over the world, no cats. Never quite liked them, especially not now. I hope they stop trying to climb us after the thing you did with your roots, Maxwell. Quite impressive I have to say.
“A great deal was the reason for this imprisonment?”
“Ah, yes, where was I going with this again... oh right. You see I thought I'd get a few years, maybe two or three just trying out something different and then I'd go and see my Joshua. Now, he did never believe in an afterlife which I tell you is quite particular for a priest, but I always told him “Joshua,” I said “Joshua you had me this long, don't you think that you'll be safe from me in death.”
“...”
“It made him laugh. You know he laughed a lot. Always told terrible jokes, and really they were terrible, but when he laughed I had to laugh too.”
“...”
“It will take a little longer now until I can see him.”
“...what caused this assumption?”
“Trees get old. Very old. I mean on one hand it's a huge opportunity. We'll get to see how the world changes! Maybe even make some new friends, if you'd stop being mean to the squirrels, seriously Maxwell, they just were curios. But you know... it will be a long time. Our Jane is forty-three and Chloe is just four. Well actually she is not four anymore. I tend to forget that. How long has it been Maxwell?”
“Three seconds, twenty-two minutes, fourteen hours, eight days, seven months and one-hundred-thirty-three years.”
“Ah yes, your quite good with time so anyway Chloe is not four anymore she is one-hundred-thirty-seve... oh...”
“What made the round silent?”
“She is not one-hundred-thirty-seven right now.”
“We do not know how long the average human life span is.”
“Not that long. I mean if she has eaten healthy, though I doubt it since Chloe has always been a sweet-tooth, but still she could still be... you have ever heard the idiom “grasping at straws” Maxwell?”
“As hard as we try to keep every single detail of our conversation in mind, this has escaped it.”
“It's not important I guess. It's just what I'm doing right now. Grasping at straws.”
“...”
“You've ever felt lonely Maxwell?”
“It's hard, next to you.”
“Oh, you're getting cheeky at your old days Maxwell. I like it.”
“We cared about our people. Back then. Back when we were whole. It's been so long.”
“...yes it has.”
“...the sun still feels nice.”
“Yes. It does.”
“...”
“Did I tell you about that time our Jane found a snake in the attic?”

Chapter Text

The man turned around. “And who are you?” he asked, with a smokey voice. “I could ask you the sam
Now, that's interesting, says an amused voice though given the fact that those are just words it's kind of hard for an amused voice to say something, don't you think?
What the... who are you?!
Shouldn't that be obvious? The amused voice continues and the body, an extremely good looking body I might add, that belongs to the voice sits down on a very comfy chair next to a fireplace.
...the fireplace suddenly extinguishes and it gets cold.
That's not very nice, you know! The amused voice is not longer very amused. It is in fact slightly irritated now. Also kind of cold.
The fire turns on again?
Yes, yes it does. In fact it turns on again with a loud woosh and suddenly out of nowhere a glass of wine appears in the hand of the extremely good looking body a now very content voice belongs to.
Really now, who are you?
What do you think?
I was .. I was thinking about writing a story about SCP-423?
Yes.
Wait, you got into my story? How?
First of all, it's not really a story yet, is it? You were just starting. Thought I could sneak in and wait to see what happens. Might be interesting to met an alternative version of me, you know.
I thought this only works with paper?
Digital is the future, babe. Got to go with the flow. Which reminds me, mind dropping me of near some Sci-Fi stories when we're finished here?
I don't... I don't think this is a good place for that. I think I have a Star Trek book lying around here somewhere though...
Better not, I tried that one time before realizing that “a man called Fred in a red shirt quietly listened” was really bad idea.
Yeah, it really is.
Anyway where were you going with this?
This what?
Your story, you know. What sort of direction you were going here? Daunting adventures, tense escapes, dashing sword fights? I like sword fights.
I was actually... I thought about writing you meeting Cassie?
Who's Cassie?
She is that drawing girl, the one...
I can't alter drawings.
I know that. I was merely trying to...
We exist in two different forms of media. We could not meet.
I know that! Look, this is fanfiction I'm writing here...
Fanwhat?
Forget it, that would take too long. What I mean is, I know it can't happen in reality but I still enjoy writing about it.
I'd rather you not actually.
Why not?
You know I like fantasy and sci-fi and a good adventure. Emotions though, emotions are...
Icky?
Complicated. I'm not a kid. You experience all these great adventures, fight all those battles, watch as lost lovers are reunited and then when it's finished, it's done.
What do you mean done? You can make books longer, right? So you could make it go on if you wanted to.
It's hard. Sneaking into the background into a beneath of paragraph, adding someone who will speak little, but watch everything. That's easy. The rest is … hard.
You made Oin survive, didn't you?
...not really. I mean it's, it's ... not really.
So that's why you don't like emotions? Because you know they won't last?
The opposite. Because they will last. At least on my side. I have an eternity of imaging how it could go. All the big plot twists, all the little surprises, all the happy endings. And all we will have in reality is one last sentence. One smile, one hug. Or you know, a fading to black. God, I hate those.
I … I see.
So yeah, maybe no meeting that woman? I could be a pirate. I'd like to be a pirate!
I suppose that would be okay. And Fred?
Yes?
I'll try and find a god sci-fi story for you.

Chapter Text

Sometimes he comes to visit. You wish he wouldn't. You wish he'd just stay away so you could pretend that he is dead or somewhere else, somebody else.

Just not him. Anybody else you could have dealt with. You could have hated them.

You'd like to hate him. The thought is there bubbling inside your head, almost managing to surface, but never quit reaching.

Nothing quite reaches anymore. There is darkness. Sometimes there is no darkness. There is pain. Sometimes there is no pain. Most often though, there is nothing. It does not register like it should. Not anymore.

You scream and scream and then you scream louder and nobody hears it.
He sometimes comes to visits you. You stop screaming then. You do nothing. He sits across you and tells you stories. About the things he is doing at the moment, about the things he will be doing.

“We can go for a walk, if you'd like.” he says.
And “It's summer. The sun is shining. You might like it.” he adds.

He does not apologize. You don't expect him to. He sits across you and does not look at you while he speaks and you stop screaming, if only for a brief moment.
You don't hate him. No matter how much you want you.

He always talks about going out for a walk, as if he thinks you don't notice that you never do and that it's always summer, no matter how often or when he visits.

You don't mind as much you probably should. There is darkness, sometimes no darkness. There is pain, sometimes no pain.
There is the man who is part of the reason you're almost always screaming and he wants to go for a walk with you. There is your brother who sometimes comes to visit and he tells you about summer and the sun.

You hate one and you love the other. Maybe not even that anymore. You love nobody, you hate nothing and your brother who is making you scream sits across you and talks and sometimes there is hate, sometimes there is love.

Most often though, there is nothing.

So you sit and you scream and you let your brother lie to you about the sun.

Chapter Text

He can see them in his sleep. Through the darkness of eyelids -a particular darkness so unlike the vastness he was used to- he can see them.

He would like to go to them, but his vessel -made of solid and wet and pain- does not obey him. Sometimes he wonders why that is. It feels weird this vessel, smaller than the one he had been used to before, different in its form, in its feeling.

He listens and they talk and the words, they changed after they brought him back and his vessel -more wet then, so much wet and pain everywhere then- lies again and stares at the ceiling while he sees stars in the darkness under his eyelids.

They talk about the vessel that was before. The bigger one, the she. She changed and so he changed and so they will change, again and again and he would like to go but he can not.
The arms and legs of his vessel, they hurt. They hurt before, hurt when it was she but they did not hurt at one point.

Back, back then when he could go and run and he could see the stars and he could see them not only behind his eyelids.

As he can right now. And the stars, they smile at him and they wave at him and while legs and arms still hurt -pain, so much pain, how comes all there ever is is pain- but they obey him now.

He thanks the stars for waving at him and allowing him to move cause this way he can finally go. He stands and stops for a moment to see where they are and he smiles when he sees them above him, moving once again, still searching, still looking for him.

Big, bigger than him cause he is small, has always been the smallest of them all but that's why they looked out for him.

He takes a step, eyes still closed and then there is noise and color so bright he can see it even through his eyelids. He does not care though since the stars offered him a wish and they are above him, moving towards him to bring him back.

There is more noise then. There is more pain. As he is lying on his back again his vessels once again fails to obey his desperate wish to move and when he opens his mouth he can't force any sound out of it, not even the scream that he's sure he is hiding somewhere in this jail of pain and wet blood and solid flesh.

So he closes it again. He looks through the ceiling through the sky to his family -not moving anymore, not seeing him anymore- and wishes that he was back with them again to tell them. Tell them how it had burnt when he had left them, how bright he had been shining, made of fire, of burning gas leaving streaks of light. How he'd been a star for a moment as he'd been falling.

And he'd tell them of the pain that came afterward. Of the fear and sadness. Of the wet. And they'd make it good. They'd find him and make it good again and they'd take him back to the sky and he wouldn't be a star anymore -not even a falling one- but it'd be good again.

He'd be home. And he just wants to go home.

Chapter Text

There is an incident. Somebody -something- probably trying to escape. Lights are going off, as is the shrill sound of a siren and she knows that. Knows because she had seen the door crushed, bullet casings on the ground and blood on the wall.

She had seen but she had not said. She is walking now, stumbling more actually, slowly, careful to avoid the noise she can hear when her head stops spinning for brief moments. She had seen people,
some moving, most not and she does not wish to see them again

She does not want to see anything anymore.

When she had seen the the medicine cabinet falling over, an array of bottles and boxes and in it a broken red bottle she had told herself that she would try to run.

Out, away where they can't follow her, where they can't find her. No meds anymore then. No metal things holding her eyes open, forcing her to see, to look. No more of that. Never.
That is what she had thought. She now thinks that had been stupid.

They will find her. They always find everybody. She can't run. Not from them.
She knows that. She had known that before. But she had hoped and she still hopes and hope is hard to get rid of. And this is why she is wasting precious minutes of freedom wandering around looking for an exist.

Stupid, she thinks as she stumbles down the hallway. Stupid, stupid. There is a wall at the end of the hallway that will be a hole and she can see the outside when she stops in front of it.

Beautiful, beautiful outside. Grass. Some trees. Fresh air.
Freedom, she thinks and she reaches, to touch maybe, before she remembers. Can not go there. Can never go there.

The red bottle is broken and the liquid inside of it is slowly seeping out and she wonders if the meds are slowly leaving her body the same way. Her head still feels heavy though, feels like it usually does but there are flashes now, flashes of such clarity that they almost hurt.

The doctor would know. The doctor knows many thing but the doctor is now buried under the medicine cabinet. She leaves the hole in the wall that will lead to freedom though she can't say when exactly and goes left. There are screams coming from the right.

She tries to walk quicker but she can't really feel her legs. The feeling in her arm is returning though and it's pain. She looks down and for the first time she sees the blood where they usually put in the needle for the IV line.

Stupid, she thinks again, looking away quickly, stupid, stupid. Did you think you could run? Do you think you can run?
But, she thinks, she has to try at least, right?

She tries to hold on to that thought but it's slippery, escaping her grasp and she is so occupied with trying to catch it that she doesn't see the body in front of her until she falls over it. She crashes on the floor, hard and painful and lands on her arm.

Pain bursts through her body and she tries to scream but the fall had knocked out all the air out of her lungs. Her vision is swimming and for one moment she thinks its the meds. But its the pain and when she manages to sit up again, the mittens slipping on the floor, its also the pain that shoots through her when she sees the gun lying next to the body.

Or maybe its another flash of clarity. Cause really, what other exit is there? What other exit had there ever been.

They watch her when she eats cause there is damage one can do with a fork or with a knife but a gun, a gun would be harder. She wouldn't be able to aim with it, would probably end up missing by a mile and one wouldn't be enough, she'd have to take out both, it was the only way to make it stop, to stop having to see.

But right now her eyes are not an option. So she awkwardly pulls the gun closer with her mittens, manages to jam it between her knees. She pushes the mittens close enough to the trigger to make it work and she is not sure if she is grateful for it or not. She leans down towards the gun instead.

Just have to pull the trigger, she thinks. There is eery calmness spreading through her at the thought and this time she is sure its the rest of her meds and for this she is grateful.

Just have to pull the trigger. Just have to take the exit. And I won't see anymore.
A tear runs down her cheek.

And something touches her knee and she startles, almost letting the gun fall down.
When she looks down there is a cat staring up at her and for a moment she thinks she had pulled the trigger before she remembers.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” she asks and the cats lets out a pitiful sound. “You ran too?” The cat doesn't answer though she wouldn't have been very surprised if it had, instead rubs against her, purring.

“Ah, you just want somebody to pet you, right?” She can't help smiling at that. Then she remembers the gun still jammed between her knees and the smile vanishes.

She lets her head fall back and closes her eyes. The cat is still purring.

“Do you think there is a way out here?” she mumbles. “Do you think I will ever get out of here?” Something inside of her clicks.

Careful to not disturb the cat she she touches her bloody arm with her mittens. It's hard, ridiculously hard, and the o's look more like little teacups but she manages.
“Will I get out?” she thinks or maybe reads and then she smiles when she sees.

The pain in her arm is getting worse, touching it making it ache even more but she forces herself through it.

Then she looks at it for one more moment because its hope, it's another exit.

It's something to cling to.

And she smudges it with her feet before letting go of the gun and petting the cat.

Chapter Text

It has waited day and night for Him to return. Kept an eye on the store, sold some stuff, cleaned up and most importantly made some new watchdog to protect the yard.

Even though they had taken most of them away. But Raymone and Beatrice could take care of the yard too. They were good guys though he still kept going his rounds, just like He always did.

One day he had tried to make Him just like He had made him. Gears and wires and bolts and everything and it was not Him in the end, but it was close enough and He would be proud when he’d come back and see what he had made while He was gone.

But they had to come first. They had to take it all away.

They couldn’t just leave an honest and hardworking man alone, could they? They were always there, always meddling and asking questions about the price he was willing to pay for their inferior metal.

He was a good man! Just like He was! And they couldn't appreciate that. Always tried to keep him down because they were so big and they had never done an honest day of work in their entire life.

Bastards, he thought, Probably sent by the government.

He thought it would help with the loneliness. The fear. The creeping realization that He might not come back. That He was gone for good. He sat on his couch for ten days after they had come and taken his latest creation away.

Bastards. Likely from some big company.

It wouldn't have gotten Him down. No, He would be right back ou there, selling and buying, making a profit and then He would try again.

He was a good man. A really good man.

Not like those bastards. No doubt working for that crooked Jerry down the street.

He missed Him. Wanted Him to come back. But until then he had a duty. A task.

So after ten days he started working again.