Chapter Text

This Is How the SCP Foundation Ends

The man rose from his seat. What he carried on the tray was a simple meal — something that could hardly even be called a meal, just enough to keep hunger at bay. The preparation hadn't taken long.

"Hey. You've skipped two meals now. You should eat something."

The person who was supposed to eat did not answer. The tray held nothing more than a can of tomato soup, a foil packet of strawberry jam, and a single hardened slice of bread. The soup had been warmed to a reasonable temperature; there were enough solid pieces inside to chew and swallow, though the cheap, tinned smell was impossible to escape.

But there was nothing better to be found here. Not right now, at least.

The man named Calvin Lucien stared quietly at the meal he had prepared — one that would be nothing special to the other man. His face was reflected back at him in the surface of the soup. A face he had seen far too many times. One whose appearance outside these walls would not end well for anyone, not anymore. The Foundation's eyes were everywhere now.

And it was equally obvious that neither his own face nor his face could afford to be seen in public. Jean had been the face of the Foundation — leveraging those almost annoyingly fine features for all manner of external affairs. What remained to be extracted from him beyond that — as a Councillor, or rather, a former Councillor — Calvin couldn't say. Not yet. But keeping him alive a little longer might provide an answer.

In any case, Calvin's conclusion was clear. They needed to lie low for the time being. There had been no shortage of opinions within the Insurgency about whether keeping Jean alive served any purpose. After some debate, it had been Calvin who argued for it. Keeping him breathing. In the end, the execution of this particular plan had to be handled by Calvin himself.

And if it came to nothing — well, wringing the neck of a man who had lost everything wasn't exactly a challenge for someone like Calvin. If the sensation of hands felt wrong, there were other options. A weapon. Or perhaps the pillow on this very bed. Asphyxiation wasn't a bad method. Quiet, too.

So it was that Jean's survival was, for now, indefinite — and extending that survival was one of the tasks Calvin had taken on.

He was eating just enough to survive. Calvin had learned to do the same during his years in the Chaos Insurgency. Unlike Jean, who had looked genuinely wretched at first, Calvin was at least grateful he could use the small heating element. The difference between cold food and properly warmed food was a difference in taste, full stop.

On the bed, in the dim room, lay Jean Lemieux Bétrand — pale-faced and drawn. He'd spent the first few hours buried under the blankets in rigid tension, but after about six hours, he had started to lower his guard. That was probably less surrender than survival instinct: Jean Lemieux Bétrand's anomalous charisma doing whatever it could to keep him alive.

This was the second day of their confined cohabitation following the chaos Jean had caused. The second time Jean had declined the barely-subsistence-level meals Calvin offered, claiming he had no appetite. Two times was acceptable. Three was not. That would mean going an entire day without food. Death by starvation would be inconvenient.

If you're going to die, die by my hand, Councillor.

Calvin watched the man with flat, dispassionate eyes. He'd long since dropped formal speech. He didn't feel particularly sorry for him. This was a Foundation operative, after all — one of the people he was supposed to eliminate. Which, logically, meant starving him to death should be no great concern.

And yet.

Before Calvin could work through the more complicated implications of that thought, Jean placed his hand on the tray.

"...Thank you for your consideration. Calvin."

Calvin didn't respond. He deliberated briefly, then gave a single nod and settled into the chair in the corner of the room. The temporary safe house was small — not large enough for two chairs. There was a minimal kitchen setup for food preparation, but aside from a few cooking tools, there was no space in it to sit or lie down comfortably for an adult male. More importantly, if Calvin stepped out of the room for any length of time, he had no way of knowing what Jean Lemieux Bétrand might do.

That was why Calvin had claimed this chair. The room was small enough that even from the far wall, he had a clear line of sight to the bed. Sleeping upright was nothing new to him. From this post — this watchtower of a chair — Calvin observed.

"......"

Without protest, Jean ate. The meal was light; it didn't take long. But it was better than nothing. At minimum, it prevented the disaster of death by starvation. Calvin, at least, had to save face having argued for keeping Jean alive in the first place.

He was beginning to think today would pass in the same silence as yesterday, when Jean spoke.

"Hey."

"......"

"Instead of dozing in that chair every night, don't you think it'd be better to come share the bed? Lying down to sleep is more comfortable, isn't it?"

Calvin thought about it. His original plan, when they'd arrived at this place, had been to tie Jean to the chair he was currently occupying and claim the bed for himself. That would have been perfectly feasible for the purpose of keeping Jean alive. Just a little inconvenient.

But Calvin had not done that. He thought about why.

He recalled the face of the man who, in the middle of that final catastrophe, had grabbed onto him and begged to be kept alive. Something had gripped him then — something that resisted reduction to words — and in the moment they'd arrived at this room, Calvin had simply shoved Jean toward the bed.

And now here they were. At the day when he would sleep in the same bed as a man with anomalous charisma.

Calvin closed his eyes. When he opened them, Jean was right there. Up close, something was — very — enormously. The world, and time itself. Began, slowly, to move forward.

Calvin looked at Jean's face. Objectively, genuinely handsome. Even in this dirty room, held captive by the Insurgency, he was smiling brightly — as if the fact that those looks had never been given the chance to shine here had simply ceased to exist from the beginning.

Well. I'm fucked.

"I'd like to hear your thoughts."

"Nothing beyond the feeling of being caught up in an anomalous effect."

Hm. Boring man. He'd seemed like he might have some fire in him. Jean nearly said this out loud, then stopped. It didn't seem like it would do much for their relationship. Of all the things two men locked in a small room might do — and they had, in fact, done the most interesting one available when one of them happened to possess anomalous good looks — to come away with nothing. He was clearly someone who didn't prioritize enjoyment; otherwise he wouldn't be out here personally executing plans to eliminate Councillors.

Still, Jean had discovered something fresher and more interesting than any of that. This anomalous quality of his — it worked on Calvin, too. On a man. On someone who was, unambiguously, his enemy. Someone he'd assumed bore him no particular goodwill. He'd always expected Calvin had some kind of feelings underneath it all, whatever the expression — but even so. Just consider the matter of the bed. It was a somewhat unusual situation, true, but if you thought of Jean as a prisoner, that wasn't how captors typically behaved.

"Do you like men?"

"No."

"Oh, really? Didn't know that. Seemed like you might."

Jean had put deliberate emphasis on didn't know. Then continued. He wasn't sure whether he should say this — but honestly, in this moment, he felt he could say it and die by Calvin's hand and it would still have been worth it.

"You don't like men — and yet you took an invitation to share a bed like that? Truly remarkable, you."

Jean's pale, slender throat met Calvin's hand — rough, immediate, fingers curling to close the gap. Jean scrambled to pry the hand away. His face flushed scarlet as the airway compressed, and only after that did Calvin release his grip. He listened with practiced indifference to Jean's coughing and sputtering, and from where he now sat on the edge of the bed, said:

"...It's simply the anomalous effect."

You're just not being honest with yourself. You don't actually intend to kill me with those hands.

In the face of the very real terror that speaking back again might mean death, Jean nodded. With his throat half-crushed and speech temporarily unavailable, nodding was the only way he could express agreement with Calvin's words.

Right. You're correct. The fact that your anomalous effect works regardless of gender — that's the anomaly, probably. But you do have a good eye for people, Calvin Lucien. That eye is what let the anomaly work on you in the first place. Which means: keep watching me, and it won't be long before that simple anomalous effect starts to move you.

How many days do you think it'll take?

Jean watched Calvin's back. He wet his dry lips.

Right — the only one who could moisten those lips is a single person. No one else.