Chapter 18: Ebbs And Flows

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Hi, you may have noticed I changed the title of the fic to "Retrograde Motion". I finally came up with something other than "Anomalous". On tumblr, the fic will probably occasionally still be referred to as "Anomalous" though.

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|| It's only a matter of time before the world starts falling apart all over again. ||

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You weren't actually sure how long you spent collapsed in 999's room. Not that it mattered when the passage of time was always wonky for you anyways.

999 was very cute, as expected, and made you feel a lot better about your life. There actually wasn't much to be said about how the whole thing went, you were just glad to not be tossed into a dangerous SCP's room for once. There was a bit of irony in how you got here. You and one of the most dangerous doctors walked into the room of one of the least dangerous SCP.

It sounded like a joke.

999 gurgled in your lap. You chuckled softly, patting its head. At some point, Bright had stopped hovering around the door and just sat on the ground beside you. Things felt weirdly peaceful but you didn't expect it to last. Nothing ever did. It wasn't about if everything would fall to ruin, it was a matter of when.

Bright poked your shoulder. "Thinking about cryptic sh*t?"

"Of course." You rolled your eyes.

What would you do if you weren't?

X.x.X

Carefully, you filled one of the butterfly feeders with sugar water. The 408s swarmed around the feeder the moment you were done. You absolutely remembered how you got roped into this unpaid labour but that didn't mean you liked it. A few metres away from you, Kondraki was doing the same thing as you. You really should have just told the doctors no when they asked you to refill the feeders.

"You're going down there to see 408 anyways," they said. "408 already likes you a lot. It'll be easy. You might as well do it while you're there. "

Admittedly, it was very easy to fill the feeders (at least, the ones that weren't suspended metres above you) and the company of the 408s was very nice. Being swarmed by a whole bunch of green butterflies was the pinnacle of existence here apparently. It wasn't too bad sometimes The problem was that Kondraki was there half the time which meant you had to at least kind of talk to him.

You hated standing around in the same room as him because neither of you liked talking and yet still had to awkwardly exchange dialogue with each other. Both of your problems could be solved by just, not talking but for some reason, neither of you would. The two of you would figure it out at some point, you comforted yourself.

"Clef was looking for you yesterday again," Kondraki said as he filled the last feeder on the wall. "What the f*ck did you do to set him off?"

"Ugh." Your face soured. "Don't remind me."

Yeah, you probably shouldn't have stolen Clef's keycard and taunted him but it wasn't like you were going to stay dead any time soon. Sure he may have killed you 3 times between your first meeting and now but you'd take it over him liking your company any day. You shivered at the thought. Ugh. Hate was easier to deal with than affection in any case.

On the bright side, you were doing an excellent job at avoiding him nowadays. Practice makes perfect and all that.

"He's actually going to try to get me killed. Permanently." You sighed. "If anyone could do it, it'd be him."

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