Work Text:
The fat, mangled corpse of a chicken lays on the side of the road. There’s a farm not that far from here, they passed it on their walk. The bird must’ve slipped out of the fence and met its end under the wheel of a truck. There’s something almost beautiful to the spray of feathers, weighed down by dried brown blood.
“What the fuck are you doing, ███?” ███ looks up from his camera. Hugo is staring at him from the other side of the street. His arms are crossed, back stiff as a board, expression a mix of a sneer and a wince.
“I’m trying to get a good picture!” The corpse is fresh enough that nothing’s scavenged it, but old enough it’s starting to rot under the blazing sun. The smell doesn’t bother ███ in the slightest, he’s always had a strong stomach for these sorts of things.
“Well cut that shit out! You’re gonna get hit by a damn car!” ███ is on his knees in the middle of the road, just barely out of the puddle of blood. He looks over his shoulders.
“I don’t see any cars coming!” He flips through the polaroids, none of them quite satisfying. He stands up, trying a different angle. A fat worm crawls out of the bird’s cracked beak. Perfect. Snap!
“Quit being weird! You’re gonna get sick fucking with that thing!” “Fine!” ███ bounds across the street to join Hugo’s side, barely missing as a truck speeds past him. It won’t occur to him until much later how close he was to becoming a nameless splatter on the road.
“What’s the deal with you?”
███ haphazardly stuffs the photos into his jacket pocket. “They’re for my big project! The one I’ve been telling you about?”
“Ah.” Hugo nods, once. “Your uh- rot memorial.”
“Memorial to Rot,” ███ corrects, always a stickler for the details. “I’ve been collecting pictures for years now, I think I’m finally ready to get to the big part of the project.” He grins, holding in an excited chuckle.
Hugo nods, once, an acknowledgement, doing little to hide is disinterest and mild disgust. It’s no matter, even if ███ hasn’t sold him on the idea, maybe the execution will prove his point.
…
With a heavy thud, Kondraki closes the old photo album, sending a cloud of dust into his face. He leans back in his bed, the album laying on his lap. He drums his fingers rhythmically against the cover, contemplating.
Mann stays on the other side of the room, organizing the shelves of Kondraki’s closet. It was him who unearthed the old album, entombed inside of a box of Kondraki’s old college papers. If you asked Kondraki today why he kept such a detailed catalog of all his old works, he wouldn’t tell you.
Mann didn’t look too closely at the album, preoccupied with sorting Kondraki’s shirts by color. Under the decades of dust, written along the cover and spine in faded sharpie, reads ███ and Hugo July-September. It sends a cold shudder down Kondraki’s spine and leaves a dry, bitter taste in his mouth.
He runs his fingers over the black box where his name used to be. Physically, there’s no difference between the ink here and the rest of the lettering. Vaguely, in the deep recess of his mind, he can picture a younger version of himself doing this. But that’s not what happened, and he can still faintly feel the letters’ imprint in the old plastic.
Draining the day-old glass of water on his desk, he kicks the old album under the bed, where it will be promptly forgotten once again. Sneaking up behind him, Kondraki wraps his arms and butterflies around Mann’s torso, shoving his face into the side of his neck. Mann tenses up, and just as quickly relaxes.
“Do you want to go out to eat tonight?” Kondraki half mumbles. “Like, to a restaurant. Somewhere nice. As thanks for helping me tidy up tonight.”
“Oh-hoho! There’s no need to thank me!” He reaches around to cup Kondraki’s face and peck him on the cheek. Mann brushes the butterflies off his chest with little success.
“I insist! I know a good steak place with these amazing bread rolls, it’s not far from here, and it’s open until midnight, so we have plenty of time if you want to-” Kondraki pauses mid excited rant, his butterflies spinning and puffing out their wings with his energy. “We don’t have to go out tonight.”
“I can do tonight!” Mann says, matching his energy. Kondraki flushes and interlockes their fingers.
They blast the Bee Gees through Mann's buzzing stereo as they speed away from the Foundation. The road is still slick with the day’s rain, worms litter the ground. Kondraki rolls the window down and lets the wind flow through his hair.
They pull into a mostly empty parking lot. It’s late, so there’s not a whole lot of families going out tonight. They're seated immediately. Kondraki orders a large t-bone steak as rare as the chef will give him, Mann waits to contemplate his options.
Stayin’ Alive plays over the restaurant’s speakers.
“Hey, it's your song!” Kondraki grins, pointing upwards.
“So it is!” Mann glances over his shoulder and his eyes widen. “Oh my!”
“What's up?”
Mann gestures towards a calendar on the wall. “It seems our one year anniversary is coming up!”
“Wow really? That came so fast.” Kondraki props his head up on his hands. “I feel like I’ve known you for much longer than that, and at the same time it’s like we’ve almost just met each other.”
“That’s how a great relationship should feel,” Mann says, reaching across the table to boop Kondraki on the nose. Kondraki turns red.
“We’ll definitely have to do something grander once the date comes. How do you feel about a vacation? We can bring Draven.”
“Oh, now we don’t need to do all that.” Mann flushes as he does often. “I would be happy if we just spent the day together. Maybe you can help me work on a bit of cross testing?” He ends that with a wink. Kondraki chuckles in a flustered manner.
Kondraki spends the rest of the meal contemplating. He’d like to do something to commemorate the last year of his life, something that’ll make Mann know how much he’d like him to stick around for another year. The perfect idea won’t come to him for quite some time.
…
Written in pen on the back of a polaroid:
The maggots, how they crawl, wriggle, and squirm
Through the rotting crevices of my form
Filthy rotten meat still fresh and bones firm
Through the layers of skin and meat they swarm
…
Propped up against the wall of Hugo’s garage is a billboard sized piece of cardboard. ███ wheels in a bulky projector he had to bribe a school teacher to let him burrow. He flips on the radio and spends the next five minutes setting the thing up and projecting an image of a fox onto the board.
Monica approaches, silently leaning against the wall. She watches as ███ outlines the fox in sharpie, nodding her head along to the music. She pokes around ███’s workspace, carefully not to pass between him and the projector.
“So, whatcha up to in here?” Monica stops in front of a table ███ set up, covered in small cardboard boxes. She opens one and finds it filled with photographs of… rotten animals.
███ jumps, leaving a scribble on the board. “I didn’t hear you come in!” He marches over to turn down the radio. “How have you been!” He opens his arms for a hug and she returns the gesture graciously.
“I’ve been good! I haven’t seen you in a while!” She steps back, holding up a photo of a dog corpse overflowing with worms. “What’s up with this?”
“Do you like it? My collection.”
“Do I like your… collection?”
He nods. “For my art piece. I’ve been collecting pictures like these since I joined the old photography club, and I’m finally ready to put it all together.” There were eight boxes, maybe sixty photos in each, organized by level of rot.
“Cool. Is that what that’s for?” she jerks her thumb towards the board.
“Yep!” ███ returns to his work outlining, with plans to plaster his photos all across it. A collage of roadkill and worms.
Monica watches, a sort of sick fascination passing over her. Once ███ finishes, she helps him lay the board flat on the ground, turning off the projector for him. There’s something oddly satisfying about the sound of running a good craft knife along his outline.
That is up until he comes across a layer of duct tape that doesn’t cut so easily. He clenches his jaw, trying to saw through it at an angle. With a rip, the cardboard tears with a jerk and he nicks himself in the throat with the craft knife.
“Shit!”
“Are you alright?” Monica drops to his level and cups his cheek.
“I'm fine.” He lowers his hand and it comes away red. It’s not a big cut but it does bleed like one. Monica stands up to get a washcloth. “Seems fitting that I get blood all over this, given its subject matter.” He lets his blood drip onto the cardboard.
“You should really be more careful when fucking around with a knife.” Monica wipes down his neck and hands him a large bandaid. “You’re gonna get yourself killed one of these days.”
“I doubt it. I’m gonna live forever!”
He spends the rest of the evening and most of the next week carefully cutting up and affixing his polaroid collection to the board. Soon he finds his Memorial to Rot coming together better than he ever could have imagined.
…
In the darkness of Kondraki’s room, Mann and Kondraki share a bed. Hung above his bed is a fishnet hammock so his butterflies can rest comfortably without fear of being crushed. It's incredibly comfortable, and yet Kondraki can't sleep.
Under his bed the photo album sits, buried between all sorts of things he meant to look at and didn't. He needs to forget about it. There's nothing in there that will make him feel good. And yet it's like a beating heart under his floorboards.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, Thump, Thump, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, THUMP!
So very careful not to wake Mann up, Kondraki throws himself out of bed. The album is heavy in his lap. He flips to the last page, a lone photo of him, his eyes blacked out like someone took a sharpie to it, and Hugo standing before Memorial to Rot on its unveiling day.
It was a fairly large group, packed tightly into a museum. MCD rented out the space to display up and coming anartwork. Men and women in clean suits mingle with people ███ has known for years.
There's no fanfare to his piece, it was really a last minute addition to Hugo's exhibit. Perks of nepotism. ███ watches from his corner as people gather around to observe his work. He washes away the taste of stomach acid with mediocre punch.
“You know, ███, I have to be honest,” Hugo begins, “when you first pitched this idea to me I wasn't into it at all. But you know what, I've come around to it. You've really carved out a little niche.”
“A niche?”
“Yeah, you know. Why play to a big fluctuating audience when you have a guaranteed group of freaks?”
███ considers this. He’s unsure how he feels about a group of freaks, but a guaranteed audience? Now that’s something to aim for. He fills another glass with punch and it goes down thickly, like a worm squirming down his throat. With unearned confidence, he approaches the group observing his artwork.
And so ███ leaves that art exhibit heart swelling with pride. His artwork was received highly, his effort paid off. And yet his mind lingers on that night, of that niche he's carved out for himself. When people hear ███’s name, they think of him for what he's created. This makes him happy, this recognition for what he's done. But then a worm wriggles its way into his ear, and the fear comes. The fear that people just don't get it, that they only took notice because it's different, it's a niche. The worm squirms painfully into his brain, and now whenever people mention ███’s artwork, his pride and joy, he hears a hint of laughter in their voice. And he knows, he knows, that they're laughing at what he's created, and him for creating it. And he grows embarrassed of his artwork, finding it derivative, old, silly, not what he could be making. And then when people talk to him about his work he hears the laughter in his own voice. Oh no no don't pay attention to that silly little project of mine, I promise I could do better. Please don't laugh at me, please don't think of me for this. Please know I can do better. Please please god please know I can do better than this. His way of separating himself from the fear and embarrassment the worm gives him. And the worm digs deeper, because ███ loves his artwork, he loves creating his artwork, and he loves what he's created. And his love becomes fear because this really is the best he can do and he'll never be happy creating anything else and if he could only just fucking hate himself just a little more than he already does constantly then he could do better. But he loves too much and too deeply that he's too scared and embarrassed to create again because his love doesn't create good art and he doesn't want to be scared and embarrassed of what he loves because it hurts so fucking much everytime he thinks about it and he realizes through this inane and pointless monologue that he's losing the plot.
Kondraki closes the book and hugs it to his chest. He feels heavy and struggles to breathe. After the night, he never sat down again to try and really create something like that. Never had the inspiration or the will to do so.
Behind him, Mann sleeps soundly. Kondraki slides the book back under his bed. He knows now what he’s going to do for their anniversary. He’s going to make another art piece.
…
███ sighs and rests his head on the desk. His project has been in the same state for the past hour and if he stares at it any longer he’s going to lose it. Behind him, Hugo approaches, putting his arms on the back of ███’s chair.
“So, how’s the project going?”
███ starts. “How’d you get here?”
“Don’t ask me stupid questions. The project?” He gestures towards ███’s set up.
“Badly, is how it’s going.” He sighs. “You’d think having a clear idea of what you want to produce, and a strict deadline for when you have to produce it would make it easier to just- get it done!”
Hugo nods, “The process is getting to you.”
“Something like that.” Across the house someone starts shouting. ███ flinches, gritting his teeth. “The distractions don’t help.”
“You’re getting in your head too much about this.” Hugo clicks his tongue.
“My head is the only place where this project is. I just need to push through until it stops hurting, and then it’ll all be worth it.”
Hugo sits on ███’s desk, obscuring half his vision. “You sure this is worth your time? I mean, if you don’t even like making it who’s gonna like looking at it?”
“I- I like making it,” ███ says, perhaps a bit too defensively. “Besides, I’ve already put this much effort into it. I have to see it through.”
“Suit yourself.” He fidgets with a lighter, lighting a cigarette. “Look, I’ve got an engagement soon. If you’re still struggling then, I’ll put some time aside to help you. It’ll be your night.”
███ perks up. “Really?”
“Yeah, totally.” Hugo nudges him. “Just get something good to show me.”
…
“So, do you think you can help me?” Kondraki finishes off his explanation. He’s in Monica’s home, lounging on her embroidered couch. It seems fitting that after a good decade and a half of no contact he would just waltz right back into her life and fall back into their old routine.
“With which part?”
“With the statue part. It’s nothing too complicated,” he says confidently, “I just need your help taking some measurements and making a wire frame sort of thing.” He makes a series of hand gestures miming out the shape of his idea.
“Alright, let me get this straight.” Monica runs a hand through her hair. “You want me to make a paper statue that you’re going to use for a photo collage?”
“Something like that. I can make the statue part, you just know more about sculpting than I do. Keeping all the-” he gestures vaguely, “-shapes right.”
“And what’s this all for?”
“It’s for Everett. Our anniversary is coming up soon and I want to make him something special. Something we could display in our bedroom, something that really captures both of our interests.”
“Okay, well that’s really cute actually.” Monica pops open a can of soda and takes a long sip. “I’ll help you.”
Kondraki perks up. “Yes! Thank you! You're the best.”
It's been decades since Monica's days as a blossoming anartist. She never did become cool, but she's found her own sort of peace in her art. Gathering up her equipment, she lays everything out on the coffee table.
“What sort of pose are you looking for? Usually with a sculpture there would be months of sketching things out and perfecting every detail.”
“Just something like-” he stands up straight, arms to his sides. His butterflies wrap around him, giving him an illusion closer to what he means. “I just need the shape of a person. A figure I can cover in paper and photos.”
“Hold that pose.” Monica wraps the tape measure around his shoulders and waist. She takes notes and starts sketching out the shape. “It'll still take a while to put this together. Hope you don't have anywhere to be today.”
“I don’t. I really appreciate your help.”
“Hey, it’s just like the good old days. We help each other out!”
She leans down to pick up a package of wire. Unbeknownst to her, the sharp end of a wire is sticking out and drags across Kondraki’s arm. Kondraki hisses.
“Oh, shit sorry!” She offers him a tissue.
“Ah, it’s fine!” He wipes up the blood without much issue. “Now it’s really like the good old days.”
…
It’s late as Mann packs up his examination room, it’s been a rather quiet if boring day. The door creaks open as Kondraki lets himself in with the spare key. Mann finishes wiping down the counters to greet him.
“You’re looking lovely tonight,” Mann says cheerfully, clasping his hands together.
“Thanks,” Kondraki says, swarm buzzing with nervous energy. He’s dressed lightly and carrying his camera. “Are you free right now?”
“I have just finished up my day! How can I be of service?”
Gingerly, Kondraki places his camera in Mann’s hands and hops onto the examination table. “I’d like your help with a bit of a personal project.” Pulling at the collar, he pops open his shirt to reveal a series of dotted lines he’s drawn across his body.
“Oh!” Mann turns redder than his own ginger hair.
“You know how to use that thing, right?” Kondraki leans back. “Make sure to get my good side.”
It would be easy for an outside observer to describe their relationship as akin to a butcher and a slaughtered animal. One cut along the throat to drain the prey of blood, then a cut along the chest to reveal all that’s hidden. There’s something loving about the delicate brutality that comes with preparing meat. Tearing through layers of skin and muscle and organs, cleaning and curing, hollowing something out to fill yourself.
Mann on the other hand, would prefer to describe his craft like the elegant care of a taxidermist. It appears like a very simple task, stuffing the skin of the dead. But it takes quite a bit of care and precision to mimic the folds and feeling of the living. Such care he takes to tear his lover to pieces and so very carefully piece him back together every time.
Playfully, Mann twirls a needle around and drives the point through the wing of a butterfly, like pinning down layers on skin to keep him open. Kondraki flinches, chewing a hole through his lip. Fingers threaded through his hair, Mann pins Kondraki’s head down and inserts an IV into his neck.
Mann peels back Kondraki’s skin, reminiscent of a flower in bloom. It’s hard to overstate the satisfaction that comes with ripping open Kondraki’s hard outer shell and truly appreciating his soft insides. How his heart beats, how the thin stretchy membrane of his lungs fill in and how, how utterly beautiful his stomach is. Careful not to smear blood on the lens, Mann captures this moment, and every moment following.
When it comes to a regular surgery, a doctor must take great lengths to limit the intimacy between them and their patient. If surgery is necessary that means there’s a life on the line. The patient is simply a body on the table, something to be touched as little as possible, the surgery itself a quick and desperate process.
Kondraki could never simply be a body on a table. That’s not Mann’s sentimentality speaking. Ever since he became an SCP object it was rare for Kondraki to ever blend in. Mann himself took great pains to test much more Kondraki could take compared to the average person, and he knows exactly how to push him to that limit.
And just as well, he knows when to stop. For as fun as it would be if Kondraki wasn’t someone so personal to him, to push him until he breaks and keep going, Mann must take care to put him back together. No stitch in the wrong place.
“Oh are we done?” Kondraki mumbles in a half haze as the drugs fade from his system.
“We are!” Mann caresses his cheek, Kondraki curls as much as he can into the touch.
“Already? I could keep going…”
“I’m afraid I would prefer if we stopped here.” He ghosts his fingers across the stitches on Kondraki’s chest. When they first did this it was easy for Mann to view it as just a project, and to have little regard for Kondraki’s safety, now there’s so much more to consider.
“Oh… Did ya get the photos…?”
“I did! Quite a few! You’re always so photogenic!” Kondraki smiles and Mann leans down to kiss him on the lips. Kondraki has dozed off by the time Mann pulls back.
…
Typed into a private digital copy of the SCP-7408 file:
I am glad my pointless flesh finds a use
Sustenance for all that disgusts and feeds
Gore tightens around my throat in a noose
My prison, that only festers and bleeds
…
The featureless statue, courtesy of Monica’s patient instruction, stands in the center of Kondraki’s bedroom, somewhat foreboding. Kondraki himself is on his knees with a glue gun and a pile of carefully cut photos. When the pile runs out he sits back at his desk ro prepare more.
There’s a knock on his bedroom door. “Honey? Would you like to do anything tonight?” Mann’s muffled voice calls.
Kondraki yawns, forcing his eyes open. “Not tonight, sorry dear!”
“Ah… Very well! Do be sure to come find me if you would!”
“I will!” It feels bad to reject Mann’s advances so many times, but he needs to finish this. Mann will understand. He squints his eyes, trying to force them to focus.
He’s running out of photos and the statue is only half covered. Fear creeps in, nothing would be more embarrassing than having an unfinished project by the deadline. He can’t imagine Mann ever getting mad about it, which only makes him more humiliated.
He just has to make this work. He just has to make something better.
[Enter Kondraki (as ███), stage right. The Piece (as ███) stands center stage, its “skin” a pulsating mass of flesh, veins bulging with blood. A rhythmic, heartbeat-like thump permeates throughout the theater.]
Kondraki: [Bewildered; Nauseous] “Where am I?”
[He stumbles toward the Piece; rests a hand on it; recoils, finding it warm and slightly wet.]
Kondraki: [Gasped] “The fuck!?”
[He circles the Piece, viewing its fleshly form from every angle. He finally takes notice of the Audience and stands up straight. He recognizes four faces in the Audience, “Mann” (as A Bad Inside Joke), “Draven” (as An Abandoned Plotline), “Monica” (as An Obscure Reference), and “███” (as The Director). They await his performance]
Kondraki: “I don’t understand.”
“Monica”: [Cups hands around to mouth] “Of course you do! Give us a show!”
Kondraki: “What am I doing here? I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Draven”: “You knew what you were doing before.”
[Behind Kondraki, the backdrop becomes an elongated Memorial to Rot]
Kondraki: “That’s different. I had a reason, I had something to prove. Now I have something worse, an expectation. It’s not enough to do what worked before, I have to improve and prove that I still belong here.”
“Mann”: “What makes you think you have to do more than everyone else? You’re so desperate to be the center of attention and yet you don’t know what to do with it!”
Kondraki: “It’s not about that! You get to be here because of who you are, I get to be here because of what I do, and if I don’t-”
“███”: [Softly, yet inescapable, as if speaking inside of Kondraki’s mind] “Focus, focus. You have a show to put on.”
[Kondraki turns around to face the Piece. It is now covered in green butterflies pinned by needles. They thrash about, tearing their wings. Blood trickles down the Piece’s body]
Kondraki: [Tearfully] “No, no, no, no.”
[He attempts to yank the needles out, tearing off the butterfly’s wings]
Audience: [Collectively; Laughter]
Kondraki: “Shit, shit I’m so sorry. I don’t want to be a part of this anymore!”
“███”: “You can’t separate yourself from this without it hurting.”
Kondraki: “Fuck off!”
[Kondraki storms off the stage and returns with a fire ax. He swings it over his head and buries the sharp edge into the Piece’s chest. It lands with a wet squelch. Blood splatters across his cheek]
Audience: [Laughter intensifies]
Kondraki: [Muttered] “Shut up, shut up.”
[He takes another swing. A lump of rotten meat dislodges and splats into the floor. Thick mold and worms drip out of the wound. The ground shudders]
Kondraki: “I am not you!”
[The pile of worms grows at his feet. Each swing further drenches him in blood. The noise is deafening. The statue collapses into a wet puddle of meat]
“███”: “Enough of this.”
Kondraki: “What-”
With a start, Kondraki jolts upright. He’s sitting at is desk, which is still covered in various photographs. A sharp pain in his arm distracts him. One of his stitches has come loose and now there’s a thin stream of blood running down his arm.
“Shit!” He grabs an old shirt off the floor and uses that to dab up most of the blood. He runs out to find a bandage.
…
Arm slung around ███’s shoulder, Hugo leads him around the bar. The place is filled with anartists and buyers alike. Hugo fills a glass with champagne and pats him on the back.
“Don’t get lost now. I’ve gotta smooth talk some customers.” He hands ███ the glass and begins structuring towards a table of MCD representatives.
“W-wait!” ███ grabs the back of Hugo’s shirt. “I was hoping we’d have a chance to discuss my project? I’m almost finished!”
Hugo pries ███’s fingers off of him. “Look, sweetheart, I love you. But I have important business here. Why don’t we talk about it later?” Hugo pushes him into a barstool and gives him a threatening sort of grin.
███ sits there, for a moment too stunned to move. Effortlessly, Hugo slips into the conversation, setting himself between the two richest people here. ███ tries to sit there, tries to be patient. His blood starts to boil.
Running purely on his own adrenaline, ███ storms up to the table and dumps the champagne into Hugo’s face. Hugo’s expression goes from a cool smile, to confusion, to anger in the span of a second.
“Talk. Outside. Now!” ███ marches outside, hearing Hugo frantically say a few words to explain himself and push through the crowd after him. The cold outside air burns his cheeks. Hugo shoves him into a brick wall.
“What the hell is your problem!”
███ rights himself. “What’s my problem? You promised tonight would be about me! About my project!”
“Look, baby, you want to know what I think about your project?” Hugo runs a hand through his hair, trying to squeeze the champagne out. “It’s cute, but it’s too similar to everything you’ve done before. You’re not impressing anyone anymore. You’re going to have to give a hell of an ending here to even make this worth my time.”
███ trembles, vision red. He smashes the champagne glass against the wall, holding onto the handle. “I’ll show you an ending! Something none of you will be able to laugh at!”
He storms out of the alleyway.
…
The foundation hallways feel so much longer when you're in a hurry. At this hour, Kondraki isn't sure if Mann is in his office or at home. The shirt he’s using as a makeshift bandage has soaked through. His butterflies bunch together, trying their best to stop the blood flow.
Right in front of Mann’s office door, his hand hovers just inches away from the handle. A thought worms its way into Kondraki’s brain. He can’t ask Mann for help, especially not with how much he’s already bothered him. It’s not as though he would want to help anyway.
Kondraki backs up slowly, cheeks hot with shame. He turns down another hallway and makes eye contact with ███ standing at the opposite end. Both freeze. ███ tightens his grip on the shattered champagne glass.
“I don’t-” Kondraki takes a step back, cutting himself off with a sharp hiss as he pulls a stitch on his leg. Adrenaline shots through his heart, he’s not put together enough to run.
Stuck between turning back towards Mann’s office and face down ███, Kondraki finds himself frozen. Both seem equally mortifying. ███ makes his choice for him, charging down the hallway.
“N- stop-!” Kondraki yelps as ███ barrels into him, knocking them both to the ground. Confused and disoriented, Kondraki’s butterflies scatter.
Somewhere back home, Kondraki’s statue sits in waiting. It’ll never be finished, Kondraki knows this, now more than ever.
“Why couldn’t you have just done something right?” ███ growls.
“I don’t know!”
███ stabs the sharp edge into Kondraki’s chest. Sucking in a gasp, Kondraki writhes and squirms, each kick only further tearing himself apart. Blood stains his green sweater brown, his body literally coming apart at the seams.
“I hate you.” ███ wraps his hands around Kondraki’s throat and squeezes. Kondraki grabs ███’s wrists, hands trembling too much for him to get a grip. “I’ve always hated you, and now I can finally get rid of you once and for all!”
“W-why- hrk!” Why didn’t you just kill me sooner? Kondraki wants to ask, but the glass slices his throat open and his mouth fills with blood. This is it, he’s going to die here. He can thrash all he wants, but he’s years past his prime.
███ sinks his teeth into Kondraki’s shoulder. There’s no hunger behind the action, only distance. He gags and spits the chunk of meat out, where it splatters onto the floor. Tears run down ███’s red and puffy face, dripping onto Kondraki.
A thought occurs to him, as black spots dance in his vision, and ███ continues to tear him apart, as more of him spits onto the floor. His statue may never be completed, but he can still complete his art piece. What’s a better memorial than his own rotten self?
With the last of his strength, Kondraki tugs the thread keeping his chest cavity closed. Everything cascades out of him, like they just couldn’t wait to be shown to the world. His guts spewed across the floor, looking like fat worms in their own muck. There’s no one here to criticize his downfall, to bask in his suffering.
This is the most beautiful he’s ever been.
…
Written in Kondraki’s sketchbook:
Blood stains their fat, featureless bodies pink
I want to burn in their stomachs for carbs
Deeper yet deeper, in this flesh I sink
Leach teeth, slicing my skin like rusting barbs
…
Hugo takes a long drag of his cigarette and crosses his arms. “So, is that it?” he steps closer, careful to keep his shoes out of the blood.
███, still holding the broken wine glass, slick with blood, looks over his shoulder. “What do you mean ‘is that it?’”
He shrugs. “Just not how I thought you’d want to end it.”
“I think it’s fitting.” He nudges Kondraki’s face with his foot. “There’s no way to misconstrue this. It’s a serious ending. Nothing to laugh at. We both got what he wanted.”
“Hm…” Hugo cocks his head to one side.
“If you have a problem with it you should just say something!”
“I think… you’re pathetic right now. I think you’re worse than a joke-”
“Don’t you fucking finish that!”
“You're edgy.”
“Fuck you!” ███ paces around, full body shaking.
“You couldn’t take how much you hated yourself so you took it out on what you enjoyed doing. You want your stories to be funny but you can’t handle being laughed at. You want to shock people without doing things just for shock value. You want to perform and yet you could never handle an audience.”
“F-fuck!” ███ breaks into a wave of giggles. “I was never going to make you happy.” He turns his back to Hugo. “No, it’s more than that. I was never going to make myself happy.”
“You’re an artist, ███,” Hugo says, grinding the cigarette’s filter between his teeth, “you don’t get to be happy.”
███ looks around, looks at the ground where he made a mess of himself. “Maybe I don’t, but I still have an art piece to finish.”
…
Sitting alone on a stiff chair outside of medical wing, Mann struggles to figure out what to do with his hands. He tries resting them on his lap, crossing his arms, putting them in his pockets, all of it feels wrong. His skin feels too itchy, like it’s crawling with worms.
While certainly in no mental state to work, he showed up on time as usual. And he did try to work, every time he sat down he felt blood on his hands. Kondraki’s blood all over him. And he knows in his heart that Kondraki’s current state is all his fault.
After being snapped out of his own head for the fourth time, he got a firm go home from his boss. Instead of home, he finds himself here, barred from anywhere else.
Today would mark one year since Mann’s private interest became a firm reality. Finally he had someone who he knew so intimately and wanted to know him intimately. And just as soon, it’s all being ripped from him.
“Everett?” A soft spoken nurse approaches him. “His condition is stable if you would like to go see him.”
Mann jumps out of his seat. “Oh yes! Thank you!” He rushes past her into the hospital room. This area of the building was designed for emergencies involving the health of anomalies, giving it a very maze-like feel. Each room is isolated to absolutely minimize the chance of cross contamination.
Kondraki’s room is one of the few afforded a window. His butterflies are all contained within a clear box, as to not get in the way of the doctor's work. He looks pale, bound up in bandages and wires, oxygen tubes shoved down his nostrils, more cloth than man. Mann always took such care and precision to put Kondraki back together, to see him in such a sorry state feels wrong.
Kondraki won’t even look at him, eyes trained on the pulsating mass of butterflies. Mann takes a seat, stunned to silence. It was easy for him, for everyone for that matter, to hide the horrors of their work under a persona. It’s never this personal.
Mann clears his throat. “I’m sorry they uh- didn’t let me in sooner… It’s good to see you!”
Silence, broken only by a broken sob. Mann tries to choke it down, project an air of confidence, but once the dam is broken he can’t hold anything back. Kondraki’s eyes widen, and with much effort he rolls over to face Mann.
“I’m sorry,” Mann squeaks. “I’m so sorry. I feel li- like I let this happen.”
“No-!” Kondraki rasps. “No, no, no it could never be your fault. I think I-” he chokes, “I did this to myself. I think I’ve wanted to kill myself for a long time.”
Save for the sounds of machinery, the room goes quiet. A look of horror passes over Mann’s face, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.
“Oh, K-”
“It’s not like I’m suicidal!” Kondraki has to pause to take deep wheezing breaths between each frantic ramble. “It’s not like I- like I- it’s when I’m around other people. And I’ll do something- anything and I can f-” wheeze, “I can fucking feel the energy change and this fucking worm starts eating at me. And it hurts so bad I just want to collapse and scream and rip myself to shreds. And I can't say anything about the worm because it starts choking me when I try and it tells me it’s choking me for my own good. And-” Seeing Mann’s expression grow progressively more fearful, he grows more desperate. His heart monitor fills the room with alarm. “And it’s so much fucking worse to think that you do care about this because I’ve somehow convinced you I’m a real person and not a fucking zoo animal pacing around my Goddamn cage-”
He can’t breathe. There’s something obstructing his tube and not one’s going to notice and he’s going to suffocate. He jolts and tries to claw at his throat, if he could just tear a hole in his windpipe he could let the air in.
“Honey! Darling no!” Mann grabs Kondraki’s wrist with both hands, interlocking their fingers. “Breathe, breathe for me please. You’re going to hurt yourself!”
“I can’t-” he squeaks. He can’t see anything except the green blur of light from his butterflies' thrashing about. For a moment he’s a single bug, small and vulnerable and very afraid.
“You can! Please, I can’t lose you!”
Mann wraps his arms around Kondraki, trying so very hard not to hurt him. Kondraki can’t help but give in and throw his arms around Mann in return. His body aches with the effort it takes not to crumble into dust.
“I love you,” Mann says into the crook of Kondraki’s neck.
“I’m sorry-” I’m sorry you thought there was anything in me but worms all the way down.
“Don’t be,” Mann gasps. “I made a choice to be here every time.” He pauses. “There’s something I actually meant to discuss with you. I was going to bring it up today but… well…”
“What is it?” The heart monitor betrays how anxious that statement makes him.
“I want you to move in with me! Or perhaps it would be more apt if I moved in with you given your… larger abode.” Mann scratches the back of his head. “It seems so silly to be thinking of such a thing given our jobs and the lives we live-”
“You… want to live with me?”
“I think it would be nice! Being able to… come home and know that…” Mann’s expression falls, though he covers it up with a halfhearted smile. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“I’d like to live with you.” Whatever resolve is left in Kondraki breaks and he sobs into Mann’s chest. “I want you. I thought you’d be so much better off without me but fuck I want you in my life!” Mann runs his fingers through Kondraki’s hair to ground him. It’s agonizing, and yet Kondraki feels so very wanted.
Sometime in the future, a half finished experimental art piece will collect dust in a storage unit for the rest of its pointless yet meaningful existence.
…
In this art, I will never find my piece
By my own choice, I refuse a release