Artistic Corvid

He can't help but think Lucas would have a field day working on the security team here. The electric gates and the layered card system, the many, many, many things that want to kill him... He's just certain that psycho would love having all these things at his disposal for his games.

It's all a big puzzle, and Ethan was fairly okay at those. He gets on pretty well finding all the information on the other SCPs and cataloguing them on his clipboard. He's even found a digital map and some playing cards.

Don't judge him for his inventory management. He's spent years in a plain cell in this clinical shithole. He wants the damn cards.

Karl though, he is clever. Not the same sort of patient clever, but just enough to make it to the other side of the facility.

And that's where they both meet the crying man.

(Also Karl's got that mannequin just. Following him now. He's gotten used to it.)

Karl isn't that familiar with this side of the facility. He didn't think to brush up since his original plans A through E were pretty linear. He didn't expect to need to go this far in to get back out.

Ethan though, Ethan has been doing his homework and knows deep in his bones as soon as he hears the faint sobs that this is something dangerous. Knows to stay calm and just look down, just keep looking down-

But then he hears booted footsteps and panics because shit he does not want to be getting caught by security personnel when he's not supposed to be out of his cell. Security personnel during a breach probably means guns and shooting before questioning shit what should he do-

"A class D? You're a long way from home, aren't you?"

D?? Oh. Oh yeah he forgot about the jumpsuit he morphed. He thought it'd be better if he saw any other inmates to look like them and not... someone else. Someone they'd hold a grudge against. Or fear. He's so, so tired of being feared.

Ethan glances up and huh. That's not personnel uniform. Not nearly clean enough to be one of the more eccentric doctors either.

But he's looking around like he doesn't have a damn clue what is wailing just beyond those bloodied windows. And then he bangs his fist against the glass like a fucking madman what the f-

"Quit your goddamned whining," he screams and who the fuck does he think he is? Does he think he has a chance against something that could tear an entire platoon of fully armed men apart in a few breaths?

"Are you insane?" Ethan screeches from his crouched position across the hall, his fingers gripping the grating under his feet.

"Debatable," the man casually replies, gloved pinky in his ear. "Depends who you ask."

Great. Fantastic. A lunatic with a sense of humour.

"Get. Down," Ethan hisses.

"Why? It's just some walking corpse crying for sympathy."

"A walking corpse with the ability to put you on a census somewhere if you don't shut the fuck u-"

That cold tingle down his spine, the overwhelming sense of dread and everything else going still. That big concrete baby was behind him oh fuck-

"Move towards me," the man with the obnoxious hat said, his unblinking eyes looking beyond Ethan and not moving.

Well. No argument from him. He keeps his eyes down and does as he's told for once. The fear of his spine being snapped or flesh being shredded doing wonders for his discipline. He needs to survive. He needs to find Rose. And it's that need that spurs him on past the open door, past what he knows to be a sorry looking man sobbing into his own bloodied hands.

Karl on the other hand, is now reconsidering his position here. He felt confident dealing with one SCP alone if needed. But with two in front of him, one behind him, and big boy Larry close on his heels, he doesn't quite feel as confident. He's not completely stupid with pride, after all, despite what many assumed. And another set of eyes to keep the baby from being a nuisance would probably help a lot...

"Okay, blondie. I need to blink. Think you can stand?"

Ethan, who had been crawling over with one hand while shielding his eyes with the other, simply nods. He takes the man's offered hand, strong and steady under the leather gloves, and immediately feels the tiniest bit of relief trickle into a little pool in his mind. He breathes, calms his heart and head to something less likely to lean into his fight or flight response, and stands. He blinks a few times, and then turns to look at SCP-173.

It still looks just as unassuming. Rebar and concrete as solid and unmoving as ever. But Ethan knows better. They both do, it seems, with the way his new... companion? Acquaintance? Kept looking even after Ethan stood and slowly spun around.

"Got it," Ethan says, and the man makes his way backwards, still with Ethan's hand in tow.

"Blinking," says the man, pulling him along to the door at the end of the hall. He hears him press the button and carefully walks backwards through the open door. Ethan fishes out his S-Nav from one of his pockets as a reference point for where they can go from here and before he thinks better of it he passes it over to the one leading them both forward. Or backwards, in his case.

"Gonna blink," he says, and his partner is already switching places with him, passing back the S-Nav as if he wasn't just given an invaluable resource he could have just made off with, leaving him there as a distraction for 173.

"On it," Ethan says, quickly palming the device and plotting their way around, avoiding the problem areas through learned practice.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Door after door, corner after corner, card swipe after card swipe, they manage to get away, hand in hand and alive.

"Sooo," Ethan starts when the adrenaline finally subsides. "You gonna tell me your role in all this or...?"

Their hands part as Dr Helsing stomps down the hallway, checking each door in turn with a frustrated tension about him.

"Nope."

Ethan laughs as he watches him, hearing the low bleeps of denial from each door he tries his own card on. "Fair."

"What about you?" He asks as Ethan tosses over his own spare level 3 card. He's been unusually lucky in finding those. It skids along the floor to where Helsing can see it, and he eyes it sceptically before he stoops down to scoop it up.

"You're doing pretty well for yourself." A bleep of acceptance. "All things considered."

"You mean I'm not dead or worse yet," Ethan sighs, leaning against the railing, the cool metal bar against his back a welcome sensation. "Right now, I'm just trying to stay alive."

"Right now?" He parrots back, and Ethan curses his own slip of the tongue.

But the way this man was holding himself, the way he made easy conversation like none of the other personnel ever did, Ethan was starting to suspect he was something a little different. In the same way that he was a little different. Definitely not security. And definitely not a d-class. He wasn't nearly scared enough or as cruelly self serving as one of the more... twisted inmates.

Still, couldn't be too careful. He's not actively trying to kill him, though, so that's an improvement on his current circle of non-existent friends.

He bites the bullet.

"You telling me that -with all these deadly fuckers walking around- if the opportunity for escape should present itself, you wouldn't take it?"

He stays out in the hall while the dude explores, knowing that the only things in that room were either already gone or useless. He's waiting for LA Noir to come join him again when only his head pops back out around the door frame, a look of amused approval arching his brows high under the rim of his ridiculous hat.

"Maybe you do have a decent head on your shoulders, D class."

Okay. That's got to stop. He's had enough of people referring to him as a string of numbers or 'Mushroom Man'.

"Ethan," he starts, righting himself and offering out his hand to his new acquaintance. "Name's Ethan."

The man exits the side room fully and looks at his hand with a quirked brow, this time it's just amusement that curves his lip. He takes the offered hand, his grip just as strong and certain as before. "Karl."

"Karl," he tries, seeing how the long syllable works on his curling tongue. "Alright, Karl, what's your plan from here? Or is this where we part ways and die horrifically, finding eachothers corpses in an hour or two?"

"Speak for yourself, buttercup--"

"Ethan."

"I've got plans, Blondie, and I don't need--"

"E-than."

He huffs a laugh and Ethan can feel the vein on his forehead throb.

"Sweetheart."

"I hate you."

"They all do eventually," he says with an easily forced smile, something about the way he says it feels jagged, though. Like if Ethan were to look too closely he'd prick his skin on the edges.

"Come on, E-than," he drawls, making his way down the corridor again. "Getting out of here isn't gonna be easy. But I'm not fucking dying here."

"That we can agree on, at least."

-_-_-

"Hey, Helsing!"

Karl turns his head from the terminal on instinct, only realizing what he'd responded to the moment after he caught sight of Ethan coming back up the stairs. He mouths out the word in pure confusion as several files and note pages were laid out in front of him.

"I found those papers you were asking about. The ones on new security protocols."

"Danke," he says, taking a sip of his shitty coffee that went south of cold a good thirty minutes ago. He amicably offers Ethan the pot anyway. "Any trouble out there?"

"No sign of One-Seven-Three," he says, taking a pencil mug and repurposing  it for its original purpose, the rainbow of pens making Karl's brow twitch until Ethan swiped them off his meticulously laid plans. "And One-Zero-Six has been surprisingly merciful given how long we've been in here now."

"Yeah, Larry's a dick, but at least he doesn't discriminate too much. Lots of pathetic whelps to choose from."

"Anyone's fair game for the pocket dimension, huh." Ethan takes a sip and barely tastes the drink itself, his senses picking up more of an afterthought of it than anything else. Everything had started to taste less a few months into his containment, and instead of panicking about it he just sort of got used to it. He thought it might have been a trauma response, but then there was the Spore Incident and...

He didn't like thinking about it.

"Mm-hm," his companion hums his agreement, pouring over the screens in front of him, the bomb site of a desk behind him carefully layered and categorised. Probably by some unknown factors, Ethan was sure. He didn't understand the process, but Karl had told him he needed information. Building plans, passcodes, personnel changes, that sort of thing.

Ethan had given up on the why of things a long time ago, and yet, here he was, helping to piece together a puzzle yet a-fucking-gain so that Karl can figure out their path out of here.

And also, mainly, because he just couldn't help himself. He'd been a software engineer, for God's sake. He needed something to do with his head and hands. Speaking of...

"God fucking damn it," Karl bites out as the screen flashes red with denial for a third time in the last five minutes. "Piece of shit modernized prick stained firewalled CUNT--"

"Ohhh-kay, hotshot," he carefully wheels away the fuming mass of adult tantrum so that he can get to the keyboard. He goes surprisingly easy given the explosive temper.

"Let me take a look."

"Sure. Sure! Be my fucking guest--"

Karl fucking hated software. With its updates and security protocols and- and-

Why not just a good old fashioned filing cabinet with a locking mechanism? He hated dealing with things he couldn't control physically himself, with his hands or telekinetic ability. There were no paths to follow, no wires, no solid boundaries, no fucking metal with a high enough density to be useful-

"There we are," his D-class companion says, standing up with a healthy crack of his back and neck. "That should do it. At least it shouldn't tell you 'no' so harshly anymore-"

He looks to the screen, to the green lights and clearly outlined boxes of text of exactly the shit he'd been looking for holy shit--

"Son of a bitch," he mutters, quickly rolling his way back over in the chair and practically slamming into Ethan's side in the process. The man grunts and folds over, close enough for Karl to clap his hands over his shoulders and shake.

"Son. Of. A. Bitch!" He howls. "Ethan, you beautiful bastard! Look at that!"

The approval does something to Ethan. Makes him feel lighter all of a sudden.

"Don't mention it," he mumbles. "Just didn't want to see two hours of work squandered when you threw the thing down the stairs."

That statement is met with mock indignation, a gloved hand over his heart. "I would never do such a thing--"

"Yeah, okay, and I'm employee of the month."

"Do they even have that system here?" A few clicks, and Ethan finds himself just as curious, leaning in to listen to the verdict.

"Ah. They did," Karl says. "Then they changed it to weekly because of uh. Problems. With inconsistent personnel."

Ethan lets out a humourless laugh. "Makes sense. Can't say I've seen more than one face twice since I've been here."

"Hm. And how long is that?"

"Since I've been here?" Ethan stretches his arms above his head until he feels something pop. "I... don't actually know? Time is weird here." 

Karl grunts in agreement.

"How long have you been here?"

A shadow falls over the man's eyes. "Feels like forever," he admits. "So might as well be."

-_-_-

"Right. Now, if I manually release the lockdown from here, we can make it through to the-- and then we can recontain Larry here with the Recall Protocol if he doesn't get too--" a hand gesture that had Ethan smiling despite the subject matter. "And then we can head to--"

His S-Nav beeps on the desk, right where they can both see it.

"Oh, fuck off," Ethan laments, inadvertently leaning into his companion. "Just one more hour of not dying or being hunted for sport. That's all I fucking ask."

"Which is it?" Karl asks, gathering up his paper notes into his own file and shoving the thing into the back of his waistband.

"I... I don't know," Ethan says, squinting at the device. "SCP-"

They both spin around at the sound of normal footsteps. Normal footsteps were bad fucking news as a rule, and when they see a tall figure clad in nothing but black robes and a plague doctor's mask turning ominously towards them, that rule seems pretty solid.

Then the figure holds out it's hand in a vaguely threatening gesture and Ethan decides he's had enough of waiting around. He grabs Karl by the hand and drags him in a ring-around-the-rosey game with the advancing plague doctor. The presence of them feeling like an omen. A really fucking bad one.

They're taking the steps back down to the hallway two at a time when karl makes some randy comment about just wanting to get to second base. Ethan has to physically restrain himself from letting go of his hand and kicking a leg out to use him as a distraction.