Quality Time - SCP Foundation

Terry woke up at 1:44 PM on Thursday. Normally, that would be late, even by Terry’s standards, but they had a night job to prepare for.

Terry ate some leftovers that would have passed for decent Italian if it had been fresh and got to work. They decided to check over their job details and their first conversation with their new friend over breakfast.

(593)444-6889

Hey is this the hitman?

I prefer the term assassin, but yes.

…

Right, the code: potato

Okay. Here’s the job: Your target is suffering from some sort of anomalous pathogen, but I’ve judged the risk of this pathogen spreading to you to be low, so you don’t need to worry.

My client reached out to me after this individual killed their son.

My research suggests the target has highly potent offensive capabilities that annihilate matter at the molecular level via touch. Whether this ability can be used to block bullets or expel poisons is currently unknown.

I’ve emailed you a photo of the target and likely locations for them to visit in the coming days.

Pay is ten grand upon confirmation of death.

Is this acceptable?

Yes.

Very well. Update me as needed.

The conversation was one of Terry’s favorite ways to start a friendship. It even included a bonus friend who was too shy to talk to Terry themself, making three new friends total. They had asked to keep in touch and even offered more money than the usual.

Were they worried about me? Or perhaps intimidated? The thought made Terry happy either way.

And the other friend with the money, they were certainly worried about Terry, but this wasn’t Terry's first time. They’ll come to trust Terry to do their job soon enough. The concern was nice though; it made Terry feel all rumbly inside, or perhaps that was food poisoning. It was difficult to tell sometimes.

The last of the new friendships probably wouldn’t last. Friendships were great but could be exhausting for Terry, and they had been hired to kill this one, after all. It was kind of nice that those types were short. The last new friend was an elementary school teacher named Julia Pennrose whose fiancé had recently gone missing.

After looking into the new friend-target’s habits, social media, and financial activity (it was important to be thorough and caring in friendship), Terry noticed something. Although her credit card was inactive at the moment, Julia had withdrawn a reasonably large amount of cash at a local ATM. Based on her gas purchases from the previous months and the amount of cash she had, Terry determined the most likely places to hide out were either with a local family member or at a hotel. Time to start searching.

Researcher Yusuf Flemming was trying to track down a lead. An instance of SCP-213 had emerged, but the Foundation had yet to make the connection. Flemming himself had been going through a stack of potentially anomalous crime reports for an unrelated reason, and he happened to notice that the time of the victim’s disappearance coincided with a fire alarm. Afterwards, a little research into the background of the alleged kidnapper and the victim allowed him to deduce that intentional foul play, especially kidnapping or the disposal of a body, was unlikely.

This was it; this was his ticket to promotion. He just needed to once more prove himself capable of the light field work researchers were required to perform. Then, he could put that embarrassing incident behind him, receive a promotion, and finally get his career back on track.

Flemming had managed to track the target’s general area by accessing the city’s traffic cameras, but narrowing the search down further had proven difficult. The target was in a bad part of town, which meant fewer advantages like security cameras, even on the civilian side of things.

Should he try putting out an APB to the local police? No, they were already looking for her, and even if Flemming helped them narrow the search, then he would only be trading their safety for nothing but a headache. Managing the skip might get easier, but it would cause an incident and cost more resources. More importantly, it would cost him the promotion, and that couldn’t happen.

Was it time to show his hand? He’d done a good job at tracking the target to a small area. The victim had a few nearby family members, however, and cheap motels were in abundance here. No, he decided, the area might be physically small, but there were too many viable locations. No one was going to be impressed with his work if he made an MTF search a dozen locations in a manhunt. He didn’t even have concrete evidence that a skip was involved. He trusted his conclusions, but, ultimately, he couldn’t bring the Foundation in without something concrete. His search had to continue. He just needed time, and time was always on his side these days.

He was staying in one of the cheap motels that littered the area. It had questionably thin walls, but it lay perfectly in the epicenter of his search parameters, so Flemming could hardly complain. His target was likely trying to remain low for now, and he would get an alert if her location was uncovered by the police so there was no need to rush. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

He resolved to get some rest for now and continue his search in the morning. He settled into his bed after layering a blanket from his car on top of it. He also made sure to stay towards the head of the bed, because he’d seen a cockroach crawl out from under the foot of it earlier. Eventually, fears of vermin were replaced by dreams of career advancement, and he fell asleep.

He awoke a few hours later to a scream and a flash of light.

It wasn’t until 6:30 in the evening that Terry left their house. They had deliberately waited for two reasons: First, targets were easier to track down at night, as they tended to move around less. Second, Terry wanted rush hour to be over before hitting the road.

After making it over to the correct area, Terry quickly managed to find the right location. They had tracked down the license plate number of the target’s rental, and Terry had managed to spot it at the first motel, one at the dead center of their search area. Good thing too, meeting a friend’s parents on the first day sounded stressful.

After a lovely conversation with the concierge, Terry had acquired three things: the target’s room number, a dead witness, and a countdown until the police got involved. Terry’s silent pistol had forestalled that clock, but police involvement was inevitable at this point.

After quickly and quietly making their way to the target’s motel room, Terry put their ear to the door. Soft, steady breathing met Terry’s ears, and it sounded like the only breathing in the room. The target should be alone. Good, that’ll make it easier to get to know them before they’re shot. Terry confirmed the room number and unlocked it with the skeleton key stolen from the main office. Just as Terry prepared to open the door, a scream rang out from the room, quickly followed by a flash of bright light.

Julia Pennrose had been having the worst week of her life. First, she had become deathly ill and hospitalized only for the doctor’s to find nothing. Then, she began to feel better almost instantly and was accused of lying for attention by her fiancé's parents. Next, she and her fiancé, also a teacher at her school, had gotten into a fight that ended in what she could only conceive as being struck down by God.

From there, she grieved briefly before necessity took hold of her reasoning. She had packed up and left, unsure of what else to do. The fire alarm had made getting out of the building easy since her class had been at lunch, but beyond that she had no clue what to do. She eventually settled on running and hiding in a shitty motel while she figured out a plan.

Only, things hadn’t settled down after that. She fell asleep from sheer emotional exhaustion eventually. A couple hours later, however, she woke up screaming in a sudden burst of pain. Her hand hurt like hell!

After she had calmed down enough to get her phone for light, she saw that the tips of her fingers were blackened with… rot? It’s like only the extremities of her hand, the parts closest to the head of her bed, had died. Was this another act of God? Or was it an infection?

Oh no… the moment she had thought of a possible infection, her entire body began to drain of stamina and heat up. The effect continued building and building until eventually her entire right hand disintegrated in a flash of light. She screamed again as her dominant hand faded from existence.

Flemming took a moment to recover from shock before leaping into action. He immediately rushed outside to see what was going on. Something felt off to him as he scrambled over, but he couldn’t identify what it was.

Regardless, he needed to check things out.

He saw the neighboring door ajar and ran toward it. He entered the room only to see a placid individual standing over a blonde woman. The woman looked familiar… It was Miss Pennrose! His target!

Her screaming had dulled to a pitiful whine, and the cause of her current stress was clear: her right hand was gone, and now her wrist was bleeding out.

The deadened remains of the hand lay between Flemming and the bed. He recognized the damage immediately: sudden onset necrosis. It was a terribly rare sort of injury, but Flemming had grown familiar with it. His condition had a habit of causing it when he became careless.

That’s what had been bothering him! Over the past couple years as an instance of SCP-5738-1, Flemming had identified the trigger for his episodes of stopped time: stress. Waking up to screaming and flashing lights should have been more than enough to immediately trigger his anomalous properties. For it not to have been triggered could only mean one thing: it had recently deactivated.

His episodes usually happened one to three times in a twenty-four hour period on an average, low-stress day. It could activate more frequently in a day if something stressful, like a containment breach, occurred but one thing never changed: he always had at least thirty minutes of normal time after an episode.

In short, Flemming had just had an episode and caused the necrosis on this woman’s hand. When time had stopped for Flemming, it had done so in an area just barely wide enough to include most of her fingers’ mass.

“Who are you?” the figure in the shadows suddenly spoke firmly and with authority.

Oh right, he had forgotten about them.

Terry was very confused. That was fairly normal since Terry’s social skills were “abysmal,” and “out of touch with reality,” and “a violent perversion of human connection”, and all the other mean but slightly true things court officials had said in Terry’s teenage years.

This was extra confusing for Terry though, because it was about injuries, a topic Terry was well-versed in. How had the woman’s hand gone dead like that? Why had her own hand been blown off? Why was she still fussing so much after a whole ten seconds of pain? This friend might be a bit too dramatic. Time to end things.

It was then that another figure entered the room. He had short hair and a big beard, reminiscent of obsidian in color and it paired well with his caramel skin, or at least, Terry thought it did. They had never really understood what made someone look good or not. His eyes were large; the kind Terry’s social cue tutors would call expressive and maybe soft? Words like that were always difficult for Terry. Regardless, the man looked nice enough to Terry.

Was this another friend? It’s important to introduce yourself when making friends. Terry remembered being told to put their best foot forward when meeting people. Did that mean they had already failed with the lady friend on the bed? It was too dark to see anyone’s shoes in the room, and they had already fed her the poison pill as a painkiller. Terry was pretty sure pain stopped when you died, after all.

No, don't get distracted. Introduce yourself, Terry thought.

“Who are you?” Terry said louder than they meant to. Introductions would be easier if they went first, they had decided.

Flemming introduced himself after a moment’s hesitation, “Flemming, Yusuf Flemming. Researcher for… doesn’t matter.” He narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?” he asked, keeping his voice deliberately calm and quiet.

Terry thought this man was very nice and polite. He had introduced himself using all the rules Terry had studied and immediately returned the favor, showing an interest in Terry. Now that they had more time, Terry could see that Flemming’s clothes were thrown together and ruffled up. Oh nice, Terry hated worrying about clothes too. All they had was they’re lucky tank top and jeans for the cool spring night. This was good. Having things in common was good. Maybe Terry didn’t need Julia, after all.

Terry stepped out into the light.

Flemming finally got a good look at the stranger. From what little he could see of the figure, they were best described as a hot mess. While they were a bit unkempt, their appearance was certainly appealing in a fluid way that could never be truly portrayed in artwork. Flemming unintentionally paused for a moment to examine them further as they approached, his eyes lingering a beat longer than was appropriate.

Terry approached their new friend with their hand outstretched. Their right hand. They had gotten it right this time. “I’m Terry,” they said, making sure to give their new friend a big smile as they were taught.

Flemming shook Terry’s hand, even though they had a malevolent grin on their face. They were clearly enjoying the demise of the skip, why else would someone smile in this situation?

“Is she going to live?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“No,” Terry responded, “I’m finished with them.”

“You don’t sound concerned,” Flemming replied.

“I’m not. It’s what I came here for, after all,” Terry supplied nonchalantly. This was nice. Talking about your day with a friend after work is nice, they decided. “She’ll be dead in minutes after the pill I gave her begins to dissolve.” Thankfully, the whiny former friend was too self-absorbed to hear Terry’s comment. What had they seen in her anyway?

“I see,” Flemming slowly replied. Flemming was having trouble taking things in. The whimpering skip he could no longer capture alive. The relaxed attitude of the stranger known as Terry. The ease with which they had killed. Their delicate yet firm hand, their fragrant but messy hair, and their impeccably cute face. Who was this person? Why didn’t they seem concerned with Flemming? Why was he more worried about them than his lost promotion?

It was all so confusing.

Terry had more masculine features of course, but Flemming was inevitably more drawn to certain aspects of Terry’s appearance due to his preferences.

“We should get out of here,” Terry said.

“Right…” Flemming said, shaking himself out of his embarrassing freeze-up.

The Global Occult Coalition. That’s who Terry had to be working for. No one else would simply neutralize a skip and walk away, and Terry had to be good if they were doing so alone and in civilian-wear no less. If Flemming had the good fortune to not get on their bad side, especially when his powers were down, then he wasn’t going to question his luck.

However.. Did they know he worked for the Foundation? His little slip-up earlier hadn’t been subtle, but he had to be sure.

“I work for the Foundation,” he stated plainly and came to a halt.

Terry turned around to meet their new friend’s eyes after they had stopped hearing footsteps. Matching up his expression to their flashcard practice was difficult with his beard, but they thought he looked… concerned? Maybe guilty? Terry wasn’t sure why, but that was nothing unusual. More importantly, it seemed significant to Yusuf so they had to say something, right? What would someone with empathy do?

Terry eventually settled on a simple, “I understand.”

“Ah, I see,” Flemming said with a gulp. “Then, you understand I was here for the anomaly back there, yes? I… My organization was set to capture her. Does that…?”

He wanted to ask “Does that mean you have to kill me?” but he couldn’t make himself say it. He wanted to redeem himself with successful field work, but Terry's type of field work wasn’t what he had in mind. That wasn’t the job of a researcher. No, this type of field work was best left to someone more… expendable. Alright, that was a bad way of putting it. Someone willing to risk their life in combat, really. It wasn’t the MTFs fault that meant expendability.

When Terry saw Yusuf pause, they added, “I don’t see how that matters.” It was the honest truth. They had already killed the friend, no, former friend, they had needed to. Any extra friends made along the way were great but didn’t need to get killed. Terry was confident they could find another activity to do while they hung out.

Flemming breathed a sigh of relief at that. Terry thought that was a good sign. It reminded them of their old friend, Mr. Hungry. That made Terry glad. It would’ve made Terry happy, but that seemed like a lot of energy to put into emotion.

It was then that Terry’s train of thought was interrupted. They had gotten another text. Terry had recently sent a picture of Julia suffering but not dead. Terry didn’t want to be here when the body went radioactive after all. Oh right, they had to get out of here before that happened.

Terry grabbed their buddy Yusuf’s hand and led them away while checking their phone.

It was time for another job.

Flemming wanted to ask more questions, as a researcher was wont to do, but he was taken aback and a little embarrassed by Terry’s actions. It was partially due to their straightforward and unapologetic, though not unwelcome, physical contact, but it was also the complete 180 they had just done.

Terry had an anomaly for Flemming. Apparently, they had just gotten an assignment involving yet another skip of the same type. Could this be some sort of outbreak? Maybe even an invasion of some sort? Impossible to say, but Flemming was told, in no uncertain terms, that he could take the entity into custody.

Terry, on the other hand, had just gotten another job to send two similarly anomalous targets “Gently into the night.” Terry thought it was odd to hire an assassin to do this instead of a nurse or something, but when they mentioned it to Yusuf, he seemed interested in taking the lead here. Terry supposed it didn’t matter where their new friends went to sleep, so it might as well be at Yusuf’s Foundation place if he was offering.

It’s important to build trust with friends, right? And judging by how Yusuf kept giving little squeezes to Terry’s hand, it seemed like he trusted them. It would be rude not to return the favor, right? So, they gave Yusuf a bright smile and nodded to his request.

Shortly afterwards, they were on their way to catch a new anomaly in Flemming’s car since Terry didn’t have one. Two minutes later, the kinetic energy from millions of bananas exploded from Julia Pennrose’s stomach, leveling most of the motel as it ended her suffering.

After resting for the night in some proper hotel rooms, the two got ready for a new day and met for coffee and a continental breakfast.

“So…” Flemming started awkwardly, “how does the GOC want to handle this?”

Terry didn’t know anything about the Global Occult Coalition. Their knowledge of what lay past the veil extended little beyond it existing. Friendship on the other hand, Terry totally understood, and it was so great that Flemming was already giving Terry nicknames. They should respond positively.

“The GOC believes your plan is acceptable,” Terry replied. Talking in the third person was new, but Terry couldn’t think of another way to acknowledge the sudden nickname.

Flemming smiled gratefully in response. Successful interaction, Terry thought.

“Very well,” Flemming responded, beaming, “I’m grateful, especially after you helped uh… clean up last night,” he finished sheepishly.

Terry didn’t see what the big deal was, erasing evidence of their involvement would’ve had to happen anyway. No reason not to include their new friend in the coverage.

“Of course, it was no trouble,” they said smoothly.

“Great. And you’re sure you want to accompany me today?”

“Sure.”

“Wonderful,” Flemming said. He decided to get a little bold and reached for Terry’s hand, fingers interlocking. “Can I count on you to have my back?”

Terry was more confused than surprised by the physical contact. They didn’t mind; in fact, they found it rather novel and amusing. They also thought it a nice milestone in their friendship, and that made them happy. More a feeling of content than Flemming’s excitement, but it was a form of happiness nonetheless.

Terry’s friend, the one who had hired them, had managed to investigate further and discover another instance of SCP-213. They wanted them eliminated because it was “bad for business.” Apparently, this person was likely responsible for “infecting” Julia Pennrose.

The first target was a Mr. Robert Clemmons, a divorced bartender whose twin daughters were in Miss Pennrose’s class. They had met a month earlier for a parent teacher conference, the first one that his ex-wife was unable to attend, allowing him to participate instead. Clemmons had apparently mastered restraining his abilities, and it was only a case from two years ago that allowed Terry’s friend to make the connection.

The plan was for Flemming and Terry to follow him, wait for him to be alone, and then knock him out. Terry offered to use chloroform on him, because of course Terry had that on their person, but Flemming thought normal amnestics would be sufficient. It would also erase any memory of them following the target before his disappearance.

The problem, however, was the location.

Clemmons had decided that, today of all days, was the perfect time to take his new boyfriend out to an amusement park.

First, Flemming and Terry got cotton candy, purely because stalking their prey required it, of course.

And because they were being so purely practical, Flemming bought only stick of cotton candy, for the two of them to share, to save money. No ulterior motives abound.

Next, the two of them were utterly forced onto one of the rollercoasters, because waiting at the exit would be too suspicious, naturally.

Flemming was enjoying himself and going slow, because he didn’t want to make Terry feel torn between continuing their mission and indulging his romantic interests. So he went one step at a time, making sure they consented appropriately along the way while analyzing their receptiveness.

Terry meanwhile was having a great time! This was what they always wanted in a friendship! Spending the day together with one friend while learning about another was a dream come true for them.

Terry thought the cotton candy was a bit annoying, but seeing it caught inside Flemming’s facial hair and hearing him call himself “Candybeard” was worth it. Inside jokes were the best.

Riding a rollercoaster was another new experience for Terry. Waiting in line was nice when you had a friend with you, and while Terry was normally somewhat neutral about holding hands with Flemming, it made more sense to do so once you were on a dangerous rollercoaster, so Terry initiated this time. It was for their friend’s safety, after all, and it seemed to make him happy.

They took two isolated seats at the back while their friend-target was up front, and the ride began.

This ride was one that started by slowly climbing a big incline. It must have been scary because Yusuf kept giving little squeezes to Terry’s hand. Terry squeezed back for solidarity even though they weren’t scared. A fall from this height would probably kill them without any time for pain, so there wasn’t anything to be scared of, in their opinion.

Flemming was excited, both at the prospect of promotion and in general with how the day was going. Which is why he was so disappointed when, at the peak of the initial incline on the ride, his ability activated, bringing the flow of time to a grinding halt for most of reality.

Terry was confused and not by people, for once. Right at the peak of the ride, everything suddenly went dark. No light was making it to Terry’s eyes. All the background noise of the busy park was gone. Only touch and the sound of breathing were available to Terry’s senses.

“Terry, are you alright?” Flemming asked. Good, he was there too.

“I’m fine,” Terry said. “You?”

“Also fine,” Flemming supplied.

“Cool.”

“Yeah,” Flemming added lamely.

“Hey, Yusuf?”

“Yeah, Terry?”

“What the fuck is happening?”

“Ah… right. Technically I’m… not supposed to tell you that…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Terry was busy digesting the circumstances and deciding how to react. They also respected their friend’s inability to tell them what was going on, but they were bad at improvising, especially in conversation. Therefore, they were merely thinking hard about what they should do.

Flemming, on the other hand, mistook Terry’s silence for stark disappointment, and, had he been able to see Terry’s blank expression, it would have only reinforced the false notion. Between that and his hopes for the future, he broke the rules in disappointingly short amount of time.

The awkward silence didn’t help.

“I can stop time, but I have almost no control over it, and it’s limited in space to about half a meter around me, and we might be in slight danger of running low on breathable air given our movements are restricted,” Flemming delivered breathlessly. “You should uh… probably scooch over closer to me. Is your whole body inside?”

Terry digested this and realized that, no, their left arm was numb. They scooched over to the right quickly, obliterating any remaining notion of personal space left in the cramped seats. Terry couldn’t think of much else to do. They were less familiar with this than their new companion apparently was. The only idea they had was to search for a manual release for their seatbelts, but even if the pair managed to find them, using them probably wasn’t wise.

Eventually, Terry remembered to speak again.

“Okay. What’s this about running low on air?”

“Oh, ah, time is only flowing in a small area around us, which basically means that air isn’t flowing as well as normal, only flowing at all inside this little bubble of mine. Normally, this isn’t much of a problem since the effect is centered on me, and I can usually just move around to get fresh air, but in rare cases like this, we’re in danger of running low on oxygen,” Flemming explained.

“I see.”

“Yeah…”

“So what do we do?” Terry asked.

“I always keep an emergency capsule or two of pure oxygen, but we probably won’t need to use them. Just stick close to me and move how I say, and we’ll be able to conserve oxygen,” Flemming continued.

“Alright…” Terry said. They moved closer and put their right arm around Flemming. “Like this?”

Flemming paused for a moment, flustered, “Yes, that will do nicely.”

So they cuddled.

After a beat, Terry asked, “how long will this last?”

“Well technically, time is stopped so-”

“No,” Terry interrupted. That line had tested their patience. “How long will this last for us?”

“The average is about thirty minutes, but it could range anywhere from about twenty to forty minutes,” Flemming replied, regaining an appropriatly serious attitude for the situation.

Ten or so minutes passed in solemn silence. Well, solemn for Flemming really. Terry recovered from being upset rather quickly. They were just content with silence.

Eventually, Flemming directed the pair of them to move as far left as possible to facilitate airflow, and the silence was broken.

Flemming began engaging Terry in small talk. It was nothing special. How had they been enjoying the day? It was good? That’s good. How did they like the weather? It was alright? Alright.

Eventually, Terry grew comfortable enough to start asking questions that Flemming hadn’t asked first. “How would you like to handle the target after this? What about their partner? How do you plan to extract them?”

Flemming was a little disappointed by the professional turn in the conversation, but he tried to keep things pleasant enough. The problem was, however, that Flemming hadn’t thought much about these things.

Originally with Julia Pennrose, he had been planning to locate the first target and simply notify the Foundation. Now that he had Terry on his side, he had thought they could help him impress his superiors further by establishing capture. Although Terry was more of a field expert than Flemming, they were still letting Flemming lead, at his request no less. Between his inexperience and his distracting himself with Terry, he wasn’t prepared with any details.

“Follow them out to the parking lot, give the pair amnestics, and then kidnap the target?” Flemming half-asked, looking for approval. Metaphorically looking, of course; he still couldn’t see a thing.

Terry replied, “I see. Why are we doing this instead of simply waiting for them in the parking lot?”

Flemming was rather stumped at that. The idea simply hadn’t occurred to him. Terry was right, of course, that would be easier because the amusement park had only one entrance and exit.

“I guess I thought this would be more fun,” Flemming offered, unable to keep the sheepishness out of his voice.

Terry thought for a moment. Now that the initial shock had worn off, Flemming’s powers seemed fun, and the rest of the activities in the park did mean there was more to talk about.

“I agree,” they said tentatively.

Flemming gave their hand a squeeze.

Eventually, they grew tired and settled for Terry’s idea of having a stakeout. They had plenty of fun in the meantime, though.

They went on rides, ate lunch together, and even played games. Terry won a giant stuffed tiger for Flemming. It would barely fit in Flemming’s backseat. Hopefully, Clemmons wouldn’t drool on it.

The time came for the day to end. Flemming, Terry, and a very unconscious Clemmons were at Terry’s place.

Flemming walked Terry to the door.

“I suppose this is good-bye,” Flemming said somberly.

“I suppose it is,” Terry replied coolly.

“Thank you for your help and everything. I couldn’t have done this without you, and… I had a lot of fun. I hope you did too,” Flemming said.

“I did,” Terry said.

“If there’s anything I can do to repay you, just let me know, okay?”

After a moment of contemplation, Terry said, “Actually, I wouldn’t mind having a handful of those amnesiac things.”

Flemming burst out laughing.

Terry stood stock still, wondering if they’d made a mistake.

“No, sadly, I can’t do that. I’m not really supposed to have them myself to be honest, but I get away with it because of my condition, just in case. The Foundation won’t let anyone try to reverse engineer them,” Flemming said.

That’s a shame, Terry thought. Those would have been perfect for work.

But if not that…

Terry asked, “Can we do this again sometime, then?”

Flemming was caught off guard, but his surprise quickly turned into a grin. “Of course,” he said.

“Good,” Terry said.

After a moment’s hesitation, Flemming went in for a kiss.

Terry didn’t try to stop him.

Eventually, they recovered from shock and kissed back, pleasantly surprised.

Definitely doing this again, they both thought.

Thanks to Aleph-Null for the pairing! Check out their stuff!