Five Minutes - SCP Foundation

Sigh. This was the fifth episode today. Funny, Researcher Yusuf Flemming didn’t feel any more stressed than usual. Maybe it was the new assignment.

At least he had the new assignment to keep him company. The past month or so had been far less monotonous.

PoI-5257

What are you doing?

Reading the internet.

Anything good?

You ever read any Polandball comics?

Polandwhatnow?

So, they’re cartoons, comics, whatever, where every country is a ball, in the design of their flag, and they make jokes and go on adventures and stuff.

Your millennium will never cease to amaze.

I wish I could read your tone over text.

You're a smart boy, you'll figure it out! ;D

YOU FIGURED OUT EMOJI!

I'm so proud of you.

Shut up. See how well you do figuring out hieroglyphics, then get back to me.

Snaaaap back to reality. Time began to move around Yusuf again, and he pocketed his phone to get back to his meeting. Why couldn’t this have been one of the longer episodes?

It was a weird assignment, but after the last two times the Foundation had tried speaking with Stephane, the self-proclaimed Fifthist Apostle, they brought Yusef in, thinking that his… unique state of existence might give him and Stephane something to talk about.

Flemming didn’t mind it; it gave him something to do during his episodes, anyway. He’d tried to get Stephane to explain how they could communicate, but the network didn’t technically work in his little pocket of reality. The answer, as many of the answers to his questions, had been less than satisfactory.

Their conversations had begun boringly enough. Names, job titles exchanged. Requests made, and assurances given, that the Apostle would not unzip Yusef from top to bottom. Not as long as you behave had been the answer there. From the very start, Stephane had a playful, almost flirtatious tone, which Yusuf at first had hated, but slowly, surely, had grown to almost enjoy.

A few months had gone by, and Yusuf now almost found himself looking forward to his episodes. He hadn't gotten very far in his official interview of his subject, but that had become less and less of a concern with each passing day.

PoI-5257

Goodnight.

Today

Hey.. bubbled up for a bit.

Hello there, cutie!

Cutie doesn't sound like a very apostolic word.

Besides, how would you know?

Apostolic means whatever I want it to mean.

I just know. I have my ways.

Also… couldn’t you be my ancestor, for all we know? Ew.

I imagine you're right, there. Although your family comes from a little more south than mine. But it's moot.. I've never had kids.

… yet >:D

Can you even have kids? Or sire them, or whatever? All it says on your docs next to 'sex' is 'Any'. How does that even work?

You people and your rules.

Why does it matter to you?

…are you interested? :D

Pfft. Generally I'd like to have met someone before deciding to have kids with them. Call me old fashioned.

All you had to do was ask.

——

Yusuf paced his office aimlessly, checking his phone now and then. He’d forgotten how boring these episodes had been before he’d started talking with the Fifthist he was supposed to be interviewing.

It’d been almost three days since his last conversation had ended with Stephane, and rather abruptly at that. What had they meant? Why say something like that, and then not follow it up with a time? Or a place? Or at least a ‘fuck you kindly’? Who ghosts after saying something like that?

“Not a ghost. Just a human.”

Yusef did their best impression of a man not jumping out of his skin. He turned around, and blinked pointedly at the person sitting on top of his desk. “Who the hell—”

“Come on. You know.”

And Yusuf knew. Somehow. Not in that “just put 2+2 together and it made 4” kind of way, but more like “just put 2+2 together and got 5”. It didn’t make sense, but somehow, he knew Stephane on sight, as though he’d known them all along. As though it wasn’t weird that they were now just sitting on his desk.

He also knew, for more mundane reasons, that they were beautiful.

“How’d.. how’d you get in here?”

Stephane shrugged. “Walked in. One of the joys of existing out of time.”

“But I was out of time!”

“You were out of your time. I was out of all of it.”

“Wh—” Yusuf had apparently walked himself close enough to the desk for Stephane to shush him with their hand.

“I’ll explain everything. Eventually.” Their eyes sparkled – literally, at least it seemed that way to Yusuf. “But not here. Come with me.”

Stephane got off of the desk and proffered a hand.

“Where then? I can’t just walk this bubble around anywhere, besides, it may stop at any moment, and..”

Stephane shushed him again, this time with just a smile. “Then leave it here.”

“What.”

“Just come with me.”

And so Yusuf did. He wasn’t sure how, he wasn’t even quite sure why, but for the first time since he’d touched those damned shackles, Yusuf left his time bubble on his own terms.

He’d be back in due time.

This is all part of Rom-Con 2023! Thanks to Flopmind for the pairing. Check out their entry!