What Love Is, Part One - SCP Foundation

"Warm and Wet"

By Dr Rights

SCP-542, Herr Chirurg, stands imposing at his current seven-foot-two even while seated, the recently-replaced bones in his legs having boosted his height, though he still hunches over under the strain of the bizarrely distended ribcage and the too-full torso. His arms hang well to his knees, but they are too constantly in motion to tell, the inhumanly long, slim fingers, wrapped around a book and drumming on the arm of his chair. He looks up with mismatched eyes, lips pursed in bemused thought, before splitting into a grin that spans practically the full width of his face.

I’m…I’m sorry. You want me to talk about…what?

No, no, it’s fine. I should have expected the most bizarre conversation as soon as you came in with a tape recorder. And for once, I don’t even have to take anything open to speak about it, ja?

Love…I’m not sure if I can answer, exactly, what love is to me. Liebe…

You know…that feeling you get, when the person you love very much touches you? Not like that, well, yes like that…but no matter where or when, that touch. When they place a hand upon your shoulder or gently brush their fingertips against the small of your back…that is what living tissue feels like. Once you get past the skin and into the true workings of the body, it’s just…that. Very real, hard to deny.

…I’m honestly surprised and impressed. Most, at this point, would have left the room…

Oh, yes, I’ll continue.

I long lost the urge to engage in copulation, you know that…but that does not mean that I do not still make love, if in different ways. A dear friend of mine- don’t give me that look, child. I still make friends, you know that. But a dear friend of mine was in an…accident, of sorts. She was eviscerated, slit open from her collarbone down to her pelvic bone. Everybody else left her for dead in that moment, but I…could not.

Even as I knelt down beside her, she attempted to smile. Her diaphragm was, of course, badly damaged and one of her lungs ripped open, so she couldn’t truly speak, but I am fairly good at reading lips. She spoke to me- “Mein Herz ist jetzt deins” she said.

“My heart is yours now.”

Earlier I had…admitted that, were she to ever let her guard down around me, I would pluck her heart from her chest- oh, such a schönes Herz, perfect and beautiful in sound, always such a steady beat, even when she was scared.

I will admit, I was tempted. She was so broken, the poor muscles and flesh all ripped and torn asunder…but even if nobody else would try to fix her, I knew that I could, mein Gott, I knew it.

The worst damage was to her chest. The ribcage, oh, those poor ribs…the sternum had been pushed aside, into her lungs. It was very lucky that I had quite a bit of wire and string on me, indeed. I was able to repair the damage to her lungs best I could, and the entire ribcage had to be wired back into place. It wasn’t a perfect job, but I would be able to do more later, for now, I just had to keep her alive before she bled out.

Was? Oh…yes, I can gloss over the details, if you insist, but yes…she lived. For another three years, she lived.

Love?

…Love was when I was inside her.

No, not like that. Don’t give me that look when I’m trying to explain something, child.

To feel her whole body, so alive, still alive, to know that she could be saved…when I gently sewed her broken intestines back together, or when I coaxed her heart to resume beating when it threatened to stop…that was love. It was, indeed, comparable to making love, if not in ecstasy, but in emotion. To gently close her body back up and watch as she breathed on her own was utter relief and bliss.

Love is…Heiß und naß. Love is warm and wet. It’s alive and throbbing, moving…flushed with blood and-

…You look uncomfortable. Would you like for me to stop? I am almost done, Ich verspreche. Hah.

You see…our interpretations of love aren’t that different when you get down to it. There’s still that first soft, gentle touch, and then delving into something far more…intimate. Whether it’s through flesh and blood or not. And then everything is warm and wet, and alive.

…You’re the color of a tomato. Lets stop this and play chess, mein Doktor. Maybe we can even bet on the stakes this time…we could put those lovely eyes of yours on the table. No? Well…maybe next time, ja?

I really would be gentle, you know.

Heiß und naß, indeed.

I call white this time.

[[Note - Doing some minor edits over time as friends who know some German (unlike me) read it over.]]