Fine, Then

Link to article: Fine, Then.

(none)

float:left;color:#ffffff;font-size:80px;line-height:70px;padding-top:5px;padding-right:8px;font-family: times, georgia;padding-left:5px;background:#990011;margin-right:10px

```
hoverlink
```
```
hoverlink-card
```
```
hoverlink-title
```
```
hoverlink-text
```
```
hoverlink
```
```
hoverlink-card
```
```
hoverlink-title
```
```
hoverlink-text
```
```
hoverlink
```
```
hoverlink-card
```
```
hoverlink-title
```
```
hoverlink-text
```

=====
[[include component:preview
text=I think that to pay back that control, to let him have my time and heart, is the sincerest reconciliation.]]
=====

[[include :scp-wiki:component:hoverlinks]]
[[include :scp-wiki:theme:black-highlighter-theme]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:betterfootnotes]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:centered-header-bhl]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:toggle-sidebar-bhl]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:fade-in speed=3]]
[[include :scp-wiki:theme:xmas
|xmas-snow-bhl= --]
|xmas-header-bhl= --]]]

[[=]]
//And if I think malignantly, if my heart//
//Reaches out and yearns to tear apart//
//The children of God//

//Please let him smite me down//
//Let my penance be known//
//The sin that I self-brought.//
[[/=]]

[[include :scp-wiki:info:start]]
**Title:** Fine, Then: An ArtEx2025 Gift for [[*user mxsinister]]
**Author:** [[*user Wynths]]
**Word Count: 12845 Words**

Somewhat inspired by [*https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/twistedgears-personnel-file A Wonderful Saga of Twisted Entertainment] and greatly inspired by [*https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/to-my-companion-who-sleeps-eternally-beyond-reach 'dad', you're too fucking late]
[[include :scp-wiki:info:end]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:ratio-bar base=-- |ex=--]]
[[>]]
[[size 75%]]//12845 words//[[/size]]
[[/>]]
[[span style="float:left;color:#ffffff;font-size:80px;line-height:70px;padding-top:5px;padding-right:8px;font-family: times, georgia;padding-left:5px;background:#990011;margin-right:10px"]]1[[/span]]9:30 at the Cheshire Cat Café. Look at the waiters bringing out big plates and hefty glasses, mostly occupied by decoration, rarely intended for use. Their tumbling suits cover half-buttoned dress shirts and undone cuffs. They approach silence on the glistening marble floor, patterned with black square accent and beige-granite diamonds. The expression on their faces maybe that of humility and discipline, a beyond from the typical politeness and polity that might have impressed gentlemen in a different age. Touch the seats, and run fingers across their fine surfaces, exposed and smooth, running warm despite either constant foot traffic or cloudless winter winds.
And the tables are good too: thick mahogany, un-laminated and stain free. Knock, and find it silenced by a thick packed core. In the kitchens, air comes out from the multitudinous platters and the rolling stovetop plains which attack hotly steak and chicken and other, fancy, in-house things; it wafts around in the air as the cooks rush around, and it goes into a whirl, and the whirl travels outwards towards the guests, who are pleasantly ambushed by that aromatic collusion. Breathe it. Gaze outwards towards the guests, the three outside of all this.

They are silhouettes, and they rage against mountainous made-mosaic skies, sunset doled out only this hour for the //important// clientele.

Redd brings with him a rough mesa overcoat -- Carhartt, pressed and cleaned -- and carpenter's jeans with paint scraped off and an unseemly boil of a hammer loop hacked off. He covertly handles a pocketknife in the left-hand pocket, flipping it in and out, pressing the edge against his leg. The tip of the blade gives a dull baseline of pain, and the folding of the knife, muted by weather and cloth, taps on his thigh like a BB pellet against steel. He bounces his leg as he takes his seat near the edge of the tall edifice, and he looks out to the cliff which the outdoor seating overhangs. He looks at the beauty.
Dr. Wondertainment removes a handkerchief inscribed with his signature from the left breast pocket of his amethyst suit, and he walks to the handrail, and examines the world. He takes a hold of it for a little while and sees it in his palm -- the sinusoidal skyline of the great city stabbing on occasion into the domain of Luna, and the yellow and white of the soft interior lights overwhelming the buildings and giving them a sort of angelic glow. Against the distant vestiges of Gaia, one could believe that [[span class="hoverlink"]][[[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/tales-of-the-mosaic|this Mosaic was simply another biome of existence, ready-made as it were,]]]^^ⓘ^^[[span class="hoverlink-card"]][[span class="hoverlink-title"]]Tales of the Mosaic[[/span]][[span class="hoverlink-text"]]Our city is a picture of a thousand little worlds – a thousand little stories, each one truer than the last.[[/span]][[/span]][[/span]] springing out from the Earth and allowing its nubile, dangling limbs to reach out to the Heavens in distilled ambition, like inverted udders of Man. It would not be so wonderful in this place -- the Doctor decides as he wipes the sweat off himself and lets his body relax from the long walk -- if there were fossils of steel under those great foundations that must surely pave the streets, embryonic testaments to a past Man.
Isabel leans against the outer frame for a moment before exiting the Café. The whiplash of the humidity and dry about-50° of the balcony fight the fat furry coat and double-layered sweats/trousers that she dons. Her beanie is flimsy and makes her scalp colder for wearing it, something that she realizes only after stepping past the threshold and joining the disjointed family at the cold dinner table.

----

Elena brings them a bread basket, woven, thin enough to be skin, aroma of Monterrey on a special blend of herbs -- recipe taken from a new cook. Water is coming: good, they say, and it is set to be fetched in a dozen minutes. Menus are opened and glanced.

"I want you to pick me a plate." Redd says after an uncomfortable warming period.

"Ah." Dr. Wondertainment nods and lets out a small smile, chiseling out an almost cherubic face, only a tone of control and nervous fatigue tainting the half-genuine facade. "Hmmm... I've got to say, the Gnocci soup was always a good favorite of mine-"

The Doctor looks at Redd, who himself turns to look inside at the massive kitchen, dozens of people scurrying around in indecipherable, purposeful patterns. "-Though if you've the appetite for something heavier, the roast lamb is fine."

Redd continued to look away. He tapped his fingers on the table, a basic rhythm that Isabel could //almost// place. "Roast lamb'll be fine."

There was a long silence in which the father and the son couldn't look in the same direction as each other. Redd was attracted to the short, wide chandeliers which functioned almost as skyholes rather than fixtures, while Wondertainment's gaze went to Isabel and her many layers, as though he were some sort of sailor, battered against an impossible challenge and leaning upon a stern gate. Now that Redd had apparently chosen to give him space, he did not bother to hide his downcastness.
After a minute of this, Redd shifted back to the table. He caught a glint of his father's dejection, and quickly grabbed a piece of bread. He spent a long time eating it, and the Doctor played with something in his suit before assuming what in another setting could have been a negotiatory pose. The winds grew a little more; Redd's hood fluttered a little, and Dr. Wondertainment's suit listed towards the restaurant. Elena returned, and her cheerful demeanor, though cracking from the lunatic idea of serving outdoors in __these__ conditions, invigorated the three of them, as though they had finally been given permission to speak. The dam burst as she left, whispering their order so that it would live to see the terminal: //Roas' lam', mash potato coleslaw si'e, L ice tea, no ice. Lemanade. 2 Noh-cee soup, 8 mozzy brea'sticks. Parmy san'which.//

-----

"So, Redd..." The Doctor began.

"Hm?"

"Have you... gone back to Myke and Snell's since you came here?" The Doctor rests his arm on the table and leans in.

"Oh, damn --" Redd tisks at himself. " -- Honestly? I'd forgotten that place had even fucking existed." He slides back a little and leans backwards, cracking his back in a habitual way. "It, uh, has been a long time. I know that."

"It was shuttered."

"Really?" Redd squints for a moment.

"Not enough clientele. They __did__ keep the offices open, however." The Doctor inhales deeply, taking some of the cold into his body. "And..." He trailed off, then continued, knowing that he had forced his own hand, and was liable to say something treacherous. "I've been going back there."

Isabel chimed in now, glancing at Redd to ensure that she wasn't being explicitly rude. "He's done it some ten or twelve times. Just goes out every summer and waits for you." She slid just a little to Redd, hoping to make it clear that she **desired** to be neutral, somehow.

"And the hell would you do that for?" Redd said quickly.

"I." And the Doctor stopped. Isabel looked up from her notepad to find the Doctor at an impasse of words. It was astonishing. He looked at her, then at his son. Redd smirked.

"I -- [[span class="hoverlink"]][[[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/to-my-companion-who-sleeps-eternally-beyond-reach|was writing letters. Apologies.]]]^^ⓘ^^[[span class="hoverlink-card"]][[span class="hoverlink-title"]]'dad', you're too fucking late[[/span]][[span class="hoverlink-text"]]Maybe someday he 'ought to bring them, show his son that he really did think of him, really did try in his own way.[[/span]][[/span]][[/span]]" The Doctor inspects the wood grain of the table. It is an oak-like pattern, with spiral coffee swirls against a dark chocolate backing. Scanning it gives him a will to continue. "I admit now, I did it more for myself than for you -- or else I might have been able to will myself to find you sooner."

"Maybe."

"What do you mean by that, Redd?"

"Oh -- I, ah." Redd scratches the back of his head for a moment before continuing. "I mean that..." Redd stops for an instant as the Doctor looks at his son, wondering.

Redd treads the next sentence carefully while realizing, in his heart of hearts, that the whole night would contain such wordplay.

"I mean that, sometimes, people doing things just for themselves still helps others. Do you know what I mean by that?"

The Doctor chuckles and returns to the wood grain. It was an allodynic thing, hearing Redd speak at length again. It was an evisceration of self-doubt -- doubt that the self could have been wrong -- to know that all the words of the previous night were totally measured and true when applied to himself. "Perhaps."

"Fine, then. So, you-" Catching a glimpse of motion, Redd turns to look to the restaurant. Elena had returned with the glass of lemonade, a pitcher iced tea with no ice, an empty glass, and a bottle of Old Pale.

"Oh, uhm, sorry, but we didn't --" Isabel began.

"My manager says that it's compliments for the gentleman in velvet." Elena says. She meets Dr. Wondertainment's gaze as she places down the drinks, and smiles meekly. "Would you like anything else, Sir?"

"Nothing, dear." The Doctor responds, giving a smile in kind. Elena goes.

Redd seizes the gateway into his father and clamps down on the through-line with a hesitant "What's that about?"

"The favor?" The Doctor has a hint of surprise in his voice, which makes Redd's cheeks go red and hot -- had he asked something that was Too Much?

"Yeah." Redd says cautiously.

The Doctor coughs into his suit sleeve and rubs his eyes. "It -- and this is a long story, now that I think of it, so I will be-"

"You can take your time. We'll be here long as we need to, Natasha's got her."

"Is that so?" Dr. Wondertainment and Isabel both look at each other, gauging the other -- the Doctor was curious, Isabel was obviously surprised. Thankfully, the incourtesy went unremarked upon.

"Yes; I know I had said that I wouldn't leave my girl alone more than an hour, not with a babysitter, but my wife said she was able to call off work right after y'all left." Redd sighs. He says the rest of his thought quickly. "I bitched at her of course -- didn't want her to take out hours if she didn't need to, 'cuz she does //like// the work she does... but. You know."

"I understand." The Doctor nods.

"So, yeah." Redd says.

The silence is tumultuous to Isabel, and she decides to attempt to keep them from it.

"Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"What //was// that favor, the one that Elena mentioned?"

The Doctor jolts up in his seat. "My goodness, I'd almost forgotten to explain it!" He turns to face Redd, "I'm sorry, if you were-"

"It's fine, it's fine -- I was just a lil' curious, wasn't dying to know or anything."

The Doctor looks to the restaurant, apparently searching. "I'll let you know simply, then -- I used to be good friends with the owner of this place, one 'Ira Wildecliffe', after I designed a special toy for his son. I was not remotely as experienced as I am now then, so the glasses -- " The Doctor snickers, Redd interjects.

"Wait, wait... you say '//Ira// Wildecliffe'?"

"Yes?"

Redd takes a piece of bread, which held its heat despite the wind, and chews it quickly. He sips from his tea.

"I just found that strange, because I actually __know__ a Wildecliffe. Boris Wildecliffe."

"Ah, good to know!" The Doctor gives an honest, warm smile -- the type of thing that a grandparent would give their kid's kids, not knowing them well but loving them all the same... it was deeply strange to see on the man.

Redd shook that train of thought away.

"Why's that?" He asks.

The Doctor puts a finger up. "I'm about to tell you: My glasses, which I had given the name of the Super Secret Spy Spectacles© to, were a little... odd. I had had issues with them regarding their blinding the user when I examined them, and I //believed// I had solved the problem when I had gifted them at last.

The Doctor pushes his seat to the edge of the table and continues, closer than ever. "You see, the Spectacles© worked by altering the vision of the wearer, but if the wearer's spirit could not process the change, it simply resulted in the complete removal of it. But, I had applied a simple fix -- " The Doctor looks at Redd. He strokes his stubble and leans his elbow on the table. " -- And that was to simply give the brain the option to view heat signatures, and hope that the connection between the glasses and said ability would hold strong.

Redd smirks. "And it didn't."

"It did not, for the child that I had given it to was... perhaps bratty is a mean word, but no other occurs to me at this moment -- self-willed-" The Doctor begins to blush somewhat at the foul language that he has been forced into using.

"-I think bratty'll be appropriate if even //you// want to call the little shithead that." Redd and the Doctor both laugh at that; thank goodness, Isabel thinks.

The Doctor leans back in after a minute, "So then, let us call him bratty. And I say him, because his name was Boris."

"No!"

"Boris Wildecliffe, yes!" The Doctor seems to wrinkle with the emphasis. "And the Spectacles© I gifted him? He found them unnecessary, for he had __overheard__ a conversation I had with one of my assistants, and he knew the trick behind the Spectacles©."

Redd shakes his head and closes his eyes. "Shhhh-eesh! Must've been hard to deal with that, I figure." He says in a strangely colloquial tone... Isabel thinks now that it was the type one would use with a coworker or close acquaintance. Perhaps it didn't mean anything, but she files it in the back of her mind for later thought.

The Doctor goes on. "Oh, undoubtedly. In the end, though, I really appreciated his willingness to avoid using the ability I had granted him for ill purposes, and as I would periodically dine with him and his father, Boris began to consider himself a friend of mine."

"Consider himself, you say?"

"Well... I can't say at that time, of course, that we were friends -- he was a child -- but I did appreciate his company, and remember, at this time I still had the capacity to talk to every child to whom I had gifted a Wonder. And I'm sure __you__ know, Redd, how much I did this while it was feasible to do so!"

Redd's lips wobble, and he looks away from the Doctor for a moment, focusing on something in the middle distance -- Isabel follows his gaze... it's probably a tree. Large one, pink, with the tones of Spring at an ungodly time of year. "Yeah, I remember."

The Doctor winces. "Ah."

Redd refocuses and assumes an assuring smile. "Nah, it's fine, I just ain't remember that, was all. 'Ma try and put it in the past, you know?" He says it delicately, in a paternal tone, emphasizing the 'You know' which, to Isabel's ears, is beginning to sound less like a tick and more like a choice.

"I know."

"Good. So, that's all well — you gave our guy Boris here the ability to have some heat X-ray's. Explains why he always fucked with us on the job site." Redd's smile deepens, and he looks behind himself, out to the back-offices of the Café, as though the words should have been swiftly punished.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Woul' whine and moan over anyone working carefully if they were on a scaffold." Redd tisks at an imaginary Boris, rubbing his temple exasperatedly. "Really pissed me off, 'cuz the scaffolds he did give us were //really// bad, really nervewracking -- I'ma be honest there -- but I ain't say anything." "'Cuz, of course, it can get worse."

The Doctor squints and nods. "Ah. I see." Isabel finds it very amusing to watch him slowly maneuver his notebook out of his side trouser's pocket, scribbling a few words down as Redd continues.

"Hey, for what it's worth, the //fuckhead// hasn't done anything to me in... like, ten years now? I haven't worked for a company in a real long time."

"I suppose that's a good thing, yes?"

Redd sighs. "Uhhh...." He is silent for a while. Isabel notices that there are no cars in the city at this hour... without the din of engine fire, the world is terrifying. "Neutral, prob'ly."

"How so?"

Redd thinks for a moment. He scratches an itch on his arm, then speaks slowly, as though printing out words of permanent wisdom. "You can take as few hours as you want, but you can also take as many. Ain't no one telling you what to do, hard to find that balance."

The Doctor nods so quickly that Isabel cannot help but believe him. "I can understand."

Redd looks away from the Doctor, and whispers, "A little bit, yeah."

The Doctor looks directly at Redd. "What do you mean by that?" He looks away as Redd finds his father's face again. "Do you refer to my assistants?"

"A'course! Not everyone that works by themself gon' have a whole team of people. It's me and my lonesome, couple of guys I call to help and cowork if a job gets real hard. And maybe Natasha if shit gets to the wire."

"Do you prefer it that way?" The Doctor raises his eyebrows, drinking in the answer that his son will give.

"Hmph." Redd scratches at his nose, then coughs forcefully, reaching for a napkin and coughing into it. Redd throws the tissue towards the nearest trash bin, about 50 feet away, and Isabel watches in astonishment as he looks away before even seeing it enter the bin. Redd sips from his tea. The Doctor remains stoic, almost unsensible "Maybe. Nah, prob'ly."

"That's fine then... I just worry a bit, that's all." The Doctor says.

"That's funny." Redd says, running his hand through his hair.

"Why's th-" The Doctor says.

"-When the hell did you begin worrying?"

----

"What?" The question seems to send the Doctor reeling. Isabel flicks her head to look at him, herself anxious with the direction of the conversation.

"When, pray tell, did you get it in your heart to come out here and worry about me?" Redd speaks quickly now, wanting to get in his word before some nebulous threat removes his right of speech. "I figure we was getting a little distracted, might return to the... //heart// a'the matter."

The world appears still for a long moment. It also feels as though it contracts -- the inner cogs working to dilate it down to the Café, to the mouths and ears and pounding brains of the long-loitering trio. The Doctor gathers himself, taking in a good breath and grabbing at his left wrist.

"About a week ago. I... uhm."

"The Doctor's getting older, Redd." Isabel interjects -- she //did not// want to see the Doctor explain what he had in the hotel room, the night that they came to the city. It would have been too much for the old man, surely: one's heart could only take so much in a restless night before it simply gave out.

"Do you want me to tell him, or do you think you can do it?"

The Doctor grimaced. "Isabel, I'll be __**damned**__ if I can't so much as be sincere with my son."

Redd loses the edge to his voice, and in its place, a whisper that is barely over the dying winds finds its way to his father, to the wrinkled, frail, //old// man before him.

"Jesus, what's going on?"

"I'm sorry... sorry, I just... agitated myself." Dr. Wondertainment said. He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, despite having done so about a minute prior, and spoke. "About a month ago, I began to get these spots on my skin. It was a week ago when I realized what they meant."

Redd narrows his eyes. "You got fucking cancer?"

Isabel chimes in: "Something similar to it."

The Doctor frowns as he speaks. "Look, what I want to say is: I will not die from this, alright? I can heal myself with the right dose of medicine and the right outlook on life.

But it's... it's a reminder, no?"

Redd nods, his lips wobbling. He taps his fingers rapidly on the table. "I see."

"I should have come down sooner. I should have __tried__ sooner."

Redd suddenly perks his head up. He looks at Isabel, who had dared to take a bite from her enormous sandwich. "Isabel, did you have anything to do with this?"

She nods and chews quickly.

"No -- and I put it on my life. The Doctor is..."

Redd interrupts. "Hm." He scratches his neck. "I'll trust you on that."

The Doctor says, "Well, I know I should have come sooner... but, I'm here now." He taps his fingers on the table, unsure of how to phrase the next sentence, until it comes together, fused from a million disparate thoughts which all beg for further questioning, an excuse to go out and be considered by the son.

"I would like to know more about you, Redd. I want to get to know my lost son. I'm -- well, I'm sure you may not feel that I am sincere, I __promise__ I am --"

Redd sighs for a long time. He puts his fork down. "What do you even want to know? That I'm fine, despite what you did? That I cobbled together a decent life in this city?"

"I.." Dr. Wondertainment begins, then speeds up. "I want to catch up on seven years' news. I want to know how you've calmed down, I want to know how you met your wife, I want to know all the cute moments you've had with your daughter -- and, my goodness, I don't even know her __name__, still --"

"Hey, hey." Redd puts a hand up.

"What is the issue? Have I done something wrong?" The Doctor says. Redd puts his hand down.

"Fuck. I mean, not right now, no..." Redd sighs. "Look, I get you're excited. I really do. But I don't want you to just... like, what do you even what to do?" He puts a finger up, "Besides come here and have dinner and then go back to running Wondertainment."

"Do you believe I have come here __merely__ to have an hour-long chat with you? After all of this time?"

"I... figured you'd be the type." Redd glances away, then goes on, throwing air quotes to emphasize his now-proven-wrong thought. "Busy guy, has to manage teams and subteams and departments and PR and whatever."

"No. I won't go."

"Good. We've hardly even started, it feels like."

"No. I mean I'm not going back."

"Doctor, you can't be-" Isabel immediately jumps in. Redd sees that Isabel was obviously not briefed on this, she damn near chokes on her drink, slamming it down on the table like a judge's gavel. He talks with her.
"Wait, are you serious? I-"

"I have decided I want to retire. If I phrase that way, is it more palatable? Is it better understood?" It's unbelievable -- Doctor Wondertainment has something like irritation written on his face.

"Dad, you don't have to do this." Isabel opened her mouth but did not speak.

Dr. Wondertainment is like an old, unstable chimney: his voice wobbles in the wind; his chest shakes slightly, tectonically; he is grim, as though he wears sackcloth underneath the suit.
"Redd... I, need to get to... to, know you. I want you to not hate me." His was the face of the damned. "Before I die, I would like to know that. That's why I want to stay with you."

"Again, you don't need to do that. God knows it'd be shittier if I knew you were only doing it because I thought you wanted to please me." Redd looks down.

"I've been thinking of retiring, in any case. I've gotten older, and the illness I showed you is..."

"A reminder?"

"That is the best way to put it. A reminder."

Redd smirked ."Old man, you're still easily going to outlive me. You know that damn well."

"It won't be in the same way though. Or, at least, I am scared that I would not be in good health during the back half of my life."

Redd scrunches his face again. "You sayin' you wanna put yourself down?"

"No!" The Doctor smiled at Redd. "You haven't changed, have you? You're still a crude jokester at heart!"

"A funny one too."

The Doctor smirks and shakes his head. "The greatest that ever lived."

There was a silence for a moment.

Redd begins. "Hey, uhm..., uh-"

The Doctor says, "What is it?"

"Do you think Isabel... like-" Redd flusters himself, wondering how best to ask the question that has been bothering him.

Isabel jumps in. "If you want me excused, I'll excuse myself."

Redd rebuts her. "No! I'm fine talking in front of you, I was //actually// gon' say: Did the old man ever tell you about how we separated, anyways? I figure you should know that, if you really know nothing."

Isabel made a pledging motion "I know nothing."

"Good, good -- I figure we fill her in, no?"

"Yes, we can tell Isabel." The Doctor stretches in his seat. Isabel notices they are the same stretches the Doctor does prior to entering a Wondertainment Co. board meeting.

"So... when was this; got to be, like-" Redd says, and then stops.

Elena walks towards them, apparently making the rounds, and it is her presence that lets them know that another couple of people have made their home near the far corner of the balcony, completely over the cliff, held by nothing but man's manufacturing. Perhaps it was worth it for the view, Redd thinks.

"Can I get you Sirs and the Madame anything?" Elena says

"No, it's fine Elena, you don't need to check on us any time soon." She turns. Redd gives as an afterthought: "We'll come back in and pay the tab and we're ready, thank you for asking."

----

"Alright, so, I was gon' say: this is like, 2002, yes?" Redd looks at the Doctor, who nods. "2002. And, the Foundation, you know, they're doing their thing -- this was a little before he made you, but he'd come up with the Little Misters idea, and he'd gotten a few out, me included. So I'm young, is what I'm saying."

"And then, one day, Foundation decides that they wanna take some items from one of the warehouses we've got: over what, who the hell knows, I sure don't-"

The Doctor interjects, "I remember this! It was over a product I had developed but hadn't marketed or shipped out -- the Awesome Adventurer's Grill© was the placeholder name."

"Yeah, that fucking thing -- set kids on fire and roasted //them// instead of the meat, or something like that, it's been a while."

The Doctor's meek smile freezes for a moment before going as normal. "It was a less grave flaw, but the general idea was the same."

"General idea, yeah." Redd chuckles. "So, they took up //everything// that was in that safehouse, and that included young me, all fresh and 20 and buzzcut." Redd gulps his tea. "And, you know, I had no idea how to ##red|channel my redness##, so I'm running away from the armored up men like '//Who the hell are you, get the hell away from me!//' and scaring them cuz I'm laying down fire and shit without even realizin'!"

Redd takes another gulp of his tea. "So, yeah, that whole debacle goes down, and despite all my best efforts, I ain't old enough to really understand how to fight back, so they bag and tag me and I'm put away somewhere... let's say, like, -84 or something -- no idea."

"It was Site-84, I remember it clearly."

"Thanks. So, the whole time I'm there -- which ain't that long, thankfully, because I get traded out very quickly once Wondertainment Co. starts bringing down shit and fury on that tiny little site -- I'm thinking to myself '//Who are these people?//, and I'm trusting that my Creator -- cuz I think of the Doctor, my dad, as the Creator right now -- is gonna be able to let me know something, let me figure this shit out."

Redd hums for a moment, thinking, then says "You let her know the rest, you know what happened on the back-end better than I do."

"For a proper contextualization... hm." The Doctor pauses here as well -- it was a difficult time, and hard to summarize in a way that, he felt, assigned an appropriate amount of blame. "I was, at this time, worried that the Foundation would attempt to incarcerate me, for various reasons. It was a bout of paranoia which I allowed to develop within myself, for I believed that it was merely worry, merely an encouragement of __precautionary__ behaviors.

As such, when I was made aware of the raid that the Foundation had conducted, it was a reinforcement -- in __only__ my eyes -- that there was a direct assault being made on the company; soon, I thought, they were going to come after me. I sent messages to them through the mail, and through that avenue, I __was__ able to bring Redd back from their containment, but I did not..." He runs his hands through his hair for a brief moment, passing through it so tightly that strands come out as the knots are killed.

"I didn't feel comfortable around even him. It was as though Redd had been tainted by them. Somehow, someway."

"Everyday, it feels like I learn something new about you, Doctor." Isabel says.

"I have many lives under my belt, as they say." It is a rare attempt at humor, which the Doctor botches.

"Yeah. So, that's pretty much what ended up happenin', I'm sure you can tell... he thought I was gon' bug him or something, I didn't understand what that meant so I ended up fighting him when what I should'a done was been patient... and, after that fight, I ran."

"Where to?" Isabel asks.

Redd contemplates. "Honestly? I just ran. Ran west at first, did it a long time, 'till I found that the sky'd turned black and I was many miles out from the forest where all this had happened. I stopped and slept in a trucker stop, and I kept going. Did that for ages."

He goes on. "It was a fun time, you know? Or, I guess, a... //adrenaline//-filled time. Remember, I'm new to the whole fucking world. Something as simple as gas station beer had never touched my lips... or a food truck's take on hot dogs, or a stale-ass, months-out sealed cookie. You know? -- Things like that."

Isabel, becoming further enraptured by this almost mythical tale, asks now for her own curiosity, rather than for quality time between the father and son. She relaxes in her chair, a motion that Redd smiles at. "What made you stop?"

"I found a town that was pretty small, that I thought might be a good place to relax -- or at the very least, wouldn't do shit to me -- and I tried to settle down there a bit. Trouble was-" Mr. Redd outstretches his arms. "You don't leave a guy alone who's all fucking red, you know? So I had to leave, despite provin' myself to be a perfectly good worker. And I kept going." Redd scratches his nose, looking over himself at the Doctor for any comments.

"Wait, so, Redd-" The Doctor interjects. "Did none of my messengers ever reach you?"

"Uhhh...." Redd picks at his beard for a moment, then turns up in his seat. "Yeah! As a matter of fact, I did, one of them -- or at least, I figure she might have been one of them. I don't know." He leans closer to Isabel, resting his head on his arm like a bored student in a lecture hall.

"Sorry, this one might take a minute to explain."

----

The food is good and plenty. It hardly fits onto the table, so Elena brings them a pop-stand and places the VSOP, snifters, and extra bowl of soup there. The roast lamb is massive, a good four-fifths the size of Redd's forearm, dripping with oil, little bubbles still sizzling near the top on the skin, and the grease has mixed itself somewhat at the bottom with the mashed potatoes, tinting them orange and making them even more delicious than the herbs, cheese, and copious butter had made them. The Doctor's soup is creamy, white, and speckled with different vegetables -- mostly carrots and spinach -- and gnocci balls, which he announces as being "very, very good; super filling" with his first taste of the paste-like, sweet delicacies. Isabel's sandwich rivals the lamb, and appears closer to a //torta//, with grill marks on the bread belying a soft, damp bun over fresh avocado, masses of milky, wizened cheese, and wads of chicken which somehow //feel// like they have more grease on the inside than on the outside.

Isabel almost regrets her decision to pick up the tab, for it will surely be mammoth. They dine for a while, then, as he begins to feel stuffed, Redd realizes it would be best to go on with the story.

"I was far at this point, and I'd gone north..." Red tisks at himself, then after a moment, went on: "Yea', let's put it at Wisconsin. So I'm out there, right, and the Doctor, I keep dreaming of him. I'm thinking it's just because, like, I'm guilty and I want to go back, because I //was// feeling guilty by this point, and then -- out of the blue -- while I'm framing a house out near a town called Fournouney, I get a knock at the door. And, see, it scares the shit out of me because I'd been used at that point to no one even looking my way besides the contractor that I worked for, Chito liaison guy that I called Vedal, mostly 'cuz I never asked him his last name when we first spoke, and it seemed weird to ask after that.

Anyways, so I'm out there, knock on the door. I can't exactly go check on it because I'm hanging a door and the wheel-things that roll around and let you open the foldable doors is kicking my ass, it just won't work with the dimensions of the hole that I had to cut myself since the manufacturers were pieces of shit. Then the knocking gets louder, and I'm like 'God damn it!', and I put a couple tabs of sheetrock I had near the corner for such an event down and leave the door in a precarious position. Genuinely vile.

And at the door is this lady, right? She's like, mid-30s, auburn hair with a gray streak that //has// to be intentional 'cuz no one gray'ds that young, and..." Redd tisks again, collecting the moment. "Holding in her hand... she's got this, like, this... black cube, right? But it's orange accented, deep and thin stripes that go about the whole thing like a rubik's cube, and it's //fucking shaking.//"

Isabel perks her head up at this, right before she takes another bite of the sandwich.

"Hm? Isabel, you got something?"

"Oh, no!" She replied, half-truthfully. "Actually, I was just trying to remember if I had heard of that sort of thing from someplace... it was familiar, that's all."

"Ah, ok." Redd said, a smile cracking through. Isabel takes this as an excuse to go back to the chicken and cheese.

"Anyways, so, I've got this woman who I have no idea where she came from, holding what looks to me to be the type of thing that my Dad of the Heart might have made in a different age. She's asking me 'Do you know who Mr. Redd is', and we both know it would be horseshit to deny I was the titular Mr. Redd, so I don't. She wants to give me a message, she says, but she doesn't want to give it out in the open. Of course, I tell her to come on in, mind her step and all -- nails and leftover joint compound are sons of bitches -- and she eventually finds a bucket in a relatively clean area that I used to eat my sandwiches on. She then holds the cube in her hand, //looks at it//, and the thing turns off. I mean, its grooves just disappear entirely, as though it was always just a perfectly smooth black cube.

At this point, I start figuring 'Perhaps this ain't Mr. Wondertainment, perhaps this is fucking //Mr. Alien// the way that this device works. Like-" Redd turns slightly to Dr. Wondertainment. "-Sorry if this might be an offense or something, but this fucking thing hadn't even //done anything// and it already seemed //much// cooler than whatever Bot-That-Shows-You-Treasure© or Bubble-Wand-That-Spits-Out-Random-Views© we had produced at Wondertainment Co.

Naturally, I ask her about it first, before I even think of asking her name, and she just says something like 'Wait a bit, I need to inspect the area first -- I've received reports that your work is lacking.' and she throws that thing. It //hovers// in the air like the hand of God came down and paused it at trajectory's peak, and it throws out this //sick// fucking blue aura that scans over the whole house in, like, a few seconds. It tingles as it passes through me, I can only assume it was some kind of technology scanner thing.

Anyways, so, we sit down at that lunch area. She bickers and says she can take the floor, I plant my ass down in response, and she takes the bucket. 'You know what I'm here for?' She's like, and I say 'No, but I sure as //fuck// wanna find out.'"

Redd leans in closer, his face aglow. "And you know what this woman says? She says: 'I would like for you to come meet your maker.' And she throws the cube at my feet." He slams his hands down on the table, looking at the Doctor as he takes another gulp from his dwindling store of soup.

After a moment, Redd relaxes his edge. "Now that I think of it, I guess it wasn't your messenger -- is that what meet your maker means? Like, is it literal?"

"Do you not know?" Isabel asks, astonished.

"Uhm..." Redd begins.

"My god." Isabel continues. She tisks and says, "It means to send someone to the afterlife, typically for those people who you believe will go to the Christian hell. It's a fun way to say you will kill someone."

"Ah, ok!" Redd's apparent enlightenment would have been amusement for Isabel at a different time. Now, it is all she can do to bite her tongue and let him continue his story.

"Now, I don't know about you, but I'm getting the fuck out of there A-SAP, because that thing started ticking, and I had seen enough movies on thick-ass CRTs to know what that would've meant for me. And I hear her start chasing me, but I'm so much faster, by the time she's got to the door, I'm already up two flights of stairs, digging in the little suitcase thing I used to have my tools in for a nail gun, which I figure is the //only// way I might save myself from her. Luckily, mines are portable -- I always hated having to rely on electricity to power a air-container thing -- and so as she comes up the flights of stairs, I point a inch nail-gun right at her. And I'm thinking to myself, all scared and nervous 'Please, all Gods out there, bless me and let this alien bitch be unaware that nail guns cant fire in the open air.'

Guess what. My prayer was answered; she stopped on the stairs and put her hands up, saying something to the effect of 'Hey, don't shoot me, I'm not going to do anything to you!' which is a load of horseshit, but whatever. I walk down the stairs, slowly, and just out of her reach I put the gun to her head and I say 'Give me that cube.' She tells me to go fuck myself, and I drive a nail into the stair railing to prove my point -- it even splinters and everything as the nail goes through, couldn't ask for anything better. That scares her enough where to she //does// give me the cube.

And I run."

"That's it?" Isabel says.

"Well, I guess -- I used the cube as the sacrifice I needed to enter the city when it came time to, but I wasn't able to figure it out no matter how much I tried to replay the memory of her manipulating it. Honestly, I'm half sure it was just her being some sort of weird-ass reality bender or something, 'cuz I tried //everything.//

"Hmm, alright... speaking on entries, how **did** you get in here?" Isabel asks.

"Same as anyone else, I figure: I found out that there was a star that twinkled, and I followed it. 'Course, most people //hunt// for it, they //know// it's out there. I honestly can't say I did anything except follow it 'cuz I was bored and wanted to do anything besides go to civilization, which the star didn't do by my estimation."

Dr. Wondertainment, shivering in the outer cold, finally asks the most important question he might have ever asked.

"__That__ is interesting, that you came here seemingly unknowingly. I would like to ask, now: How did you build your life here?"

-----

"Ah..." Redd begins, stroking his hair. Isabel notes with a twinge of guilt that a good chunk of maroon strands seem to pluck right out, as though Redd withers away with each moment in the biting cold. "That's a long story."

He takes the half-full plate and stands up. "Now that I've finished and decided the roast is pretty fucking good, what y'all say we go inside and just lounge for a bit. I know I'm starting to get cold."

They were waiting for Redd to say this. As he wolfs down the rest of the plate, Dr. Wondertainment practically jumps out of his seat, and Isabel shuffles around, trying to make the table orderly. Once Isabel is done with her tidying, the three of them stroll to the door whence they'd come.Together, they enter the threshold to the Cheshire Cat Café...

..and find themselves in a very different place.

"Ah, seems that Boris has decided to remodel for the holidays." The Doctor says.

The walls were no longer plastic tiling and sheetrock, but red and black bricks with thin lines of black mortar which seemed almost to disappear into the bricks with how deep the valleys of those mortar lines were. There was an abundance of model trees: Maple and Pine and even Fig, who stretched up some ten or twelve feet, halfway up the gargantuan ceilings.
The kitchen had gone from chrome to granite, with boilers replaced by fire pits which were wood-driven, being fed every few minutes by new logs which spontaneously manifested above the ashes of the old. The floor was light oak, with a long, winding grain and invisible seams. It was a little cold, and it smelt slightly of wine, but with the fires going, that was sure to change.

There were booths by the windowsills of the Café now, which they chose at random. Isabel pulls up a stool from the bar, again choosing to present herself as neutral.

"So, pretty much-" Redd begins as she sits "-, I had nothing but a few of my manual tools when I came here -- all of the power equipment, guns and drills, I'd pawned off for a few thousand 'cuz I thought money would be //much// more important here than it is in reality.

And I figure it's Important to know that because this city, as much as I love it, //really// hates its poor people -- and I mean it! Sure, I've heard tales of, like, gardens that work as food banks or generous people giving bars of gold in the street as Christmas tales, but this is a //city.// I'm sure I don't need to tell you that those individual solutions just don't cut it when you've got God knows how many people coming here desperate and with nothing, less than what I had."

Redd sighs heavily. "So, yeah. But, with a few thousand, I //was// able to at least begin, and I had a much better start than some of the other people I'm acquainted with. I had a few month's rent and food in one of the shittier parts of town, and I thought that, like with any other town, my ##red|strength## would be enough to land me a good construction job quickly, and then I'd work my way up and all.

That didn't happen."

"And why didn't it?" Isabel asks after an uncomfortable pause.

"Hmph." Redd responded. He clicked his tongue a few times, then began his next few sentences with great care.

"I think part of the reason why was because I was an asshole. That's just true -- genuine, grade-A asshole. It made it hard to settle and talk to people when I first came, wasn't used to //needing// to for much more than a few hours of owner negotiating, //maybe.//" Redd rubs his eyes.

"And the other part?" Isabel says.

"Probably... probably the fact that I just realized I didn't care for it, once I saw what it entailed. I didn't want to deal with the people and the blame and all that. Plus I'd begun to be pretty fucking good at my job, and I felt proud of being able to help out some of the others whenever they'd fuck up." Redd looks at Dr. Wondertainment sharply. "Made me feel like I was really belonging in the little circle of people that I was around, that I had begun to befriend a bit."

"I see." The Doctor replied, vaguely understanding.

"So, yeah. I thought it'd be harder, but eventually, I get to a point where I'm even better than I was in the 'Sub-Veil world', and I'm actually enjoying my job, feeling good about my framing and drywalling. That's when I start to explore the city, abandon my apartment and all."

"Abandon your apartment?"

"Yeah, shit! I mean, at that point, remember, I hadn't much to look forward to.... like, I think the exact moment I realized that was when I was celebrating my second year here, and I looked in the corner of my room one day very close to the 25th. And I thought to myself, 'Hm? Why is there no light here... this corner should be more lit up, this house is all dark?' And I realized that, subconsciously, I had been //imagining// a Christmas tree that wasn't actually there! Like, it had all the lights and everything, I felt a soft glow, but it was just bullshit that I had filled in in the deep recesses of my mind whenever I wasn't paying attention. Memory splayed in reality and shit.

So. Yeah. I had to get my ass out of there before I went crazy. That's why I was going around in the clubs and bars, or whatever their equivalent might be in this weird-ass city and these weird-ass //Proctors//."

"Strange -- honestly, I cannot __imagine__ you as a raunchy, outgoing man." Dr. Wondertainment says absentmindedly.

"Yeah, well, that's why I said I //was// going around." Redd responds. "You think I //wanted// to put up with the drunkenness and the realization that all I was gonna find was simple night stands and shit, just from the way that it was set up, ways that was all nebulous to me then? Hell nah. And that's why, after a bunch of shit I prob'ly woul' do best to skip, I found my way to this one meeting."

Redd looks off, out towards the sky past the increasingly foggy window. The two of them -- Doctor and Assistant -- try to follow his line of sight, but cannot.

"I 'on't remember what it was now, honestly... maybe some sort of... recovery group?" Redd tisks. "Not like I ever had an issue, but just the way it was set up, it felt all kinds of fake. Politeness reigned.

Looking back, I also don't really remember what got us off talking, but I remember we //did// hit it off big. I remember thinking that she must have been the most honest person at that place, God knows she was more honest than me, that's for sure, and that she must have probably been the sexiest."

The Doctor's expression sours ever so slightly. Redd races to correct.

"Yeah, I mean... maybe sexy ain't a good word, but it's what comes to mind. Like, all the love of the romance came later on that night... I would lie if I said that it didn't, you know? You see someone beautiful and you figure to yourself that you want to get to //know// them first, when you're in that sort of situation and that sort of a mindset. Almost never it comes to pass, but when it does..." Redd shrugs. "I dunno. Suppose you get twenty year strong marriages, type of shit that would get me past the 'Pearly Gates' or whatever you might call it."

"No, no! I..." The Doctor shifts and sighs. "Redd, you can say whatever you want. That's all -- you needn't apologize, at least tonight-" The Doctor wanted to apologize for his habitual anti-vulgarity, a privilege that would, maybe //could// only be extended to the Mister in front of him. Isabel was shocked.

"Hm, alright." Redd nods. He leans as far back as he can in the booth-seat and yawns soundlessly. He remains all-upright.

"'Scuse me." He says, "Might be the latest that I've been out with someone since Julia was born... I think you understand a bit?"

"I do." The Doctor replies.

"'Lright then."

After a moment's pause, wherein Redd appears to nearly fall asleep, Isabel speaks.

"Will you return to your story?"

"Yeah, I will." Redd turns to the Doctor. "Where'd you put the Henessey?"

"Redd!" Dr. Wondertainment leans over, as though to smack him. "You will __not__ drink alcohol to get you through the night, that's insane! Do you know the damage it does to your sleep?"

"Jesus!" He puts his hands up, "I'll get only a tiny bit, you know? Just a sip!"

Dr. Wondertainment looks at him pointedly, then relents. He sits back down in his seat, wincing at the exertion.

"I don't suppose you'll be able to even enjoy much of it with how strong the mesquite smell is, but I stached it over there, near the second exit bins." Isabel says.

"Thanks."

-----

The snifter is a little miracle, delicate and elaborate with a diamond pattern around the top and a bottom so unusually thin it felt like Redd would be perfectly capable of crushing it in his hand if he so desired. The smell of mesquite only added to the cognac's aroma. Redd held the glass to his lips, sniffed for a moment, and downed it. His face flushed.

"//Fuck.//"

"Son, I told you to not drink alcohol this late into the night."

"I mean, what goddamn time is it-" Redd coughs "-can't be that late."

The Doctor checks his wristwatch. He shows it to Isabel first, who grimaces.

"2350."

"Hah..." Redd chuckles to himself, which the Doctor wonders about.

"...It's a goddamn Christmas miracle."

"How so?" The Doctor ventures after a moment's thought.

"Oh, I haven't gotten to that part of the story yet!" Redd exclaims, playing up his reaction //just// a bit.

"Alright, so, at this point, I've //met// Natasha; don't remember when or how, but it happened. Now, you've got just... you know, the typical courtship -- I suppose." Redd deflates as he works his way through the sentence.

"Is there a problem?" Isabel says.

"No, no!" Redd shakes his head. "I... honestly, I don't know where to //start// with Nata, really. Doctor, I know for a fact you've no experience with a partner, and I'm pretty sure you haven't either, Isabel."

Isabel tisks. "Well -- of course. But is that really an issue?"

The Doctor looks at his open wallet, and puts it back.

"You're not entirely correct."

"//What?//"

"Did you believe that I lived so many years as a simple toymaker without finding someone interesting? Funny? Kind and attractive?" The Doctor looked up now at Redd, who struggled to meet his gaze.

"Should I be sorry?"

"No. I'm simply saying that you can trust that, whatever you wish to tell me about how your life has been in this city, I will at least __try__ to understand it." The Doctor drops his confrontation. "It's all I can do at this point, no?"

"It is." Redd nodded. He looks to the Doctor... who said nothing else.

He unscrews the Henessey again, pours it on the little snifter chalice again, screws the bottle again, and brings it to his lips. He cannot bring himself to drink the stuff.

He sets the glass down on the table.

"Alright, so, it was a while. We were good friends, just from that one party, but it was as though life itself conspired to keep us all separated. I could never seem to find a respite in work -- great any other time of the year, fuck yes, but terrible for what I //really// all-subconsciously wanted -- and she never seemed to have enough time between her college and art... murals take a lotta time... don't think I've told y'all, but that's what she does.

Anyways, we continue on this for a bit. I'd say about 4 months after we first meet at whatever function, we can meet again. Little shop, actually close to this place -- [[span class="hoverlink"]][[[bessie-bogan-and-the-crow-road-inn|the Crow Road Inn, dunno if you've ever heard about it]]]^^ⓘ^^[[span class="hoverlink-card"]][[span class="hoverlink-title"]]Bessie Bogan and the Crow Road Inn[[/span]][[span class="hoverlink-text"]]In which the Mosaic’s favorite tavern flies into trouble.
(Tales of the Mosaic – 350 words)[[/span]][[/span]][[/span]] -- and we have a real good time there as well." Redd's face flushes again. "I, uh, you know -- bit of a spark there."

"And then?" The Doctor says.

"We met two more times, and she moved in." Redd gives a lopsided grin.

"My god." Isabel chuckles to herself.

"Yeah I know -- two near-teenagers doing impulsive romantic things, it's what makes the world go around." Redd shrugs. "It was also a practical matter, we could afford a better place with the both of our incomes... though both of y'all know that that was a secondary consideration."

"I offer no judgement on that." The Doctor says quickly. "It's clear from what you have shown me and told us that it was a good decision in the end."

"Yeah, in the end!" Redd grins. He looks at the snifter, and pushes it away to the center of the table. "It wasn't all easy-going in those days, I'll tell you -- we weren't a full-blown couple or anything, wasn't official at least, but we //did// really enjoy each other, the way the best friends do, and you best believe that we bickered the way they do as well! I remember one time, bills for water and gas were due, and we had to make the decision on whether or not gas or water was worth it. That was her responsibility to keep track of, so I simply sat down with her on the twenty-seventh, like usual, and she lays it out for me. Gas is three hundred, water is four hundred, we have four-fifty after rent, what the hell are we going to do? And I look at her, and I say, 'We've got four-fifty?' Y'all would not //believe// the look on her face."

"I'm sure I could." Isabel says, snickering. The Doctor smiles but refrains from speaking.

"Yeah, I had made a negotiation and undercut myself to try and win favor with a huge office company, and it worked! But it was at the cost of having two-seventy on that date and a //very// pissed off companion. That's the way that it went for a long time... probably eight or nine months? Then, one day, around November, before everyone in this city started going wild for Christmas, I tell Natasha: 'Hey, are you free from your commissions on the weekends?' And she says Yes. I tell her, 'You wanna trek in the outer forests?' after that, explaining I had been there once before with a buddy of mine, and that it was absolutely, //astonishingly// beautiful. She also says Yes to that, and a little more emphatically, which gets me all excited.

"Come the day of, we're out there with some packs and goodies that I had bought..." Redd lets out something like a chuckle, but quieter, more sincere. "...And, uhm, we're out there, and we come out to this opening, I'll never forget it: You have the city pretty below you, and you see even the tallest buildings as being things you can just hold right in your hand, scale's a weird fucking thing. And the other half of your view, trees that are //gorgeous//, it was amazing how the sun washed over them and made them pop out, they //looked fuzzy// in some kind of way, and the air was perfect with a bit of salt but also that sort of peat mix you get out there..." Redd looks around, realizing he had been looking down into his hands. "Sorry if I'm rambling a bit, it just gets me worked up how perfect it was."

"That's fine." The Doctor says. //He knows//, Redd thinks, and that is what gets him to say the words he'd been steeling himself to.

"And that's where she proposed to me."

Isabel, who had been shifting in her seat, now edged closer to the table and leant on it. "God, that must have been wonderful."

"Sure was."

Redd took the snifter on the table and downed its contents slowly. He did not flush.

"In retrospect, I was fucking //stupid// to think that we could have just lived together and been friends and yadda yadda //yadda//. Fact was that I simply didn't want to believe that I was capable of that sort of connection -- just blocked it out of my mind completely! And now..." Redd trails off, looking at some ghostly past-scene.

"And now?" The Doctor says.

"Oh, you know." Redd says. He pauses for a moment, then seems to realize that it is his time to speak and goes on meanderingly. "After that, uhm... well, we didn't end up throwing a wedding //then.// I obviously said yes, and we spent the rest of the trip completely inseparable, though I'm sure that's also obvious. The rest of that season, I didn't really have much work planned, and so you could say our honeymoon was just making art in the city together, romantic as that sounds; even signed some of our murals with blue hearts, if you ever see one of those still around."

Isabel notes how the wistiness in Redd's voice, an acknowledgement of a difficult and incredible past. "And then, around Christmastime, Julia's conceived. We make room for her in what we can do, but it's pretty clear to me then that my days of working as hard and long as I do are //quickly// closing. I'm not a very good artist so I try to help more locally, more neighborhood and home work and less businesswork, and it succeeds a //little.//"

Redd stops for a moment. He almost retches. His two guests try to help, but he waves them away, using a cloth near the pepper and salt to wipe around his mouth, as if that would do anything.

"Sorry... I might be a little messy."

"That's fine, Redd. You've said more than enough about your life, if you do not feel like continuing."

"No..." Redd shakes his head slowly. "I want to //win you over.//" And he says it as though it might have been his last words.

"What do you mean by that, Redd?" The genuine puzzlement in his voice offsets any offense that Redd might have taken.

-----

"Now that you know that I'm good, are you just going to leave me be now? Be all confident that you've not done anything //that// bad, actually?"

"No, I won't."

Redd sighs.

"I'm sorry. It's just hard to believe that when I know I was just another one of your inventions."

----

"It isn't __true__ that I wanted to abandon you as a child's plaything, Redd." The Doctor says in the new light, reaching across the table and touching Redd's firey arm.

"Do you know that you are my greatest creation, still? After all this time? That I will __never__ stop loving you?" He asks firmly. He says quickly, an afterthought: "And Isabel, I know that you are still here -- but I conjured you, I do not feel that I explicitly created you, molded you out of myself the way I have Redd."

Isabel had been pacing around. She gets off from the counter. She nods her head meekly and looks at the Doctor for a long time, as Redd struggles to breathe normally. She then leans back against the dinner counter and tosses a glance towards the sandwich kitchen -- nothing. No one would be around to hear, thank goodness.

"That's fine, Doctor: I can do my best to forget about anything you say here, if I believe it to be offensive." She says with a smile on her face.

"Thank you." The Doctor whispers back. He clings to Redd, who at this point is finally able to breathe -- cutting gasps which jag against the edges of not just public decency, but private sensibility.

Redd finally lets free the thing he's been slowly chipping away at his inhibitions to say.

"I'm sorry I tried to kill you when I saw you at the door."

The Doctor nods. "I'm sorry I made you so hurt that you felt you needed to."

Redd shakes his head, looking down at the Doctor. He holds his head in his hands, a melting figure of wax and tears.

"Don't fucking, try all that... you know, I..." Redd begins. He stops for a moment, then looks up, letting go of a very deep breath as he does so, the sort of breath that involves every conscious rib, every part and branch and cell of the alveoli, the type done by deep sea divers coming to God.

"Fuck. You know you, uhm, wanted to make yourself more humble than me with that one."

The Doctor frowns. "That wasn't what I wanted."

"What did you want then -- did you want a Sunday brunch?"

The Doctor turns around in his seat, taking in as much of the new inside as possible. "I just. Uhm." Redd goes to stare at his father as the Doctor turns around to see him again. "I wanted you to know that it was not your fault that..."

He stops as Redd laughs. It grows out of a chuckle, sad and self contained, and rapidly, a furious prosody swells into it, until Redd opens his eyes as he laughs, and they are wide, piercing through Dr. Wondertainment and the high-backed restaurant seat and the ceramic-cement floor tile and the concrete foundation and the hard, packed soil -- through all of this, down to the scarlet layers of the inner Earth. And he does it until the Doctor feels a very foreign emotion, but one which has, nonetheless, invaded his life and planted its roots firmly in his heart over the course of the past week: dread.

Isabel eventually falters in her promise of minimal-interference and walks to Redd, placing a hand on his shoulder. He stops, catching gulps of air between locked teeth.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just heard you -- " Redd loses the sentence as his chest begins to bounce again, though he clearly does not want to laugh anymore. The Doctor locks eyes with his son and decides to press on.

"What is it that catches your attention, Redd?"

"The fact that //you// fucking say you're sorry."

Isabel stiffens, her force momentarily clouded in a flash of rage -- __how dare he insult the Doctor, after all this supposed soul-searching and story-telling!__

The Doctor bolts to look at her, and it is his pleading expression that keeps Isabel from performing an act of pure Magic at that instant.

Redd gives up after another few seconds, sighing raggedly.

"It's a force of habit, alright? I'm sorry, really, it's a... //price// I pay sometimes for ##red|my scarlet past##... I'm sure you understand." He says.

"I understand." The Doctor says. He then holds up a finger before Redd can snap to the next thing on his mind. "But you did mean it, didn't you?"

"Mean what?" Redd says.

The Doctor looks at him for a moment longer than he should have. "The... statement, that you don't think what I've said here was sincere. Was my really trying to connect with you again."

Redd's posture changes -- shoulders slump, back relaxes, and feet cease tapping.

"Look." Redd waits a moment, and then sighs softly. "How the hell am I supposed to believe sometimes that you have my best interests in mind, Dad, when it is clear that, someway or another, you //forget// about me while I was here. That //you// thought" Redd points at the Doctor's chest, "in your heart of hearts that I would remain an unchanged, damaged child who would cling to the protector as soon as he came back from what feels like a seven year smoke break -- seven-year smoke break, that, by the way, has been ninety-nine //point fucking nine// percent of my life."

The Doctor remains silent. Isabel does not.

"You've now mentioned that three times in this dinner //alone.//"

Redd turns to look at her, unbelieving. She continues, unaware.

"How are you supposed to change, genuinely, if you believe that no matter what **my** dad -- because I view Doctor Wondertainment as my true father -- it will never be good for you? That the apology you receive has to be perfect to be accepted. Do you understand how lucky it is -- " Isabel stops, a quick breathing stop for the pedagogically new, " -- that //you// receive any sort of apology whatsoever? That you have even the potential for closure, but choose, it seems, to God damned squander it?"

Redd's fist becomes tenser as Isabel speaks. He would nearly have responded with fists, were it not for the years he had lived and the presence of the Doctor.

"Isabel."

"Yes, Doctor?"

"I want you to leave me and Redd alone." The Doctor begins. "I understand that you may be angry by some parts that seem repetitive, that seem //out of order//, bu-"

"I am not **against** anything!" Isabel throws her hands up in utter resignation. "I just want to ensure that this isn't some..."

She feels eyes bore into her, but refuses to look up at the two of them. She soon finds the words. "...Some form of self-**flagellation.**"

Redd opens his mouth, clearly agitated by her outsider view, but she goes on: "All you two have done for the past hour, it feels like, is go back and forth on who carries the most blame and tell small-talk tales between-" She takes a sharp breath, an injection right into the lungs that wouldn't be out of place were she drowning. "-**actually useful** interludes of conversation. I'm sorry, but it's **maddening** to see!" She shakes, wanting to let out more words... and she cannot.

She sighs, looking at them both. They both appear interested. She takes a minute, and eventually, a few more words rise to the sea's surface, allowing themselves to be her buoy.

"I want this to be **helpful** for the both of you, and I don't see how this has helped, selfish it might be to say that." She says.

Dr. Wondertainment speaks first. "Isabel, look at me?"

She does.

The Doctor slides out of his seat and stands, motioning for her to do the same. Redd looks at the two of them, refusing to give even an ounce of emotion to the whole display. The Doctor lays a hand on Isabel's shoulder, standing slightly shorter than her, looking up at her face. She squirms, steeling herself for some private rebuke or public admonishment.

"I __know__ that this level of patience appears __ridiculous__ to you; it is what I have prepared for. Just as Redd, I'm sure, was preparing for this moment, to the point where he did not try to kill me." He ends the sentence with a soft smile, a fact which incenses Isabel. Still, she listens.

"That is why I have spent this time flowing about, simply speaking as Redd pleases. The way I see it, I have controlled him with my practical silence for __far, far__ longer than he is now with his-" The Doctor pauses. "-...__Swearing__ and vulgarity."

The Doctor steps away from her, and speaks a little louder, enough so that Redd does not need to strain to eavesdrop. "I think, and perhaps you believe differently, that such control, to pay it back after having stolen it for so long, is the meaning of the word __reconciliation.__"

"I..." Isabel says after a silent moment, running her hand across the cold plastic and plating of the new Café's walls. The Doctor sits back down on the seat. Isabel feels frozen.

The Doctor interjects. "It's fine. I simply beg you not to think of my son in a negative light, __especially__ tonight."

Isabel purses her lips. "Fine, then. But I hope that you're right."

And she turns and walks away.

-----

The world is constricting around them. Again. It's smaller. She is walking across the border, it feels, letting herself cool off in absolute zero. Redd looks at the sky and acknowledges the hills and the lights, but cannot bring it in his heart. Nothing outside of this booth, in this restaurant, exists. It is their spell, he sees now, formed from nothing but anecdotes and repetition, like the ancient performative rituals which professed to summon rain for maize if one simply danced through the night.
Redd never saw the point in it, never understood how one could steel themselves to do it out of anything other than perceived necessity -- now, under the knowledge of having planned a whole week in advance, under the influence of the drug of familiar love, under the conscious decision to forsake ##red|his scarlet blood##, and under the firelight of this new restaurant, masonry breathing of warmth and a pleasant mesquite smoke in the air... he understood. Nothing outside of this booth, in this restaurant, exists.

"Wonder if I should feel bad over that." Redd asks.

"No. Isabel is her own person, and she is free to misunderstand you, Redd."

"Misunderstand... God, I forgot how serendipitous you can be with words."

"You aren't so bad yourself."

"Thank you."

"Anyways, I really do mean it -- I would be willing to retire and live in the city here __right now__, even if I may still have a decade or few within me still."

"I couldn't keep you from the Company even if I liked the idea of spending the rest of my life with your company. The holidays is good enough."

"The holidays, then?"

"Sure. It's not as though I'm an outgoing man anyways -- you should be able to guess that."

"Hah! I suppose I should, no?"

...

"Yes. Hm. So, I really did want to ask you, outside of Isabel's ears since I'm sure she would have disliked my asking it..."

"Yeah?"

"What have you done to mute the ##red|scarlet tones##?"

"Oh! Uh, actually, I wouldn't say //I've// done anything -- it's the city, I think."

"Really?"

"Like I told you at the door, this place is //special//. There's something to it, the way that everything outside of here just doesn't seem to matter once you're within Proctor reach. Sure, people bring with them stuff, but I figure it's almost like a fairy tale, y'know?"

"I.. can feel it, actually. There is a sort of mysticism in the air -- I wondered if I had imagined."

"Weird, ain't it?"

"It is. It's part of why I feel like I should retire here."

"It'd be good for you, probably."

"Maybe... I'll think about it Redd... I really will. I don't think you can get mad at me if I decide, say, 5 years down the line, that it would be best for me to... quiet down my involvement in the company."

"Well, now I //will!// You're gonna be doing it for me now, I know it."

"No... just forget anything I might have said regarding the subject."

"You're the //fucking// worst, Dad."

"You are the best, Son."

-----

The air is fresh in this neighborhood. Towering around Redd are trees that encircle the block, and the houses that are left to rot from lack of tenants make flowers that he's sure will attract Julia's attention. He steps across gaps and skips through the little hops until he reaches a one story home, extremely tall, with an edifice of yellow and reds over beiges and gray and a tree in the yard that's Recent.
The lights on the house itself is minimal: a couple of hanging flames that he had been able to add to his ever-increasing list of wards without issues. Shared between him and Natasha was the responsibility for the flower bed's lights -- they were incredible. In the pitch blackness, the rainbow's gamut of colors appeared to pop out like little flecks of paint from a child artist's palette, a brought-to-life-rendition of de Kooning and Krasner which weaved its way across bare roses and assorted statues and whose rhythmic pulses has led more than one passer-by to absorb the array of colors and swirls as though it were some great work of art, and not humble decoration.

Redd finds the leftmost door -- 7625 -- and knocks on it. He smiles and touches the wreath that Natasha had fashioned out of paper with the help of Julia. After a moment, she is at the door.

She stands a head shorter, her hair wild with the motion of sleep.

"You were out a long time." She says quietly, mustering all the voice she can. She is too tired to show anything, but Redd knows she'll have many early-morning words.

"I know. My dad had a lot to say." It feels foolish to put it so simply, but it's all //he// can muster. He steps inside the door, placing himself down on the couch. Natasha closes the door, deadbolts, and follows. She leans on Redd -- or perhaps, encourages him to lean on her.

Natasha waits for him to find his words.

She almost falls asleep. Their world is small and comfortable enough for it.

After a while of hazy thought, Redd latches onto and finds the words he needs to the questions that he knows.

"I'm not going back. But he says he will come soon. Says he's going to retire."

"Is that good?"

"I don't know."

"Hmm..."

"He brought someone with him too."

"Who?"

"Isabel. He says that she is partially a child. Adopted, you could say."

"Does she convince you?"

"Maybe. I think she wasn't herself. Too much going on, her world god damned shattered."

"Poor Isabel, being put into that mess with no warning."

"Hm, I wouldn't say poor. I just don't think she understands forgiveness, really."

"Why would you say that?"

"I don't think she's ever had to forgive. Or ever forgiven someone."

"Still, poor girl."

"Why's that?"

"She must've never lived."

"Oh, that's nonsense... she's part of Wondertainment, that's why her life has been great thus far."

"Maybe her life hasn't been. And she still hasn't seen that yet."

"Good point... very good point."

"Oh, a last thing."

"Hm?"

"Do you still think the Doctor is good?"

"Yes. I... want to meet him again, if that's what you say."

"Will you come to bed with me?"

"Of course."

"...I'm proud of you, Redd."

"And I love you, Nata."

"Wait, before we go..?"

"Hm?"

"Will you bring the Doctor and Isabel for Christmas?"

"Of course... if they want."

"They'll come."

"I hope."

"I love you, Redd."

"I love you, Nata."

[[include component:image-block
name=https://scp-sandbox-3.wikidot.com/local--files/scp-1636/preparations.webp |
caption=Merry Christmas! |
align=center |
width=80%
]]

Fine, Then

Module Styles

Inline Styles

Includes

CSS Classes

Page Source