"It's Like a Dream..."

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Dr. Simon Glass twirled the pen around in his left hand. Finger through finger through finger. Back and forth, back and forth. After five journeys around his hand, he gave the pen a flick and it effortlessly fell into his right. Finger through finger. Back and forth. The movements were just fancy enough that clients caught off-guard would be mesmerized by it. It was a trick he had picked up from Diogenes on a slow Halloween some years back, and ever since then it was his main way of stimming. Oftentimes, it was his natural response to anything particularly overwhelming or anxiety-inducing.

Across from him sat Benjamin Kondraki.

"So you..." He couldn't finish the statement. It was absurd. Utterly nonsensical. It was Kondraki. He knew better than to trust him at face value.

"Yeah." Kondraki rarely sounded defeated and embarrassed. Antics that would otherwise -- "That's right, Simon." -- mortify any regular Foundation employee just ended -- "I did //exactly// that." -- up emboldening him even more. Somehow, he -- "They should have given you the records already." -- was the most proud of stupid shit.

Glass looked up from his notes at Kondraki. The Lizard Rider [[footnote]]An obvious tall tale no one but newcomers believed.[[/footnote]]. The Butterfly King. The King Of Kings.

He looked defeated.

Glass sighed, opening a cabinet and taking out Kondraki's medical folders with his right hand while writing with the other. He didn't have to look. No need to look when you can memorize instead. In the front of the top folder were his most recent medical records. After 26 years of Foundation duty, the layout of every single letter from the medical wing and its contents for any number of announcements, emergencies, and tests were predictable enough to memorize. Just swap out skip numbers, or personnel names, or locations. There were two -- no, three -- words that stuck out immediately. Did he not read these when he got them?

"So. Your..."

"Please, Simon. Please."

"Your penis."

"Yeah."

"It was stuck there."

"Mmhmm."

"There was a water bottle stuck on your penis." No response. Back and forth, finger through finger. "You've never been this quiet before when recounting your shenanigans." Kondraki swore. Glass never bothered to learn Polish, but he was pretty sure there were at least two instances of the word 'fuck' strewn in there. "Where do you want to start with this?"

"I mean... fuck, why was it this one to get the O5 interested? Nothing about the cafeteria bullshit last year! Cleffles -- " Glass snorted, thankful Kondraki wouldn't hear it. It was still adorable to hear, and he was the only other person in the world graced with the pet name whenever his client got worked up into a sudden tirade. Cleffles. "-- gets scolded by..."

"Iceberg?"

"Fuck no, I'm still not calling him that," he spat. "Anyway, him, //of all people//, for his zero-fifty heist. But I put a dick, my dick, in a bottle and this? I was mortified. I just couldn't keep up my pride. Have you ever seen Gears look disappointed in someone? Me neither, but during that assembly yesterday he looked right into my eyes by accident, and I swear Simon, fuck. I swear that was the most disappointed he ever looked in my life. But shit, you know what was the worst part?"

"What was the worst part?"

"Draven, my flesh and blood, leaves an Aquafina label on my desk that night. And he had James sign it. How am I supposed to feel, Simon? My own son has finally gotten more clever than me. He's always been smarter, but now he's finally one-upped me. This was originally funny as shit." Kondraki must have suddenly realized that he was ranting, as he hit the brakes as quickly as he started.

"I know I've told you this every time, but no need to stop yourself in my office," Glass quietly reassured. "Go on for as long as you want."

Glass had to look through the letter again just to make sure he understood the sequence of events. It still didn't fully register for him. They were both grown adults. They were men paid and well-compensated for their tenure in an organization dedicated to locking away some of the most dangerous anomalous threats to the planet. And despite all that (no, maybe because of that? [Or was it a stress reaction to that?[[footnote]]Did he overlook some kind of stress that Kondraki ended up reacting to? He could only pick up on so much subtlety, really.[[/footnote]] He'd have to do better.] Even Kondraki wouldn't normally do something like that, he hoped), one of them ended up with his dick in a water bottle. And somehow, this was the first time he ever heard of it happening in the Foundation's history.

"I don't think I can keep up the anger. The jokes are gonna come the rest of my life. 'Here lies Benjamin Kondraki, he died from his cock asphyxiating,' whatever. I give it a week before the shame wears off for good. In two months it's something I can laugh about. But G-d, this is just too much right now." Kondraki sighed. "If it was a beer bottle, I'd have plausible deniability." Denial. Glass nodded. "But no, I have nothing."

"It's natural for people to feel embarrassed and ashamed over incidents that would normally be considered such. You've always found refuge in audacity, so you feel like you should be unabashedly proud of this. Does that sound right?" Kondraki looked up at the ceiling for around thirty seconds before looking at Glass's neck.

"I think so."

"Clearly, the... assembly yesterday. That got to you real bad. Do you at least feel that Clef isn't giving you too much shit for this?"

"He walked out of our apartment with a bottle on his dick. His concept of shame was lost long ago, Simon."

"Alright. Still, I can understand how you feel." Glass didn't have to append that statement with 'Even if I never stuck my penis in a bottle'. Enough salt was rubbed on the wounds as it was already. Back and forth.

"Did you not know about the assembly?"

"No. I didn't have time to review whatever was sent to my mail either. I just got back with Dio from a mini-vacation. I'll look later." The slightest bit of relief showed on Kondraki's face. "How do you think you'll cope with this for the next week or two?"

"I don't know. Rolling with the punches is a lot harder when the O5 have to take action."

"Anything healthy you like to do, or any work to dig into. Even if it's routine checking up on something like 408? I know mantras are a stretch for you, but we can review the ones we started talking about two weeks ago." Kondraki clearly had to think about it. Glass let him; it was near-impossible to get him out of his own head once he was lost in thought.

As Kondraki was thinking, Glass flipped the page and saw the note a nurse (possibly two, though the handwriting looked similar enough) had scrawled on the back that was preserved on the copy. It was unprofessional; he'd probably have to send a letter to the medical wing about that.

> There's already talks about bottles completely not being a thing so we'll just get more boring as hell water coolers
>
> at least we get paid well lol

Kondraki had suddenly interjected.

"What about --"

"No, you can't stick your dick in a bottle again."

"But that'd cancel out the --"

"As your psychiatrist, therapist, coworker, friend, and documentation editor, you can not do that. You absolutely can not." Glass sighed in exasperation.

"Can I at least not and say I did?" Kondraki asked sincerely. After everything that had happened, he asked that question without hesitation, sincerely, looking straight into Glass's eyes without so much as a smirk.

"No." Finger through finger.

------

Two months later, Kondraki went to his desk to fill out a proposal to revise containment procedures on SCP-408. The exact second he opened the door, before he even could think about the exact nature of the revisions, he saw it. He knew.

There was a Dasani label on his desk. Diogenes's signature was on it.

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"It's Like a Dream..."

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