When Ian opened his eyes he could see surprisingly well, in that he could see different shades of grey among the black. He was glad to be greeted by what he assumed for his sanities sake was the sight of the canvas bag he had place on 096's head. He had honestly expected it to fall off, or that he would somehow miss, but perhaps that was just the part of his brain that feared death trying to get him out of there without dying. His brain could be quite the coward sometimes.

According to the outlines of the procedure parameters, SCP-096 was now considered "Secured". The next phase had been entirely left for Ian to decide, and he had been as vague about it as possible. Unlike Regent, this wasn't because he was hiding some horrible, cacophonous surprise. Well, he might be, but only if things went wrong. Then he might scream.

Theoreticaly, he had a plan. The question was not realy if it would work but rather how quickly he would abandon it in favour of improvising.

Crouching there, in the dampened gloom, squinting through it like he was submerged in a swimming pool full of maple syrup, at a collection of patches slightly darker than the rest of the dark. He got a vague, huddled sence from the angles of the lines when they weren't swimming beneath the dancing lights inside his eyes.

He reached back into the black bag and, fumbling over it at least three times before being able to grasp it, pulled out the large torch. After moments more of grasping at every odd shape on the baffling device, his fingers found the button on the handle, he pressed it. He saw a flash of what was definitely the conical mirror inside the eye of the lamp. Then he yelped, dropped the torch and turned away while covering his frazzled eyes.

"Ah! For crying out loud!" he muttered loudly to himself. His accent was broadened by his annoyance at himself and the pain of his temporary blindness. Perhaps he shouldn't have ordered a torch that was so bright. He also shouldn't have pointed it at his face.

Before the stars left his eyes, he didn't have the torch anymore. It seemed to warp from his hand to the sound of a thousand nails scraping down a chalkboard in the world's longest tunnel.

When his eyes and his mind had recovered, the room was illuminated, and that was practicaly all the detail he could draw until he adjusted. The torch was now pointing at the opposite corner of the room and was several meters away. If Ian could have seen what happed, he would have thanked his lucky stars (and his lucky ring) that he was a just the right distance away from 096. Otherwise he might have lost his head. The torches metal casing was cracked, but it kept pouring out light. He felt an odd kinship with it.

He rubbed his eyes and sat up straight from where he had comically thrown himself to the floor. The pale orange glow of the torch basked the room's occupants in a warm, shadowless glow as the light did its best to reflect off the dampened grey walls.

He heaved a sigh and relaxed now that the chambers atmosphere was less gut wrenchingly terrifying. At least it was less so in every direction but the one right in front of him. A blade of fear stabbed at his chest. He was now permitted to view the SCP without obstacle. It was huddled, but its emaciated form was tight with impossible strength. It was primed at any moment to tear itself out of this metal cell, pealing through the walls like paper, reducing any life within eyesight to paste, and yet it was sobbing and rubbing at its eyes through the soft canvas with its gangly, impossible arm. The inconsistency made Ian's shoulders tingle. He was frozen by a sudden infinity of indecision.

The next step was necessary. The next step would save lives, billions of lives… It was mad, and it was all he had.

It required him to move closer.

He felt held back, like there was a hook on a chain stuck through his gut. His every movement was met with a twitch, and each twitch pulled on the chain a little harder.

He closed his eyes. The irrationality of the fear did not relieve him of it. He focused on the sounds. The strained, broken breaths. The pain of them. Like its trachea was rusted over.

Ian took a deep breath and set to work as though he was completely alone. He pulled the bag closer to himself and started digging through it until he found… the jumper. The mundane items inside reaffirmed his confidence, oddly enough.

"If I can get SCP-096 to feel more comfortable then it might relax." He thought to himself while pulling the comically large garment out of the bag and unfolding it. "…Or it might get even more upset…"

Ian straightened the billowing garment out and looked over to his subject, suddenly realising that putting one into the other would be more difficult than he had first assumed. Perhaps he should have had a tape measure when making his plans. He had severely underestimated how long a meter and a half was. 096's limbs were indeed as elongated as they had been described in its listing, and they were current wrapped around its legs, gripping the slender appendages with such force that its whole body was shaking.

"I just have to take this nice and slow" Ian thought to himself, almost mumbling aloud.

He reached out, as one would to a spider trapped under a cup, and gently touched 096's right arm. As expected, the shy-guy flinched away but Ian kept his fingers gently presses against its skin. It was ice cold.

Under his hand, its body warmed little by little, and its body slowly stopped bristling with fear. Ian opened his hand, easing it across its wrist. The needle like cold spread suddenly across his palm. Ian jumped, sucking back the urge to yelp. Its arm was pressed softly into the curve of his palm. SCP-096 had actually moved towards his hand. Even so, it still whimpered at the physical contact with this stranger.

Once again, the doctor chose to use his favourite method of comforting "Shhhhh, shhhhh it's ok…" he murmured, gently rubbing 096's arm with his thumb, slowly acclimatising to the chill of its body. After a few moments, he slowly and gently pulled its arm away from its legs.

It was unwilling to follow his lead, at first, but after a few tries it moved with him, opening it's arm out. After overcoming the initial astonishment, he shuffled the jumper in his free hand and steered the creature's gangly appendage into the opening at the bottom. It didn't seem too happy at the introduction of another new sensation, and so started to cry again, but far more lightly. It was still the sound of stones being poured into a decrepit old car engine.

Pushing past this minor hiccup, he fed its arm through until its gangly fingers, after an eternity of easing, appeared through the end of the sleeve. He repeated this process with the it's other hand, with such remarkable easy that he almost forgot that this had been, at one point, a horrible nightmare scenario.

The doctor then proceeded to gently wrestle the rest of the shy guy into the jumper, having to pause at one point to start again, when he realised that he had put it on the wrong way round.

Eventually, he had done it. He had put a, presumably, man-eating monster, an immortal killer that the gods feared, into a soft woollen jumper. And he was very glad that it was finally done. He had actually started feeling a bit awkward after a while. The insanity of the situation did not escape him. After all, he was trying to dress something almost twice his size, which also happened to be crying like a little child, with the voice of a baby crocodile in a washing machine. Or perhaps awkward wasn't the right word for this situation… abnormal, perhaps. Irregular. Or creepy. The whole scenario had parallels with real life, but everything had just tipped a slight magnitude off of normality and had fallen into an uncanny valley. Just slightly. But as time went on, Ian began to acclimatise to his new predicament. He almost had to start reminding himself that it wasn't normal and that he was, in fact, here to do a job. This was something that had almost entirely slipped his mind.

And the job was now done.

"I hope you're comfy." He said conversationally, smiling and shuffling through his bag of many items, procrastinating.

A sound, like a half-word spoken far away, spread like fog through the room. Ian froze, silencing his questing hands, all focus on what he could hear. 096 sat uncomfortably, leaning to one side.

"….Can you hear me?" He tried, quietly. There was an almost conscious movement, a turning of the head. There was no response.

The quiet sat there, doing nothing productive, until the last fragments of reverberating noise faded, and Ian was left only with the sound of his own heart, and his own breath.

He picked up the radio that had been strapped to his belt and then utterly forgotten. Holding it made him feel both entirely out of his depth and oddly professional. It hovered by his mouth for a long time. He both didn't want to use it and didn't want to put it down. Eventually he swallowed and pressed the big button on the side. The little box chimed, and the channel was open.

"Things are going well." He buzzed over the radio, utterly calm, for once, somehow. There were several more seconds of silence. It beeped again, a different tune.

"Doctor Kyles, please reserve radio channels for essential information, over." A new and unflinching voice replied humourlessly.

"Yeah, you almost gave me a heart attack! You scared the life out of me!" Regent Blustered, an additional surprise, not sounding quite as close to laughter as usual. Ian almost considered ignoring the scolding just to ask him what he was doing here.

096 curled slowly in on itself, pulling its legs up to its chest, fingers moving without feeling, like they had been gripped by the cold. It whimpered helplessly but hushed when Ian leaned in without thinking to pet its arm. It didn't shriek, or hit him, or run screaming from the room. It simply shivered, then fell still. It slumped in what could have been depression, but at least it looked comfortable enough.

Deciding assertively that this was a job well done, Ian again pulled the radio to his mouth, only for it to beep right in his ear.

"Dr Kyles, please confirm that the procedure has been completed, over." The voice from the control room interrupted, sounding so bored it verged on irritation. Ian grimaced pitifully, moaping for his lost moment of certified success. After so much literal radio silence, this new guy was really eager to get his job done… or to get him killed. He cleared his throat and straightened his back with all the self-righteous professionalism he could muster and, trying not to pout, replied.

"The procedure is complete."

"You beauty!" Regent cheered so loudly over the radio that Ian could hear him through the wall of the containment.

"Dr Regent, please reserve radio channels for essential information only, over." Control interrupted after another moments silence. This time Ian couldn't help but snicker.

Feeling rather pleased with himself, and not allowing those feelings to be bogged down with worry or humility, he packed away his dubious materials as though he had time to kill. 096 watched his hands move through its bag, which… was somewhat concerning, but Ian tried not to think about that.

"Dr Kyles, please confirm that you are exiting the containment premises." Control demanded in the most toneless voice Ian had ever heard. He flicked his hair out of his eyes. and reached for the radio.

"I am exiting the containment premises. Over" He replied, as dully as possible, still not even approaching controls level of grey and dreary. He had a feeling this guy would probably enjoy a nice winter trip to Aberdeen.

Though it made his heart oddly heavy, Ian was more than ready to leave. Even so, and of course, he still took the time to straighten his hair and lab coat. He shouldered the bag, leaving behind the pillow for 096. A sweet little pea in his heart sincerely hoped that it would be a nice comfort.

"I've got to go now…" He said slowly, softly, standing with the very opposite of urgency, Lifting the torch, the one source of light, with him. "I'll be back… I promise."

096 looked up at him. The curves of its cotton shroud gave the impression of a face, one tilted into deep distress, revealed by shadows cast in the afterglow of the torchlight. The bones of its arm creaked like a withering tree in the deftest wind. It extended a finger, which it curved in search of something. Of course, Ian reached out his hand in return.

He looped his own finger into its grasp, crouching again like he was sinking into soft sand.

"It's ok…" He whispered. It wrapped its grip around his digit, like a child. Ian soothed the back of its hand with his thumb. He smiled, though its eyes were obscured. "You'll be alright…"

In his mind, he could not even conceive of the concept that the creature who's hand gripped his so tenderly would be alright due to any inherent invulnerability, or the kindness of his unknowable bureaucratic overlords, or because of the inherent goodness of the world. He knew it would be alright… because he was going to make sure of it. He released his grip, stood again, and moved to turn away.

Or at least he attempted to.

096 did not relinquish its grip on the first knuckle of Ian's index finger.

"….uhhhhhhhh…." Ian said, blinking, looking between his restrained hand and the sullen SCP which was now, rather anthropomorphically, looking away as if it could see nothing wrong.

He flexed his finger, feeling no pain or discomfort. However, testing the strength of what was, he reminded himself, a world ending terror, did not feel smart. Re-evaluating, he decided that, in retrospect, none of the things he had done today had been smart. He beeped into his radio again.

"… Control I am no longer leaving the… uh, containment… thing." He spoke calmly, even while he accidentally twisted his wrist and found his finger would not be moved in any direction.

"Clarify, over." Regent buzzed. Moistening his mouth, and not realy eager to hear from control again, Ian did his best to do so… very poorly.

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh… I, uh, the…" He scrambled for the right words that would not lead to the chamber being filled with anaesthetic and welded shut again. He kept his finger held on the call button the entire time.

"The, uh, subject is uhhhhhhhhh…. Clingy….. Over." He was mustering an expert nonchalance, but still winced while waiting for a reply. The radio beeped in again, after several seconds.

"…Clingy how?" Regent asked, and Ian was stumped. How do you describe how a nine-foot nightmare in a fuzzy jumper was holding your hand with the delicate, yet untempered force of a steel trap meant for an elephant?

"D'you wana' answer this one?" He asked and even offered the radio to 096. It did not reply.

A bead of information welling up from his memory shot through his brain like an electric shock.

"Situation is green, over!" He attempted not to yell. The dense pad of notes he had slogged through was actually paying off. If only he could remember more of it.

"Are your sure about that? Over?" Regent quizzed, very sceptically.

"… Yes?" Ian replied, only to feel like kicking himself for mimicking Regent's tone.

"…. Do you need me to come in and help?" Regent asked, rather lackadaisically amused but genuine. Ian could feel controls reply coming before the radio even beeped.

"Dr Regent, please do not enter the containment premises, Over." The premonition was fulfilled, but as soon as the channel was clear…

"Yes, yes I know! Please don't tell me the rules! I know the rules! I Hate. The rules!" Dan barked, heart breaking, down the radio, sighing just as it cut off. Then he called in again, immediately. "Over!"

Control did not reply.

096 was still hanging on. Ian flexed his finger again, then gave in and simply held its hand right back. Of course, this only worsened the situation.

"But what if I need to go to the bathroom…?" He pleaded solemnly with it, almost certain that it couldn't hear him, or was ignoring him… or it didn't know what a bathroom was.

He sat himself on the floor, with only his new lab coat as extra insulation against the metal floor. Pondering over the solutions available, he desided very quickly that he would be considering only those that wouldn't render him outstandingly sad. This made sure options like 'cut off your own hand' were removed from the table. He considered the advice he had been given by the ever caring and compassionate foundation which dictated that, in order to maintain security of the site he should just sit in there and wait to starve to death. Of course, they could decide to expedite the process by sending in a man with a gun. Not that that would be smart. Or helpful….. Oh right, they already tried that!

Circling the drain of the only, inevitable, solution which would mean the least resistance applied to mister '9-foot-tall main priority', he decided he could at least use it to his advantage.

"Kyles to control" He radioed in.

"Pass your message."

"I'm making a change to the experimental procedures." Defying the foundation was one thing. This was another thing entirely.

He was so screwed.

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Hey look, I didn't take another 5 year hiatus!

This is officially it. The last chapter I wrote as part of the initial batch. We are graduating past the ancient Eddy of 2015! And for the first time since then, I actually have a plan for what to do! I have taken some of your ideas into consideration!

Fun fact, writing is hard. Being able to write a story where the only person I have to please is me is very liberating, quite different from how I normally write. THAT BEING SAID. I like to hear what you guys think. Because people are social creatures, and its ok to be motivated by the approval of others... so long as you remember that you don't owe people your life! What does this have to do with this wierd story about SCPs and friendship? NOTHING WHATSOEVER! But since your here I thought id expose you to some wisdom that you cannot escape, HA.

Take care of yourselves out there! Be kind to yourselves! Drink water! Its good for your renal system! And if you don't like water, diluting juice is fine too!