Work Text:
“Final question, Katsuki. Why do you wish to work as a researcher for the SCP Foundation?”
“Because I have to. For him. Always for him.”
“...Sorry, can you repeat that?”
“Because I have to–I have to be the best.”
Katsuki’s work has never brought him in close contact with the anomalies his research focuses on. Given the scars, both physical and mental, his colleagues bear, he’s not particularly sad about this fact.
As such, his introduction to an SCP he doesn’t even work with is unlikely, and all the more startling for it.
It starts with nothing more than childish gossip in the breakroom. He’s at lunch when a group of other researchers become too loud to ignore, gasping in dramatic unison and whispering–then chattering–amongst themselves. Katsuki is ready to shout at them to shut it until he overhears a clear sentence; “No, seriously, its face changes!”
Great, they’re talking about an anomaly. Katsuki knows better than to mess with anomalies he isn’t assigned to, and those foolish colleagues of his do too.
Katsuki turns in his seat to face them. “Do you guys want to get reported? Or are you just trying to annoy everyone?” he narrows his eyes at them.
“Come on, Explosion, this skip is super freaky. I heard Roberts and his whole team are legit afraid of it.”
“Once again, that isn’t my codename.”
The extra that’s talking to him rolls his eyes. “Well it’s the only one anyone ever calls you, so it’s really on you if you’re not used to that yet.” Katsuki doesn’t even know where that name came from, damn it.
He waves the notebook in his hand at Katsuki. “Look at this, we wouldn’t even know what the thing looks like without photos.” There’s a messy pencil sketch of a crying woman’s face on the page. Taped next to it is a grainy photo, like someone took a poor-quality picture of a Foundation-grade anomaly report.
Looking at the photo feels a lot like waking up. The face on the photo is quiet and expressionless, but bears far more sadness than the sketched woman’s. Its eyes are frighteningly human-like, and it is certainly humanoid, though each of its facial features are just wrong enough to make its appearance terribly uncanny. Its most human-like feature is the floppy hair that sits oily and green on its head. Katsuki doesn’t stop looking until the extra pulls the notebook away from him.
“Don’t tell the Department Heads we’re talking about it, Roberts could get in trouble. But it’s definitely the most interesting anomaly I’ve seen for ages. It’s creepy, right?”
Katsuki shivers.
“Yeah. Creepy.”
Katsuki leaves lunch early, mind cloudy with absent, senseless thoughts.
Suddenly, he feels haunted.
It’s a week later that he bumps into Roberts. The welfare of his colleagues is not his priority, to put it mildly, but even he can see the man is having a hard time.
He has to ask. He does.
“SCP-1507-1,” Roberts says. “Remarkable. Horrific. It wears my husband’s face, only… it’s like when he had just a few days left.” Roberts takes a stilted little breath. “Department Head Eraserhead won’t let me swap projects with anyone,” he whispers. His lips quirk, almost absently. “I didn’t dare ask Q.”
Scalding black coffee runs over Roberts’s fingers as he walks away with his half-empty cup.
Katsuki is distracted from his work. This has never happened before. It’s no simple laziness or disinterest, it’s a pervasive lapse in cognition that leaves him unable to do anything but obsess over SCP-1507-1.
“Explosion, that’s my desk. You’re using my login,” someone says.
Katsuki barely looks up from the desk he’s situated at. The hell’s their problem? They both have the same clearance level. “Fuck off, use another computer.”
“Fine, just don’t look at personal stuff. Ugh, you’re such an asshole lately,” the person sighs, but leaves him be.
Katsuki opens a page he doesn’t have to. If he sates this curiosity, his peace of mind will return, he reasons. It’s just that it’s strange for a seasoned researcher to be disturbed by an SCP. It’s just that his colleagues leaked a photo from an official file.
He has to know, and then he can get back to work.
So he accesses the file, certain the researchers working with the anomaly are no more than cowards. SCP-1507-1 is classified Euclid, after all.
The description, Katsuki thinks, is nothing special.
“The true face of this SCP can only be captured in photographs. [REDACTED]. [REDACTED]. According to the reports of civilian witnesses and Foundation researchers, the face of SCP-1507-1 appears differently to each viewer. Analysis of these reports indicates that its projected appearance is a loved one of the viewer. Specifically, these “loved ones” are people the viewer loves or loved in a [REDACTED] manner, and is no longer connected with socially. Twelve reports indicate these loved ones to be deceased, nine reports indicate them to be ex-romantic partners, and three witnesses report to have seen the face of still-living people with whom they were never in a relationship with. [REDACTED]”
Its file contains a stripped-back description of its key features, with further details redacted. All further data, including that of its discovery, is… expunged.
It’s not particularly uncommon for Euclid-class anomalies to have so much data redacted. The part that bothers Katsuki is the expunged data. Katsuki can’t conceptualize why the file for a seemingly harmless anomaly would be stripped back so heavily. Were the other researchers really putting themselves in danger, leaking information of the SCP beyond its bounds?
What is with this anomaly?
With more questions than answers, Katsuki closes the file and forces himself back to work.
“Finally done with my desk? I need the things on my desktop,” the extra says.
Katsuki huffs but vacates the seat. At least now the nobody will stop staring at him.
Katsuki is on high alert from the moment he steps into the hallway. He has spare time between two lab studies, and his idle mind begged him to wander, so he did. The last thing he expected was to see Q, the head researcher of the facility, hovering in this quiet, far-off section of the containment wing.
The long hallway is lit by bleach-white fluorescent bulbs, reflecting just-so off the polished concrete floor to create an unpleasantly bright space. The walls, too, are grey, appearing older than the floor with their imperfect finish and discoloured splatter stains. The concrete seems to sap all the heat from the air, as Katsuki’s skin prickles from the cold.
A faceless extra approaches Q, trembling like a newborn deer. She reads from the clipboard in her white-knuckled grip; “The- the anomaly contained in this room is S.C.P. one-five-oh-seven, dash, um, dash one. It is classified Euclid, and… reports indicate its face appears to, uh, to the viewer, to belong to a ‘lost’ loved one. We hypothesise this is a mechanism for self-defense or manipulation of victims. Per your instructions, Roberts has been improving our current containment measures, and-”
Q holds up a hand, and the stuttering woman shuts up. The pale lights overhead almost seem to flicker. “Continue the report inside the viewing room, if you would, Foal.”
“Right, yes, right away. Um, I’ll open up,” the woman says, pressing her I.D. card to the scanner by the door.
As the pair enter, Q scans down the hallway and sends Katsuki a dark look. The security door slides shut behind them with a metallic bang.
Katsuki’s heart beats in his ears.
SCP-1507-1. Again. It’s like it’s following him.
It truly seems to be appearing everywhere around him. He hears whispers in the cafeteria of the faces fellow researchers saw, the things they heard from a friend of a friend. He thinks about it at night when he tries to sleep, sees that photo of its hollow, sad eyes in his dreams. He just can’t get away from it.
It’s infuriating.
Even more maddening are the questions it brings. Each time his thoughts stray to the anomaly, one particular question resurfaces in Katsuki’s mind. What face would he see on the anomaly?
He has no lost loves to speak of, no sordid tales of the one-that-got-away to regale his coworkers with. There are no deceased relatives of friends in his past who so much as stir him to grieve. Would it appear faceless to him? Would it somehow reflect the life he had before the Foundation?
Katsuki bears no significant memories or especially interesting experiences in his past. In a way, he’s a blank slate for the anomaly. The perfect match for a faceless being.
Katsuki decides to head to the lab early, mind spinning with the same questions he’s been plagued by all week: What would the anomaly look like? Why is it such a secret? Why is it fucking everywhere?
Katsuki feels like he’s going crazy.
Katsuki doesn’t plan it. He just… does it. He knows the area, he has the security privileges. He has Roberts’ I.D., swiped from the man still napping in a break room. He needs to see it.
So at 11 o’clock at night, with the facility’s lights dimmed for the nighttime and drawing each shadow to menacing lengths, Katsuki lets himself into the containment room and shudders at the echoing clang of the door behind him. The viewing room itself is long, cramped and dark, with seats and papers scattered about the floor and a table pushed against the wall opposite to the viewing panel. There’s a second thick screen between the viewing panel and the rest of the room.
‘It’s just Euclid,’ Katsuki reminds himself.
He unroots his feet from the ground and steps into the light pouring through the viewing panel.
Instant movement. A humanoid body whips around to face the panel, and big, round eyes lock onto Katsuki and stare. For a long moment, Katsuki can’t breathe.
(It’s beautiful.)
Its sheer presence behind the glass is suffocating. It feels like it reached right through the glass and gripped his lungs in a savage fist. The steady eye contact it maintains feels like a threat to Katsuki, and it’s not one he would ever dare challenge. The creature before him doesn’t quite bear the energy of a predator, but it’s certainly something close to it. If anything, it seems like far more of a danger than any mere predator Katsuki might encounter.
But after several long moments, the tension in Katsuki eases. He takes a breath, and then another, and breathes until the terrible constriction of his lungs is just a memory.
Next, Katsuki reasons with himself. Unless this anomaly has unknown visual abilities, there’s no way it can see Katsuki. It must be able to hear the security door, and knows to look at the edge of the viewing panel to approximate the location of its visitors. It can’t really be watching him.
Yeah. It’s creepy, but Katsuki’s fine.
Finally, Katsuki notices the appearance of its face. It… looks just like it did in the photograph. It’s almost a relief to Katsuki’s logical mind, but a part of his heart twists and lurches about at the sight.
Maybe his blank-slate theory wasn’t so off after all. He just got one thing wrong; instead of being faceless, the creature’s own face appears. It makes sense; why would it create a blank face for its viewers when there is nothing to create from?
When there are no connections for it to steal and twist?
It keeps staring at Katsuki. He moves as close as he can to the viewing panel and just… watches the anomaly. It bears all of the features of a human, but the resemblance is almost alien in nature. Its eyes are too round and too big in its face, the freckle-like markings on its skin too consistent in their pattern. Its fingers and hands, resting idle by its sides, are too thin and long. Its proportions are just wrong enough to be disturbing, yet… the word that comes to Katsuki’s mind is ethereal. Plain old ‘creepy’ fits better, he thinks.
Katsuki backs away from the panel, and it blinks. Seeming to relax, it sits, and some of the sorrow melts from its features. For a moment, it is at peace.
It stirs a whisper of unnamed emotion in Katsuki’s heart. Suddenly, he aches.
Heart beating hard, he turns away from the panel and backs out of the room.
He visits again. And again. And again. Sometimes he uses Roberts’ I.D., sometimes Foal’s. Sometimes he manages to break into the maintenance tunnels and creeps through that way. He gets very good at sneaking about, very quickly.
Sometimes, when he’s in the room, he thinks he hears movement outside. He thinks, irrationally, it might be Q.
Katsuki learns that the anomaly is a contradiction unto itself. It is tranquil and still, but vibrant and unsettling in ways that escape Katsuki’s broad vocabulary. It is comprised in its entirety of melancholy, yet settles to a happy contentment every time Katsuki visits. It is unsightly and perturbing, but fascinating and elegant.
Katsuki needs more.
If the anomaly doesn’t kill him on sight, surely it can answer some of his questions?
It takes some doing, but he finds a way into the containment area for the SCP. Roberts really is getting sloppy with this project.
All containment rooms in the facility are custom-made to contain a particular anomaly in that space indefinitely. For anomalies that are easier to contain, however, they tend to build at least one potential exit that can be opened should the anomaly need to be moved. It’s easy for Katsuki to find the access point for SCP-1507-1’s room.
It’s more difficult to subtly procure the tools he needs to open it, but Katsuki is nothing if not resourceful.
As he stands before the access point, his heart racing and breathing shallow, Katsuki wonders if he should’ve gotten his affairs in order. Wonders if anyone will miss him.
No one will see Katsuki when they look at SCP-1507-1.
But that’s why he has to do this, right? There’s something he’s missing, something important he needs to discover. And this seems like the only way to do it.
He opens the panel slowly, listening carefully for movement, and finds the anomaly just metres away from him. It’s staring again.
Katsuki swallows. It’s too late to pussy out now.
Katsuki approaches as close as he dares, body open and slow and screaming not-a-threat as loud as he can. He swallows at length and utters, “Hi. Your files indicate you’re capable of human speech. Do you understand me?”
It blinks meaningfully at him. “Ah…” Katsuki freezes. He hadn’t expected it to respond to him so easily. Does it understand him at all? Should he rephrase? Should he- “It seems they’ve forgotten too much,” the anomaly says. “They even forgot to keep me a secret. Ironic, isn’t it?” Its voice is human-like, with a strange distorted undertone hiding beneath its words.
Katsuki tries not to gape at the sudden string of speech the anomaly uttered. “...What?”
It just shakes his head. “Never mind that. You’re not allowed in here. I never get visitors like this. I’m dangerous, you know?”
“You aren’t classified as a dangerous anomaly,” Katsuki says, heart in his throat.
The anomaly just looks at him. “Do I have to be classified as something to be that thing?”
“You- what? I guess not, but-” Katsuki scowls, “god, you’re so annoying.”
Infuriatingly, this causes the creature to smile at him. “I get that a lot.”
That too-wide, too-toothy smile stirs something in Katsuki. It’s warm and happy. It’s unusual to Katsuki: it might just be nostalgia.
The damn creature speaks in riddles, never gives a straight answer to Katsuki’s questions, and is quite easily the most annoying being alive. He thinks that might be a part of its charm. It pesters Katsuki until he gives up and leaves, vowing to return.
Two days later, he breaks in for the second time, and it seems sad. Sadder than usual. Instead of teasing and speaking in its riddles, it’s just… quiet.
After a half-hour of fruitless interrogation, Katsuki snaps. “Just tell me what’s going on!” Katsuki had almost been caught by security when he was sneaking in today, he can’t keep taking risks like this and get nothing out of it. “Why do I see your face as it truly is? Is there really no one I’ve ever loved?”
“On the contrary, Katsuki,” the anomaly speaks the most words so far today, touching Katsuki’s cheek in a far too human gesture, “you have loved far too greatly for your own good.”
“What does that mean?” he demands, slapping the gentle fingers away. He aches, strangely, to snatch them back. “Why don’t I see their face, then? Why don’t I remember? I can’t truly be this–this empty shell of a person! What am I missing?”
The anomaly closes his eyes and smiles sadly. “You see so much more than you realise,” he says, and is silent for the rest of the night.
“You should call me Deku,” the anomaly says, the next time. His voice warps strangely around the word Deku.
Katsuki had gotten sick of standing, so he’s sitting on the cool floor, the anomaly lounging next to him. A dumb, probably suicidal voice in his head tells Katsuki to take Deku’s spindly hand into his own.
Katsuki raises an eyebrow. “Deku? Is that your name?”
“Of a sort.”
Groaning, Katsuki flops to the floor. “The fuck does that mean?”
“It means…” the anomaly licks his pale lips, “I was not named in a conventional way. But it is the name I claim for myself.”
And that’s something Katsuki has never considered before. That the creature before him has a life, just as he does. “So you weren’t named by your parents? Do you have parents?”
The anomaly–Deku–shakes his head no.
Katsuki looks at the anomaly that he seems to be growing closer to, and sinks deep into thought. For their remaining time that night, Katsuki is contemplative. For once, he is full of questions not about himself, but about the other.
And as he leaves, he swears he feels something watching him.
Katsuki has reasoned with him. He has threatened him. He has whispered, screamed, begged for answers, and received nothing in return. All he has are one-sided conversations and confusing feelings that swarm him like flies.
He waits until after hours to access Deku’s file again, as he tends to do with anything regarding the anomaly. Maybe he missed something. Maybe there will be something helpful. Something to help him get his answers. Something to tell him more about the strange creature.
Something to make all of this make sense.
He logs in at his desk, sipping at his coffee as he closes out of his work files and opens up the SCP database. SCP-1507, he types into the search bar.
But there are no results. Katsuki rolls his eyes and edits the query, swearing under his breath about the finicky search system. SCP-1507-1, he types, hitting enter with a passive-aggressive flourish.
No results.
Katsuki narrows his eyes at the screen. He hadn’t made a typo. There are no restrictions applied to his search.
Katsuki hits enter again, and nothing changes.
No results.
Enter. Enter. Enter.
No results.
Katsuki feels sick.
If the file was restricted, he would be able to at least see evidence of its existence.
He just has to think rationally, right? He can’t just trust his feelings.
Fact: Katsuki found out about SCP-1507-1 through his colleagues. He accessed its file just a few weeks ago in this very room–except he’d been using another researcher’s computer and login.
Fact: His coworkers are acting strange. Katsuki always feels watched since he began sneaking around to see the anomaly.
Fact: The anomaly always seems happier, or at least less sad, when he’s there. He acts like he’s familiar with Katsuki.
Fact: Deku’s only notable ability is that he makes people see the faces of lost loved ones when they look at him. Katsuki is the only person he knows of that this doesn’t apply to. Katsuki sees Deku’s face.
And the most damning fact: Katsuki barely remembers his life before the Foundation.
Katsuki’s chest weighs heavy with prickly, sickly certainty. He must have known Deku prior to working for the Foundation. Which means his memory has been tampered with.
And he can’t trust anyone around him.
Katsuki falls asleep at his desk, heart stuck in his throat.
He dreams of crying. He can’t tell whose tears they are.
He hears his name. “Kacchan...”
It’s cold when Katsuki wakes up. He shivers in the late night–or is it early morning?–air.
He rushes up from his desk, stumbling to his feet. It’s 2 a.m.
He runs to Deku.
Katsuki lets himself into Deku’s room with the intention of this time being the last. He has no plans, no equipment, no thoughts but to take Deku and leave.
“Deku,” he calls for the anomaly’s attention; he has long since stopped staring at Katsuki when he arrives. “Come here now! I’ve decided.”
“Decided?” Deku asks. His eyes are focused intently on Katsuki’s form, and Katsuki resists the irrational urge to fix his sleep-mussed hair. “Decided on what?”
Katsuki takes frantic steps over to him. “I’m going to free you. I’ll help you escape.” He closes the gap and brings his hands slowly to cradle Deku’s soft face. “You mean too much to me for you to stay trapped here like this. I don’t remember everything, but I know you’re important.”
Deku considers him silently and shakes his head. “What one man may call a prison, another may call home.”
Katsuki could cry. “Shut up and help me. There’s no time for your riddles, I’m gonna get you out of here, okay?”
Deku sighs and pulls Katsuki’s hands away, gentle but insistent. “You need to leave. They’ll catch you.”
“I don’t care! Once you’re free I can even confront them for this, Q and the Council and every fucker who messed with me for so long! They destroyed my memories. They took my life away from me, Deku!” Katsuki is panting, now, out of breath as he riles himself up more and more.
It’s not helping anyone, he knows, but it’s all so awful and overwhelming and the creeping feeling of being manipulated and watched has lived under his skin for far too long.
“It’s too much! It’s–” his voice catches. “It’s all too much,” Katsuki says, letting his shoulders drop. He allows his wobbling legs to take him to the ground, and slumps against Deku when he rushes to catch him.
Deku had wrapped himself around Katsuki completely to protect him from falling, and Katsuki luxuriates in the encompassing hold.
“Kacchan, I truly wish there was something I could do to get you to give up on me.”
“There’s nothing. I’ll never give up on you,” Katsuki says, filled with sudden conviction.
And Deku smiles at him, smiles with those big, sad eyes that are wet with tears and drowning in sorrow. “I know, Kacchan. It seems like no matter what I do, I can’t keep you away from me. It’s our curse.”
Katsuki sits up enough to look at Deku properly. “Our… curse? What the hell are you talking about?”
Deku shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. But really, you should go. You can save my ‘rescue’ for another night, don’t you think?”
Katsuki furrows his brow, stares quietly at Deku as his gut churns and his mind races. Something in his hindbrain is in overdrive, working frantically to connect this moment to another memory. To contextualise this information, this experience, and form it into something as meaningful as his gut tells him it is.
But all he can do is ask more questions.
“Why did they take my memories?” Katsuki asks.
“Hm?” Deku tilts his head in question, joints flexing until it’s at what must be an eighty-degree angle.
“Why’d they take my memories? What could have been so important to warrant it? What’s their end goal? I can’t figure it out. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’ve deduced the Foundation is responsible,” Deku states.
“Who else would try something like that and get away with it? It has to be them.” He doesn’t like the way Deku’s looking at him. “It has to.”
“Kacchan… you know I hate lying to you.”
“Do I?” Katsuki bursts out, “Because you sure seem to know a hell of a lot more than I do!”
The tears spill over, shiny against Deku’s skin. “Leave it, please. I’m just trying to protect you.”
“I can’t just leave it! This is my life, Deku! And it’s your life too!”
“I know,” Deku sobs, “I know. I just- damn it,” his voice cracks.
Katsuki holds his face again, caresses wet cheeks with a tenderness he didn’t know he possessed.
Deku breaks down under his touch. “It was too risky,” he says in that distorted voice, that voice that to others sounds of heartache but to him sung hope, “to keep you so close. I only wanted to watch over you.”
Fuck. “What are you talking about? What do you mean?”
Katsuki’s mind blurs with the speed of his rushing thoughts. Denial, denial, denial.
“I should have just sent you far away. I was too selfish. I’m sorry, Kacchan,” he shakes his head, refusing to meet Katsuki’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Deku—Deku look at me. What did you do?”
“I had to protect you. They were gonna target you, too. But I couldn’t bear to send you away, so I created a new life for you here, where I could keep you safe. But of course, of course you would come back and find me all over again. We’re doomed to hurt each other, because we can’t let each other go.”
And, god, what’s Katsuki supposed to say to that?
“I need to remember, Deku. Let me remember. Please.”
Katsuki remembers two children collecting sticks and building castles. He remembers friendship and sun, death and bereavement; a whole lifetime of love and loss. He remembers school and homework and parties, remembers a first kiss, a first date. He remembers something not-quite-right with his boyfriend, remembers not-quite-right becoming not-okay-at-all.
He remembers them running. He remembers their separation. Remembers hunting Deku down only to nearly lose him again immediately after.
He remembers Foundation members, afraid but deadly.
And he remembers Deku in tears, taking all that was precious to Katsuki with the promise, “It’s all going to be okay.”
“We can run this time,” Katsuki says with tears running down his face. “I know how they work. We can beat them.”
“No, we can’t. You can’t spend your life on the run.”
“You can’t spend your life locked away, idiot!” Katsuki grabs Deku’s shoulders, squeezing into the bones, but can’t bring himself to shake him. Instead, he pulls him close. “I need you. I’m not living like this, without you by my side.”
“They’ll catch us,” Deku says, resigned.
“We’ll make ‘em sorry for ever looking our way, just you see,” Katsuki replies.
Deku sighs, and sinks into Katsuki’s arms. “Alright Kacchan. We’ll try.”
Katsuki gives him a brave kiss on the lips. “Let’s go.”
There is an anomaly.
Its classification is expunged. Its legal name is expunged. Its description is redacted. There is no Foundation member who remembers it, and there are no images of it in the Foundation’s database. But if you follow the right paper trail, you’ll find an old photograph of one Bakugou Katsuki, labeled SCP-1507-2.