Chapter Text
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There is panic and there is pain. Thorns spear into Enigma’s lungs. He slams the heavy metal door and runs to the corner and collapses before he reaches it. The thorns twist, and a putrid mix of flower petals and bile and blood spills onto the ground.
He heaves again. His hands slip in it, and he folds over with his head barely missing the linoleum floor. The jolt tears retch after retch from him until the pink-red blur of his vomit drowns in stabbing white flashes.
When he learns to breathe again, the smell of iron makes him dizzy. His arms are weak. His head is light. The room tilts sideways. He stays down, never mind the sticky fluids slowly soaking through his hair.
„Kruzi...”
His chest hurts. Enigma coughs, then pushes himself off the floor.
He looks at the floor and groans. So much blood. And so many brambles. And blossoms. And of course he stumbled into a cryptography lab of all places, one which decidedly did not have a shower or an eye wash or a sink. Enigma didn’t even remember coming down this corridor.
No cleaning supplies, no problem. Enigma already reeked of alcohol and grime and God-knew-what anyways — one more unpleasant smell wasn’t going to raise any questions. The mess on the floor, on the other hand, would. He shoves his forearm into the puddle and wipes it across the tile, grimacing a little before rolling down his jacket sleeve. The result somehow looks worse.
With all the spatial awareness 18 years of studying theoretical physics and codes granted him, Enigma finally spots the wire waste-bin. He worked with numbers, not… stuff. If Enigma wanted to play around with real world phenomena, he’d down a whole room full of Picrasma Candy and leave Medicine Pocket a fascinating body.
This was bad. Even by his standards. He had to leave. After cleaning up, which he couldn’t. Not without at least one or two researchers turning their heads his way. Walking around covered in blood and crushed flowers was suspicious, even in Laplace.
At least he could keep whomever walked in next from questioning too much. Slowly, Enigma uncrumples one of the paper balls and uses it to mop the remaining smears.
REPORT: ASYMMETRICAL NUCLIDE R AND ST
He cringes.
That was his own draft paper. This was his lab. There was only one dedicated cryptography lab in Laplace, after all: the one he shared with Ulrich.
„Fuck.”
Enigma scrubs a little harder before grabbing the next trashed paper. He didn’t need anyone finding out, especially not him.
With a deep breath, he gets back to cleaning.
•
Ulrich tears his sixteenth sticky note off the wall. Much to the inconvenience of Ulrich, Adler had gotten back into the habit of changing the door locks. Of course, several of the locks were nothing short of brilliant, and Ulrich couldn’t help but be impressed… but couldn’t Adler have chosen any other time to showcase his cryptographic genius? One that didn’t involve their lab?
“Adler, are you in there? Oh, for flux’s sake, if you are…”
Just as Ulrich begins punching in a code, the door suddenly opens. “Researcher Adler! Look, I’ve been searching for you all morning. Your office, your lab, your old office, the break room, the theor phys department storage closet, and— where in Heaviside’s name are you going!?”
Adler’s halfway down the hall.
“Hey! Get back here!”
And he doesn’t even snap an insult back. Doesn’t acknowledge despite Ulrich knowing he heard him. He just keeps on walk-run-whatever-he’s-doing. Not being cooperative, that’s what. What in the universe could be so important for Adler of all people to be speeding away like that?
“Alright, go run off, just like always. Every single time work calls, instead of actually doing it, you drag your feet and—… argh…”
Pause. Think of brown noise. Let the furious spiking calm. Frustration wouldn’t help anything— Ulrich would just have to take care of what he could without Adler.
He steps inside and frowns at the floor. A few paper balls litter it, one of them damp. The floor still has a small smear like someone (barely) tried to remove it. Adler’s idea of cleaning, apparently.
“Can’t even tidy up the lab after you use it…”
Ulrich sighs and picks them up. Taking care of Adler’s mess as per usual. Locked doors, messy reports, half-finished projects that finished up weeks behind schedule, if they were started at all. All different symptoms of the same problem. Every deadline and duty was an abstraction to Adler, as alien and distant as a star. Human decency, too, was apparently included.
Maybe one day, Adler would learn to shove his nihility aside and think about others.