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Dr Iceberg tried his best not to let out an audible sigh as he walked into the office at 5 o’clock in the morning to see a substantial pile of paper on his desk. He wasn’t exactly surprised to see this, in fact it was now a rather familiar sight. Much to Iceberg’s indignation, he had apparently become the designated dumping ground for any paperwork that his colleagues found too tedious to complete themselves. Selfish pricks.
Though to be honest, if he had been a higher level researcher, he’d probably do the exact same thing. But Iceberg was perfectly fine with being a complete hypocrite.
It wasn’t like he stood a chance of getting a promotion anyway.
Whenever he asked, he was immediately shut down with the bullshit excuse about how he was “far too useful in his current position.”
As always, Gears was already working diligently at their own desk, and had likely been there at least an hour before Iceberg. The older man did not show much of a reaction to their boyfriend's entrance, asides from the customary silent nod.
Iceberg wandered over to Gears and handed them a large cheese bagel.
“Hey man- I thought you might want something to eat. I went to this new bakery a few days ago and they make pretty decent bagels.”
Gears turned their head to lock eyes with Iceberg, before accepting the food offering with another curt nod.
“Thank you, Julian.”
Iceberg felt his body temperature increase a few degrees above the usual -7°C. It always felt strange when they used his first name. It felt pretty intimate, coming from a man that would probably have no visible reaction to spontaneously combusting. He took a moment to scrutinise Gears’ facial expression. As expected, there was nothing, asides from the slight tilting of their head in response to Iceberg’s stare.
“Is something the matter, Dr Iceberg?”
…And back to formalities again. Iceberg shook his head, grinning.
“..Nah, man. It’s all good. Enjoy your bagel.” And actually eat it this time, Iceberg thought, making his way to his desk to tackle Mount Paperwork.
Over the course of the next few hours, Iceberg periodically snuck glances at Gears. During this time, Gears had taken exactly one bite of food. Granted, this was a slight improvement, since Gears rarely went out of their way to eat something, asides from Valentine’s Day, where they would always request for Iceberg to feed them chocolates at a rate of one per 10 seconds.
At about 10 o’clock, Iceberg looked up to see that the bagel was no longer sitting on Gears’ desk. A few stray crumbs were the only evidence of its existence. Iceberg sidled up to his boyfriend, feeling somewhat proud of himself for getting them to eat a proper meal.
“..Guess you liked the bagel, huh? I did say the bakery was good.”
Gears tilted their head imperceptibly. “Pardon?”
Iceberg frowned, and gestured to the lack of bagel. “The bagel’s gone. I assumed you liked it.”
“Julian, whilst the bagel was an acceptable taste and texture, I must confess that I did not take more than one bite.”
“So… where…”
“I do not know of the whereabouts of the bagel. I only became aware of its absence after you pointed it out to me.”
“Well, that’s weird-“ Iceberg stopped mid sentence, catching sight of movement in the far corner of the room. “Charles. What the fuck is behind the shredder?”
Gears’ expression changed to (almost) resemble disapproval. “Mind your language, Dr Iceberg.”
“I’m serious! There’s something behind the paper shredder! In fact, I think I can hear it… chewing?”
The tension in the room was now palpable. At a place like Site 19, it was not unheard of for anomalous organisms to breach containment and create rather… unfortunate situations.
Gears’ posture stiffened subtly. Iceberg began to reach for the homemade grenade in his labcoat pocket. With obvious hesitation, he started to inch towards the shredder in question. The chewing grew louder.
“Proceed with caution.”
“Yeah, I know, dude. I’m just trying to see what-“ The chewing stopped. “Shit.”
“Stay where you are. I will inform security.”
At that exact moment, the cause for the tension stepped out from behind the shredder, revealing a… small grey tabby cat. Or rather, the front half of one. Gears removed his hand from the radio at their belt as the cat began to lick incriminating cheese crumbs from around its face.
Iceberg put the grenade back in his pocket. “Josie? How did she… hey, no!” He snatched the bagel away from the feline SCP. “That’s not yours!”
SCP-529, affectionately referred to as Josie by site personnel, was a small tabby cat with no visible back half. She was generally allowed free rein of the facility, and it seemed she had taken advantage of this fact in pursuit of the forbidden fruit: cheese. As a rule, staff were not permitted to feed Josie cheese, as she had a habit of becoming distressed at the insufficient amount of cheese. No amount of cheese would ever be sufficient. She could become very persistent. And she had just eaten about three quarters of the bagel intended for Gears.
“…God damnit.” Iceberg stared at the mangled remains of the bagel. Josie stared at it too, with a strangely determined expression for cat facial features. “Sorry about that, Charles. I must have not shut the office door correctly or something…”
“It is quite alright. I am somewhat surprised that I did not notice either.”
Josie began to try to climb up Iceberg’s leg in a last ditch effort to retrieve her ill-gotten gains.
“Ow! What the- Josie! No! Stop that! Gears!”
Gears stood up from their chair and took the bagel, which then caused Josie to make a beeline for the older man instead. However, her climbing attempts were unsuccessful, and Gears regarded her without so much as a flinch.
“For the time being, I will store the bagel in the cabinet under my desk. SCP-529 will likely lose interest after a short period of time, and we will be able to resume our work once more.”
Iceberg stifled a smirk. “Gears… I love you, man… but you’re severely underestimating what a cat is capable of. You seriously think she’s just going to get bored and forget about the cheese?”
Gears gave no answer as they placed the bagel out of reach. In response, Josie began to paw at the cabinet separating her from her beloved cheese. When it became clear that Gears was ignoring her, Josie began to let out a barrage of wails that sounded painfully similar to a drowning rubber chicken. Iceberg watched incredulously Gears sat back down at their desk.
30 minutes later:
Josie did not “lose interest”. As a matter of fact, her anguished vocalisations had only become more grating. Iceberg would have found it impressive, if he wasn’t sitting in front of a seemingly unending amount of incident reports and termination orders with no ear plugs to soften the literal wails of the damned.
Eventually he couldn’t take it anymore, and shot up from his seat.
“I’m gonna… uh- go get coffee. Do you want me to get you some?”
“Yes, Dr Iceberg. Coffee would be much appreciated.” Iceberg wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, or if Gears sounded genuinely frustrated?
Either way, Iceberg was very glad to leave behind Josie’s yelling as he made his way to the nearest supply of coffee. He took his sweet time getting it, too, in the hopes that the anomalous tabby would genuinely forget about cheese.
It was about 40 minutes later when Iceberg entered the office later. He hadn’t intended to be away quite so long, but Clef had cornered him with a ukulele and kazoo attempting to serenade him with the entire song content of The Sound Of Music.
Iceberg was so preoccupied with trying to forget the sound of kazoo-aided yodelling that he almost didn’t register the scene in front of him:
Gears, asleep, with an equally sleepy cat resting on their lap. If he really listened, Josie was purring, and his boss was snoring.
In an attempt to be as quiet as possible, Iceberg tiptoed over to Gears and placed a mug of lukewarm coffee on to the desk next to them. He then carefully made his way back to his own desk, grinning faintly.
He wouldn’t wake them just yet.