You seemed to slip into the doctors grasp after falling asleep. Josie's short gray fur tickled your nose as she brushed against you in an attempt to wake you up. It worked. Your eyes opened droopily and once you got the fluffy half of a feline into your view, you smiled at her softly. She seemed to smile back in return. You opened your mouth to speak to her, but she pressed her paw against your mouth. You looked at her confused. Josie looked towards the door of the elevator, and as you listened you could hear the inhale and exhale of 939. You mouthed a silent 'oh' before nodding as a sign of understanding. She then pulled her paw from your mouth and looked somewhere slightly behind you. 

        You turned you head slightly, to see the doctor pressed against you. You hadn't really noticed, but now that you did, you blushed furiously. You just weren't comfortable with this. Sure, you trusted him, sure, you were at least an acquaintance, but you weren't.....you weren't....

        You just didn't want to hurt him. Not only has he already been through so much, as far as you could tell, but chances are, if you break his heart....well consider yourself broken too. You sighed heavily. 'And how did I allow this yesterday?' you thought to yourself, slight ignorance in your nonexistent tone.

        Josie wandered away and came back shuffling. She had a small pile of dust she was lugging over to you. You weren't sitting up or anything, you were actually laying down on the floor, the doctor was laying behind you, and his arm was wrapped around you, keeping you from moving. Well, you could move if you wanted, but it was risking him waking. She stopped in front of you, seeming to sit though she had no rear end. She spread the dust slightly before pressing her paws into it. When she was done she signaled you to look, there was a poorly drawn smiley face in the dust. The eyes were paw prints, and the smile was a long scribbly line made by a claw and any fur that got in the way while the cat was working.

         You looked back up at the female feline. She tilted a head. 'Are you happy?' she was asking. You shook your head. Josie looked down at her paws. She dispersed the dust around again. Now she drew another figure. It was a scribbly heart. She tilted her head again. You gestured to 049 slightly. She nodded. You shook your head again. You pressed your finger into the dust, drawing a crack down the heart. A broken heart. The cat's eyes seemed to widen, her pupils dilating. She thumped her paw on the image, the dust blowing in small flurries. You blinked a few times, showing concern. She shook her head before drawing another simplistic image. Now she drew a circle with two 'x's. You didn't understand at first, but you did when she flicked her paw at you. That was you. A dead you. You gasped slightly before shaking your head. You quickly wrote 'PLAY ALONG' in the dust, but Josie couldn't read, she didn't understand, so you drew a stick figure with two bubbles. A speech bubble, and a thought bubble. Inside the thought bubble was a heart with an 'x' over it. A heart was in the speech bubble. Josie nodded. Perhaps she understood. You cleared the dust away by brushing the floor a few times. You slowly and carefully slipped from the SCPs grasp. You held onto his wrist so it wouldn't just hit the floor and placed it on the base of the elevator carefully. 

        You breathed in deeply when you realized you had held your breath throughout this entire process. You crawled up to the door and peered out. SCP-939 was asleep, its head rested with a mouthful of daggers over its paws, its long sharp claws. Josie pawed up next to you and watched the monster with you. 

        "Hold on," you whispered. Josie nodded. You slid down to the other edge of the elevator and picked up one of the dusty rocks. You rolled it around in your palm. You climbed back up to the ledge and threw the rock down. It hit the ground with a clack, and as the noise sounded, Josie jumped up and skidded backward. You laughed quietly. 939 tilted its head to the noise, but it didn't wake, it just rustled in its sleep. It snarled slightly and merely snapped its front teeth. 

        "Hmm." you thought about this. Maybe if you were quiet enough....

        "(Y/n)." you jumped at his voice. 

        "Shhh!" you pulled your hand up to your mouth swiftly to shush him. 

        "Oh," he whispered, "Sorry dear. Is it of an inconvenience?" he asked in a hush. Something was wrong though. You shuffled towards him until you were about a foot away from him. "What is it?" he asked. You slid a little farther, your toes came into contact with his. You reached forward, touching the beak of what everyone thought might have been his face. You always thought it was a mask. Were you right? His hand jerked up, pushing yours away, it kind of shocked you. 

        "I-I'm dreadfully sorry, that was inappropriate behavior, I just..." he trailed off as his hands fixed what appeared to be a mask. You were right, it had been slightly tilted. Maybe it had happened while he was sleeping. You snickered triumphantly. 

         "No, it's okay if you want to hide whatever the heck is going on under such a mask," you replied to his reaction. 

        "It's not as bad as you make it out to be," he whispered. "So why are we being quiet?" he asked, still relatively silenced. 

         You nudged your head towards the door. You crawled up there with him to look down at the predatory animal catching z's. 

        "Should we go?" you asked. 

        049 shook his head. "When they rest it's like a mandatory reset. If we could just stay obscure and concealed, that pestilence will disremember us and we'll be in the clear," he explained in depth. 

        "There you go with your vocabulary again..." you mumbled to yourself. 

        "Hmm?" he hummed. 

        "Nothing," you responded, sliding back down to sit again the wall. He slid down after you and leaned against the wall next to you. Josie walked over and crawled into your lap. 'We look like a family.' you thought for a split second. Regretfully. 'Yeah, the weirdest most unkept, unlovable family in all of history.'  you argued with yourself.

        Josie fell asleep there. You stroked what she had of a body, she didn't seem to mind it, she actually purred slightly in her sleep. Maybe she wasn't all that restful. You continued to sit there patiently waiting for the monster outside to wake up from its seemingly never ending slumber and forget all about your presence. 

        "Do you have to sleep?" you asked the doctor. 

        "Well of course not, most of us SCP's find rest completely irrelevant, as did I. Then, as I drifted away from my containment cell and left my continued operations on victims of the disease, I gave sleep a try and discovered it uncovers a land that appears to make less sense than the one I'm in now," he told you, he expressed how mystified he was by the incident in his tone. He was talking about dreams. "Sometimes they are scary," he mumbled. 

        "Yeah, that happens. But might I ask what could possibly spook an SCP-like yourself?" you were trying out his choice of words. It made you feel weird. 

        "Everyone has a fear, (Y/n), whether they have discovered it or not," he said in a whisper. You tilted your head. He was acting a little weird. "Turns out I have a condition called 'thanatophobia'," he mentioned. 

        "Whats that?" you asked in a hush. 

        "The fear of losing someone you love," he responded, he never looked directly at you, just straight forward, as if he had just been caught in the act of doing something he ought not to. 

        "So you had a nightmare about losing a loved one?" you asked. 'Who could he possibly care about?' you wondered silently to yourself, 'let alone love'. 

        "What is a nightmare?" he asked. 

        "A nightmare is a bad dream," you responded. 

        "I'm intrigued, then what is a dream?" he asked. 

        "That world you visit when you fall asleep, that comes from dreams." you almost laughed at the fact he had no idea what a dream was. While it was understandable, he knew like, everything.  

        "Oh, then yes...I had a..'nightmare'." he nodded as he spoke. 

        "Alright, who died?" you asked, he flinched a little at that last word. 

        "That's classified," he said. 

        You smirked. "Why is that? Ooh, does the doctor have a crush?" you teased him, extending the word just for the sake of exaggeration. 

        "Oh it's nothing to laugh about, would you tell me the person you favored if I had asked?" he questioned. 

        "Yep." you responded confidently, somehow Josie was still asleep. 

        "Well okay then, dear. Who do you wish to conduct rendezvous and possible engagement followed by commitment in a relationship with?" that was a lot a word. You widened your eyes slightly. 

        "Easy," you said calmly. "No one!" you smiled. 

        He curled up slightly after your response. Had it hurt him? Why would it? 'You broke his heart.'  you thought. "Oh, well who do you favor the most?" he asked. 

        "That one is easy too," you said with a softer smile instead of a brave courageous one. He tilted his head. "You should know," you said. 

        "I don't know of any other people you have performed a possible acquaintanceship with, dear," he said. 

        "Well, neither do I.," you said a little disappointed in yourself. You stared at Josie, continuing to pet her. "Of course I favor the only person on Earth," you said, looking up at him. 

                    You had met him three days ago. You formed an acquaintanceship. You were stepping into a new territory now. New for both of you. It probably wasn't new for you, but in this lifetime, it was. Friendship. It felt nice to finally have someone to lean on. Metaphorically speaking of course. It was only physical sometimes. But what choice do you have when you're the only ones on Earth? 

        "I was right." you interrupted the silence. 

        "What?" he asked, curious as to what you were talking about. 

        "It was a mask," you said with a smile. 

        "Yes, and?" he asked, flustered. 

        "I don't know, that's interesting. What do you have to hide?" you questioned. 

        "A face," he whispered. 

        "Oh really?" you said sarcastically. 

        He sniggered in response, "Yep." he smirked under his mask. You reached up and ran your fingers across the rough fabricated mask. It kind of felt like rough silicone. He didn't stop you this time. You gripped the edge of the mask, ready to pull it off. 

        "Mind if I take it off?" you asked. 

        He hesitated, "I suppose, what secret to keep from the only person in the world?" he quoted. You shrugged and reached up, pulling his hoodie down, revealing a messy ruffled head of hair. It was cute. he had major bed head. 

        "You sure about this?" you asked once more with a smile. 

        "You got anything to hide?" he asked. 

        "Nope," you responded. 

        "Then neither do I.," he said. You could hear the smile in his voice. 

        You smiled. "Alright then."