Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She'd never get over the sheer size of him, the long yet stocky build of a predator laying strapped against the steel custom table, mind left to wander aimlessly in an unmovable vessel. She almost felt bad for him, especially when he vocalized his discomfort to her. A long guttural groan that rippled through her own body and made the medical tools clatter gently. She hushed him and ran her delicate fingers over the defined line of his jaw. Staring face to face with the tilted and unresponsive blank head.

"I suppose, if I was in your shoes I wouldn't like this either"

But she wasn't, and she'd never be. It was almost too easy to dehumanize the intelligent individuals here, especially when they were pumped full of sedatives. In this specimen’s case, he also got a round of butyrophenones. Highly concentrated antipsychotics to keep him calm. Most of his day on the table consisted of paralysis and sleep, only vaguely aware of what was happening around and to him. The Slenderman, though reluctant, had performed incredibly in all intelligence tests given to him. When marked with powdered sugar he was able to correctly identify his reflection and remove the substance from himself, his problem solving skills? almost unmatched throughout the entire facility, which shown through heavily when given puzzles with and without food reward. He understood cause and effect and to a degree gave yes and no answers. Still.. he never spoke to any of his caretakers. Investigation into his anatomy had shown that he was capable of producing a wide range of sounds, even some that were too low for the human ear to hear, but no speech. It puzzled researchers greatly, in many of the accounts taken in relation to the Slenderman it states that he had lured young children out from the safety of their parents and the protection of parks to follow him into the nearby forested area. When the surviving children were questioned many had stated that he had spoken to them.

Some could chalk it up to a child's wild and fearful imagination, having experienced a traumatic event but even then it didn't sit well with the woman in front of him.

It was like a dream come true to be able to work with an animal such as this, he could easily be three times her height and weight, His skin was a mesmerizing white, and pleasantly warm to the touch. Her eyes traced the beautiful gradient of color that shifted from that piercing black to illustrious off white only to settle on the fading red marking that ran the length of his torso like that of a tie. It was no sheer coincidence that all the accounts they had of the white king depicted a tall humanoid wearing an elegantly tailored suit. When they had captured him all that time ago his "tie" had been a striking scarlet, like the rest of him it was deep, haunting, rich. Now the color had started to fade dramatically without explanation.

A king? As nonsensical as it sounded. It was fitting. A king of what though, the king of the forest? perhaps. Such a ruler surely had few subjects.

Before she was even allowed to interact with him in person, she had been permitted to view him though one sided glass. The black sheen hadn't been enough to disrupt his detection of her however, in turn promoting the single instance that fueled her enthusiasm and awe towards the entity. He approached her slowly and deliberately. Each foot fall is calculated and sultry. She'd seen how his muscles flexed and how he looked at her for just a second. A mere moment. Allowing her to sketch him in her notes messily before he called out to her. The low guttural noise traveled through the glass, through the ground and traveled through her organs.

He seemed kingly then in that moment, as if he walked with nobility and purpose. The fact that he dedicated that short time to interacting solely with her and made her stomach flutter.

Y/n knew all too well that this particular feeling was well out of line in her line of work and would shake it off as many times as it needed to be in order to continue her work, but still. The being scared her immensely, but there was something else, respect? Maybe.
The memory in her mind had long since fragmented and she knew, no longer held the complete truth, it still made her smile.

She reached for her tools thoughtfully, a pair of shears to relieve the being of his massive claws. His hands, like the rest of him were huge in comparison to hers yet they held the same delicate posture. Sliding the pointed tip into the jaws of the clippers, she had to put all her weight into her palms to cut through the tough keratin.

The giant lurched against the table, arching his spine and struggling to keep his position before slumping back down.

Startled, the woman let her cheeks puff out before shakily letting the air out again. She ran her hand through her hair before smiling half heartedly "You're so dramatic and for what? Give me that, we need to do the others"

She grabbed his pale hand and continued her work, wondering if it was fine to leave him with the ability to move or if she needed to dose him again. The woman liked to think that after being his primary caretaker for so long that they'd have some sort of positive relationship, but the simple fact was that if this specific individual were to ever be without a dose that he could tear her apart before anyone could manage to dart him.

It was no secret to why he was so heavily secured, only permitted to be studied and handled by senior researchers. One slip of a hand, one unlocked door and hundreds of lives could be lost.
She had been trained for escapee protocols before, but how did you contain something that could teleport to begin with, let alone recontain it after its initial escape? Unfortunately for her, the only plan given to the staff should he escape was to try to sedate him, or to sacrifice yourself by running to the back of his enclosure where the monster would hopefully follow. She had not been given information about how he was captured, only assigned him. Instead of adding him to the ever growing list of patients she had already, they reassigned all of her previous studies leaving the Slenderman as her sole priority.

The sound of the metal door to the lab startled her out of her thoughts and left her nearby hand to dart to the chest of the creature and apply pressure as if to stop him from reacting. Eyes bounced between the individual on the table and the vital screen. She watched the steady rhythm of the line jump and let go of her own breath which had left to go stale in her lungs.

"Scared ya didn't I? Don't tell me that thing's got you on edge doctor."

Thomas Metts - was a spirited young fellow who looked rather out of place in the establishment he worked. He was chipper and was the first to offer a beverage or to crack a joke at someone else's expense. In comparison to her tired eyes and slumping form, he stood upright and held the vigor of his early teenage years.

"Honestly" she put down the nail clippers with some force making the metal clatter against her work station.

"If you're going to come into work late the least you can do is do it quietly."

She watched the young man shrug off his coat and relocate it to his designated cubby hole, finding himself a pair of disposable medical gloves and equipping himself with them.

"Relax, he's all drugged up anyways. It's not like he can be startled."

She thought back to the movement moments ago, this wasn't true. He could move, it was just sluggish. A sure sign that whatever work she was doing needed to be brought to a screeching halt and the creature be returned to his quarantine.

"Actually, his meds are wearing off. No thanks to you I wasn't able to get everything done."

The man made a disgruntled face, his features scrunching up as he stuck his tongue out at her childishly.

"My kid kept me up all night screaming, give me some slack. It took every bit of effort to get out of bed."

The woman did not, in fact she had very little sympathy for the man's story especially when it directly interfered with the safety of the situation.

"Yeah yeah, and just so you know. His dental work and skin samplings are all on you to collect." Thomas, less than thrilled about the assignment, opened his mouth to argue but closed it thinking better of it. The man casted his gaze over to the beast on the table, unease finally overtaking his youthful confidence. “So you really think the meds won't last? you think it can..”

“Yes,” she said flatly. “And yes, he will try if we’re careless. Now help me get him back to his containment before he decides to test our reflexes.”

"It's been here this long and no one has gotten basic DNA samples from the thing?"

The man's lack of basic knowledge of his own job irked her to no end. It wasn't lost on her that dear Tommy was a nepo baby. Y/n felt her face curl into a sneer as they rolled the table to the elevator, after swiping his ID card Thomas regretted turning around to meet her gaze.

"No, they haven’t, and I can't imagine why. I'm his leading behaviorist, Honestly! I handle his diet, environment not to mention monitoring his psychological health, anything extra I do for your team is generous. I'm not even supposed to make physical contact with him!” she seethed, her eyes narrowing, brimmed with dislike.
“Technically I just broke protocol by doing the monthly maintenance and screenings that you were too late into work to do yourself!"

The man recoiled, holding his arm in front of his torso and ducking his head down, smiling ever so slightly at the woman's rage.

"Jesus Doc, calm down.”

"What otta happen is that I report your negligence and have you reassigned to a lower class."

Thomas grumbled, a worried glint in his eye that told her that he was actually worried about her reporting him. As he should.

The elevator doors closed with a soft ding, the Slenderman woke to it. His ebony clad hands dangling over the edges. Y/n’s eyes flicked constantly to the vital signs monitor, noting the subtle twitch of his muscles, a faint shift in his chest. The sedation was fading faster than she expected, and every movement from him was a reminder that even semi conscious, he was far from harmless. Thick strings of consciousness broke from his, piercing into the scientist’s thoughts like harpoons. Each thread growing his awareness. They both felt it, like the sting of a migraine just beginning.

Thomas adjusted his gloves nervously, tapping the edge of the table. “So uh, do we just roll him straight in, or?” His voice faltered as the massive form shifted slightly, a whisper of motion that made the hairs on their necks stand on end.
“Straight in. Keep your hands where I can see them,” she snapped. Her voice carried a tight edge, not just from frustration, but from a thinly veiled fear. She had worked with dangerous anomalies before, but there was something about this one that felt different. Predatory, even in sedation.
“Be careful.”

Briefly, Y/n found it exhilarating, the natural reaction her and Thomas had to him. It was instinctual, primal, raw. She couldn't dwell on the rush for long, she was focused on her obligations… but sooner or later the adrenaline would rack her.

The elevator opened to the lower section of the enclosure, the intake. As they reached the containment chamber, Y/n braced herself, hands gripping the table. The metal door loomed ahead, reinforced, humming faintly as it awaited the card swipe. She cast a quick glance at Thomas, who was pale and sweating under his usual bright cheer.

“Card,” she said expectingly,holding her hand out. Thomas fumbled with his ID, the nervous energy radiating off him like heat. Finally, with a soft beep, the doors slid open.

The chamber smelled faintly of antiseptic and old blood. The artificial woodland set inside the enclosure looked innocuous enough, but Y/n knew better. It was the equivalent of a plastic play yard.

Thomas whispered, more to himself than anyone else, “He’s awake.” horrified as the being’s thousand yard stare seemed to focus on him.

“Not fully,” she said, her hands tightening. “But enough. Help me slide him onto the lift platform. Slowly.”

The creature’s tendrils slid from his back, slowly inching across the familiar terrain of his chest and others, more adventurous, rooting at the edges and handles of the table. Still sluggish from the sedation haze, Thomas jumped slightly, catching the movement out of the corner of his eye.

“Heart rate’s creeping up,” Thomas , eyes flicking between the monitor and the body.

“Yeah. I see it.” Y/n didn’t look up. “The sedative’s wearing off faster than expected.”

Thomas hesitated, lowering his voice. “Faster than usual, or faster than it should?”

“Both.” short, sweet, harsh.

Thomas and Y/n strained to lift the gurnee into the lift platform. It acted similarly to a morgue bed. It was narrow, the reinforced glass walls rising up like a coffin’s sides. The patient went in, the door locked, and then it pushed open to the other side, into his world.

When they finally clicked the gurney into place, both of them stood for a moment, catching their breath. The sound of the hydraulic locks engaging echoed dully in the room.

Thomas gave a low whistle, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his gloved hand.

"Hah, guess we did it just in time, suppose I should give it a couple of hours to break down the medication before I redose them for those samples, Ay?" A hardy punch met the man's shoulder, followed soon after by the cry of surprise.

"That could have been bad, why are you taking this so lightly, we could have died Thomas, other people could have died"

"But they didn't. We didn't!" the man retorted. "Also, that counts as assault,you know!” still holding his arm, Thomas can't avoid the evil glare his coworker gives him. It makes his gut curl up in anxiety.

"I'll get the samples done. Thanks for covering for me today"
The woman grunted, leaving him to stare into the containment cell emptily.

Chapter Text

She hated when the night's passed so slowly. Her time mostly spent on her laptop filling out paperwork and ordering various necessities, while silently watching over Thomas’s work. Which despite her previous blow up, interested her immensely.
She'd already broken protocol once, what were they going to do about it though, Punish her for getting the work done?

"Jesus Doc.." A cocktail of emotions flickered across Thomas face as he stared into the open mouth of their patient. Y/n, amused, only smiled.

"Horrifying isn't he?" She beamed, almost with pride.

She sat down the tools used to cut open the being's sensitive facial membrane, fiddling with the saliva and cheek skin samples tubes in her hands.
"I can't, fucking find the words." He chortled. Prodding a wooden hygienic stick around. Holding down the tongue and testing various salvation ducts.
"Any ideas on what these are for. These barby bits. Other than looking scary as hell"

Rolling away from her desk, abandoning the microscope she scooted closer to him, standing from her roller chair and taking the small torch from him to investigate for herself. He gestured to his findings with the wooden stick.

They were similar to that of a cat's tongue, albeit larger and more exaggerated. Bits of hair like structures that angled backwards and down his throat like fish hooks. Toward the front, near the forked tip of the tongue the keratin structures seemed to be finer, but as they ventured further back it only got worse.

"Well… looks like when he grabs something, he's not designed to let it go. Theres ya answer." It wasn't a hard assumption to make, by all accounts The Slenderman didn't have strong teeth. They served their purpose by all means. But when compared to other predators of the same predatory rank. Something wasn't right. They'd been missing information.

“He’s not really a chewer,” she said slowly. “.Which explains why he has a glottis structure. My guess? He just swallows, maybe rips them apart, And since we’ve been feeding him pre-shredded protein…”

“….we’ve been skipping a step.” Thomas finished, setting down the depressor.

“Exactly. They're giving him baby food.” She tapped the edge of a clipboard against her thigh, thinking aloud. “If he wants to hunt, then we need to let him hunt. Give him something with a pulse, something that moves. It might even make him more responsive in later studies. We give the others anatomical cadavers, hell, sometimes full corpses. It shouldn’t be this hard to toss a goat in there.”

Thomas shrugged at her remark, working delicately to scrape the plaque from the pre molars.

"Sorry miss. But this thing hunted people. I hardly think he's going to accept a goat."

“Why not?” she pressed. “It’s still prey. Blood, bone, movement, the instinct should translate.”

Thomas paused, rinsing the entity's mouth out with water before sucking and accessing it with the dental vacuum.

"He’s used to chasing intelligence, people don’t just run. They hide, they plan, they think. They use tools. They fight back. A goat’ll freeze or bolt in a straight line. There’s no challenge in that.”

For a moment, the two stood in silence, the sound of the machines and the slow drip of water breaking the stillness. The creature’s breath rasped faintly through the suction tube, and Y/n found herself wondering whether he dreamed of the hunt, even here in the confines of steel and light.
The discussion hung in the air long after Thomas finished rinsing the last traces of fluid from the eldritch’s mouth. The suction hissed one final time before the machine clicked off and quiet reclaimed the room. Y/n leaned against the counter, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the restrained creature’s still face.

Thomas was the first to break the silence.
“So you really want to file for a live feed trial?”

Y/n looked at him, then back at the creature.
“I want to prove the hypothesis,” she said simply.

“If he wants to hunt, then stripping him of that instinct is like…” she searched for the words. “Like taking off one of our legs and telling us to run.”

“Amputees still run marathons, Miss .” The man laughed dryly. He wiped his gloves against a sterile cloth, then tossed them into the bin.

“Containment’s not going to sign off on this. Not after last quarter’s incident.”

“They’ll sign off if it’s phrased correctly,” she countered, already turning to retrieve her work laptop. The screen flared to life, illuminating her features. “We present it as a behavioral enrichment experiment-”

“You've been complaining everyday that the higher ups have been cutting his shit” Thomas interrupted.

“-a controlled simulation of natural feeding conditions to reduce psychological distress in long term subjects. It’s practically humane.” she finished, glaring.

“Humane for who exactly?”

Y/n didn’t look up. “For the staff. You’ve seen how he behaves during the feed cycles. The staring, pacing, the way he acts when we dart him. It’s agitation.”

Thomas hesitated, his usual sarcasm thinning.
“You feel bad for him don't you?”

“I think,” she said softly, tapping her pen against the desk “If we’re keeping biological entities that we are to be held to a certain standard.”

The sound of her typing filled the silence that followed. She worked quickly to sign in, already drafting the submission request. Her fingers moved with the efficiency of someone who’d written similar proposals before.

“Ethics board’ll shred it,” Thomas said after a moment. “They’ll call it an unnecessary risk.”

“you’re forgetting how badly they want new publishable findings. Especially after that funding cut.”

Thomas frowned, but didn’t argue. He’d been there when the board slashed the grant he’d watched his father and senior researchers panic over what to keep and what to terminate.

Y/n closed the laptop, She rose from her chair, walking back to the examination table.

The Slenderman took up the majority of the room, the depth of black against the stark white room was captivating. Thomas and Y/n would have to walk over 4 meters to go from his head to toe.
The entity’s chest rose and fell shallowly beneath the sedation straps, the rhythmic breath of something that was aware but unable to react. Y/n reached out, brushing a gloved finger across the warm plateau of his chest. She petted him tenderly, admiring the flawlessness of his skin. A gesture that might’ve been curiosity, or quiet reverence.

“If we provide him with proper enrichment and he responds positively we might have a chance at studying him more in depth”

The woman’s head whirled with the possibilities, the money that would come not just for her, but her colleagues. Not only that, but if the eldritch chooses to willingly participate, answer questions. His capture could be made a lot more comfortable.

“ we could find out how he's able to teleport, how his brain works electromagnetically. It could be … amazing.”

Thomas shook his head, taking the sample vials carefully from Y/n, making sure they were labeled properly before settling them in the slotted holders. “We’re just pissing him off, Thomas.”

The man’s jaw tightened at that and he let out a short breath through his nose, scoffing at her.

“Pissing him off?” He echoed, staring at her. Really staring at her, as if she had grown two heads right in front of his eyes. “You make it sound like he’s got feelings about all this.”

Y/n finally looked up at him. Her eyes were sharp, lit from beneath by the glow of the monitors. “Don’t you think he does?” She ran her hand along the eldritch’s arm, his hand alone could span the size of her torso. She didn't need to be a trained medic to find a vein.

Carefully she wiped the location down with an alcohol wipe before sticking him with the needle. His blood rushed through the tubing into the collection bag, his blood was so deep red it almost appeared black.

Thomas rubbed the back of his neck, glancing toward the sedated creature. The lab’s light shimmered faintly against the plastic tubing threaded through its veins, the pulse monitors flickering in
quiet rhythm. There was something unnatural about how still it was. Like the body fell to sedation but the mind underneath refused.

Thomas huffed, rubbing at the stubble on his jaw. “If containment catches wind of that line of thinking, they’ll bench you. Permanently.”

“Let them, they'll put me on leave. No one here has as much experience with Slenderman. Except maybe you. Do you want my job Tommy?”

Thomas started to respond but a minor movement caught his eye, he'd almost missed it clouded by his emotion. It was almost imperceptibly the way the heart monitor skipped.

A single blip out of rhythm.

Thomas froze. “Did you see that?”

Y/n had already turned, eyes steady as she watched the line jitter. “Could be interference.” she said, she didn't think so but said it for Thomas anyways on the half chance that he was right.

“Could be.”

Neither of them moved closer. The air had taken on that electric stillness that lives between one breath and the next.

Finally, Thomas cleared his throat. “You think he’s aware of what we’re doing right now?”

Y/n didn’t answer. Instead, she reached for the readout pad and scrolled back through the neural feed. The spikes were faint, but there were small bursts of activity clustered around the moments she’d spoken his name aloud.

“Well… clearly he's aware of me.”
Thomas’s mouth went dry. “That’s not possible,” he said automatically, but the words carried no conviction. His eyes stayed locked on the readout, on the faint pulsing bursts that matched her voice.

“It shouldn’t be,” Y/n agreed quietly. “But look.”

She traced the small peaks with her finger, each one delicate like a heartbeat.
“When I said his name, right there. He’s responding. It’s not random.”

Thomas moved closer despite himself, his breath shallow. The monitor hummed softly, its light flickering against their faces. “You’re saying he recognizes you?”

“I’m saying” she corrected, “he’s listening.”

The word hung in the air, heavy and alive.

Thomas took a step back, rubbing at his arm like the cold had suddenly found him. “Or the system’s picking up crosstalk. We’ve had static before when he overheats the neural sensors”

“It’s not static” she said “That’s the start of a pattern.”

She tapped the screen. The neural spikes were uneven, yes, but there was rhythm in them faint, hesitant, as though something beneath the sedatives was moving and aware.

“Jesus,” Thomas muttered. “If containment finds out about this… they'll”

“They won’t.” Y/n’s eyes didn’t leave the screen. “Not yet.”

“Not yet?” His voice sharpened. “Y/n, this isn’t something you sit on. You think a little blip on a monitor’s worth your career?”

Her expression softened if ever slightly. “If he’s trying to communicate, that’s worth more than a career. He's never spoken to us”

Thomas stared at her. “You hearin yourself?”

“Yes.” she said simply.

The hum of the machines filled the silence that followed. A faint drip echoed from the IV line, the steady rhythm of the heart monitor resettling into its usual pattern. Thomas paced, running a hand through his hair. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with, Doc. This thing doesn’t talk. It doesn’t think the way we do. It kills, it feeds, it..”

“learns” she interrupted. “He adapts. He’s survived centuries that we can’t even trace. That’s intelligence.”

Her eyes flicked to the restrained figure. The being’s head was as limp as before, but its mouth,the strange, inhuman slit of it, seemed less slack than before. Almost as if there was tension gathering beneath the skin. The section that she had carefully cut open with her scalpel had healed over. It was a process so perplexing that even when they understood it scientifically it was never fully comprehended.

Thomas followed her gaze. “You think he can hear us now?”

Y/n hesitated. “Slendy? You with us still bud?”

The reaction was immediate, forceful and strained. It wasn't a pleasant noise. A thick, wet growl that gurgled from his throat and vibrated the table.

Thomas’s jaw was tight enough that the muscle at his temple pulsed. “You see that?” he said, his voice sharp and biting. “You think that sound means he’s happy? He didn’t like the name.”
Y/n glanced up from the monitor, her expression torn between wonder and guilt. “It was a reflex. I wasn’t trying to..”

“He’s not a fucking Labrador, Y/n.” Thomas’ tone wasn’t cruel, but it struck like a reprimand. “He’s not a person either. That thing doesn’t understand affection the way you want it to.”

She drew in a slow breath, her gaze drifting back to the being on the table. The last traces of the growl still echoed faintly in the corners of the room, caught in the hum of the machines. The Slenderman lay motionless again, the tautness in his chest dissolving into stillness, but the tension in the air hadn’t lifted. It clung to the sterile white light, to the hiss of the ventilation system, to the scent of disinfectant that could never quite mask the metallic undertone of blood that leaked from his faux forest.

“We’ve pushed him far enough for one night.” Thomas looked from her to the monitors, their steady green lines glowing softly in the dark. “We get him back to containment, and you, clock out. Get some sleep before you start thinking about interviewing him again.”

“I can’t just stop now,” she said, voice thin but determined. “If he’s responding, even a little”

“You want to lose your credentials? You want to be the next missing person report?” His tone softened, but the warning beneath it remained.
Y/n looked away. She knew he was right. It didn’t make it easier to accept.

Together, they went through the protocol, checking restraints, logging vitals, ensuring that his sedation remained stable. The process was mechanical, a series of practiced steps meant to create the illusion of control. When they finally resecured him for transport, Y/n found herself staring at the heart monitor once more.

The rhythm pulsed faintly, slow and deliberate
almost as if matching the pace of her own breathing.

Thomas caught her lingering gaze and frowned. “Y/n.”

“I know,” she murmured, tearing her eyes away. “I know.”

By the time tthey were walking him to the elevator, and into intake, the air around them had been restored to its usual sterile calm. The Slenderman was hoisted back onto the lift platform and into the electronic machine. The containment seals that hummed faintly when activated. The coffin-like door shut with a hiss, and just like that, the beast was in his cage again. Thomas stayed behind only long enough to double-check the logs before leaving her alone. “Go home, Doc,” he said quietly, one hand on the doorway. “You need rest. Not another theory.”