As the gap closed, as something washed over him, a sense of something wretched and vile that turned behind his eyes, he had a moment of lucidity. This wasn’t real, none of this, was real.

So what do you do, when you understand something isn’t real? What do you do when you understand that in the moment, nothing you did had effect, or rather, mattered? 

You bite down.

Like a scared dog, you bite down.

And he did. He nestled his nose and lips against the fur, feeling the squelch and wriggling of larva and rot against his teeth, feeling the fibers thread between his canines… He paused, breathing in the smell, breathing in the nauseating and stomach turning scent of viscera and vile flesh. He paused, fighting with himself.

What did this mean? What did this symbolize to himself? If none of this was real, did it mean anything at all?

As he thought about this, as he felt flies flit their wings and crawl against his hands and face, he bit down. His teeth sunk into the flesh. He felt the crunch and popping of grime and bugs under his bite. He broke a barrier, he broke his barrier.

And it meant nothing.

However it meant something to the outside world. Faint crying and heaving over the fog in his eyes.

Elizabeth stood roughly four feet away, helplessly sobbing at the sight. Eyes rolled back and jaw clenched, too full of life so deadly. 

“Do you know when it started? Elizabeth?”

She shook her head, opening her mouth to croak out the few words she could. “I- I came down the stairs and he, he was just like this!” Her voice shuddered and cried with the panic of a child. She was strong, but to watch something so rough on the body once again, it struck something in her.

“Michael, Michael I need you to give me a sign, any sign at all.”

As hands caressed Michael’s hair, sweeping it from his face and tucking it behind his ear, he continued to sink his teeth into that creature. 

Maybe it would end.

Maybe this was the end.

“What- What is that? What are you doing?” Elizabeth held her arms close to her body, perhaps to ease the shaking and twitching. 

“I am, injecting him.” There was a pause. “With a medication called Levetiracetam. This, will hopefully bring him back to us.” A hand cupped against Michael’s cheek gently, a gentleness he didn’t know he craved, he didn’t know he needed.

He finally felt that creature buck back at him. Writhing and thrashing against him until he fell back. And then, routine ensued. Everything was as it should have been. Tearing him open and finding home in his chest, nestled under his ribs and against his lungs. He could breathe, and it no longer smelled vile. It no longer smelled of death, but the nostalgic scent of farmlands. The sweet smell of dew on to-be-cut wheat grass, the smell of hay in a musky old barn. It smelled, like home.

And then he was in bed.

He never got to bed…

How was he in bed?

When he looked at the clock, it was 9:13am. It was Elizabeth’s first day back in school and the time told him he made her late, and then it all came crashing before him.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and sat up, only to find that the chair in his room was occupied.

“You had another seizure. It wasn’t as mild as your first one, it would be smart to see a doctor who specializes in the neuro field.” Grohm sat, book in hand, elegant and poised. It felt odd to see him in this light. The dappled sun falling through the closed blinds, for a moment Michael saw something. Grohm saw himself as an art piece, but was he an artist? 

He began to doubt himself.

He had begun to doubt, everything.

“I need to get Elizabeth to school-”

“I took care of it. You needed the rest.” Grohm looked up from the book he held in his lap. His smile was warm, it was welcoming in the worst ways.

There was a moment of silence, one surprisingly comfortable and fine. Michael raked his hand through his hair and inhaled rough and deep. “You uhm. You can leave now.” He mustered a halfward smile, one that felt all too performative, granted, it was.

“I don’t think I’ll be doing that, not yet at least.” Grohm closed the book and folded his hands neatly over it. “I’m making you breakfast and,” He cleared his throat. “Apologizing.” He lowered his head and stared at Michael through his lashes.

“And I’m telling you to leave.”

“And I’m telling you I won’t, not yet.”

Michael exhaled through the slight flare of his nostrils. He cocked his head to the side slowly, his lips a thin line as frustration set in. 

“But I don’t want you here. It’s unprofessional at best.” He furrowed his brows.

` “And at worst?”

Michael paused, at worst. Staring at him, he began to, once again, doubt everything. What if he had been missing it the whole time? What if this copycat was closer to him than he originally thought? And why did it seem to throw the begrudgingly beloved doctor off?

“At worst I would think you’re trying to be my friend. Don’t muddy those waters Doctor.” Michael spoke with a huff, kicking his feet over the side of his bed and forcing himself awake.

The house was warm, quiet, cozy. It was fitting, the occasional house plants in each new room, the feeling of things being left untouched. It made sense to Grohm. Looking at Michael as the two saw across one another at his dining room table, though less of a dining room and more a mere table slapped down somewhere.

“I think you’re pretentious.” Michael finally broke the silence between the two as they ate.

Bauernfrühstück, or rather, “Farmers Breakfast”. There are many variations of this dish depending on where in Germany you are, though almost always it’s made with the same seven ingredients.

Potatoes are boiled in their skin, then peeled and cut into slices and browned with onions and diced ham in butter. Eggs are beaten, not fluffed, and mixed with milk. They’re seasoned with simple salt and pepper, then added together in a pan along with the potatoes, and then the optional chives.

Only the Ham didn’t taste quite right.

It didn’t taste like ham at all.

“You do?” Grohm smiled with a huff. This feeling, one so tight in his chest, had him relishing the sense of domesticity of the two merely sitting and chatting over breakfast.

“You dress too nice, your office is a showcase of wealth. And you talk like you’re a victorian noble.” Michael didn’t look up from the plate before him as he ate, still trying to figure out what kind of meat was used.

“I get that sort of comment quite often. You’ll have to do better than that.” Grohm’s smile, more a grin, weighed like a blanket as he stared at the man before him.

Michael frowned and raised his brows momentarily. He leaned back in his chair and held the mug of fresh coffee to his lips. 

“I don’t like you.”

For some reason or another, this made something deep within Grohm swell. A sense of pride in watching Michael devour without question, watching him push back with all his might knowing that this, whatever this was, was inevitable.

“You don’t like me.”

“No.”

“You will, eventually.”