Charades.
Warnings and small blurb (Please read!): PART THREE OF “cold, hard, liquor” . . . . . extreme warnings for this chapter. This chapter includes throwing up, general angst and depression (via reader), and clark begging and pleading if ur into that ✌️ and if you read super hard into it some elements of SA (this isn’t to say that clark sexually assaulted reader in this chapter AT ALL. but some language used could replicate that sort of emotion of disgust when it comes to sex and i don’t want people to be triggered by it.) No smut, sorry ): Theres also Obsession, unhealthy power dynamics, manipulation, emotional dependency, psychological horror, implied coercion, dissociation, body image/self-neglect, SH (to some extent), past masterbation, canon-typical Backrooms horror, non sexual nudity, accurate depiction’s victims, Implied ED and major character deterioration.
THIS IS A DARK READ!!! pls take care of yourself. 💗
—
Author's Note: I know this chapter (and especially the ending) may not be what some readers expected. When I started writing Clark, I never saw him as a character capable of a traditional romance. Not because he is incapable of caring about people, but because so much of his character revolves around control, validation, shame, and his inability to maintain healthy relationships. One of the things that stood out to me most in the movie is that Clark constantly presents himself as the victim of his circumstances while simultaneously driving away the people who care about him. He loses his wife, his friends, his coworkers, and eventually himself.
To me, that isn't a story about a man finding love. I never wanted this story to end with the reader "fixing" him. The reader loves Clark. Clark loves the version of the reader that exists in his head. Those are NAWT the same thing. The Backrooms became a place where Clark no longer had to be challenged, observed, questioned, or asked to change. For someone like him, that's paradise. For everyone around him, it's a fucking nightmare!!!!!! I wanted the ending to reflect that. Not because I think Clark is evil, but because I think he's tragic. And tragedies don't always end with people getting what they deserve. Sometimes they end with people getting exactly what they wanted. . . (woah poetic)
(Also random music rec that was really good to listen too while writing this, Sleep talking by Indigo De Souza . . . forwards, beckon, rebound by Adrianne Lenker, Dove - Demo Ver by antihoney . . . and Pink in the night and Liquid smooth by Mitski, it’s so good bru)
You smell of him. You smell of his liquor and his fabric softener. You have worn his clothes, slept in his bed and you’re pretty sure you've used the toothbrush in his office once or twice. And if you were to die in the nights that you two spent together, with tangled arms and legs.
if you were found like that years later being pure bones, people would think you two were one creature. Some monster with two heads, two pairs of legs, two pairs of arms. Something that could only be loved for itself.
The rain had been dragging itself across the grey apartment windows for three straight days, a steady, miserable drone that perfectly matched the suffocating weight settling into the corners of your room.
It was early. Sometime just past dawn. You always used to tell yourself that you liked getting up early.
I like getting up early.
But as you sat completely naked on the edge of the worn-out couch, the sentence twisted itself into something colder and entirely disconnected from your actual body.
She likes getting up early.
You stared blankly at the television screen, watching the mindless glare of some morning broadcast flash across your skin without actually processing a single word of it. Your brain was lazily sorting through old fragments of who you used to be, trying to piece together a person you were before all this.
This is her favorite channel, you thought to yourself, the internal voice sounding like a stranger narrating your own life. She has a crush on that cute guy from channel nine. Maybe she should watch that instead.
It wasn't even an attractive thought. It wasn't romantic, and it certainly wasn't sexual (i mean . . maybe it was that one night in june when y- nevermind.)
You were completely pent up, exhausted down to your marrow, and the sheer, heavy mess of this depression had turned your own living room into a cage. You were just an object sitting on a cushion, waiting for the clock to tick.
Ever since you had abruptly walked out of the furniture warehouse to escape Clark, permanently quitting the only stable job you had, you had spent every single hour trying to rewrite what had happened down there. You spent days exhausting your own brain trying to convince yourself that you were just overreacting, that the stress of your late rent and the eerie atmosphere of the store had just made your mind play tricks on you. He was a lonely, hurting man who needed comfort, you told yourself, and maybe he really wasn't that bad. He was just eccentric. He was just broken.
But deep down, beneath the layers of denial, you knew exactly how dangerous he was. You knew he was that bad. You just couldn't bring yourself to admit that the man you had adored for months was completely, utterly unhinged, so you stayed paralyzed on the cushions, tracking the aggressive red ink on the past-due rent notice while the bills piled up like dead leaves.
But the mental bargaining was nothing compared to the sudden, violent wave of nausea that hit you out of nowhere.
It forced you to stumble blindly off the couch and into the cramped bathroom, collapsing over the stained porcelain of the toilet. You dry heaved until your throat burned with a bitter, hollow ache, your trembling fingers automatically reaching up to trace the tiny, split scar on your bottom lip where his blunt teeth had dragged against your skin during that night.
There was a thin belief that you could turn him, soften him, draw something human out of what felt so hollow. That one day, instead of breaking you, he might come to you gently. . .
You thought about it sometimes . .
how it began. Whether there was some parallel universe of this story where you reached him, where you found something within him to hold onto.
But there was nothing.
Nothing to anchor to, nothing to grow.
He was hollow from the start, and whatever might have been human in him had never taken root.
And still-
you would be the only one who ever came close enough to see it.
The grotesque, physical wrongness of the sickness settled deep in your gut like a stone. As you leaned your forehead against the cold seat, the terrifying math of the timeline began to warp, making you realize that the window to fix his mistake had completely slammed shut while you were busy trying to play normal.
The worst part was trying to wash the sickness off, because you had to actively talk yourself through every single step in the shower just to keep your hands from shaking. You run your hands over your body aimlessly, sometimes you even fondle with yourself to try to feel something; it never felt right. You ran your palms over your skin while your brain methodically repeated the old, comforting pattern.
Soap on roots.
Conditioner on ends of hair.
Double conditioner then grab pink shaver.
But as you tilted your head back under the stream, your mind twisted the sensation until all you could imagine was the damp, sickening give of the wet yellow carpet beneath your bare feet. The smell of clean soap completely lost its battle against the memory of rotting wallpaper.
Turning off the water, you wiped the condensation from the mirror only to stare at a version of yourself you barely recognized. The blueish, hollow bags under your eyes were stark against your skin . . You felt gross. Even though you were clean. As if Under all the soap an bubbles you were still covered in grime. .
Stumbling back into the dim living room, you sank back onto the couch. You don’t bother getting dressed. . you don’t bother doing anything. You don’t bother eating or brushing your hair . . She would do those things, not you. your eyes tracking the static dancing across the edges of the small television screen. Suddenly, the mindless morning broadcast cut away, replaced by the crackling audio of a local news alert that made your entire body freeze.
Two faces flashed onto the screen under a bold headline. Kat and Bobby.
Oh.
The syllable barely formed in your mind before the second one hit you, heavier and far more violent, knocking the remaining air straight out of your lungs.
Oh.
The announcer’s voice bleated into a distant, crackling fuzz as the sickening realization violently crashed into your brain, shattering the fake reality you had spent a month building. You couldn't pretend you were overreacting anymore. He was that bad.
Clark.
Your breath caught in your throat as a wave of cold horror gripped you, a heavy, suffocating weight settling into your chest as you realized Kat and Bobby were down there right now, trapped in that infinite, rotting maze . . And the most terrifying part was the absolute certainty that you were maybe the only person left on the surface who knew the secret of his life. Nobody else was looking for him because he had engineered his own isolation . . You couldn't hide behind a locked door anymore. You had to actually confront him about this, even if it meant risking your own life, your own safety, fuck- everything.
The sudden, absolute certainty that you were going back to that warehouse triggered a strange, desperate compulsion inside you . . . a sudden relapse into the old habit you thought you had broken. Even though you were terrified, even though you knew exactly what kind of man was waiting for you, a sick part of your brain still wanted to look pretty for him to some extent. You were out of the routine, but you were still entirely in it.
Your hands moved on pure muscle memory as you dragged your makeup bags out onto the counter, spending an hour meticulously concealing the hollow shadows under your eyes, doing your hair, and lining your eyes exactly the way you used to do before every shift, so that when you were crying as he was pulling and grasping at your body and hair, your mascara would smudge just enough to look “hot”. You were dressing up for an executioner.
You glance at the kitchen as your leaving, you stare at the day old coffee that sits on the counter. You look over at an apple. It had been days since you have had a proper meal. . . You wonder if you should have something . . you decide against it. You’re not hungry.
When you finally pulled open the heavy door of your little red car, the damp fabric of your jacket clung uncomfortably to your freshly dressed frame as you threw yourself behind the wheel. The interior smelled like stale air and old fast-food wrappers, unwashed mess that matched the heavy fog making your hands tremble against the cold steering wheel.
You cranked the ignition, the engine sputtering to life with a weak, pathetic groan that rattled the entire frame of the car as you threw it into drive and pulled out onto the slick, empty asphalt. Every single mile you drove felt like a violent betrayal of your own sanity, your stomach twisting tighter and tighter as the wipers slapped rhythmically against the windshield, struggling to clear the heavy downpour.
You were driving right back to the one place you had sworn you would never look at again, your chest tightening with a sickening wave of self-disgust that made you feel utterly pathetic for letting his gravity pull you back into his orbit.
—
When the massive, looming shape of the furniture warehouse finally cut through the gray mist, your foot hovered over the brake, a cold sweat breaking out across the back of your neck. The building looked entirely dead. The high warehouse windows were completely black, and the massive neon sign on the brick exterior was dark, making the entire property look as though the power had been cut off from the inside to swallow any evidence of life.
The rain slaps hard against the dented roof of your little red car, a relentless, metallic drumming that seems to vibrate straight through the steering wheel and into your locked knuckles.
You kill the ignition, and the sudden drop into silence leaves only the wet, synchronous squeak of the windshield wipers dying halfway across the glass. The smell of stale air and crushed fast-food wrappers from a month of isolation pools thick in your throat, a gritty, unwashed mess that you don’t even have the energy to sweep off the passenger seat. Your hand hovers over the door handle, your fingers stiff, before you finally force them to clamp around the cold plastic and shove against the seal.
The gray downpour hits you instantly, a freezing weight that glues your freshly styled hair to your scalp and turns the fabric of your jacket into a heavy, suffocating shroud within three steps. Your boots splash through deep, muddy puddles along the sidewalk, the icy water soaking straight through the leather as you stare up at the looming brick facade of the furniture warehouse.
The high warehouse windows are completely black, reflecting nothing but the miserable storm clouds above. The massive neon sign on the exterior is dead, missing its usual hum, giving the entire property the look of a structure whose power was cut off from the inside to swallow any remaining evidence of life.
You reach the entrance, your palm wrapping around the rusted steel handle, and when you pull, the tiny brass bell above the frame doesn’t ring, it really just gives a dull, dead clink against the glass.
The air inside the showroom is thick, freezing, and heavy with the scent of trapped moisture. You take three slow steps onto the dark floorboards, your eyes straining to trace the long, jagged silhouettes of display beds and towering oak wardrobes in the shadows. The ordinary, buzzing hum of the showroom lights is completely gone, the massive warehouse floor was just an area for unsold inventory
Your feet stop on their own, drawing you to a halt right in front of the display mattress . . a display mattress you knew all too well.
You stare down at the fabric, and a sudden, violent wave of nausea rolls over your tongue, far more bitter than the morning sickness, you aimlessly heave for a moment, your body threatening to let out your dinner from the night before.
Your trembling fingers automatically reach up to trace the tiny, split scar on your bottom lip where his blunt teeth had dragged against your skin during that night on the damp carpet a disgusting mixture of humiliation and anger that makes your muscles lock up. . humiliation because you cannot believe you let yourself believe that man.
Turning away from the bed, you force your rigid legs to move toward the rear of the warehouse, slipping into the stairs that lead to the basement.
The air down here is different . . it’s freezing, thick with some sort of rot, and so pitch black that you have to slide your palm along the rough concrete wall just to keep your balance. Your heart hammers against your ribs like a trapped bird, each step down the stairs feeling like a descent into an execution chamber until your boots finally level out on the damp cellar floor. You swallow hard, the metallic taste of fear pooling under your tongue as your eyes slowly adjust to the dark, immediately locking onto the far wall.
a part of the wall. . . aggressively outlined with strips of blue Scotch tape, forming a crude, jagged shape of a doorway against the masonry. There’s a rolling whiteboard, but the neat diagrams from a month ago are entirely gone, completely buried under fresh rambles, frantic equations, and overlapping circles scratched so hard into the plastic that the marker has split.
You freeze, you body begins to shake like a leaf. fracturing the stubborn mask you spent half an hour painting over your face.
Your hands fly to your cheeks, your short fingernails digging into your own flesh, dragging down until the skin burns as a breathless, ragged whimper tears past your lips.
You grab at your own waist, your fingers clawing violently at the fabric of your shirt, squeezing the flesh beneath it hard enough to guarantee deep bruises by tommorw morning.
Your body is violently revolting against the sheer proximity of his world, your own voice sounds completely unrecognizable as it bounces off the walls of the building . . . it’s something you weren’t familiar with.
"No. . . no. No, I can't go back,"
you whisper in a frantic, rising cadence, your head shaking side to side as you stare at the blue tape.
"I can't do it- Fuck . . Fuck no. I can't do it again. Please- no."
Your body goes entirely cold, a sudden, numbing ice sweeping straight through your limbs until your bones feel brittle. A violent shaking takes hold of you, a deep, uncontrollable tremor that starts in your chest and vibrates down to your fingertips, making it impossible to hold your hands still as you clutch yourself in the dark. You are shivering so hard your teeth click together, the damp cellar air clinging to your skin like a wet shroud as your muscles lock up under the sheer force of your terror.
You back away, your boots tracking blindly in the dark until your back pins against the cold iron rail of the stairs. The tape is there. The whiteboard is there. The absolute, disgusting truth of what he might have done Kat and Bobby is sitting right behind that cream wall, and if you run now, you are leaving them to rot in that fucking tomb forever.
Forcing your hands away from your scratched cheeks, you swallow the bile rising in your throat, your chest heaving violently as you force your mind back into the box. You smooth down your jacket with trembling, bleeding fingers, desperately trying to paste the quiet, compliant illusion back over the top of your crazed panic, trying to force the uncontrollable shaking in your limbs to quiet down just enough to step forward.
You are terrified, your body is freezing, you are a complete mess, and you are walking straight into the dark because it was the only way out.
you walk forward.
And you slip through the wall again.
The edge of the blue Scotch tape scratches against your knuckles as you press your palms flat against the stone wall, your body going completely rigid as you force your boots to step forward. There is no sudden jolt. No physical barrier. Just a seamless, sickening slide through solid matter that immediately drops you out of the basement’s freezing dark and straight into the dead, unblinking glare of the fluorescent tubes.
The hum hits you first.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
It is a heavy, mechanical vibration that rattles inside your skull, drilling into your ears with a maddening, eternal frequency that instantly turns the skin on your arms into gooseflesh. The air is thick, boiling hot, and choked with the aggressive, nose-stinging stench of moist, rotting wallpaper and ancient, waterlogged carpet.
You take three shallow breaths, your chest heaving violently beneath your jacket as the sheer, infinite yellow geometry of the maze opens up before you. The walls stretch out into impossible, non-Euclidean corridors, every corner a repetition of the same sickly, faded pattern, a structural anomaly that completely defies human sanity.
A violent wave of heat-induced nausea hits the back of your throat, the copper-and-bile taste of your sickness flaring up as you press one trembling hand over your mouth to stifle a dry heave. You force your jaw shut, clenching your teeth until they ache, stubbornly refusing to let even a whimper escape into the silence. You have to stay quiet. You have to be the silent, non-threatening object he wants, or the illusion shatters before you can find out what happened to Kat and Bobby.
You begin to wander down the endless corridor, your boots sinking into the damp, spongy give of the yellow fibers beneath your feet, each step releasing a faint, squelching sound that makes your skin crawl. The sheer, naked reality of being back in his repeating nightmare makes you feel physically sick, a deep-seated revulsion that vibrates in your bones as you look around at the layout of his madness.
The place is a mess. It is a portrait of a mind that has completely unraveled from the inside out.
You pass a stack of mismatched, dusty chairs piled haphazardly against a corner, their legs sticking out at unnatural angles like broken limbs. Further down, a massive display wardrobe from the showroom floor sits entirely out of place against the rotting wallpaper, its heavy oak doors hanging open to reveal nothing but the endless yellow void behind it.
You stop by a section where the wallpaper has been violently ripped away, the exposed drywall beneath covered in fresh, frantic scratches and matching marker notes that look exactly like the whiteboard upstairs. The handwriting is large, aggressive, and fracturing under the weight of his ego, spelling out nonsense coordinates and the word SAFETY underlined until the paper tore.
Standing in the absolute center of the corridor, the crushing weight of your own emotions finally washes over you, burying you beneath a thick, suffocating wave of self-disgust. You look down at your hands remembering the meticulously lined eyes and the carefully hidden dark circles . . . and you feel utterly grotesque for painting your face just to appease a lunatic.
You are standing in the middle of a literal tomb, you are actively playing along with the game of charades just to keep his heavy hands from snapping your neck. . .
The memory of waking up on that display bed a month ago flashes behind your eyelids, You remember the suffocating panic of driving home in a daze, stripping off your clothes in the dark, and the absolute, gut churning humiliation when you stepped into the shower and felt the cold, sticky reality of his own fluid drying against your inner thighs.
It had taken an hour of aggressive scrubbing to feel clean, but the phantom weight of what he left inside you had never truly washed out. Now, a month later, you are completely tethered to his madness, whether you escape this maze or not. .
The yellow halls feel suffocatingly narrow, trapping you in a state of vivid, wide-awake paralysis where your thoughts are loud but your body is entirely frozen, desperate to scream out a truth that your mouth won't allow.
The air feels greasy and static-choked. You stand perfectly still, your freshly painted face a blank, defensive porcelain mask, listening to the heavy, unpolished thud of his work boots echoing closer and closer against the overhead tiles.
When Clark turns the corner, a sharp, suffocating wave of pure distress hits your chest, making you feel instantly sick to your stomach just by being in his presence.
He looks entirely, horrifyingly changed since you last saw him on the surface. His face is completely dazed, a manic, glassy look in his eyes that makes his expression look detached from reality, and his wrinkled work shirt is heavily stained with grease and damp yellow dust from the walls.
The short, tight curls of his hair are damp with sweat against his scalp, his entire appearance suggesting he hasn't been back above ground or slept in weeks, fully consumed by the static of this hole.
The sheer humiliation of your past compliance burns in your throat, a disgusting, heavy weight of self-loathing that wracks your entire frame as he steps right into your space.
"I knew it . .”
he murmurs, his objectifying gaze tracking your face, his gravelly voice dropping into a dazed, monotone whisper that sounds entirely hollow, devoid of his usual sharp authority. Sounded entirely different.
"I knew you wouldn't just leave the store like the rest of them, kiddo. I've been waiting. . . “
A violent jolt of discomfort shoots down your spine as his large, calloused hands come up, his thumbs dragging slowly across your fresh foundation, his touch freezing cold against your burning skin. You are hyperventilating, your breath shallow and ragged as the absolute, nauseating proximity of his madness makes your knees want to buckle under the weight of a full panic attack.
You are so deeply disturbed by the blank, unbothered look on his face . .
"Clark,"
you whisper, your voice cracking into a desperate, hushed whimper as you try to ground yourself, your hands trembling violently against your jacket.
"Where is Kat? Did you. . .did you show Kat an-and Bobby this? The news is saying they're missing . .”
Clark just blinks down at you, his dazed smile completely unbothered, entirely ignoring the names as if you hadn't spoken at all. His focus is completely inward, trapped in the vacuum of his own desires. He shifts his weight, his large, calloused hand moving up from your jaw to firmly press against the back of your neck, his fingers tightening just enough to guide your forehead downward until it rests against his broad shoulder, without even attempting to move away. You instinctively curl into him. And it felt like those nights again.
He holds you there, his other hand flattening against your lower back, anchoring your shivering frame flush against his wrinkled, dust-coated work shirt.
He closes his eyes and lets out a long, heavy exhale that feels entirely relaxed, his broad shoulders dropping as if the entire weight of his failures has vanished the second he stepped away from the real world. He strokes your hair with a soft rhythm, your hair loosely intertwining with his fingers, completely detached from your shallow breaths.
"You worry too much,"
he murmurs softly against your ear, his voice completely flat, lacking any of the defensive, sharp edge he carried. He gently tilts your chin up, his gaze dropping to your bottom lip, his rough thumb lightly tapping the tiny, split scar left by his teeth.
He smooths a thumb over your freshly lined lips, a slow smile spreading across his grease-stained face as he pulls you into a gentle, unyielding embrace that completely ignores the trembling of your limbs.
"Everything is exactly where it needs to be, kiddo . . I've got you."
A sharp, violent spark of humiliated anger suddenly cuts straight through the paralyzing fog of your now recovering admiration. . . Looking at his satisfied face, a wave of profound disgust and grief wracks your entire body, making you feel entirely pathetic for standing here. . but being in his arms again makes you feel the way you used too. Makes you feel . . . sure. Sure that you would be okay, and that he wouldn’t hurt you.
That’s a lie.
You knew that too well.
You don't know what to do, your mind is a screaming, frantic mess, and the absolute horror of being in the arms of this man in an impossible, shifting maze with a lunatic who threatens to tear you apart upon saying something remotely critical. . but the faces of Kat and Bobby on that TV screen lock your focus back into place.
They are out here somewhere, rotting in a void that even Clark doesn't truly understand, and you are the only one who can get them away from him . . If they aren’t already gone.
Forcing the physical trembling in your jaw to stop, you drop your shoulders and play directly into his delusion, leaning your weight heavily against his chest as you let out a soft, compliant sigh.
"Show me around then, Clark,"
you whisper, your voice dropping into the quiet, adoring cadence he expects as you look up at him through your eyelashes, You look down at his tie and slightly tug on it, you run one of your hands over his chest for a moment and you can hear his breath hitch. You were fighting down the urge to vomit right on his boots.
"Where's Kat and Bobby? Have they seen this part of the store yet? Do you know where they actually are right now?"
Clark’s grip on your shoulders loosens just as quickly as it had tightened, the rigid panic fading right back into that dazed, entirely consumed smile. He lets out a low, breathy chuckle, his chest heaving with a sudden surge of pride that makes him look almost boyish beneath the dirt and sweat caked onto his dark skin. He loves this, He is completely convinced that your curiosity is proof that you are finally ready to settle into the furniture with him.
"Yeah,"
he murmurs, his gravelly voice thick and breaking with an unhinged sort of excitement as he takes your hand, his large, calloused fingers squeezing yours entirely too tight.
"Ye-Yeah kiddo . . Let me show you. I've been organizing the back corridors. Moving things down from the showroom. There’s even a pool. . !”
He looks happy, excited even. He has a grin plastered across his face like he’s accomplished something. He turns and begins to lead you down the endless yellow hallway, his heavy work boots squelching rhythmically against the waterlogged carpet. You force yourself to step right alongside him, your heart hammering against your ribs.
The sheer humiliation of your own compliance burns like acid in your throat, You softly holding his hand, playing along with his game of charades just to keep from being broken. . You didn’t know why exactly you came to the conclusion that Kat and Bobby might be dead; but knowing now who clark is made you definitely consider it.
But you keep your eyes moving, your mind tracking every ripped piece of wallpaper and every piece of mismatched furniture, desperately hunting for any sign of Kat or Bobby . . To some extent you were mostly looking for Kat, Bobby was unreliable . . Always high and never being sober enough to have a coherent conversation. Kat was so nice . . To some extent you missed Kat.
"It's bigger than the warehouse, isn't it?"
you ask softly, keeping your voice dropped into the sweet, non-threatening cadence he craves as he guides you around another identical corner. . This particular corridor didn’t have any sort of marking’s. Infact it looked like it had been completely, uncharted, the only thing laying around was a couple of chairs . . stools actually.
"How far back does this part go, Clark? Did Kat and Bobby help you move all those chairs down here?"
Clark doesn't stop walking, but his grip on your hand tightens by a single, punishing fraction.
"They didn't understand the layout, kiddo,"
he says, his voice flat, completely unbothered by the memory of them.
"They kept asking things that didn't matter. Kept trying to look for a way out . . . I marked it but for some reason . . they couldn’t find it. But you're smart. You know there isn't anywhere else we need to go."
"But they were with you, right?"
you press gently, your fingers twitching inside his rough grip as you force yourself to lean closer to his side . . You run your thumb over his knuckles and you feel the veins underneath his skin pulsing.
"Where did you leave them, Clark? Are they further down this hall?“
The rhythm of his boots stumbles for a fraction of a second, the heavy thud of his heels uneven against the wet carpet. His fingers are squeezing yours so hard now that the bones in your hand ache, the skin turning lighter under the pressure. The dazed, happy illusion he’s been feeding himself is starting to fray at the edges, your persistent questions acting like tiny, sharp needles poking holes in his perfect sandbox.
He doesn't look back at you, his glassy eyes fixed straight ahead on the endless yellow walls, but his jaw clenches so tightly you can see the muscle jumping beneath his stubble.
"I told you, they left,"
he says, his voice dropping into a ragged, defensive whisper that sounds a little more like the volatile man from the surface store.
"They didn't want to listen to me. They kept shouting. Bobby... Bobby wouldn't just stay quiet. Why are you bringing them up right now, kiddo? . . You- ugh . . you’re trying to ruin this . .”
"I'm not trying to ruin it,"
you lie smoothly, you gently pull your hand from his grip and step right in front of him, forcing him to halt in the middle of the narrow corridor. You look up into his dazed, fractured face, while your hands tremble violently against his cold hands.
"I just want to know where they are. If we're going to build a life down here, you and me, I need to know where you put them, Clark. Do you actually know where they are right now?"
The stillness that follows is suffocating. He just stares down at you, the short, tight curls of his hair damp with sweat against his scalp as his dazed eyes slowly, visibly darken.
The doted, sweet look on his face begins to curdle, his breathing growing heavier, the air rattling in his throat as the realization crawls into his brain that his perfect employee isn't just a blank canvas . . that your a person who sees right through his pathetic failures.
He steps into your space, his body casting a heavy shadow over you as he forces you backward until your spine hits the damp yellow wallpaper. His hands come up, his fingers clamping onto your shoulders with a slow, grinding pressure that bites straight through your jacket. He pushes his weight against you, pinning you to the wall, his chest heaving violently against yours as the heavy scent of wood polish and raw panic completely clogs your senses.
He doesn't have the answers. He doesn't know where they are in this impossible geometry of rotting wallpaper, and the physical weight of his body against yours is the only way his fragile ego knows how to claw back control.
"You're doing it again,"
he whispers, his gravelly voice shaking, His grip on your shoulders shifts, his thumbs digging into your collarbones, physically forcing you to bend beneath his strength.
The sweet romantic act is entirely gone, replaced by a slow, physical escalation of malice as his jaw grinds down.
"You're asking me things that don't belong to us. You're trying to judge me, just like everyone else does."
He drives his weight down against you to physically crush your questions out of your throat.
his hands wrapping around your wrists to pin them aggressively against the wallpaper above your head. His breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps as he stares at your painted face with a volatile hatred.
"You're turning into her!"
he suddenly roars, his unhinged voice finally breaking into a deafening explosion that bounces violently off the overhead fluorescent tiles.
"You're acting just like her-. . just like. . just . . Just stay quiet! Just stop talking and listen to me!"
He lets go of your wrists only to slam his open palms flat against the yellow wall on either side of your head, the impact rattling your teeth as he looms over you in the dead light.
That sudden, explosive release of his hands is the exact split-second fracture you have been waiting for.
Before his fingers can twitch toward your throat, your survival instinct snaps. You drop your weight instantly, your body slipping like water beneath his right arm, your boots striking the wet carpet with a furious, unpolished desperation as you tear yourself away from the corner.
Panic takes total rogue possession of your limbs. You are hyperventilating, your chest heaving in violent, shallow gasps as you sprint down the infinite yellow corridor, your newly done makeup streaking over your skin as sweat and terror break out across your face.
The walls blur into a sickening, repeating smear of faded patterns, the maddening bzzzz of the lights drilling into your skull as you run blindly, completely terrified of the heavy, furious thud of his work boots catching up behind you.
"Wa-wait. . stop!"
His voice rings out from behind a corner, but it doesn't carry the rage from a second ago. It sounds entirely fractured, desperate, and breathless. You don't slow down, but your boots skid heavily against the damp fibers as you turn a sharp, blind intersection, your chest burning with a bitter, hollow ache. Suddenly, a massive, dark shadow cuts off your path.
You shriek, stumbling backward as your heels lose their traction on the spongy carpet. Clark is already there. The non-Euclidean geometry of the maze has folded in on itself, dropping his frame right in front of you before you could even reach the threshold.
You brace for the blow. You brace for his hands to violently clamp around your wrists or shove you into the drywall.
Instead, Clark goes entirely rigid, his chest heaving violently against his wrinkled shirt as he stares down at you.
He doesn't reach out to grab you.
He stands there completely frozen, his large, calloused hands hovering awkwardly in the dead light, trembling as his dazed, glassy eyes lock onto your streaked foundation and the pure, frantic terror contorting your face. The manic happiness is completely gone, replaced by a sudden, crushing weight of profound, paralyzing shame that seems to physically shrink his large posture.
"Don't. . . don't fuckin’ look at me like that, kiddo . .”
he begs, his gravelly voice dropping into a ragged, pathetic whisper that breaks entirely on the words. He looks like a shunned puppy, completely devastated by the sheer revulsion in your eyes, his broad shoulders slouching as he takes a slow, shaky step backward. His head shakes side to side in a desperate, pleading attempt to deny his own nature.
"I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to shout. I just. . . need you to stay- Please . . You're the only one left. You're the only good thing. .”
You stand your ground, your knuckles seem to hurt as you clutch the front of your damp jacket, your breath rattling in your throat as the stubborn, gritty clarity in your brain takes total control.
You look at his unkempt hair, at the grease stains on his chest, and at the absolute, irredeemable abyss of his madness. You aren't going to play his game of charades anymore.
"Then walk out, Clark,"
you say, your voice cracking but sharp enough to slice straight through the mechanical hum of the ceiling tiles. You step into his space, forcing him to look at the mess he made of your face.
"Right now. Walk through that wall with me and never look at this place again. You have to choose. . you cannot have both.”
Clark blinks down at you, his jaw tightening as a tight, fracturing panic returns to his eyes.
"We can't go up there. . You know how they look at me up there. Their judgments—"
"I don't care about the fuckin’ store, Clark!"
You yell. Finally.
"I am giving you a choice. It's this rotting fucking hole, or it's me. It's these yellow walls, or it's your life- Your friends! Kat. . . Bobby. . ? You-your family!? Everything on the surface. . . You choose right now."
The silence that follows is deafening, punctuated only by the maddening, eternal drone of the fluorescents .
Clark just stares at you.
The expression that settles over his dazed face isn't any form of rage, and it isn't grief. . you weren’t actually sure what it was. his eyes widened slightly as if you have just spoken words of absolute heresy, as if the mere suggestion of leaving is a personal betrayal.
The doting warmth, the desperate pleading, the deep-seated shame . . it all evaporates into a cold, dark vacuum. He looks at you as if your an aggressive, judging friction against the perfect life he’s deemed himself.
He lets out a low, ragged breath, his head slowly shaking side to side as he takes another step backward, his heavy work boots squelching softly against the carpet. He doesn't say a single word.
He doesn’t have too.
The calm in his posture tells you everything you need to know.
He is turning his back on his life. He is choosing the maze.
He steps backward into the shadows of the intersecting corridor, his frame slowly dissolving into the yellow haze of the repeating maze, his glassy eyes never leaving yours until the corner completely swallows his wrinkled work shirt.
He is gone.
For a moment you just stare at the space that clark used to be in. You remember his face, how he looked at you. You felt strange. . You turn on your heel and sprint blindly toward the blue Scotch tape threshold, your boots tearing through the damp yellow fibers as you launch yourself directly through the solid wall.
You drop out of the buzzing yellow void and smash hard into the pitch-black concrete of the warehouse’s basement, your lungs completely seizing up as you hit the ground, knocking the wind out of you. You gasp desperately for air.
You stare at the jagged blue tape against the wall, memorizing it one last time. You glance over at the white board and you seem to just freeze. You swallow sharply as you You scramble up, catching a breath of air. Your hands clawing wildly at the iron handrail as you storm up the basement stairs in a blind, terrified haze.
You burst through the swinging doors into the dead showroom floor, sprinting past the display beds and wardrobes that throw monstrous shadows across your path.
You throw your entire weight against the heavy glass entrance doors, the small brass bell giving a single, panicked clink as you burst out into the gray, freezing rain.
You throw yourself behind the wheel of your little red car, your hands shaking so violently you can barely force the key into the ignition, the engine catching with a pathetic, metallic rattle as you violently throw it into drive.
The storm slams against your windshield, but you press the gas pedal flat against the floorboards, tearing out of the parking lot as if the warehouse itself is reaching out to drag you back down.
Every single block you drive is a frantic blur of gray rain and hyperventilation, your chest heaving in violent, shallow gasps as your mind violently tries to process the absolute, sickening reality of the toxic environment you just escaped. You park the car, storming up the concrete steps of your apartment building, your fingers clumsily fumbling with the keys before you kick the door open and slam it shut behind you, bolting the lock with a desperate strength.
You don't even make it to the toilet.
The copper and bile heat cuts through your throat out of nowhere, and you collapse onto your knees right in the middle of the living room, a violent wave of sickness wracking your entire frame as you throw up onto the worn out rug.
You stay down on your hands and knees, shivering violently in the dim morning light, your fingernails automatically digging into your own arms and waist, clawing at your skin in a frantic, desperate attempt to scrub away the phantom weight of his touch.
Then, the dam completely breaks.
A choked, ugly whine tears out of your chest, a raw sound born from weeks of depression, humiliation, and terror finally boiling over.
You open your mouth and scream into the empty space of your living room, a guttural scream that tears at your throat until it feels as though it has been violently swollen and stung by a swarm of bees.
You scream so incredibly loud that your ears start to ring, a sharp, piercing ache drilling into your skull as you shake your head side to side, letting out wet, breathless whines that leave you completely lightheaded.
You claw at the carpet, sobbing until your ribs ache and your chest feels entirely hollowed out, emptying every single drop of disgust and despair you had been holding onto since the day he first touched you.
And then, just as suddenly as the storm hit, it stops.
You draw in a single, deep breath, and the frantic chaos inside your brain completely shorts out.
Wow.
you think to yourself, staring blankly at the stained rug beneath you as a bizarre, echoing stillness descends over the room.
its all calm.
The suffocating buzz of the fluorescent tubes is entirely gone. The greasy heat of his sandbox has completely lost its grip on your lungs, replaced by the quiet, cool air of your own apartment. You slowly pull yourself up from the floor, your legs still slightly shaky but carrying a brand new, solid weight as you walk into the bathroom.
You squeeze a dollop of toothpaste onto your brush, aggressively scrubbing the bitter taste of the bile and his memory off your tongue until your mouth tastes like sharp, icy mint.
Turning on the shower, you don't talk yourself through the steps anymore. You don't repeat or count the products on the ledge. You just strip off the damp jacket and step directly under the hot, rushing stream, letting the water crash over your shoulders and cascade down your body.
As you rub the soap into your skin, a profound realization settles deep into your bones. The routine you had been repeating for a month out of pure, robotic habit doesn't feel like a routine anymore.
It just feels natural. It feels clean. It feels entirely yours.
Not hers.
Yours.
You lean your head back against the tiles, closing your eyes as the water washes the last traces of ruined makeup down the drain.
You are finally on the surface, away from him, and as you stand beneath the heat, listening to the peaceful, ordinary drone of the rain outside, you finally feel the first, unbreakable boundary of safety locking into place around your life. .
Somewhere . . you didn’t know where, buried beneath endless yellow rooms and fluorescent light, Clark is still walking.
And some small, foolish part of you will probably walk beside him forever.
little note before i go!!! 💗
i've gotten a few questions about why this story didn't go in a more traditional romance direction. honestly, i think it's because the movie is already clark's story. what interested me was the person standing beside him while everything fell apart. i've always believed that loving someone and being able to save them are two very different things, and in this story i really wanted to get into that especially as someone who has been in situations where power dynamics got twisted in ways that weren’t healthy. Thank you all for reading, for commenting, and for caring so deeply about these characters. this little fic became much bigger than i ever expected it to, and i'm incredibly grateful for all of you. be kind to yourselves. ♡
I will probably write more clark fics in the future that are unrelated to this storyline (or i’ll just write the smut from this series that i missed out on lmaooo, idk . . . you guys will def see more from me)
