Archive of Our Own

Irving was quickly being merged together, all at once, with no time for readjustment before he was given two pairs of eyes, two hearts and two minds. It came flooding in after a breath of not feeling the initial difference. He saw a pair of shoes in front of him, and felt the stabbing of the small pebbles on the floor on his palms and cheek. He was hurt. “Jesus,” he heard a man’s concerned voice. “Is he okay?”

A hand came down to lift Irving up, first pulled by his arm, then lifted by hands tucked under his armpits. He stumbled back a little. A woman answered, her voice heard from above his head. “If he stays put, his brain won’t be as scrambled as—”

“—Petey?” The man finished her sentence.

“...Yes.”

Irving was left to clutch onto the reclining chair that he had been sitting on before he collapsed. He had tried to get up from it, only to fail severely. The cushion had the coldness of a chair in a dentist’s office, his nails digging into them that they left a line on the cheap leather skin. He saw the two faces, and was able to match each with a name. Mark watched him worriedly, and extended his hand for Irving to take.

In the flicker that he saw, he remembered the awkward laughter of Mark S., who chuckled at the simplest jokes. The double vision disappeared, and all Mark was, was a concerned acquaintance, unsure of the physical contact he was offering.

Still, Irving took it, leaning on him, shoulder to shoulder as he waited to gain footing. The room was not spinning, but his head felt swung around as if it was, swinging his body around until he lost his center of gravity. “Thank you,” he said weakly, feeling Mark’s arm sink down under Irving’s weight.

“Do you feel any different?” Mark asked.

“I feel awful,” Irving smiled. It quickly flipped into a frown, when Mark stumbled forward to barely catch Irving’s jacket that was tossed to him.

“Careful,” he murmured, seeing how Mark caught it by the sleeve, the rest tangling to the ground like the shedded skin of a reptile. He raised his arm to not let the lowest part of the jacket touch the dirty floor.

“Keep him warm,” Reghabi pointed, emphasising each important word with her finger. “And don’t let him walk around too much. No stress for you until you stop feeling sick, Irving.”

“Right,” Mark nodded. “Heard that?”

“Yeah,” Irving grumbled. As he slowly gained the ability to support his weight, Mark’s hand hovered behind Irving’s back as he let go of him. “I’m not looking to die… My jacket.” Irving tapped Mark on the arm. The coarse material of his red sweater felt uncomfortable as it tickled his skin.

Mark handed it to him, and instead of wearing it, Irving hugged it with one arm, the pull of the zipper clicking against the metal of his belt buckle. He stared up at the bare ceiling, the pipes and wires exposed, and cobwebs tangled between one another. There was one spider sitting in the web, unmoving. He let out a sigh. Something hung from his shoulders.

“Can you make it?” Mark asked as his hovering hand created a strange barrier around him as Irving slowly turned to go. He walked him to the stairs, and Reghabi lingered by the corner, watching them until they disappeared through the door of her lab.

When Mark opened his car door for Irving, he struggled in, body heavy as if he had something snagging him back. He groaned as he leaned his head against the back of the chair, angling his head upwards. “That awful, huh?” Mark climbed into the driver’s seat, shifting to adjust his bunched up jacket against his chair.

“Like three hangovers and a cold.”

“Do you feel the… You know…” Mark drew a circle with his finger next to his temple.

“I feel tired. And under all of that…” Irving fell silent, to focus on the lingering emotion deeply felt under all of his own first-hand feelings. “My heart’s heavy.”

“You’re sad? The innie?”

“Go to work every minute of your life and you’d feel depressed, Mark,” he answered bitterly. He could not have been the only one in this newly found group of co-workers who recognised the situation they had all been put in. Mark looked down at the steering wheel, hugging it with his hands before softly nodding to himself.

“Right.”

“It’ll be great if you’d drive, please. I’d like to lie down.”

Mark left the window a crack open, the wind and sounds of cars rushing past cutting in to fit their faces. They drove in silence, as Irving sat there with his eyes closed and arms crossed, clearly not open for any conversation. He tried to drift off to sleep despite the interrupting sound of life outside, to no avail. Something stirred, underneath the multiple layers of his mind.

“Irving?” he heard Mark whisper. “Irving? Hey—”

Irving snapped his eyes open and turned to Mark to ask what, frustrated by his want to rest, but his voice got caught in his throat at the sight.

Mark wore a suit, which was one he recognised from the flicker of a vision he saw of him when he opened his eyes soon after the reintegration. There was no car that they sat in, but instead Irving felt the twisting office chair turn with him as he looked at him. “What is it?” Irving B. asked, all the annoyance and the initial shock suddenly vanished. There was the green carpet, the blaring LED lights of the office, and the cold touch of the laminate desk. Somewhere near him, was a click of the keyboard.

“Snoozing again’ll get you in trouble, Irv,” Mark said, his lips curving into a smile. Irving blinked once, twice, to ease the tiredness from his eyes. Strangely, on the third time he opened them, he was back in the car—except he was still with Mark S. from the office. Irving smiled confused, with his brow raised.

“Again?”

“Dylan says you’re eager to go back to the Break Room.”

“Well you can tell Dylan, to mind his own—”

Irving could not keep up with his shifting surroundings. In one moment he was in one location, then another, speaking to one person who was two, switching themselves between their minds. Irving had already lost what it was that he wanted to say, taken aback at Mark who had changed in the split second that he closed his eyes.

“You’re back,” Mark commented, eyes briefly leaving the road to glance at Irving.

Irving swallowed, looking around to see that they were still in the car, it was still night, and Mark was still driving with the window open. “Am I?”

“Took me a while to realize what you were talking about. Petey was like that too. Started talking about random Lumon stuff I didn’t get.”

“I thought it wouldn’t be so bad if I rested.”

“It hasn’t even been half an hour.”

Irving kept still until they reached Irving’s parents’ old house, where the three of the other MDR members were using as the headquarters of their plans. Lucky that he had struggled to sell it after they passed, though it was a heavy burden on his mind at the time. Lumon had not caught them yet—but it was a matter of time until they figured out that the outies had contacted each other. Dylan looked to be in the middle of rolling a ball over to Radar, when the sound of the car pulling up on his driveway alerted the dog.

“Hey,” Irving greeted Radar first, cupping his face and pinching both cheeks as he smiled at his friend. Radar seemingly sensed something, tilting his head to look up at him.

“Clever,” Dylan commented. “Welcome back. How’s the…?”

“Awful,” Irving groaned, holding onto the armrest of the couch as he walked around it to sit down. Radar followed him, jumping up to sit with him, resting his head on Irving’s lap. Irving kept one hand next to him, put one hand on Radar’s back and let his head flop back, all energy expelling from his body.

Behind him, Dylan whispered over to Mark. “So it worked? Did he… You know, switch around?”

“Once,” Mark replied.

Any conversation between them faded into the background, as Irving finally was able to fall asleep. He lay on the couch, asking Radar politely to not rest on top of him too much, as it made him a little nauseous to feel the pressure on his stomach. He may have jostled, or woken up in the middle of the night, as there were parts of conversations that he had heard through the haze. Either way, he did not remember what exactly they were about—just that there were voices. When his eyes opened, he was on his side. The lights of the living room had been turned off, except for the lamp on the table by his feet, so that Irving was not completely left in the dark. Radar snored softly on the floor beside him.

When he tried to sit up, he found his upper body restrained by a blanket tightly tucking him in. He laughed softly through his nose, and freed his arm from the covers, tugging it off of him. Though he appreciated it, he shouldn’t have been sleeping there anymore, if he didn’t want any pain in the morning. Radar sensed his presence when he lowered his feet on the carpet beside him. He lifted his tired head, and stepped with his front paws little by little as he raised himself to stretch.

“Big stretch, boy?” Irving whispered to him. Radar opened his mouth wide to yawn, his teeth bare. He followed Irving down the hallway, and stopped as he did in front of a room. The door was left open ajar, and in the vague darkness inside, Irving could see the silhouette of the two men.

Dylan noticed the stretched out figure of Irving’s shadow created on the floor, and looked up at him from his bed. Irving wanted to ask if he was the one who tucked him in, but thought he would never admit it.

“I’m going to bed. Help yourselves to breakfast tomorrow if I’m not awake.”

“You’re always up at like, 5, man. I’m sure we’ll see you in the morning,” Dylan scoffed. Mark seemed to be asleep already, as his body didn’t move from the position it was in. He had his back to the door, with half of his head buried under the cover.

“Good night,” Irving nodded, and closed the door.

He recognised his workplace the moment the reintegration process began, and the different memories flooded into him at once like a dam had broken. The timeline inside him jumbled that he was not entirely sure of what happened when, even for the parts of his life where he was obviously much younger than he was now.

There was a memory of him, no older than six, showing his mother, a tall woman with hair like his, something he had drawn. In his mind, they were the perfect family portrait, though it consisted of rough lines and shapes that created out of proportion bodies. He couldn’t remember his mother’s exact words, but Irving remembered feeling happy about what she had said. His father did not comment when he saw it on the fridge, when he opened the door to get the milk for his coffee in the morning. Those drawings were tucked away somewhere, in some box or folder in some room gathering dust. Like he had tucked away all of his own memories of them when he severed.

There was a memory of him at Lumon, when Mark was feeling nauseous and suffering through a headache. Irving leaned worriedly over to check on him multiple times throughout the day, and had let him be when he saw Mark rest his head on the table for a while. They both felt to Irving that they were things that happened close to one another in the timeline of his life, however impossible.

His head throbbed when he awoke in the morning. He rested his head on the refrigerator door as he slowly opened it, and took out the gallon of milk for everyone else’s coffee. “Right,” Dylan swooped in, and took it from Irving’s hand. “You look like you’re going to die any minute. Sit down.”

Irving grumbled an inaudible ‘no’. “You’re going to drop it,” Dylan scolded him lightly. That felt familiar to Irving, as if they had had this conversation before. A sense of deja vu, that frustrated him at how close he felt to putting a finger on it. Though he had expanded his memories, it was all a muddle that it was no different than trying to find a specific book from what had scattered all over the floor after the entire shelf had collapsed.

Irving had woken up at his usual time, though his body demanded more sleep—he could not lay about, knowing his two comrades were discussing plans without him. Though, it ended up being just the same, when the hunger, nausea and tiredness prevented him from making any meaningful contributions. He wasn't even able to listen to anything that came out of their mouths. “Is he joining us?” Irving heard Dylan say, and at first, Irving thought that perhaps it was about him.

“Yeah, should be,” Mark answered, accompanied by a shuffling as he moved about. Irving didn’t see what he was doing. He turned to face the back of the couch that he laid across, and pressed his forehead against the cushion, feeling that the pressure helped him.

Irving slowly woke himself up from where he rested, and slowly turned with his whole body to the two men. “You okay there, Irving?” Mark asked.

“Hey, kids,” Irving mumbled as he blinked himself awake. “What’s for dinner?”

“...What?” Dylan asked, after much pause.

“Didn’t work this time either,” Irving grinned to himself, the widest he had smiled since he came home. “Never mind. Who’s joining us?”

Mark sat beside him on the couch. “Burt and Fields, remember? They missed the meeting last time, but they’re coming today.”

“Oh,” Irving remembered hearing something about that. He should have known that these meetings included everyone—who was on their side—that he wasn’t sure why he had asked in the first place. He slowly pushed himself back up. “Can you wake me when they’re here, actually? I might have to properly lie down.” Irving said as he walked along the sofa.

“Yeah, ‘course,” Mark worriedly followed him, but let him be when Irving raised his hand to ask him not to. Irving walked up the stairs, past his parents’ old bedroom to his. His nausea subsided, but he wanted to be careful, fearing that one quicker swing of the head when he turned around would make it appear again.

He rolled onto bed with a grunt. He heard the little taps of Radar’s nails on the floorboards nearby, and smiled to himself.

It was in the late hours of the afternoon when Irving was woken up by a sudden sinking of his mattress and the feeling of the wet tongue of his dog on his hand. Irving’s hand searched for Radar’s head to pet before his eyes came to focus. Mark was smiling at them from the door. “They’re here, if you’re okay with getting up.”

“Yeah, I am.”

Irving exited the darkness of his bedroom, this time with Radar agitated behind him, panting as he followed Irving’s slow feet. At the very top of the staircase, Radar stopped him from taking another step, blocking his way. Irving looked down at his dog’s face, grey hair sprinkled around his once black fur. “What is it?”

Then Irving heard it. The voice from below. A familiar warmth rushed over him, and he felt the urge to rush down the stairs. “Sit,” he ordered Radar, who quietly obeyed, the position of his ears and tail showing worry still.

As he took the first steps down the stairs, his excitement was overwritten by a looming sense of dread, slowly crawling to him from behind. He heard laughter again. Irving slowly traveled downwards, inching closer to him.

It was a calling. An unexplained pull. It was a feeling that the root of his woes were there, or the very reason that half of him felt like he was missing someone. Both sides yearned, but one was particularly loud in its want to ease it. When he turned the corner and met the eyes of his guest, he stopped, feet planted where they were.

“Hi,” Burt smiled, looking once at Irving then away, back to Mark, who he was conversing with.

“Hi,” Irving replied in a whisper, hands dropping to his sides. The heat upon his cheeks. The coarse fingertips brushing against his. Irving couldn’t help but smile. He realised that he had been missing him in ways that he had never missed Burt before, and shook his head at himself that he could ever forget.

Burt wore the black coat Irving always saw him in when he was outside in the cold, and when he took it off, there was the dark red shirt underneath his gray sweater, free of pills. They were inexpensive, comfortable clothes that warmed him well during the night when the wind seemed to blow especially harsher. Irving saw him wear something similar before, but it felt new to him now.

Burt cut his conversation with Mark short, and excused himself to properly greet Irving. “How are you?”

“…Yeah. Good.” The corner of his lips curled into a smile, his gaze on him softening.

There was a man behind Burt, and the sight of him quickly snapped Irving awake. He remembered, now. He had known without him knowing, and it seemed as though his mental fog up until that moment was protecting him. Irving quickly turned away, as he contemplated leaving the room. But since the source of his chronic sadness had been revealed to him, he thought it may only haunt him louder in the dark.

“Mark,” Irving called him over, before Fields could come talk to him next. “Help me get everyone coffee.”

“Are you sure you should be moving around right now?” Mark asked, his brows furrowing at what must be a tired, unpleasant state that Irving was in.

Irving nodded dismissively, shuffling to the kitchen. “Yes, yes—My legs will rot off if I don’t start walking around.” When Mark followed, he opened the cupboard to take out the mugs. Irving saw in the corner of his eye, Mark’s hand hovering over a cup, hesitating to take it, and grabbing the one beside it instead.

Arms crossed, Irving watched the coffee machine whir, staring at it as if keeping an eye out for any sign that it was broken. Mark glanced worriedly at his intensity. “Stressed?”

“No,” Irving answered flatly. “It’s fine.” It only briefly occurred to Irving that he should confide in Mark or Dylan, before he swatted the idea down with a harsh hand. It will only compromise missions, make meetings awkward—Irving was greatly against such social nightmares.

What would he confide in them for? What could they do? He didn’t even know where to begin, himself.

Being used to how to operate the machine, he moved without thinking, and pouring coffee didn’t end up being the distracting task Irving had hoped it would be. He let Mark, or rather, made him, take the drinks to the others, while Irving lingered a little behind. He snuck out of the door when the conversations began, and stood behind the couch, away from people’s line of sight. His arms hanging beside him, he stood unnaturally straight, observing the circle of people.

Mark sat in the corner, uncomfortably on the edge of the couch, melting into the armrest as he pressed the side of his body to it, to make room for Radar sitting behind him. He would reach back to pet him without turning around, not find him, and turn to check where his hand was reaching towards. Dylan, who occupied the other half of the couch, glanced at Radar but was too into acting his part as the nonchalant one to give in and pet him. Irving softly exhaled an amused breath, when he saw Dylan flinch from the hotness of the drink upon the first sip.

Irving stood directly behind Burt, which was both fortunate and the worst view, seeing how Fields leaned over to him to whisper something, smile, and touch his shoulder kindly. But Burt couldn’t see Irving’s frown, or how the corner of his lips lifted in a silent snarl.

He didn’t seem to notice that Irving had not sat down to join them, either.

Irving had felt comfortable with Burt from the first conversation they shared, that he felt as if he knew him from somewhere else. That somewhere else, had been Lumon, the memories of which were affecting his subconscious. There was a part of this man—a large part—that was unknown to Irving. But an invisible hand had handed him the book from his memories that he needed, upon first glance at the man, and he remembered feeling more than what he should for someone he had seen as a friend.

“Irving!” He heard his name, and Irving stood at attention as he shuffled his feet to fix his temporarily relaxed posture.

Burt looked around for him, and Irving saw how his eyes widened in recognition when he spotted him standing behind him. “I was wondering where you were. Sit.”

A smile flashed on his lips for a brief moment, for the unchanging way that Burt shined a light on him. When Irving stepped closer, Radar slowly rose, and plopped down to the floor with difficulty. Mark sat more comfortably now that he had more space, and Dylan shuffled closer to him to make room for Irving to sit. Radar rested comfortably by his feet on the rug, hiding his nose between his paws.

“Irving, I heard you’ve reintegrated successfully.” Burt smiled at him.

“I have.”

“How… Do you feel?”

Out of the thousands of words that were in his vocabulary, the first ones that made its way into Irving’s head were ones he should never say. “The first thing I did was hit my head,” Irving said instead, as he chuckled emptily.

“Scared me,” Mark confirmed from the side.

“I feel a little… Sick, here and there, but,” he shrugged, averting eye contact, staring down at the pattern of the Persian rug, in the same way he did as a teenager during difficult conversations with his parents.

In the corner of his eye, he saw—or rather, felt—Burt’s soft smile, eyes warm as he patiently listened. “I’m okay,” he concluded, finally lifting his head. “Though I say some things that make little sense.”

“That’s very good to hear.” It was Fields who said so. And Irving had let his smile drop when he heard his voice, but he raised it back up, and nodded in acknowledgement, like a bow.

There was a reason that Irving decided to undo his severance procedure, and it was to share any knowledge of what he could remember—anything useful that could topple the enemy. They did not ask about that, not wanting to push him to any limit, perhaps, worrying that it was too soon to use Irving’s brain as a weapon. But they did not know how much time they had until they were caught, and Irving wanted to start as soon as possible.

However, Irving’s first clear memory that popped into his head of Lumon’s severed floor was one that was so revealing that he decided to keep it to himself.

—————

“Again?” Dylan raised his eyebrow when he caught Irving B. taking his jacket off the hanger to wear. It had become his routine now, when enough work had been done to get him the free time to make an interdepartmental visit.

“What?”

“You always spend a good amount of time at that fuck’s turf. I’m just saying, it’s getting too frequent.” Dylan was unamused, the opposite picture to Irving’s nervous smile at the fact that he was being scolded.

Irving laughed in disbelief, looking at Mark to see what he thinks. “I don’t go that frequently.”

“Yeah, you fucking do! C’mon, when we’re all getting pressured about quota,” Dylan shook his head, looking back down at his screen, to signal the conversation’s end.

In Irving’s mind, he had done his usual amount of work. If he kept this up, he would be finished, with a week and a day to spare. “I don’t see the—” Irving began, but closed his mouth when Dylan shot him an annoyed glare.

“We could use your presence, Irv,” Mark, doing his part as department head, slowly began to explain, hands open in front of him, carefully taking words from the air. “Though I’m sure you’ve got it under control.”

“I do—I mean, this is—” Irving’s eyes darted about the room. Helly was uninterested in what they were talking about, but was watching regardless, leaning back on her office chair, for any reason to slack off a little. “It’ll only be fifteen minutes!” Irving insisted. “Then I’ll be right back.”

“What’s so important about going?” Dylan said. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

Irving stuttered, unable to clearly answer the obvious. “Educational… Purposes,” he answered, head swaying. He was convinced then, that that was exactly the truth. Though, his voice never had the confidence that he wanted to have.

Dylan did not have much patience, and had let Irving go, with an exasperated ‘fine’. “You go right on then. But don’t come crying to me when he tries to kill you.”

“He won’t do that.” Irving responded, but he was on his way out. He couldn’t handle another argument. When he reached the door, hea heard the mumble of his co-worker.

“Selfish.”

Irving turned, his hands clenched into a fist. He nodded with a sarcastic smile, stepping back into the MDR office. “I’m selfish?” Though he had some words he wanted Dylan to hear, Irving’s lips pressed together, until the heat simmered out.

With Dylan’s flat ‘yeah’, Irving turned silently back around, and exited the office before he said another word. He heard Mark frustratedly say Dylan’s name behind him.

Irving was the only person who took his job seriously. He was the only person who cared about Kier's vision. He was the only one who truly cared for the work they did. What was selfish about him expanding his horizons?

—————

The lights were off when Irving woke up, with a note on the dining room table that Dylan had taken Radar on a walk. Mark had gone home, and the house was quiet for the first time that weekend. It was a Sunday morning, and the next day, Irving would have to go back to work. He planned his day, and figured that he should return back home by the afternoon so that he could commute from his house, to have a sense of normalcy.

They were not supposed to stay for another night to begin with. It was already risky to stay over at the house for one night with everyone—but they had taken the risk in case something had gone wrong with Irving. The night before had been the same, after Irving fell horribly nauseous at night and had to sit out in the hallway when he could barely make it to the bed or the couch to lie down.

It was cloudy outside, but not yet raining. Irving began his day by making his bed, and with weary footsteps, went down the stairs. When the armchair of the living room came into view from where he was on the steps, Irving flinched. He thought he saw the lower body of someone, sitting expectantly, but it had been a bundled up blanket someone had thrown on it.

Irving thought of a view that he had seen before. It was a night from several decades ago, when Irving crept from his bedroom for a drink of water as a child. He closed the door quietly, turning the knob as he pushed the door so that the noise of the click was not made. He tiptoed to the stairs, and clung on to the railing as he took his time, step by step. He stopped when he saw that the lamp in the living room was on, and crouched down on the steps to see inside. He peaked between the wooden balusters, pressing his cheek against one.

He had made himself low enough to see the feet of his father sitting on one of the chairs. Irving went down another step, then another, to see if he could sneak past him. On the very rare occasions that he was home, Irving’s father would sit at night and read a newspaper or a book under the lamp. Thinking back, his father would have gotten himself promptly to bed at the first sign of tiredness. Still, the Irving then had thought that perhaps his father had fallen asleep in the chair that night.

His father, as if he had sensed his son from the very beginning, glanced up from his reading as soon as his eyes came to view. Irving quickly leapt up to his feet, and dashed up the stairs with great thunderous noise. He fell on all fours near the top, and pulled himself up by his arms. Irving had thought he would be in trouble for staying up. He repeated his ‘sorry’s and ‘yessir’s as practice when he got to his bedroom, but his father didn’t call for him or come in.

The adults that came and went in the Bailiff household used the word ‘brilliant’ to describe his father. Though, throughout the years of Irving’s life, he would think back to him as a looming silhouette at the end of a hall, Irving’s childhood feelings towards his father were adoring. He used to hold him at the hem of his coat, pulling it slightly when he felt shy, during the ages when he was still allowed to. His father’s large, callused hands would come down to ruffle his hair in the early years, until they turned into slaps, landing on the back of his head when Irving angered him.

The house smelt the same as it did while he grew up there, and when he visited once he moved out. His parents lingered in the walls somewhere, years after their passing.

The door opened, and Radar peeked his nose through the gap when the door was just ajar, as Dylan struggled to open it with him in the way. Irving went down to greet them with hurried steps, and Radar was just as excited to see him again, but remained by the door until his leash was unhooked and excess mud was cleaned from his paws.

“Good boy,” Irving praised him in a hushed tone as he leaned down to scratch his ear. “You missed me?” Radar sat obediently in front of him, though his tail loudly swished.

“Thank you, for doing that for me,” Irving said to Dylan, “but really, you should wake me up next time. I’m alright.”

Dylan shrugged, putting the dog leash back to its place.“If you want to. But it’s really no problem.”

“We don’t know who’s watching.”

“I thought they wouldn't know your parents’ house. I thought this was the safe spot!”

Irving nodded, well aware of what he had said when he proposed this house. “It is safer, but not safe. We have to be careful. I don’t know how thorough their research is. They probably know more than we think. Though I think it is unlikely they’d come searching here first… There’s no harm in being safe. It really ought to be a random, abandoned shed somewhere. Ten years ago, when I—”

“Okay! Jesus, I don’t need a whole speech every time you tell me off!”

Ultimately, Dylan understood, and made no complaints. It would only mean less responsibilities for him. “Did you eat? Mark left some bacon and eggs somewhere. Maybe in the fridge or still on the stove, I don’t know.”

“I haven’t.”

“Well, whatever,” Dylan shrugged. “Burt asked before he left if you’ll be alright.”

His head turned immediately. “He did?”

The voice gave him away, that Dylan had paused and narrowed his eyes briefly. Irving slowly turned his head back around, making him—admittedly—look worse.

“Told him you’d be fine.” Dylan shot Irving a side eye.

Irving nodded, thanking him in multiple mumbles. “That is, to say…”

“Yeah, yeah, you like the attention,” he dismissed Irving’s fumbling as if it were usual. “Now get better. Before I make you worse by kicking your ass.”

Irving Bailiff stepped in through the door in his head, and emerged as his other self, a change that was often nauseating. “That—Okay. Speaking of Burt, do you think he’d like to come over one day? As a tour too?”

Dylan raised a brow. “What the fuck are you talking about? He’s been here.” he said, until the puzzles in his head shuffled and clicked together. “Right, your brain’s fried,” he easily accepted, but Irving B. was still carrying on his own conversation.

“I don’t think it’s as weird as you make it seem. What’s wrong with sharing some of what we do? We can’t really share much, anyway,” Irving said, making his way to the kitchen for a drink. He continued to reason with the Dylan that did not participate in the conversation, which was the same as the Dylan G. that Irving was talking to in his perception of things, anyway.

“I think it’s important to spend time with him. And the—and the others, of course,” Irving said.

“Whatever, man.”

—————

Burt G. was a creative man, as much as Irving was, though they did not know the latter was true, yet. Sometimes, while lost in thought at Lumon, Burt’s hand would move on its own to doodle something, or rescue a scrap piece of paper by folding it into something to turn it into a gift. Sometimes, he gave these to Irving, which he kept under his mostly empty binder and a copy of the handbook in his drawer, or in a cup he used as a small vase on his desk. Irving’s particular favorite were the origami daylilies, which he subconsciously spun between his fingers when they talked, and smiled when he looked down at it in his hands. He had wanted to keep a bouquet of them in his cup, but whenever Milchick entered, he feared that it would be another reason to ban interdepartmental visits—he would quickly pull them out and sneak them into his drawer, the paper lilies in his vase only lasting for a few hours at most.

“How do you remember how to make them?” Irving asked.

Burt shrugged. “I just do.” He knew what flowers and origami were. Like they knew how to walk and laugh, some things they just remembered.

“I’m sad I can’t really keep them out. I’d have a whole tabletop of flowers from you otherwise.”

“You have a drawer full of them instead though. It’s like a bouquet box,” Burt said.

“That’s true,” Irving smiled, as he always did with him. His eyes lingered on Burt, as he took another piece of paper from the recyclable pile, and began to fold a small paper crane for him. Irving always felt a special joy that did not come from reaching quota early, or earning a perk, knowing that these were only for him.

Feeling his gaze, Burt looked up at him with a cheery shine in his eyes. He smiled wider, happy to see him too. “What?” he asked, a bubbling giggle underneath.

—————

They had no meeting that night, but Irving was compelled after work to drive to Burt’s house. He laughed at himself as he gripped the steering wheel of his car, that he was just the same as he was as an innie. But, it had not been a leisurely visit. Their task was to look at the names of those who had similarly retired, and gather whatever information they could. Irving had usually lingered around neighborhoods and visited places he heard they frequented, but he had only been able to do that at night and weekends. Now he had extra hands, though they were unpracticed ones.

When he pulled up to the driveway, he felt his two voices push and shove in his head, to wait until the next meeting, which wasn’t too far away into the future. He should have at least opted for a phone call, with a disposable phone or a phone box for the appropriate utmost security if he wanted to work further together. Still, Irving decided in favor of his first impulse, and walked up the driveway to their door.

“Sorry for the surprise,” he said, but they didn’t seem to mind. And it did end up being a fruitful visit, when Irving discovered that they were able to make more progress than Irving had been able to in the few hours of the night he drove around Kier. Irving, Burt and Fields sat around the coffee table, circling maps and writing down addresses for Irving.

“What exactly is it that we’re looking for?” Fields asked.

“Anything,” Irving replied without looking up. His notes varied from home addresses, appearances, to whether they had a car. The closest he had gotten was making small talk at the dog run with another severed employee, who he knew had a dog. They hadn’t talked about anything besides the weather and how their small chihuahua was overly friendly with the cautious Radar, however.

Irving stole a glance at Burt’s profile, as he checked his notes to see if he had anything else to share. Irving remembered how he used to stare at him like this while he worked. Even with Burt’s tired eyes and mumbling under his breath, reading his writing to himself, Irving enjoyed watching him.

But when Burt turned his head and caught Irving staring, it did not end the same way as he remembered.

“What?” Burt asked casually, that Irving straightened his posture from how his back curled to write on the table, and shook his head. Irving missed the shine in his eyes that he remembered so clearly.

Burt rose from the couch with a grunt as he pushed his knees down to stand. “Right… Anyone want seconds?” Burt asked, raising his empty cup of tea.

Irving asked for another, and was left alone with Fields. He thought that since his reintegration, he had grown cold and distant. Sometimes, when his jealousy eased, he felt apologetic to how he refused the simplest things with him now, like how he never looked at him in the eyes when he greeted him.

“How are you…?” Irving asked him, eyes awkwardly swimming around Fields' face, moving to look at his eyes and nose. The bags under his eyes had deepened in color from how Irving remembered them to be.

Fields laughed, and it brought relief to Irving that he was able to do so. “I’m good, Irving. And you? How was your day back at Lumon?”

“Really odd,” Irving chuckled too, pushing the blockage from his throat. “I’ve been outside and think I’m at the office. Now I was in, sometimes confused that I was outside.”

“How did you pull through?”

“I didn’t talk to anyone at all,” Irving said. “I tried to remember that I couldn’t say certain things. Even if I thought I was talking to their outies, I shouldn’t let my guard down—but when you’re switching, you really forget where you are. I completely forgot when and where I was, and I was convinced I was outside of work. It’s a wonder how Petey did it.”

Fields nodded slowly as he listened, head tilted and his legs crossed neatly. “Are you getting enough sleep? You look pale.”

Irving laughed. “When did I ever get sleep?” He pressed his hand against his forehead, pushing his hair back. His nights living off of coffee had certainly gotten to him, that the caffeine had long worn out and it didn’t do much to keep him awake anymore.

“You take care. Especially with your new state, I don’t think you can really—”

“—I’m fine, Fields,” Irving interrupted. “And I should keep doing what I’m doing. I need to.” Irving gathered the paper spread on the table. He flipped through them for the sake of it. For something to do.

When Burt returned, Irving fell silent, except for answering the questions asked his way. He supposed the lack of sleep was quickly helping the energy drain out of him, as his posture worsened as he leaned further back into the Lawson sofa.

Irving observed the room. Next to him was one large ivory bookcase, with novels lining the top, and turning into larger non-fiction books as it went to the bottom. There was a tall decorative vase in the corner, reminding him of ancient Roman artifacts. On the other side was the dining table, where he could see a small white vase decorating the center, with red, pink and white flowers blooming.

The fabric of the sofa was a little coarse. Irving ran his palm on it like he was petting an animal.

“You okay there? Tired?” Burt teased, but Irving could only smile.

“Busy day,” he managed to say. “I might—I might go. Sorry to barge in tonight.” Irving looked down at his feet to push himself off the sofa, and in a single beat, he saw his vision flicker from the brown floorboards to Lumon’s green carpet that made him uneasy. He fought his way to the door, but the unstable steps of his feet alarmed the other two men immediately. Finally, the carpeting went away.

“Fuck,” Irving mumbled, staggering as if he were lightheaded, as another wave of vision changes hit him.

“Are you—?” Fields asked, but before he could finish, Irving answered his question. He fell to his side, his shoulder slamming against the wall.

“Sorry,” Irving said between his haze, feeling that any moving around was bound to make him more nauseous. “Can I jus’—” Irving slid down to sit on the floor, pressing his head against the rough texture of the wall. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Fields anxiously hovered around him, while Burt gave him space, keeping a watchful eye. Irving’s head was heavy, almost hanging off of his neck as he lost the strength to keep his head up. It was always his head.

He let it fall to the side against the wall still, blinking his foggy vision out.

As the dining room table came into focus, he noticed the shapes of the chairs, the curves along the edges of the table, the dark red color of the tablecloth against the dark brown of the wood. His eyes caught the flowers that decorated it, and noticed that they weren’t real flowers, but made of paper.

The blood drained from his face. He could feel it seeping out of him from an open wound on his heart, the blood dripping from the hem of his shirt onto the floor with each loud splat. He didn’t have to ask who made them. They were gifts for Fields too, no doubt.

Irving B. shoved his desk drawer closed, creating a large, thunderous clang. Those were his. The gifts Burt made were for him.

“Irving,” Burt crouched in front of him carefully, blocking the view. “Are you okay?” He took one hand and felt Irving’s forehead for a fever. Irving’s eyes remained on Burt’s face, seeing how close they finally were. He remembered how it felt to feel the pressure against his forehead, and how it made his knees shake. Now he was shaking from the chill in his body, like he was suddenly overtaken by a cold. He definitely felt something, but he himself didn’t know if he felt worse because of his sickness, or because of his anger towards Burt’s life outside of him. He stared into the kind blue of his eyes and tried to find the glimmer he had wanted to see all night.

Irving remembered little of what happened afterward. He assumed he rested there on their sofa until he was feeling better enough to leave. But the next morning, he phoned Lumon to take a day off, claiming to have come down with a horrible fever. On the other side of the line was Milchick’s disappointed voice. “I hope you get some good rest,” he said.

“Of course, I will. Thank you, Mr. Milchick.” Irving had promised so, but he spent it with his hands scratching at his chest, worrying Radar as he paced back and forth in the living room.

Irving’s pacing stopped briefly when he interlaced his fingers together, clasping his hands in front of him. He focused on the presence of a finger between two of his, or how his knuckles helped them lock together. He couldn’t truly feel like he was holding hands with someone, when his mind knew that he was alone.

Whenever Irving was left by himself with nothing to do or think, he would feel an impression of a hand on his body. He knew the most Burt and him could do was shyly hold each other by the fingers, and that’s what he felt the moment he wasn’t occupied with something. Every brief second, Irving’s mind was taken with the feeling of reimagining any and every kind of physical intimacy. He even recollected how he felt during moments from old romances from his youth, and missed what he had then.

He closed his eyes and let himself feel it, until he was starved for the real heat that he wanted to be tightly hugged and feel nothing but the weight on his chest while he lay on the floor.

Irving leapt from the couch he had only sat down on moments before, unable to sit still, now that the water had boiled and bubbled up to his head. He took a disc from his CD case, a collection he had built up from when he was a teenager. His hands had consciously chosen the roughest track that he could immediately find, and set it to play. He twisted the dial of the volume upward, until the sudden slamming of the drums shook the thin walls of his house. With the same quick footsteps, he scurried to the TV remote and clicked it on, pressing his thumb down on the rubber button to ram the volume up.

He returned to the couch, defeated, cupping his forehead with his hands and focused on every word. His legs shook impatiently, his foot tapping out of tempo, shaking out the energy that had risen in him. The report of a burglary on the news and the lyrics about a past winter’s night. Two men, broken window, fallen tree, snow on the roof. Irving muttered what he could pick up, switching between the two noises by whichever drew him more. He glued his eyes to the screen, scanning each corner of the flatscreen at the image of the police cars parked outside the broken in house. Any information to occupy his brain instead of whatever he had before.

It all overwhelmed him to the edge of another breakdown, but he may have preferred it to the silence. Radar knew otherwise. Except the peace was something Irving could not allow himself.

He felt a pressure pressing against his leg that he knew was Radar, but he felt far away, that he could ignore his pawing and nudging. Though each press slowly called him nearer to the edge of his shell.

The pressure in his head had kept building and building, until he thought his head could explode and leave his brain smeared on the walls.

But of course relief like that did not come so easily without the pain before, of the skull cracking open.

A bang at the door and a yell to turn the noise down did not pull him out of his desperate trance, but only added onto the pressure in his head, when his hand leapt to grab at a weapon in his pocket that he did not have. He stared at his front door, body tense and fearing it being kicked down. Clicking his tongue at the interruption, while knowing why he had a furious visitor, Irving let out a groan. Without answering the door, he dialed his music down to half, as well as the news, until the knocking receded and footsteps followed.

He knew he should keep quiet, not for the sake of his neighbors but for the way he was supposed to be on sick leave. But Irving was truly going to be sick if he had to stay alone with his mind. If only Radar could talk.

“Let’s go,” Irving said, clicking the TV off as well as the CD player, and threw a scarf and jacket on. He grabbed Radar’s leash from the wall. “Let’s go, we gotta get out.”

Radar slowly crept to Irving, knowing the irregular hour it was to go on a walk. They had just come back from one—Radar knew that if he was not going to work, Irving would usually be painting at this hour, if not driving alone around the town. “Come,” Irving demanded, clipping the leash onto his collar. “I need to breathe.”

But the breathing did not come easy in the temperature of a cold day at Kier. The frozen air hurt his nose and throat, and he held his breath in an attempt to calm his wheezing. He thought of Reghabi, and her warning about staggering breath.

It was snowing. It was always snowing these days, but he hated the icy road that was left under the cloud of them, which especially became more dangerous for Irving at his age, no matter how fit he had once been. He hated the tensed bending of his knees when he tried to steady himself to not slip, and the wet splatter he’d hear when the snow had melted beneath his feet. At least when it was more frozen, the crunch of it sounded pleasant.

Irving looked around at his neighborhood, and found most lights were turned off, or at least shielded from his eyes, with the curtain blocking his view.

“Do you like that one too?” Irving heard a voice.

How horrible it was, that the four white walls of the Lumon office offered a bit of solace now, when they were surrounding Irving and the man he was looking for all the time.

“I do,” Irving answered. “The color here is so much more vibrant than I thought it’ll be when I imagined it from the text.”

“How would you have painted it?” Burt asked, approaching Irving, until they stood shoulder to shoulder, staring at the same painting together.

Irving shrugged, knowing he couldn’t have created anything better. “I don’t know. Now that I’ve seen this, it feels like the best way to depict the passage.”

“Well. I think your interpretation would be even better,” Burt smiled. “Come. I’ve got more rounds to make.”

And Irving was at ease again, shoulders bumping into each other as they walked too closely, giggling amongst each other. “It’s a little chilly today,” Burt commented.

“It is. Maybe the AC is dow—”

Irving was yanked behind that he almost lost his balance and fell—a car had whizzed past him, it had emerged from the corner of the Lumon hallway that it had shaken Irving, keeping his feet frozen with the ice. The sound did not register to him any more than a buzzing of a fly, but the image of a large thing speeding past him left his breath staggering. He stood a few steps into the road, Radar trying to pull him back onto the sidewalk. His dog was barking, but the sound was so distant from him as he tried to piece together where he was. “Sorry,” he whispered, turning back to step away from the danger of the cars to sink to his knees next to Radar.

“God,” he exhaled, pressing his forehead on the back of Radar’s head. He felt the fur between his fingers, and the tickling hair on his skin. He was alright.

Irving hugged him. “Take me home.”

When Irving threw his body to lay back down on his couch, Radar quickly trotted beside him and hopped onto the couch with him. He rested his body against him, his nose pressing against Irving’s arm, the cold, wet touch of it alerting him. The pressure against his chest and stomach grasped him better, the heat and weight of his dog reminding him of another life outside of the one inside his head.

Irving ran his fingers through his fur, thanking him for him being there. He listened to Radar’s breathing and the one bigger puff of air he exhaled like a sigh. “Good boy,” he said. “What a good boy, huh?”

Irving pulled Radar closer to him, whining his name out like a child. Though Radar had learnt how to sense the difference between Irving’s anxiety and moments of melancholy, he sensed that this was a different kind of distress. Irving wrapped his arm around his neck, and held him close, pressing his cheek against his. He caught a whiff of his dog, and chuckled. “I should wash you soon.”

His shoulders fell as he sighed. “I’m mourning someone who’s still alive. And in my life. Isn’t that silly?” Irving asked to no reply. Just a pair of beady eyes blinking up at him. “I wish—” His lip trembled. He couldn’t go on.

He’d be cruel to wish that Burt would leave Fields for him. He doesn’t even know Irving like Burt G. had. Truth be told, Irving didn’t know Burt like Irving B. did, either. Irving was only the one who came after Fields. He was the new face, the lesser, other man of somebody that only he was aware of.

He’d be selfish—but that’s what he always was.

—————

How there could be happiness in people’s lives except for his, he could never figure out. Irving continued to struggle to keep his bitterness for Burt’s happiness to himself, while tackling his innie memories and mind down when they dashed forward. But he had been occupied with the memories that were previously unknown to him, that he did not quite know how to handle when his old memories resurfaced, either. On afternoons and nights he was in his childhood home, before the others arrived, he faced the old dusty mirrors in the bedroom.

It was a floor mirror in the corner of his parents’ room. It was a thin, oval shape that he remembered his mother having since he was very young. He remembered standing in front of it, and his mother fussing with his hair and collar of his uniform before school.

The mirror felt so tall and expensive when he was a child, until he grew taller and one day he realized that he was more than a head taller than it. And he could see now, the dust accumulated on top of the mirror, and how there were scratches and edges of the wooden frame chipped from damage.

He remembered how his name was sternly said by his mother, but was followed later with a kind hand on his shoulder or on his head. When his hair grew a little long, he grew an extra curl from his fringe. She loved to twist it around her slender finger to accentuate it.

She was sweet. Like the chocolate chip cookies she gave him on weekend afternoons with tea for her and milk for him. Like the three spoons of sugar he put in his coffee the first time he tried it.

Irving turned around and saw his parents’ bed, now empty, untouched from the last time it was made.

In high school, he remembered a midnight where he opened his bedroom door, unable to sleep. He crept down the hall and sat on his mother’s bed, and asked about the book she was reading. He awkwardly sat by her legs, picking at his nail and scratching his head. His father was not there, out on service somewhere.

He remembered the old bed covers then being orange and yellow flowers against a white background, and that his mother was peculiar about how things looked. He was nervous to talk to her, slightly embarrassed that he got lonely at night. He called her in a soft nervous mumble of it at the end of his question: what book is that, mum?

She answered. If only he could remember—

He remembered his first day at Lumon. He remembered his most recent day. He remembered Burt’s retirement, and he remembered the hours in the break room. But he couldn’t remember this.

He remembered when his father was pleased with his report card. He remembered how he was suggested to join the football team or swimming, over the dinner table. He remembered disappointing him with something: there were many of those in his youth.

He remembered when his father called him ungrateful. It was nearing the halfway mark of his years in junior high, when he expressed his disinterest in the naval academy, which his father expected him to enroll in when he graduated high school.

After everything—

Have some pride in—

I do not remember raising you to be so selfish about—

Eventually, like all things, it went his father’s way. But by the time he was 15, he had learnt what an honor it would be to be like his father. A brilliant image of the 20th century man. A part of a legacy, and a shared goal. “That’s Bailiff’s boy,” he heard some say. “He’ll go far.”

When he stood in front of his father for the first time in his uniform, he thought he had finally looked Irving in the eye. He was proud, and Irving was too. He felt he had done something meaningful.

Irving heard the bell ring. Mark’s here, he thought, as he was very often the first to arrive.

—————

Secrets were tough for Irving to keep in this state. And what weight he was harboring was bound to be revealed. Irving remembered how he once had a similar worry, as he lay in bed decades ago. At age 17, he restricted himself to only crying about a boy in his bedroom past 1 in the morning and in the bath—where he sat on the floor, clinging to the edge of the bathtub to weep into it, hoping the running water of the shower would silence him enough. He only exited the bathroom when he remembered he would hate it more if he got a knock of concern on the door for how long he was in there.

He sat at the dinner table, poking at the vegetables, listening to his mother tell the story of seeing the neighbour for tea, and how her daughter had been heartbroken about a boyfriend turned ex.

“She says the poor girl doesn’t eat much anymore,” she frowned. “She finally got out of the house to see a friend for the first time in weeks, apparently.”

“Irving,” his father turned to him, showing no sign of listening to his wife. “Are you feeling sick?”

“No,” he replied, and only put something in his mouth to stop the questioning.

They surrounded the two long ends of their rectangular dining table, where Irving sat facing his parents, but he felt that he could have been at the very head of it, too far to contribute to conversation without projecting his voice across the room.

It took him twice as long to finish eating. He did the dishes, cold water numbing his fingers until he couldn’t bend them to hold anything.

Mark asked him how he was feeling every time they met, and every time, Irving only ever mentioned his invasive nausea, dizziness and headaches. He sat next to Burt and held a conversation with him without softening his voice in ways he did not with others. He did not cry in his bedroom or in the bathroom this time, because he did not cry at all.

As he thought he was holding onto his secrets better than he thought he would, he did not at all think that it would be Dylan, of all people, to corner him in his house.

It was snowing, and the group were lined up by the window, looking out at the snowfall. Irving remained in his chair, too tired to move for a view of the weather.

“It’ll be a bitch to drive home,” Dylan said. Mark agreed, sighing as he put his hands on his hips.

“Maybe we should head home early, in case it gets heavier,” Fields said, then turned to Irving for confirmation. “If we finished everything tonight?”

“Sure,” he shrugged. “Safety first.” Internally, he was worried more about their progress than the snow, but he didn’t want to be labeled the asshole. He pulled his shirt down as he rose to his feet, shuffling over to stand beside Burt, to look out the window with him too.

Mark first reached for his coat, and Dylan followed, strangely competitive that he will be the one who will get to go home first. Burt watched them bicker amongst each other. “They’re getting along well,” he chuckled.

“They’re always like that. Even at work,” Irving replied. “Well, he is,” he pointed at Dylan, “Mark’s getting dragged along.”

Mark was ready first, and by the time he reached for the door, he kindly thanked Irving for his hospitality. “Bastard,” Dylan mumbled as he struggled to fit something in his bag. Irving turned his attention back to Burt, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Will you be alright?” he asked, leaning slightly to speak into his ear. He glanced down at his expression, waiting for an opportunity to comfort. “You know, you’re welcome to stay, if you’re worried,” Irving said, looking into Burt’s eyes. He moved his head to share his gaze with the rest, and repeated a similar sentiment loudly, realizing how it would look. He was correct in doing so, as when he made eye contact with Dylan, he saw the judgemental raise of the eyebrow.

“Well, very kind for you to offer, but, I think it’s best we all get going,” Burt said. Irving watched as they all walked out his door. Irving cursed to himself internally, at how obvious he was. Irving watched, hands kept to himself as Burt’s hand went on Fields' lower back to support him in case he slipped.

Dylan was the last to leave, saying that he wanted to go to the bathroom beforehand. He only returned when both Burt’s and Mark’s car left.

Irving was called over to him by name. “Yes, Dylan?” Irving asked innocently.

“‘Yes’ my ass, man. What?” Dylan shrugged, frustrated.

“What is it?”

“What is it?” Dylan repeated. “I’m trying to stop you from making some moves on a married man!”

Irving staggered backwards, swinging his head side to side to deny it. “Now that’s—”

“That’s what? Because all I’m seeing is you making flirty eyes at him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Dylan… He’s—It’s not—I’m not… I don't do that.”

Dylan scoffed. “Then I guess me seeing you invite him for a sleepover was a hallucination, then. Maybe all this corporate rebellion is getting to me.”

Irving crossed his arms, unable to step back from the conversation without Dylan closing in the distance with two steps. “Dylan.”

“Irv.” Dylan challenged.

Irving lost his footing, his shoulders falling in defeat. “Right. But—!” He pointed a finger at Dylan before he could begin yelling at him. “Let me explain.”

Though Dylan did not immediately start, his engine was running, always ready to react audibly to his story. Irving explained his memories, with many interruptions and tangents, caused by Dylan’s irritability. “We… You know,” Irving talked around it, embarrassed to share such things. “We would… you know.”

“What?”

“We would spend a lot of time together and we… We were close.” Irving tried to convey through the pauses what had happened, but Dylan could not have guessed. “It was romantic. Our relationship.”

Dylan’s jaw dropped, head turning to look over out the window as if checking to see if anyone was there. “Are you fucking with me?”

Irving was a little disheartened. “Why would I lie about that?”

“I don’t know,” Dylan shrugged, the very image of surprise. “That’s fucked up. It’s crazy that that can happen.”

It wasn’t. It was natural to find each other. On the other hand, this would not have happened if it weren't for the severing of their memories, knowing how close Burt and his husband were. Oh—Irving stopped himself from thinking any further. He would not have been chosen in any other world.

“What—C’mon,” Dylan panicked slightly, noticing the sudden devastation that had built in Irving’s eyes. “It’ll be fine.”

“No, it’s not that,” Irving said, shaking his head. “It is fine. At least I don’t have to hold it in. I was afraid my innie will tell on himself.”

“Is it a separate emotion?” Dylan asked about his wording. “Are you like, still split?”

No. It was not a separate emotion. Irving remembered things as they had all happened to him, and he felt them all as his own emotions. It was only that he had his innie mind become the default, that he forgot he had experienced anything outside Lumon. He sometimes thought he was still in the office and severed.

Irving averted Dylan’s eyes. “I feel it. When I’m with him. When I’m not. I remember why I liked him before. And—”

“‘Before?’ I thought you still liked him?”

Irving struggled to answer. He knew it, but he hated to voice it to someone else. It brought him discomfort, knowing how it will change the way he will be seen the next time he shares a room with Burt.

“...I do,” he whispered, greatly fearing Dylan’s reaction. Dylan however, did not groan as he anticipated, or roll his eyes, or laugh. Instead, he nodded slowly to himself, crossing his arms in thought.

“That sucks.”

The reply was so simple and summarized his situation so condensely, that it made Irving chuckle. He threw his head back, and his chest heaved along with his dispersed laughter. “It does.”

Dylan found it odd that Irving laughed, but he let him without—at least audible—judgment. He looked as if he had many more questions, but the snow blowing harder outside their window called Dylan home, and Irving did not want to wait for it to become worse before he decided to drive home himself.

When Irving opened the door of his car, Radar hopped in, bringing snow into the black seat of his vehicle.

“Irv!” Dylan called from his car, as he was about to drive off. He opened his mouth, hesitated, and opted out of speaking entirely. He waved Irving goodbye through his window.

“Bye,” Irving waved back and watched as Dylan’s car grew smaller in the distance, not remembering the last time he felt like he had allies beyond the grand anti-Lumon cause.

In the meetings following his confession, Dylan remained the same, except for a watchful eye and a shake of disapproval when he felt that Irving was being too friendly. Irving disagreed most times, feeling that this was how he was even with his friends.

“The difference is that people who are platonic don’t look at them with that look.”

“What look?” Irving asked, but Dylan did not answer, thinking the answer was clear.

Irving remained delusional, though he would have rather died than have Burt know his secret. He was left with the worry that if he let his mind control him, it would result in him telling the gathered outies about their time at Lumon as if they would know. He worried that he had let something slip that he shouldn’t have, and ruined some friendships forever.

Even in his moments alone, his guilt overtook him when he dared have a flicker of a thought about what he wished would be. He would chant in his head to think of anything else, fearing someone could read his mind and judge him. Make fun of him for his foolish fantasies.

When he tried to sleep, he felt his heart sink when he lingered on his thoughts for too long. His heart would liquify, feeling like molten lava seeping down his body and beginning to pool on his back. He felt it in his feet when he sat. He felt it lift back up and drop down again when he got up. It had no shape anymore, just the vague feeling that he had it.

—————

There was a funeral service for one of the naval officers. His father was younger than Irving was now, and though Irving forgot the exact year this happened, he remembered that he was doing his schoolwork on the dining room table. He did not know who had passed or how, but he could feel that the officer and his father must have been close.

It was a spring, he remembered, because he had seen the new buds in the flower pot growing, and felt the irony of a new life being born in the presence of death nearby.

His father changed before he sat down. Irving always found that he was just as intimidating in polo shirts and denim as he was in his full military uniform. Irving cleared the table, as they had been waiting for his return before they had dinner. When he glanced at him, Irving noticed the out of focus eyes that he rarely saw.

“Irving,” his father said, sitting at the head of the table, arms crossed.

“Yessir?”

“Do everything with everything you have. Or do not do it at all. Give everything, so you will be proud of it in the end.”

Irving was holding onto the cutlery, turning from the drawer to look at his father with a feeling he did not have the vocabulary to express. In his limited words, he felt scared. Though he did not know what type of fear the anxiety was, in the years that followed, he would learn it through the breakdowns he experienced in the face of failure.

“Understood?” His voice was lost, Irving could tell. Agitation, in what was usually a flat, smooth tone.

“Yessir,” Irving simply answered. His father never accepted talking back or excuses, but he would have been less tolerant of it then.

—————

“Here. A gift for you.”

“Another flower? Thank you.”

“I know you don’t like to hoard, but I was thinking about you this morning.”

“Well, I don’t like mess. This, I love. I’ve kept them all since the very first one you gave me. And I’ll continue keeping my little collection.”

“Only a little one? That’s no good. I’ll have to keep folding a new one every day. Maybe two?”

“The room will start overflowing. It’s sad that real daylilies only bloom for a bit.”

“That’s why it’s paper.”

“So it’ll last?”

“Of course. I make them so it’ll last for you. So you can always have flowers.”

Irving stood against the wall by the entrance to the kitchen, silencing his breathing as he listened into the happy couple on the inside. His teeth hurt from how hard he was biting down. He could not help but focus on their words and wish they were a conversation Burt was sharing with him.

It could have been.

He shielded his eyes with his hand, as if it would hide him and block out the noise, unable to run, unable to ignore, and left standing, thinking of the abandoned flowers in his desk drawer he had been too afraid to open. He heard the rapid clicking of Radar’s nails against the floorboards. Fearing discovery, Irving raised a finger towards his dog, stopping him from approaching further.

“Stay,” he hissed. Radar stopped, and sat completely still on the other side of the hallway, away from Burt and Fields' view.

There was the same squeezing of his chest that agitated him some nights, and he was slowly filled with a feeling he could not place.

There had been an afternoon when Burt was telling Irving about how years ago, Fields had forgotten that he didn’t like shellfish, and had made it the main dish for a birthday dinner. I wouldn’t have forgotten, Irving thought, but laughed—stiffly and insincerely, he was sure—at the story instead.

“It’s alright because you would’ve remade the whole thing and ate what I couldn’t,” Burt said, turning to Fields.

“You’ve got a nice relationship,” Irving had told them. “I’m jealous.”

Burt shifted on the couch, cocking his head to smile at Irving. “You’re a lovely man. It’s strange to me you haven’t been snatched up yet.”

Then why don’t you? That felt cruel to think. Though he couldn’t say he didn’t feel it at all.

“Well, I’m waiting,” Irving joked, his canine teeth grinding down on his bottom teeth that it caused him pain in his jaw. “Feel free to… Let your friends know.”

He didn’t used to be spiteful. He hated being angry with him. Burt definitely couldn’t help what he said when he had no clue about the inner lives of his other self that had been dead for weeks. But sometimes Irving wanted to cling to his waist and beg for him to see him like he used to again.

Sorry to Fields, a kind friend.

Mark walked by him in the hallway, but Irving did not notice, too occupied with trying to calm down the loud recess of his mind. “Irv,” he heard him say, and was startled by his presence.

“Mark,” he gasped, but quickly shushed him without thinking. Mark looked confused on why he had to stay quiet, but Irving pulled him aside, away from the kitchen, before he had a chance to speak. “What is it?”

“N-Nothing,” Mark stuttered. He raised both of his hands up in mercy, completely cornered. “I was just wondering what you were doing.”

Irving had pulled him aside in the nook under the stairs, out of sight from anyone who peaked their head out the rooms. Irving ducked his head out the hallway to check, and saw that no one was there.

“Me too. I was just standing there.”

“Well, it’s fine that you were just standing. But that was a really suspicious thing that you did there… H-Hey, are you okay? You look…” Mark kept his hands up, ready to catch Irving in case he collapsed.

“I feel a little… Weird.”

“What’s up?” Mark noticed how Irving’s breathing quickened.

The impending feeling that slowly crawled up him was hard to place, as he began to feel frustrated that he could not say anything. He could only express it as vaguely as he felt it; “Something’s wrong.”

“Panic attack?”

“No, that’s not it.” Irving was nauseous, without the real threat that he was going to throw up. There was something lodged in his throat. Heart palpitations. Weakening knees. Irving focused on different parts of his body to analyze what was wrong with him, and only ended with a list of symptoms with no answer.

There was a bark, and though any loud noises would have alarmed Irving, the familiarity of Radar’s voice did not agitate him. Radar held a landline phone in his mouth, and with Irving’s signal, he approached, shoving the phone in Irving’s hand to call for help, as trained.

As Irving slowly straightened his back and looked Mark in the eye, he felt a warm sensation in his nose.

The red drop of blood that seeped out and fell, stained the breast pocket of his shirt.

“Oh, Irving.” Mark was quick to move beside him, taking a handkerchief from his pocket. He gave it to Irving, who looked down at himself still stunned, as if he had never seen blood before.

“I don’t want to alarm you, but this isn’t great news,” Mark said. He dabbed at the stain on Irving’s chest, and handed the handkerchief to him to hold against his nose. “We got to get you to Reghabi again.”

“It doesn’t mean it’s become worse,” Irving protested, but Mark took the phone from his hand to set it down somewhere else. He threw Irving’s arm over his shoulder, and pulled him towards the exit.

“Hey!” Mark called out to the people Irving wanted to see the least. “I’m going to get Irving checked out. You guys stay here.”

Irving did not catch their expression, as he kept his head down in deep embarrassment, leaving some drops of blood on the floorboards. I have to clean that later, he thought. In the limits of his gaze, he saw the eyes of his dog look up at him as he followed closely by.

Radar had to be left behind. Mark called for Irving to stay awake as he sped down the road to get him to where Reghabi had set up her secret lab. Irving was required to respond every time Mark called him, which deeply bothered him, but obliged, so that Mark could stop panicking.

When Mark brought Irving inside, Reghabi was facing her laptop. She leapt to her feet and wasted no time grabbing Irving off of him.

“Really?” Reghabi sounded awfully surprised when Mark explained, then her voice turned to worry and frustration. “I thought you’d be alright by now.”

Irving felt his head spin. His heart sank at the words. “Was I?”

His chest still burned, throat always threatening him with a sudden wave of nausea. He talked to Burt Goodman and saw Burt G. He saw himself in the mirror and saw the worried cock of the head of his innie. He could not remember the last time he truly talked to someone without feeling twenty things at once.

Maybe he was supposed to be better. And he fucked something up while he was healing. The meetings, maybe. But he couldn’t have skipped those.

When Irving fell ill, suddenly becoming quiet, refusing to lie down in front of them when told he looked too pale, he knew they were bothered by him.

They were discussing looking into a particular section of the neighborhood when he heard; “I figure you’re too sick to go still, huh?”

He felt a pang in his chest, as if he had been shot. He was holding their plans back, and disappointed them with his lack of input. He had to get his health in order—but it frequently tossed his sleep schedule and appetite around that it was impossible for any routine. Was that an excuse? Why was he still sick? How could he still be sad? Irving frantically searched his memory for something he had done to give his scathing critique.

...Still, huh?

Irving gripped Reghabi’s shoulder when she put his arm around her to help Mark carry him. What a horrible teammate he’d been.

Did he like himself being sick? Being depressed? Being lonely? Did he like being lazy, terrible, uncooperative and being able to blame it on someone else? Maybe he liked the attention, and had insisted on seeing Burt even now, to keep it alive. He snuck a soft hand on the shoulder when reassuring him… Hitting him playfully on the arm when he laughed. Just a little, to remember how it was.

He may have liked being coddled, for the first time in decades.

Irving was laid down on the chair that reminded him of his first operation when he got the severance chip inserted. He shifted uncomfortably, the aged chair squeaking loudly.

“I think I’ll step out for this one,” Mark said, eyeing the old IV pump in the corner. “I don’t like…”

“Yeah, sure. Be near, just in case, though.” Reghabi nodded. Mark stepped through the door, waiting outside by the hallway.

Reghabi cut straight to the point. “What kind of torture are you putting yourself through? Going to the Break Room three days in a row?”

“Nothing. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“Irving, things don’t get this bad unless there’s some stress.”

“I’m sick. I’m lying about when others are working my share, isn’t that stress enough?” Irving asked, as Reghabi shuffled back and forth between drawers and tabletops to gather whatever it was that she needed. Irving watched her drag a monitor, and connected him to various machinery. How she had a small operation room running in such a compact space was a mystery to him.

“Come on,” her voice was kinder, though her facade of calmness was visibly running out with her crossed arms and tapping fingers. “What were you doing before you got worse?”

Irving shivered on the exhale. “Well…” He shared his discoveries and his realizations that what joy he had found at Lumon was gone. And the juvenile mind that was now connected to him was crumbling within him, always finding a new reason to be devastated.

“I’m going through my first heartbreak again,” Irving raised his eyebrows for emphasis, smiling sassily with the confidence of a man who could laugh at himself. “How long has it been?”

“I’m afraid I have to tell you something you’d hate, then,” Reghabi stopped her working hands, uninterested in his attempt to lighten up the room. “You have to say goodbye to him.”

Irving’s eye twitched, his shoulders slumping down. He fell silent, staring up at Reghabi to see any change of expression that showed she wasn’t serious. But nothing happened.

“You’re taking him away from me, too,” Irving whispered.

“Hey...” Reghabi put one of her tools on a tray with a clatter. She raised her brow, as a stern, disappointed friend.

“He’s already gone far enough away from me.”

“Dead, practically,” Reghabi said.

“God,” Irving sighed. His head throbbed, his skull feeling like it could crack under the pressure of the invisible band that squeezed him around his temples. “But… He’s not. Dead, that is—he’s in there. Somewhere. I just—I find it so hard to believe, that…”

“Irving.” This time, Reghabi’s voice was a sound of warning.

“He said we could go to the art museum,” Irving fell into a mumble, recounting his memories. When their innies allowed themselves to discuss what they’d like to experience on the outside, Burt had told him. They could admire art together, discover something new—Burt said it himself. He did. And yet, he didn’t remember that at all, when the hypothetical had meant so much to Irving. He dreamt of it. Imagined it so often. But Burt made plans and saw the artworks with someone else. Some other time.

His existence ate at Irving every day, every hour. Burt could alter the way Irving felt with a sentence. Some eye contact or a lack of it. He could offer to hold the door open and Irving would be back in the severed hallway, or Burt could not smile at him when they met eyes and shove him back into that very night in the car. Even a decision Burt subconsciously made could make or ruin Irving’s day—but Irving barely made a dent in his.

He caressed Irving’s cheek once, in a moment of peace between them at Lumon. Irving felt his heart almost leap out from his chest in a dance. Burt remembered his favorite vending machine snack, and shared his with him in secret. He laughed at Irving’s boring jokes, and told him not to worry and wrote an encouraging note for him to take back to his table when Irving was having a rough day.

“That’s someone who cared—Cares about me. He’s still in there. Couldn’t we—” Irving stopped himself. And make him hurt as badly as me? Give him new feelings for Irving that would only hurt him? He’s going to feel unfaithful. He would break his own heart.

“No… That’s out of the question… I don’t want him to hurt,” said Irving, burying his face in his hands. “I know, it’s awful…”

“Of course you don’t. That’s someone you love,” Reghabi sat beside him on a stool, placing a comforting hand on his upper arm and squeezed him there. Irving glanced up at her at the last word. He was. He is.

“It’s awful that I…” he whispered again to himself. B. and Bailiff, neither self truly wanted him to suffer. All the pain was enough with just himself.

“But… Being completely honest with you…”

“What?” Reghabi asked.

“I wish I could see him hurt. Just a little bit,” Irving smiled weakly, pinching his fingers together. “Otherwise it’ll feel like he didn’t care about me at all. It’s unfair.”

There was guilt there, but so was the loneliness. That was larger.

“Well…” Reghabi answered, said like the beginning of awful news. “He doesn’t know… He doesn’t know you like y—”

Irving grabbed her by her hand on his arm, begging her not to finish.

To Irving B., Burt had changed right in front of him. The last time he saw him, Burt would have never looked at him so distantly as he did the first time they saw each other after reintegrating. There were no longer any stolen glances. He missed feeling special, and feeling that he was wanted by someone. He had been chosen, for the first time, in his innie’s mind. Even for his outside self, it had been the first in a long time. Though they had never made it verbally clear that he was, he knew it to be true. All of the moments that made Irving giddy were instead, between Burt and—

“—Stop,” Reghabi said, as if she could clearly hear his thoughts. The machine she had hooked him to while he was mourning had beeped, alarming her of something wrong with him. “Stop thinking about whatever it is you’re thinking about.”

How could he lose that fire so soon?

“Irving, can you hear me?”

He looked up at her, and his lightheadedness got the best of him, making him lean forward as he briefly lost himself.

“Jesus. Mark!” Reghabi called. Mark, waiting outside the door, hurried in, rushing to Irving’s side to support his body. She ordered him to hold Irving there, and got to work that Irving didn’t understand.

In seconds, it seemed to be. Everything was gone in his eyes, his words, his touches in seconds.

“My chest hurts,” Irving groaned, massaging his heart over his shirt in a circular motion. He grabbed at it, pulling his shirt to not have it cling to his skin, though it did nothing to ease the discomfort. His breathing became shallow, a feeling setting in that he may never be free from that pain.

Irving couldn’t see around him, his temple pressed against Mark’s chest as he held him close to his body to support him. Somewhere behind him, he heard Reghabi’s shuffling footsteps. He waited for her to do something to ease his pain, but before he could feel anything more than a prick, he saw his vision blur.

He realized when he regained consciousness, Mark was dozing off in the chair by the wall, and two hours had passed on the clock. He was sweating in the middle of winter. The sweat on his hands were long gone, though the sweat on his back still stuck his shirt to his skin.

The pain would eventually come back, when the drugs exit his system. Irving wheezed as he pushed his body up, but he was gently pushed back by a hand on his shoulder.

“How are you?” Reghabi asked, emerging from the shadows. She must have been watching him.

“Am I dying?”

She laughed. “Not anymore.”

Irving swallowed the lump in his throat. “When will this end?” Irving asked Reghabi.

“Which part?”

“The chest pains. The agitation… This…” Irving circled around his chest, searching for the words. “Sadness.”

Reghabi shook her head, leaning back on the counter, hands gripping the edge of the countertop. She wiped a loose strand of hair from her forehead. From the way it was undone, Irving could tell that he must have given her a lot of stress. “I don’t think that’s the reintegration.”

Irving laughed, the humor appearing to him from nowhere. “Well whatever it is, it’s getting ridiculous. I need it to end.”

Somewhere between looking for a way to claim himself back from Lumon, he brought the damage with him, living in a pocket in his chest, his head, and it appeared in his legs when he shared a space with Burt.

“This is hurting you too much,” Reghabi observed, and Irving could not disagree. He was afraid of what may be asked of him if he denied it. But he felt that he should not take that rest. Damn his own feelings—he had others’ freedoms at stake. He would let Burt hurt him again and again. And again and again and again and again and again long after he lost the ability to leave the bed. Long after he shatters himself.

Reghabi’s orders came to him like a strike to the cheek.

“You have to quit. The whole mission.”

“No,” Irving immediately said, hands gripping onto the armrest in defiance. “I worked hard to get here, you know that. You can’t pull me out of this, I run my group!” Mark stirred in his chair—Irving shut his mouth.

He did what he was told. He continued working even when he wanted to quit after feeling the dissonance of his daily life since severing. He reintegrated and he fought through the sickness, and now, he was getting cut out. “I’ve barely done anything yet. If it’s not me, it’s the others. And I can’t make any of them go through this.”

Reghabi’s eyes were stern, unmoving, her mind made long ago. “It’s kind of you to worry. But I told you about Petey. He freaked, he pushed himself too hard to run, and now he’s dead. You’ll die too.”

Irving swallowed hard.

Reghabi continued. “Get Lumon off your back, get your heartbreak sorted, then come back. You’ll feel less like throwing up then, too.”

“Please, listen. I’m in, now. It hasn’t been long, let me spy around more.”

“I thought you weren’t looking to die?” She asked.

“I’ll be alright—”

“—You’re not useful if you’re throwing up blood and convulsing in the ambulance.”

Irving froze. His gaze fell upon his lap, feeling small as if he were a child again. There was a feeling of rebellion still in him, like when Burt was taken from him the first time. “What good can you do six feet under ground? Do they do burials at sea? Or is that for currently working officers only?” Reghabi asked.

“Alright,” Irving stopped her. “...Is that what happens? The blood?”

Reghabi shrugged. “I don’t know. But it wasn’t pretty with Petey.”

Irving had seen ugly. He had seen it with family, he had seen it with friends, he had seen it with those he worked with. He did not have to think about it long to remember how there was quite a large pool of blood he was standing beside, all throughout his life.

“They do it for retired officers too, by the way. Given it was an honorable discharge,” Irving said, slowly getting up on his feet. “Family can’t be present for those, you know. My mother wept for… Months, when they did it for my father. It was heartbreaking… She wanted to see him become part of the sea, but.” Irving shrugged, to say ‘it happens.’ His mother made him promise to never be buried the same way, so that she may be able to say goodbye to him properly. It would be bad enough that a son died before a parent, she said. But she didn’t have to worry about that anymore.

“So you know how it feels to watch,” Reghabi responded.

“Hm?”

“Mark too, would have lost two friends the same way, if you let yourself go on like this.” Irving turned to look at him nodding away in his chair. He had remained after Irving lost consciousness, despite his own fears.

“I don’t know if he considers me a friend,” Irving shrugged.

“Well he drove here in a hurry. And stayed. Hell, even if this Mark didn’t care, the Mark—and the others—going to work would be devastated that you’re not coming back. Without an explanation. Keep a balance with your determination for them, please.”

Irving walked towards Mark slowly, and nudged him on the shoulder. “Oh!” Mark jolted upright. “You’re okay?” There was relief on his face and in his voice. The one that Irving recognised to be the one that Mark S. gave to him.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

Reghabi began to explain to Mark what she had told Irving, but he interrupted her, wanting to tell Mark himself. Regahbi let him, and gave Irving a cocky raise of the brow as they thanked her and headed out the door.

Irving lingered behind for a moment, something tugging on his sleeve. “I wish you could just… Erase my memories or something. So I can get back on my feet quicker,” Irving said quietly.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I thought you learnt your lesson when getting severed didn’t fix you the first time.”

“I wish I’d never woken this part of me up,” he could say, but he had smiled when he saw Burt again. There were many more moments of laughter in his memories now, since the reintegration of Irving B. and Bailiff. He was happy more times than Irving had known he had been. He was loved for longer and by one more person than he had thought.

“Right,” Irving nodded, smiling. Though he had said so, he did not actually want to lose the memories he gained of Burt. Missing him to the point of his pain meant something; it meant he loved in return, too.

—————

There was an instant relief on all of their faces when Irving walked through the door. Radar greeted him with a tail wag that shook his whole body. Irving let him kiss his face, as he scratched the back of his ears.

When Irving gathered everyone in the living room and announced his temporary exit from the team, the relief of seeing him was replaced with a sadness that Irving did expect, but felt different to see.

“That’s a shame, but anything for your health, Irving. But we’ll miss you,” Burt nodded first, clasping his hands on his lap. “Maybe keep you updated on the good news.”

Irving stopped himself from emphasizing the temporary, already wanting to come back before he even left, thinking of what he would miss. I want to stay with you, he thought to himself, looking only at Burt. He smiled, as if he had heard Irving’s words.

“You can come back when you feel better, right? I think maybe a few weeks,” Mark said. “I’ll drive you again, if you feel—” Irving could tell that he had wanted to do so for Petey. If he had known how to help, he would have.

“I’ll call. You’re my ambulance now,” Irving smiled.

Dylan was relieved, to Irving’s surprise. “This is… This is good. This is good! One less dead guy. How are you going to explain to Lumon?”

“I was thinking I’d ask for some paperwork made from a doctor. Medical leave for a month or so,” Irving explained. “Which, I’d have to ask Reghabi to fake…”

It would not be long enough to heal from his heartbreak at all, but he thought it may be long enough for his physical sickness to settle down.

“I’ll do that,” Mark volunteered.

Though all sorted and done, Irving felt the want to linger. “You’re welcome to use this house… Keep it quiet and secret… You know the rules.”

“We do, don’t worry, Irving,” Fields reassured him. “Thank you, for letting us keep the base here.”

“Mm.”

Irving had parked his car a little away from his parents’ house, the driveway occupied with the others’ car. Burt offered to walk him there.

Irving kept a space between them enough for half a person, but he did not walk straight, sometimes accidentally bumping his shoulder into Burt. There was a familiar feeling, being with him like this. The area was completely quiet, not even the birds or the winds disrupting them. He watched Radar’s swinging tail as he joyfully walked in front of them.

Irving saw the new mountain of snow built on the side of the road, and remembered the hallway with the white, endless walls. The trees were barren, but the short bushes by the pavement were still green and round in shape. “Do you remember? The green room with the plants?” Irving asked.

“Where? In your house?” Burt asked, clueless. Of course, he had no memory of it. Decades worth of developments for the severance chip prevented him from retaining anything, but Irving was too confused to remember that crucial part.

Irving B. continued regardless, and found it funny how Burt would joke about that. “I still think about that often. Because it made me think, maybe I could request a little potted plant for my desk. But I also… You know,” Irving B. smiled shyly, which grew into a self deprecating, scoffing laugh. “I regret it. But I also don’t. I don’t think it would’ve been as memorable if I still had that doubt.”

“What doubt?”

“The thought that relationships beyond the platonic would get us punished.”

Irving tucked his hand in the pocket of his leather jacket, his shoulders slightly restrained by the fabric. A pair of human footsteps turned to one, as the figure beside him slowly fell behind. Irving turned, and was about to ask what was wrong, but stopped when he saw how Burt stood, confused.

It dawned on Irving, now more aware of his surroundings and of himself. As the fog in his mind retreated, though he forgot what exactly it was that he had just said aloud, he gained enough of his working brain to have a clue.

“Oh,” he gasped. “God, I—You weren’t supposed to… I said something stupid, didn’t I?”

“Did I hear that right?”

Irving ruined it. His heart dropped, sinking rapidly to the bottom of the ocean. It had all come apart at the very last minute, when he had been able to keep quiet as he could about it for a long time. Burt fell silent, staring straight through Irving’s head. He took his time, clearly in thought, making Irving more and more afraid to listen as the seconds went by in a crawl. He interlaced his fingers together by his stomach in silent prayer, his nails digging into the back of his hands. Please don’t resent me.

Radar crept between them, sitting by Irving’s feet. Irving looked down at his friend, focusing on how Radar panted. How there was a small hole in the snow made from his paws. Irving was comforted with him there, acting as a small barrier.

“I’m sorry you found out. Especially like this,” Irving blurted out, unable to handle the silence. “You really weren’t supposed to know.”

He had said so, but he feared that a part of him wanted it to be heard. Perhaps he had wanted it to be acknowledged, even if it could not go on any more. He had slowly pushed the door ajar, and it had swung open, unable to be restrained.

“I'm sorry you had to keep this to yourself,” Burt said, creating a crack across Irving’s chest. Irving wanted to crumble to his knees then. How he had worried about him first. “If I were you… Or if I knew this, I’d struggle to… Well, I’d be heartbroken.”

Irving’s shoulders fell, his eyes quickly welling up. He was. Yes, he was heartbroken. “You meant a lot to me,” he finally confessed.

It was all he could say about it. Irving was never the one for grand sweeping gestures, and he could not start now, especially when he was supposed to prevent this conversation to begin with. But, the weight of the space that once was between them could not be swept under the rug. Irving refused to have it forgotten.

“Thank you. But I was one of the few people down there with you. Now the whole world’s opened up again, Irving. There are better people than me.”

Irving wanted to disagree, but he did not argue. The world had expanded exponentially compared to how he felt his world grew with the discovery of other severed workers. He felt that it was impossible to find anyone else, but he knew that all of his friends would tell him, correctly, that it wasn’t.

“Now everything’s all complicated, isn’t it?”

“Life’s like that. Complicated.” Burt had said it so matter of factly, but both did not like mess. They could each barely stand any rubbish on their tables, that they should want to hate what had happened between them. But Irving found no hatred or annoyance in Burt that he brought this information to him. If he was allowed to think so, he wanted to interpret it as their history not entirely being unwanted, and not at all tossed garbage on their desk.

Burt was silent again, and mumbled something in thought to himself.

He studied Irving’s expression as he began, trying to find the line of his boundaries. “Maybe this will make things worse. I don’t know, but…” Burt hesitated. “I think, my innie appreciated you,” he paused to look for the subtle changes in Irving again, “You must have meant a lot too. He’d be comforted to know he made you that happy.”

His rasp in his voice was still comforting. Irving brought his fist up to his lips to hide the trembles.

“Yeah,” he felt himself break, and the thought of being seen weeping over this made him terrified. “I’m sorry. I really thought I’d be over this by now,” he said, though he could never visualize himself being better.

He hoped this would have all fixed itself before he knew it.

“Don’t apologize for that. It wasn’t…It's not a bad thing to feel what you feel.”

Irving smiled. At least, he tried to. “No.”

He turned to look at his car parked several meters away, looking for a way out before he would begin to shed his tears. “I think I should go. Thank you for walking with me.”

“You’re okay by yourself?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I’m feeling less sick.”

As he began to walk away, and felt the warm trail of his tears begin to fall, he realized that yes, he did want the attention from his friends. Because he could not bear a day away from Burt, or could not stand back up by himself after.

He tightly closed his eyes, and wanted to stop to let the loss out, but he kept moving. He killed any noise that came out with his sobs, using his hand as a mask to cover his mouth. Radar trotted beside him, keeping up with the hurried pace that Irving walked with.

It was not that he liked to be upset, depressed or sick—he liked having his friends around. He liked feeling cared for, what was wrong with that? If he could ask for one, he would have wanted a hug from his newly found friends once he had calmed down.

Irving kept his back to Burt as he opened the car to let Radar in. He dared not to look, or the tears would begin anew.

With the burden of his secrets off of his shoulders, there were no more ‘maybe’s. No more ‘one day’s or ‘back then’s. He would rather walk forward than to lay there in wait as the world moves past him. He never had a chance against fate, anyway.

Irving stepped into his car, and caught his tears by the knuckles of his two pointer fingers. He waited for his first wave of sadness to pass, and before he began to weep again, he hit the engine, and pulled out from the side of the road.

He was happy it was Burt, in the end. To pull him out of the fog, to push him through. He was able to be there because of him. One day, Irving B. would understand too.