Work Text:
“I bet your outie is a pothead.”
Dylan’s finger trap sprung loose and bounced onto Mark’s desk. He gave one of his awkward little chuckles and handed it back over. All their desk dividers were down this morning after Milchick had finished the morning check-in. Petey wished the desk dividers could be down more often.
“Don’t be absurd, Lumon Industries wouldn’t allow such behavior amongst their employees,” Irving snapped before sliding up the green screen between him and Dylan.
“What we do outside of work isn’t under company control,” Mark said with a shrug but Petey could hear the hitch in his voice. Like there might be a taste of freedom out there, for someone else who lived in his body. Shared body or not, Petey ached at the idea.
Dylan went back to fidgeting with the paper toy, motions quick enough that Petey was sure he had a similar hobby outside of work. Maybe he had a computer at home, maybe he was a writer. Of all of them, Dylan seemed to have the best imagination. He didn’t have to wonder about life outside of Lumon, he could invent something for himself in his mind whenever he wanted. Though Petey wasn’t about to buy into the deep sea creatures hunting fantasy Dylan was currently attached to.
Even with the greatest imagination, it was impossible to see Irving anywhere but at Lumon. He believed in the cause, unknown as it was to all of them, with his entirety. Maybe he’d been a priest, outside, before dedicating himself to the church of Eagan.
“I probably just have a cold,” Mark continued, ever practical, hoisting up one of his legs onto his desk, “see look, the cuff is wet. It’s probably raining out there.”
“Well stay the hell away from me,” Dylan slid up his divider too. “I’m not about to get sick.”
“I wonder what rain feels like.” Petey hadn’t actually meant to say that out loud. Hadn’t meant for Mark to turn and stare at him in a way that begged for the wash of outdoor air. For a moment, his eyes seemed to be redder than they had been when he came in.
“Maybe,” Mark’s voice cracked and he started again. “Maybe we think about how it feels after the rain. The tucking away of umbrellas and shaking off the water from our shoes. I mean, we’re somewhere dry, right? People caught in the rain always want to get somewhere dry.”
It was hopeful in a way Petey struggled to be beyond the surface, but he took a slow breath anyway, imagining the faint smell of the worn carpet to be the rising heat of damp earth after a storm. There was a word for that, if only he had a dictionary.
When he opened his eyes, not even realizing he’d closed them, Mark was doing the same thing. A long, quiet, deep breath. When he breathed out, he was shaking, barely holding back something that he didn’t have a name for. Whatever was happening outside of work didn’t just go away when he came down the elevator.
As if reading his mind, Irving grumbled, “perhaps you’re simply allergic to the elevator.”
“Oh, he’s got a point,” Dylan leaned his head through the edge of the dividers, bobbing between looking at Petey and Mark. “The code detectors definitely don’t get dusted enough, there’s gotta be a build up of mites in there.”
“Gross,” Mark said, toneless as he turned back to his computer monitor.
Petey had allergies, remembered days where he came into the office sniffling and finding flower petals hidden in the inside of his suit pants. He couldn’t imagine they got in there from the wind. Maybe someone from his home life thought they were funny. Or sweet and didn’t realize they made Petey sneeze.
Mark was never sneezing. Just quiet, a little hoarse, his shoulders curled in. Not all the time, but this morning, before work, something must have happened. Reminded him of something he came down here to forget. Mark couldn’t ask for help on something he didn’t understand, and Petey certainly couldn’t give any, not down here.
Not for the first time, he wondered what it’d be like to talk to Mark outside of these cubicles.
Instead, when he went to get his second cup of coffee for the day, he spent his food token on a pouch of peanuts. On top of pollen, his body was also allergic to these. Mark loved them, almost always spent his token on them, even as he was tempted towards the blueberries. “Too much sugar,” he tried to rationalize, but it wasn’t that. Blueberries weren’t filling the way peanuts were.
So Petey dropped the peanuts on Mark’s desk while he was in the bathroom, probably washing away the remains of the ‘elevator allergy’ in the sink, probably wondering if this was anything like what rain felt like on his body. It was the same body, but it wouldn’t remember. But now he’d have peanuts, enough to maybe treat himself to blueberries later in the afternoon. Maybe enough that whatever was hurting him in the outside world would hurt a little less when he went home tonight.
Mark’s outie wouldn’t know why he felt better, just like his innie didn’t understand why he was so sad. Something deep in Petey, small yet malicious, wanted the person who put his friend through this to have just a taste of what it was like. It made his heart race, just thinking about it. Or, no, it didn’t. The numbers on this sheet were acting up, and he turned his attention to corralling them into a bin, rolling his green divider up before he could see Mark open the peanuts.
He couldn’t see him, but he could hear the quiet sound of delight, could imagine his face breaking into one of those rare genuine smiles. Petey wondered if he could imagine it so clearly, that maybe his outside self would dream about it. Half hazy, not understanding, but feeling it all the same when he woke up.