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rionaleonhart) wrote2025-01-27 12:25 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2025-01-27 12:25 pm
Entry tags:
Fanfiction: Double-Sided (Severance)
When's the last time I watched a show as it came out, week by week? It must have been over a decade. In the gaps between episodes, I find myself writing Severance fanfiction with a kind of fevered desperation, trying to spend more time with these characters in any way I can.
This is set in the first season and has no spoilers for the second!
Title: Double-Sided
Fandom: Severance
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1,600
Summary: Mark and his outie find a way to communicate.
Someone is hugging Mark. His sister, a part of him knows. Devon.
She draws back, looks into his eyes. She has dark hair, like him. Their noses are similar, their mouths. It reminds Mark of how he used to stare into the mirror in the Lumon bathroom, looking for his outie in his own face.
His sister? He has a sister?
Mark jerks awake at his desk.
Fuck.
He looks around frantically, catches Irving’s eye. Fuck. Of all the people to notice he’s dozed off on the job – he’s probably reported it already, Mark might as well head to the break room right now—
“Well,” Irving says, quietly, “I can’t say I approve, but I suppose we can’t always help it if our outies have been getting insufficient sleep.”
Oh, right. It makes sense that Irving might understand; he’s been known to fall asleep himself. “Thanks.”
“Did you dream of the black substance?”
“The black substance?”
“A viscous black substance,” Irving says. “It appears in most dreams, I think.”
Is that right? Mark hasn’t heard about that before, but he guesses he doesn’t have much of a frame of reference. “I dreamt I had a sister.”
“A sister?” Irving echoes. “Was she Helly, or Ms Casey? Or perhaps Ms Cobel?”
“Someone else,” Mark says, trying to call her back into his mind. Devon. He felt so fond of her, in his dream.
Did his subconscious just make up a woman based vaguely on Mark’s own face? Or is it possible...?
-
Lettering gets caught straight away, in ink or pencil, on paper or on skin. But paper itself can get through the detectors; Mark finds tissues in his pockets on a fairly regular basis.
He experimented with sending messages in his early days at Lumon. The consequences were enough to make him abandon the effort before long, and the thought of attempting it again makes his stomach clench.
But he has to know if he saw anything real in his dream. If he actually has a sister.
He tries cutting some small shapes out of the corner of a sheet of paper: an H, an I. Tapes them together, front and back, so the word HI is encased in a clear strip of tape.
They’re not written letters. They’re just bits of paper in the shape of letters. Is that something the code detectors will be able to pick up on?
He puts the tape into his pocket before he heads to the elevator, bracing himself for the break room.
No alarms. The elevator rises as usual, switches to descending as usual.
When he checks his pocket, the same piece of tape is in there. For a moment, he thinks that his outie hasn’t noticed it. But then he sees that a little paper question mark has been taped onto the end.
He looks at the HI? for a long moment, feeling excited and nervous and sick.
It works. He can get messages to his outie. It’s not ideal; cutting letters out of paper is a pretty slow, laborious way of communicating anything, and it’s hard to do subtly, so he’ll need to keep it short. But it works.
He cuts another message out in brief intervals over the course of the day, careful to keep it concealed from his colleagues and the security cameras. SIS DEVON?
That gets a response from his outie on a fresh piece of tape: U KNOW????
Must have taken him a while to cut out four question marks. Apparently Mark’s outie really wants to know more about this.
So she’s real. She’s real, isn’t she? He wouldn’t react like that if there weren’t anything to it. Mark can’t remember anything of his life outside, but apparently it can creep into his dreams somehow.
He has a sister; he knows her name. Devon.
He doesn’t really know anything else about her; he doesn’t know her personality, he hasn’t heard her voice. He can’t even know for certain that she looks the way he dreamt her. But, from the way he felt in his dream, he knows that he loves her. It’s strange, loving someone he’s never met.
IN DREAM, Mark replies.
He puts a hand into his pocket as he steps out of the elevator, expecting another strip of tape, and finds a piece of paper instead.
He draws it out to take a surreptitious look once he’s at his workstation. It’s a clumsy drawing in pencil: a stick figure sitting in front of a screen, their head and arms resting on the surface of their desk. There’s a question mark taped onto the paper next to it.
Drawing is not encouraged at Lumon; it’s not a way Mark is used to communicating. It takes him a moment to make sense of the message here: you’ve been sleeping at work?
He finds himself looking back at the drawing throughout the day, over and over again. That’s me. My outie drew me.
As the end of the day approaches, it hits him that he should probably actually respond. He draws an arrow to the sleeping figure and, next to it, his best effort at depicting himself giving an apologetic little shrug.
The alarm goes off when he’s in the elevator.
Fuck.
He tries to pretend he was just doodling at his desk, just forgot the picture was in his pocket. Graner and Milchick don’t seem to suspect that he’s already in communication with his outie, fortunately. But it still gets him a lecture about ‘romanticising sleep’ and a day in the break room.
“I don’t think we need to pick this up tomorrow,” Milchick says, as Mark’s leaving time approaches. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t prove me wrong.”
Mark gets into the elevator, feeling a little dazed, a little detached from his body; he always does after the break room. It doesn’t occur to him to check his pockets until he’s back at his desk the next day.
There’s a strip of tape in there. OK?
Mark stares at it. He hasn’t been able to send any messages the last two days: the first was the day he got caught, the second was a solid day under Milchick’s eye in the break room. Is his outie worried about him?
CAREFUL DRAWING – NO ARROWS, he sends back.
It’s a longer message than he’d like to send; he gets more anxious with every second he spends cutting out the letters. But it’s important. He thinks the arrow is probably what set off the code detectors; it’s too clear and intentional a symbol to get past. He doesn’t want his outie to get in trouble trying to communicate with him, wind up in... the break room outside? Is there a break room outside?
HAPPY? his outie asks.
Mark wasn’t expecting that. He isn’t really sure how to answer.
Is he happy? He misses Petey. He’s never seen the sky. He loves a sister he’ll never meet. He works and works and works and works, knowing he’ll never have the chance to do anything else.
But there are things he likes about his existence. He likes his team. He likes getting these messages from his outie. He even finds the work satisfying, sometimes. If he says he’s unhappy here, will his outie quit; will Mark leave the office with that message in his pocket and never wake up again?
SOMETIMES, he replies. U?
The end of the day never meant much to him before. He finds himself impatiently looking forward to it, wanting to know what his outie will say. But there’s nothing in his pocket the next morning.
Nothing the day after, either. Did his outie get caught trying to send a response back? Or is he just not responding, for some reason? Mark isn’t sure whether he should send a new message.
The next morning, though, there’s something in his pocket. Mark isn’t entirely prepared for the intensity of his relief when he finds it there. He draws out a strip of tape; it’s longer than usual.
WHITE CORRIDOR DREAMS – THERE?
Huh. Even if Mark has dreamt about his life on the outside, it somehow hadn’t occurred to him that his outie might dream about his life in return. It’s strange; it makes him so conscious that they’re the same person.
He untapes the message, carefully, and rearranges it to say WHITE CORRIDORS HERE. He hides the unused letters in his drawer; he might be able to use them for future messages.
-
The message about his outie’s dreams gets Mark thinking. He’d like to know more about his life outside this place, and, although he could technically ask his outie about it, he can only send short messages. He doesn’t really know where to start asking.
But his dream gave him a starting point, before; his dream told him about Devon. If he sleeps at work again, maybe there’s a chance he’ll learn more?
It’s risky, and he’s very aware that it’s risky, which means it’s hard to get to sleep. Whenever he closes his eyes, he finds his skin prickling, his heart racing, his whole body overcome with the dread of the break room.
When he actually manages it, after days of trying, it turns out to be a wasted effort. He doesn’t dream about anything on the outside; he just dreams about kissing Ms Casey, which is weird and confusing and kind of embarrassing. He hopes he’ll be able to put it out of his mind before his next wellness session.
It does put a potential question in his mind, at least.
MARRIED? he asks his outie.
It’s two days before he gets a response. NO.
This is set in the first season and has no spoilers for the second!
Title: Double-Sided
Fandom: Severance
Rating: G
Wordcount: 1,600
Summary: Mark and his outie find a way to communicate.
Someone is hugging Mark. His sister, a part of him knows. Devon.
She draws back, looks into his eyes. She has dark hair, like him. Their noses are similar, their mouths. It reminds Mark of how he used to stare into the mirror in the Lumon bathroom, looking for his outie in his own face.
His sister? He has a sister?
Mark jerks awake at his desk.
Fuck.
He looks around frantically, catches Irving’s eye. Fuck. Of all the people to notice he’s dozed off on the job – he’s probably reported it already, Mark might as well head to the break room right now—
“Well,” Irving says, quietly, “I can’t say I approve, but I suppose we can’t always help it if our outies have been getting insufficient sleep.”
Oh, right. It makes sense that Irving might understand; he’s been known to fall asleep himself. “Thanks.”
“Did you dream of the black substance?”
“The black substance?”
“A viscous black substance,” Irving says. “It appears in most dreams, I think.”
Is that right? Mark hasn’t heard about that before, but he guesses he doesn’t have much of a frame of reference. “I dreamt I had a sister.”
“A sister?” Irving echoes. “Was she Helly, or Ms Casey? Or perhaps Ms Cobel?”
“Someone else,” Mark says, trying to call her back into his mind. Devon. He felt so fond of her, in his dream.
Did his subconscious just make up a woman based vaguely on Mark’s own face? Or is it possible...?
Lettering gets caught straight away, in ink or pencil, on paper or on skin. But paper itself can get through the detectors; Mark finds tissues in his pockets on a fairly regular basis.
He experimented with sending messages in his early days at Lumon. The consequences were enough to make him abandon the effort before long, and the thought of attempting it again makes his stomach clench.
But he has to know if he saw anything real in his dream. If he actually has a sister.
He tries cutting some small shapes out of the corner of a sheet of paper: an H, an I. Tapes them together, front and back, so the word HI is encased in a clear strip of tape.
They’re not written letters. They’re just bits of paper in the shape of letters. Is that something the code detectors will be able to pick up on?
He puts the tape into his pocket before he heads to the elevator, bracing himself for the break room.
No alarms. The elevator rises as usual, switches to descending as usual.
When he checks his pocket, the same piece of tape is in there. For a moment, he thinks that his outie hasn’t noticed it. But then he sees that a little paper question mark has been taped onto the end.
He looks at the HI? for a long moment, feeling excited and nervous and sick.
It works. He can get messages to his outie. It’s not ideal; cutting letters out of paper is a pretty slow, laborious way of communicating anything, and it’s hard to do subtly, so he’ll need to keep it short. But it works.
He cuts another message out in brief intervals over the course of the day, careful to keep it concealed from his colleagues and the security cameras. SIS DEVON?
That gets a response from his outie on a fresh piece of tape: U KNOW????
Must have taken him a while to cut out four question marks. Apparently Mark’s outie really wants to know more about this.
So she’s real. She’s real, isn’t she? He wouldn’t react like that if there weren’t anything to it. Mark can’t remember anything of his life outside, but apparently it can creep into his dreams somehow.
He has a sister; he knows her name. Devon.
He doesn’t really know anything else about her; he doesn’t know her personality, he hasn’t heard her voice. He can’t even know for certain that she looks the way he dreamt her. But, from the way he felt in his dream, he knows that he loves her. It’s strange, loving someone he’s never met.
IN DREAM, Mark replies.
He puts a hand into his pocket as he steps out of the elevator, expecting another strip of tape, and finds a piece of paper instead.
He draws it out to take a surreptitious look once he’s at his workstation. It’s a clumsy drawing in pencil: a stick figure sitting in front of a screen, their head and arms resting on the surface of their desk. There’s a question mark taped onto the paper next to it.
Drawing is not encouraged at Lumon; it’s not a way Mark is used to communicating. It takes him a moment to make sense of the message here: you’ve been sleeping at work?
He finds himself looking back at the drawing throughout the day, over and over again. That’s me. My outie drew me.
As the end of the day approaches, it hits him that he should probably actually respond. He draws an arrow to the sleeping figure and, next to it, his best effort at depicting himself giving an apologetic little shrug.
The alarm goes off when he’s in the elevator.
Fuck.
He tries to pretend he was just doodling at his desk, just forgot the picture was in his pocket. Graner and Milchick don’t seem to suspect that he’s already in communication with his outie, fortunately. But it still gets him a lecture about ‘romanticising sleep’ and a day in the break room.
“I don’t think we need to pick this up tomorrow,” Milchick says, as Mark’s leaving time approaches. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t prove me wrong.”
Mark gets into the elevator, feeling a little dazed, a little detached from his body; he always does after the break room. It doesn’t occur to him to check his pockets until he’s back at his desk the next day.
There’s a strip of tape in there. OK?
Mark stares at it. He hasn’t been able to send any messages the last two days: the first was the day he got caught, the second was a solid day under Milchick’s eye in the break room. Is his outie worried about him?
CAREFUL DRAWING – NO ARROWS, he sends back.
It’s a longer message than he’d like to send; he gets more anxious with every second he spends cutting out the letters. But it’s important. He thinks the arrow is probably what set off the code detectors; it’s too clear and intentional a symbol to get past. He doesn’t want his outie to get in trouble trying to communicate with him, wind up in... the break room outside? Is there a break room outside?
HAPPY? his outie asks.
Mark wasn’t expecting that. He isn’t really sure how to answer.
Is he happy? He misses Petey. He’s never seen the sky. He loves a sister he’ll never meet. He works and works and works and works, knowing he’ll never have the chance to do anything else.
But there are things he likes about his existence. He likes his team. He likes getting these messages from his outie. He even finds the work satisfying, sometimes. If he says he’s unhappy here, will his outie quit; will Mark leave the office with that message in his pocket and never wake up again?
SOMETIMES, he replies. U?
The end of the day never meant much to him before. He finds himself impatiently looking forward to it, wanting to know what his outie will say. But there’s nothing in his pocket the next morning.
Nothing the day after, either. Did his outie get caught trying to send a response back? Or is he just not responding, for some reason? Mark isn’t sure whether he should send a new message.
The next morning, though, there’s something in his pocket. Mark isn’t entirely prepared for the intensity of his relief when he finds it there. He draws out a strip of tape; it’s longer than usual.
WHITE CORRIDOR DREAMS – THERE?
Huh. Even if Mark has dreamt about his life on the outside, it somehow hadn’t occurred to him that his outie might dream about his life in return. It’s strange; it makes him so conscious that they’re the same person.
He untapes the message, carefully, and rearranges it to say WHITE CORRIDORS HERE. He hides the unused letters in his drawer; he might be able to use them for future messages.
The message about his outie’s dreams gets Mark thinking. He’d like to know more about his life outside this place, and, although he could technically ask his outie about it, he can only send short messages. He doesn’t really know where to start asking.
But his dream gave him a starting point, before; his dream told him about Devon. If he sleeps at work again, maybe there’s a chance he’ll learn more?
It’s risky, and he’s very aware that it’s risky, which means it’s hard to get to sleep. Whenever he closes his eyes, he finds his skin prickling, his heart racing, his whole body overcome with the dread of the break room.
When he actually manages it, after days of trying, it turns out to be a wasted effort. He doesn’t dream about anything on the outside; he just dreams about kissing Ms Casey, which is weird and confusing and kind of embarrassing. He hopes he’ll be able to put it out of his mind before his next wellness session.
It does put a potential question in his mind, at least.
MARRIED? he asks his outie.
It’s two days before he gets a response. NO.