Work Text:
Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Oh, Thursday doesn't even start
It's Friday, I'm in love.
Irving doesn’t breathe until he pulls his tie off at the stoplight.
It’s always stressful going in and out of Lumon. Even though he remembers only 20 minutes total of his days there, every second of those 20 minutes brings a chorus of voices into his head, voices whispering what if they finally figured you out.
It’s not until he’s a little away from the building that he can relax a bit, try to unwind. Put on his daily allowance of non-Motorhead music and listen to what his body is telling him. It was important to try to get at least some sense of what his other self had experienced. To see if there were any revelations to be found within his own body. He’d learned by now to track down not only the more obvious physical sensations, but the emotional ones, the lingering chemicals that had fired through his other self’s mind.
He closes his eyes for a second while waiting for the light to turn. Tries to feel for anything. Any aches in his knuckles, pain in his throat, stiffness in his spine, lingering feelings of hopelessness.
Today he doesn’t find any of that. He feels…well he feels pretty good actually.
He flips on the radio. He’d bought into satellite radio, one of the few indulgences he’d allowed himself. Honestly it was almost a necessity in Kier. The last interesting radio station had fled when the college in Ganz had shut down, taking student radio with it. Now it was all just nationally syndicated top 40 stations or those few unsettling local Lumon stations that played through Kier Eagan’s writings. You’d have to waterboard Irving before he'd be willing to listen to that.
He flips through his presets, looking for something that fits his mood.
Let's go dancing on the backs of the bruis-
-t night like me, the atomic punk-
-telling you now of my state-
And then Irving hit upon a familiar tune, a song just starting.
Usually, this one wasn’t for him. He knew some of the words through osmosis, The Cure was everywhere in the circles he ran in when he was younger. But he’d always found this particular song bit corny, a bit too sweet for his tastes. Perhaps he'd already been a bit too old and cynical by the time of its release.
Today though, he found himself humming along. Even singing a little of the chorus, smiling to himself.
The sky was pretty tonight. Usually, Irving hated the realities of being severed in the winter, of scarcely seeing the sun. But tonight through his windshield, he could see stars shining above him, could pick out all of Orion’s belt.
There’d been some new snow during the day, and he knew Radar would be excited when he got home, would jump around like he was a puppy again.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the song.
The weekend was only a few days off. Maybe he’d take some time, go out of town for a bit, try to meet someone to have some fun with. It had been a while, but hey, life was short. Shorter still when you were severed. Might as well try to make the most of it, at least occasionally. He had been very dedicated to the cause lately, he perhaps deserved a short reprieve.
He found himself grinning as he hugged the road’s curves, singing more loudly than he normally would.
Usually Irving felt stressed, felt hopeless, felt like he was up against a behemoth he had no hope of beating. But today…well maybe what he was doing would make a difference. Maybe everything would be alright.
Burt knew he should be stressed. Even with his job, they were still having issues with the mortgage. Not to mention the payments for his sister in law’s nursing facility.
Yet today he couldn’t stop smiling. Milchick had given him a way out of all their problems. The package Lumon had unexpectedly offered was incredibly generous. It would let them pay off the mortgage, the nursing facility, would even let them take a trip to kick off his long overdue retirement.
He wasn’t certain he’d take it, they still had to work out some details. But he couldn’t wait to get home and discuss it, reveal that they could finally get the next stage of their lives started.
Things had been so good lately. Burt had just felt so light, almost giddy. His husband had remarked on the spring in his step, said Burt looked ten years younger. This news would just be the cherry on top of the sundae.
He turned on that fancy satellite radio he’d gotten last Christmas. It was stuck on some 80’s station, he always had issues changing the channel. But it was on a bubbly love song, so he decided to let it play.
Burt decided to stop off at the fancy candy shop over on Gerhardt Street. Pick up something sweet. Maybe he’d stop by the liquor store and get some champagne too. The doctor would be mad, but screw it. He wanted to make tonight special.
He hummed to himself in time with the music, smiling all the while.