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His outie's vehicle — surprisingly old, though Irving B isn’t quite certain exactly what a modern car looks like — jitters as he pulls it onto the street just in front of what he believes to be Burt G's home. Only minutes ago, rifling through the documents his outie had hidden in a trunk in his closet, Irving learned that the G in Burt’s name stands for Goodman — and that the B in Irving’s own name stands for Bailiff. If only he had the time, he’d locate a library and narrow down the origin of his surname for just a morsel of information about who he truly is — but Kier knows that the time he’s been afforded on the outside is far too precious to waste on such an indulgence. He promised himself and his colleagues that he would do everything in his meager power to burn Lumon to the ground, and that is exactly what he intends to do. Damn the consequences.
It’s a wonder, then, why Irving freezes in his seat when he catches sight of Burt in the window of his home, holding a book in his hands and smiling to himself as he paces the living room. The man jiggles a bit at the shoulders as if grooving to a tune that only he can hear. It’s only been hours since Burt G’s retirement — death, Irving painfully corrects himself, refusing to entertain Lumon’s pleasant, whitewashed vocabulary — but Irving misses the man as if he hasn’t seen him in decades. He’s almost astonished at the relief that floods his body, a smile gracing his face because Burt is alive, in some form or another — and Irving is lucky enough to witness perfect proof of it. Irving stares at him for a long moment, holding his breath, waiting for a wife or husband or lover to appear in the window and wrap their arms around Burt. No one comes. It’s only Burt, pacing and reading and swaying along to soundless music. Irving regrets that he’ll be the one responsible for tearing Burt out of that perfect peace.
Irving parks his outie’s car, sucks in a massive breath, and steps out into the snowy cold, rubbing his hands together as he ascends the steps to Burt’s door. As he gets closer to Burt, a slow, cold terror trickles into his stomach — a dense fear of his time running out before he has a chance to spill everything he knows. By the time he arrives at the door, the fear is overwhelming, consuming him, and he bangs on it with both hands and shouts Burt’s name.
When at last the door creaks open, the faint sound of a vaguely familiar song leaks out from the inch-wide crack. For a moment, all Irving sees is a single blue eye, wide and worried, peeking at him from the warmth of the one-story home.
“You’ve no idea how glad I am to have found you,” Irving breathes, his words fogging up in the cold. “I... I thought I’d never see you again.”
Burt’s eye squints, beautiful even in this state of suspicion. He opens the door a bit wider, leaning slightly forward to search his face. “Irving? Irving Bailiff?” He looks stunned. “I… if you wanted to talk, you coulda just called me any old time. After a while, I just assumed you’d tossed my number.”
Irving tilts his head. “I’m not the Irving you might know. I’m Irving’s innie. I worked with your innie at Lumon.”
Burt opens the door fully, the sweet aroma of fresh cookies billowing out from behind him. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t have much time to explain,” Irving says quickly, “but I need you to know what truly happens on the severed floor.”
“Irv…”
“He’s investigating Lumon,” Irving says. “My outie. I–I found documents from the company regarding severed employees, and he had a collection of newspapers about Lumon’s scandals, some dating back decades. Just tell him — tell him what I’m about to say to you. Perhaps you can help each other stop it.”
Burt opens and closes his mouth, looking at a loss for words. “Irv, I’m retired. They retired me. Wouldn't tell me why — I just assumed I’d gotten too old for their taste.”
Irving purses his lips. “I’m sorry, Burt. It was my fault. Well — it was our fault, if I may be frank.”
Burt raises a brow. “Our fault? I wasn't aware that it was anyone's fault.”
“We fell in love,” says Irving. “And they didn’t like that one bit.”
Burt pulls in a long breath, but Irving continues, “We worked for different departments. I was in Macrodata Refinement and you were the department chief for Optics and Design.”
Burt shakes his head, thoughtful. “And… our responsibilities?”
Irving wets his lips. Over the course of his three years in MDR, he made connections between Kier Egan’s literature and the data he spent his life refining at his desk. To explain MDR, it is necessary to explain the very foundation of Kier’s beliefs.
“Kier Eagan, the founder of Lumon, believed that the human soul is derived from four components, which he called tempers. According to Kier, each individual’s character is defined by the precise ratio that resides within them. The tempers are Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice. It was his belief that should an individual tame these tempers, they would be granted with what he called a ‘great and consecrated power.’ He hoped to pass this power onto all of us — his employees. His… his children.”
“So it’s a cult,” Burt says quietly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s been done a thousand times, this kind of personality typology,” Burt says. “Kier isn’t the first or last person to try to simplify the human character into categories. It’s hogwash every time. Just pseudoscience. And this language you’re using, Irving… great power; children… it’s troubling.”
Irving draws in a sharp breath, a stab of insult burning in his chest. For the briefest moment, he feels the impulse to defend the ideology he’s known since he woke on the severed floor. This Burt on the outside, with no memory of Kier’s lore or literature, has experience and knowledge that neither of them could have ever fathomed just days ago in their Lumon cage. According to Dylan G, the world beyond the severed floor was so apocalyptic that humanity had resorted to attempting to populate the sea — and Irving, being just as clueless, privately believed this theory to be halfway plausible.
This Burt knows moonlight and snowfall; knows a world beyond the works of Keir Egan and the children of his blood and industry. Counting the snowflakes that settle upon Burt’s hair, Irving decides that this Burt knows better, far better, than Irving ever could.
‘Be content in my words and dally not in the scholastic pursuits of lesser men,’ whispers Kier, like an infection, a disease. Irving reminds himself that Kier’s creation killed the man he loved.
“I believe you,” says Irving. “I do.”
Breathing a soft laugh, as if overwhelmed by Irving’s sincerity, Burt briefly glances away.
“There are four people in the MDR department," says Irving. "Myself, department chief Mark S, Dylan G, and our newest refiner, Helly R, who was brought in after our previous department chief, Petey K, was fired. Our job is to assess files that consist of a field of numbers. We identify and sort the numbers into one of four bins based on the different emotional responses they evoke in us: Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice.”
“Kier's Four Tempers,” Burt says, mostly to himself. “But that’s… how can numbers make you feel emotions? Surely the implant isn’t capable of something so… abstract.”
“I don’t know for certain if it is,” says Irving, “but can you think of any other explanation?”
Burt searches Irving’s face for a long moment, his brows furrowed in thought. “No. I can’t.” He licks his lips and continues, “So what do you think you’re actually doing down there? Obviously, your department sorts this field of numbers, but to what end? Is there some kind of purpose?”
Irving breathes a soft chuckle. “Whatever it is, we’re only assured that the work is ‘mysterious and important.’ For the longest time, I was convinced we were editing swear words out of movies,” he says, and Burt chuckles in a way that’s utterly infectious. “But over time, I’ve started to wonder if it isn’t something more sinister. If the work truly is innocuous, then why all of the secrecy? Why would we need to be severed to do it?”
Burt’s smile fades away, traded for a steely thoughtfulness. “I think you’re right,” he says. “There’s something going on.”
“Indeed.”
“And my department?” asks Burt. “I’ve been wondering for seven years what on earth I was up to that required me to wear that itchy coat. I was just glad I didn’t have to be aware most of the time I was wearing it,” he says, breaking into a laugh. “My poor innie must’ve hated it as much as I did.”
Irving chuckles, drinking in Burt’s soft laughter and recalling all the times he'd admired that very coat and been completely unaware that it drove Burt G mad to wear it. “For what it’s worth, I thought it looked lovely.”
“Oh, you did?” Burt graces him with a teasing smile and a quirk of his brow. “In that case, I suppose I can’t be too upset about it.”
A wave of warmth rising to his cheeks, Irving averts his gaze to a pile of snow beside the doorstep and wills himself to focus. “Ostensibly, Optics and Design is a two-person department responsible for curating the artwork placed throughout the severed floor. You and your colleague, Felicia, rotated paintings and returned them to the storage room when they’d completed their rotation. You also designed and handed out new handbook tote bags.”
Burt nods, his expression pleasant, if slightly disappointed. “I always had a feeling I had the easiest job in the world.”
Irving breathes a laugh. “Yes, well. Perhaps it wasn’t as easy as you and Felicia led us to believe.”
Burt quirks a brow, intrigued.
“You see, Lumon doesn't want our departments to fraternize. They try to hide things from us, try to keep us separated so we won’t work against them. They had us so terrified of each other, your innie lied to us about the number of people in your department because the rest of them — six others, all hidden in a room behind the O&D storage room — believed we were monsters with pouches and larvae that would jump out and attack if you got too close.”
Burt laughs outright, the sound inviting and musical and stealing Irving’s breath. “You’ve gotta be exaggerating.”
“I swear to you, I’m not,” Irving says between hearty chuckles. “Dylan was convinced that your department had staged a violent coup years ago and murdered half of the floor with your bare hands.”
Burt wipes at his eyes, struggling to catch his breath. “What about the other members of my department, the ones I hid from you? What were they up to behind the O&D storage room?”
Irving racks his memory, conjuring the image of the room in his mind. “It was this massive room filled with giant machines that seemed to be… printing something. Some of you had printed watering cans, and one of your colleagues mentioned that the previous week, you all had been printing hatchets.”
Burt squints. “That doesn't make a lick of sense.”
“You’re right.” says Irving. “It doesn’t.” Irving chews his lip for a moment and studies Burt’s face. “Until recently, I had no clue where your department was even located… but then I encountered you for the first time outside of the wellness office, and we discussed the painting of the Four Tempers. I couldn't stop thinking about you ever since. Once we saw each other, Burt…” He swallows nothing, drinking in Burt’s eyes, the memory as fresh as a raindrop. “I was... we were smitten.”
Burt looks down at his house slippers, wetting his lips. With no small degree of satisfaction, Irving notes that his face has turned the slightest bit red. “Irv, I…”
“I suppose that’s how it all started. We met a few more times after that. Started seeking each other out. You touched my hand, we bonded over the paintings you hung up from O&D…”
Burt smiles at him, eyes wide and blue and pondering something, suspended in thought. “I can’t believe that for all these years, I’ve been playing around with 3D printers and hanging up paintings in an office.”
Irving breathes a laugh. “Yes. And they were beautiful paintings. Riveting, every last one of them. You were so proud of them, Burt. Proud of your work beyond anything I'd ever seen."
Burt smiles, warm and soft, and Irving spends an inordinate amount of time observing his lips before clearing his throat. “Mark and Helly also came upon a department that was by far the most bizarre yet. There wasn’t any clear reason why, but if they’re to be believed, there was just one man in a room filled with hay, nursing nearly a dozen baby goats. They tried to glean more information from him, but all he said was that the goats weren’t ready. Then he yelled at them and made them leave.”
Burt looks gobsmacked. “I… the goats weren’t ready for what?”
“That’s one of the things we wanted to figure out,” Irving says. “We eventually tried to unite our departments in an effort to find out what on earth Lumon was really doing with us, but the powers that be started locking MDR into our department so we couldn’t roam the halls. Started threatening us with the Break Room.”
Burt raises a brow. “Huh. A trip to the break room doesn’t sound so bad.”
“It is at Lumon,” Irving says. “They use it to enact punishments on employees who violate the rules."
"Punishments? They don't just give you three strikes and then can you? That sounds..."
"Extreme?" Irving bites his lip and takes a long, deep breath. "One day, a long time ago, I was caught dozing at my desk. They sent me to the Break Room and made me read a formal apology aloud over one thousand times until Mr. Milchick finally decided I was sincere enough to return to my desk." He shuffles on his feet, willing himself to repeat it. "It goes... 'Forgive me for the harm I have caused this world. None may atone for my actions but me and only in me shall their stain live on. I am thankful to have been caught, my fall cut short by those with wizened hands. All I can be is sorry... and that is all I am.'”
Burt gasps, soft and silent. “Irving, that's… that’s torture.”
Irving nods, feeling the apology tremble beneath his skin. Doubtlessly, after tonight, he'll be forced to repeat it again and again until his voice fails him and he can no longer speak. “Mark says they do even worse things in there. I’m just lucky I’ve only been there once.”
“Did… did this Mark of yours ever tell you what else they do in the Break Room?”
Irving licks his lips, looks at his shoes, and takes a long, shaky breath. “He wouldn’t say. But one time, when he came back, his hair was… wet for some reason. I can only imagine why. He can be a bit unprofessional at times, but no one, not even Mark, deserves to be... tortured, as you called it.”
Burt blinks, appearing to process the horror. Irving purses his lips. He hates seeing that pain on his face, the shock, the worry — so he moves on. “Eventually, they retired you. They must have seen us fraternizing on the cameras. I don’t know if it was the hand thing, or if it was when you tried to kiss me that did us in.”
Burt puts up a hand, shaking his head slowly. “Hold on a moment. Lumon retired me because I tried to kiss you?”
“I suspect our attempt to unite our departments had more to do with it, but — yes.” A brief silence passes between them, and Irving smiles, tentative, weak. “It’s against the handbook, you know. Relationships beyond the platonic.”
Burt chuckles. “I suspect once I got my hands on you, I wasn’t all that concerned with the handbook, was I?”
Irving grins — grins, on a bitter night like this. “You said it yourself: you were more of a first edition guy.”
Burt breathes a shaky laugh, his eyes falling back down to the snow-covered doorstep. He nods, slow, thoughtful, and Irving recognizes the familiar sight of him organizing his thoughts behind those bottomless blue eyes. “We fell in love,” he says softly, after a long moment. “Funny.”
Irving feels a tingle of nerves in his stomach, jumpy and uncomfortable. “How is it funny?”
Burt meets his eyes with a soft, sad smile. “I think it’s better if you didn’t know.”
Irving opens his mouth, considering pushing the subject, but finds that in this brief time with Burt, he doesn’t want to be flooded with disappointment; finds that he doesn’t want to remember him for whatever bad memories conjured the dreary smile on his face. Searching the eyes of Burt’s outie, Irving recalls the man between the shelves of O&D, his face shadowed by boxes, winking and whispering, ‘come here.’ How readily Irving had followed, as if tethered to the man by his very heart.
On impulse, he leans in and kisses him, gentle, soft, his chest filling with heat at the sensation of Burt’s quiet gasp against him. Drinking in the scent of chocolate chip cookies on Burt’s clothes and the velvet warmth of his lips, Irving burns from head to toe, his bones dissolving like ash in the winter wind. When he pulls away, slowly so as not to startle either of them, he finds that his hand has gravitated to Burt’s cheek, his thumb gently brushing the wrinkles beneath his eye with a tender sort of reverence. Burt’s eyes are closed, his breaths warm and shaky. They press their foreheads together, and Irving recalls the quiet moment they shared in that room of faux plants, warm and tender and perfectly peaceful.
‘No higher purpose may be found than this,’ Kier whispers. ‘Nor any higher love.’
“I never got to kiss you, you know. At Lumon,” Irving murmurs, his own rough voice unfamiliar to his ears. “I–I was too afraid. I was a coward.”
“You weren’t a coward,” Burt says softly.
“I was brainwashed. All I cared about was the damn handbook, and I let it get in the way of—”
“Kiss me again,” Burt whispers. Opening his eyes, he locks his gaze on Irving’s. The blue has nearly disappeared, his pupils fully dilated. “I’ve missed the taste of your lips after all this time.”
Irving gasps softly, his eyes roving Burt’s face. “You mean…”
At some point, sometime in the past, Irving’s outie loved Burt — and Burt loved him. Irving is so taken aback, so frozen in this realization, that Burt reaches the end of his patience and kisses him anyway, tilting his head so their lips fit together just right. Smoothing his hands up Irving’s arms and shoulders, Burt’s touch burns hot even through Irving’s leather jacket. Suddenly, the punishing cold doesn't matter. With a quiet whimper against Burt’s lips, Irving smooths his hands into his hair and pulls him closer, shuddering at the softness of him, the warmth of him, the faint taste of chocolate on his tongue.
“Come inside, Irv,” Burt breathes, pulling back just enough to murmur against his lips. “Let me—”
Too soon, far too soon, Irving B disappears. Stiffening, Irving gasps against someone’s lips at the sudden biting cold on his face and the electric heat thrumming through his body. The rhythmic crash and bang of Motörhead has been replaced by an entirely different melody: a jazzy Frank Sinatra record humming quietly beneath the gasping winter wind that whips at Irving’s ears and naked wrists. His fingers are buried in short, soft hair, his senses overwhelmed with the scent of chocolate. Irving should jump away, should hurry back a few blind steps and topple down the concrete stairs behind him, but instead, he slowly pulls away, his body seeming to know that the gentle hands on his shoulders belong to—
“Burt?”
“Irv,” Burt says, his voice soft and gentle and perfect, just like Irving remembered it. His face is glowing, gentle red and graced with a few more wrinkles than when Irving last saw him. He’s no less striking for the added age. In times good and bad, Burt was always beautiful.
When Burt smooths his hands down Irving's arms and drops them away, he immediately misses his tender, familiar touch. “When did I… ” Irving looks around, slowly lowering his hands from Burt's hair. It’s still nighttime, and he’s standing on a doorstep, Burt’s familiar living room bathed in yellow light beyond the threshold, emitting warmth and sugar and soft music. “Burt, I have no idea how the hell I got here.”
“I’ll explain everything,” Burt says, and guides him into the home Irving thought he’d never enter again. “You’re not gonna believe it, but — oh, take off your jacket and sit down, Irv, there’s cookies on the coffee table.”
“Cookies?” Irving murmurs, because he’s otherwise speechless. With only a moment's hesitation, he slides off his jacket and hangs it up right where he used to years ago.
Burt closes and locks the door behind them, and Irving sits in his old spot on Burt’s couch, wiggling into the cushions and feeling entirely out of place. Sinatra’s sultry voice emanates from Burt’s record player, crooning, ‘Don’t you know, little fool…’
“Remind me, Burt, how on earth I ended up here, won't you? One second, I was painting like crazy, and the other, I was — kissing you?” Irving suppresses a warm shudder, his neck immediately catching fire at the fresh memory of Burt’s lips and his sweet, chocolate taste. Just to look at something else, he grabs a cookie from the plate on the coffee table, the pastry still warm and gooey. “I thought we — well, I thought we broke it off.”
“I did too,” Burt says, and seats himself on the couch beside him, a polite distance away, as if they weren’t just kissing like lovestruck fools. “Like I said, you’re not gonna believe this, but I just had the most lovely — and frankly terrifying — encounter with your innie, of all people.”
Irving nearly chokes on his cookie — which is familiarly delicious — and spends a moment coughing until Burt hands him a cup of milk to wash it down. Irving doesn’t even spare a moment to be uncomfortable drinking after him. “That’s impossible,” he says after he’s caught his breath. But even he, in all his pessimism, knows that no man could drive a car halfway across the city in his sleep.
“I thought so, too. But here we are,” says Burt, and he gestures with a cookie to indicate the bizarreness of their situation.
With a hum of wry agreement, Irving tips his milk glass in Burt’s direction in a silent toast. Burt smiles in that teasing way of his, subtle and sly. It turns Irving’s insides to water as if it were the first time he’s seen it, and for some reason, this almost feels like a date. Irving places the milk on the coffee table and turns to the side to look at Burt more directly, their knees brushing together, burning where they touch. For a long, simmering moment, they simply look at each other, faint smiles on their faces, and Irving’s mouth tingles with the ghost of Burt’s lips.
‘I would sacrifice anything, come what might, for the sake of having you near…’
Irving clears his throat and blinks himself out of his reverie. “I suppose this is where we catch up, then? Of course, after you fill me in on what you and my innie got up to while I was in the backseat of my own brain — after hours, no less.”
With a hearty chuckle, Burt grins and holds out a hand to him, which Irving takes with very little hesitation. Irving finds that he misses the softness and heat of Burt’s touch, the gentleness of his fingers, the weight that's all too familiar even after their years apart.
“There’s that classic confidence of yours,” says Burt. “You know, I think you’d be surprised by just how… tentative your innie was. He seemed much more introverted than I’ve known you to be, even despite being in such a hurry.”
Irving tilts his head, eyes searching Burt’s face. “Really? That’s quite curious.”
Burt gives a playful little shrug. “Yes, well. I’ll tell you all about him. But first, I gotta ask…” He pointedly looks at Irving’s lap, and Irving follows his gaze, immediately horrified to find himself still donning the baggy jeans he wore while painting to the sound of Motörhead. The worn old fabric is thoroughly soiled with black and white smears all over, almost obscenely unflattering. “Why are your pants covered in paint?”
Irving breathes an uneasy chuckle and meets Burt’s eyes. “I think it’s time I tell you about my investigation."
“And I think it’s time I tell you about our innies.”
Irving smiles and sits back, stroking the back of Burt's hand with a tender thumb. “You first."
"You got it."
Then Burt tells him everything.