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Scout can feel their body drifting to sleep. Scout. That's the name he's started to go by ever since Mark began to cohabit their body full-time- and it is 'their' body. Mark is in the driving seat right now, which means Scout is somewhere deeper, lingering at the top layer of the subconscious, but he can go deeper. He can always go deeper, but he's in the shallows right now, swimming around in the temporal lobe. If he concentrates, he can hear their body breathing softly. In and out.
Their breathing.
Mark's thoughts are hidden from him, parts of the brain shut off and dormant. They'd realised two days ago that they can't access parts of the brain when one of them's asleep- the parts of the brain responsible for higher reasoning and math are the most glaringly absent- and they always need the two of them present for that.
As he sinks deeper, he becomes less aware of their body, but all the more aware of himself.
Petey's reintegration had been more violent than this. From what little he knows of if, it seemed as if Petey's outie had overwritten the other personality, then devoured it and its memories whole like a game of Pacman. Here and now, Scout is happy to let Mark take the lead- hell, he'd half been hoping that Mark would devour him- a process which has led to interesting results.
Sleeping is one of Mark's favorite things to do, which gives Scout plenty of time to rootle around in his memories. Mark typically sleeps for ten hours if he can, which he supposes makes sense. If he'd been trapped in a room for eight-hour increments his entire life, he would need to catch up on sleep, too.
Mark has a lot of unprocessed memories and trauma- their subconscious is mostly backlogged with stuff from Lumen- which is fine by Scout. He doesn't want to think about Gemma any more than he has to- the fact that she's alive has only complicated his grief, and validated his complete and utter refusal to move on. It's a difficult situation to be in: in many ways, Lumen had taken everything from him, but it has also given him a new life. If only Mark would let him sleep forever…
If he concentrates, he can feel his body, but he knows from experience that he can't push too hard, or Mark will wake up. When they're asleep, the man sort of dissolves into the hippocampus,
He remembers what Petey had said- "right now, my severed memories are all the way back with my fifth birthday". That isn't a problem for them- chronologically, Mark's memories are just over two years old, and, strictly speaking, he's only been alive for 30,000 hours. That was the first thing Scout had felt immensely guilty about- Until recently, Mark had never experienced a weekend.
The error with Petey’s reintegration, it was decided, was that they had tried to make him whole again- one entire person, with a jumble of memories. The true breakthrough in undoing the damage of the Severance procedure came from doctors who had experience with schizophrenic patients, and certain DID advocates. Those who existed as systems had suggested that the severed patients should learn to live with their alter-egos rather than attempt to exorcise them; as every previous attempt had resulted in death.
So far, it has worked: they merely removed the remote controls which triggered the personality switch, and instead allowed the severed employees to work out how best to divvy up their time outside the workplace. Ever since the severed floor had been shut down, Scout had become overindulgent. Take the weekend. Take Monday. Take another day. Take all our time, Mark. After all, it's what you were made for.
It takes some getting used to, the idea that there's a part of him which will forever be a stranger in his own mind, though that part was never news to him. Scout never recognised the person he became when he drank, and, to that end, Mark has gotten them into some healthy habits, kicking the booze and finding more proactive measures to fight their depression- proof, if ever, that depression is a disease which runs brain-deep. No matter how optimistic Mark is, the veins are embedded like mold.
“I love you.” The words spill from his mouth without much thought, like he's following some sort of unspoken script. For a moment, Scout wonders which one of them said it, and he looks down at his hands. They still look like his own, but they're slightly calloused, and infinitely more dexterous.
There's a flash of memory, fleeting and brilliant. Hands caressing his face, soft fingers . Scout dreams that he's experienced the touch of these hands before: brushing away tears, stroking his hair, squeezing his shoulders. He repeats the motions now, petting Mark's hair as he leans into himself, and Scout marvels at it. It should feel surreal, comforting himself, but, somehow, it all feels right.
After all, that's what you were made for.
For the last two years, Mark S. has experienced all of his pain for him,
It suddenly occurs to him that there's a chance he's still remembering events as they actually happened: that perhaps he's taken the place of someone who actually cared about Mark; who took care of him.
Petey, he realises; and, again, his face is touched by ghostly fingers. Mark stirs beneath him, and Scout winds his fingers through his hair, whispering "it's okay, it's okay” beneath his breath. He would look like a maniac, if he wasn't sitting alone in his living room.
No. Almost alone, in their living room. Alone as he ever was, but responsible for himself in a way that he's never been before.
He thinks that, maybe, he might be playing Petey’s part, reenacting every movement he made- but perhaps that's just a pipe dream. It's comforting to think that there might have been someone there for Mark; someone to hold and comfort him in his time of need. It would certainly assuage his guilt about leaving him down there in the dark, where the fluorescent lights flickered like an artificial sun.
It's strange, existing in this noncorporeal state where his own existence is merely hypothetical- in a place where he can step in and out of dream and memory as easily as if they were mere doorways. He remembers the video that had played at Petey's funeral, the song he had played with his daughter- Enter Sandman. He hadn't thought much about it at the time, but recently he's been reevaluating what they know about Lumon- how Irving's Outie would dream of the same restricted doorway every night, the thousands of paintings of it which he recreated in his house- and Scout has to admit that this corridor looks eerily familiar. Like something he's seen in a dream.
Perhaps it's just the creeping realisation that his body has been there before, without him.
Sleepwalking.
“Scout?” Mark whispers.
Scout smiles feebly. “I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you up.”
Mark gives him a small smile. “We're still asleep.”
Scout wonders if it should worry him, the fact that he can't sense their body. “I know,” he covers his worry smoothly. “I meant- you. Your mind.”
Mark watches him curiously, and then takes in their surroundings. “This is the corridor to the testing floor,” he says, quietly.
Scout shivers. ‘The testing floor,’ he repeats.
Mark had said it so casually, but something about it rubs him the wrong way, like the first time he'd woken up after the severance procedure, half-asleep and groggy. He can sense Mark going over the memories with interest, filing them away in a little box marked ‘later’, like he always does. His mind, of course, works like Scout's: curious, quick to action, and calm- the only difference is, when he feels his feelings, he’s able to resist the drink.
Scout allows himself to slip deeper into that almost-nowhere place beneath them, Mark’s presence a comforting weight in the driver’s seat. There are two of them now, and perhaps, with time, that'll mean double the opportunity to make mistakes- but, for now, he's happy to let him take the wheel.