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By now, Mark feels like he's gotten pretty good at handling the sudden jar of feeling different in between floors in the elevator. He's used to steeling himself through the disorienting sensations filtering in all at once, regardless of what they are — swollen eyes, or a splitting headache, or a dizzy lack of balance, or something else entirely. Whatever it is his outie does out there in the world, Mark feels like he's developed a pretty good sense of what to expect by now, and all the different ways to adjust himself to compensate for it all.
What he isn't expecting, though, is to have to contend with the sudden electrifying pain humming through the entirety of his right leg. It isn't something he's ever felt before — on the elevator or off it — which is why the shudder of the elevator coming to a halt nearly knocks him off his feet for the first time in his life.
He fumbles to get a grip on the grab bars near his hip, hampered by the disorientation and the fact that he's never had to use them before, and hears himself cry out in surprise when his hand just slips off the bar instead of managing a grip on it. 'What the fuck?' he thinks plaintively as he feels himself start to fall, utterly unable to catch himself.
"Oh dear," Mr. Milchick grunts, surging forward into the small space and barely managing to catch Mark around the waist before he slams his head against the elevator's back wall.
"Uh," Mark chokes out, bewildered, trying to pull away and not quite succeeding. Part of it is the fact that Milchick's grip is as firm and unwavering as it always has been, but the fact that Mark can't quite seem to get his feet planted correctly beneath him isn't helping. His right leg doesn't feel the way it should — buzzing with pain and half-numb around the joints Mark expects to take his weight. He glances down and catches sight of a clunky brace locked tight around his knee, and tries to figure out where it came from. 'What the fuck?' he thinks again, reeling with it.
This isn't how he'd been expecting his day to go.
'Just calm down,' some part of his brain thinks reassuringly, but Mark's attention catches on the proximity of Milchick saying, "Just take a deep breath Mark, alright? We can address any questions you may feel you have in just a moment. Now, are you able to walk, or should I get Dylan to come in and help us?"
Things have changed since Milchick took over Cobel's job, but not that much. Can you figure it out, or do you need 'help' is always a trick question, the same way things offered upon request are. Mark had accepted once, out of spite, but he's not interested in pressing his luck any further.
His outie had gotten himself into the elevator, somehow, which means that Mark should be able to get himself out of it the same way.
"I'm," he chokes out, and the words keep stalling awkwardly in his throat. Like he has them on the tip of his tongue, not quite realized, but knows he should know them. It's strange, but Mark resolves not to think about it yet. He focuses on figuring out how to plant his right foot against the ground and keep it there, trying once again to pull away from Milchick's side so that he can swing his leg forward to step out. It's awkward, and Mark tries everything he can to avoid thinking about what a mess it must be to watch, feeling uncomfortably aware of Milchick at his side. He keeps his eyes on the ground, making sure there's nothing he might trip over and keeping a close eye on the way his leg moves, since he can't feel it well enough to keep track of it otherwise. Aside from the presence of the brace, Mark can't see anything wrong with it, but surely something has to be, for it to feel like this so suddenly.
It might have been easier to figure it out, if it wasn't for Milchick hovering so closely behind Mark's shoulder, staring so intently that Mark can feel the hairs on the nape of his neck rising, unsettled.
What the hell did his outie do?
Making his way out of the elevator is enough of a feat that Mark doesn't even want to think about the remainder of the walk he'll have to make to the MDR office. The trek through the halls can be long and tedious even on a good day, but Mark can tell it's taken minutes for him to manage what had taken only seconds yesterday. Is Mark still going to get in trouble for being late like this? Or for being in the hallways longer than he's supposed to be? If he is, Mark doesn't know if he knows how to fix that. He'd gotten good at staying out of trouble, before Petey died, but this is something he isn't sure he can handle. It isn't a choice he's making, so what does he do about it? It wouldn't be fair to punish Mark for something he can't control, right? But it's never stopped them before, and that's what worries him.
Milchick doesn't start to push Mark to get started on the walk to his office, though. Instead, he continues herding Mark straight, over to the chairs in the lobby that rarely ever get used. That can't be good, Mark thinks despairingly, but even if he could get the leverage to pull away from Milchick's grasp, Mark knows better than to think he can still run.
(Things have been different, lately, but not that much different. Mark had pushed just enough to prove it, and felt a twisted kind of reassured by the flat look in Mr. Milchick's eyes. "Did you tell her you fucked her outie at the ORTBO?", the threat implicit as it was familiar. The boundaries are still there, Mark just has to figure out where they are again.)
He startles when he looks up after finally managing to sit — braced awkwardly against the chair's arm where Milchick had pushed him too quickly, trying to catch up with the rest of his body — and sees Dylan and Helly both hovering awkwardly against the back wall. Mark feels his face flush, and he breaks the eye-contact to look down at the strange curl of his right hand in his lap where Milchick dropped it. They look uncomfortable, Mark thinks, mortified. Embarrassed for him. Having Mr. Milchick there so close, staring so intently at every faltering movement Mark made inside of his own body had been bad enough, but knowing it was all three of them makes it worse. Mark feels his skin crawling with the thought. He wants to ask them not to look, shout at them to go away, tell them to fuck off — anything to get their eyes off of him again.
Mark bites his tongue against the familiar pang and knows better than to push his luck.
Mr. Milchick sits in the armchair across from him and says, "Mark," in a voice that tells Mark that he won't keep going until Mark looks at all three of them. Aggrieved, Mark drags his gaze up to the minuscule gap left between Mr. Milchick's shoulder and the place where Helly stands behind him, looking stiff and uncomfortable. "Your outie has been absent from work for a few weeks now."
That gets him to actually look up to meet Helly's eyes, panic and alarm tightening in a band around his chest when she just nods, grim faced, instead of telling him that this is some kind of fucked up trick.
"He suffered from an accident," Milchick continues, "which has left him dealing with a disability."
Mark makes himself look Mr. Milchick in the eye, but even that doesn't seem to sway him into elaborating. "I..." Mark stammers, feeling the words pile up in his throat like something is pinning them there. 'Just breathe.' "-what?"
"That's it?" Helly finally speaks up for him, tone incredulous. "You're not going to tell us what happened? What's wrong with him?"
Mark swallows back a wince at the phrasing, because it is exactly what he wants to know, but he can't find himself surprised when all it gets them is Milchick giving Mark one of his flat, flinty looks.
"We here at Lumon take privacy and confidentiality very seriously," Mr. Milchick says stiffly, steadfastly ignoring the derisive scoffing noise Helly makes in response. "I cannot disclose the details of the accident without it being a serious violation of your outie's contract and privacy, Mark. We've spoken about this invasive curiosity of yours before; I will not assist you in enacting such an assault against a Lumon employee."
Part of Mark wants to share in Helly's outrage, pick his own back up and refuse to put it down again, but he doesn't bother. This might be a newer set of circumstances, but the core of Milchick's assertion is familiar and worn thin. Mark's body doesn't actually belong to him, and there's nothing he can do about it. He doesn't get to understand what happened to him, the same way he wasn't allowed to complain about the hangovers, or the hunger, or how frequently he used to show up unbathed — Mark exists to do the work, and nothing else.
He stares back at Milchick flatly, and decides to save his breath.
"Um," Mark starts instead, struggling a bit to get the question he needs to ask to travel from his head out of his mouth. This strange new need to fight to speak has to be part of it, of whatever disability had also changed his arm and his leg (Mark feels like he knows what it's called, somehow, but that word slips away from him too before he can pin it down). "Will I-, ... get in-," the words get stuck under his tongue, and Mark's jaw hangs open around the shape of them, working awkwardly under the weight of Mr. Milchick's placid, unwavering gaze. All three of them are watching, staring, as he struggles, and Mark fights not to flinch or flush or avert his gaze.
The only thing worse than being watched is knowing that they can tell how much it gets to him. Mark struggles for the word he needs and fixes his mask back in place and ignores the way his skin crawls under the weight of it all.
"Im-, penal-...ized, uh. In the, uhm, the-," Mark knows the word, but can't figure out how to say it. He gets the sense that this fruitless grasping is familiar to him now, or it will be soon enough. Mark gives up and points down the hallway to MDR with his left hand demonstratively.
"Yes," Mr. Milchick tells him, unhesitatingly calm. "This situation may take some adjustment, but it does not change the rules here, Mark. You will be expected to adhere to the same standards of behaviors as all of your coworkers, make it to your office on time, and refrain from spending excessive time wandering in the hallways."
"Did you see how slow he walks?" Dylan prods, in that strangely subdued way he's been lately. "Shouldn't he be in like, a wheelchair or something?"
"If your outie had been using a mobility aid," Mr. Milchick continues to tell Mark, seemingly ignoring the fact that Dylan had been the one to pose the question. Mark can't decide if he appreciates that or not — the extended amount of eye-contact reminds him too much of the break room. "Then you can rest assured it would have been allowed in the elevator with you, just like his leg brace was. If you feel as though you might benefit from a mobility aid, then I can have Miss Huang assist you in filling out a request form for your outie to review. Otherwise," he adds delicately, "If you have concerns about the duration of your hall passes, then I would recommend you avoid wandering too far, until you have developed a better grasp of your limitations."
It might not be a threat, yet, but it's pointed all the same. It doesn't come as a surprise. Mark understands the shape of it well enough — whatever happened to his body isn't any of his business, aside from the knowledge that Mark can still be held accountable and punished for the reality of it. Mr. Milchick hadn't lied: Mark's situation has shifted, but it hasn't changed.
"On that note," Mr. Milchick picks up seamlessly, more of his usual constructed warmth bleeding back into his voice. "Helly and Dylan, you may need to limit your use of the hall passes as well while Mark is experiencing this period of adjustment. An important part of being a good coworker is helping your fellow employees when they may need it, and I'm sure that Mark will be able to use that help more than ever."
"Although, Mark, if you have any concerns, I could always have Miss Huang move into the MDR office as a temporary measure, if you feel you may need the extra support."
Mark's stomach turns just thinking about it — of trying to get anything done under the weight of her eyes on his back, the knowledge that she'd be able to hear them no matter how softly they spoke, the awareness that she might choose to interrupt at any moment without a warning. Visceral and piercing and invasive in ways even worse than the cameras are. He shakes his head, grim.
"Then please make sure you are exercising caution," Mr. Milchick says seriously. "A fall could be extremely dangerous for you in this state. Do not take this matter lightly. Please be sure you are asking for help when you need it."
It's the closest thing Mr. Milchick has made to an outright threat so far, but Mark thinks there's a certain amount of sincerity in it too. Mark just isn't sure he knows where, or why.
"Yes, sir," Mark says anyway, automatic.
Milchick smiles. "In that case," he says brightly, clapping his hands. "Lets get you three back to MDR."
He stands to offer Mark a hand, which Mark knows better than to refuse. He reaches up to grasp it with his left hand, letting Mr. Milchick brace him as he pulls himself awkwardly back onto his feet, stumbling to get balanced when the sensation of Milchick putting a steadying hand on his ribs makes him flinch.
It's a foregone conclusion that Mr. Milchick is going to walk them all the way back to their office like children. What Mark doesn't expect is for Mr. Milchick to plant himself at Mark's immediate right — hovering too close for comfort and effectively blocking Dylan and Helly from walking around them to go on ahead. Mark swallows shakily and tries to hold back the nausea of it.
"Come on, Mark," Milchick says placidly. "Clock's ticking."
Mark grits his teeth, knowing that he's starting to flush and sweat and knowing that there's nothing he can do about it. The proximity between them seems like an overture at being helpful, but it's only making it all worse. Milchick is standing too closely to Mark's right, where he can't keep track of his limbs well, and Mark keeps bumping into and tripping over him — every time he starts to get a rhythm going, Milchick manages to get in the way and disrupt it. Worse, every time Mark trips, he is right there, grabbing at Mark without warning to pull him bodily back on track, and Mark's heart skips a beat every time.
Worse, he can hear Helly and Dylan behind them, the awkward way their own usually brisk strides are hindered by the pace Mark is setting. They aren't supposed to spend this long in the hallway; Mark is going to get them in trouble. He tries to move a little faster for them, and only succeeds in tripping over his right foot when the limb can't move fast enough to keep up. Mr. Milchick steps closer like he wants to keep Mark balanced, and Mark trips over him too.
In the hollow silence of the hallways, the noisy sound of Mark's footsteps feels deafening. The way something in his hip clicks with every step, the way his shoe drags over the surface of the carpet since Mark can't lift it right, the increasingly labored sound of his own breathing — noisy and clumsy and ugly in a way that leaves Mark feeling flustered and embarrassed.
The walk is long, but it has never been exhausting before. The effort of his new gait, however, is proving to be something laborious. The pain isn't helping — his feet feel bruised and sore, and a muscle around his hip keeps spasming suddenly, the constantly buzzing electric agony that runs through the whole limb intensifying with every step. He starts to stumble more with it, and the shock of the lurching impact jars through him painfully each and every time.
'I can't,' he wants to say, but he's breathing too hard to get the words out. Even if he could say them, he doesn't actually think Mr. Milchick would listen. Mark isn't allowed to dally in the hallways. Every time he tries to stop or rest between steps, Milchick is there with his hand on Mark's elbow, dragging him forward another step, unrelenting.
The pain feels like it's unraveling him. By the time they actually make it past the threshold of their office, Mark can barely think through it. He feels ragged and disconnected from himself, like he's spent too long in the break room again, as he limps the rest of the way to his desk. Too exhausted to pay attention, he nearly falls when he tries to sit down and almost misses the chair entirely, feeling it from a million miles away when Mr. Milchick catches his weight and redirects his trajectory back into place. Mark doesn't have the energy to flinch anymore — he just feels terribly, distantly grateful for the help.
('I am thankful to have been caught, my fall cut short-,' he thinks deliriously, and has to press his forehead against the edge of his desk before he gags with it.)
He is hazily aware of voices exchanging words somewhere above him, but none of it coalesces into anything more than noise. Mark can't tell if it's the pain and exhaustion or an extension of the same problem that's been making it almost impossible for him to talk. It isn't his body to know about; he doesn't get to know. He struggles to catch his breath, feeling himself start to shiver as the sweat he's drenched in starts to cool. He presses a hand shakily against the buzzing agony in his thigh, but this isn't like a cramp you can massage through the worst of, it's too deep for that — coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once, utterly inescapable.
'Neuropathic pain,' he thinks abruptly, and knows without knowing how that that's what this pain is called. It helps, he thinks, relieved. It feels less frightening, to know what it's called. 'Just breathe. It'll be okay.'
"No shit it's fucked," Dylan snaps, and Mark blinks in surprise when he realizes he can actually understand him again. "But what are we supposed to do about it?"
"I don't know," Helly snaps back, an angry sort of plaintive. "But, just look at him, dude — this sucks. What even happened?"
"Maybe it's some kind of fucked up head injury," Dylan offers, and part of Mark wants to protest against the way they're both talking about him like he's not right here, but he can't even pull together the energy to even look up yet. Besides, he defends them weakly to himself, they'd probably tried to actually talk to him, and he'd just been in too much pain to catch it.
"What, like he got run over by a fucking bus?" Helly scoffs, and then pauses. "Shit, maybe you're right. Maybe that's why Milchick got all weird like that about him falling."
"Well, I mean, he's still here, so it can't be that bad, right?"
He didn't fall, Mark thinks absently. Or, that doesn't sound right. He had fallen, but the fall was because something else had already happened to him, Mark just can't remember what. The longer he tries to think about it, the less he can concentrate on what it is he thinks he remembers, and it doesn't take very long for him to give up on the thought entirely.
The pain isn't easing, necessarily, but it is starting to blur into the background of his thoughts a little easier. He can breathe without it coming out like a sob, can think without using an insurmountable amount of energy. Mark takes another deep breath and cautiously tries to straighten himself up. Something in his hip seizes and shudders strangely, and he hisses at the shock of it, but it thankfully seems to pass without lingering. Mark sighs, relieved, and realizes that Dylan and Helly have gone quiet. He glances up to look at them, curious.
Dylan jerks his gaze away, focusing doggedly on his monitor like he feels guilty about staring. Helly just looks back, unabashed.
"Do you like, need help?" she asks him reluctantly. "Do you still... know what we're doing down here?"
Despite everything, Mark still finds it in himself to snort out a laugh.
"I-, uh, I remb-rem-, r-," the word gets caught on his tongue and refuses to shape right no matter how hard he tries. I remember everything fine, is what he's trying to say, but he can't get the words out of his mouth. Aphasia, he thinks, that's what it's called — 'You know the words fine, it's just saying them that's the problem.' He gives up and tries to switch gears. "Uh, I know how, to-, uh-, ......," he cuts himself off when the pause stretches on for too long. It's a full enough sentence, he decides; he might have even pulled it off if it wasn't for that last um, hanging awkwardly in the air.
The silence continues to stretch. 'At least they aren't interrupting me,' Mark thinks wryly. "How's-, uh-..., it going-," Mark shakes his head. "Been... Been going? It's really-, uh... w-weeks?"
"Uh, yeah, dude, it's been forever," Helly says, yanking down the cubicle wall between them and then dropping herself down in her chair, spinning on it idly, side to side. "We kind of thought you, like, got fired and they were just lying to us or something. But it has been going well, at least," she emphasizes lightly, and doesn't elaborate. She's gotten good about the cameras now that she's actually caught on to where they are. "If you can figure out your fancy new keyboard without help, then we should get to work, I guess. But I'll fill you in on everything else later."
Mark bites his tongue against the flare of impatience that tightens around his chest, and tells himself not to argue. It's one thing to whisper in the bathroom or the kitchenette, but talking in front of the monitors is a different matter entirely. There are fewer cameras than there used to be around the building, but there are lots of ways to hide them in electronic stuff. If this had been a normal day, they might have been able to talk before they had to start refining, but it had taken too long for everyone to make it here because of Mark. They're already technically behind.
He does actually have a new keyboard, or, the right side of it has been replaced, at least. The track ball is bigger than it used to be, and someone added printed labels to the buttons to indicate what keyboard shortcuts he can use in their stead. Using his right hand is still clumsy and awkward — the entire limb feels like it's fallen asleep, and he can't quite get his fingers to uncurl all the way, but Mark can manage it easier than he'd managed walking, at least. It probably would have been easier for him to just use his left hand instead, but with everything screwed down on the desk, there's no way for Mark to sit comfortably enough to use his left arm while still being able to actually see the monitor.
They probably did this on purpose, too. Mark wonders, darkly, if Mr. Milchick will still demand that he say 'Thank You' for it at the end of the day.
Mark tries not to think about it. When he realizes that he hadn’t been able to get his usual coffee when he’d come in earlier, he tries not to think about that either. Around the time he starts to feel like he’s getting less errors from accidentally corralling things incorrectly, he realizes he has to go to the bathroom.
Dread pools in the bottom of his stomach, and Mark does his best to pretend there’s just a patch of it on the screen.
The bathroom is, technically, significantly closer to his desk than his desk had been to the elevator. Mark doesn’t think it matters. His leg had been hurting bad enough in the elevator, but even though it’s been a few hours, it still hurts significantly more now. It wouldn’t matter either way, he thinks, stubbornly blinking tears out of his eyes — even if his leg didn’t hurt, the walk would be too far for him to make without it being a huge ordeal. In the hallway, at least, he’d been close enough to the walls that he could have tried to lean on them or maybe catch himself if he started to fall, if Milchick hadn't been there stopping him from trying, but there’s nothing but a wide open expanse between their desks and the back wall.
‘Please be sure you are asking for help when you need it,’ Milchick had said, pointed. Mark thinks of the agonizing weight of everyone’s eyes on him in the hallway, awkward and halting under the ragged sound of his own breathing, the way Milchick had crowded into his space to forcibly pull his body back on course.
Mark bites his tongue until the tears fade and tells himself to ignore it. He’ll just fucking hold it.
It's around lunchtime that Miss Huang makes an appearance. Mark shifts uncomfortably, worried that this is some kind of delayed punishment — a follow through on the threat of having to fill out the frustrating series of request forms for something he already knows he won't get — but she doesn't step in past the doorway.
"Dylan G.," she says, like they might get confused which Dylan she means. "Please come with me."
Dylan locks his computer and stands without a word, either missing or deliberately ignoring Mark's attempt to catch his eyes. As their footsteps slowly disappear down the hall, Mark knocks his knuckles against the desk to get Helly's attention and gives her a questioning look.
"Oh, yeah. They're still pulling him out every once in a while for something," Helly says, leaning in conspiratorially. "You were out so long that they made him the new Department Chief and now they pull him out like, twice a week sometimes. I think it's some kind of new perk, but he won't spill."
She drops her eyes exaggeratedly low all of a sudden, and Mark follows her gaze and catches a glimpse of a small sheet of paper held between her fingers, hidden under the desk. He glances up at her face, eyes wide.
"It is lunch, though," Helly tells him, almost idly, as she folds the page back up with practiced speed and tucks it away inside of her pen cup. She taps the side of her head and winks — is she trying to say she'd memorized it all already? — but then her face sobers slightly. "Do you maybe just... Like, would it be easier if I brought your lunch over here instead?"
Mark hadn't even really thought that far, he's been too preoccupied with the threat of the bathroom to remember that he has to eat lunch now too. He glances over his shoulder and notes with no small amount of frustration that the kitchenette will be an even longer walk than the bathroom is. Mark has never thought of these meager distances as insurmountable before, and he doesn't like doing it now. The idea of having to get up almost makes him want to sob.
"Yeah," he says distantly, relieved that at least Helly had offered to help, but remembers all too quickly that he has a bigger problem. He tries to interject something before Helly can walk off too far, but the words come out more like a crashing of syllables impacting against the back of his teeth. "Uh-," he tries again, and Helly stops obligingly next to his desk, head tilted curiously while she waits.
It still feels like the last thing Mark wants to do is ask for help. It isn't like he's embarrassed about it, exactly, but Milchick's offers of 'help' this morning had each been uniquely awful. Mark doesn't want to have to put up with anything like it ever again. This is Helly, though, Mark reminds himself forcibly. If he asks her for help, then he can also ask her to stop something or do it differently without having to worry about getting in trouble, without having to worry that she wouldn't listen to him. Besides, wanting something is not, Mark thinks, the same thing as someone forcing you to take it.
"Uhm," he starts, trying to steady his breathing around the blockage in the back of his throat. "I-, h-...," he sighs and tries again, glancing up at Helly's face cautiously. She's looking at him, but just like she's listening — he can't see any discomfort or morbid fascination in her face, and that makes it easier to tolerate. "Have to use the, the uhm..." He points behind her at the door. "Can-..., would, you, uh-...?"
"Oh," Helly says. "Yeah, no problem. Do you-, you just need help or are you worried about falling? You think Milchick was serious about it being that bad?"
"Help, some," Mark replies, which isn't the right order, but whatever. He holds up his left hand, and Helly steps up to take it, bracing herself so Mark can get the leverage to stand up. "Uh, yeah," he grunts, trying to answer her last two questions as he tries to figure out balancing again. "I think my..." Searches for the word a while, points instead.
"Head," Helly offers.
"H-head," Mark nods. "'s fucked." She's standing too close, he thinks anxiously, like Milchick had earlier, like he'd start tripping over her even on his left side. He feels himself push her back a half-step with a gentle motion that feels strangely familiar. Maybe his outie has someone who helps him like this too; maybe it's Devon. She had been nice, Mark thinks, he'd liked her — he can imagine her being good at this, easily.
"Dylan said your guy used to drink a lot," Helly supplies when Mark's open silence stretches out too long. She keeps the slight distance Mark had put her at, letting him shift his weight onto her just enough to stay balanced on every step — swinging his right leg out the meager distance he can manage, fumbling to plant his foot correctly, and then carefully shifting his weight as quickly as he can so that he can step forward with his left. She follows the pace he sets and doesn't drag him forward too quickly; it's easier to balance with her at his left than it had been with Milchick on his right side earlier. "Do you think he got into a car accident or something?"
"No," Mark says quickly, feeling strangely sick with it. "It was a stroke," he tells her, and he's not sure if he's more taken aback by the whole sentence or his abrupt conviction in it.
"A stroke," Helly repeats, like she recognizes it. "Geez, yeah that does sound right." She has to step in to catch more of his weight when Mark loses track of his hip and feels it shift strangely in the socket the next time he puts his weight on it. Helly grunts a little with the effort, but manages to keep them both upright as Mark's hip pops noisily with all the jostling. Mark freezes a moment, nervous, but when he cautiously tests his weight on it again, it seems alright. They exchange a wary glance, and then keep going. "Do you think it'll go away eventually?"
Mark shakes his head. "But, uhm.... I think, think it'll get h-hard-harder," he shakes his head, more emphatically. "Easier."
"It's fucked up they won't tell you anything," Helly tells him, pulling open the bathroom door and holding it while Mark slowly shuffles in. "Like, it's literally your body. All that privacy stuff is such bullshit."
Mark doesn't disagree, but for the first time in a while, he feels convinced of the fact that the decision to keep it from him hadn't been his outie's. He thinks that his outie had wanted him to know, and that if the request forms hadn't been complete bullshit from the start, he would have signed off on them without hesitating. There aren't enough counters down here to lean on.
But Mark doesn't know where to put that conviction, or how to explain it to Helly, so he doesn't say anything at all.
Helly holds open the door for the closest stall, and Mark manages to get past her without an issue, but falters when he realizes that he has to completely reconsider the mechanics of everything he's about to do. His right leg is in a brace that doesn't bend, and there's nothing to leverage himself against while he tries to sit, and his right hand had worked well enough at the computer, but he doesn't think it will be much use at helping him stay standing or at undoing his belt.
"Fuck," he chokes out, feeling half on his way to panic. It was just yesterday for him that all this had been so effortless Mark could do it without even thinking, and now it feels impossible, and some of the humiliated anger comes back to choke him. If Mark can't figure this out quickly enough, is he going to get in trouble for this too? Is Mr. Milchick going to come up with a new reason to press himself into Mark's space and stare and tell him that he's holding his coworkers back again? Will he be penalized for spending too long in the bathroom, just like he will be for spending too long in the hallways? Are Milchick and Huang going to hold his friends back so that there's no one to help him? So that they can snicker behind his back over it when Mark can't get it done by himself?
("What I just did was something I knew that you could handle and grow from. I hope that you'll let it help you.")
"Alright," Helly's blunt voice crashes through the spiral of his thoughts. "How do you want to do this?"
Mark heaves in a shuddering breath and swipes messily at his face — tears, a little, but the corner of his mouth has felt strangely numb all day too, and he'd lost track of it in the panic. Helly doesn't seem to have noticed the drool — too busy surveying the width of the stall like she's trying to come up with her own ideas for how to help.
Sitting down should be easy enough to figure out — it feels like that will work the same way getting up had, just in reverse. His pants are going to be a harder problem to solve. Mark manages to get Helly to help brace his right side, so that he can try to fumble at the belt buckle with his left hand free, but his hands have always been clumsy and shaky, and the panic hasn't bled away entirely, not when being this close has made his body incredibly insistent about the fact that he's been holding it all morning.
Mark resigns himself to giving up on the idea of taking off his own pants. He braces his left arm against the side of the stall in a flare of frustration and chokes out," S-, can you-?," feeling his face flush with the idea of it. On a very technical level, this is nothing they haven't done before, but Mark isn't used to it. It had taken him a while to adapt to being here, but he'd gotten used to figuring things out on his own, used to keeping his mouth shut when things got difficult and keeping his voice light and his face pleasant to make sure that no one else could notice when he's struggling. It was for the best, and it had worked.
It won't anymore. His body is different now, in ways that leave him feeling cracked open and vulnerable. Before, he couldn't fight back because it would mean being punished, but now the sentence ends on the fact that Mark can't fight. He has to ask for help; he doesn't have a choice.
'It'll get easier with practice,' he thinks reassuringly, and the thought feels strange in a way he can't quite pin down. It isn't wrong though. Things have already changed; they've been different ever since Dylan had told them about the OTC. It had made sense to work together, and ask for help, and be a team instead of braving it all alone. This new situation is different, but it hasn't changed things in that regard.
"Yeah, of course," Helly replies, and stoops over to unlatch Mark's belt and unbutton his pants with quick, efficient movements. It would be easier to do this in a skirt, Mark thinks idly, and wonders if his outie would take the hint if Mark threw the belt away instead of wearing it back upstairs.
'Someone had to help put it on too,' Mark thinks, so maybe the answer is yes.
Helly braces herself bodily in the walls of the stall's door so that she can act as enough leverage to keep Mark steady as he starts to sit down. There's a mutual sigh of relief that passes between them when they finally pull it off without anyone toppling over.
'Easier with practice,' Mark thinks wryly as Helly huffs in satisfaction, stepping back. He worries, briefly, that she plans to just stand there and watch, but he doesn't even get a chance to start searching for the words to ask if she can at least step out of the stall before she backs out on her own, letting the door swing mostly shut behind her. Mark breathes out a silent sigh of relief, and listens as she wanders aimlessly around the small room in the meantime.
"Oh, dude," she calls suddenly. "Someone put bars in this last stall, like they have in the elevator. I bet they're for you." Mark hears a bunch of shuffling that he thinks, with some amusement, might be her testing them out. "Yeah, they definitely are. We'll have to try and see if they help, next time."
"Longer walk, though," she sniffs derisively, a moment later. "What a jackass."
Mark snorts, reaching down to try to get his pants up as high as he can without trying to stand up on his own. He tries to picture the bars Helly mentioned and think if there's a way for him to take care of all this on his own, eventually. If he practices enough balance, he might be able to use the bar with his left hand to stand up, and then pull his pants up after? The button and belt will still be an issue though, he notes unhappily.
He can't be the first person in the world that this has happened to, right? Dylan had mentioned wheelchairs, but it can't stop there, can it? Surely there are other people whose hands don't work well either — there has to be something that exists to help figure out doing everything one-handed, the same way there are so many different kinds of tools for the office and its work.
In the meantime, Mark calls out, "Uhm-, ..." and then opts to just stop there. He'd managed to hit a kind of rhythm in it talking to Helly earlier, but starting a new sentence out of nowhere feels like it's harder for some reason. He decides not to worry about it yet — he's been managing it well enough so far, at least.
"You done?" Helly asks, and waits until Mark says "Yeah" before she comes in to help him stand back up.
"I memorized Irving's map," she whispers, barely audible, as she leans in to help Mark tuck his shirt back into his pants. "I've been walking a lot with my hall passes, but like, aimlessly? So they don't catch on to what I'm doing. I think it's legit." Her eyes are big as she looks up at him, "Do you think we can still do it?"
Mark considers it while he tries to hold his suit jacket up out of the way so that Helly can go ahead with cinching his belt. His outie knows about Ms. Casey now, Mark is certain of it, and so the fact that he had still come back to work after having the stroke has to mean that he's working on a plan to help her from out there. His outie has people helping him outside, just like Mark has people who can help him inside too, and if they still think that they can help her, then Mark does too.
"Yeah. Yeah. Uh, It'll... I th-, it'll get-," he stalls out a little. "Uh-, ...eash-ea-," he knows the word, had said it not too long ago, but he can't get it out of his mouth right anymore.
"Easier?" Helly supplies when he looks at her imploringly.
"Eazh-, ea-," Mark shakes his head. Gives up. "That," he agrees. "They know, and uh, we c-, we came back. We'll, uh, it'll be worse-," he shakes his head. "Worth it."
He realizes after he says it that he doesn't quite know what he means, by that, but it doesn't matter. They'll get Ms. Casey out of here somehow, even if it's not the way they'd thought it would look like, before. The situation has shifted, but it hasn't changed.
Helly leans, graceful and casual, against the wall while Mark stoops, clumsy and awkward, to brace himself against the sink basin so that he can try to wash his hands. His right arm won't keep him balanced right, but it can work the soap dispenser, and Mark counts it as a win.
His face looks different, he realizes belatedly, eyes catching on his reflection. Not a lot, but it is there — a little uneven, somehow; the right side of his expression just slightly less tense than the left. Maybe that explains the feeling around his mouth, but he doesn't want to dwell on it too long while Helly is still watching and waiting. They haven't even eaten lunch yet, he thinks, dismayed.
He turns on instinct to dry his hands, and startles when he remembers that the dispenser is all the way across the room. He'll get Helly's clothes all wet if she has to help him walk over, and there's nothing he can brace himself against without risking sliding down the wall.
(He's managing to walk alright, so far, but the idea of a fall keeps snagging in his head, after the way Mr. Milchick had said it. Mark feels like he can remember someone telling him another fall could kill him, but can't think of who. Thinks about trying to catch himself with his right hand on instinct, and the wrist crumpling and snapping under the weight. Devon's kitchen has so many counters to lean on, but everything in the basement is so open and far away. Riskier. Maybe Mark is being overly cautious in a way he doesn't need to be, but he doesn't know whether he needs to be or not. They won't tell him what's wrong with him, so how is Mark supposed to know? Maybe he'd be fine if he fell, but maybe it could kill him, and he can't do anything to help Ms. Casey if he dies because he tripped.)
(Besides, it feels different than it had this morning, walking with her. When Helly walks beside him, at his pace, it feels like something they're doing together, instead of some kind of punishment. Mark doesn't exactly dislike it.)
"Can-," he says shyly, and points, trying not to feel like he's asking for too much. Like this, somehow, might be the final straw for her.
Helly gives him an odd look, and then pushes herself off of the wall to go grab some paper towels for him. "You know," she says abruptly, looking somewhere over his head while he braces against the sink again to get his hands free enough to dry them. "I'm not going to get all in your space, if you don't want me to, but if you ask, I'm always going to help you." She looks at him in the eye. "I'm your friend, Mark. Okay?"
Mark looks back at her, feeling flushed in a way that feels different from before. His struggle for words feels a little less like the aphasia, this time. "Thanks," he says finally, soft, and tries to let her know in his voice and his eyes that he really means it.
Helly looks at him searchingly, and then nods, swift, and offers him her elbow.
Feeling something in his chest start to glow gently, Mark takes it.