Work Text:
Mark’s going to be the last one into the office, a solid three hours late according to the clock. Milchick hasn’t bothered to greet him so his tardiness is probably inconsequential, just one of those days his outie had something more important to do than working. He makes the walk to MDR a little faster than usual, wondering about what he may have missed.
He doesn’t have a catchphrase, something to announce his entrance to the office consistently day in and day out. He utters a brief, “Hey guys!” and heads turn to greet him back, clearly relieved to see him.
“Hello Mark, I’m glad to see you’re well.” Irving says, ever thoughtful.
“Yeah, we were worried you were canned,” Dylan follows.
“Or that you got food poisoning again,” Helly snickers. “I wonder what your outie’s been feeding you.”
The answer is not much, but he isn’t sharing that out loud. His outie has clearly forgone both forms of sustenance, sending Mark down with just an ache in his stomach.
There’s a ball of paper near the recycling bin, just a foot away. Mark grabs it and tosses it in before heading to the kitchenette for a brief lunch. He starts picking around the edges of a sandwich while the machine begins to brew. It sputters like a sick thing but chugs on, ever reliable despite the obvious strain it’s facing. It clicks off with finality 5 minutes later, and the relative silence reveals sounds from the main room.
Wrinkling… paper?
A soft thump.
Snickering from across the room.
More wrinkling.
More giggling, a whole chorus this time.
“Le-Baird!” Helly shouts, sound carrying through the open doorway. It’s followed by a very soft thump.
Mark bristles. This won’t do. They haven’t played in a few weeks, and under Mark’s careful watch they won’t ever play again. He bins what he didn’t eat (most of it) and leaves the steaming beverage in the pot behind. He stomps over to Helly’s desk and asks, “Who told you about Le-Baird?”
“I did,” Irving pops out from behind his divider to chime in. “She ought to know that out of all members of the Eagan lineage he was the most likely to succeed at the playing of sports.” Pauses. “Not that I approve of any of this, by the way,” he adds before turning back to the screen.
“Okayy… Let’s just stop this before it gets out of hand. We’re finally getting the hang of avoiding disciplinary actions, the last thing we want to do is take a trip to the break room.”
Mark hadn’t asked for Dylan’s opinion, but he gives it anyway. “We haven’t played trashketball since–” he swallows. “Since Petey was here. I figured she would like the game because she’s, ya know,” he gestures vaguely with his hands, making circles of them in front of his body.
Helly arches a brow. “I’m what exactly?”
“Athletic, of course. And energetic. And a little bit scary.”
She hums and nods in agreement.
Mark taps his foot impatiently. “And what happens when we get caught playing this stupid game?”
“C’mon man, we have it down exactly. Play for short enough to only get in a little trouble.”
It has been a while since they were reprimanded, but Mark doesn’t think it’s worth the risk. “Game cancelled. Now. Throw away your remaining projectiles and get those hands back to keyboards.”
“I agree, actually,” Helly starts. It’s surprising for her to relent this quickly, but the change is welcome. Mark nods at her, proud. Something was sticking.
“No fair!” Dylan yells. “I’m one point away from a win!”
Well, that explains it.
“Too bad, game over.” She’s smug, counting this cancellation as a tie, practically a win.
Mark’s not going to let her have a victory that easily. He smiles. “Actually, I’ll let you finish. It’ll be good for team morale.”
“Yes!” Dylan cheers, launching a white ball in the general direction of the bin. It doesn’t really get close. “That doesn’t count, it was a celebratory throw,” he grumbles. “Score’s still four me, three Helly. We’re playing to five.”
Helly isn't excited to continue but she winds up for an over the shoulder throw, simulating it a few times before taking her hand to her waist instead. She executes a perfect underhand, sending it directly to the bottom with a satisfying little thump.
“Pssh… Beginner’s luck,” Dylan grumbles again.
“And match point,” Mark announces reluctantly. A successful shot gives the thrower an extra chance. You could win trashketball with a series of consecutive dunks but it’s only happened once in history with a three goal round. Of course Dylan had been the victor on that fateful day in Quarter 881.
“You’re just embarrassed that you’re getting beat by a five day old,” Helly taunts. She mirrors her last throw and shoots it right to the back edge of the bin. It bounces against the rim perilously before tipping in.
“YES!” she exclaims as Dylan boos. “Say hello to MDR’s biggest baller!” She turns around and flexes for the crowd.
Even Irving is watching again. “I wouldn’t call you the best, you still have Mark and I to challenge.”
“I thought you said this was a ‘frivolous frolic fest’ and that you’d be boycotting it?”
“Yeahh he’s just like that,” Dylan chimes in. “Irv can hoop when he wants to show someone up.”
“Exactly," says Irving. "We can’t have one of us thinking we’re superior to the others.”
Mark runs his palm down his face. He can’t kill the game now when everyone’s looking forward to the next round. It is technically team bonding, that’s the excuse they always used when they were caught playing.
And it makes Helly happy. He can’t take that away from her just yet.
“Alright gang, we’ll do another quick one. First to five, a successful basket gets you another turn, and rim hits don’t count for half a point.” The last rule is accompanied by a squint in Dylan’s direction. He sticks his tongue out in return.
“I’ll be your judge and scorekeeper, my word is law. Now let’s get going.”
“You're not playing?” Helly asks.
Mark freezes.
“Mark chooses to refrain, much like I often do,” Irving assists. “He’s more of a spectator, and his help cleaning up the playing field after is invaluable.”
“It’s because he’s bad, isn’t it?” Her ability to detect the reality of a situation is just as jarring now as it was the first time she pointed out the hypocrisy of their work.
“Yeah,” Dylan starts. “He’s pretty shit at it so we don’t make him play.He was always Petey’s little cheerleader instead, rubbing his shoulders and hyping him up.”
Mark flushes. He knows Irving and Dylan are trying to help, but the fact that they’re talking and he isn’t is just makes the situation worse.
“Oookay then.” She turns to Mark directly. “We’d love to have you play, but no pressure.” Her smile is genuine, and he knows she means it. He could try to have some fun with them, maybe. But the soft rustling of the others preparing their balls overtakes him. His hands were not fit to crush paper that used to belong to him . The flat slice of blue taunts him from his table, Lumon watermark in the top left staring him down.
“Mark,” Irving pops up behind him, softly. “Ready to go on?”
Mark nods and gets to his position in front of the divider closest to the bin. They’re all lined up, a good fifteen feet away from the basket.
He pulls his hand up and brings it right back down. “READY. SET. BALL!”
Helly starts, a perk from her previous victory. Her game winning overhand fails her as the yellow ball hits the rim and bounces backwards. She shrugs like it’s no big deal and returns to her desk to prepare the next one.
Irving goes next with an overhand of his own. His form is impeccable, but he overshoots the bin so badly that his ball hits the printer. He’s not bothered by the miss, his throws have always been too strong.
Dylan rolls his eyes at the display of subpar sporting. “Let me show you how it’s done.” He goes for the trusty underhand and manages to overshoot too, a high arc that puts it near Irving’s on the other side of the room. “Yeah, we all know my outie does muscle shows,” he explains before skittering away to his desk.
Mark mimes the motion with an empty hand and it doesn’t seem too daunting. He feels something press into his palm and looks down. Helly is trying to pass a ball to him, a blue one made from the paper on his desk. She’s waiting for him.
They lock eyes for a second, Mark considering the gesture. She’s full of encouragement, with her soft gaze and upturned mouth. He could at least try. Mark closes his fingers around the paper and takes it up to his chest. The paper is shaking, his hand is shaking, and he’s shaking too, a little. “Thank you,” he whispers to her, close, before stepping away to make his motion to throw. It’s an underhand, Petey’s style, and it sails through the air like a free bird. It lands a few inches to the right of the bin.
“Not bad,” Dylan says, and Mark thinks the same. He’s not bad for once. He’s actually pretty good, the second closest throw of the round.
Helly grins at him before launching her own ball, kicking off round two. It drops right in and earns her some claps for making the first successful shot of the match.
The rounds pass as paper accumulates across the floor. One of Irving’s balls has even found itself on top of the printer, perched like a lord above his peasants on the green kingdom below. The bin is surrounded by green and white and blue and yellow, but with significantly more blue than the other colors. It’s nearly overflowing with the successful shots across two rounds, the current one nearing its end.
Irving has two points, which is pretty good by his standards. Helly and Dylan are tied on four. And Mark… Mark has zero points. All of his throws have been close, but not close enough for a real score. He’s breathing in through his nose and out through clenched teeth to hold it together as Helly takes her match point throw. It could be the end of the game if she sinks it.
Mark needs it to be the end of the game, for it to finally be over so he can get back to work and forget about it all. Refining may be scary and monotonous and lonely but he’s good at it. At the end of the day he almost always completes files, and he can’t ask for much more.
He can’t help but daydream about it, what it would be like to be good at something. They’ve tried everything to find a trick that his outie excelled at, from juggling to writing to games like trashketball, and even breakdancing. There was nothing.
Helly’s ball lands on top of the rest in the bin, instantly crowning her as a repeat victor. She launches herself back into the chair and throws her arms up, cheering in pure celebration.
She’s radiant and beautiful as she basks in the light of her skill and achievement. Mark stews behind her as Dylan and Irving approach to congratulate her with a handshake and a fistbump.
Dylan has never given me a fistbump, Mark realizes suddenly. He’d never initiated one before, never thought of it as a conscious action. Seeing it makes him think of the word brotherhood, something that he thought he had with Irving, Dylan, Petey, and even Carol. Apparently it’s nothing compared to what Helly already has with them in a few short days.
He turns on his heels and heads for the door with long strides.
“Where are you going?” Dylan calls out behind him.
“Getting more paper!” Mark yells, charging ahead. His pulse beats in his ears as he makes his way down the hallways. Footsteps echo out as his feet stomp down the familiar path to Distribution Supply. Those few seconds of MDR celebrating – without him – play on loop. Helly is happy because she’s good at something, better than everyone else. Dylan respects her innate skills and thinks they’re cool, something worthy of a fistbump. Irving is proud of her too.
She doesn’t follow the teachings of Kier, and she’ll never be refiner of the quarter. She’ll keep trying to escape and find herself in the breakroom again. She would never be promoted to department head, even if she was the only one left. She’s curious, brave, relentless, and spirited. She’s committed to herself and her existence in a way that he didn’t know was possible. She’s better than him in every way that matters.
Mark’s chest heaves as he arrives at the small department. MDR isn’t sure if anyone actually works there, or if it's staffed entirely by machines like their computers. Mark's hands shake as he reaches for the order form and stamp on the counter. He hadn’t inventoried before leaving but they could probably use paper of every color. He stamps one dot next to blue, yellow, white, and green before feeding the form into a slot in the wall labeled “orders”.
He wonders how long he can hide out here, or maybe roam the halls before returning. The others had witnessed his headaches and wet red eyes, vulnerable moments that were strange but not uncomfortable because they weren’t really his, they were something his outie brought down. Mark’s own strong emotions rarely escaped containment. When he couldn’t withhold them they’d spill over into something else, like a snarky comment or a bout of minor destruction.
Today’s outburst was his most embarrassing since his first few weeks. With luck, nobody would mention it again and they’d complete the work day in silence. They can’t know the depth of his selfishness and jealousy, how he couldn’t even be happy for his friends and their accomplishments.
The bell dings and a light turns on over the retrieval compartment. Mark opens the door with one hand and retrieves the reams with his other, holding them against his chest. The weight of them is calming, pulling him back into his body again. He won’t return to the office with a tear streaked face. He’ll go back calm, cool, and collected, like a team leader. Everyone in MDR is innately skilled in something, and that fact would be ok with him. It just had to be, this is the life he was given.
The walk back is slower as Mark tries to think about anything and everything besides the game they just played. He counts steps and lets the beat of the numbers drill into his mind–
And walks directly into Helly. She grunts and steps back in the same moment that he does, shaking her head to recalibrate. Mark's hand not cradling paper reaches out to her shoulder to steady her. She lets him.
“Mark,” she says before he can apologize. “You’re ok.” She sounds so relieved, and breathy like she’d been walking fast, maybe even running to find him.
“Of course I’m ok,” he reassures. He’s surprised she cares so much about what happened. He must’ve looked worse than he imagined, standing stiff bodied while the others cavorted. She’s listening so intently, looking at him full of concern.
“I’m sorry we started playing that game. I know we weren’t supposed to, and you were probably stressed, and then I rubbed that win in your face like a playground bully or something,” she rambles on. “What I’m trying to say is I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.” She thinks for a second and corrects herself. “Many other forbidden things will happen again, but not trashketball. I’m over that now.”
He almost can’t believe it. That Helly would stop doing one of the only things that brings her joy right now because she thought it bothered him. She’s not one to compromise, but here she is, willing to throw a slice of peace away to bring some to him. She really is better than him in every way that matters. He can’t let her make that sacrifice.
It’s hard to start explaining. “It’s not the game… it’s the rest of it.” He takes a deep breath and restarts, attempts to quell the shaking. “You’re all really good at something. Irving can draw, even if he ends up shredding everything he makes almost immediately. Petey could sing, he was always coming up with little jigs for mundane office things. Dylan is a natural at trashketball and he’s a better refiner than any of us. He’s hilarious too.” His voice starts to waver as the jealousy he’d successfully tamped down earlier starts bubbling up again. “And you… you’re a little bit of everything. You have these skills that your outie passed to you I guess, but also more than that.”
He’s fully choked up now, words flowing out of him.
“You’ve been nothing but brave. Even when they tried to shove you down. You have this fire inside you. And I wish I had something like that too, something that made me want to keep trying to be free.” He can’t look her in the eyes. “And I’m just Mark.”
She’s looking down at her shoes. Probably because she didn’t even ask to hear any of this and Mark is spiraling into honesty, exposing the rotten core of who he is. He just wants to be like the rest of him. To be someone. And if he could steal all the good parts of everyone else to make himself better, he would, without a second thought.
“Everything you said about me- that’s how I feel about you. That’s how we all feel about you, actually.” Mark isn’t sure if he’s hearing the natural timber of her voice or something trembling deeper with her words.
“You’re always looking for ways to protect us. You went to the breakroom for me on my second day. You’re trying to fill some really big shoes in the department head role. You’re not perfect, I mean none of us are. But you try, and that’s what matters the most to me at least.”
He can’t muster more than a weak thank you as the words overwhelm him.
“And skills. Who gives a fuck about skills?” Her tender tone is replaced with fire. “I’m only good at trashketball because my outie likes to throw knives at people to assassinate them or something. It’s not really my skill, just something they couldn’t sever out between us.”
Mark nods. He’s only bad at most things because his outie is bad at most things. If he was the innie of anyone remotely accomplished he’d probably have a few inherited skills too. “Yeah, you’re right. Thank you for the reminder. Sometimes it’s just weird being the odd one out.” He drops his shoulders and loosens some other muscles.
She responds by easing up too. “Well how do you think I feel as the only refiner being sent down in a skirt every day?”
“Probably not great,” he laughs. “The next time I talk to my outie I’ll make a clothing request to match you.”
She smiles. “Rematch?”
“Oh, so that’s why you came to get me. So you can beat me again.”
Her smile grows wider. “Yeah, pretty much. Let’s head back before we get into too much trouble.”
“Wait, I have something for you, kind of a trophy that the winner always gets.”
“Oh?” She’s clearly interested, fully perked up.
Mark moves towards her. Says, “Hands out, congratulations!” as he gives her the stacks of paper.
“Oof. You’re lucky I feel bad for you.”
–
They step back into the office, splitting at the desks where Helly takes the paper to the closet.
“Psst,” Dylan motions Mark over. “Did y’all score?”
“I heard that,” Irving says.
“Heard that too,” Helly replies as she settles back in at her desk. “And no, Mark isn’t very good at scoring. But that doesn’t matter. We’re a team.”
“Oookay, so we had some soul searching today. Maybe invite the rest of us next time, yeah?” It sounds like the jealousy bug has moved to Dylan.
“A team that balls together, stays together,” Irving chimes in. They all groan.