fanfoolishness:

The News (Severance)

“Sorry?”

It was stupid, the first word out of his mouth. He blinked at the police officer at his door.

The woman’s mouth moved. Words fell into the air. He heard some of them, and others vanished.

Wife

Gemma

Accident

Mark stood with his hand on the doorknob, and it fell on him like a hammer blow, a cold weight that dropped into his gut and his legs and his bare feet. He was clammy, blinking, lost.

“Accident?” he tried. “She… Is she okay?”

His mind went blank. He shivered and didn’t stop. Something happened, more talking, they wrote things down. They recommended he call somebody.

Hand on the phone. He knew how to do this. Devon’s voice. “Mark, hey, what’s up?”

She didn’t know.

She didn’t know and he was supposed to tell her. The police officer was a dark blur on the threshold.

“Mark?”

“It’s Gemma,” he started, and his voice gave out. He clapped a hand over his mouth. Tried not to throw up. “They - they said I have to go, I have to see her — before she —“

“Mark, what are you talking about? What happened to Gemma? Oh my god, Mark, what happened? Are you okay?”

“She was driving — They said there was an accident — They said it’s bad, Devon — She’s at the hospital —“

She asked questions. He didn’t know. The blood rushed in his ears, a fuzzy droning roar. He was going to be sick. He was going to run. He was going to cry. He was going to collapse.

He didn’t do any of those things.

He told Devon which hospital and he got in the car and he went. He didn’t remember how he got there, but he went.

He just had flashes. Her hand, swollen and bandaged, cold and still. Her hair, sticky with blood that they had tried to clean and failed. Her face, sweet and ruined and empty.

The machines beeped for a while until they didn’t. Devon sobbed on his shoulder. Ricken sobbed on hers. Mark cried until his head throbbed and he couldn’t breathe and a man in a white coat with a blue pin told them it was over.

She was over.

His hand did things with paperwork. People said things that Devon wrote down. He nodded but he had no idea what they had said.

They walked out of the hospital, and the sun rose over the hills and the trees. It was beautiful. He wanted to set all of it on fire. He put his hand in his pocket and felt her wedding ring, cut in two when her hand swelled so badly, and he knew that he was over, too.

The News (Severance)

“Sorry?”

It was stupid, the first word out of his mouth. He blinked at the police officer at his door.

The woman’s mouth moved. Words fell into the air. He heard some of them, and others vanished.

Wife

Gemma

Accident

Mark stood with his hand on the doorknob, and it fell on him like a hammer blow, a cold weight that dropped into his gut and his legs and his bare feet. He was clammy, blinking, lost.

“Accident?” he tried. “She… Is she okay?”

His mind went blank. He shivered and didn’t stop. Something happened, more talking, they wrote things down. They recommended he call somebody.

Hand on the phone. He knew how to do this. Devon’s voice. “Mark, hey, what’s up?”

She didn’t know.

She didn’t know and he was supposed to tell her. The police officer was a dark blur on the threshold.

“Mark?”

“It’s Gemma,” he started, and his voice gave out. He clapped a hand over his mouth. Tried not to throw up. “They - they said I have to go, I have to see her — before she —“

“Mark, what are you talking about? What happened to Gemma? Oh my god, Mark, what happened? Are you okay?”

“She was driving — They said there was an accident — They said it’s bad, Devon — She’s at the hospital —“

She asked questions. He didn’t know. The blood rushed in his ears, a fuzzy droning roar. He was going to be sick. He was going to run. He was going to cry. He was going to collapse.

He didn’t do any of those things.

He told Devon which hospital and he got in the car and he went. He didn’t remember how he got there, but he went.

He just had flashes. Her hand, swollen and bandaged, cold and still. Her hair, sticky with blood that they had tried to clean and failed. Her face, sweet and ruined and empty.

The machines beeped for a while until they didn’t. Devon sobbed on his shoulder. Ricken sobbed on hers. Mark cried until his head throbbed and he couldn’t breathe and a man in a white coat with a blue pin told them it was over.

She was over.

His hand did things with paperwork. People said things that Devon wrote down. He nodded but he had no idea what they had said.

They walked out of the hospital, and the sun rose over the hills and the trees. It was beautiful. He wanted to set all of it on fire. He put his hand in his pocket and felt her wedding ring, cut in two when her hand swelled so badly, and he knew that he was over, too.

ghosts (Severance)

Devon grieves after the accident. Sometimes it feels like she’s grieving two deaths.

Mark & Devon sibling relationship, Devon & Gemma friendship, angst, alcoholism, grief. 2400 words, set not long before episode 1.

-

Sometimes Devon wonders if Mark died in the accident after all.

It’s a ghoulish thought.  One that doesn’t even make sense.  She tries telling herself this when it strikes her in the middle of the night, Ricken snoring gently beside her, the bedroom big and dark and empty.

Mark hadn’t even been there.  Gemma had been on her own, driving home from a late night grading at the campus library.  She’d hit a patch of black ice.  Then the tree.  Mark had been at home, asleep on the couch with pasta for Gemma waiting in the microwave.  He’d been… safe.  

Still, here in the dark where anything seems possible, it’s a thought she can’t shake.

-

“I thought you were gonna put up some decorations in here.  It’s kind of creepy, Mark.  Like a prison cell.  And please tell me you’re going to get some more lamps.”

Mark shrugged over his carton of fried rice, gesturing with his chopsticks as he swallowed his bite of food.  “I dunno.  It’s kind of growing on me.  Maybe I’m just getting into minimalist decor.”

“Yeah, right.  What about those tapestries you guys used to have?  Or pictures?  All your band posters?” Devon pushed, glancing around Mark’s empty living room.  The place looked like it came out of a college dorm catalog.  A depressing one.  “I mean, seriously.  How do you even know it’s your house when you get home?  I bet all the other houses on the row look exactly the same inside.”

“Mm, the electricity works on this one,” Mark pointed out.  “Kind of a giveaway.  Plus, my clothes are here.”  He rummaged about in his rice, pulling out a shrimp and gazing at it, held between the tips of his chopsticks.  “I just… haven’t felt like it.  Decorating.”  

Devon frowned, and took another bite of orange chicken.  “I’ll help, if you want.  I could bring over frames.  We could put on some music, make it a thing, swank the place up.”

He didn’t meet her gaze.  “It’s fine.  I’ll get around to it.”

But Devon couldn’t help but remember Gemma’s art peeking around random corners in their old house, Mark’s framed music posters on the walls, clean warm sunlight slanting through the windows.  

She nodded, though she knew that he was lying.  

-

Devon laughed over her beer, tapping her foot and shifting her shoulders to the beat.  “Damn, I haven’t heard this song in a thousand years.” 

“When did it come out?  College?” Mark asked, nodding his head very slightly along with the driving bass.  

“Speak for yourself, old man.  I was a senior in high school.”

“Sorry, shrimp,” Mark chuckled, and she allowed herself a secret smile, a warm glow starting in her chest.  For a moment, he looked like himself again, a spark gleaming through the shadows she’d grown used to seeing beneath his eyes.  

“Can’t believe this plays on the oldies station now,,” she grumbled.  

“Not oldies.  Classics,” Mark corrected.  “Christ, way to really make me feel old.”  He plopped onto the couch beside her, kicking his feet up.  “You must be feeling lonely with Ricken on his book tour.  What is this, the second one?  Glad I could come by and cheer you up.”

“It’s the fourth book.”  She grinned at him.  “Nice to have you around, though.  Like old times.  The two Scout kids, double trouble.”

The song ended, and a new one came on.  Only a few bars played before she remembered the last time she’d heard it.  Oh, fuck.  She stared at him, frozen, wondering if she should get up and turn off the music or pretend that she hadn’t noticed what was playing.  

“She always loved this stupid song,” Mark whispered, and the spark in his eyes faded, replaced by a blank, bitter look.  He drained his beer, shoulders heaving, breathing hard.  He got to his feet and crossed the distance to the kitchen.  “Want another?”  he asked, face hidden by the refrigerator door, his voice cracking.

Devon blinked back tears, getting to her feet.  “Mark, are you okay?  It’s okay to not be.  I miss her too, man.”  She joined him by the fridge, reaching out and patting his back.

He stiffened under her touch on his shoulders, and she pulled away, letting her hand fall by her side.

He turned away from the fridge, beer in hand, his gaze casting about for the bottle opener.  “I mean, these lyrics are so cliche,” he said hoarsely.  “It’s a shit song.  It’s always been a shit song.”

“Mark –”

He opened the beer and drained a third of it in a few gulps.  “Anyway, how’s Ricken’s tour going?”

-

Devon got out of the car, walking through the ankle-deep snow up the hill.  She walked at a brisk pace, her breath puffing out in thick white clouds as she walked.  The dove-gray sky, looming with the threat of new snow, pressed heavily upon her.  

The cemetery was nearly silent between the snow and the early morning hour.  The only sounds were the trudging of her own footsteps through the crisp snow, and the calls and songs of the few birds that didn’t mind the cold.  She hugged the flowers in her arms closer, shivering even in her best coat.

Gemma’s grave was in a quiet, wayback part of the cemetery, near a stately old pine and a patch of dormant rosebushes.  Devon noticed a few trails of other footsteps, only half-filled in by the newly falling snow, coming to the same area.  Mark had told her he didn’t want company on Gemma’s birthday, but she still hoped that maybe they’d run into each other out here.  

Maybe he’d finally talk to her.  Instead of the thing they usually did, where she tried to prod him and he shut down even more.  

It’s not good for you to be alone, dammit.

Yeah?  I have to do this my own way.  You can’t fix it for me.

She let out a long sigh.  He was such a stubborn bastard, sometimes.  Just like she was.  Probably why her efforts weren’t working.

She stopped beneath the furthest reaches of the old pine, gazing down at Gemma’s grave marker, flecked with snow.  Gemma Scout, beloved wife and dear friend.  

And best sister-in-law ever, Devon thought.  That part had been too awkward and clunky to include on the marker.  It was true, though.

She smiled at what already adorned the marker; a little green candle that had burned down to its base, and a lush spray of blue irises and white lilies.  Maybe Mark had already been here.  She hoped for his sake he had.

She knelt down in the snow, gently setting down her own flowers, blue delphinium and yellow roses.  She settled back on her heels, brushing the snow from the edges of the marker.

“I’m still pissed at you, Gemma,” Devon said into the silence.  She swallowed.  “Remember when we went on that girls’ trip?  That little bed and breakfast way up in the hills?  They gave the best fucking massages.  I thought someday we might go up there again, ditch the guys and just get away from everything.  I always loved those conversations we used to have.  Weird philosophical shit.  Shit we couldn’t talk about with all four of us.”

She sat back, pulling her knees up to her chin and hugging herself in the cold.  “Why did…”  She took a deep breath. “Why’d you stay so late that night?” she whispered. “You could’ve taken the grading home.  Mark said you both did it all the time.  He used to joke about your epic grading parties.  What was different?  Why didn’t you just come home?”

Devon bowed her head, cold tears streaking her cheeks.  “You know I don’t believe in any of that afterlife crap.  But if you could see what it’s been like without you – Dammit, Gemma, it feels like I lost both of you.  And maybe it’s selfish of me to feel as shitty as I still do – I mean, you weren’t my wife – but I never said I was a saint.”  She wiped her cheeks and blew her nose on the back of her glove.  “He’s losing it, you know.  He got this crazy severance thing done, and I think he’s blowing off his therapist – and every time I see him, he’s got a drink in his hand.  LIke our dad.  And I hateit!”

The word hate burst out of her with a loud cry, and she clapped her hand over her mouth, looking around.  For a moment the birdsong stopped, and all she heard was the wind and the falling snow.  At least she hadn’t disturbed anyone else.  She sniffed.  

“I’m pregnant,” she whispered.  “I haven’t even told Ricken yet.  Just found out yesterday.”

She was quiet for a moment.  “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it,” she said softly. “I’m excited, and scared to death, and I wanna scream my head off about it and then go hide in the closet.  Everything’s going to change.  And I used to think – I don’t know.  I don’t know how you and Mark got through the miscarriages.  Maybe you’d be upset that I’m pregnant, maybe you’d just be happy, maybe both?  But I don’t know because you’re not here.  And that sucks, Gemma, it really, really sucks.” 

She carefully adjusted the two sets of flowers, making sure they were centered and turned with their best sides facing out.  She scrubbed at her face again.  “You’d have been such a badass auntie.”  

She clambered back to her feet, brushing the snow off her knees and butt.  She shoved her hands in her coat pockets and drew up her hood.  “I’ll take care of him,” she promised.  “As much as he’ll let me.”

-

She knocked at his front door until her knuckles ached.  Why the hell wasn’t he answering?  He knew they had plans tonight, dinner and the dumb new sci-fi movie downtown.  She rapped again, her hand throbbing.

A thought struck her and she tried the doorknob experimentally.  She swore when it opened.  Must have forgotten to lock it when he came home.  She stepped inside, squinting at the shadowed hallway.

“Mark?” she called.  “Hey asshole, we’re gonna be late for the movie!”

She stopped when she reached the living room, where the TV was blaring nonsense and Mark was asleep and snoring on the couch.  No.  Not asleep.  There were two empty bottles of wine and a single glass on the end table.

Fuck.

She turned off the TV, the sudden silence like a gasp.  She turned to her brother.  “Mark.”

He lay there on his side, face burrowed into the arm of the couch, his rumpled shirt half riding up.  Even from a few feet back she could smell the alcohol, and she didn’t think it was because of her superpowered pregnancy nose.

“Mark.”

She reached out and shook his shoulder.  He blinked owlishly at her and raised his head slightly, groaning.

“Devon?  What the – why’re you –”

The blood rushed to her face, and her hands shook. “We had plans, dipshit.  What the hell happened?  It’s five in the afternoon and you’re already passed out?”

Mark slowly hauled himself up to a sitting position, then slid down into a slump, groaning.  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.  “Must’ve lost track of time…  We still going to the, the thing?”

“Of course we’re not!  What were you doing?  Why would you –”  She glanced around and saw a tub full of books sitting next to the couch.  She bent over to examine it, reaching in and touching a thick book with a handsome blue velvet cover.  She pulled it out, her heart sinking as she realized she was looking at Mark and Gemma’s wedding album.  She looked askance at him, and he flushed, a dull red color creeping into his cheeks and around his eyes.

“I was just trying to – to organize some things,” he rasped.  “And I –”  He shrugged.  “I forgot that was in there, and I saw her, I saw us –”  He hung his head.  “I don’t know what to do, Devon, I can’t fucking do this.”  He sounded near tears.

She nodded to herself, trying to stay calm.  She moved the wine bottles to the floor and placed the wedding album on the end table, brushing a bit of dust from the cover.  “It takes time, Mark,” Devon said, the anger draining out of her, replaced with a deep and profound regret.  “Probably therapy that you aren’t going to.  And a helluva lot less alcohol.  It fucking sucks.  I know it does.”

He was quiet.  She could sense him trying to come up with some kind of argument as to how he knew what he was doing, how he was gonna be fine after all, how she shouldn’t lecture him.

But he couldn’t muster the words, and the silence between them stretched.

Devon’s eyes burned.  She leaned down and gave him a hug, which he clumsily returned, holding onto her for a moment before his arms slid back down.  

She smiled tearily at him.  “Um, so, I’m not gonna… be around you, when you’re like this.”  Boundaries.  They were a good thing.  Right?  Her own therapist kept saying so.  “But… drink some water.  Take some ibuprofen.  And we’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”

Mark’s mouth thinned, scrunched, his face twisting in an expression that had been all too familiar the past eighteen months.  He looked up at her with puffy eyes, nodding.  “I’m sorry,” he slurred softly.  “’m really sorry.”

“Me too,” said Devon, and she walked past him, and out the front door, and back to her car.  She slid into the driver’s seat.  She stuck her key in the ignition.  She buckled her seatbelt.

She rested her hands on the steering wheel, and she broke down sobbing.

-

Sometimes Devon wakes up in the night, her heart pounding, afraid that Mark died in the accident.  It takes her a moment every time to come back to reality, to remember.  She thinks of black ice and bare trees and the best sister-in-law ever.

She knows Mark wasn’t lost in the car accident.  She knows it, sure and true in her veins, her bones, the beat of her heart.  She knows she’s lucky.  She knows she should be grateful to still have him, and she is.

She’s just not sure if she has her brother, or his ghost.

getting emotionally attached to another character played by dichen lachman who’s been tortured and/or has forcefully induced amnesia in the year 2022