Archive of Our Own

It’s too easy to talk to her like this.

The warmth of Helena’s banter slides too easily along Mark’s silver tongue, her soft smiles urging his own as he avoids her scrutiny. It’s too easy to laugh, too easy to fall into this rhythm with someone he – or, at least this version of himself – has never met. It would be unnerving if it weren’t so comfortable, which is its own small horror. Even still, Mark can’t bring himself to disengage.

“You’d be the first,” Helena says of meeting her father, her brows upturning in something like an apology. She looks uncharacteristically out of place for a CEO, and not even in the way you’d expect; there’s no aura of opulence cutting a stark outline between herself and the cheap restaurant they find themselves in, no air of corporate untouchability giving her a sense of unworldly poise. She sinks into her coat and it swallows her, and she looks less like a wolf of Wall Street than she does its prey. Though, how much of that is intentional posturing, Mark supposes he’ll never truly know.

“So, no pressure,” he finds himself playing back, against his better judgment. He holds her gaze and it softens on him. He gets the strange sense that he has something over her that he’s unaware of.

“Yeah, none whatsoever,” comes the reply.

Helena seems to swallow around nothing, a nervous tick betraying her even as she manages to keep a strong hold on his gaze. Mark holds it briefly, but a blooming warmth in his chest forces a smile out of him that turns him away. Not without a laugh – one they share. That there’s no tension in it is a sort of tension of its own, Mark’s stomach knotting inside as he anticipates the rage he should feel for her that never comes. His brows knit momentarily. What the hell is he doing? Casual fraternizing with the woman whose company is holding Gemma away somewhere? White hot guilt stabs him in his tightly coiled stomach and burns through his ribs. This is wrong on more levels than he can even bear to think of. But before he can gather his senses, she’s speaking again: “But seriously, I’d love to hear about your experiences, sometime.” Mark reluctantly pulls his eyes from the table and almost meets hers again. His gaze finds her lips, wet and pink, nearly pouting every word she speaks.

“Oh, okay, yeah.” He says, tone dripping with sarcasm as he reads her clear intent for what it really is. He should sound more disgusted than he does. “About severance?” This seems to throw her. Her face drops noticeably from the warm, almost human smile she’d been sporting. If the lighting in here weren’t so dull he may have noticed the dusting of pink in her cheeks when she stutters.

“I– I meant the Overtime… Co– I meant the other night.” Mark risks sizing her up. He seems to have seriously thrown her off her axis, which he didn’t even really think he’d be capable of doing. Isn’t she a CEO? Does no one ever push back against her? Probably not. Silver spoon nepo baby. He holds his scoff. Helena clears her throat, drawing him back. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but says nothing. Presses his lips. Her eyes are shamelessly fixed on him, the only way she could be hanging onto his words any harder is if she had a fistful of his lip. Her evident nervousness sparks a thought in Mark. If she’s this easy to fluster, maybe he can get something out of this. Clearly, she’s inexperienced and doesn’t know what she’s doing. If their conversation is anything to go by, he doesn’t think she’ll be capable of telling a lie he can’t sniff out. But then again, he considers the possibility of it being an act. He decides to take the risk anyway. If for nothing else, than for the slim possibility that she’ll let slip even the smallest hint towards Gemma’s whereabouts.

“Y’know, uh, actually, I don’t really have anything going on for the rest of the night. I don’t know if you’d want to chat at my place, but the offer’s open.” Mark finally says. Helena pauses, as though she’s already sniffed out his trick. He doesn’t think she has, but the look on her face sends the hairs at the back of his neck prickling.

“And, what, you assume I don’t have anything going on?” She replies. Mark reddens a bit, ears warming.

“Right, right. Sorry–”

“I’m kidding. I… yeah, I’d love to.”

Spared of the momentary embarrassment, Mark laughs, setting his bills on the table. He excuses himself to the bathroom, sending her out waiting for him. Once he’s out of eyesight, he pulls out his phone and scrolls until he hits the contact name for Reghabi .

Don’t leave the basement

You - 8:46 PM

Don’t make a single sound until I come down there

You - 8:46 PM

Rather than explain the situation to his nonconsensual roommate and part-time brain surgeon, he simply slides his phone back into his pocket and returns to meet Helena outside. She’s standing off to the side of the entrance to the restaurant. Her face reads little more than serene as she stares, transfixed, out into the dingy street outlining the modest town landscape. Her hands tucked tightly into her pockets, you’d think she were breathing in the countryside’s fresh summer air, not the exhaust fumes of a town like Kier, a frigid chill over everything it touches. She seems to startle at Mark’s presence, like she somehow hadn’t been expecting him.

“Sorry.” He raises his hands to his chest. “Did you want to take your car or mine?”

“Oh, I didn’t drive here.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

They crowd into Mark’s car, and he’s strangely embarrassed at how plain it is. As if impressing Helena Eagan has worked its way to the top of his priority list. She settles into the passenger seat like she belongs there, tossing her coattails to the side as she buckles herself in. She crosses one leg over the other, making Mark feel like little more than one of her endless chauffeurs. He says nothing of it, not wanting to ruin his shot before he even takes it, instead starting the car in silence and pulling out of the lot.

A slow, steady kick drum drifts into the audible range, a tightly plucked guitar following closely behind. Mark keeps his car radio on the same station – Gemma’s favorite – every day. The volume is just loud enough now to drown out any awkwardness between the odd pair, but not enough to stifle the way Mark can feel her eyes settling on him. Thankfully he has the road to give him the pretense of being too occupied to look at her.

Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise…

“Fleetwood Mac,” Helena remarks, in a recollecting tone. Mark spares her a glance, nodding. “I love them.”

“Yeah?” Well, she’s got good taste, at least. He shakes that thought from his mind, immediately scolding himself at having had such a casual passing thought about Helena Eagan. His fingernails find the bottom of his palm over the steering wheel and dig in. “I, uh, saw them live, once. In ‘ninety-seven.” Helena perks up a little.

And if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again…

“I was…” She holds a hand to her mouth, stifling a chuckle. “I was two.” Mark’s mouth dries.

“I was seventeen.” She snickers behind her hand like he’d said something funny. Mark’s brows press together but he keeps his scowl at bay.

And if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again…

“Sorry if that makes you feel old,” Helena says, the weight of her gaze heavy on Mark’s cheek. It feels like a presence he wants to wipe away, tacky and wrong. Despite himself, he gives an amused huff through his nose.

“Oh, I’m old now?” He gives her a sideways glance through his peripherals, catching her enough to see when she chuckles and reddens just slightly in the streetlamp glow seeping in through the windows. She’s not looking at him.

“No, that’s not– I didn’t mean–” She’s stumbling over herself, half nerves and half amusement. You’d think Mark was the best trained detective in the world with how easily he can get her to crack under the slightest pressure. He wets his lips.

“No, that’s quite alright,” He says, raising the fingers of his right hand from the wheel to gently cut her off. It works too well. “I probably am old to you. What are you, twenty-five?” Helena sinks into her coat a little. The collar keeps him from seeing her face.

“Flatterer,” she grumbles. “I’m thirty.”

Mark realizes he probably just came off flirtatious for that. He doesn’t say anything to dissuade that idea.

Run in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies.

It had already been dark when Mark left for Zufu, and now it’s even more apparent as he pulls into his driveway. The automatic light flickers on and washes the interior of the car in a dull yellow light. When Mark parks, he steals a glance at Helena, who seems to notice he’s got his eye on her and quickly looks away. She couldn’t be subtle if her life depended on it. He gets out, and it almost looks like she’d been expecting him to open her door for her, because she stalls a moment before joining him. The cool night air renders thick clouds from their lips under the light.
“This is it. The, uh, Scout abode.” Mark gestures halfheartedly at his modest home. Again, he’s struck with something like inadequacy when he notes that it’s likely nothing compared to the mansion she must reside in. If she’s repulsed by it, it doesn’t show on her face. In fact, she drags her gaze all over the exterior like it’s the fanciest place she’s ever seen. He doesn’t wait for her as he starts toward the door and pulls his keys out, only knowing she’s following when her shoes scuttle against the gravel and she skips a little to shorten the distance. He unlocks the door and lets her in. If only he’d been able to plan this out a little better, he may have tucked away the old beer bottles still lining the coffee table. Still, she seems not to mind as she closes the door behind her, trailing behind his lead like a lost lamb. She must not get out much. Suddenly, as though realizing she’s fallen behind on her internal script, she blinks up at him.

“Thank you, for inviting me on such short notice,” she says quickly. Mark wonders if that’s a dig at the state of his place. He turns on the overhead lights. “I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts so that we might go about making things right. Tightening the leash, as it were.” Her soft, corporate voice is back in full swing now. Perhaps being in public is what makes her falter. If she really doesn’t get out much, he can imagine that’s the case.

“Tightening the leash…” Mark echoes. Helena swallows again, he can faintly hear it in the silence of the house.

“In the sense that– we’ll be far more… careful.” She nods as though affirming her own words. Her brows upturn in the same way they did at the restaurant, something between apology and fear. Of what, Mark isn’t sure. He’s not that intimidating – unless his innie has given her reason to be intimidated by him. Though, he still can’t rule out that this might be an act. Even though something tells him this awkwardness is anything but fake. He gestures at his kitchen table, offering her a seat. He pulls a chair for himself and the legs squeal against the tile. Helena joins him far more gracefully, lightly pulling back a chair and lowering herself into it, one leg crossed over the other.

“So… What is it you wanna know? I’m an open book.” Mark leans toward her a bit, elbows on his knees. Helena sits up straighter.

“Well, foremost, if you could tell me… how it felt?”

“I suppose there’s not really much to tell.” He shrugs airily, recalling the other night. It had felt the way going to work always did, except he wasn’t at work. “A bit disorienting, I guess. I was at my sister’s one minute, and uh… then I was, y’know, still there. But different.” He catches her eye at that.

“Different?” Mark gestures vaguely with a hand, circling it to jog his train of thought.

“I mean, I wasn’t different, but, like… I dunno. I blacked out, then I came to.” Helena nods, urging. “It was the same feeling I get when I take the elevator to the severed floor. A little lightheaded, then I wake up and I’m me again.”

“To your memory, you weren't… injured in any way? It’s generally not safe to switch like that in an unstable environment. You could lose your balance, or your innie could get you in a dangerous situation unknowingly.”

Mark shakes his head. “Nope, no injuries.”

“I’m just glad you weren’t driving when he took over,” Helena says, nervous laughter at the edge of her breath.

“Has that… ever happened before?”

“ None of this has ever happened before.” Her tone almost makes it seem like she’s lying, but Mark can’t press her too early. He purses his lips, nodding once.

“Mind if I ask you a question?” Helena looks a little unguarded at that, but she regains herself quickly.

“Of course.”

“How did they do it?”

Helena takes a moment to formulate how she’s going to reply to that. That she doesn’t seem to have an answer prepared tells him that she’s definitely about to hide something. He bites the inside of his cheek.

“Well, in special circumstances, managers of the severed floor can use what’s called the OTC– the overtime contingency. It allows for the innie to be ‘woken up,’ I guess you’d call it, in the case that a matter can’t wait to be discussed until the next work day. We don’t use it often, and, of course when we do, it’s always with explicit permission in a safe environment.” Mark stays patient while she delivers a spiel worthy of a Lumon badge plastered to her forehead. She really bleeds this company through and through. “Somehow, your innie, along with several others, gained access to the control panel we use to facilitate the OTC, and used it.” She’s so articulate, Mark barely even notices that her response to his question is anything but. He nods anyway. He worries the seam of his pants between his fingers. The way Helena sits, so poised and straight, you’d think she was a statue, if not for the fact that she makes about a hundred expressions a minute. It’s like she’s cycling through them all in the hopes that one will land and make her seem real. For the most part, it doesn’t work.

“So they, what, just wanted to see outside?” Helena won’t meet his eye now. Sore subject? He notes that as a potential bruise to press.

“That was actually a part of what I wanted to ask you.” She uncrosses her legs, just to cross them again the other way around, her hands folded neatly at the apex of her knees. “You were with your sister, right? Did she ever tell you if he – your innie – said anything to her?”

“Would it be a problem if he did?” Mark’s brows raise, but his expression remains neutral. He fixes his gaze on her, and though she’s the one sitting at attention, it feels like he has the upper hand, somehow. She blinks.

“Well, not– not inherently, but given the classification of your– of his work, there are naturally some trade secrets we can’t allow off of the severed floor.” Right. Trade secrets like what you're doing to Gemma down there? He almost says it, but catches himself. Not yet. He shrugs.

“Not that she told me.”

He only realizes now that his hands are beginning to lightly tremble. He notices it when the hand still picking at his jeans slips, digging the nail of his thumb into the pad of his index finger. It’s about that time of night. His head will start to pound soon. Pulling up from the chair, he steadies himself along its back. “I’m gonna grab something to drink. I can get you something, if you want.” Not really, unless she wants beer.

“I’m okay, thank you.” She rises to meet him, following Mark into the kitchen. He swings the fridge door open and grabs a beer from the side, fetching a bottle opener after he elbows it closed. It’s only after the first sip that he turns to Helena, now leaning up against his counter. There’s something odd nagging him about the sight.

Mark’s head throbs. Not in the painful way that he’s used to when he’s this long from a drink, it just pulsates, like he can feel his skull from the inside. His eyes, still locked on Helena, momentarily feel too big for their sockets. His vision starts to warp her right in front of him. Her tasteful black shin-length coat disappears, in its place a muted blue long-sleeved shirt, tucked tightly into a dark pencil skirt. The cool blues of his kitchen turn stark white around him, and he has to narrow his eyes to grow accustomed to the light. Even Helena’s face melts and swims in his mind. Her hair still flows over her shoulders, but it’s far less preened, and her neatly composed expression turns into something far too human for the woman he’s come to briefly know. She leans a little closer. She morphs back and forth between these alternating versions of herself so quickly that it’s hard to keep his eyes on her. It’s equally hard to keep his eyes off her.

“Mark?” He hears her say, but her voice sounds like it’s coming to him while he’s underwater. Static rushes in his ears, drowning her out. “Are you okay?”

The hallucination disappears as quickly as it came. Mark clutches his forehead and groans. He just barely manages to set his bottle down without sending it shattering to the floor.

“ Fuck .”

When he can stomach opening his eyes again, Helena has drawn closer. He wants to shove her away, if for no other reason than to get some fucking breathing room, but he doesn’t. Her hand finds his forearm and the hallucination kicks back in just as hard. The lights go blinding, hospital-white. Everything around them is so white it hurts. Helena’s coat morphs back into her long-sleeved shirt, only now Mark’s at-home attire also morphs into one of his suits, navy blue with an off-white undershirt. He can feel the tightness of it around his elbows. Should that be possible? Her touch sends him reeling, setting his skin ablaze in a surge of feeling he doesn’t understand.

“Mark, are you– oh, shit. ” Mark blinks when Helena suddenly drops the act. Her voice that had been at such a register it sounded like an affectation, proves itself to have been exactly that when she curses much higher and quieter. She reaches and touches his face, and his vision blurs. When he’s able to blink away the dizziness, he’s leaning against his kitchen counter. “You’re bleeding.”

So he is. Mark brings a hand to his face, grazing his fingers along the slow trickle of blood from his nose.

“Fuck,” he repeats. His mind is too busy spinning around the endless white of Lumon to form any coherent sentences. Is that her? Does she have an innie? If he thinks about that fact or its implications too hard, his head starts to pound even worse. In his moments between consciousness, Helena's fetched a paper towel. She’s guiding it to his nose, and he’s too out of it to insist upon doing it himself. His brain is swimming in a thick tar inside his skull, only given brief moments of awareness in which to come to terms with any of his present realizations.

“If you’ll give me your keys, I can drive you to a hospital,” Helena offers, dabbing the towel against his face. “Or I can call a car to pick you up.” Mark lifts a hand to quiet her, because if he shakes his head he’s worried his brain might melt through his ears.

“No– no, I’m… It’s okay.” He manages to choke out. He tries not to look at her, but when she draws closer to clean the blood from his face, he’s forced to. She rapidly morphs between her selves, outie and, apparently, innie. Shit, didn’t he read somewhere a while ago that Helena had gotten severed? He’d figured it was just some fake publicity stunt at the time – evidently not. He wants to shove her away, but again, he can’t. The fingers of her free hand thread through his hair to gently hold him steady. Mark’s breath catches in his throat.

An endless white hallway. His hair is messy. A sense of warm satisfaction creeps through his body, heating the pit of his stomach. Mark turns to Helly, her hair just as ruined, and the smile she gives him sends him burning up. He’s sure she can see it in his cheeks. He doesn’t care. Their footsteps are the only noise in the perpetually empty halls, his synced with hers. He catches her giving him a once-over.

“Was it different with me?”

Uncertainty rises in the back of her throat and tinges the words, despite her delivering them with a knowing smirk. Mark can see her avoiding his eye. Truth be told, it was different. But… not really. He’s not sure which answer would appease her more. Though, to him, it hardly matters. He loves Helly, and nothing could change that or take it away. In lieu of answering – or perhaps, this is his answer – he turns to her, and she mirrors. Helly’s looking up at him like she’s hung the moon, and she backs up when he closes in. Her back lightly bumps the wall when his hands find her hips and he closes the gap between them to kiss her. Mark closes his eyes and feels nothing but the soft swell of her lips against his, the warmth of her body where they’re flush together.

Mark opens his eyes. Helena is an inch away. Her back is at his kitchen counter, pressed there by his hands at her hips. For a moment, he’s still delirious. There’s a smear of blood across her face.

“Oh, you’re bleeding…” He utters. He can hear Helena choke down a shuddering breath.

“Nope, still you,” she returns, her voice barely audible. It takes Mark a beat too long to realize the position they’re in. When he does, he throws himself from Helena, backing himself nearly into the wall. She remains where he left her, cheeks pink, her lips supple and wet. Her hands find the edge of the counter, and it’s hard not to find her attractive like this. What the fuck? She grips the edge with white knuckles. He can still remember the taste of her lips, even in his newfound clarity.

“I don’t– I have no idea why I…” He’s whispering to the floor, or he may as well be, because that’s where his gaze is fixed. Even there, he sees her shadow reflected upon the ground, chasing her hidden curves beneath her jacket. One of the sleeves has slipped from her shoulder, revealing the slender arm beneath.

“No, it’s okay…” Helena replies. Her tone of voice would suggest that she’s talking to a wild animal she’s afraid of mauling her. If he were in his right mind, he might. But he’s not, so all he can think of now is the absence of her against his chest. It makes him feel sick to his stomach with guilt. Against his better judgment, he shakes his head, and is rewarded by the searing pain he knew would follow.

“No, no it’s not okay. I shouldn’t have… I don’t know why I did that.” He runs a hand through his hair, his palm catching on the sweat growing tacky against his forehead. His throat is dry and his hands are shaking. Blood drips from his nose and onto his other hand. “You should go.”

Helena nods slowly, but her eyes betray something he can’t quite read. “Right,” she replies after too long. She tugs her sleeve back over her shoulder and draws a shaky breath. Mark makes his way to guide her to the door. Something inside him is tugging insistently, but in which direction he can’t quite parse. Helena is following behind, and he can feel her as much as he hears her. When she approaches the door, her hand finds the knob, but she falters. Mark’s lips tighten against his teeth, but he says nothing. His heart is in his throat, and he slowly suffocates the longer she stays still. He would simply make her leave if he were in enough spirit to do it, but given that he made the move on her, he feels like she has some right to say her piece, if she wants. Her lip quivers slightly. He hates that he notices.

“Mark…” She says without looking at him. It’s so quiet he may not have been meant to hear it at all. He remains glued to the spot. The doorknob never turns. Helena moves to face him, and before he can say anything, she’s closing in. Her hands find the sides of his face and she pulls him down into a kiss.

At first, Mark is stricken into paralysis. Her mouth simply moves against his, and he’s nothing but a pliant opening for her to lick into. Emotions swirl inside of him at a speed so great he can’t keep track of them all. Guilt, confusion, arousal. He knows the proportions in which he should be feeling these things, but ultimately the arousal hits him the hardest. Half of his mind seems to melt away when he returns her kiss, met by an eager sound at the back of her throat. The guilt returns when he finds that endearing, but not enough to stop him. His hands are back at her hips. The base of his spine hits the back of his couch and she presses close enough that it feels like she could simply phase through his clothes to get to his skin. The hot desperation emanating from her every movement seems to indicate she would if she could. The part of Mark that screams at him to realize what the fuck he’s doing is quickly being deafened by the sound of Helena against him. Her haggard breaths, her soft moans that he swallows quicker than he can regret it. His hands scope the breadth of her back under her coat, and she shudders and shrugs it off, letting it hit the floor. It looked expensive. With the newly freed surface area, Mark runs his hands along every curve he can find along her body, settling into the ridges of her hips and thumbing over the bones he can feel through her clothes. She jerks into his touch in a far less poised manner than her public demeanor might lead one to expect. Out there, she’s all business – sharp and feline, a corporate powerhouse. Even despite her awkwardness, she’s intimidating. But here, pressed up against his chest, she's an animal in a different way. Uncertain, instinct-driven movements, gripping and biting anywhere she can reach in an unpracticed sort of way. Ironically, she’s more human like this than he’s ever seen her.

Helena is the one to break the kiss, pawing at Mark’s hand to hold her own as she drags him toward the couch.

“Helena,” Mark pleads, following. “We shouldn’t.”

“I know,” She replies simply. When she’s got him where she wants him, she urges him to lay back against the couch.

“I mean, we really shouldn’t.” He’s laying down before he even realizes it. His head aches. Helena moves to straddle him, closing the gap between them until their lips brush and he can taste her breath against his tongue.

“I know.”

Mark hates how perfectly their hips fit together. Helena slots herself just right against him, and it feels so good it hurts. He grabs her waist, thinking to stop her, but all he does is pull her down harder. A sigh escapes her parted lips and he feels her warmth against his tongue. At the back of his mind is a chorus of voices yelling what the hell are you doing? But it’s far too easy to drown them out. There’s something pulling him to her that he can’t quite understand, but that he can’t ignore. When Helena leans forward, her hair frames his face in a faint auburn glow, sealing him away from the rest of the world, forced to focus on her and only her. The cool teeth of his fly dig into him through his briefs, searing him with the sort of pain he deserves for doing this. Helena bears her hips down against him and it hurts but he doesn’t stop her. His hands work up from her waist, his fingers drawing soft lines up the flat of her stomach. She gasps and jerks again, but ultimately presses closer. He cups her chest in both hands, and tries not to feel any particular way about how completely his palms engulf her smaller body. His comment on her age hadn’t been flattery, after all – she really looks quite younger than she is. Mark can feel her ribs through her shirt and he slots his fingers into the gaps. When she inhales deep, he feels them expand and contract against him. Her nipples protrude slightly through the thin fabric of her shirt, and what looks to be a sheer bra underneath. He smooths his thumbs over them, earning another gasp and a roll of her hips. Helena sucks her lip between her teeth and bites. Mark’s dried blood is still lightly smeared over her upper lip, but before he can do anything about it, he watches her lick a bit of it off. A jolt works its way down Mark’s spine, and he groans under his breath. Helena leans back just enough to pull her shirt off. The loss of her hair framing them in complete solitude is lightly sobering, but Mark is brought right back at the confirmation of his suspicions of Helena’s sheer bra. It’s black, a thin lace mesh across both cups, leaving very little to the imagination. Her nipples poke through, soft and pink against her pale skin. He thumbs up the newly bared expanse of her stomach, and she gives a breathy giggle. It feels wrong that he should know that Helena Eagan is ticklish. All of this feels wrong. And yet simultaneously it feels like the most correct thing he’s ever done, that he’ll ever do. His hands wrap around and nimble fingers find the clasp of her bra to pull it off. Helena’s seductive glance briefly falters at his initiative, but comes back in full force as she helps him get her out of it.

Mark hates himself for many things tonight, but most of all he despises himself for how beautiful he finds her. The dull light from his kitchen turns the ends of her hair into embers spilling over her shoulders, ending in wispy curls along her chest. Her breasts are small and light, easy to grasp each in a hand and roll her nipples between a pair of deft fingers. The way her waist curves out into her hips, the warmth of her thighs on either side of his body. The heat he should be feeling for her is all rage and violence, but instead it feels almost saccharine. Not allowing himself time to dwell on it, he cups her breasts in his hands and urges her to sit higher up on his stomach, where he pulls her down a little to bury his face between them. She’s hotter than anything he could imagine here. He can feel her heart hammering against his forehead and against his better judgment, he kisses her just between both breasts. That makes her draw a heavy breath, weighted by something bone-deep and immeasurable.

“ Mark, ” Helena sighs, pressing closer, hips lightly rolling. Mark groans his response, pulling back to suck one of her nipples into his mouth. Helena gasps and arches into him so deep that their stomachs touch. She reacts to every touch like a woman starved, like she’s never felt anything like this before. He rolls her nipple under his tongue and feels her grinding against his stomach. Her nails dig into his hips and the sharp pain makes him arch into her, lightly throwing off her balance and pulling him off with a wet sound. She immediately takes that same breast into her hand and drags her thumb over her nipple, swirling the pad of her finger through his saliva and shuddering. “I need you.”

He knows he shouldn’t. He knows this is levels of fucked up that he can’t even begin to comprehend. He knows he’s cheating . But Helena’s pull on Mark is something buried so deep inside him that he can’t even start to unravel where it begins. It feels like he’s known her his whole life, in this moment, like this is some grand consummation of something unspoken yet just as tangible. It feels like this is supposed to happen. He nods.

“Yeah. Yeah– okay.”

Helena pulls off of him to sit with her legs over the couch, where she works off her slacks and leaves Mark feeling sorely overdressed. To make things fair he pulls his sweater off over his head and starts working his belt open, feeling her eyes locked on him, predatory. He fumbles with his fly before he can get his pants off, but when he reaches for his boxers, Helena takes his wrists in her hands.
“Let me do it,” she says. Her eyes are pleading. Mark hasn’t felt so severely, desperately wanted in a long time. That thought sends a pang of guilt through him that’s quickly swallowed by her hands on his hips, thumbs hooking under the elastic of his briefs to shimmy them down. She works slowly, like she’s trying to see how forcefully she can get his cock to spring from inside. As it turns out, very. Embarrassingly so. He hits his own stomach and the sensitive touch makes him wince. It’s cold enough in the living room that the air makes him shudder at the contact. Not once do her eyes leave it. Mark reaches over and thumbs into Helena’s panties the same as she did, and she brings herself closer to accommodate. He slides them down over her hips and relishes in every inch of skin that comes into view. A light patch of golden-red hair is neatly groomed at the front, presentable and soft. Mark can’t help but run his palm over it before he’s even gotten her out of her underwear, and she jerks. He can see clearly now how completely soaked she is. She kicks her panties the rest of the way off and gives Mark no room to breathe before she’s working back up his legs. He thinks she might take him to the hilt in one quick motion – crazy as that would be – but she stops just short and instead sits back at his knees. Mark slips tantalizingly between the folds of her cunt and her hot wetness amplifies the feeling a hundred times. They share a moan, both their heads lightly falling back. Helena braces herself back against her palms and grinds her clit against him again, making Mark’s hips buck.

“ Tease ,” he growls, huffing through his teeth. Helena smirks behind a bitten lip and rolls her hips again.

“Yeah,” she’s breathless. “Maybe.”

Helena keeps at it that way for a little while. Her hips rock and sway in a slow, careful circle. Her eyes never leave his face. Every desperate inch of Mark is coated with her to the point of dripping, their fluids mingling along his throbbing shaft and pooling just beneath his stomach, through the light patch of coarse hair there. She looks anticipatory. Like she’s waiting for something, but she won’t tell him what it is. When Mark inevitably loses his patience and grabs both her hips firmly in his hands, it seems like that had been exactly it. She doesn’t try to get away, doesn’t work to keep teasing him. She’s pliant immediately. He pulls her up and nearly completely sheaths himself in one swift motion, but is at least courteous enough to trail a hand down between her legs first. He slides two fingers in the space there, asking.

“Do you need me to–”

“ No. Just– just do it.” She says it all in a rush of breath. He heeds her almost immediately, guiding her hips forward and sinking her down over him. When he breaches her, it’s almost nauseating how good it feels. Helena swallows Mark whole in one gesture, a key into a lock. They fit so perfectly it’s as though he’s just found a missing piece of his own body, only now whole for the first time. She’s wet, but more importantly hot, nearly baking him from the inside. When their hips meet again, they’re both moaning. Helena shifts to take his face into her hands to kiss him again, and even that subtle motion makes Mark nearly succumb fully to her molten insides. He steadies her while she kisses him, needing to adjust or he won’t last. Helena seems impatient about this, wriggling to either side slightly as she clearly wants to move. Her tongue slips so far into his mouth that he nearly feels it in his throat. He wants to devour her. Mark eventually has to break them for air, which he sucks through his teeth, gritted to steady himself.

“ Jesus , Helena,” He breathes. She noses his face up until their lips aren’t even an inch apart. Her tongue pokes out from between her own lips and only barely grazes his own, making him shudder.

“ Fuck me. ”

Well, he can’t exactly say no to that.

Mark wants to start slow. He wants to ease into it, to channel the liquid smooth circles of Helena’s hips as she teased him. He wants to savor every brush of himself inside her, to slowly take her apart around him. That doesn’t happen. He drives into Helena like his fucking life depends on it, filling his living room with the crude sounds of rough skin-to-skin contact. He’s still holding her hips firm, digging the nails of his thumbs just above the bones. She’s bouncing involuntarily at every rough thrust, knocked so hard off her axis that all she can really do to take it better is to lay against his chest. One of his arms snakes up from her hip and braces against her back for better leverage. Helena’s fists ball at his chest and she gives low, decadent moans against his throat. He won’t be able to keep up a pace like this forever, but it’s the only thing that feels right when he’s wrapped up so tightly in this ever-tantalizing heat – his joints be damned. His hips already hurt after a few minutes, but he’s pushing through, groaning through his teeth, wanting to bite her throat, wanting to yank her hair back and swallow those noises she’s making against him. As if on cue, the moment Mark starts to grow tired and stiff, Helena moves to sit up, stilling his hips. Her arms tremble at the elbows when she works to pull herself up from his chest, which Mark shouldn’t find as endearing as he does. Her bangs are dark at the edges and glued to her forehead by sweat, the rest of her hair now unkempt and frizzy. She’s panting hard and her lips and cheeks are stained a deep red. Helena leans back on her palms like she had done before, only now that he’s inside of her, she’s riding him properly.

Her pace is a lot slower than the one Mark had set. She’s calculating every twist and curve, her hips rolling like a wave over a calm ocean, just to come crashing at the shore. She grinds cruelly on every fall, and he swears he can feel her intentionally tightening on every upstroke. She fucks like she’s hungry. Mark’s head falls back against the arm of the couch. He won’t last. His mouth hangs open and a slew of noises spills out of him that he couldn’t hold back if he tried. Not that he’s trying particularly hard. He cranes his neck a little to get a better view of Helena from this angle, and she looks ethereal. His dull kitchen light framing her in a soft glow, her dewy skin stark against the cool grays of his living room. Mark’s hands find themselves trailing up her bare inner thighs, making her jolt. She watches their ascent so needily, always wanting, never full. His thumb finds her clit and she gasps. He rubs her in slow circles to match her pace, watching her brows furrow. The way her hips stutter tells him she won’t last much longer either. Every time she tenses, Mark feels it, and it works a full body shudder out of him. It’s been embarrassingly long since he’s had sex this good. There’s heat in his stomach that shoots sparks down his extremities and weighs him heavier against the couch. He’s too close. Grabbing Helena’s hips, he slows her with a shaky sigh. It hurts to stop. Helena’s head lulls in his direction and she stares, petulant and impatient.

“I don’t have– should I, like, pull out, or–?” He couldn’t have said it less tactfully if he tried. Helena looks at him like he has three heads, bringing her hands to where his are resting over the sharp bones of her hips, moving to peel them off.

“ Christ, don’t stop, I don’t– it doesn’t matter.”

“It kind of does, I feel like?” Helena sighs. Needy.

“No. It doesn’t. I’m fine. Please. ”

“So you’re on the pill?”

Helena gives a hum that Mark reluctantly takes as a ‘yes,’ if only because every moment spent not delving deeper into her wet heat makes him lose his mind a little more. He lets out a little okay, okay, fine, under his breath before releasing her hips. She immediately takes the freedom and runs with it, no longer favoring slow, languid circles, now driving herself against his hips like she’s trying to break them. Mark can only watch, giving the occasional overexcited buck of his hips, but that’s less intentional than he’d like to let on. She doesn’t even leave room for his hand between her legs anymore – not when she’s grinding against his stomach on every downstroke. He can feel her clit trail through the wetness there, and the quickly following pulse of her thighs. The closer she gets the higher her sighs pitch, until they reach their zenith and Mark feels rather than sees her come completely undone. She falls forward, hands braced at either side of Mark's head, still driving her hips down again and again, only shuddering now, her hair falling over her face while she cries out. Mark intends on holding out to watch, to savor it, but she has him in a vice grip. Every angle, every inch, hot and soaked with her. He grabs her thighs hard enough to bruise as his own orgasm rips through him, pulsing as he spills over into her. They fall together like a wave crashing apart against a cliff face, salt tangled in the fray. Their sweat glues their bare chests together when they meet in the middle, and it feels for a moment like they share a single skin. One body. Mark is still gripping her thighs when he first starts to realize the gravity of everything. The weight of Helena Eagan, spent and pliant in his arms, the heaviness of her haggard breath and messy hair falling in curled tendrils over his shoulders. Mark waits for the guilt to seep in through his skin, but it never comes – which in itself is enough to make him feel guilty, if only for the wrong reasons. He’s hot everywhere they make contact. Helena has a hand laid possessively over his chest, like he’s hers. He again feels guilt purely for the absence of it at all. No hands have known this part of him since Gemma, no eyes have even gazed at it since her. He tries to hurt over that. Tries to turn that fact into himself and stab it straight through his stomach. He can't.

Helena lays molten and languid over his chest. Her eyes flutter shut involuntarily, even as he softens inside her. Mark can feel the way he spills out from between them, but she doesn't even flinch. How long has it been for her? He can't know that. Her back rises and falls slowly as her ribcage opens and closes, the frail wings of a bird. Someone like Helena shouldn't look like this. Gentle. Soft. She's meant to be all sharp edges and gnashing teeth, ripping men like him to pieces for even looking at her. But she lays over him like there's nowhere else in the world for her to be, and that's when that pull he'd felt towards her comes crashing into painful clarity; familiarity.  

That unexplainable draw he'd felt, the one that called him to do things with her he'd sworn off after Gemma, the one that made him ache in a way he didn't know he still could, the one that made him hallucinate a version of her confined by the same sterile white walls as him. He'd wondered if maybe she had an innie – but now he supposes he should be wondering just what exactly his own innie's relationship with hers is. Though, even then, shouldn't the barrier hold? Shouldn't those memories stay firmly locked away, kept tight within Lumon's basement?

Helena shifts, dislodging Mark. Their combined fluids spill from her and they both wince at the cold. She presses closer. He lets her. His hand finds her hair, threading his fingers through the auburn curls. He tries to think of Gemma. He can't.

The severance barrier holds – but only one way. He supposes in some way, he is in close proximity to Lumon, now. Here, he's a version of himself he doesn't recognize, petting on Helena Eagan as some sort of odd confirmation of something he still hasn't let himself see. Everything else is spatially dictated, kept hidden from himself. In a box, in a basement. 

The barrier holds in, but it can't hold back.