Chapter Text
“Hey there, you on the table.”
He groaned. He hadn’t even opened his eyes yet, but the harsh fluorescent lighting of the room made his head throb. His cheek clung uncomfortably to the wood of the table. He peeled his face off of the hard surface, slowly gaining an upright position that could almost pass off as sitting.
“Eager to take a survey ?” The disembodied voice asked, dripping with sarcasm that was obvious even to— to… He shot up, straightening his back in an instant. Why can’t I remember my name?
The man on the table scanned his surroundings. He appeared to be in some sort of recreational room. The table he had woken up on was not made with holding the dimensions of the human body in mind, evident from the fact that his limbs were dangling awkwardly off of it when he woke up. He took in the amenities in the room: four chairs surrounding the table he was now properly sitting on, a fridge, microwave, kettle, and a knife block, which was most notably missing actual knives . A speaker was situated next to the fire alarm on the ceiling.
“I’ll take the way your head is threatening to unscrew as an enthusiastic, ‘Why, yes, of course! I would absolutely love to take a survey !’” The overly chipper voice grated against his ears. “First question: Who are you?”
He groaned, placing his head in his hands. Why can’t I remember my name? The question rang out in his head once again.
“I don’t… I don’t remember. Who are you? ” He said, glaring at the speaker overhead.
“I’m afraid I’m not allowed to tell you that just yet. If we just hurry along with the survey, I’ll answer any question I can.” The abrupt change in tone caught him off guard. The voice shifted back into its upbeat tone when it spoke again, “Next question: In what county were you born?”
The man briefly debated resisting, but if he would truly be given information if he finished the survey, he needed to get it over with.
“I don’t know.” He said as he slid off the table and stretched his aching bones. His leg cramped, causing him to lean his weight against the table.
“Name any county or region.”
“Erm… Surrey?”
“Alright… What is the motto of Jonah Magnus?”
“Who?”
“I’ll take that as ‘unknown.’ Final question: What is or was the color of your mother’s eyes?”
He didn’t even know the color of his own eyes. How was he supposed to answer that?
“... I don’t know.”
“Great!”
“Great…?”
“You’ve got a perfect score! I’m going to come in now. I think all of the throwables were either taken out or bolted down, so don’t try to sock me or anything.”
The sound of the door unlocking reverberated throughout the room. As the knob turned, the man considered making a run for it, but he had no idea where he was. Even if he did know where he could run to, his leg could barely hold his weight while standing still for more than a few seconds before a jolt of pain ran through his body. The door opened to reveal a tall man standing behind it. The first thing that caught his eye was the garishly bright, floral-patterned shirt the stranger was wearing. A lopsided grin stretched across his mole-littered face, accented by a dimple on one cheek, where one side of his smile tipped higher than the other. Under different circumstances, he may have found the man attractive. Now, however, he looked him over with a degree of suspicion. The man stopped leaning against the table, straightening his posture.
The stranger pulled a cart behind him into the room. An ancient TV sat atop it, clear fingerprints visible in the dust around the buttons and some of the edges where it may have been adjusted. An old-fashioned videotape was placed next to it, though it seemed to be newer than what would presumably be playing it. The man caught his reflection in the dead black of the screen. The image was blurry, but it was the first time seeing his face with no mirrors or windows in the room. His hair was meticulously parted and combed, though it was mussed up where it had been pressed against the table. His hand subconsciously went up to fix it as he took in the rest of his features. The eyes staring back at him behind rectangular lenses were dark, though he couldn’t tell if they were brown or black due to the unclear quality of the reflection. His face was angular, and his mouth was set in a thin line beneath his hooked nose. A tanned hand suddenly waved in front of the screen, breaking his trance.
The overly-cheery man had plugged in the TV set’s wires while the man had been examining himself and now held the videotape in his hand not waving at him.
“Hey there! I’m Timothy S., though you can call me Tim,” greeted Timothy, punctuating his sentence with a wink. He shuddered. “I would ask you to introduce yourself, but I have a feeling that’s not possible, so I’ll do it for you!”
Timothy held the tape out to him with its label on display. Written in neat handwriting was the title: “Jonathan S. Introductory Recording.”
“We’re ‘S.’ buddies! Hey, maybe we’re married ,” he wiggled his eyebrows. “You really do look like a ‘Jonathan.’ Real ‘Jonathan’ vibes coming from that outfit.”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow at him before looking down at his outfit. He felt like he should be insulted, but his clothing seemed perfectly respectable to him. He wore dark slacks and a button-down shirt, complete with a tie and deep, forest green sweater vest. The outfit was complete with a warm, brown blazer.
“What is wrong with my outfit?” He asked as he met Timothy’s eyes again. Jonathan realized he should probably be asking more important questions after the fact, like where he was, or how Timothy wouldn’t know whether or not they were married.
“I didn’t say anything was wrong with it,” Tim shrugged. “Just seems to suit you, is all.” He turned back to the TV, inserting the videotape with his name on it. “Anyways, we should get going with this so you actually know what’s going on. You’re doing way better than I did, anyway. I’m the reason they had to bolt down the chairs. Almost bludgeoned poor Martin my first time here.”
“You woke up here as well?”
“Oh, we all did. Well, Martin didn’t, so I guess only Sasha and I did; you’ll meet her later.”
Timothy finished fiddling with the TV player and finally pressed the play button. The video sputtered for a moment, static clouding the screen. He hit the top of the TV a few times before the video cleared, revealing Jonathan’s own face staring back at him. He was wearing the same outfit he had on now, along with the same stern look.
“You may begin,” echoed a voice from off screen. Jonathan’s eyes shifted to the unseen figure briefly before returning to the notecards in his hands.
“My name is Jonathan S. I’m making this video roughly two hours before it will be shown to me. I have, of my own free accord, elected to undergo the procedure colloquially known as severance. I give consent for my perceptual chronologies to be surgically split, separating my memories between my work life and my personal life. I acknowledge that, henceforth, my access to my memories will be spatially dictated. I will be unable to access outside recollections whilst within the basement floor of the Magnus Institute, London, nor retain work memories upon my ascent… I am aware that this alteration is comprehensive and irreversible. I make these statements freely.”
The unseen voice spoke once again before the screen flickered back to black.
“That will be all, Jon.”
Jon stared at the screen in disbelief, the only noise in the room being the slight buzz of the TV’s static. Timothy sauntered up to him and threw an arm around Jon’s shoulders, leaning down so his head was level with his.
“So in other words: Our Outies decided that work stressed them out too much, so now they shove all their memories, AKA us , into a tiny little box in the back of their brain. So that leaves us trapped in that little box, doing all of ‘their’ hard work for them. We could have friends, family, whatever on the outside, but us Innies can’t do jack shit about any of it.”
“ Tim. ”
A woman with dark skin stood in the open doorway, her hand on the doorknob. Jon didn’t even hear the door open again. She walked up to them confidently, yet slowly, as if not to startle a frightened animal. She looked at him with kind eyes, framed by round, golden-rimmed glasses.
“I’m Sasha J.,” she said, holding a hand out to Jon. “Apologies for Tim, he doesn’t know when to shut up.”
“Jonathan S., or… Jon, I guess.”
“I look forward to working with you, Jon.”
Sasha gave him his cane after the orientation was done. She apologized on behalf of their management. Apparently they hadn’t wanted him to weaponize it, which Jon, admittedly, probably would have done. The handle fit comfortably in his hand, an unfamiliar yet familiar weight in his palm. It was a relief to be able to take some of his weight off of his apparently bad leg. The archives were smaller than he expected. When his other-self said he would be working on the basement floor, he expected something larger. The archives wasn’t the only department that made up the basement. Aside from the archives, part of the artifact storage and research departments were located in the sublevel as well. However, the artifact storage and research workers were not allowed to interact with them. They would come in either before or after the severed workers’ shifts to drop off completed research files or artifacts that didn’t require constant surveillance. This technically made them part of the archives as well, but they didn’t need to access the other departments aside from when they needed to conduct further research on any of their statements. Jon himself would rarely do so, as further research was the job of his archival assistants: Tim, who immediately shut Jon down when he tried calling him Timothy to his face, Sasha, and… Martin.
He hadn’t met Martin yet. Apparently, Martin was the only non-severed worker that would work within the archives, as well as the one who was responsible for surveying Sasha and Tim and guiding them through their orientation. However, after Sasha attempted to stab him with one of the bread knives, hence the empty knife block, and Tim had the whole chair ordeal, they figured having a fellow severed worker be in charge of Jon’s introduction would decrease the possibility of violence.
Jon had assumed Martin was the Head Archivist at first when Sasha showed him the fancy-- for the archives -- door and plaque to the Head archivist’s office. After all, Martin was the only one of the archival staff that wasn’t severed. He thought Sasha was pulling his leg when she told him Jon was the Head Archivist. How was he even qualified? He didn’t remember anything about what made him a qualified enough candidate to be considered for the position. Did they just assume that since his… Outie was qualified that he naturally would be as well? It didn’t make any sense.
He was ruminating on his concerns when the bumbling oaf burst into his office raving about a dog of all things being loose in the archives. Martin was a towering man, which made him look ridiculous when he attempted to shrink into himself. Jon understood now. He was qualified to be Head Archivist because no one could possibly be more incompetent than Martin . It was somewhat satisfying to be able to threaten his job, especially since Jon wouldn’t be able to properly quit his.
Tim obviously was not particularly fond of his Outie or the work he had to do, but at the end of the day he got his work done. How he managed to do that, Jon wasn’t entirely sure. Every time he happened to spare a glance at the designated archival assistant workspace outside of his office, he was fidgeting, sitting on Sasha or Martin’s desks, or generally just screwing around. It would annoy Jon if Tim wasn’t as mysteriously productive as he was.
Sasha was the ideal worker. She was diligent with her work, and almost always finished up before she was supposed to “leave.” This left her with a sort of recreational period she likely wouldn’t have otherwise due to not having the ability to rest at home. If Jon was not the Head Archivist, he had no doubt Sasha would be the one in his place. It was quite impressive. The same could not be said for Jon.
There was always more work to do. Gertrude Robinson’s sorting system was a disaster. Jon tried to refrain from speaking ill of the… missing, but Mrs. Robinson’s sorting skills would have been the worst he had ever laid eyes on if he hadn’t seen the atrocity that Tim calls filing in his desk drawer. It was the only task Martin was not completely useless at, so he at least had his “assistance ” in addition to Sasha’s. If Jon was not forced to leave at his designated time for his Outie’s sake, he was sure he would be working overtime often, if not every night.
The transition between days was… disorienting , to say the least. He was required to leave on the dot at the end of his shift. However, a blink of an eye later, at least in his perspective, he was stepping right back into the archives. He would feel somewhat refreshed, even if he ended the previous day in a foul mood, and would be wearing new clothes. Tim continued to assert that he looked very much like a “Jonathan,” and he even managed to rope in Sasha and Martin. His first time showing up in an ankle-length skirt was unexpected, but Tim still insisted it suited him, and Jon found that he agreed. His first day there, he attempted to subtly leave when the others weren’t looking. He was naive enough at the time to think that the others were lying to him, trying to manipulate him into not leaving. He stopped when he stepped back into the archives on his nth attempt and met Sasha’s sympathetic gaze. Apparently, she almost tried to remove the door from its hinges, but Martin stopped her before she could attempt it.
Jon just threw himself into his work after that. Calling him a workaholic would be an understatement. Could one even be addicted to your only reason for your existence? He only left the office when Sasha practically dragged him out during their designated break times, telling him that would be the only way this version of him could rest. Martin brought him tea while he was working during every shift they shared. Jon refused to drink it. The tape-version of him had said the severance procedure was irreversible, but Jon tried to hold out hope. He convinced himself it was the tea. Martin must have thought he didn’t like the tea. Jon could tell it was a little different every time, either by the smell or the color. However, after just over a month had passed, Jon gave in during a particularly tiring shift. The taste wasn’t… bad. Martin gave him a pitying smile when he collected the empty teacup, and Jon averted his gaze towards his paperwork. He didn’t need Martin’s patronizing looks.
He just needed to focus on his work, so he could… until he can…
He needed to focus on his work.