Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Editor's note on historical accuracy

In the end, only Richard Alpert (also referred to as Ricardo and Richardus), Jacob, and the Man in Black would know that the archives had it wrong: the Black Rock had left the Canary Islands in 1864, not 1867. The "4" in the ledger had looked too similar to a 7 written with a strikethrough ("7"). This mistake partially accounts for why Richard's role in Lumon's history is largely left out of the lore of Kier that was recorded in the handbook appendices. But also, its omission was strategic. It was better for almost everyone involved if that part of history was buried and forgotten.

I. The Island, 1864

Just a week after Ricardo had been rescued from the bowels of the Black Rock, his life had quickly fallen into a pattern. In the early mornings, he had taken to asking Jacob if anything needed to be done. Each day, Jacob would tell him "not yet", seemingly disinterested in speaking more. Afterward, he and Jacob would sometimes sit in silence together, but more often than not, Ricardo would return to the clearing where he had buried Isabella's cross and there he would pray. It was a tranquil place—this place that was just for him and Isabella. But he hated that her memory had to be buried far away from home, under the shade of unfamiliar trees.

It was disorienting, being in this foreign land with only one person to speak with, using a language that was not his own. Sometimes he would talk to Isabella, and he hoped that she could hear him. Hearing his mother tongue, even if just from his open lips, helped make him feel like he had some continuity in his life.

He carried his hurt in his body. So much grief and rage had burrowed holes into his marrow during his voyage on the Black Rock. Now that he had no distractions, he risked being devoured by them from the inside. He needed to begin to close them, but he was afraid of what could be put in the place of the emotions that had been hollowed out. (No, wait, that wasn't right. Not close them—he needed to reshape the geometry of his soul. That felt right to him.) But some days all he could do was cry and scream until his throat was raw.

At night, under the gaze of unimaginably vast stars—the night sky at the Canary Islands had seemed boundless, but this felt like it was approaching infinity—he would sleep on the ground near the exquisitely timeworn bench in the glade. But he knew he would soon need to make a shelter. After all, he had arrived during a storm, and he suspected it only was a matter of time before another battered the Island. And he needed to start eating. He needed to be drinking more water. He needed to do a lot of things, but it was so difficult to care when he had lost everything and everyone he had ever loved. Although, he reminded himself, his physical body didn't actually have needs anymore, did it? Eating, drinking, and sleep were more instinctual and comforting than anything else. But perhaps in time he would forget what it was like to have mortal hungers.

On this particular day, the eighth after his rescue, he woke up wondering if he had made a mistake by asking for the boon of immortality. The decision had made sense at the time; he had requested it as a loophole to avoid going to Hell—assuming this wasn't Hell already. But he wondered if this had been the only solution. If he ever was able to find a way to redeem himself—if he was repentant enough, and he was rescued or if a priest washed up on shore, maybe he could be absolved. And then he would have been able to join Isabella in Heaven. These scenarios were improbable, but not impossible.

So, had immortality been worth it? He would ask himself this question many times over the years, until one day, decades later, he just stopped wondering how things could have been different. It was too exhausting to keep wondering.

This morning he found Jacob sitting on a cliffside, his legs dangling over the ledge. He was throwing dark rocks into the waves below, seemingly entranced by their descent into the depths of the ocean. He watched the stones as though he needed to know that they would sink. Ricardo didn't want to be so close to the ledge, but he made himself sit down next to the man anyway. Jacob threw another rock before plainly stating, "Ricardo, I know you had wanted to go to the New World."

"Yes. I did." He was afraid of seeming ungrateful about his current circumstances and quickly added, "But I will be happy here. You have given me so mu—"

Jacob waved his hand slightly, which silenced Ricardo. "I need you to go there. To the United States. And you must leave today."

Ricardo started to protest—this was too much to ask of him after his horrific ordeal, both emotionally and physically—he feared he would not survive another multi-month voyage in his current state—although, he reminded himself that he was immortal… but then he started to think about what would happen if he was thrown overboard. Would he sink to the bottom of the sea and live there forever in the endless black, constantly feeling as though he were drowning?

Setting that horrible image aside, he also knew that there were logistical reasons that Jacob's command (perhaps request was a better word, but he intuited that command was the right word) didn't make sense—he could hardly captain or navigate a ship by himself. (He did not even know where this island was located.) If there even was a ship? The only one he knew of here was the Black Rock, which had been utterly broken apart.

It was impossible.

As if he could read Ricardo's thoughts, Jacob finally looked over at him and Ricardo tried not to shiver. It might be blasphemous to wonder, but he did wonder if Jacob was a god.

"Don't worry. It won't be such a long journey. There are... ways of shortening it."

Ricardo desperately wanted to understand what that meant, but he stayed silent and only let his eyes plead with Jacob, asking him silently not to make him do it.

"Once there, you'll travel to the wilderness, to a medium-sized waterfall near a cave," Jacob continued, "I'll draw up a map for you. There is a civil war, but you should be safe enough if you use common sense." He looked back to the water below, "You do know that your immortality doesn't prevent people from killing you, yes? It just prevents you from getting sick or dying."

Ricardo had actually not realized the conditions of his immortality until now. He now felt foolish for not asking Jacob at the time.

Jacob ignored Ricardo's surprise. Whether it was because he was gazing at the water or because he simply didn't care, Ricardo couldn't say. "Once there, you'll meet a man with the family name Eagan. You must convince him to come back with you no matter the cost. And if you are unable, then you must kill him. You must not fail."

He shook his head violently. "No, I cannot kill another man! I will not take a life on purpose." He suddenly felt very aware that Jacob was able to take his immortal life away from him at any moment. He still did not think he could do it, even if it damned him.

Any loyalty he did have towards this man was out of fear, not of love.

Jacob smiled grimly, "Tell me, would you kill a man if you knew it would prevent untold suffering? If his death would save the lives of countless others—possibly even the life of the world?"

When it became clear that Ricardo had no answer to his question, Jacob said, not without compassion, "I know what I am asking of you is difficult. I believe that in this man is the capacity for great good—he is even a candidate to take my place one day as protector. But he will only be committed to beneficence if he is removed from his current circumstances. People are capable of so much good when given the chance."

Ricardo nodded.

Jacob continued, as if he was giving a Socratic lecture, "But do you remember my allegory, about the wine and the cork? If this man continues on his path, he will try to remove the cork. What do you think will happen if he is successful?"

He could not pretend that he had not been willing to kill Jacob when he had believed that the man was the Devil. And so, he knew that he was not above killing a great evil. A thought then occurred to him: what if this Eagan man was possessed by a demon? And what if he had a chance of being exorcised if he was brought to the Island? Jacob was not a priest, true, but he seemed to possess numinous powers stemming from some long-forgotten mythology.

Still uneasy about this proposition, he tried a different tactic: "If this is so important... I do not know that I should go. Besides, I am still learning English. If this man does not speak Spanish then I will not have the right words to convince him."

"Your English will do well enough, and besides, I must stay here; I have to be here to protect the Island from him." Ricardo knew of whom he spoke of without clarification. "To keep him here, I have also had to imprison myself. There may come a time when I can leave, when I have people I trust to protect the Island in my absence. Maybe even you. But right now you are too susceptible to his influence. I cannot leave you alone on this island with him."

A moment later, as if on cue, Ricardo heard the now-familiar howling noise. The Man in Black walked out from the treeline and, to be heard over the noises of the breeze and the surf, he yelled, "You don't have to do what he says, you know."

Jacob stoically gazed at the man, seemingly unconcerned about stopping his advance. As he continued his approach, his black linen shirt rippled in the wind that roared near the cliff. When he got closer, Ricardo noticed that he had been restlessly moving a wine cork from hand to hand.

The Man in Black sat next to Ricardo, so that Ricardo was now in-between the two brothers. Sitting there on the cliff with the pair of them felt vulnerable and strangely intimate. Perhaps, in part, because it would be so easy to push him off the ledge. But also because he was caught in the middle of a war that had been raging for millennia.

"He's lying to you, you know. You're not safe. If you're captured, you'll be a prisoner forever. You really will be in eternal Hell then. And these people", the Man in Black practically spat the word out, "they're savages. The men in charge, they enslave and murder and steal land. They're just like the people who put you on the Black Rock. Who left you to die in the ship's hold. You can't trust them."

"And I suppose he can trust you, is that right?" Jacob asked calmly. "He knows what you are."

"He knows what I am?! You made me this way. " The Man in Black was seething now, but Jacob barely showed any acknowledgment of his twin's anger. Ricardo understood that this was a bit of theater that they didn't even know they were performing, both following a familiar script.

"And yet, brother, you choose time and time again to try to corrupt the people on this island. Richardus will prove you wrong. I know he will not be corrupted." He put a hand on Ricardo's shoulder. Ricardo didn't particularly care for being called Richardus, but it was not the time to say so. He wondered how many others Jacob had claimed were irreproachable.

His sanctimonious expression melted away as a thought seemed to occur to him. "Why would you want to prevent Richardus from bringing this man to the Island?" Jacob asked, although it was unclear whether he was expecting to Man in Black to answer.

"Perhaps I have his best interests at heart," the Man in Black said. Ricardo wondered if "he" referred to himself.

"Perhaps you are afraid that he will be my successor."

Ricardo felt increasingly uncomfortable as these men argued on either side of him. It seemed as though he was invisible to them. He imagined just walking away.

The Man in Black ignored Jacob's jab. He drew his lips into a frown and stared at Ricardo, "Well, what will it be Ricardo?" Apparently, he had not been forgotten, but now he wanted very much not to be seen.

Ricardo considered the two men. The man who had saved his life when he was about to die on the ship, and the man who had given him immortality. One was El Diablo, and the other was... he wasn't sure what manner of being Jacob was, but when faced with the choice between the Devil and any other option, one should always pick the other option.

"I... I will go to the New World."

He made the sign of the cross. God help him. He prayed that this man, Eagan, would come back to the Island with him. He did not know if he could bring himself to murder him.

The Man in Black stood up; he was either not willing to or, perhaps, unable to argue with Ricardo's decision. He looked down at Jacob, "I just want to leave. That's all. Why is that so unforgivable?" He threw the cork into the ocean. And with a deafening roar, he turned into a thick column of black smoke and disappeared into the forest.

II. Kier, PE, 2022

His memories were strewn out on the shore of a distant land—endlessly, slowly being washed away with each wave. The harder he tried to hold onto them, the deeper he had to wade into that turbulent ocean.

His head felt like it was coming apart. Perhaps shouldn't have taken his mood stabilizers while going through reintegration sickness. His skull felt strange. He imagined his cranial sutures tearing open. It was a level of pain Petey didn't know he could experience.

He pushed down the pain-induced nausea and made his eyes focus on the digital clock on his bedside table. 5:26 PM. June should be done with band practice by now. She'd be home soon.

He closed his eyes—and marveled at the stars behind his eyelids—and rubbed his forehead and then immediately stopped when he realized that was making the pain worse.

When he opened them, the glowing red numbers of the clock had morphed into a series of triangles pointing down, which didn't even make sense on a seven-segment LED display.

He closed his eyes again; the afterimage of the clock remained—it would not let him go so easily. After a few seconds (minutes? hours? no, hours were impossible) he warily opened his eyes.

The red light and the elevator and the endless black

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go ^[1]

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Down goes the elevator
All seems well
But the car will never reach its destination true
'Cause that's when Mark S starts to say Achoo! ^[2]

Oh no. He was becoming untethered in time again. He had always been afloat in the temporal seas.

He knew he would be caught one day. He would miss Mark when this was all over. He'd find Mark's outie, but it wouldn't be the same. He'd tell Mark about his "elevator allergy". How Petey knew Mark had been crying before work, even if Mark didn't know it himself. How Petey tried to relieve the hurt by making jokes with Mark, hoping that it helped his outie somehow.

As he sat on his creaky bed, he looked down at the floor, expecting to see the orange rug that he had purchased and put in their old living room, much to Nina's dismay. She wasn't wrong when she called it hideous. It was ugly, but he kind of liked it. (He got to keep it in the divorce. It was not contested.) Instead, he saw a wood floor that was covered in old-fashioned clothes and items with purposes that he could only guess at.

He heard a kind, low voice. "Can I help you look?"

The voice was a trick. Ignore Mr. Graner. Keep looking.

Look again.

The floor was now empty, sans his ugly rug and some discarded boxers and old socks.

No, not that. Look for the key.

He knelt and started rifling through his dresser drawers, taking everything out, removing the drawers from the dresser entirely and shaking them upside down, inspecting their joints to see if anything was hidden there, feeling the inside and outside of the back wall of the dresser. The feel of the slightly rough wood made his teeth hurt. But he persevered—he must find the key.

"Dad...?" He faintly heard June say through his phone, which was on top of a tangle of sheets on the bed. "Is this a butt dial again? I'm going to hang up if you don't say anything in the next five seconds. One... two..."

Where was June?
Who was June?

June—he remembered June. His daughter, his best friend.

He realized he must have called her. How strange he didn't remember actually doing it. He dove for his phone. "No, honey. I'm sorry, I'm here. It wasn't a butt dial, I just..." He rubbed his forehead and he tasted iron and he felt something wet in his stubble and oh god it was happening again. He put his fingers to his upper lip and felt that now familiar trickle of blood from his nose again.

(C4) Beets - Dried and Sliced

He removed the beets from the vending machine. They tasted sweet, but his throat soon became irritated. He didn't want to stop eating. He coughed some up.

Mark was sitting in his MDR chair in Petey's bedroom. He asked, "Petey, are you okay?"

He looked down at the bloody tissue he had coughed into.

"Okay. Um, why did you call me? Is everything okay?" She—June sounded so worried. It broke his heart a little to lie to her. If he died because of the reintegration, would she understand why he had to do it?

He couldn't remember his mother's eye color. How could he not remember the eye color of someone he had loved?

You're taking too long. Make an excuse.

"Yeah... everything's okay." He stumbled into the bathroom and gazed in the mirror. He looked like shit. "I was wondering if you'd be willing to stay at your mom's tonight? I'm not feeling too well, and I don't want to get you sick."

He held eye contact with himself. There were some truths he could only see in the mirror. He wanted to look away, but he forced himself to continue. Eventually, visual patterns emerged that hadn't been there a moment before. The woodgrain of the wall behind him was writhing ("whoosh"). His eyes fluttered, momentarily too overwhelmed, and when he opened them again, his face had distorted slightly ("ding"). He felt so sick to his stomach. He felt euphoric and scared and transcendent at the same time (the elevator doors opened).

The white walls of the lobby hurt his head. But he kept looking at them until he saw myodesopsias—floaters—which shone and flickered like fireflies. He didn't leave the elevator. The floodgates were open, but he was still trapped.

We used to wonder what kind of men we were on the outside, what choices we had made and why.

"Sure, I'll ask if I can stay with her. Are you alright though? You sound really off." Her words vibrated sound waves, light waves, orange. "Did they do something to you at work? They always send you home with those weird notes. What did the note say this time?"

He remembered traveling to the Hoover Dam as a small child.
He remembered singing with his parents in the car.
He remembered singing with June.
He remembered naming her June.

He couldn’t remember. Next question, please.

He wished he had been a better father to June. He wished he'd spent more time with her. He wished he hadn’t gotten severed.

"All I can be is sorry, and that is all I am."

Still carrying the bloody blue washcloth he'd used to clean his face, he stumbled towards his bed. The blood had dried quickly; the washcloth crinkled in his hand.

He was holding a hand-drawn Eagan bingo sheet photocopied on azure paper. He had won.
Wax tears
Monocle
Monogrammed pen
Picture of child with rickets

A wall of black and white photos of rictus

The outline of his bed moved ever so slightly, like a line drawing in an animation that isn't quite smooth.

The bed had a rope around it and a sign: "Do not lie in Kier Eagan's bed".

He did it anyway.

He was in every home he had ever lived in, simultaneously. He was in the home where his mother gave birth. He was in his crib, his childhood twin bed, his cramped dorm room bed, his bed with Nina, his bed here.

He was in all of those realities at once. And he was in the nexus where they collapsed—here, in this house, this room. Nothing might exist beyond this bed.

It was the only house he'd ever known
It was maybe the only house that existed
Maybe he should set the Replica House on fire
Maybe he had set it on fire

(He hadn't, but he wished he had.)

Some people might live here
Some people might love there

He was treading water, and tiring out quickly.

June, Gemini, Castor and Pollux

Prior to reintegration, he had been thinking of his innie like a ghost—his ghost. One that he could not quite ever see despite trying to catch it out of the corner of his eye. The corner of his mind. But that was all wrong. He was him and he was him. Not cut from the same cloth, they were the cloth, two sides separated by a thin, porous fabric. The stitches were coming undone, and the textile was unraveling.

It was his 5th birthday. He remembered going to work.

He has been haunted from the beginning. His father is playing catch with him. Milchick is rolling a ball towards him. "One thing about me..." he starts. But he doesn't know how to finish the sentence. He was just born.

One thing about him is that he’s losing his fucking mind.

I used to think it would take a monster to put someone in a place like that office. Especially if the person was himself.

"Dad? Are you okay?" June's worried voice grounded him back to this reality.

The doorbell rang. It split his skull. Its urgency sobered him further. The world breathed and expanded beyond this sphere, beyond this bed and room.

The file was going to expire soon.
The fire was going to extinguish soon.
He wouldn't be in the running for a waffle party if he didn't finish what he had started.

"I have to go, honey. I need to finish this file. I'll call you later."

"What file? Dad, talk to m—"

He hung up and cleaned up the blood that was already crusting on his lip and stuffing up his nose. Birthing blood, lochia. It was horrifying and magnificent; through reintegration he had been reborn.

He walked to the door and looked through the peephole.

"I am thankful to have been caught, my fall cut short by those with wizened hands."

Milchick in the Break Room
Milchick at the door
Milchick in the Break Room
Milchick at the door
Milchick in the Break Room
Milchick

But we're not monsters. Not real ones.

Milchick took one hand off the basket of pineapples in order to adjust his tie. He waited a moment and then rang the doorbell again. Finally Petey opened the door. He tried not to look shocked at Petey's appearance. Graner had told him that Petey wasn't doing well, but he had thought Doug had been exaggerating. This man barely resembled the person he saw on the severed floor every workday or the man he had met during Petey's intake, before the severance procedure.

"Hi, Petey. May I come in?" With a smile, he gently thrust the basket into Petey's hands and stepped forward before Petey could respond.

"Um. Sure, Mr. Milch—... Seth." After some hesitation, Petey stepped aside only slightly to let Seth come through. Milchick had to shoulder his way in.

"Your innie told me he wasn't feeling well. He sounded so distraught to leave work early. He asked me if I would check up on you this evening. I hope you don't mind the intrusion in your domicile."

"Oh," Petey sounded slightly confused. "It's really not necessary."

"Nonsense. I'm sure your innie wouldn't mind me saying that he's my best friend at work, so it's especially important to me that you're okay."

Petey looked at him slightly quizzically, as if he was assessing whether Milchick was lying.

Petey eventually smiled weakly, "Thank you. I'm sure my innie appreciates it. But really, I'll be okay."

He wasn't sure where to take the conversation from here. Might as well lean into Petey's neuroses.

"Petey, if I may ask, what prompted you to become severed?" He knew all about his reasons—Petey had shared them during his intake, but he needed an excuse to stay, and he knew Petey would probably start ranting. It would give him time to look around.

Petey sighed, "Things were really rough after my ex... she was... my ex wife Nina left me. She got to have our daughter most of the time and she got the house, and I just got saddled with grief, debt, and child support. To be honest, I needed an escape." He noted that Petey seemed surprisingly lucid when talking about his family.

Milchick nodded, showing him some genuine sympathy. "That must have been very hard. I'm sure your daughter is proud of you for doing what needed to be done. Getting severed was brave." What he was saying didn't fully make sense, but he didn't need it to. He just needed Petey to keep talking.

"I don't think she really gets it. And I do kind of regret it sometimes. Getting severed as a way of coping, I mean—I don't regret getting divorced. Getting divorced was a great choice. A+. But I feel like I'm ready to deal with my grief, y'know?"

Milchick nodded, a little surprised that Petey would admit such a thing, and from the looks of it, Petey had surprised himself too. He continued to casually scan the room for the cassette that had gone missing from the Break Room recorder. Graner had led the session with Petey today, until he realized that Petey was too sick to continue, so if anyone had fucked up and lost it, it was probably Graner. But it could've been missing for a while and they hadn't noticed until now. Doug didn't usually run the sessions and he didn't fully have the procedure down, so there was hope that he had just misplaced the tape. But if it had been smuggled out, both he and Graner would be absolutely fucked: it contained a recording of Mark S. reading the Compunction Statement.

The place was trashed—empty pizza and take out boxes everywhere, some cans of beer and soda on the coffee table, and dirty clothes on the floor. He'd done checks of Petey's place while Petey was at work, and it'd always been messy, but this was some real bachelor pad shit. It was hard to tell where a cassette might be hiding. He might have to return here while Petey was out of the house in order to look.

Fuck it. He might as well just ask.

"I'm so glad you're feeling like you want to tackle that grief. That seems very healthy. I think your innie would agree. He's been..." he paused, trying to appear as though he was looking for the right words, "especially at ease recently, so I think whatever you're doing to process your grief is working."

He stood up, "I'll leave you to rest, but please don't hesitate to call if you need to take more time off of work. We at Lumon care so very much about your well-being." He started for the door before pretending to remember that he needed to ask a question, "Oh! Before I go, I wanted to ask: you didn't happen to bring a tape home, did you?"

"Did I?" Petey seemed confused by the question. It appeared Petey was also having trouble focusing his eyes on Milchick. The poor guy really was quite sick.

Petey eventually said, "No." He finally made eye contact. "But I hope you find what you're looking for."

Once Milchick left, Petey managed to make his brain work well enough to make the call to Reghabi. She picked up almost immediately.

"Hey, it's me. The reintegration sickness is getting much, much worse." His hand holding the phone was shaking a little.

"Are you alone right now?" came Reghabi's terse voice on the other end.

"I think so." Was he?

"You think so?"

"No. I mean, yes, I am alone. I asked June to stay with her mom tonight."

"Good. I'm coming over."

There was no room for argument with Reghabi—there never was—and yet he tried anyway. "Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe this was a mistake."

"No, no. We just need to tweak the procedure a little. It'll be fine. I know what to do." Not for the first time, he wondered how she could possibly know that to be true.

"I think I stole a tape. I don't know where I put it. But Mr. Milchick was here."

"Stop. Stop. Stop talking." He flinched. It was the tone Nina used with him sometimes while they were still together.

And then she said a bit more gently, "We shouldn't be talking about this on the phone. I'll see you soon."

He started to reply to tell her to come another day—he needed to think it over—before realizing that she had already ended the call.

He had started bleeding again.