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“Bim,” Dr. Iplier hung his head, a hand on Bim’s shoulder, incredulous. “Let me get this straight: You want to give both Wilford and Dark knives, put them in a room together, and encourage them to stab things?”
Bim wrung his hands together, bashful. “Well, when you put it that way...”
The Doctor shook his head. “As much as you want to get in the fall spirit, Bim, it might be significantly safer to get plastic pumpkins instead.”
“Right,” Bim stuttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “About that...”
Dr. Iplier’s eyes narrowed. “What did you--”
Google_R stormed into the clinic at that very moment, eyes flashing in anger. “Who,” he huffed, fans whirring, “had ten pumpkins delivered to the office?”
Bim spread his hands innocently, looking between Dr. Iplier and Google_R.
The Doctor was about the same color as Google_R. “Bim,” he growled, rounding on him, “what did you do?”
Google_R stomped into the kitchen, Dr. Iplier dragging Bim behind them. Bim hid his face, trying to contain his giggles. Around the table, the rest of the Googles and Wilford stood with brows furrowed.
On the table were almost a dozen pumpkins, fantastically orange and ready to be carved. The table sagged under their weight, and Bim clapped his hands in delight.
Dr. Iplier groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is a bad idea, Bim--”
Google_B beeped curiously, turning to look at them as they entered. “Hello,” he said, voice studied, even. “Doctor, would you care to explain?”
Wilford, hands all over the bowed surfaces of the pumpkins, looked up at Bim. “Pumpkins!” he shouted, stating the obvious.
“I think Bim can explain this, can’t you, Bim?” Dr. Iplier turned to Bim with a measured smirk.
“Er,” Bim shrunk a little under the robots’ glare. “I thought we could carve pumpkins! Y’know, for Halloween!”
Wilford danced on his feet before any of the Googles could respond, smiling widely. “That’s an incredible idea! I call this one.” He held up the pumpkin he’d been hovering over, the surface a little warped, but shiny and perfect.
“That’s... good, Wilford,” Bim grinned, glad to have someone on his side. He looked around at the Googles and the Doctor, all side-eyeing the two of them. “C’mon, guys, pick a pumpkin!”
Google_G laid his hand on a nondescript, medium-sized pumpkin, looking hopefully at the others. After a moment, Google_B reached over for a large, fat pumpkin, followed by Oliver, who reached for a taller, skinny, pale one. The Doctor sighed, then tugged Google_R along to claim two other pumpkins, both thick-walled and stout.
Bim shifted gently from foot to foot, a tiny nervous dance.
“What are you waiting for?” Oliver asked, eyes flickering. “Select a pumpkin.”
“Well, it’s... it’s just that--” Bim looked at the remaining three pumpkins, sitting in a row. “I was wondering if-- if DarkandHostcouldjoinus,” he said, all in one breath.
Oliver blinked, processing. “Excuse me?”
Dr. Iplier took a deep breath. Carving pumpkins with a cotton-candy killer and four murderous robots was one thing, but Dark? Host? That was over a line. “Bim,” he said, as gently as he could. Bim was so excited, and it showed.
The moment Dr. Iplier spoke, Bim’s face fell. What use was it, all of them living at the office, if they never did anything together? “We... don’t have to,” Bim stuttered, forcing a smile. “I just thought--”
“Apologies,” Oliver muttered, blushing.
Dr. Iplier patted Oliver’s arm, the robot freezing at the proximity. Bim, shoulders a little slumped, shuffled over to pull a speckled pumpkin towards him, picking up a flimsy carving knife from the table.
Wilford looked at the pile of carving tools in the center of the table, all with different colored plastic handles and skinny aluminum blades. Dr. Iplier reached for one with a similar look of distaste. The Googles rolled their eyes with what seemed to be a simultaneous whirr, grabbing one apiece, bending over their pumpkins.
“What is this?” Wilford said, dangling one of the blades at eye level, regarding it with an expression of disgust.
“I think,” Dr. Iplier said, hushed, “these are supposed to be knives.”
“Pitiful,” Wilford said in a horrified stage-whisper, dropping it with a clang.
Dr. Iplier threw his back on the table with a shake of his head. “Bim,” he scolded, and Bim looked up with wide eyes, “if you’re going to have us carve pumpkins, you may as well give us the proper tools.” A twinkle in his eye, Dr. Iplier whipped a tiny sterile package from the inside of his coat. From it, he laid out his usual gloves, a pair of calipers, several probes and spatulas, and a scalpel. With a wide-spread grin, the Doctor snapped the gloves over his hands and went to work.
Wilford scoffed, seeing the Doctor’s delicate blade. From a hidden pocket, Wilford unsheathed a gleaming hunter’s knife, handled in pink-stained leather. “This is a knife, see, Bim?” he waved it precariously in Bim’s direction. “And this is what it can do.”
Bim glanced up in time to see Wilford plunge his knife hilt-deep into the top of the pumpkin, laughing maniacally.
“Wilford, have you seen--” Dark walked into the kitchen, straightening his suit jacket, tie-less. He stopped, looking at Wilford with a knife stabbed into a pumpkin. “What,” he fought to keep a straight face, “are you doing.”
Bim jumped up before Wilford could stutter out a response. “Dark! We’re carving pumpkins, do you want to join us?”
“Bim,” Dr Iplier glanced between him and Dark, nervous.
Dark hesitated for all of a second before his lips curled into a smile, the ringing that followed him dying down. “Carving guts out of voiceless winter squash? How could I possibly refuse?”
A glitter to his eyes that made Wilford scoff, withdrawing his knife. “Pick a victim, Darkipoo.”
Dark walked over to stand by Bim at the end of the table, pulling one of the more perfect pumpkins towards him. “Thank you all for inviting me,” he purred, seizing a bat-handled carving blade from the center.
Dr. Iplier and Bim went stiff, but Wilford only rolled his eyes, going back to his now-punctured pumpkin.
They sawed away in silence for a few minutes, and slowly, the room began to breathe. Bim felt his shoulders relaxing, enjoying the company, even enjoying the flutter of tension between the two heads of the table.
Google_R was the first to lift the top of his pumpkin off, peering inside. He beeped in mild surprise, and Google_B leaned over to look.
“What?” Dr. Iplier looked over, curious. “It’s just a pumpkin.”
“It has a similar appearance to intestines,” Google_R muttered, eyes glinting.
Dark looked up, silent, a smirk lifting the corners of his mouth.
Dr. Iplier shot the robots a concerned glance, but the rest of them pulled/ off the tops of their pumpkins, Google_G already elbow deep in pulp.
“What on earth are you doing in here?” The Host poked his head into the kitchen, nose twitching at the smell of pumpkin. Each of them, sleeves rolled up and covered in slime, passed a glance around the table.
Bim piped up first, dropping a pile of seeds and pulp in the center of the table. “We’re carving pumpkins! C’mon, Host, join us!”
“The Host would roll his eyes if he had any,” came the soft response, but the Host smiled and walked in nonetheless. He stood, hesitant, next to Dr. Iplier, until Bim reached out and pushed the last pumpkin towards him-- a little shriveled, rough and mottled, but very distinctive.
Dr. Iplier handed the Host a carving tool. The Host ran his fingers carefully over it, smiling, and set to work. “Thank you, Bim,” he mumbled, and Bim felt his face go red.
Dark slipped his suit jacket off before Bim did, casting it over the back of the nearest chair. He rolled his sleeves up, and, tie-less, he looked almost casual. Relaxed.
Dr. Iplier set his coat down with gloved fingers, only scrubs underneath, and pressed his gloved hands into the pumpkin. He was hard at work, here, with every ounce of concentration as a surgeon.
Bim’s suit jacket came off, and sleeves pushed up, but his tie dragged over the table in pools of pumpkin juice. By the time he noticed, it was too late for the tie, anyway, and he threw it over his shoulder.
After the Host found that the sleeves of his trenchcoat were dragging on the lip of his pumpkin, covered in seeds, the it was carefully slipped off his shoulders. Dr. Iplier put it next to his own coat, careful to keep anything in the pockets from slipping out. The Host pushed up the sleeves of his own worn flannel, aware but indifferent to everyone else’s eyes flickering over him.
They worked quickly, the only sound the squishing of pumpkin guts and the whirring and occasional beeping of the Googles. Bim finished scraping out the insides of his pumpkin, thick-walled and pockmarked, and paused to look over at the rest of them.
The Googles’ pumpkins seemed to be hollowed out with mechanical efficiency, and all of them were going for some kind of face. Google_B was carving what seemed to be quite a lot of teeth into his, as delicately as he could with a flimsy knife. Google_G had outlined a smiling, classical jack-o-lantern, and he turned it towards Google_B for critique. Google_R had an angry-looking pumpkin, and Bim felt a little spooked just looking at it. Oliver seemed to be carving a strange series of lines into his pumpkin, the outlines of a face in relief, but Bim wasn’t too sure what it looked like.
Dr. Iplier was still working on carving out the guts of his pumpkin, perfect cleanliness inside before he started on the design. As he turned his pumpkin, Bim could see the outline of a complex design etched into the front, something he was sure couldn’t be done with cutouts.
The Host, across from him, had his arms covered in orange slime, still pulling out the insides of the pumpkin in fistfuls. As Bim watched, shyly, the Host ran his fingers over the outside of the pumpkin, over the bumps and ribbed walls. Something very close to a smile on his face.
Wilford, at the end of the table, was whittling at his pumpkin with the hunting knife between his teeth, a smaller dagger in his hand. He caught Bim’s eye and winked, turning the design to face him. Bim gasped a little, seeing the relief of a cat carved with impeccable detail into the side of the pumpkin.
“It’s gorgeous, Will.”
Wilford grinned, all teeth around his knife, and went back to carving.
Dark, at the other end of the table, was staring into his pumpkin with a scowl. Bim leaned over to see inside, and gasped.
Dark’s pumpkin was nondescript enough on the outside, but the inside was filled with brown, rotting pumpkin flesh.
“I’m sorry, Dark,” Bim stuttered, looking up at him, “I didn‘t know it was...”
Dark scowled at him, snapping his fingers. A flash like a camera, and the insides of the pumpkin turned a charred black. Dark tapped on it with satisfaction, the burnt pumpkin no longer soggy and rotten, and ready to carve: even if it was smoking a little.
Bim averted his eyes after that, focusing on carving a happy-looking ghost into his own pumpkin. It was nice, all of them in one room, not at each others’ throats for once.
Well, almost.
“What is that?” Dark sneered across the table, looking at Wilford’s pumpkin.
“It’s a kitty!” Wilford held it up, almost finished, looking altogether too proud of himself.
Dark scoffed, looking back at his own pumpkin with something akin to pride.
“You’re one to talk,” Wilford muttered, peering at Dark’s pumpkin. “What’s that?”
“You’ll see,” Dark hummed, bending over it again.
Bim looked between them, a little nervous, but the tension dissipating. They were almost peaceful, falling into what seemed to be a kind of easy silence. Sharp knives and a body or two to carve was a familiar pastime for them, he figured.
The Host moved on to tracing a design on his pumpkin, blade held between slippery fingers. When he nicked himself, a tiny well of blood, Dr. Iplier pressed a plaster over it with practiced care. Bim saw the Doctor’s hand over the Host’s and gave himself a moment to wonder how long they’d been friends, to be able to slip into this back-and-forth.
The Googles were almost done, their pumpkins carved out as if they’d used stencils, but each showing the mark of their hand. Google_B went to rummage in a cabinet for small candles, and Oliver stepped back to look at his work. From what Bim could see, it was a patchwork of lines that he couldn’t make sense of. Google_G and Google_R peeked over at his pumpkin, nudging his arms gently in something approaching affection. Brothers, all, and complimentary of what the others had done.
Bim found himself carving the last details of his little ghost in silence, hands limp against his knife. They all had history, something to fall back on, a partnership, a friendship, a brotherhood within a family. If he could call these nine figments a family. Just Egos, living under the same roof, forced together by silly projects.
“Done,” called Wilford, singsong.
Dr. Iplier put his scalpel down, squinting at his pumpkin, shavings of pulp everywhere. “I think I am, too.”
Google_B shuffled back with a handful of candles and matches, passing them around the table. The Host and Dark kept working, heads lowered, fingers searching.
Oliver lit his first, stepping back to look at it. Bim hurried to stand besides him, looking over his shoulder, open-mouthed.
It was a face, a human face, but carved in relief. With the light inside off, Bim could never have told what it was: with it on, the random shapes transformed themselves into a smiling face, sinister.
Wilford glanced over, an impressed smile spreading over his face. “Nice, Ollie. Is that Pennywise?”
Oliver nodded, still squinting at his creation. “It is supposed to be a likeness of the clown, yes.”
Google_R smiled, lighting his own pumpkin. Bim was glad he was already standing behind Oliver, because the pumpkin’s seemed to follow him around the room with an uneasiness that even Dark didn’t seem to exude.
“Uh, cool,” Bim stuttered, looking away.
Google_G lit both his and Google_B’s pumpkins with one match. Google_G’s smiled, all asymmetrical teeth and triangle eyes. Google_B’s let the light glint through jagged teeth, brows drawn low over eyes like slits. It was, in a word, intimidating, and Bim wondered why carving cute animals into pumpkins wasn’t more common.
Wilford’s pumpkin sat next in line, and Google_B swatted his hand away as he went to light it.
“Rule five is that Wilford can’t have matches,” Bim joked, watching Google_B light the candle. Wilford stuck his tongue out at him. Wilford’s pumpkin, craved with a sharp, delicate blade, was a detailed cat arching across the face of the pumpkin. Bim could make out every whisker and hair, and whistled, impressed. “Nice, Will.”
Wilford pushed his hair back, a little embarrassed, and pat Bim on the head. “It’s a cat,” he said gruffly, turning to look at Bim’s pumpkin.
Bim’s ghost was flickering gently with the light of the candle, and Wilford nudged him in the ribs. “Very realistic, Trimmer.”
“I tried,” Bim said dryly, adjusting the top of the pumpkin, still flushed with pleasure.
Dr. Iplier set his pumpkin down next to Bim’s, and Google_B lit another candle for him.
“What is it?” Olvier asked, coming up behind them.
“A skull,” Dr. Iplier said, proudly. He pointed out the different parts, explaining. “This is the parietal bone, the temporal, the frontal, occipital...” Bim hid a giggle behind his hand, listening.
The Host finally finished, pushing his sleeves up. Dr. Iplier took the pumpkin from him, setting it by the others.
Bim eyed it critically. The pumpkin had two huge eyes and a skeleton-esque mouth, but it seemed all too familiar.
“’Say Goodbye,’“ the Host quietly reminded them, and a collective, “Ooooh,” went around the room.
“Very nice,” Dr. Iplier said, glancing at him. “Does this mean that Anti is going to kill one of us?”
The Host shrugged, smiling, bandages smeared with orange goop. Dr. Iplier shook his head, laughing.
“Dark,” Bim called down the table, past the line of lit pumpkins. “Are you done?”
Dark stabbed his pumpkin a final time, wiping his forehead delicately. “Finished,” he said, satisfaction coloring his voice. He picked his pumpkin up with a slight heave, walked over, and set it by the Host’s.
Bim gasped a little, looking at it. “Is that... Mark?”
Dark dried his hands on a towel, smiling. “Yeah. It is.”
Google_B hovered over Bim’s shoulder, brow furrowed. “That is... excellent, Dark,” he murmured, sounding impressed.
Dr. Iplier nodded in agreement, looking critically at it. The hair was even the right direction. “Why...?”
Dark grinned widely, setting the towel down. “What?” he threw his hands up, all innocence. “I can’t just do nice things?”
Even Host laughed at that, starting to shrug his coat back on. “No,” he chuckled. “You cannot.”
Dark’s smile went from congenial to dangerous in the flick of a switch. “Well,” he drawled, hands behind his back, “you’re right.”
Google_G pulled Bim, the Doctor, and the Host behind a wall of androids as Dark pulled a real dagger from his back pocket and stabbed it into his Mark-pumpkin, his aura beginning to swirl again, laughing in a high pitch.
“At least it wasn’t lit,” Oliver muttered, watching Dark throw the pumpkin to the ground and start stomping on it, reducing it to an orange mush.
Bim shook his head, looking over the Googles’ shoulders. “This is why we can’t have nice things, Dark,” he called, surprised at his own bravado.
Dark, pumpkin-killing exhausted, looked at them all with a maniac glint in his eyes. “Thank you for suggesting this activity, Bim,” he puffed, catching his breath, scooping up his coat. He winked at them all, aura looping itself around his shoulders. “It was very, ah, refreshing.” With that, he walked out.
Bim held his breath, realizing that he’d been clutching the back of Google_G’s shirt. “S-sorry,” he stuttered, backing away.
The Googles turned, breaking their protective wall, and looked each of them over. “As long as you are safe,” Google_G said, face stretching into a smile.
Bim felt his heart flutter with something that wasn’t a part of his aura, wasn’t a part of fear, wasn’t the anticipation that came before stage fright. He watched the Googles scoop up the pumpkins, making for the front of the building, watched the pumpkin-y handprints he’d left on the back of Google_G’s shirt recede down the hallway. Wilford gave Bim a hearty pat on the shoulder, a wordless thanks, before poofing away to his own devices. Dr. Iplier helped the Host back into his coat and pointed him down the hall before starting to clean up the mess they’d made. Bim stood and watched a minute longer before pitching in.
Bim had only really known life at the office. Life with the rest of them. The others all had history, all had friendships forged before Markiplier TV. It took Bim a long time, too long, to fall into domesticity with all of them. Wilford worked the stage with him, sure, but Bim, at first, had no one.
And during this, their first Halloween together, Bim was beginning to feel that he had someone. A lot of someones.
And here, picking up pumpkin guts with Dr. Iplier, Bim felt that he was beginning to be someone.