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“Bim, this is far from the best idea you’ve ever had.”
Bim pulled Dr. Iplier closer, a grin that was almost a leer. “But Doc,” he purred, eyes lowered, “you’d let me get away with it, wouldn’t you?”
“It is... inadvisable, at best, Bim,” the Doctor stuttered, going red, acutely aware of the press of Bim’s thumb against the curve of his jaw. “But, er,” he added, seeing Bim’s face flicker, “I... I would.”
“You’d let me?”
Dr. Iplier swallowed, breathy, and nodded. Bim patted his cheek gently, and in any other situation, it would have been infantilizing. Just now, it was the brush of flower petals against his face, Bim walking away like sunlight passing through the clouds.
He blinked, and Bim was gone, along with the vague feeling that he’d agreed to something that he shouldn’t have.
“Hey. Will.”
Wilford didn’t look up from his computer, squinting at lines of script on the screen.
“Wiiiiiilfooooooord.”
He practically growled, snapping around to look at Bim. “What do you want?”
Bim flinched back, arms up. Trying to forget their argument the day before, he and Wilford at each others’ throats, auras snapping, words hurled like daggers. An actual dagger thrown before Wilford stormed away. Trying to ignore the way Wilford stared at him now, eyes like flint, as if wishing the blade had hit its mark. Bim shoved his fear down, bottling it up. Saving it for later. There was a certain control to be had, here. “Whatchya doing?”
“Working.” A snarl, and Wilford turned back around. A beat, and Bim’s aura hit him in waves, dizzying, just enough to derail him.
“Hey. Will.” Wilford ignored him this time, typing hurriedly. Bim tried again. “Hey. Will. Hey. Will. Will. Hey. Heeeeeeeeey. Hey. Will.”
“What?” Wilford dropped-- really, threw-- his mouse across the desk, looking around, eyes flashing. Heart pounding in his chest, the creep of Bim’s aura working its way up his spine.
“D’you want to go somewhere?” Bim leaned against the doorway, hands stuffed in his pockets, the air of careless confidence around him. He rolled his eyes, grinning lazily. “Get away from the stress of all of... this?” The glint of teeth, grazing his lip.
Wilford found the presence of mind to sneer, the memory of Bim’s insubordination like a thorn in his side. Even so, his breath stuttering. “Get lost, Trimmer.”
“C’mon.” Bim raised an eyebrow, aura darkening from lilac to wine. “I’ll get you dinner and everything.”
A shiver, a palpable chill in the air. Wilford struggled against his better judgement for one more moment before standing with a sigh. “Fine.”
“It’s a date.”
“I still don’t understand how you managed this,” Wilford said, settling himself across from Bim. The table was laid in fancy silverware, gleaming against the linen tablecloth. All around them, dim in the light of the restaurant, humans, chattering. Wilford scowled around at them, the force of his aura keeping their curious stares away; but even then, not enough to fight back the scent of lavender clinging to his mustache.
Bim shrugged. “I figured I owe you an... apology... of sorts.” He was backlit by the candles, hair swept back, leaning forward with a smile that approached a leer.
Wilford huffed, doing his best to look unimpressed. “Downright sweet of you, Trimmer.”
Bim had time to wink before a waiter swept up to their table, blinking a little in the magenta-tinted light. “Sirs, are we ready to order?”
“Of course,” Bim looked up at him before Wilford could respond, smiling up at him. Wilford fought back a wave of jealousy, white-hot, as Bim pointed to the menu and chattered away, eyes soft in the waiter’s direction. There was an unfamiliar ringing in his ears.
“The fish, then.” Bim clapped his menu shut, and Wilford found himself snapping beck to reality, watching an uncharacteristic shadow pass over Bim’s face. “And make it fast,” Bim almost growled, dropping all pretense.
The waiter stuttered, caught off guard as Bim glowered.
“If you hurry,” Bim said, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth, leaning in, whispering, “there might be something in it for you, hmm?” A purple spark, a wink, and the waiter was gone.
Wilford squinted, feeling the waiter pass out of the purple-pink bubble of their combined influence. “Bim,” he said, an edge of defensiveness poking out of Bim’s aura like an iceberg, “what was that?”
“I’m being more assertive,” Bim stuck his tongue out between his teeth, running his finger over the lip of his glass. “You don’t like it?”
The hint of suggestion nearly pulled Wilford under, but something reared up. Something older than Bim, the part of him that had seen more and knew better. “Bim,” Wilford repeated, a cold note like the glint of a blade in his voice, “you’re drawing attention to us.”
“And?” Bim giggled, a maddening sparkle to his eyes. “I thought that was the goal.”
“Sure,” Wilford whispered, angry now. “But this is not the time or place.”
“On the contrary,” Bim said, swinging his legs up to rest on the table, tipping his chair back, knocking silverware onto the floor, “this is exactly the time and place.”
Wilford wanted to laugh, wanted to push Bim to the floor, wanted to join him in making fools of themselves: but even as the thought surfaced, a cool hand, familiar, pulled him back. Control. We must not be seen.
The waiter emerged suddenly out of the fog with a nervous blush and two plates of food. “For you, sir,” he stuttered, laying the plate in front of Bim with what seemed to be a painful bow. “Um, sirs,” he managed, setting Wilford’s plate down with a clatter.
“Thank you,” Bim grinned, letting his chair fall to the floor with a loud clank. The waiter hesitated, as if he had something more to say, but with a wave of his hand, Bim dismissed him.
As the waiter faded into the background again, Wilford looked around, and saw the other patrons of the restaurant looking back. His aura was only good for so much, after all, and Bim was inviting attention.
Bim had already begun tearing apart his fish, napkin tucked tidily into his collar. Wilford squinted across at him, about to say something.
“Dig in, Will.” Bim beamed at him, a wash of lavender, again.
Wilford suddenly couldn’t remember why his brow was furrowed, why he was glaring at Bim so harshly. Instead, there was only a plate of food in front of him and the company of a friend.
“Y’know what?” Bim looked up as Wilford was practically licking his plate clean, Bim’s own plate nearly demolished.
Mouth full of food, Wilford raised his eyebrows. “Mmph?”
“I didn’t really like it.” Bim flipped his fork in his hand, balancing it upright in the pile of bones and greens discarded in the center of his plate. “Ah, waiter?” He snapped his fingers, and Wilford felt, rather than saw, the eyes of everyone in the restaurant flick over them.
A numb, terrified kind of anxiety tugged at Wilford’s spine as the waiter materialized from nothingness. “Sir?”
“Yeah.” Bim shoved his empty plate away, disdain in every line of his shoulders. “It was, uh, undercooked. Can I have the chicken instead?”
“Erm.” The waiter tugged at his collar, looking down. “No, I can’t... I mean, sir--”
“Sorry,” Bim leaned forward, dropping his hand over the waiter’s fingers. The waiter fell silent, eyes wide. “Was that a no?”
“Bim,” Wilford warned, gritting his teeth, eyes flashing at the rest of the restaurant, at two people now whispering behind cupped palms, shooting terrified glances at them. “What are you doing?”
“I’m just trying to get a meal, here.” Bim smiled, all teeth, and the waiter visibly shivered.
Wilford started to retort, again, but the waiter cleared his throat and looked down at Bim with a subtle kind of glow, and Wilford’s train of thought flew out the window. Gone, somehow, were the years of Dark’s cautioning that they had to be as unobtrusive as possible: always head down, always turning the other cheek, always under the radar. Always, always better safe than sorry. Better fettered than fun.
“I really don’t think I could get you a refund,” the waiter was stuttering, eyes a hazy purple, when Wilford jumped in.
“Hey, uh, Benjamin.” Wilford said, squinting at his name tag. “Ben. Can I call you Ben? Buddy. Listen.” Under the table, Wilford flipped open his knife, pressing the cold metal into his own leg. Firm, reassuring. The power of chaos was his, after all. “Could you just get me and my... partner... here some of your best chicken?”
Bim, seizing his opportunity while Wilford was focused on him, rather than the growing stares and whispers, got to his feet. “Pretty please?” Bim growled, catching the waiter’s waist, pulling them nose to nose. “You’d do it for me, wouldn’t you... Benjamin?”
As Bim stood up, Wilford heard the rest of the restaurant go silent. They were the center of attention. The vestiges of Dark’s fiercely whispered you must not be seen faded from his ears in the face of the spotlight. “Excuse me,” Wilford drawled, pushing himself up, the remnants of his meal forgotten, “but I believe that Ben and I were in the middle of something.”
“Of course.” In a moment, Bim had sat down, smoothing his suit in a painfully familiar gesture, and Wilford was left staring at the waiter in the middle of the restaurant. Humans were staring, both of their auras lost to the slight ringing in the air.
The waiter blinked, the air of fog clearing, if only just a bit. “I’ll have that right out for you, sir,” he said to the ground, shuffling away. Bit by bit, Wilford’s magic surrounded them again, and the humans looked away.
Wilford sat down, glowering across the table. “You’re just making me look stupid.” It wasn’t an accusation, nor a question, but a statement.
“I don’t think I’m doing that, love.” Bim practically purred the words, examining the backs of his own hands.
Wilford felt his own anger, then Bim’s aura, them his own consciousness pulling at him. Control wasn’t his shtick, and neither was jealousy. Chaos, however. If Bim wanted to pull at his strings, he’d pull right back.
It didn’t take long for their food to arrive, Benjamin blushing as he served them, eyes lowered. The sidelong glances from the other patrons of the restaurant were frequent now, suspicious, wary. In truth, they had every right to be.
Splat.
“What the-- hey, this was a new suit!” Bim looked down at a limp stalk of asparagus, smearing his shirt front in gravy. “That’s gonna stain-- Wilford!”
Across the table, Wilford lowered his head innocently over his food. A moment, and then--
Fwap.
A chunk of chicken hit him in the face. Juice dripping down his cheek, and mustache threatened, Wilford scowled. “Childish, don’t you think?”
“I’d like to think of it as revenge.” Bim threw an unidentifiable vegetable across at him, and it landed squarely in Wilford’s dish, splashing him with something brown and wet.
“Very funny, Trimmer.” Wilford was working on a drumstick, picking the meat off the end of the bone. A crunch, and he withdrew a razor-sharp point from the inside of his cheek. “Try that again, and--”
Bim’s soggy bread hit him across the mouth, and Wilford froze to contain his rage. Bim giggled, no longer purple sparks, but maddening glee.
Wilford’s thrown makeshift bone shank missed Bim entirely, but found its mark three inches into an elderly human’s shoulder. Likewise, Bim’s chicken hit someone else’s head with an altogether too-wet slap in the relative silence of the restaurant.
The silence lasted all of a second, however, as the room erupted in screams and the sound of two figments wrestling bodily on the floor.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Mark?”
“Uh, yeah. Who’s this?”
“Mr. Fischbach, we’re sorry, but--”
“What happened?” Mark held the phone closer to his ear, mind buzzing through all of the possibilities. Who had him as an emergency contact? Who hadn’t he checked up on?
The voice on the other side of the line sighed. “Sir, I believe your brothers have been detained for endangering the public. They’ve been let off with a warning, but requested that we call you.”
“Sorry, brothers?”
In the distance on the other side of the call, Mark could make out very familiar voices. One shouting, “I’m innocent! You can’t prove anything! I want a lawyer!”, the other sobbing, “I didn’t mean to hit anyone, I’m sorry... where’s Mark?”
Mark sighed. “Right. Brothers. I’m on my way.”
It took Mark seventeen minutes to drive to the police station, swerving around cars on the freeway; three minutes spent, anxious, tapping his foot in the waiting room; five minutes signing the release papers, falsifying data about identical triplets; six minutes waiting for Wilford, still blustering, and Bim, still sniffling, to be led out of the holding cell; ten minutes lecturing them in the hallway, voice low; twenty-three minutes to drive them back home to the office, both of them sullen and silent, Mark distant and disappointed.
He dropped them off with a roll of his eyes, and didn’t drive away until they’d vanished indoors. Stranger things had happened, after all. Right? Stranger than picking up his doppelgangers from a holding cell and having to warn them not to make a scene in public like a pair of toddlers? Mark shook his head a little, laughing. It didn’t get much stranger than this.
Wilford and Bim walked into the back of the office, not looking at each other, barely putting one foot in front of the other. Even Wilford knew when he’d been beat, when it was time to curl up a cave and tend to his wounds.
Dark met them at the door. His aura curled over his shoulders, a picture of rage. “Where. Have. You. Been.”
Bim, too spent to give him an answer, cowered in fear and apology. Wilford, too spent to put up with his anger, waved a hand. “On an adventure, Darky.” He brushed past Dark, Bim trailing behind him with a sidelong glance at Dark’s bared fangs.
“Don’t walk away from me,” Dark growled, phasing in and out of space, reappearing to block their path into the office. “You’ve done something, I know you have.”
“I’ve done a lot of things,” Wilford shot back, poking Dark’s smoky figure in the chest. “None of which concern you.”
Dark switched tack impressively fast, looping his aura’s tendrils around Bim’s shoulders. “What things?” he purred, a dangerous glint to his eyes.
Now that got Wilford’s attention. He turned around, steely defense rounding out his shoulders. “Dark,” he snapped, his own aura tiredly lifting its head.
“Feeling up to sharing?” Dark sneered, folding his arms.
“We seduced a waiter, started a fight in a restaurant, impaled three people, and Mark now has three brothers,” Wilford listed them off on his fingers, face a study in neutrality. “Am I forgetting anything, Bim?”
“We did destroy a table and a set of dishes,” Bim offered, a little shy, trodden under Dark’s aura.
“And a carpet, and some chairs,” Wilford went on, watching a vein start to pop in Dark’s forehead.
“What happened to secrecy?”
“Well,” Wilford waved a hand, careless, “we’re living a life of madness, now, Darky.”
“Life doesn’t need any bit of madness, Will.” With a snap, Dark was gone, and Wilford was left scowling into the carpet.
Bim looked at him, a question on his lips, but let it fade. Some things were better left to a past of madness, and others, to a future of adventure.