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It was Dark who called the meeting.
It was a few days after Mark had livestreamed an explaination, and the fandom was beginning to settle down. There was new canon to be had, after all, and fics to be written, gifsets to be made, art to draw, fanon to create.
Mark hadn’t told them what he was planning. “A surprise,” he’d said, winking, eyeing Wilford and Dark’s turned backs and perked ears. “Something I’ve been working on, and something for you guys.”
He’d refused to say anything more, and now they knew why.
Dark was there first, of course, stiff-backed in his seat at the head of the table. He glowered at the others as they filed in, as if daring them to say something, anything about the new videos. The Googles trooped in, silent, to sit in a row on one side, the Host identically quiet on the other.
Wilford sat at the other head, draped across the arms of his own chair. His knife flashed between his fingers, a blur of glinting metal. For once, he didn’t smile and wink at Bim or Dr. Iplier as they took their seats next to him, and didn’t glance once at Dark as he pushed himself to his feet.
Dark seemed to hesitate, clearing his throat, smoothing his suit. “As you know,” he started, the usual venom all but entirely gone from his voice, “our lovely creator--” he sneered, “--has created a new narrative for a few of us.”
Google_R rolled his eyes with an audible whirr. “Only yourself and Wilford,” he muttered, and Google_G elbowed him in the chest with the clank of metal on metal. Angry beeping, muttering: “Well, why are the rest of us required to be here?” “Hush!”
Dark didn’t seem to notice the interruption: his aura snapped at Google_R’s shirt, stopping just short of attacking. Even the aura was contained today, coiling around Dark’s shoulders with an air of white-knuckled restraint.
“Mark has also released a statement on the fate of a few other characters, which is why I called us here.” Dark paused, seeing Bim’s head flick upwards. He’d been waiting so long for a chance in the spotlight, and at every meeting, he’d shoot sickeningly hopeful glances in Dark’s direction.
If he’d had a heart, it would have squeezed in his chest with momentary regret-- but he was Darkiplier, after all, and there was nothing to squeeze but empty space.
“Get on with it, Darkipoo.” Wilford spoke for the first time, and everyone’s heads snapped towards him, towards the sounds of barely-restrained emotion breaking through his voice. Wilford waved his knife at them, stilled from the moment that Dark started speaking. His eyes hard, he looked at each of them until they looked away before staring vehemently at a point over Dark’s shoulder, desperate not to make eye contact.
“Right.” Dark snapped, but without a trace of malice. Again he cleared his throat, but not out of nervousness, or any fear: it was the steadying of nerves for an inevitable break. “Mark has stated that he will not make future videos concerning characters that he has not created.”
A moment of dead silence, understanding rippling through the room.
The Googles folded their arms across their chests, narrowing their eyes first at the Host, then at Bim. The Host sat back in his chair, expression unreadable. Bim looked from figment to figment, lagging behind.
Dark took mercy. “That is to say,” he directed his words at Bim with a kind of sharp clarity, “characters that were created with the late Cyndago channel.”
The Host took a short, sharp breath.
“Me?” Bim broke the silence, voice small.
“And the Host, and possibly the Doctor,” Oliver said, eyes flickering for a moment. Google_G beeped at him in annoyance, but the words were already out of his mouth, and hung in the air like lead bricks.
Bim stood before he could think, pushing his chair out behind him. “No, it can’t... I can’t...” His voice was little more than a whisper, and Bim searched Dark’s face with an air of desperation, a child seeking comfort.
Dark glanced at Bim, meeting his eye, forced a sneer into place on his face. “Trimmer--”
“The Host reminds Bim,” the Host interrupted, biting out each word as if it caused him physical pain, “that he is more than he has ever been, now, and that the risk of him fading prematurely is increasingly shallow.”
“But...” Bim’s hands formed fists at his sides, the feeling of the floor falling out from underneath him.
“You’ll be fine, Tri-- Bim.” Wilford scowled, flipping his knife closed. “Bim. The fans will remember you.”
“Not without videos, they won’t!” Bim’s voice was shaking, rising in pitch, the reminder of fading painfully heavy in his chest.
“Bim--” Dr. Iplier stood too, reaching forward. Bim’s clenched fists had started to spark, purple-colored terror.
Google_B mirrored Dr. Iplier, eyes flashing. “There is no need for that, Trimmer.”
The Host let a moment pass as the Google_G rose with a hand against Bim’s shoulder, another moment as Bim's voice stopped just short of a shaking scream. Dark sat back down next to him, the rustling of smoothing a suit, and the Host felt as though ants were crawling under his skin.
“Please excuse me,” he murmured, lips barely moving. The Host pushed his chair in, silent, as if in mourning, and walked out of the room.
Dark sighed, seated as the others started to raise their voices. This was not a happy meeting, despite all the attention they’d had recently, and certainly not a productive one.
Across the table, Wilford shifted, and Dark caught his eye for what felt like the first time. A look passed between them, and Wilford huffed before turning away.
Dark smoothed his suit again, looking down. So, Wilford had woken up to these memories making a home between his temples, too. Just as Dark had.
The echo of a gunshot, the fading vestiges of a scream.
And yet, Dark couldn’t help himself from thinking that Wilford had it easy. It was better, he thought bitterly, as Google_R leaped across the table to restrain Bim, to find solace in fiction, rather than face reality.
Google_B and Dr. Iplier started to shout for order at the same time, and Dark found the table shaking under his crossed arms. There was no sense in staying to watch, after all, and there were other matters that needed attention just now. Dark stood, silent, the ringing of his aura rising with him, and turned to go.
The others, fighting, didn’t seem to notice until Dark had swung the door closed behind him. Alone-- or almost alone-- Dark took a breath and rubbed his forehead. Playing nanny to a roomful of clones hadn’t been part of the plan, but then, neither had Mark’s ideas.
A tap on Dark’s shoulder, and he turned, snarling, jumping. “What?”
Wilford barely flinched as Dark’s aura snaked around him, barely blinked as Dark stared him down. There was something new: the set of Wilford’s jaw; a strain to his eyes that hadn’t been there before, as if he needed glasses; a stiffened spine.
Of all people, Dark would know.
Wilford glared until Dark’s aura had coiled itself back around its owner’s shoulders before speaking. Two words, with the weight of worlds. “You too?”
It was disarming, the softness that broke through the gruff tone, and Dark blinked. “Yes.” A sigh. “Yes, me too. I--”
“Don’t.” Wilford shook his head, taking a step to the side, about to pass by. “Whatever you’re about to say, Dark, don’t.”
Where Dark’s voice lacked its usual venom, Wilford’s was biting, challenging. Dark pressed his lips together. “I understand that this new canon is unsettling, but do keep in mind that it changes nothing but the past.”
“You never listen, do you?”
“No.”
It was a drawl, and Wilford could suddenly see past the suit, to the days of black t-shirts and candy-cane pinstripes. There was a difference to Dark’s face now: eyes sunken; a deliberate rhythm to his step that seemed to lack a third beat; the rising jaw of a man of power.
Of all people, Wilford would know.
Dark saw the realization flash, before he could help himself, and looked away with stiffened shoulders. “It changes nothing,” he repeated, a tight whisper.
It was Wilford’s turn to stutter. "But--”
“Nothing.” Dark turned back with gritted teeth, looking Wilford in the face. A broken man, but which one of them, he couldn’t tell. “Evening, Will.”
Wilford watched Dark stalk away, fingering the barrel of the gun in his pocket. He looked back to the conference room, Bim fighting on borrowed time. A breath, and shoulders pushed back. There was work to be done, after all, and mayhem to cause. Dark was right: this changed nothing but the past, and nothing in the future. It was just a bit of fun, a bit of madness.
And life needed a bit of madness.
Dark was in his office by the time gunshots began sounding from the meeting room. He took another breath, muscles long since decommissioned straining to fill his chest. His aura-- no, not his-- lifted off of his shoulders with a shudder. In a moment, the room was filled with liquid darkness, too thick to see through.
Dark didn’t need to see, just now. He sat, stiff-backed, in the nearest chair. In the pitch black, he sat, and he listened.
It’s not fair, is it?
He took everything from us.
I can send you back.
Just... let me in.
You have a choice.
This is the only way.
This will work.
I promise.
I promise.