Chapter Text
The exit opened up into a larger back lot, meant for a fleet but more than suitable for her beat-up truck and Dora’s sedan—and, it appeared, the eight other people creating a blur of commotion in the center.
There were her employees―of course, naturally, where else would they be but the center of the drama―but there were also four strangers; or, no, she realized as they approached, just the one.
Present was that Alana girl Dora was sort-of-kind-of seeing (a “situationship” August had called it when Arlo had asked, to which Dora had elbowed him in the stomach, hard) was there, looking entirely out of place watching a fight in her cardigan and sensible leggings. As were the two customers Arlo had been seeing more lately—the fake redhead and her weird friend that followed her around everywhere. The redhead (Arlo racked her brain for the girl’s name; Peach, maybe? Clara?) was scrambling to hold back the only true stranger there.
The one looming over Osgood. The one turned away from her but with all the tension of a too-tight spring obvious throughout him.
August sped ahead, “Guys, I got Arlo!”
“What’s going on here!” she shouted, pushing through, “Kid, you okay?”
Osgood, sprawled on the ground with her hands up, turned her head to look as Arlo called out. She wore the evidence of a fight all over her: a thick stain of red on the lower half of her face, a glove torn off in the struggle, and those big eyes of hers put to their maximum effect, like a deer the moment before its smeared across asphalt.
“I-I don’t know?” she stammered, eyes flicking between Arlo and her assailant, “Is, is this really happening?”
Focus narrowing on the attacker that was now struggling against Peach-or-something-or-other’s grip, Arlo stepped forward, “Yeah, kid, it’s happening.”
Joey made a grab for her sleeve as she passed, “Arlo, whoa, hold up―”
“Not now—hey!” she stalked toward the stranger, clapping her hand on his shoulder and wrenching him back fully, “Hey! You picked the wrong one today, you—?” Huh. “Huh. What?”
“Yeah…” Joey drawled, “that’s what I wanted to warn you about.”
Osgood’s attacker bucked and pulled away from her, snarling in a way that looked alien on his face. On Osgood’s face. On the face they shared.
“Let go of me!” Osgood’s voice snapped from him, “Get away!”
She blinked and blinked and blinked.
“What??” Arlo repeated, blinking hard to try and correct her vision of the mistake.
“Back off!”
“Ozzy, girl.” Peach-or-Clara-or-other wrenched his shoulder back from where Arlo’d been too stunned to take it, “You're literally acting actually crazy.”
He snapped his teeth at her, aiming either to get her hand away or bite it clean off. “Get off! Leave me alone!”
Arlo’s eyes flicked between Osgood and the person leering over her, waiting for some difference to stand out but each glance only seemed to confirm it further: The intruder— Ozzy? Was that his name? —was more than a simple copy of her employee; everywhere she looked she found similarity. Same blue-black hair, same round eyes, same features pulled into looks of shock and fear and anger and indignation. The same, down to the marrow. Separated only by clothing and hair length.
Surreal was too light a word for it, this was fucking bizarre .
Arlo shook her head to rid herself of the notion. There had to be a reason for this, a real reason beyond real, live human clones; surely spending so much time with high schoolers hadn’t reduced her critical thinking skills this much, she could still put two and two together. Osgood had siblings, didn’t he? A whole mess of them too, so this must be…
“Not her brother.” Joey, as if hearing her thoughts, said, “Not a cousin either. Or a friend. We asked when he first pulled up. They’re just…”
“Actual fucking clones...” Dora finished.
The usual admonishment leapt to her tongue but she held it back, if there was a time for extreme language they’d found it.
“He just showed up out of nowhere!!” Alana, fretting as she often was, was holding onto Dora for dear life, “Should we call the police??”
Joey groaned, “Isn’t this already bad enough?”
“I’m not a clone!” Ozzy spat from his friend’s restraint, “This freak is stealing my life!!”
Osgood frantically shook her head , “I don’t even know who you are!!”
He kicked at her, “Shut up!”
“Girl!!” the fake redhead pulled him back further, taking Arlo with them, “Roll it back a whole bit.”
Her friend leant down to help Osgood up, eyes bugged while apologies flowed from them, “I’m so, so sorry,” they said, heaving Osgood up in one pull, “we had no idea he would do this, truly, I swear. I’m so sorry.”
“You two know him?” Arlo asked, ignoring the intruder’s affronted cries. “Who’s he?”
“He’s Clem’s friend.”
“We’re mutuals.” Clem (Right, Clementine.) shrugged.
Arlo narrowed her eyes, “Meaning…?”
She ignored the girl’s quiet scoff before her answer, “We make videos online together sometimes. He’s visiting.”
“None of that tells me who he is.” she jostled the shoulder she held, causing him to snap up with a wild, furious expression, “You. What’s your business here with my employee?”
He seethed, “I don’t have to tell you shit! Let go of me!”
“Hey.” she tightened her grip. Not enough to hurt him, but hopefully enough to get the message across. She wasn’t really asking. “Settle down now. What do you want with Osgood?”
This only seemed to rile him up further, “I’m Osgood!”
“Yeah, he’s been saying that.” Danny chimed in, stepping forward now to press a tissue to Osgood’s sluggishly bleeding nose, “And I mean…I believe him. Or I believe he believes he’s Osgood.”
“I am Osgood!!”
Arlo pinched the skin between her brow, “Danny―why didn’t you get me?”
He looked askance sheepishly, “I mean, like, honestly, it got so real so fast, I forgot you were even here.” he relinquished the tissue to Osgood, “So about like, ten…fifteen minutes back?”
“Thirteen!” August corrected.
“Thirteen minutes, thank you, Auggie, yeah―so thirteen minutes ago―”
Arlo cut in, “I’m not asking for a play-by-play, who the hell is this guy?”
“Ah…no clue.” he admitted, “Osgood and I were hanging out at the front talking about fixing up her bike’s tires when this one just came running straight for her! No hellos or anything! Chased her all the way back here where the kids were and…” he made a fluttering gesture, “here we are.”
“Got it.” she could practically feel the wrinkles forming on her face. “So, you two,” she pointed to Clem and her friend, “you drove him here for this? To jump Osgood?”
“No!!” her friend expressed, “I thought he was Osgood!”
Clem rolled her eyes, “Val just met him today and please, I don’t even have a car.”
The friend hissed, “Clementine!!”
“And Alana.” Arlo shifted her attention, “What’s got you here? I’d figured you’d be up at the chapel with your parents, it’s a Sunday, ain’t it?”
The girl startled as though she’d forgotten she was visible to others, “I’m, uh…” Alana straightened up, fiddling with the hem of her denim skirt, “I’m not going today. I decided not to…go, so I didn’t. So I’m here. With Dora and August.” her throat bobbed, “My parents don’t know.”
Hm. Lots of implications there.
“Cool.”
She had enough on her plate.
“I don’t care about any of this!!”
Ignoring Ozzy, Arlo turned back to Osgood, “And you have no idea who this guy is?”
“N-No. No.”
“Jesus.” she looked between the two again, as if they’d suddenly look different if she kept checking. No dice. “Your nose okay? Is it broken?”
“I don’t…ah,” she moved the tissue gingerly, the part that had been pressed to the bleeding now stained a bright red and her uncovered nose bridge rapidly turning a worrying purple, “does it look broken?”
It definitely didn’t look great. “I’ll take you to the clinic to get it checked out after we settle this.”
“I don’t have insurance…” she bemoaned, pawing at the injury with both hands.
“Leave it, Osgood, you’ll just make it worse if you mess with it.”
Joey, ever the instigator, shouted from the sidelines, “Make the other one pay for it!”
“Butt out.” she warned. “If you wanna run your mouth you can take your ass to the break room to grab some painkillers for her. Get going.”
“Arlooooo.”
“Get. Going.”
“Fineee, damn.”
Ozzy watched him stomp away, “Hell of a kid.”
Instinct guided her, Arlo swatted the back of his head.
“ Owwww!!!” he whined, exaggeratedly twisting as though she’d lobbed his head off, “What the hell!!”
“Arlo, what do we do now?” Dora asked, “We’re not gonna let him go, like, scott-free, are we? He actually, for real, assaulted her.”
She sighed, “There’s not much else we can do shy of calling the police which…” the sentence hung in the air unfinished, “it’s Osgood’s choice.”
“...me?”
“Her?”
Christ, even their voices were the same. “Yes, you, Osgood.”
“...” she pouted, crumpling the bloodied tissue in her hands as she silently regarded her double, who shied away from her gaze, all of his previous bravado spent. After a long moment she nodded once, “I want to talk to him. To you.” she amended, “I have, like, one trillion questions.” her eyes skated across them all, “If that’s okay.”
Arlo hid her grimace the best she could, understanding her tolerance and Osgood’s own tolerance existed in entirely different postal codes. The kid was a sweetheart, sure, but if she counted on her fingers each time Osgood’s naivety had gotten her into trouble, she’d need five spare hands. “…You sure?”
“Yes. Yeah.” she nodded once more, “We can do it here or…”
“My place is just around the corner.” Danny offered, “Irumi should be home, I’ll give him a head’s up but it’s most likely be fine. He loves this type of stuff.”
Arlo raised an eyebrow, “Irumi’s never struck me as a random violence kind of guy.”
“Ha!” he was already typing away on his phone, “No, no, you know, like…fun sci-fi clone stuff. He’s crazy about it.”
“Not a clone!” Ozzy again defended.
“We’re going in Mr. Kojima’s house?” August perked up, “Like for real?”
Then Dora, “That’s all you’re getting out of this?”
Then Alana, “Wait! Isn’t going in a teacher’s house against the law??”
“Wait, wait, no real question: Danny―will your cat be there?”
“Kids!” Arlo interjected for the sake of her remaining patience, shaking her head, “Go somewhere, go get y’all’s coats.”
“It’s…July?” August pointed out after a brief moment of silence between the three, “It’s, like, 83 degrees?.”
Patience snapped, “All of you get away from me. Wait at the front for us. Tell Joey the same and tell any customers inside that we’re closed for the day.” none of the teens moved, “ Now.”
The change in tone at least seemed to spur Alana―the one kid here she wasn’t paying―on, “Yes, Ms. Logan!” she shrieked, shuffling away with wide, terrified eyes. “Sorry, Ms. Logan!!”
August and Dora trailed closely behind snickering, “Rosewood, she’s not the President…”
When the lot was sufficiently cleared of teenagers, Arlo brushed Clementine aside and shoved Ozzy forward, making him stumble to his feet. Clearly not ready for this sudden freedom, he nearly toppled back over before righting himself and trying again to resume his previous oomph. She could see it in his face, a sly sneer shakily overtaking the surprise.
“Do you only hire high schoolers or did I come on Child Labor Day?”
Arlo remained straight-faced, “Funny.”, Clem rolled her eyes “Classy.”
“Everybody stop arguing, please.” Osgood pleaded, “I’m, I’m sure this is just some big misunderstanding, okay? There could be a million reasons why he looks like me!”
Ozzy returned icily, “You look like me.”
“I do!” she nodded, eyes bright, “And…I would like to know more about that.” she gnawed the side of her thumb, Ozzy watched her through his fringe, “A lot more, even.”
Her thumb stayed wedged between her teeth but her big eyes flicked upward to meet her double’s yet again. They scrutinized the other with identical intensity, “You’re bleeding.”
The non-sequitur sent Arlo inspecting the other’s face for any missed injuries, to which there was none; yet still, Ozzy reared back as if slapped, holding his hands close to his chest. His hand.
His hand!
Blame it on the adrenaline and chaos of the moment or the surreal quality of having to hold back a copy of her employee all, the fact of the matter was: Arlo hadn’t noticed the kid’s missing left pointer finger until the very moment it had been pointed out to her and the sounds of shock and surprise from Val and Clem told her the others were clearly having the same revelation.
The injury must’ve been new since it looked like the kid hadn’t had the first idea on what to do when bandaging it―and it surely must’ve been him who bandaged it given that it was presently seeping red.
“That’s―!” he exclaimed, “unrelated!”
The moment stretched on, until, at last, Ozzy cracked, muttering through a scowl “Fine. We can talk. ” He took the bandaged hand and clawed it through his hair, nonchalant with its injury.
Osgood beamed, “Fantastic!” she bounced in place, chipper enough for somebody with a face covered in drying blood, “Oh, I don’t think I said, my name’s Osgood. What’s yours?”
His scowl flinched, “Let’s get this over with.”
―✥―
Thanks to more than a few nights spent falling to pieces on his futon, Arlo knew exactly where Irumi Kojima lived. Five minutes from Augustine City High School, ten minutes from downtown, and fifteen minutes from the building where Danny had lived before the two had moved in together; planned down to the letter and stubbornly held onto, like anything Irumi had to do with.
Never before had appreciated her friend’s almost pathological fixation on efficiency than now―ferrying a herd of teenagers, young adults, and Irumi’s own husband through the mid-afternoon streets. Each of them seemed determined to make even that small window of time from the restaurant to the apartment into a hassle, taking any chance presented to prod or instigate or goad on. She practically shoved them all through the doors herself once they reached the red-brick apartment building, desperate for any shot of normalcy.
“Mr. Kojima’s place is nice…” Dora admired, running her hand over the miscellaneous kitsch placed in the hallway, then wiping the accumulated dust on her jeans, “Remember that thing he told us about his neighbor with the dog? I bet that’s her door.”
“Oh, yeah, totally,” August agreed, pointing, “annoying Buzzfeed quote on the door, just like he said.”
“‘Slytherin hair, don’t care’.” Alana read, causing teens flanking her to groan, “What does that mean?”
“Eurgh, never say that again.” Joey reached for the placard and pulled it off the door, setting it on the ground.
Arlo grabbed the back of his jacket, “Put it back, now. You kids have no table manners, I swear.”
“Yeah, guys, not cool. Even the cringe deserve signs.” Danny agreed, fishing out his keys, “We made peace with the dog―or I made peace with the dog.” the lock disengaged with a soft click while Joey reaffixed the sign. Danny pushed open the door, announcing himself by shouting, “You gossiped about the neighbor’s dog with highschoolers, baby?”
Irumi entered from the living room, half-stuck in the process of removing his messenger bag, “So it’s been alleged―wow,” his eyes roved about the small audience in his entryway, “full house. You really meant everybody.”
“Totally necessary, I promise.” Danny locked the door back, “The couch free?”
“Yes? Though, I’m still confused on what the surprise is.”
Arlo smirked, “You told him it was a surprise?”
“It is surprising!”
“Oh, no, is it another stray cat? We can’t, Danny. Honey’s an independent woman, we’ve been over this.” he folded his arms, then immediately unfolded them to point at the peanut gallery behind them, “Kids…and adults I don’t know―shoes off.”
“You really haven’t noticed yet?” smiling, Danny began not-so-subtly pointing at where Ozzy and Osgood stood side-by-side, toeing off their shoes.
Irumi slipped his bag off completely, reaching for the coat rack, “What haven’t I…” he paused, dropping his hands to his hips and narrowing his eyes, the platonic image of Irumi Kojima, stumped, “hm.”
“Right?!”
“There’s two of them.”
Danny took the bag from his husband’s hand and placed it on the rack himself, “Surprise!”
Arlo cut in between them, “Be serious, please.”
The corners of Irumi’s mouth pinched, “...I didn’t know you had a twin, Osgood.”
“They’re clones, Mr. Kojima!”
“They aren’t clones, Dora.” Arlo admonished, then, leaning in closer to the couple: “They’re clones. Where’s y’all’s first aid kit, I know you have one.”
“Bathroom, second drawer on the right.” the couple disgustingly answered in sync, Irumi shrugged off his jacket next, “I didn’t expect clones from you. You’re not usually so…” he waved his hand around vaguely, “fantastical.”
“Strange times…” to Danny she asked, “You mind getting them all settled? Don’t let the other one jump her again.”
“Again?!” Irumi repeated, Danny saluted, “Roger wilco, Ms. Logan.”